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I have a question for any of you DA players out there: how do you like them in casual pick-up games?

I'm asking because I want to complete a nicely painted high-quality table top army. To that end, I was hoping to play Death/Ravenwing. I have seen threads about this, most recently the 'Are Dark Angels Hopeless one,' but wanted to hear from a more FLGS type angle. I've previously played Tau (and found them to be pretty boring), and currently have a sizable Ork force (that will take me several months to get painted). Given I'm starting a medical program and will only have a few bouts of breaks, a Terminator or Bike-only army seems appealing in that I'd only have 30-50 models to paint for an average game. Competitive play of Bolter Banner and other such tricks aside, do any DA players there enjoy taking them to their FLGS, or do you find codex creeping like Newcrons, Grav-Weapons, and Wave Serpents to be too much?

I don't play anymore so I can't say how they play for me. On the Bolter and Chainsword Dark Angel forum, a lot of people have good success with them. Other people complain about them. So it's just like here on Dakka EXCEPT a few people do really good with them.

So it's up to you. Do you need to win? Playing an all Termie army is really hard to play. A lot of comments are said to add bikes to go with the Termies. So since you said Death/Raven wing I would say yes they can be good, and are not hopeless.

That said, I am going from what others said on the B&C DA forum.

I say if you like the minis, and like the fluff, DA can be fun to play. Unless you must win, DA are not for you then because it can take time to learn how to use them.

Now that being said, you can still paint the Death/Ravenwing and then if you don't like the DA rules you can always play Fallen and use the SM or another codex.

They can be just fine in a pick up game environment, they are actually a pretty fun army.

If you take librairans on bikes and go for telepathy you can get a few powers that can make bikers nasty, like shrouding or invisibility.

Power Field Generators are amazing, you can put it on a librarian to give things around him for a short bubble and 4++ invuln save.

All DA bikes have scout, kinda handy.

Black Knights have plasma talons(twin linked plasma guns) on their bikes and 1 can take a grenade launcher.

A few pointers from an established player

Our veterans basically all pay nothing for storm shields which makes them basically superior to terminators in terms of survivability and cost

Our land raiders can buy venerable also nice

We can field ludicrous amounts of independent characters thanks to the librarium conclave datasheet

You can have scout sergeants with dual weapons load outs which I don't believe other marines can do this can be helpful at Times

You can basically give any cc squad you want fear an adamantium will via the captain for 15 points.

Well it seems there's still hope for DA. My only issue would be that your basic DW Terminator costs around 44 points (I believe?), so any mobs would be a death-sentence and in a 1,000 point game given the mandatory 160-170 point or so Belial tax you'd have a maximum of 18 or so troops. I guess I'll have to poke around more to see battle reports on how Storm Bolter-weilding TDA are faring. Thanks for the replies thus far, and feel free to keep posting.

I run DA at my FLGS, and I like them despite how poorly I have done in tournaments (which is due mainly to my inexperience as a player rather than DA being bad). They really are a fun army. The first time I played a tournament I actually allied in a few Tau (which didn't help me as it was more stats to try to remember!), but it was the DA part that really performed better. I certainly won't give up on them, but I am going to broaden my experience by fleshing out my Tau collection. Having a second army will perhaps put my opinion of DA in perspective and will by no means completely replace DA completely in my casual or tournament play.

If I know I'm going to play a casual game, DA are a lot of fun. They can pull off some unique moves and are overall a pretty decent army. I got tired of losing to Necrons and Tau gunlines, so recently I did switch to Daemons, but DA are still good for FLGS gaming.

I love playing casual games with DA I run a full deathwing list the usual Belial HQ and about 4 or 5 squads of terminators and than a LRC and a venerable dreadnought and that's a 2000 point game right there of course you will get tabled many times in a tournament or against a hardcore player who just wants to win no matter what. But if you get a fun game against a nice and take it easy player than the games can go until turn 5 and be pretty enjoyable

When people talk about casual DA they mean those triple crusader dakka with banner builds or something else?

Unless you plan on taking them to a Grand Tourny, the difference between DA and SM is actually pretty miniscule. SM have some things DA don't (TFC, Stormtalons, Cents) but equally, DA have some nasty tricks of their own that do a fine job of compensating (Black Knights, DWK, PFG, Venerable Land Raiders ect). Outside of that, most units that make up the army share the same cost or at at most a point or two out, we don't pay more for any Special Weapons or such, and a mixed DA army should be able to handle itself just as well as the same army pulled from C:SM.

As a pure Codex DA doesn't shine in a competitive enviroment aside from a few one-trick-pony builds, but when even slightly combined with C:SM you can get some pretty hefty stuff. Like a scouting Smashf***** for example. In casual games they are fine even on their own.

 Paradigm wrote:
Unless you plan on taking them to a Grand Tourny, the difference between DA and SM is actually pretty miniscule. SM have some things DA don't (TFC, Stormtalons, Cents) but equally, DA have some nasty tricks of their own that do a fine job of compensating (Black Knights, DWK, PFG, Venerable Land Raiders ect). Outside of that, most units that make up the army share the same cost or at at most a point or two out, we don't pay more for any Special Weapons or such, and a mixed DA army should be able to handle itself just as well as the same army pulled from C:SM.

Except our veterans don't suck unlike vanguard veterans or sternguard who get plasma cannon'd into the next millennium all the time. 10 point storm shields ftw!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I run DA at my FLGS, and I like them despite how poorly I have done in tournaments (which is due mainly to my inexperience as a player rather than DA being bad). They really are a fun army. The first time I played a tournament I actually allied in a few Tau (which didn't help me as it was more stats to try to remember!), but it was the DA part that really performed better. I certainly won't give up on them, but I am going to broaden my experience by fleshing out my Tau collection. Having a second army will perhaps put my opinion of DA in perspective and will by no means completely replace DA completely in my casual or tournament play.

the da army has always been a misfit its in my opinion that they hand over writing our book to a team of people and then turn around and write radically different books for everyone else. It's why chaos has supplements and we don't for example

 ionusx wrote:
Except our veterans don't suck unlike vanguard veterans or sternguard who get plasma cannon'd into the next millennium all the time. 10 point storm shields ftw!

Sometimes I have a hard time telling if you people are joking or not.

Alone the DA are stuck with incredibly expensive elite units and no anti-aircraft; start sticking FW units and Allies in and you can end up with T5 2++ Deathwing Knights rerolling saves in close combat or a Russ squadron with 4++ or other similarly effective things.