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Hi all!

I've been in this hobby since November 2012. By today I have a 2,000+ point fully painted & based army. My local gaming place play 1,750 point games and ultimately my target is to make a fairly competitive 1,750 point army.

I'm leaning towards a Deathwing army but with my limited models my current strongest 1,750 points army is this:

Belial w/ TH/SS + D/W Command Squad (all TH/SS) + Deathwing Assault Banner

D/W Squad #1 (DV termies) + 1 Chainfist + 1 Assault Cannon

D/W Squad #2 (DV termies) + 1 Chainfist + 1 Assault Cannon

Ravenwing Squadron - Total 5 bikes + 2 Plasma Guns + Attack Bike w/Multi Melta Upgrade

R/W Support Squadron - 2 Land Speeders + Typhoon Upgrade + 2x Multi Meltas

Devastator Squad - 2x Lascannons + 2x Plasma Cannons + Attached Libby (w/ Level 2 Psyker & Power Field Generator)

5-Man Combat Squad - 1x Missile Launcher


NOTE: I'd like 4 Lascannons or 4 Plasma Cannons.... problem is, I don't have enough models!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So far, my track record playing for 2 months has been mixed. I've won a few, drawn some, lost most (as expected). But I noticed that the losing games normally began from bad deployment.

How do I learn more about better deployment - besides playing more games!

Is there a recommended approach to good deployment?

What do you mean by bad deployment? Are you getting nuked in turn 1? Are you failing to generate high value shots? Are you getting pinned down or are you too spread out?

Bad Deployment:

1. Lack of emphasis on priority targets OR lack of focus on objectives

2. Forces too spread out.

3. MAIN PROBLEM - Experienced opponents split their firepower and I struggle to deal with it (Pincer)


This is what I think, after examining my games!

I understand why. The devastators are hanging out in your deployment zone almost alone while the rest of your army zooms/drops into the enemy.

When the enemy pincer attacks you what do you do?

Do you try to meet them head on in both fronts or focus out one pincer?

I would focus down one pincer (hopefully near an objective) with my bikes and drop my DWA down turn 1 on the bike beacons. The idea being to face an effictive 1/2 the opponent army against 80% my army. The half I focus on would always be the longer range half and let the short range half come to you. Your devastators/greenwing are probably going to get plastered but they cannot keep up with the rest of your list so it cannot be avoided. Bunkered in cover they should make it costly.

Also how attached are you to the banner type you are using. The fortitude and banner of devastation are overall better banners in my (relatively limited) experience.

Have you considered getting an ADL and keeping your Dev squad behind that, should give them more survivability while the main part of your army is rocking the "Hulk Smash" routine? idk how you are points wise, but if i run Dev squads i usually bring my ADL. just my 2 cents

Deception deception deception.

You have a lot of scout moves and deathwing assault. When deploying try not to be obvious where you are going. When deploying 1st I would go with a central deployment and then use scout moves/deathwing assault to refuse a flank. On that note I would try to limit your army to deathwing, ravenwing, and scouts which can infiltrate/outflank/scout.

 ansacs wrote:
I understand why. The devastators are hanging out in your deployment zone almost alone while the rest of your army zooms/drops into the enemy.

When the enemy pincer attacks you what do you do?

Do you try to meet them head on in both fronts or focus out one pincer?

I would focus down one pincer (hopefully near an objective) with my bikes and drop my DWA down turn 1 on the bike beacons. The idea being to face an effictive 1/2 the opponent army against 80% my army. The half I focus on would always be the longer range half and let the short range half come to you. Your devastators/greenwing are probably going to get plastered but they cannot keep up with the rest of your list so it cannot be avoided. Bunkered in cover they should make it costly.

Also how attached are you to the banner type you are using. The fortitude and banner of devastation are overall better banners in my (relatively limited) experience.

Thanks for your comments man!

I admit, the last 2 times I came up against the 'Pincer' Formation, I kinda lost the plot and I ended up dividing my forces. Bad news, as you can imagine. My Deathwing squads were left without support and my Ravenwing Squadron got decimated and they barely scratched the surface.

