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For a Dualwing/DeathRaven list, is it better to use just Azrael or Belial and/or Sammael? Azrael seems to be the best bet seeing as how he makes both DW and RW troops but the problem I have with him is what unit do I put him in, especially considering that the best thing the two units do (speed for RW, deep striking on turn 1 with DW) can't be done if Azrael is part of the unit. I would think sticking him in a command squad would do the trick, but at the cost of kitting them out to be useful + taking the razorback/droppod you need you might as well just take Belial and Sammael.


Also one more question, can a RW Sgt take both a powersword and plasma pistol or can he only take one?

I think you need to ask yourself what else does Azrael bring, the increased leadership, invul save and pick his warlord trait.
More importantly he also lets you take a libby with a force generator on a bike which can be awesome with significant numbers of bikes on the table.

Those two cost out around the same as beliel and sammael.

Can Azrael just deep strike with a DW unit?
With all the bikes with homers he should come in pretty safely.

canadianguy wrote:
I think you need to ask yourself what else does Azrael bring, the increased leadership, invul save and pick his warlord trait.
More importantly he also lets you take a libby with a force generator on a bike which can be awesome with significant numbers of bikes on the table.

Those two cost out around the same as beliel and sammael.

Can Azrael just deep strike with a DW unit?
With all the bikes with homers he should come in pretty safely.

I've always wanted to have a libby in a bike, the problem is just making the model

Azrael can't deepstrike with termies, he doesnt wear TDA...

Azreal is absolutely awesome. I used him last weekend in a tournament with great success! I lost only two games due to the shear expereince the two players brought to the table I never once failed a leadership test with any unit, the 4+ Invul is absolutely amazing, and depending on my opponent I chose which Warlord trait was the best! Can't beat that

Additionally, I stuck him and Ezekiel into a squad of five termies and recked every CC incounter on the board. This gave Ezekiel a 4+ Invul and in return Ezekiel gave him a 1+ to WS! Craziness bro

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

canadianguy wrote:
I think you need to ask yourself what else does Azrael bring, the increased leadership, invul save and pick his warlord trait.
More importantly he also lets you take a libby with a force generator on a bike which can be awesome with significant numbers of bikes on the table.

Those two cost out around the same as beliel and sammael.

Can Azrael just deep strike with a DW unit?
With all the bikes with homers he should come in pretty safely.

I've always wanted to have a libby in a bike, the problem is just making the model

Azrael can't deepstrike with termies, he doesnt wear TDA...

I actually did a fairly easy conversion using the libby from the DV set and the bike that comes with the robe.

I used a robed biker painted it blue and volia!, libby on bike added a few other bits as well.

I have also had the same quandry, do I take sammael and belial as the synergy with the units they make troops is a lot better then Azreals, and I have had the exact same question, what unit do I put him in!

I would recommend Sammael with a libbie biker OR techmarine riding in a LRC either carrying a power field generator. Id go heavy RW with a single unit of termies to take advantage of all those homers. Banner of devastation in tow.

In my case, I have a nice captain on bike I built for my space marines with a bike and the commander box. I think I will do my first experience with green stuff and add a hood to it and then the model all blue with green shoulder pads.
He already has a power sword. The only problem is the Iron halo on his back pack, bit it could be his catalyst for the power generator.

So I intend to use a librarian very regularly (maybe two), but at least one in each games.

For all that Azrael allows you to take death and ravenwing units as troops I don't think he really allows either to work at maximum effectiveness. He can't keep up with the bikes and he can't make use of the best deathwing special rules. In my view he seems much better suited for a PA army with maybe a unit each of RW and DW to fill out the troops choices.

 Flinty wrote:
For all that Azrael allows you to take death and ravenwing units as troops I don't think he really allows either to work at maximum effectiveness. He can't keep up with the bikes and he can't make use of the best deathwing special rules. In my view he seems much better suited for a PA army with maybe a unit each of RW and DW to fill out the troops choices.

What would be the best deployment for the termies in this kind of army list? Would you setup your termies as shooties and walk your way to the ennemy or use your bikes as scouts and teleport in turn 1?

 Flinty wrote:
For all that Azrael allows you to take death and ravenwing units as troops I don't think he really allows either to work at maximum effectiveness. He can't keep up with the bikes and he can't make use of the best deathwing special rules. In my view he seems much better suited for a PA army with maybe a unit each of RW and DW to fill out the troops choices.

