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Good evening, fellow dakka-naughts! i was looking over some bat reps, and decided that i'd share one of my own, which happens to be my first ever victory! sadly, i didn't think to take any picture during the game, so you'll have to use your imagination a little bit, but we'll get through it.

Army Lists

Dark Angels

HQ
Sammael on corvex (warlord)
Belial w/thss
Ravenwing Command squad w/dakka banner

Troops
Ravenwing bikers (6)
vet sgt. with melta bombs, and power sword

Ravenwing bikers (6)
vet sgt with melta bombs, and power sword
attack bike with multimelta

Deathwing Terminators (5)
assault cannon
chain fist

Elites
Venerable Dread
assault cannon, extra armor

Deathwing Knights
relic of the unforgiven
LRC with melta gun

Grey Knights
Draigo
Crowe

Troops
Purifiers (10)
psycannons (4), force halberds (5)
Knight of The Flame w/daemonhammer

Purifiers (10)
psycannons (4), force halberds (5)
Knight of The Flame w/daemonhammer

Purifiers (10)
psycannons (4), force halberds (5)
Knight of The Flame w/daemonhammer

Elites
Vindicare

Rifleman Venerable Dread (2)

Heavy
Rifleman Dread


Mission was Emperor's Will with Dawn of War deployment. We both placed our objectives behind buildings in our own table halves

and now, the good stuff;

My Opponent wins the roll off and deploys first, placing his units in a relative aggressive manner, with Draigo and unit of Purifiers dead center, an second unit directly to it's right (my left), and the third on its right on the opposite side of the building where he placed his objective. Crowe is placed near this unit, independently. He places his Dreads on his table edge behind cover of ruins. he infiltrates his vindicare into the same ruins on his board edge.

I deploy my first bike unit behind the building where i put my objective to block LOS, my LRC in the center with my Dread between the 2, the command squad behind (protect the banner!). the second bike squad with attack bike and sammael is to the right of that, hoping to sneak around the purifiers and crowe to melta the crap out of the dreads. deathwing will deathwing assault on turn 2. on a whim, i scout both bike squads and the command squad to board center, making sure that everyone in within 6 inches for shooty time fun, and then.... disaster strikes.

i seize the initiative! for the first time ever! holy cow!

i move everything up, to make sure we're within 24" of everything, and move the LRC up 12" to get ready to throw belial and the knights into assault with draigo (foolish, i know. i'm still kinda new, and forgot that you can't move more than 6" and disembark.) i pour dakka shots from the LRC and one bike squad into draigo and his purifiers, sending 7 of them to the warp, and the second bike squad unloads into the purifiers near his objective, knocking off 9 of them. My dread plinks a wound off one of his dreads, and the command squads feeds some plasma to draigo, giving him 2 wounds.

he moves draigo up closer to my bikes, pulls the one remaining purifier back to cover his objective, moves the wounded dread over behind cover, and moves the last purifier squad over to block los from my bikes. then he shoots, and my world gets a little darker. the vindicare turbo penetrates my LRC, causing it to explode. WHAT!? it can do that!? i've never played grey knights before, so i'm surprised. Draigo's unit doesn't shoot, nor do the remaining purifiers. all three dreads unload into my dread. 3 glances. just my luck. it started off so good, too...

turn 2 starts with me moving the bikes into place to shoot the full strength purifier squad with the command squad right behind them. the Deathwing Squad drops 6" in front of them and unloads twin linked fury into them, dropping them down to 6. The bikes then open up on them, dropping them to 3. the other bike squad and Sammael take a wound off of Crowe. the Knights and Belial move up and charge Draigo, failing all 5 hammer of wrath attacks. the bikes charge the purifiers, missing on the hammer of wrath as well. sammael and his squad charge crowe, and he falls. easily. Belial declines a challenge from draigo (no eternal warrior), and the Knights go to combat, saving all but 1 wound from draigo and his purifiers who strike first. i go into smite mode and kill off the remaining purifiers. no more wounds to Draigo. the second purifier squad, though greatly diminished, fairs very well, and knocks off 2 of my bikers.

his turn 2, dread and vindicare all shoot at the terminators in the middle of the board, and one falls. Draigo knocks off another Knight, and the purifers take 1 more bike but suffer another fallen comrade, dropping them to 2.

