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So I've recently started up a BA army (about a month ago) and I've played a few games so far. I have to say, I love the Death Company unit; they've pulled through for me in every game I've played and have really helped me rally up some points. Tonight though, someone at my FLGS told me I was playing them wrong, since they have to run/charge towards the nearest enemy unit and can't stop and shoot with them because of a rule the unit has.

I scoured the BA Codex and 40k rule book but have yet to find such a rule. Of course, the guy that told me this couldn't remember what it was called either. Was he full of it or have I been playing DC wrong? If they do have to run towards the nearest enemy unit, what rule makes them do this?

The old "Rage" rule did this, and it was a dumb rule.

In 6th Edition I believe this is no longer the case.

That was the old 5th rage. Still, if you're not charging into CC with them, you're better off with other marines. DC are insanely over priced and so easily countered: if they get charged first they hit about as hard as normal marines.

Add a sanguinary priest to an assault squad and you have cheaper, scoring DC.

 Griddlelol wrote:
That was the old 5th rage. Still, if you're not charging into CC with them, you're better off with other marines. DC are insanely over priced and so easily countered: if they get charged first they hit about as hard as normal marines.

Add a sanguinary priest to an assault squad and you have cheaper, scoring DC.

I wouldn't say "if they get charged they hit as hard as normal marines" when they have WS5 and base attack of 2, but that's just me. Sang priests can be sniped/challenged (and once they are dead your squads will lose FnP), so it's nice to have an entire squad without characters that can tie up enemy units.

They are definitely a solid unit when used correctly, and as it was already said, the player at your FLGS was quoting 5th Ed rules.

DC are a great unit that's horribly overcosted. If you enjoy playing them, you should absolutely keep them in your list. Competitively though, they'd struggle.

The only issue is that to use them correctly, you have to play against an opponent who will let you use them correctly. Without the charge, they just expensive MEQ. Not to mention that the things that are generally good at killing MEQ don't lose any effectiveness when killing DC. Str8 ap3 doesn't care for your FNP.

They bring nothing to the table except their dangerous charge which is so easily countered unless you buy them a land raider. But if you're throwing points at something just to make it work you have to wonder whether its worth it in the first place. Even with the landraider DC still suffer from the same penalties that all Death Stars suffer from.

You're wasting a valuable troop slot on a stealth Elite unit to boot.

A sanguinary priest is not easily sniped out with a 2+ LOS, and while you can challenge, the sergeant of the squad can happily accept leaving the priest safe. That's not even taking into account that you can avoid challenges entirely.

I kind of fail to why people think they're so "overcosted". Expensive, yes but think it this way. You have a regular marine (only not scoring) and with 4p cost you get +1 WS and A, Rage, Relentless, FnP, Fearless and Furious Charge. You also get access to good cc-weapons. You truly think that 4 points is too much for that?

They're actually better than Zerkers. Sadly that's not saying much because Zerkers are terrible.

Yes, its 4 points extra for a model that doesn't score and has no truly efficient delivery options. The delivery options are what really kill these guys. That, and your opponent is not an eggplant. The DC kill one squad really dead. What if your opponent arranges that to be 10 cultists or something? You don't have a choice in what they charge, since they must get into HTH or face another turn of shooting. Also, the DC get no special defenses above and beyond the generic BA trooper, and so they exacerbate the "eliteness" of the BA list, which is a problem they already have in spades.

As for the SP, they do get the 2+ LOS and my list denys all challenges usually and arms everyone identically.

Zerkers can be made into scoring units. They're better right there. Killing power is not always the end all be all.

You have six to twelve slots for a reason. Take a brick or two to make your opponent bug out in fear while your other troops camp the objective.

Or if you're playing kill points, spam Death company and slaughter everything you assault.

Not all player are going to "bug out in fear". The DC won't get to kill everything, in a kill point game, either. Remember that multi-assault kills your extra attacks, and that a sacrificial unit is the easiest way to set up the DC for a kill zone.

I haven't lost a game to BA in 6th edition when my opponent fielded these guys. They're too predictable and too easy to cripple/tarpit. I guess you could argue they're not really that much worse than any of the other sub-optimal units in the BA codex: fluffy and overcosted. Even in the LR, I used my MM attack bikes to frag it. Yeah, the DC assaulted my attack bikes but after that, they were on foot and I commenced a turkey shoot. I was down 150 points, my opponent was down 500, game set, match, because I had better firepower overall.

You don't know a priori if you're doing kill points or not.


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Again, why do so many BA players assume their opponent are brain-dead slugs? Your opponent gets a turn. Where they might do something like shoot you or move their guys around. They're not going to line up in perfect "kill me DC, I'm here!" formation.