This is exactly how I feel. IMO the best way to utilize DeathRaven is to scout your bikes as far up as possible then on turn 1 use their teleport homers to drop some termies right onto objectives and/or the enemie's front door. It basically forces your oponent to play on your terms since you are going to be dictating where everyone goes. If you take Azrael, you're always going to have that one unit of termies or bikes that is slower than everyone else and has to footslog across the board.

It depends on what your army will look like.

If you take mostly DW and 1 squad of RW support -> Belial.
The other way around -> Sammael

A little bit of everything? Azrael with a command squad in DP / RB.

 Seb wrote:
It depends on what your army will look like.

If you take mostly DW and 1 squad of RW support -> Belial.
The other way around -> Sammael

A little bit of everything? Azrael with a command squad in DP / RB.

But as I pointed out earlier to properly kit out the command squad to be more than meat shields for Azrael would cost more than taking both Belial and Sammael.

For example. A command Squad with apothacary, four plasmaguns or powerswords (whether you want to make them shooty or a semi-deathstar), and a drop costs 210 pts. With Azrael in the unit the total cost is 425. Belial and Sammael together cost only 390 pts. Thats and extra 35 points that you could put towards your termies units giving them a chainfist or another th/ss, or even towards your bikes given them melta bombs or plasma pistols on the Sgt..

Add to the fact that you're going to have all these tough units on the board with high toughness and cover saves, and 2+ armor and 3++ invulns, then you have this gimpy little PA unit running around with them, Azrael's 4++ he gives to his unit can only do so much...

Personally I like Azrael for Deathraven lists. First off, forget the command squad for the reasons you've allready mentioned. Thats not your only options though. You can take a 9-man tac squad with a flamer, fit the sgt. with a power whatever and send them screaming into the enemy in a drop pod. Its cheaper and with the 4++ save from the lionhelm your getting more bolter shots for about the same survivability as having an apothecary in the squad (basically). Not sure if an assault squad has to number 10 models to swap their jump packs for a free drop pod but thats another option either way and they can still take the flamer. Personally I like the tac choice as it plugs nicely into an all Troops list. Veterans with stormbolters are another option though they will run the risk of being just as expensive as the command squad (though I think the veterans are better).

Starting ratio of units:
Azrael
5 deathwing terminators
3 ravenwing bikers
5 tactical marines

Larger game ratio's:
Azrael
Ezikiel
10 deathwing terminators
Full Ravenwing squadron (6 bikes, land speeder, attack bike)
(not sure if this is doable) 10 man tac squad, combat squaded, 5 in DP, 5 on foot, IC's, assault weapon and sgt. in DP, heavy weapon deployed on foot

so on and so forth

In a 2k game I might just go Belial though and just plop him down turn 1 in a big 10 man deathwing squad. Nominate your remaining termies to come in reserves like normal and just come in right on Belial's teleport homer. Back them up with lots of sniper or bolter scouts with cammo cloaks. Something like two 5 man terminator squads, 4 10 man scout squads, and the one 10 man terminator squad for Belial. You can still take some ravenwing since bikes are good to have but you dont implicitly need them now.

I like having a ravenwing element on both flanks, a simple squad of 3 with an attached attack bike gives me this. This allows Belial to drop where he wants and gives the rest of the terminators a decent chance of being able to drop on a homer and still be in a good position. Only scout your bikes right up if you have the first turn, or else they tend to evaporate :p

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 Seb wrote:
It depends on what your army will look like.

If you take mostly DW and 1 squad of RW support -> Belial.
The other way around -> Sammael

A little bit of everything? Azrael with a command squad in DP / RB.

But as I pointed out earlier to properly kit out the command squad to be more than meat shields for Azrael would cost more than taking both Belial and Sammael.

For example. A command Squad with apothacary, four plasmaguns or powerswords (whether you want to make them shooty or a semi-deathstar), and a drop costs 210 pts. With Azrael in the unit the total cost is 425. Belial and Sammael together cost only 390 pts. Thats and extra 35 points that you could put towards your termies units giving them a chainfist or another th/ss, or even towards your bikes given them melta bombs or plasma pistols on the Sgt..

Add to the fact that you're going to have all these tough units on the board with high toughness and cover saves, and 2+ armor and 3++ invulns, then you have this gimpy little PA unit running around with them, Azrael's 4++ he gives to his unit can only do so much...