I start turn 3 by moving Sammael and his squad over to finish off the lone purifier on his objective, the command squad blows up one of his dreads, and the assault cannon terminator split fires into a second dread pinning it, causing it to explode. they then charge into combat with the purifiers so his vindicare and remaining dread can't whittle them down. but it doesn't last long. the purifiers fall with out taking any more of my bikes or terminators with them.bikes consolidate back towards my Emperor's Will marker, and Draigo takes out another knight as belial has declined another challenge.

turn 3 sees the grey knights stumbling. I've got my Father in Law on the ropes, and can almost taste my first win. the vindicare moves out into the open to shoot at my terminators, and so does the dread. between the 2 they down 2 more. draigo takes another wound.

turn 4 i consolidate a little, moving the bikes to cover both objectives, and break sammael and the attack bike off to play with the last dread. Belial declines a 3 challange, but the Knight Master finally comes through and wipes out Draigo.

at this point, the Vindicare, and the Dread are all he's got left on the table. he concedes the game, and for the first time ever, I've beaten my Father in Law! i commend all of you who've stuck through and read this to the end, and hope that you leave me a few comments, or tips for the next game! i beat him a second time the very next game when he put his space wolves on the board, but i don't remember enough of that game. except that i won. i remember that part.

Glad to see a DA win. Just a few questions about your list.

Why are you running Belial and Sammael in the same list? If belial is just going to drive up the field in the LRC then you might as well just replace both him and sammael with Azrael. This will give you a lot more points to work with as you are paying nearly half the HQ tax.
You could just buy a cheap librarian on a bike to unlock the command squad. He could also take a pfg and run next to the LRC to give it a 4++ save.

Are you taking a 5 man Ravenwing Command Squad? If not, why not?

Your ravenwing sergeants are so expensive! 57 points each is too much imo, I'd cut back on the toys and leave out the vet sergeant upgrades. Melta bombs can have a place though.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Glad to see a DA win.

No kidding, right?

I just started playing DA myself, only had two games so far and I won the first and tied the second...

The second game in particular really opened my eyes as to how strong DA really are as opposed to what everyone thinks of them. Im convinced that without my bikes, I definitely would have lost, as the sergeant pinned down a squad of scarabs by himself, long enough for my librarian to get they and start picking off bases. Because of the Sergeant, I was able to teachnically pull out the win (though we called it a draw due to time issues because turn 6 and/or seven could have seen the game go either way)...

That said, I agree with BBB... You shouldnt need to bog down your sergeant with that many upgrades. I only made him a vet and gave him melta bombs and he performed admirably.

Our stength lies in our joint operations; in that we can bring so many varied units to the table that work so well in unison. Yeah yeah, you can run a death or raven wing army, but when used together, also with tac squads, you have an army that can play the near, mid, and far fields of comabt extremely well...

Also, librarians... no offense, but you should have a librarian in most of your games if not all... he is just tooooo much of a unit multiplier with divination on a devastator or even a tac squad. Plus you can give him a powerfield generator, a very useful and unique piece of wargear.

stuff to chew on bro... glad you did well... REPENT FOR TODAY YOU DIE!!!