I think I agree with you on the 'focus-on-one-pincer' and concentrate my firepower somewhere, instead of everywhere.

Side note: I'm not particularly attached to my Deathwing Company Standard. I just use it to buff up the D/W Assault Squad I have with me.

np

I am not a fan of taking a banner to buff one squad. They seem to be priced for buffing 3 squads most of the time so I prefer to try getting a useful buff for at least that many squads. Assault termies outside of LR are in a tough situation usually. With precion deep striking it is not as bad but it still is not great. I probably wouldn't take more than one squad of them due to this and thereby the banner will only ever give them a significant advantage. The sacred banners have some utility outside of them.

BTW which are you liking better right now the greenwing, ravenwing, or deathwing? Right now you are in the middle territory and most of the armies I have seen do well tend more toward one of the wings with backup from the others (greenwing is actually viable this edition if you like the devastators but you just don't have the models to setup the fire base they need)

I play a pretty similar list to you, give or take, and -- though my track record is dismal -- I somehow feel qualified to offer advice!

So, YMMV.

Running a mixed army is hard, but I honestly feel it's doable. You lack metal boxes, and footslogging non-Deathwing with heavy weapons isn't the smartest idea. To take advantage of that, try and make your opponent come to you, then utilize the only mobile units you really have -- Ravenwing and DWA-ing Deathwing -- to hit them from the back, or at least give them something else to focus on away from your central deployment.

Assaulty termies using DWA isn't a good idea, btw. They can't assault on the first turn, for one, and for two they aren't taking advantage of the twin-linked bonus. Maybe just set them on an objective, where their 2+/3++ will make them nigh unmoveable, and something that will soak up a lot of incoming bullets.

An ADL would go a long way, both in terms of anti-air, and giving your less-resilient troops something to hide behind. Finally, no one said you HAVE to drop your DWA on your opponent's side of the table -- if you feel you're getting pounded on too much on your side, drop them right where you would have deployed them if you were planning on running them up. Worst case scenario, they're one or two rounds fresher than the rest of your guys who have been getting shot at.

 ansacs wrote:
np

I am not a fan of taking a banner to buff one squad. They seem to be priced for buffing 3 squads most of the time so I prefer to try getting a useful buff for at least that many squads. Assault termies outside of LR are in a tough situation usually. With precion deep striking it is not as bad but it still is not great. I probably wouldn't take more than one squad of them due to this and thereby the banner will only ever give them a significant advantage. The sacred banners have some utility outside of them.

BTW which are you liking better right now the greenwing, ravenwing, or deathwing? Right now you are in the middle territory and most of the armies I have seen do well tend more toward one of the wings with backup from the others (greenwing is actually viable this edition if you like the devastators but you just don't have the models to setup the fire base they need)

I am currently 'middle-wing' if you like (hehe).... I'm still leaning towards D/W being supported by R/W and armour. I'm trying to phase out the Devastator. In fact, I've even got a Dread + Drop Pod combo on the way! Near future would include at least 2 Predator tanks equiped for all that Long Range Heavy Support Goodness.

Does that make any sense to you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Matney X wrote:I play a pretty similar list to you, give or take, and -- though my track record is dismal -- I somehow feel qualified to offer advice!

So, YMMV.

Running a mixed army is hard, but I honestly feel it's doable. You lack metal boxes, and footslogging non-Deathwing with heavy weapons isn't the smartest idea. To take advantage of that, try and make your opponent come to you, then utilize the only mobile units you really have -- Ravenwing and DWA-ing Deathwing -- to hit them from the back, or at least give them something else to focus on away from your central deployment.

Assaulty termies using DWA isn't a good idea, btw. They can't assault on the first turn, for one, and for two they aren't taking advantage of the twin-linked bonus. Maybe just set them on an objective, where their 2+/3++ will make them nigh unmoveable, and something that will soak up a lot of incoming bullets.

