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.

Hey Forum,

I am relatively new to Warhammer 40,000 and I am considering buying a Dark Angels army! However I would like some feedback to the following questions:

Are Dark Angels 6th Edition competitive and can they compete with Taudar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, Imperial Knights and Chaos?

What are some general principles when playing the Dark Angels?

I currently play Orks, how will Dark Angels differ in comparsion?

How much should I expect to invest monetarily before I have a functioning army?

I would really appreciate the feedback as an informed opinion is better than an ignorant one.

Warboss.'eadsmasha wrote:
Hey Forum,

I am relatively new to Warhammer 40,000 and I am considering buying a Dark Angels army! However I would like some feedback to the following questions:

Are Dark Angels 6th Edition competitive and can they compete with Taudar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, Imperial Knights and Chaos?

What are some general principles when playing the Dark Angels?

I currently play Orks, how will Dark Angels differ in comparsion?

How much should I expect to invest monetarily before I have a functioning army?

I would really appreciate the feedback as an informed opinion is better than an ignorant one.

1. almost anything can be competitive if played right and with a good comander. you may have some up hill battles Deathwing VS Tau plasma suits. but yes DA can be good

2. long ranged heavy shooting. fast bikes. tanks pretty much like any SM army just with DA quirks.

3. alot less bodies much better shooting tougher units did i mention less bodies.....my friend once ran a single unit of 33 infantry models. my whole 1850 list contained less than 33 infantry models.

4. depends if you by all new or look for a good deal on the trade forums. id say between 200 and 500 US $ also depends on now many points you want.

good luck

Yes and yes.

The first and most important rule of 40k is to play the army that you love through and through, unless you're playing on the tournament scene, of course.

 Sheokronath wrote:
The first and most important rule of 40k is to play the army that you love through and through, unless you're playing on the tournament scene, of course


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Does this mean have fun matters most?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sounds like dark angels are more for fun than competitive.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Screw it. I'm goin' for it. NEVER FORGET! NEVER FORGIVE!!! THE FALLEN SHALL REPENT!!!!

Warboss.'eadsmasha wrote:
Hey Forum,

I am relatively new to Warhammer 40,000 and I am considering buying a Dark Angels army! However I would like some feedback to the following questions:

Are Dark Angels 6th Edition competitive and can they compete with Taudar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, Imperial Knights and Chaos?

What are some general principles when playing the Dark Angels?

I currently play Orks, how will Dark Angels differ in comparsion?

How much should I expect to invest monetarily before I have a functioning army?

I would really appreciate the feedback as an informed opinion is better than an ignorant one.

The Dark vengance sets are considered by most as a good deal and good starter army, if you dont liek the chaos models you can trade them for other Dark angels, or split it among a friend or similar if they are into that.

Most popular builds tends to be a monowing of the following Deathwing, Greenwing, Ravenwing, wheres DW consists of terminators, Green is mostly tac' dev squads, Ravenwing heavily bike focused, Ravenwing seems the most potent build, prob followed by Dakka banner builds.

Though, note that chaos part of dark vengeance is weak compared to the dark angel's part. On the other hand, CSM players must get used from the start to getting weaker, worse stuff than loyalists for the same buck

The main list that works with the Dark Angels is ravenwing, which is still very good if overshadowed by the white scars as of late.

Deathwing looks awesome because hey; scoring terminators as troops with way more options than Codex termies! You can spam those right?

Except no, because they're insanely over-costed and there's so much AP2 flying around these days that you may as well only really focus on their invulnerable.

And you can't get enough guns with enough oompf to make a deathwing assault sufficiently devastating.

Lascannon devastator spam is also a favorite.

If I were you, I'd check with your group if they were okay with Forgeworld, more specifically the mortis and contemptor dreadnoughts (especially of the mortis variety) as these can give you good dakka and more importantly skyfire/interceptor.

Also they're thematic and mortis dreads were invented by the Dark Angels anyway.