FTR, I mainly play CSM. Lastly, I heard that some people would put Abbadon in a shooty squad just to use as a CC deterent (charge me and I'll chop you to bits, don't charge me and I'll shoot you to pieces). I can easily imagine doing so with Azrael. That frees up your spot for a librarian (either in TDA or on a bike) for those much needed psy powers. Depending on where you drop your command squad pod, Azrael can always chose to join some DS terminators.

Not such a bad idea IMHO.

For DeathRaven I would rather run Azrael and a Librarian myself.

I would put him either with a squad of shooty terminators, increasing their invul & giving him a nice dakka squadron to footslog with (though I would go for a LRC if fielding 7 or less).

Or more likely I would run him with a command squad. The Squad runs a company champion, apothecary, 4 power swords (1 on the apothecary) & a chapter banner (I would consider giving the standard bearer guy a storm shield if this was with an interrorgator, but seeing as it's with Azrael theres no need).

I run that squad in a land raider ideally, whichever variant is needed. Charging they have 5 AP3 attacks each (4 AP3 attacks for apothecary) & Azrael has 7 S6 AP3. They can use a drop pod, razorback etc.. but I just think the Supreme Grand Master probably has a couple land raiders he's fond of...

Edit: add some melta bombs for good measure

smee wrote:
For DeathRaven I would rather run Azrael and a Librarian myself.

I would put him either with a squad of shooty terminators, increasing their invul & giving him a nice dakka squadron to footslog with (though I would go for a LRC if fielding 7 or less).

Or more likely I would run him with a command squad. The Squad runs a company champion, apothecary, 4 power swords (1 on the apothecary) & a chapter banner (I would consider giving the standard bearer guy a storm shield if this was with an interrorgator, but seeing as it's with Azrael theres no need).

I run that squad in a land raider ideally, whichever variant is needed. Charging they have 5 AP3 attacks each (4 AP3 attacks for apothecary) & Azrael has 7 S6 AP3. They can use a drop pod, razorback etc.. but I just think the Supreme Grand Master probably has a couple land raiders he's fond of...

Edit: add some melta bombs for good measure

I don't think you're allowed to give the apothecary a power weapon, unless there is a FAQ I don't know about.

The problem I have with this type of Deathstar (and all deathstars in general usually) is that you're putting too many of your ducks in one pound, so to speak. Yes the unit will kill most anything you assault with, but against some powerful large blast artilletry or another armie's deathstar its going to get creamed. A 4++ save only goes so far, especially with only a 3+ armor. And if its destroyed, not only have you lost a powerful cc unit, you've also just given your opponent Slay the Warlord.

Im starting to think that the Belail/Sammael combo is better than Azrael. There's just no good DW or RW unit to put him in, and building a unit around him takes away precious points that you should be using on your Termies and Bikes...

Personally, i like Sammael on jetbike for the added mobility brought to the army, and the fact that having a greater number of bikes with locator beacons on them means that you have the option to bring in your deathwing termies in more areas (if that makes sense)

Some questions you should ask yourself before you actually pick your HQ:
- What Elite/Fast Attack Options do you want to field? If you want to field a Darkshroud and multiple Land Speeders or Knights and a Dropnought additionally to your DW and RW Squads you should move the respective choice to Troops (The RW can take the Speeders through the normal squads tough. Something you should not forget.).

- Who will actually fulfill your scoring role? I for myself see bikes only as a delivery-system of Locators so it would not hurt me if those 2-3 min-sized squads would not score (But I have no intention to run Dualwing myself ) as those job would be done by the Termis. But if you take the Termis just to deliver a cc-Hammer on your bike-Anvil you would not need them to score either. This is a bit a question on the dominance of one wing in your list as you will always have a more point/foc intensive wing wich you should try to support as he will benefit more from it.
-> And as sup-point of this: Do you really have enough Troops? In Dualwing with only one type of scoring units I could see you running out of scoring units at the end of the game even if they are resilient as Bikes or Termis, so adding in the other HQ or some small Tac Squads good be good.