Most people will look at a death brick and go "OH GAWD KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT NOWWWWW!!!" Which is why DISTRACTION CARNIFEX used to be good until Cruddace churned out his vile, vile codex. Death Company and Fast Vindicators are good at causing people to freak out because if they ignore it, it will kill something and kill something fast, if they pay attention to it, something they weren't paying attention to will instead screw them.

Really? That's not my experience. Let's see here, if I assumed that at my FLGS, my DC would be fed a sacrificial guard unit and then the Vendetta air cav would massacre all my vindicators.

Needs more MTO.

Maximum threat overload is the best strategy. Shove so many threats your foe cannot afford to ignore down his throat that he ends up being able to defend against none of them effectively. The Necrons are undoutably the kings at this, but others can do it too.

Just for fun, compare the defenses of a DC squad and then a seer council getting hit and run from a DE character. Now tell me which one is the "death brick"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
Needs more MTO.

Maximum threat overload is the best strategy. Shove so many threats your foe cannot afford to ignore down his throat that he ends up being able to defend against none of them effectively. The Necrons are undoutably the kings at this, but others can do it too.

When you find these threats in the BA codex, be sure to let me know. The problem is that the BA are so overcosted in general that you can't get you model count up high enough to do this. There is no list you can field with BA that the top tier armies give two damns about. They can handle all the BA can send.

Martel732 wrote:
Just for fun, compare the defenses of a DC squad and then a seer council getting hit and run from a DE character. Now tell me which one is the "death brick"?

Irrelevant comparison is irrelevant. A seer council is an HQ slot death star that costs a metric crap ton to make and you damn well know it. If you're going that route then I'll just drag out an Azrael guardsmen power blob and say "because nothing is THIS survivable, every other troops choice sucks."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Just for fun, compare the defenses of a DC squad and then a seer council getting hit and run from a DE character. Now tell me which one is the "death brick"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
Needs more MTO.

Maximum threat overload is the best strategy. Shove so many threats your foe cannot afford to ignore down his throat that he ends up being able to defend against none of them effectively. The Necrons are undoutably the kings at this, but others can do it too.

When you find these threats in the BA codex, be sure to let me know. The problem is that the BA are so overcosted in general that you can't get you model count up high enough to do this. There is no list you can field with BA that the top tier armies give two damns about. They can handle all the BA can send.

Nonsense, the BA dex is still okay, Vindis, Termies, and Dreads all freak out people. You're making it sound like the BA are sisters of battle level bad and given that you do nothing but whine and moan and complain I think you really do believe that.

The BA, like all loyalist marines, have serious problems in competitive play. This is shown by tournament results. The BA are the weakest flavor out of a group of lists that aren't that great over all.

Players who know what they are looking at will not be freaked out. That;s the point you seem to be missing. No one who is any good cares about your DC unit.

And what you mistake for "whining" is trying to get people to understand the flaws in the codex and how to avoid the trap units. Like DC, DC dreads, and blender dreads. All trap units for TAC lists. If you are not making TAC lists, then nothing I say for the most part applies. BA can tailor lists okay still. But usually we don't have that luxury. And so the pain begins.

Martel732 wrote:
The BA, like all loyalist marines, have serious problems in competitive play. This is shown by tournament results. The BA are the weakest flavor out of a group of lists that aren't that great over all.

Players who know what they are looking at will not be freaked out. That;s the point you seem to be missing. No one who is any good cares about your DC unit.

And what you mistake for "whining" is trying to get people to understand the flaws in the codex and how to avoid the trap units. Like DC, DC dreads, and blender dreads. All trap units for TAC lists. If you are not making TAC lists, then nothing I say for the most part applies. BA can tailor lists okay still. But usually we don't have that luxury. And so the pain begins.

Grey Knights and Space Wolves are still regarded as some of the best lists around. What sort of drugs are you snorting? I want them.

I meant loyalist astartes marines. And if you head over to 11th company, there's plenty of analysis that shows that the Space Wolves don't do well without a lot of allied support. Remember that the helldrake is a major meta-definer for tournaments and the Space Wolves struggle against them.

Marine lists in general are bringing the allied infantry blob with ATSKNF scheme with extra support. (Usually Vendetta). If the marines, in general, weren't rather weak now, this wouldn't be necessary. I'm not making this up.

Martel732 wrote:
I meant loyalist astartes marines. And if you head over to 11th company, there's plenty of analysis that shows that the Space Wolves don't do well without a lot of allied support. Remember that the helldrake is a major meta-definer for tournaments and the Space Wolves struggle against them.

Marine lists in general are bringing the allied infantry blob with ATSKNF scheme with extra support. (Usually Vendetta). If the marines, in general, weren't rather weak now, this wouldn't be necessary. I'm not making this up.

Most marines with the exception of the heinously out of date Black Templars are solidly mid tier, or in the case of the Grey Knights, are still top tier.

