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Is a pure deathwing army list viable?

depends. looking for a certain points level?

I'd say, yeah. Pure Deathwing or Ravenwing are just as viable as battle company DA. They just require a bit more finesse since you have so few units on the table.

At around 1500 pts. is the usuall army size i use, also what do you mean by finesse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Brother SRM just said that deathwing requires finesse, what do i need to do to finesse my army?

Well, I think DW is not. The army will be heavily outnumbered by several armies out there. Moreover, DW has a hard time in cc against fearless units (like mobs or broods). The latter are usually also fearless and DW will have problems to come on top. The reason is that fearless units loosing one round of cc do no longer get additional hits.

oh

Go for it! Worst that happens is you get to use a ton of termies and then afterward have a lot of options for your elites if you want to greenwing it.

My word of caution: don't go too crazy with upgrades. Granted, that's my word of caution for most any army build out of any codex. Field models over their upgrades (most of the time) and you'll be better off.

Played against DW last night at 2000 pts with my Ultramarines.
Our mission was kill points and the deployment was short edge to short edge, so it was a split at the start. It took into turn three before I was able to get more than one DW termie off the board, thanks to his awesome dice rolls. 2+/5+ is nice if you're rolling particularly well. Even throwing handfuls of dice I had only killed two models before he finally started failing saves more consistently. I think it's still viable in terms of a fun army to run, but I'd echo Wuestenfux's points on weaknesses and things to watch out for. My ten man assault squad with the Chaplain cleared his five man DW squad and the champion from the next squad in CC.

 OnlyWar wrote:

Brother SRM just said that deathwing requires finesse, what do i need to do to finesse my army?

I mean skill and planning. You have to really think about what you're doing when you have so few resources at your disposal, and can't just have every unit do whatever. Your squads need to support each other, you need to prioritize targets, and not make stupid or careless moves. When you've got like 20 dudes on the table, you can't afford to have 5 of them fart around doing whatever.

Indeed, you can't just drop half your army and expect them to destroy and survive the next turn. You need to target the right enemy units and try and get LOS blocking to at least part of the enemy force if you can.

Just some general rules for running pure DW:

Take advantage of the fact that you can mix TH/SS in with shootie terminators, have at least 2 TH/SS termies in a unit, and keep them the closest to those nasty low AP weapons.

It might be expensive, but you should be able to take a unit of Deathwing Knights in a Landraider as your "On ground" starting unit.

Your not going to have alot of anti-tank weapons aside from the Lascannons on a DW Landraider...

No. 6th edition killed Deathwing.

Of the last 3 games I played, I tied one and lost one because of a failed charge. I needed a 3" charge, and got snake-eyes.

6th edition is simply too random for Deathwing, which at its heart is tailored for assault. Unless you're playing complete scrubs, pure DW isn't viable, especially not in a truly competitive meta or environment.

Ralis wrote:
Just some general rules for running pure DW:
Take advantage of the fact that you can mix TH/SS in with shootie terminators, have at least 2 TH/SS termies in a unit, and keep them the closest to those nasty low AP weapons.
It might be expensive, but you should be able to take a unit of Deathwing Knights in a Landraider as your "On ground" starting unit.
Your not going to have alot of anti-tank weapons aside from the Lascannons on a DW Landraider...

Mostly there on this one. Deathwing can still bring the pain when used right, but you absolutely have to know what's capable of bringing them down if you leave yourself open.
In most cases you'll want to deploy on a refused flank - if you get the chance deploy second so you can pick the better flank to attack from. Deep-strike your shooty Termies, and whichever units are left (which should include any Knights you've taken) want to be inside a Land Raider to get stuck in quickly.

I would argue between 1/2 TH/SS per unit... more than that, and you detract from the unit's firepower, which in turn means Vengeful Strike is less useful too. If you want a unit of combat Termies, take Knights.

Always remember that a unit in combat can't be shot at, and that most of your units have at least a shot at taking out anything with a power fist, chainfist or thunderhammer.

Lastly, consider Redeemers or Crusaders over normal Land Raiders. They bring good tools for taking out large hordes, which is the one thing your average Deathwing squad really suffers against.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No. 6th edition killed Deathwing.

I can't say I agree. 2+ armor is really good, and makes them all-but power weapon-proof. Units like Howling Banshees or Chaos Terminators that used to be a problem for Deathwing are just going to spend most of their time harmlessly pinging power swords and mauls off their Terminator armor.

 Brother SRM wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No. 6th edition killed Deathwing.

I can't say I agree. 2+ armor is really good, and makes them all-but power weapon-proof. Units like Howling Banshees or Chaos Terminators that used to be a problem for Deathwing are just going to spend most of their time harmlessly pinging power swords and mauls off their Terminator armor.

In a vacuum, I agree. In a meta where everyone is spamming Plasma Guns because of the changes to vehicle damage tables, I disagree entirely. I guess it depends on your meta...

That's a decent point. My meta isn't quite so plasma-heavy, so my Terminators tend to fare pretty well!

 shamikebab wrote:
Indeed, you can't just drop half your army and expect them to destroy and survive the next turn. You need to target the right enemy units and try and get LOS blocking to at least part of the enemy force if you can.

Well, DW could be played defensely letting the enemy come at your terms and then charging him when he's close.
Another option is to throw the whole army against a flank of the enemy army.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, DW could be played defensely letting the enemy come at your terms and then charging him when he's close.

The problem with this is, you don't have an awful lot of firepower and most of it is stuck to within 24". There are a lot of armies that could quite happily sit back for a while and come out of the ensuing gun battle better off.

Another option is to throw the whole army against a flank of the enemy army.

This, on the other hand, works MUCH better.

Yes. And it's great fun.