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Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





United Kingdom

I have never played 40K. Well, actually that's not true, once, around the time of the Rogue Trader, a friend challenged me to a game, let me use my single squad of Eldar Guardians against his army of Space Marines, complete with tanks, etc. It seemed a bit unfair, but he insisted that the correct way to play was to deploy everything you owned, and if you didn't own very much, tough luck for being so poor.

Anyway, after a lengthy hiatus, I've got back into painting the miniatures and once again a friend (a different one) is insisting I bring my models to the battlefield in a 1000-point battle. I basically have the Dark Vengeance box and a scout squad with sniper rifles. So this:

Company Master 105pts

Librarian 65pts

Tactical squad of nine marines and a sergeant, with a plasma cannon, and a plasma gun. 170pts

Scout Squad of five scouts, four with sniper rifles (including the sergeant) and a missile launcher. 75pts

Ravenwing attack squad of two marines and a sergeant, on bikes, one with a plasma gun. 140pts

Deathwing Terminator squad - 4 terminators and a sergeant, plus an autocannon. 240pts.

that makes 795 points. I think it's a legal force. I have no idea if it would be any use.

I could pump them up to 1000 points by adding stuff like veteran sergeants, melta bombs, and stuff for my HQs such as artificer armour, Shroud of heroes, and second-level psyker mastery. Unfortunately I have no idea what these things are, never mind how to use them. Alternatively, I could buy something to make up the 205 points, but it must be fairly cheap in monetary terms if possible! I'd also have to paint it pretty quickly, as we're thinking of playing in about two weeks.

So, advice? Sorry to ask, but as I say, I have literally no idea. I don't want to walk into GW and waste my money on something I'll never use again.
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

I would highly recommend getting some more bikers. As Dark Angels, you can never have enough! Ravenwing are definitely the best units in the whole codex. Get a box of Ravenwing Black Knights for about $50 (cheaper to find some on eBay or something). You won't be disappointed! Another thing you might see about is a Rhino for your Tac squad. You'll want to combat squad them for sure, and put the Libby, Company Master, and five of the Tac marines (including the Sarge and the plasma gun) in the Rhino. Tactical Marines are always happier with a metal box to hide in or a drop pod to deep strike in. Here's an example 1000 point list with only those two purchases in addition to your stated models:
Combined Arms Detachment:
HQ:
Company Master: Artificer Armor, Relic Blade, The Lion's Roar (155)
Librarian: ML2, Shroud of Heroes (100)
Elites:
Deathwing Terminator Squad: Assault Cannon, Chainfist (225)
Troops:
Scout Squad: 4x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks (84)
Tactical Squad: 10 men, Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon, Plasma pistol for Sgt., dedicated Rhino (220)
Fast Attack:
Ravenwing Bike Squad: 3 men, Plasmagun (90)
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 men, Melta bombs (125)
Total 999 points
That should give you a good starting force, and everything will be WYSIWYG. You could take 1 grenade launcher on the Knights, but its optional and a free upgrade. The list is not super optimal, but is a good start point and great for friendly casual games. The things you'd need to buy add up to about $87.50 retail (RWBK and Rhino), although like I said you could get them from eBay somewhat cheaper. If you haven't already, you definitely want to pick up the 7th edition Codex: Dark Angels, as it gives you a good idea of other units you might want to get in the future. Hope this helps!

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/7/24, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~16000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Imperial Knights: ~2300 | Leagues of Votann: ~1300 | Tyranids: ~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000 | Kruleboyz: ~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: ~700
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2024: 40 | Total models painted in 2025: 25 | Current main painting project: Tomb Kings
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
You need your bumps felt. With a patented, Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000.
The Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000. It only looks like several bricks crudely gaffer taped to a cricket bat.
Grotsnik Corp. Sorry, No Refunds.
 
   
Made in us
War Walker Pilot with Withering Fire




 ZergSmasher wrote:
I would highly recommend getting some more bikers. As Dark Angels, you can never have enough! Ravenwing are definitely the best units in the whole codex. Get a box of Ravenwing Black Knights for about $50 (cheaper to find some on eBay or something). You won't be disappointed!


This. As an added bonus, because Ravenwing were part of the Dark Vengeance box, there are *tons* on eBay for a very reasonable cost. I love the Black Knights, but even more just standard bikers would be nice to add to the list.
   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch






ZergSmasher has pretty much hit the nail on the head (my own fault for being so slow at typing) - much of the advice here is the same as above.

That first guy sounds like someone to avoid playing with, though I had similar things happen when I started playing

It is indeed a legal army, and quite often the Dark Vengeance set is used as a base for a Dark Angels army, so the following advice is quite generic and well-worn. Apologies, it's also quite rambly!

Did you end up with the rulebook from the dark vengeance set as well? Or did you split the chaos side with someone? Anyway, if you did get it, or are borrowing your friend's, on page 122 is a picture of the simplest and most well-known way of building an army - the Combined Arms Detachment. There are way way more ways of constructing armies, but we'll stick with that one for the moment.

