Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've got a full ravenwing / deathwing / most of greenwing setup, intercessors and hell blasters from dark imperium. What are the competitive choices for DAs in the current meta?
Thanks

Any army can be fairly competitive these days. The question is how much are you willing to spend ? For many imperial lists, soup is the name of the game and most other books for hard core competitive you need very exact lists and unit set ups.

Check out the higher end lists, and buy, model and paint what you need and your list will be as competitive as the factions are capable of being with the limitation being the player. So if you are a high end player, you'll do better than most.

Not really a help I know but really. The really potent competitive set ups you'd probably not just have on hand and need to add a lot for it.

I'd reccomend going heavy on plasma with dark angels, thanks to relics of the dark ages you can buff each plasma weapon in use by a unit up to 3 damage, this makes hellblasters pretty deadly

I'm looking for more of a monodex list rather than a spam the most point cost efficient units from allies/soup

For monodex you are going to struggle to keep up with higher tier armies as we lack the tools to effectively deal with what those armies bring to the table.

In terms of competitive choices for DA we have a few units that do well.

The Ravenwing Talonmaster is favorite as it is a fast moving character with a twin assault cannon and Twin heavy bolter that has a reroll 1's to wound aura and a 6 inch aura where all ravenwing units ignore cover when shooting, including himself.

Plasma inceptors are now pretty good after the FAQ as they have 3 wounds now, so you can drop them in with a jump pack captain, overcharge and use Weapons from a Dark Age strat to do 3 damage plasma shots. And since their plasma weapons are 18 inches, you don't have to worry as much about screening you just need to get in range for shots.

The dark talon is still very good because of strafing run, hard to hit, Vortex cannon, two hurricane bolters and its stasis bomb all for 200 points, it's still a little fragile though. Also, it being able to hover makes it more forgiving then normal flyers.

The azrael castle is still somewhat good which involves azrael, a dark shroud for the -1 to hit aura, and hellblasters which benefit from Azrael's reroll aura and invuln save aura.

You can also follow along the DA tactics thread here

You need to figure out what you mean by competitive.

Not get ROLF stomped by your mates?
Winning record at a RTT (2-1)
Winning record at a GT (3-3/4-2)
Win a RTT
Top table at a GT
Win a GT

DA are capable of goals one and two with a decent sized collection, a lot of practice and not bleeding edge competition.

Goal three will take a lot of player skill and a well optimized list and probably won't happen. Maybe if you get really lucky with match-ups, lose your first match big so you end up at the "casual" tables and get really good with your list you could end up here (3-3) but not likely.

Depending on your local scene you can maybe pull off 4 (if you are in a super casual scene). Again, this will take lots of player skill and practice but would be an awesome goal/achievement.

With the changes to regular marines, marines just got a lot better at killing other marines so until DA get the Codex Space Marine treatment understand you are taking a bottom 3-4 army (SW/DA/GK/BA) with a handicap (mono faction build) into a meta that will be really good at killing your already bad army and adjust your expectations accordingly.

It's a shame our dakka pole got merged into the general SM codex in the form of bolter discipline. That could've given DA a run for its money in its relative competitiveness among SM factions.

Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

 Whereswaldo wrote:
Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

We have some stellar units, but as a whole, it's quite difficult to pull off tournament level list.

Top contenders as above posts have highlighted are:
-Dark Talon
-Talonmaster
-Hellblasters
-RBK
-Dark Shroud
-Azrael

Top contending builds are Azrael castle (hellblasters + dark shroud + Lieutenant) and triple DT airwing detachments.

If you're going to be playing MonoMarines you're going to be playing Iron Hands, at least until April when (hopefully) the backlash causes them to tone them down.

 Whereswaldo wrote:
Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

Dark Angels were somewhat decent compared to other marines until the new Space Marine Codex came out. That was a huge boost to Codex compliant chapters, but left Dark Angels in the dust a bit. They still aren't terrible, because they never were. But they are somewhat worse by comparison.

