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.

 Ascalam wrote:

 clamclaw wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
You cant dangle a "dont even try" in the poll and not expect people to click it

But really i feel like orks would be the easiest to beat.
Generally mono build and nearly everything you take should be good against them.


But DA just seems to have a bad case of AP2 everywhereism.

Raven wing wasnt sooo bad IIRC.

yeah, and one could make a case that the Skitarii have some serious flaws. their heaviest armor is AV 12.

IIRC there is a heavy Skitarii vehicle coming out, right? Looked kind of like a tank turret on top of a Defiler. Or has this already been released at AV12?

It's AV 12.

That said, Eldar have nothing above AV 12 either. AV is not the be all and end all.

Maybe but I figured someone out there was gonna be saying the Onager sucks because it's not AV 14 on each sides, has a bajillion hull points and can one shot a titan

 Xenomancers wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
I'm capable of wrecking house with CSM from time to time....with Nids, even with the formations and drop-pods, not so much.

So I'm voting for Tyranids over CSM, with the realization that I may just haven't figured out how to play well with them yet.

Caveat: I do not and will not play with more than 2 Flyrants, and I know there is some high-powered 5 Flyrant thing going around.

Serious dude? those nid drop pods are probably the most underpriced unit in the game for what you get...come on - it's a drop pod that can move and fires 15 str 5 shots and it has 5 wounds and an armor save t5 - and AP2 attacks in CC!!!! Just put dakka fex or a dakka tyrant or some other mean MC inside and destroy things. Those dang eggs are the bane of my existence

I'd rather a 35 point objective secured drop pod that comes in turn 1.

militarum tempestus is the worst, dark angels and orks occupy 2nd n 3rd place. the sad reality is that dark angels get ragged on and voted the worst so often because they currently the most populous army globally in 40k. if you broke down the playerbase of 40k based on faction codex (and supplement) dark angels tower over the others and its because gw pushes them as the introductory army. the reality however is that they arent that terrible, imo the orks have the worst codex because their supplement isnt better than what they have to begin with and they have 0 going for them in the current brb at all, their a horde armny trying to be an elite unit army in a brb that punishes them at every turn for following their nature and being a horde. tyranids also have this problem but shield of baal basically cured them forever of that problem

the orks have low leadership and gw continues to hand out fear like bloody candy and on top of that now we have a terrain that basically screams anti horde gunlines. the dark angels are an elite army and they have the best elite choices and fast attack choices of many of the space marine armies. and they can be good but imo the ignorance of the dark angel playerbase and their narrow minded views of our codex prevent them from seeing greater possibilities trying to simply be another army rather than being their own force. im all for doing themed lists but ravenwing and deathwing are really just poor imitations of better armies netlists (white scars, grey knights, eldar). dark angels are a multifaceted force and they could be awesome if the community collectively took off their blinders and stopped trying to shovel pure deathwing and pure ravenwing down their throats.

DA lack the marine power units. They can never be "awesome". Just like the BA.

Martel732 wrote:
DA lack the marine power units. They can never be "awesome". Just like the BA.

negative they can do just fine without the marines fancy new units, they certainly dont need sternguard our company veterans are just as good. i dont think anyone takes vanguard veterans seriously. the land speeder storm is a situational item at best granting shotguns a little more practical value and pistol and sword scouts a little less useless.

centurions are incredibly expensive points wise and while powerful are very risky losing even one is a huge loss of points, to put things into perspective everytime a centurion dies youve lost a dreadnaught (approx)

this really just leaves the planes and we can take tham via the dataslate so the arguement for them is moot. our bikes are superior to marine bikers and that really only leaves the chapter master as anything they have going over us and their only relevant so long as they have the superior relics table and orbital bombardment.

grav is not that big of a boon to the marines alone.

the reason we dont ever do well is because everyone runs the same two lists and as a community dark angels players threaten to do everything shy of exterminatus to get you to field those two lists even though time after time theyve been proven to be awful but they do it anyway. if anythong the playerbase for dark angels is just god awful due to inexperience, fear of attempting things differently, or out of sheer blind ignorance to the possibilities around them that they casually ignore to play with nothing but bikes or terminators all day. and if ud like to know why the turnover of players out of angels and into new armies is so bad its because they attempt to play those two lists without any idea what their doing get stomped badly and call it sh!t and toss their models on ebay.

and as for blood angels their actually very good you clearly have never tried to cc dante in your life before he can wipe out squadrons of light vehicles by himself. ive seen him eat squads of units without his attached squad ever raising a finger.

Pretty sure I can make a vanilla marine army that will wipe up BA and DA about 75% of the time. Using Centurions.

Dante is okay in CC. But he's not cheap and doesn't add much to the lists I run.

Whoops... there doesn't seem to be anything here.

Legion of the damned. Why have I been the only one so far to say it? Literally the worst. Can't actually win (or even get a body on the board) as a solo dex. It is impossible to have a worse codex.
It is the winner for worst solo dex - that is fact not opinion.

I'm surprised SoB got so many votes?
The Codex is...... lacking........ at best. But in terms of "strength of the army" in-game, they beat a lot of lists. Tournament play they come up quite high, too (if played "properly").

No one playing the army does not make it a bad army

 BlackTalos wrote:
I'm surprised SoB got so many votes?
The Codex is...... lacking........ at best. But in terms of "strength of the army" in-game, they beat a lot of lists. Tournament play they come up quite high, too (if played "properly").

No one playing the army does not make it a bad army

yeah its weird - Sisters have some very nasty units...........