You've a number of options with the tactical squad - you can keep them as is, at 10-man, allowing them to split up into two units just before the game using the Combat Squads rule, or just sticking as a single unit.
If sticking as a single unit, the Plasma Cannon will slow the rest of the unit down - it can't be fired on the move, and the bolters / plasmaguns want to be within 12" to do the most damage.
If splitting them up, leave the plasma cannon with four bolter-wielding buddies in your deployment zone (preferably standing on an objective), and send the other half forward.
Either way, the best way to make the best of a tactical squad is a transport - a Rhino, Razorback or Drop Pod. This allows them to move into optimum range and/or capture objectives quicker. Each of the three has advantages / disadvantages. The Veteran Sergeant upgrade is almost the same as an entire marine, but recently I've been managing to roll alot of nines for leadership tests and regretting not taking the upgrade... I prefer to equip my sergeants with a combi-weapon, but we'll stick with the pistol for now (it's pricier, but gives a bonus attack in melee).

The Scout Squad is fine, though they could use the Camo Cloaks upgrade (this improves their save when in cover).

With the bikes, I'd suggest different special weapons - a RW biker with a plasmagun costs about the same as a Black Knight, who does the job a whole lot better. If you're able to get the spare part to swap, replace the plasma gun with either Meltaguns (to kill tanks) or Gravguns (to kill monsters or enemy terminators).

The heavy weapon in the terminator squad is an Assault Cannon rather than an Autocannon (more shots, less range) - you might find it difficult for them to earn their points back if your opponent has too much AP2 weaponry (as it will ignore their armour save). They also have the option of teleporting into battle (the Deep Strike rule is included with all Terminator armour, see page 154 of the Dark Angels book for more info), but this will mean they won't turn up until turn 2 at the earliest - in this size game that would leave you without a sizeable chunk of your army. Best to start them on the table in my opinion.

A Psyker (like your Librarian) rolls at the start of the game to determine what magical powers they know - there are 7 tables available to you (more if you get the Angels of Death supplement cards), and each has 7 powers (numbered 1 to 6, and one called the "Primaris" power). A Psyker rolls once per mastery level, and can choose a different table for each roll (i.e. a mastery 2 psyker could have a power from Telekenisis and a power from Pyromancy), he can swap a power for the Primaris after seeing the roll. If you roll all your powers from the same table, then you get the Primaris free anyway (because of the Psychic Focus rule).
Each turn you roll a dice and add your mastery levels to determine how much "charge" you have. You must spend charge to cast powers, so increasing the Librarian from a mastery 1 to a 2 not only gets you another power (meaning more options), but also increases the amount of energy you have available to use.
I'd also suggest a Conversion Field for him - Librarians are the only one of the space marine hero-archetypes (Master, Chaplain, Librarian) that doesn't come with an Invulnerable save basic (which is a save that can be used when your armour and/or cover save are being ignored), but Dark Angels have the advantage of being able to buy a decent inv save for him.

Both the Master and the Librarian are Independent Characters, which is a special rule allowing them to join other units (so that they don't get horribly picked on by the enemy the first opportunity they get), and it's worth thinking about where they're going when choosing wargear and planning psychic tables to roll on. The Master model you have has a combi-plasma (it's slung on a strap, partly hidden by the cloak), which would mean he's best buddy-ing up with the Tactical squad (try keeping similar weapon profiles together, a unit can only target a single enemy unit per turn normally*). Artificer Armour increases his save without the advantages / disadvantages of terminator armour (terminators cannot be transported by a Rhino, for example).

Are you able to borrow models to bring up your army? Or Proxy-ing (i.e. using one model but pretending it's another - "This model is carrying a plasmagun, but I'd like to try out a gravgun on him if that's ok? I've paid the correct points for it.")?

*Deathwing have the Split Fire rule, allowing one of them to target a different target to the rest of the unit*

---

So, if you've made it this far:

Company Master, Artificer Armour, Combi-Plasma, Relic Blade, Digital Weapons, Meltabombs (goes with Tacticals).
Librarian, Mastery 2, Conversion Field, Digital Weapons, Meltabombs (goes with Terminators).
Tactical squad (10), Veteran Sergeant (Plasma Pistol & Meltabombs), Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon (combat-squadded). Rhino transport.
Scout Squad (5), Veteran Sergeant, 4x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks.
Ravenwing Bike Squad (3), Veteran Sergeant (Meltabombs), special weapon or two.
Deathwing Terminators (5), Assault Cannon, 1x Chainfist.

This totals out at 934-939 points, and includes a fair few upgrades that could be dropped in a leaner list (digi weapons, vet sarges). It also needs a Rhino to transport half the tactical squad - If you go out and buy one new, get a Razorback instead, it's only slightly more expensive and if you don't glue down the main hatch you can swap between the two very easily.
For bukling the rest of it up, if cost is your primary worry, search internet auction sites for another set of the three RW bikers from the DV set, some melta or grav guns to swap, and possibly another librarian - let me explain: If you feel up to it, you can chop the librarian and second RW sargeant in half at the waist and then glue the librarian to the bike, this gets you a more mobile psyker (you can't cast most types of powers whilst in a Rhino). If this sounds beyond your current modelling skills then don't worry - just run the second bikes squad as a second bike squad.
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





United Kingdom

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I really appreciate it.