They lack doctrines and their chapter tactic is frankly a joke compared to the new ones. They are carried as far as they can be by Azrael and Weapons from the Dark Age.

They have the issue common to all marines that they aren't really durable enough for their cost. For Codex marines this is made up for with their new powerful abilities, but for Dark Angels you're really going to want a bit of soup to compete I'm afraid - such as Guard for chaff models and cheap CP. This is one advantage you have, that there's no downside to souping whereas the new Codex marines are fairly heavily disincentivised from doing it.

Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for an updated codex, but who knows...

 Stux wrote:

 Whereswaldo wrote:
Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

Dark Angels were somewhat decent compared to other marines until the new Space Marine Codex came out. That was a huge boost to Codex compliant chapters, but left Dark Angels in the dust a bit. They still aren't terrible, because they never were. But they are somewhat worse by comparison.

They lack doctrines and their chapter tactic is frankly a joke compared to the new ones. They are carried as far as they can be by Azrael and Weapons from the Dark Age.

They have the issue common to all marines that they aren't really durable enough for their cost. For Codex marines this is made up for with their new powerful abilities, but for Dark Angels you're really going to want a bit of soup to compete I'm afraid - such as Guard for chaff models and cheap CP. This is one advantage you have, that there's no downside to souping whereas the new Codex marines are fairly heavily disincentivised from doing it.

Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for an updated codex, but who knows...

The only problem I have with souping is that as soon as you start adding in things from other armies you realize you are better off just dropping the DA stuff and keeping stuff from better codexes. In my opinion we have one single combination of units that you can't find a better version of somewhere else, and that is the Talonmaster supported by Sammael. Plasma and WotDA is good, but there are so many minuses to hit going around that Plasma can be difficult to use. Though the increase of gravis armor to 3W might make Azrael relevant again.

Ah and always be sure to play DA and not a DA succesor. Playing DA succesor is living the nightmare of having all the weak DA stuff, but non of the good.

abyrn wrote:

 Stux wrote:

 Whereswaldo wrote:
Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

Dark Angels were somewhat decent compared to other marines until the new Space Marine Codex came out. That was a huge boost to Codex compliant chapters, but left Dark Angels in the dust a bit. They still aren't terrible, because they never were. But they are somewhat worse by comparison.

They lack doctrines and their chapter tactic is frankly a joke compared to the new ones. They are carried as far as they can be by Azrael and Weapons from the Dark Age.

They have the issue common to all marines that they aren't really durable enough for their cost. For Codex marines this is made up for with their new powerful abilities, but for Dark Angels you're really going to want a bit of soup to compete I'm afraid - such as Guard for chaff models and cheap CP. This is one advantage you have, that there's no downside to souping whereas the new Codex marines are fairly heavily disincentivised from doing it.

Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for an updated codex, but who knows...

The only problem I have with souping is that as soon as you start adding in things from other armies you realize you are better off just dropping the DA stuff and keeping stuff from better codexes. In my opinion we have one single combination of units that you can't find a better version of somewhere else, and that is the Talonmaster supported by Sammael. Plasma and WotDA is good, but there are so many minuses to hit going around that Plasma can be difficult to use. Though the increase of gravis armor to 3W might make Azrael relevant again.

I'm not totally sold on Sammael and Talonmaster. Sure, it's not bad, but there's only so much that 4 assault cannons and 4 heavy bolters can do, even with the re-rolls. It doesn't make an army.

But I get what you're saying with soup. I totally respect wanting to keep it pure DA, but if doing so you just need to be aware that you're at quite a disadvantage now compared to Codex marines.

The thing about DA is that aside from WftDA, all of its worthwhile stratagems are either for ravenwing or best used on ravenwing. So the only straw that DA has to hold onto is go ravenwing heavy.

 skchsan wrote:
The thing about DA is that aside from WftDA, all of its worthwhile stratagems are either for ravenwing or best used on ravenwing. So the only straw that DA has to hold onto is go ravenwing heavy.

I just don't feel like that is particularly viable in a meta focused on a lot of plasma and similar type weapons. Bikes and speeders and just so flimsy. You can jink, but Speeders can't shoot then.