An ADL would go a long way, both in terms of anti-air, and giving your less-resilient troops something to hide behind. Finally, no one said you HAVE to drop your DWA on your opponent's side of the table -- if you feel you're getting pounded on too much on your side, drop them right where you would have deployed them if you were planning on running them up. Worst case scenario, they're one or two rounds fresher than the rest of your guys who have been getting shot at.

Don't feel so bad about it. My record is worse! I believe it could work as well.

Although, I feel that a DA player would have to consider exploiting the strengths of the D/W and/or the R/W for an optimum DA Army. This is of course a strict consideration of a 'competitive' army. That being said, a Greenwing army would benefit from using the various armour available to the Unforgiven - which means that an effective Greenwing Army may well end up looking all shooty and vanilla.

Did you have any particular plan for those units?

I actually highly recommend a LR crusader and a techpriest. It unlocks probably the best combo in the DA codex. The PFG techpriest in a LR (ie AV14 w/4++ and 5+ repair). This also gives the models within 3" of the huge LR model a 4++ friend or foe.

You can make this the center of any army as it can carry a DW or GW command squad with a banner. So LR crusader + banner of devastation is a 24 bolter shots from the LR and your bikers become TL-4 shot weapons out to 24". If you go DW then you can stick the banner of fortitude and suddenly you troops are all FNP on top of their 2+. Tough.

If you like vehicles you can then run the vehicles within 3" to get a 4++ save.

For all the above reasons and cause it is a LR that would be my recommended purchase.

Dreadnought+drop pod is okay but can go down like a card stack if they are unleashed unsupported. For this reason magnetize the arms so you can change the load out later if you find you don't get mileage out of it. Drop pods are always reasonable useful for any SM and DA can use the drop pod beacons better than most with DWA.

If you do go predators the devastators may become more useful as you will start having enough long range to castle up against some opponents.

 ansacs wrote:
Did you have any particular plan for those units?

I actually highly recommend a LR crusader and a techpriest. It unlocks probably the best combo in the DA codex. The PFG techpriest in a LR (ie AV14 w/4++ and 5+ repair). This also gives the models within 3" of the huge LR model a 4++ friend or foe.

You can make this the center of any army as it can carry a DW or GW command squad with a banner. So LR crusader + banner of devastation is a 24 bolter shots from the LR and your bikers become TL-4 shot weapons out to 24". If you go DW then you can stick the banner of fortitude and suddenly you troops are all FNP on top of their 2+. Tough.

If you like vehicles you can then run the vehicles within 3" to get a 4++ save.

For all the above reasons and cause it is a LR that would be my recommended purchase.

Dreadnought+drop pod is okay but can go down like a card stack if they are unleashed unsupported. For this reason magnetize the arms so you can change the load out later if you find you don't get mileage out of it. Drop pods are always reasonable useful for any SM and DA can use the drop pod beacons better than most with DWA.

If you do go predators the devastators may become more useful as you will start having enough long range to castle up against some opponents.

This is Great Advice !!! The LR part in the beginning i haven't tried the Dread-Pod approach, and my Devs behind an ADL only ever do so-so. But the LR tactic is great!

When you get the models you might want to consider deep striking shooty terminators. With the DW assault they get TL and split fire when they teleport in. I run 10 termies with Belial. 2 assault cannons and 2 chain fists. Drop them on the flank of armor and something not well protected and stormbolter it to death.

Again it would completely change the feel you like but something to think about. The models would not be to costly to get. About 20 or 30 bucks online with the dark vengeance set.

Tagony wrote:
When you get the models you might want to consider deep striking shooty terminators. With the DW assault they get TL and split fire when they teleport in. I run 10 termies with Belial. 2 assault cannons and 2 chain fists. Drop them on the flank of armor and something not well protected and stormbolter it to death.

Again it would completely change the feel you like but something to think about. The models would not be to costly to get. About 20 or 30 bucks online with the dark vengeance set.

Don't they have split fire all the time?

I think it is just when they deep strike. Take 2 with the missiles or 2 assault cannons and it can get nasty.

