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.

Daemons.

Flamers can burn things. Use a Disc Herald maximize flame templates. Then use Herald to shoot Gaze to lengthen wound pool.

Screamers can turbo-boost and use slashing attacks. Might not look bad, but two full squads criss-crossing and landing near Fateweaver for a re-rollable 4++.

While it may not be the "best", I'm a massive fan of the Death & Despair squad deep striking* on turn one next to a juicy unit which thought it was safe behind cover.

*Veil of Darkness, really, but it's essentially the same thing.

Though I've never run it, I think a DA/GK list with Belial + Termies and Mordrak, along with a single drop pod of whatever, would be pretty fun. Maybe not super-competitive, but fun.

 PipeAlley wrote:
Abuse? Then I'd say Doom of Malan'tai in a spore. Spore is semi-sentient so safety there. Doom can move another 6" for disembark. It auto hits every unit within X" with Str ? (4 maybe) AP 2, absorbs wounds, then can shoot a large blast template based on the wounds it just acquired up to Str 10! For a very low point cost. Plus the spore auto attacks with Str 6 shots.

Tyranids in general are sneaky good at DS. Because spore pods and their passengers "must" reserve and DS, it's easy to get more than 50% of your army into reserves. I have a build that reserves 8 of my 11 units, with those units coming in on turn 2 on a 2+ roll thanks to Hive Commander.

Daemons are obviously the king...and I'll be very interested to see whether they keep their core deployment mechanics in their next codex, or if we'll see some evolution there.

Personally, I think running Belial + a DA librarian with Gate of Infinity would be hilarious. Add a 10-man terminator squad for fun and profit.

Safe 24" move every turn, twin-linked everything always. What's not to love?

I've had some fun with drop-podding Wolf Guard with combi-plasmas. They pretty much evaporate any non-vehicle unit, aren't too bad against vehicles either, and are much easier to get into place than flamers. It's obviously just an alpha strike, since the plasmas are one-shot, but I've found that the Wolf Guard are pretty effective generalists even afterward.

Indeed Deamons are quite a bit ahead of any other (deepstrike) army as long as it's based around Tzeentch.

Flamers are insane in killing anything except Flyers (offensive), are very resilient against shooting now they have 2 wounds and require a sacrificial squad if you're going to charge them.

Add in Screamers that out-assault Bloodcrushers while having jetbike speed and can already turboboost over units annihilating them the turn they deepstrike.

And to finish it off a Fateweaver to make sure your already very resilient units are twice as resilient.

I don't see any deepstriking army come close to the above and to be honest I don't see any non-deepstriking list do well against them either.

 skoffs wrote:
While it may not be the "best", I'm a massive fan of the Death & Despair squad deep striking* on turn one next to a juicy unit which thought it was safe behind cover.

*Veil of Darkness, really, but it's essentially the same thing.

Too bad necrons cant reapply that stupid mark every time they deepstrike now. Necron faq changed that (thank god that was so cheesy)

 Vineheart01 wrote:

 skoffs wrote:
While it may not be the "best", I'm a massive fan of the Death & Despair squad deep striking* on turn one next to a juicy unit which thought it was safe behind cover.

*Veil of Darkness, really, but it's essentially the same thing.

Too bad necrons cant reapply that stupid mark every time they deepstrike now. Necron faq changed that (thank god that was so cheesy)

Oh, for sure, no disagreement there (the only people crying about that were WAAC RAW abusing power gamers, the rest of us had already been playing it the way the FAQ ruled it)
... though, it should be noted that you can still mark multiple enemy units.
(you just gotta bring multiple Deathmark units, duh! Seeing as how there's not a lot of amazing things in the elites section of our codex, I usually bring at least two D&D squads in my armies. They always make more than their points back in Terminator helmets).

Hmmm, but itsn't relying on a flame template weapon kinda risky for a deep striking unit? Scatter could easily bring you beyond the flame template range...

wellll, there are ways to help mitigate it (include a Chrono-tek as well), but the squad isn't very expensive, especially when compared to the kinds of things you throw them at (deathstars, etc), so the risk usually pans out.
...
though, ever since the FAQ that turned Nightscythes into the best transports in the game, I have to admit, I've been sticking my D&D squad in one of those wherever possible.