- What do you want your HQ to do? You should ask yourself why do you bring your HQ at all. Do want a single Termi-Squad to not have to depend on Locators? Or a unit-wide 4++? A big Distraction-Land Speeder with AV 14 which soaks up fire from your other units? Sammael is probably the strongest fighter on himself from the three as he brings excellent shooting and nice damage output and resilience in cc in his bike form, but TH/SS or Fleshbane is both good too. And after all this there is always the awesome Libby which can use your second HQ-slot and can go with both wings. Here you should try out what works best for you especially as two of three available ICs have multiple options.

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:


Add to the fact that you're going to have all these tough units on the board with high toughness and cover saves, and 2+ armor and 3++ invulns, then you have this gimpy little PA unit running around with them, Azrael's 4++ he gives to his unit can only do so much...

For 115 you can get 5 3+/4++ models with FNP....

That's one hell of a resilient assault unit and for a sensible cost...

In fact, the only thing staying my hand on that is a delivery method and the AP3 on Azrael I feel directs the squad towards MEQ killing, which could gimp you against Terminator lists and make an expensive unit impotent against competing deathstars.

Wanna know what else is good at killing MEQs? Terminators. Makes me wonder if Power Armor models are worth getting at all. In fact, it makes me wonder if any of the ICs in the entire Codex are worth it aside from their FOC bonuses.

I think Azrael might be good if you take a 5 man tac squad or a devastator squad for backfield camping/fire support in a Dualwing list. He could also work well if you are deploying any Terminators in a Land Raider (just stick him with 5 in a Crusader).

RegalPhantom wrote:
I think Azrael might be good if you take a 5 man tac squad or a devastator squad for backfield camping/fire support in a Dualwing list. He could also work well if you are deploying any Terminators in a Land Raider (just stick him with 5 in a Crusader).

Why would I want a 200p SC monster that eats MEQs for breakfast in close combat standing in the backfield babysitting a devastator squad that costs have as much as he does?

TedNugent wrote:

Wanna know what else is good at killing MEQs? Terminators. Makes me wonder if Power Armor models are worth getting at all. In fact, it makes me wonder if any of the ICs in the entire Codex are worth it aside from their FOC bonuses.

Belial lets you deep strike without scattering. This is invaluable. Either you eat something alive, or limit the deployment options of your opponent, or both.

 TedNugent wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:


Add to the fact that you're going to have all these tough units on the board with high toughness and cover saves, and 2+ armor and 3++ invulns, then you have this gimpy little PA unit running around with them, Azrael's 4++ he gives to his unit can only do so much...

For 115 you can get 5 3+/4++ models with FNP....

That's one hell of a resilient assault unit and for a sensible cost...

In fact, the only thing staying my hand on that is a delivery method and the AP3 on Azrael I feel directs the squad towards MEQ killing, which could gimp you against Terminator lists and make an expensive unit impotent against competing deathstars.

Wanna know what else is good at killing MEQs? Terminators. Makes me wonder if Power Armor models are worth getting at all. In fact, it makes me wonder if any of the ICs in the entire Codex are worth it aside from their FOC bonuses.

As I said earlier, the 115 basic coomand squad is little more than a meat shield for Azrael. Their basic assault stats are fine if all ur gonna assault is weak hordes and maybe basic eldar troops, but are you really going to waste Azrael like that? No, you're gonna go MEQ hunting with the squad. And to have them be even remotely useful at that, you're going to have to spend at least another 90 pts on them giving them power weapons and/or plasmaguns, even more if you want a banner on them...

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

As I said earlier, the 115 basic coomand squad is little more than a meat shield for Azrael. Their basic assault stats are fine if all ur gonna assault is weak hordes and maybe basic eldar troops, but are you really going to waste Azrael like that? No, you're gonna go MEQ hunting with the squad. And to have them be even remotely useful at that, you're going to have to spend at least another 90 pts on them giving them power weapons and/or plasmaguns, even more if you want a banner on them...

That's not necessary when Azrael has 4 master crafted S6 WS6 I5 Power Weapon attacks with Pistol. That's 6 S6 on the charge, or 3.5 dead MEQs at I5. You can pick Warlord trait, ergo you can pick Furious Charge. Each model w/ pistol+CCW puts out 3 attacks, 4 on the charge, at S5? That right there would wipe out a combat squad in one turn if you got the charge.

And like I said earlier, there is no way to "waste" Azrael on killing cheap units, which is what he's good at. The only way to waste him is to overspend and then you run into a deathstar or a unit of Terminators, one power fist and it's lights out for Azrael. And his power sword ping ping pings off their armor. Best not to overspend, IMO.