I agree with the previous posters as well. I typically run Belial with Deathwing/Greenwing. When I first read the army list my initial thought was why are Samy and Belial hitting the field with only one group of deathwing to become troops? Great job on the victory though. Azrael would be a better points decision if your planning on running the ComboWing for the troops conversion. Librarians are definitly a must for the reasons previously explained. I can't count how many times Israfel (my librarian) has helped boost my devastators or buffed my LRC/Razorback with an ++ save. Plus you can make the Librarian so much more versatile in your army by equipping him with a jump pack or even a bike to blast around the battlefield and buff the entire army.

i agree that azrael would have been a better choice point wise, but i was anticipating playing eldar (lots of wave serpents, wraithknights and a seer-star), and thought that having the 2 of them to help tank a few wounds would be the better idea. especially since my opponent is a former GT and Gladiator winner, and doesn't pull any punches.

i'm a newer player, and haven't quite gotten in to using librarians yet, and i know that it could be a huge benefit. getting there. i'm working on a librarian for a bike, just waiting to get a few bare bikes to mount him on.

as far as the ravenwing sgts. go, took the vet sgt for the extra attack in hand to hand, and the melta bombs because he likes to step on my bikes with his wraithknights (3 on the field sometimes.)

this list was not super optimized, but it worked on his grey knights, space wolves, and almost (and i mean almost. if i had tank shocked a unit of dire avengers, i could have denied the emperor's will objective and we would have tied) worked on his eldar.

next list will be a little stronger, as that's been the trend. we'll see though, right!?

rdemings wrote:
i agree that azrael would have been a better choice point wise, but i was anticipating playing eldar (lots of wave serpents, wraithknights and a seer-star), and thought that having the 2 of them to help tank a few wounds would be the better idea. especially since my opponent is a former GT and Gladiator winner, and doesn't pull any punches.

i'm a newer player, and haven't quite gotten in to using librarians yet, and i know that it could be a huge benefit. getting there. i'm working on a librarian for a bike, just waiting to get a few bare bikes to mount him on.

as far as the ravenwing sgts. go, took the vet sgt for the extra attack in hand to hand, and the melta bombs because he likes to step on my bikes with his wraithknights (3 on the field sometimes.)

this list was not super optimized, but it worked on his grey knights, space wolves, and almost (and i mean almost. if i had tank shocked a unit of dire avengers, i could have denied the emperor's will objective and we would have tied) worked on his eldar.

next list will be a little stronger, as that's been the trend. we'll see though, right!?

Wound for wound DA characters are expensive and don't bring a lot to the table, consider more models if you want more durability. For example for the price of sammael you could get 6 bikes + an attack bike for only 7 points more. That's 5 more wounds on the table with the same toughness and a 5+ jink instead of a 4++ save. Most people view belial and sammael as a kind of tax which allows them to use RW or DW.
Azrael is an exception as he has a slightly better stat line, unlocks both RW and DW and also gives a whole unit a 4++ save. The only thing which stops me taking him over Belial in smaller points games is that he doesn't unlock DW command squads.

Due to bikers not having a cc weapon and pistol, they will only get 1 attack in cc. So your vet sergeant spending 25 points for 2 power sword attacks just doesn't seem cost effective. Get another bike for the price. Or maybe consider some combi weapons instead.
DA bikers will never be good at assault, leave that to the black knights. The only time you really want them there is hiding from enemy shooting by using hit and run, or tying up a more powerful shooting unit.

Vs eldar, ravenwing are pretty deccent vs the new serpent spam. As you can match them in terms of speed it wont take too long before you can assault their serpents with krak grenades - and totally ignore those holofields and shields which is something a lot of armies cannot do. (Belial might be ok here to precisely drop a CML or AC behind one.)

Vs MCs.......cry? In all seriousness try to avoid them most the time when using only ravenwing. DA lack the new grav guns which would make short work of such units. Use terminators against them or use rad grenades and plasma talon them to death.

thanks for the suggestions, BBB. i'll work that in to my next list. i take the knights, and THSS terminators to knock off his wraithknights, as 1 round of hand to hand will generally wipe them out, if i've gotten a wound or 2 on them already. that's one of the reasons i like to add belial in to it.

i don't like to use proxys so i'm only using what i have built already, which means my black knights haven't hit the table yet. working on that!