Dark Angels have pretty much always been the redheaded stepchild of Marine armies. And when your army is never very good, you get used to playing uphill. So, if you want to give your opponents an edge, play Dark Angels. It'll never get better, but hey, it can't get much worse!

You need to break the DA codex into 3: Green wing, Deathwing and Ravenwing.

Ravenwing can still be competitive, even at tournament levels. Whilst not the best list out there, they can still potentially surprise opponents.

Greenwing: Use them as space marines with a different chapter tactic. Doing this will give you so many more options, codex DA is the poor man's SM codex.
Doing this isn't a bad idea due to the fact that the DV box set offers potentially cheap minis.

Deathwing. Lol.

Codex SM is newer, has grav weapons, chapter tactics, and several other advantages the DA doesn't get.

The dakka banner + bikes gives a bolter 4 shots per bike, and you can use a plasma gun version to spam 10-20 s7 shots on 3-5 models. Landspeeder the can shroud bikes within 6in. and has an assault cannon. Makes your jink a 3+. All get scout moves and bolter versions are scoring. Its a good one trick pony, and the character that unlocks the build had a jetbike with an underslung plasma cannon like a cyborg donkey.

The terminator spam option isn't great, ^they pretty much nailed why. One unit to strike on turn 1 is a great benefit not to be passed on. A few storm shields up front to tank can help give you a back field plan scrambler and with the bike scout move, your turn 1 strike can be significant.

So long story long, you lose toys and basically gain a good but not great alpha strike and a tactically flexible heavy support section with nothing overwhelming. That alpha can ruin low model count enemies, and it's possible to dance a foot sloggers build, but model swamps like orks and gaurd are going to suck, and everyone is going to jump to IG or MA or whatever with the new codex.

again... anything is competitive. a buddy of mine uses huge squads of noise marines and lucius and fabius at 2000 points and still no heldrake and he wins.

play Dark Angels. and, if you lose your balls, then you can switch over to vanilla Marines.

Dark Angel marines can be found on ebay for cheap. Yes they don't have the new bling like the other SM codex, but they are still marines, same points for the same stat line. Start an army for the models love the army for its differences.

Ravenwing is competitive and with Knights, top tier.

Everything else in the codex is bad, from a rules perspective.

no, everything else in the codex is not bad.

I think they can be very strong with the right build plus they have some flexibility. They do not have grav guns but they've got lots of other neat things like PFG and night visors.

again... anything is competitive. a buddy of mine uses huge squads of noise marines and lucius and fabius at 2000 points and still no heldrake and he wins.

play Dark Angels. and, if you lose your balls, then you can switch over to vanilla Marines.

I wouldn't take this advice without caveat. Not everything is competitive, as 40k is not a balanced game. Furthermore, it depends on what you define as "competitive play." You don't see Dark Angels making the top tables of recent GTs for a reason. I can tell you that this isn't due to lack of player imagination either.

The problem is, the top tier competitive armies rely on very hard to kill units (mostly deathstars) to do damage. Their troops exist to hide in reserves as long as possible. With Ravenwing, the troops are the main damage dealers, which means they are exposed to fire early. When you play against other competitive lists, pouring fire into damage dealing units means having to ignore the troops. When playing against Ravenwing, killing troops and damage dealers is one in the same.

You mean Rad-grenades, auto hit and run, Darkshrouds... Grav guns are superfluous now that Knights are sufficient to hunt down Riptides and WKS and Deathstars.

Chess isn't balanced either, what's your point?

Chess isn't balanced either, what's your point?

What does that even mean?

My point is, they aren't a competitive codex, at least not in my opinion. Again, they aren't winning or placing high in any major GTs and haven't since just after they came out. Saying things like "balls up" and play them is all well and good for you, but the OP is going to invest hundreds of dollars into an army. Depending on whether or not he/she wants to compete at the highest levels of 40k, this is a bad investment.

Dark Angels are a lower-end book. There isn't really much else to say. I've tried hard to make them work recently by allying some new stuff, and I still don't see it.

The Internet says they are not competitive. The Internet is always right .