I wrote quite a long post saying thanks last night, but it seems to have disappeared. Annoying, because I typed it with an injured wrist. I injured it playing football last night, and I'm actually typing this from the hospital, waiting for an X-ray. I need a safer hobby! Do people break limbs playing WH40K?

Anyway, I think I need to buy a rhino. The black knights also appeal to me, for the name as much as anything else. I can imagine them getting arms lopped off and claiming, "Tis but a scratch!"

The idea of chopping a Librarian in half and sticking him on a bike is interesting, but how would it work? Can you just make one of the bikers in a squad a psyker? Or would it mean that I have another HQ, and wouldn't that mean I had to take another squad of troops? Or am I just putting my existing Librarian on a bike? I do like the idea of having a mobile Librarian in my army. Do you have mobile libraries in the US? A psyker-biker mobile librarian - who could resist including a unit with such comic potential?

I think my opponent would be fine with me proxying. I have a spare box of Space Marines I've never built, so I could just make a heavy grav gun or heavy melta gun guy from there to replace the plasma cannon guy. I'd like to use the mini in the table though, because he's my favorite model in the army. The reason for this is that my two year old son is convinced that he's carrying a vacuum cleaner.

Another thing about my opponent - he owns a rhino, and at least two Betrayal at Calth box-sets. I say at least two because I left him in GW on Saturday contemplating buying a third! So he's going to have dreadnoughts. Do I need something specific to counter these? Melta weapons? Should I run away?

Once again, thanks for the help. I'm really looking forward to the game now. I might ask my mate if he wants to extend the points limit to 1100 points so I can sort of combine all the ideas you guys have put forward!



   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch






feltmonkey wrote:
Anyway, I think I need to buy a rhino. The black knights also appeal to me, for the name as much as anything else. I can imagine them getting arms lopped off and claiming, "Tis but a scratch!"
Black Knights are one of the best units in the Codex, and see my comment about the Razorback kit being only slightly more expensive but allowing you to swap between the two.
feltmonkey wrote:
The idea of chopping a Librarian in half and sticking him on a bike is interesting, but how would it work? Can you just make one of the bikers in a squad a psyker? Or would it mean that I have another HQ, and wouldn't that mean I had to take another squad of troops? Or am I just putting my existing Librarian on a bike? I do like the idea of having a mobile Librarian in my army. Do you have mobile libraries in the US? A psyker-biker mobile librarian - who could resist including a unit with such comic potential?
It was a fairly common conversion back when people would buy two DV's between a Chaos player and a DA player (enting up with 2x each of the models), so I included the suggestion but if you're only just starting probably best to leave such conversions for later (hobby knives are dangerous!) - The idea would be to replace the existing Librarian in your list, for versatility rather than ending up with more HQs (you can't just upgrade a biker to a psyker, but you can upgrade a psyker to a biker ). Here's an example (not mine):
feltmonkey wrote:
Another thing about my opponent - he owns a rhino, and at least two Betrayal at Calth box-sets. I say at least two because I left him in GW on Saturday contemplating buying a third! So he's going to have dreadnoughts. Do I need something specific to counter these? Melta weapons? Should I run away?
Melta weapons and to a certain extent plasma, Grav as well (an immobilised dreadnought is only about half as much a threat). Things like power fists and meltabombs may also come in handy but the dreadnought will strike in combat before either of those (walkers ignore the penalty of the Unwieldy rule) so you'll lose some models first.
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





United Kingdom

I know this is a bit of a bump, but I just wanted to say another big thank you to ZergSmasher, HuskyWarhammer, and Quanar for helping me out with the building of my army list. We played our first game today (we're definitely having a rematch) and it was a lot of fun. It definitely helped that I had those extra units, and a bit of an insight into using them. The Black Knights in particular were great, although mistakes were made by their general leading to the whole unit being destroyed. I kept forgetting to turbo-boost, even when it was my whole strategy on a turn and in the end left them vulnerable to a charge by a flipping dreadnaught. My opponent was actually happy to rewind time each time I did this and let me move the bikes, but I refused, as I decided I would be better off learning the lesson the hard way! If it hadn't been for this blunder though, they seemed to have a lot of survivability. I enjoyed the look of confusion on my friend's face as I explained that they not only get to reroll jink saves, they apparently get +1 on them as well. (Is this even correct? We got some rules wrong! I was doing heavy weapon firing wrong all game, making it much more difficult to hit anything that was necessary. This will make you laugh, or possibly disown me from the forum - I missed the part about subtracting the model's ballistic skill from the scatter roll. Every shot was shooting off wildly to some other part of the battlefield. The plasma cannon still did some damage though, with lucky scatters.)

I think I may be a convert to actually playing this game, rather than just painting the men.
   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch






feltmonkey wrote:
I enjoyed the look of confusion on my friend's face as I explained that they not only get to reroll jink saves, they apparently get +1 on them as well. (Is this even correct? We got some rules wrong!
Black Knights have the Skilled Rider special rule, which (amongst other things), improves their Jink saves by one.
   
 
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