Dark Angels are also nicely high tier.

It's funny you mention the BT, because I don't think the BA are really any better than them. For astartes loyalists to be mid-tier as you claim, there would have to be a substantial number of lists below them on the food chain. After the Eldar codex drops, who is exactly is this going to consist of? The problem for BA is that the astartes loyalist lists have sunk towards the bottom and the BA are at the bottom of that. If you don't believe this, go listen to podcasts that cover competitive play.

This is trivially easy to show for BA. Go make up a 1.5K list. Then go over to IG and Necron threads and look at their 1.5K lists. Then ask yourself how many games your list would take from those lists in a series of 10 games. The model count disparity alone is staggering. As well as quality of unit/point spent. A list can not absorb the amount of nerfs the BA did in 6th and not suffer. And they weren't aging well in 5th to begin with.

I've never heard of DA referred to as high tier for competitive play.

A Dark Knight blob will mash just about anything in the game in it's first assault, and the army as a whole is incredibly shooty with Dreadnoughts who are what Hydra tanks *OUGHT* to be in terms of anti-air as they have that long sought after interceptor rule. Not to mention that out of the Astartes forces, the Dark Angels have the best air force, not vendetta good, but honestly, what is Vendetta level good?

Oh and Azrael in a guard powerblob is hilarious.

But that's not DA, that's DA supplemented by IG. I already stated that Astartes marines with allies look a lot better than Astartes marines alone.

Basically, for competitive play, the Astartes marines AND Space Puppies are reduced to using the IG as a crutch. At that point, the truly good list is actually the IG.

I have a horrible feeling that the new Eldar codex is going to make this situation even worse. I doesn't bother me that much in that Eldar, as a whole codex, hasn't been fearsome since 2nd. They've been reliant on certain sweet-spot units.

But back to the BA, try that exercise. There are so many ways to build a horrible list that looks good on paper out of the BA codex. It really should be renamed Codex: trap units.

That reflects the fluff, the Imperium is not just the IG, the Sisters, or the Astartes, the military works best when all branches work together. It makes sense in a meta sort of way.

Yeah, other than the fact that pure IG lists *are* quite competitive, whereas the Astartes marines and Space Wolves are not.

Ever since 3rd, where meqs were quite OP, it has been getting easier and easier to deal with meqs. The ultimate culmination of this is the helldrake.

However, the balance has tilted somewhat too far. The average 15-20 pt marine model is just not bringing that many points of utility to the table. Arguably, this last big drop in utility is solely because of the helldrake. I'm not sure I agree, but many people argue this. So if your meta doesn't have many helldrakes, you are not experiencing competitive meta.

My meta has both helldrakes and Vendettas as staples. This makes TAC list building a nightmare, but a tournament would present the same problem for BA.

Realistically, the only lists I could see being *worse* than BA after the Eldar drop are BT and Sisters. That's a short list, and one of those is 4th ed and one is White Dwarf. After the BT likely get rolled into C:SM, they will be off this list.

Actually the Dark Angels work just fine without IG allies, it's just that they have a really, really cheesy combo with the IG.

Do they? I haven't seen or heard of many DA tourney lists not utilizing this scheme. Even if that were true, almost by definition, the hybrid DA/IG list would be higher tier than the DA alone. Remember, one man's "cheesy" is another man's "minimally effective for tournament play".

The reality is that the DA alone are likely your middle tier. Middle tier is, to me, the definition of "works fine, but not amazing". Astartes marines and Space Wolves running off their 5th edition codices alone are not "fine", making them low-tier. Hopefully, the new vanilla dex will shake this up a bit.

Martel732 wrote:
Do they? I haven't seen or heard of many DA tourney lists not utilizing this scheme. Even if that were true, almost by definition, the hybrid DA/IG list would be higher tier than the DA alone. Remember, one man's "cheesy" is another man's "minimally effective for tournament play".

The reality is that the DA alone are likely your middle tier. Middle tier is, to me, the definition of "works fine, but not amazing". Astartes marines and Space Wolves running off their 5th edition codices alone are not "fine", making them low-tier. Hopefully, the new vanilla dex will shake this up a bit.

50 Fearless guardsmen with a 4+ invulnerable save. I dunno about you but that's pretty darn cheesy for it's price and impossible to dislodge from an objective in a non geological timeframe.

One might argue its necessary in an environment where triple heldrake is possible matchup at any time. If the same player ran pure DA, they risk being hoovered up by helldrakes.

Martel732 wrote:
One might argue its necessary in an environment where triple heldrake is possible matchup at any time. If the same player ran pure DA, they risk being hoovered up by helldrakes.

Which in turn risk getting blown out of the sky by Dreads or the DA's own air force.