 Stux wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
The thing about DA is that aside from WftDA, all of its worthwhile stratagems are either for ravenwing or best used on ravenwing. So the only straw that DA has to hold onto is go ravenwing heavy.

I just don't feel like that is particularly viable in a meta focused on a lot of plasma and similar type weapons. Bikes and speeders and just so flimsy. You can jink, but Speeders can't shoot then.

Yeah its a gakky meta to be SM in general, more so as DA/SW (not even going to mention GK). Hopefully the new update shakes things up a bit.

So pretty much what I said to soup or die. As bitter a pill as it is to take with the game as it is most imperial lists are better souped up, just get it all in a bread bowl it'll be good I swear.

If you'll go monodex these days that won't be the strongest imperial lists at least not until they try and give potent reasons for you not to soup or nerfs all the soup elements.

That is unless they change design ideas and other books don't offer reasons to not soup and what they did with the marines was just a blip on the radar we'll need more books to see what happens, GW isn't exactly known for staying true to course as you can easily see with the new chaos codex and the new marine codex, a very short time in between but a boundless difference in feel and competitive design space.

At the end of the day, just make the army you'd like to play. As what is competitive will jump around a ton. Pick the army you like, the units you love. If you chase the competitive and strong meta dragon, you will never really catch it for long and the chase will ultimately leave you feeling empty.

Thanks for all of the input. I think at this point I'm going to finish stripping and painting them up as DA and roll with it. I have knights and might splash some imperial guard if I get my mini backlog caught up. At this point in the hobby im not going to be chasing the meta, I would rather not just get destroyed game by game. Worst comes to worst I guess I could always run them as a codex custom chapter and be wysisyg ... hopefully the new DA/BA/SW codexes will bring them in line.

Thats very good news to hear. I too have some forces I could ally in but if I'm honest I kind of don't like allies in their use. Feels more like a min max move and takes away from the cohesive feel of my army for me anyways.


I'm sure any new book they get will bring them up to snuff. You have to remember asking for competitive advice online people are going to tell you the bleeding edge. Depending on where you are playing you may be perfectly fine with your standard DA lists. Not every place is full of players " going pro " believe it or not many players play hard but actually like their army to feel like an army and not just a min max test in list building.

As long as you are a good player I doubt you'd get destroyed game after game, even if you take some soft units as DA even with how they stand have some solid tools, they just aren't super flashy tools they'll still get the job done. Don't under estimate the effect of some dark age plasma.

 Whereswaldo wrote:
Since im in the process of stripping 5k + worth of models if DA are that bottom of the barrel I might look at doing a custom chapter and have the ability to go codex or DA depending on rules setup ... idk, wasnt expecting them to be that bad off

They're not that bad off. I and like 5 other people I know do pretty well with Space Wolves, who are also literally down there in overall statistics. I wouldn't pick them for my tournament-ready list, but I know 3 people who do pick them and do well. The relative power differential this edition between best codex and worst codex is smaller than it's been in a long time.


That said, most lists that are top-of-the-top are absolutely multifaction, unless your faction can't take multifaction, and being multifaction is usually a fair step up from monofaction. And as DA, you have no reason not to take a small bucket of guardsmen that can fuel your abilities and make your DA units able do their cool things more often.

The gap between codex marines and DA just got a lot bigger so the only way you could even begin to compete is to take units that the former does not have access to.

The Azrael bubble is still good but the static Hellblaster castle just isn't that great. I'd probably look at going 2x5 hellblasters in Impulsors with darkshroud and push upfield. Drop Azrael in pod where the hellblasters exit and then go to work. Add some aggressors for defensive measures.
Ravenwing take flanks led by Talonmaster (although I think Black Knights overcosted so go regular bikes). So basically you're looking at a mobile castle that hits center, plus a flanking Ravenwing element. Sniper scouts and las contemptor dreads take your back line.

 Whereswaldo wrote:
... if I get my mini backlog caught up.

What is this alien concept you speak of?