Read the Art of War. The example of the counter to the pincer movement is found within this sacred tome

The use of DW is problematic... the high cost of units means 2 or 3 troop choices at most. Rock hard but they have to be mutually supporting. If you piecemeal in with DW deep strike you hit hard once and then the enemy tends to be able to overwhelm a portion of it at a time.

However I like the Banners and PFG to do force multiipliers or the use of a Librarian to buff your army.

I really love the RW bike squads as a supplement. 3 bikes - 2 meltas + combi-melta with an attack bike with multi-melta... combat squad and you have a quick alpha strike to eliminate enemy vehicles.
Dark Knights are great for eliminating a high-firepower foot unit. (Scout move, blast it with plasma and if possible charge.

I start with:

Belial, 1 RW squad and 1 DKnight squad. Then usually a command squad with banner of fortitude. Then you add as many DW squads as you can... The tough part is what heavy weapons to take.
CML is best reach but ho-hum for anti-vehicle. The assault cannon gives great support to the rest of the squad and because of rending, actually the best anti-tank shooter. The plasma cannon is awesome anti-infantry. The heavy flamer is awesome when combined with a teleport homer or Belial's accurate drop and is cheap. The HW choice is going to determine a lot of what you are going to be able to do.
DW Knights, while awesome, have no firepower and - to me- fight with RW and Black Knights... so they lose out except in one very specialized build.

When I run Belial I usually run him with a squad of 5 DW with heavy flamer for taking out back field support units. I also take a librarian (Warlord) to buff my Dev squad. The last part of my HQ choices is a command squad with SoD and stick that in a LRC. I have 2 other DW squad and a squad of black knights.

I usually scout the black knights and use their teleport homer to precision drop a squad of DW on one flank and roll the dice with my last squad shoring up where I think I need it. The Rad Grenade from the Ravenwing Grenade launcher just makes the twin linked shots from the DW that much more potent. Not to mention it gives your plasma a chance of insta-gibbing multi-wound T4 models (drops them to T3).

Asside from the Devs I usually run one full Tac squad (plasma gun and cannon) to assist in castling up around a home objective or making a good fire base.

Again using multiple units to support each other I've found is the key to playing DA. DWA mixed with scouting units makes for a great quick flank attack. The LRC helps shore up where needed with the Devs providing long range support.

As someone else mentioned, you don't need to DWA in the enemy's back field. I've used the DW to basically put up a wall and funnel my opponent into my firing lanes.

On the flip side, having Belial in their backfield wrecking house is usually enough of a destraction to opponents to force them to change their plans and play the way you want them to play and forcing target priority where you want it. Needless to say this tactic is a bit of a suicide run, but then that's the whole reason I don't have Belial as my Warlord.

I suffer from the same problem, if you play against Nids, make sure your force is together.

 ansacs wrote:
Did you have any particular plan for those units?

I actually highly recommend a LR crusader and a techpriest. It unlocks probably the best combo in the DA codex. The PFG techpriest in a LR (ie AV14 w/4++ and 5+ repair). This also gives the models within 3" of the huge LR model a 4++ friend or foe.

You can make this the center of any army as it can carry a DW or GW command squad with a banner. So LR crusader + banner of devastation is a 24 bolter shots from the LR and your bikers become TL-4 shot weapons out to 24". If you go DW then you can stick the banner of fortitude and suddenly you troops are all FNP on top of their 2+. Tough.

If you like vehicles you can then run the vehicles within 3" to get a 4++ save.

For all the above reasons and cause it is a LR that would be my recommended purchase.

Dreadnought+drop pod is okay but can go down like a card stack if they are unleashed unsupported. For this reason magnetize the arms so you can change the load out later if you find you don't get mileage out of it. Drop pods are always reasonable useful for any SM and DA can use the drop pod beacons better than most with DWA.

If you do go predators the devastators may become more useful as you will start having enough long range to castle up against some opponents.

This is amazing advice mate! Thanks! Ill look into the LRS ASAP... once I get the Dread and Pod painted up!

I think this thread is really good for beginners like me! Gives us a much better idea on what needs to be done!