The Internet says they are not competitive. The Internet is always right .

What a childish retort. As I mentioned, I playtested Dark Angel lists extensively as of late in an effort to get something a bit weird to work. In fact, the playtests came against fellow Dakkaite Trix, who is fresh off coming in second overall at a tiny little event called Adepticon No theory-crafting or group-think here, just actual games. But go ahead and write-off my opinion and keep telling yourself that everything is competitive if you'd like. It doesn't affect me any.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The Internet says they are not competitive. The Internet is always right .

There's also data, experience, and mathematics to back this up. The only thing keeping C:SM in business is the gravstar, and the DA don't have one of those. Because actual meqs are fecal matter atm.

I am pointing out you might not want to believe everything you read. I apologize for coming across as derisive. Of course your opinions are just as valid as mine if not more so. I feel that Dark Angels are competitive based upon my test games. Azreal is the linch pin making both bikers and terminators scoring. It's kind of like they got clumped in the same group as Tyranids which I think is not fair to either army.

I am pointing out you might not want to believe everything you read. I apologize for coming across as derisive. Of course your opinions are just as valid as mine if not more so. I feel that Dark Angels are competitive based upon my test games. Azreal is the linch pin making both bikers and terminators scoring. It's kind of like they got clumped in the same group as Tyranids which I think is not fair to either army.

Fair enough and no offense taken. Sorry for any perceived hostility on my part as well.

I'd agree that they aren't as bad as they are made out to be, but I just see too many issues in the list to call them "competitive" in the sense that I could see them winning a GT. TBH, I do think the Nids with the Skyblight formation is a top tier list--like, could easily throw the meta into a tizzy if people could be bothered to shell out the extreme amount of cash needed to build an 8 FMC list plus Gargs.

I actually have a winning record vs DA with BA. They can't be that good. Eldar players far below my skill level are massacring me. DA are nowhere near that.

A major downfall of the DA codex is the forced payments for toys you don't necessarily want. Ravenwing bikers force-pay for teleport homers, terminators force-pay for fearless, transport LRs force-pay for Deathwing Vehicle. You need special weapons and banners to have a hope at mirroring enemy damage output, which you have to do at 24'' so you have to buy transports to get there or buildings to camp in. The army gets pigeon-holed in too many ways. It has a few passable builds, and they do well in a casual environment. But that's about it.

The army is better suited filling holes in other armies with its few gems. Black Knights, primarily.

Black Knights are really good !

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I am pointing out you might not want to believe everything you read. I apologize for coming across as derisive. Of course your opinions are just as valid as mine if not more so. I feel that Dark Angels are competitive based upon my test games. Azreal is the linch pin making both bikers and terminators scoring. It's kind of like they got clumped in the same group as Tyranids which I think is not fair to either army.

Ravenwing is good.

Greenwing is okay.

Deathwing is one of the worst builds in the game, tied with Synapseless Formationless Tyranids, Mono-Khorne Daemons/Marines, and Joke unit spam Guard for the bottom of the barrel.

That's right, an actually serious build is tied with two joke lists for the worst build in the game.

It is apocalyptically, unreasonably, all consumingly awful.

I'm so sad now, I literally (like 2 weeks ago) decided to start collecting a 40k army ( I have played fantasy since middle school, and I have 3 armies) ...

The armies I were debating between were something SM and Orkz

I decided to go Dark Angels because people always say pick the army that looks the best to you, and Deathwing anything looked Amazing to me...

I walked in the store and told the GW employee my delema too, and he said "Oh yeah, just go for the DA, the ork codex isn't 6th edition yet so it could change a lot if you start with that"

I bought some termies, some tacs, a DA bit kit, and some veterans... enjoyed painting them


Start looking for list ideas, where I should start collecting next :

"DA suck"
"Not worth collecting"
"Barely casual worthy"

:( Did I mention I started playing Dark elves in 5th edition, when they were laughably the worst army and certainly the least newby friendly.
I always seem to do this.

/rant