Amusing that some people dared to put Eldar

DA is consider weaker then SM only because they have to pay more for pretty much everything, and screved flyers with no stalkers or other AA options in the codex.

I personally have never found Dark Angels to be as terrible as a lot of people make out. I've played them a few times and they haven't done too badly for me.

I think a lot of it is from them being compared to the Space Marine codex and all the stuff they have, e.g. fliers, anti-flyer, centurions, grav, sternguard ammo etc.

However, where Dark Angels outshine Codex: SM is their unique structure and their ability to take multiple things in the same force. For example, with a Dark Angel force you can field the best of Ravenwing, some Deathwing and the standard greenwing marines in the same army and they compliment each other pretty well. With Space Marines, if you want to use the good bikes (i.e. White Scars) then you have to use a White Scars detachment, but with that you don't get the good terminators in the same detachment (okay terminators are generally poor in the current game, but Deathwing and GK's are the best out of a poor bunch).

To do good bikers and good terminators in the same army would involve White Scar and say Grey Knights as two separate detachments, or if you want good White Scar bikers and some powerful melta/flamer alpha striking, you need to take another detachment with Salamanders. What I'm trying to say is that Dark Angels can bring lots of different combinations of specialist units into the same force without the need for multiple detachments.

One such example, outflanking bikers full of plasma (Black Knight ones have skilled rider), terminators that arrive from deepstrike automatically with twin linked weapons, equipment such as the power field generator to give their marines a 4+ invun save to go with their stubborn rule thus making them tough to shift from objectives, the standard of devastation (one of the best things ever!) for bolter destruction etc etc. Vanilla marines can't do all that in the same force if they don't want multiple Imperial first, white scar, ravenguard, salamander etc detachments.

Several of their units need a definite improvement, but they are far from a terrible army. Tri-wing all the way for me - individual DW or RW don't really work, but combined with greenwing, they can be something reasonably good.

 ionusx wrote:
negative they can do just fine without the marines fancy new units, they certainly dont need sternguard our company veterans are just as good. i dont think anyone takes vanguard veterans seriously. the land speeder storm is a situational item at best granting shotguns a little more practical value and pistol and sword scouts a little less useless.

centurions are incredibly expensive points wise and while powerful are very risky losing even one is a huge loss of points, to put things into perspective everytime a centurion dies youve lost a dreadnaught (approx)

this really just leaves the planes and we can take tham via the dataslate so the arguement for them is moot. our bikes are superior to marine bikers and that really only leaves the chapter master as anything they have going over us and their only relevant so long as they have the superior relics table and orbital bombardment.

grav is not that big of a boon to the marines alone.

the reason we dont ever do well is because everyone runs the same two lists and as a community dark angels players threaten to do everything shy of exterminatus to get you to field those two lists even though time after time theyve been proven to be awful but they do it anyway. if anythong the playerbase for dark angels is just god awful due to inexperience, fear of attempting things differently, or out of sheer blind ignorance to the possibilities around them that they casually ignore to play with nothing but bikes or terminators all day. and if ud like to know why the turnover of players out of angels and into new armies is so bad its because they attempt to play those two lists without any idea what their doing get stomped badly and call it sh!t and toss their models on ebay.

and as for blood angels their actually very good you clearly have never tried to cc dante in your life before he can wipe out squadrons of light vehicles by himself. ive seen him eat squads of units without his attached squad ever raising a finger.

Are you drunk good Sir?

If you think Grav Cents aren't a major boon to vanilla marines then you've failed one too many leadership checks for your own good. If you think stubborn as a chapter tactic is worth the price of admission compared to quite literally every other chapter, even Templars or Raven Guard, then you're only fooling yourself. The statement that sternguard aren't all that clearly shows you to be living in some sort of alternate dimension if nothing else does and we still havene't gotten to the dubious choice of running a nephilim over a stormtalon. The fact that you can take them as a formation is a big deal, since many places run a restriction on the number of formations, not to mention that you MUST take 420 points, minimum, of fliers if you want to have any of them, then another 30 to make the 'Talons viable anti air compared to the ability of a vanilla list to simply add a single 'Talon or 'Raven and call it a day.

Scouts in LSS's can be invaluable as they not only provide DS alpha strike insurance by causing 4d6 scatter, meaning those melta units are forced to think twice about where they drop, but can provide scouting 12" move melta or heavy flamers, allowing for removal of critical units, not to mention the option of tooling your scouts for assault with melta bombs or a power fist and then assaulting turn 2 out of your open topped transport or the fact that it's another ObSec unit that can cruise around being something you have to dedicate shooting to remove lest it become a major pain in later turns.

The only reason to play DA is to do something that codex marines can't, and deathwing is the main reason, since any marine army can run bike troopers. While ravenwing is better than most SM biker armies, white scars are still better, so there's no real reason to pick up ravenwing unless you really like black knights (twin linked plasma is pretty awesome) and want to stick to a theme. ANY other thing that DA can do, the vanilla dex does better, so why choose to play DA other than if you really love their fluff or colour scheme? Lots of people love terminators, so the ability to run nothing but termies and have them be troops is alluring, but even then they're not worth it, doubly so when an already overcosted unit gets a price hike.

No-one cares about Dante's ability to eat light vehicle squadrons since virtually any unit with weapons heavier than a boltgun can do that, usually from across the board. While he might do OK for you in your local meta or in casual games, I think you'll find that at the pointy end, he (and BA in general) aren't really on the radar for a reason (bar the masterful performance of the recent scout list at a single big tourney), though the ability to bring 6 FA pods is not to be discounted.

 ionusx wrote:
ANY other thing that DA can do, the vanilla dex does better, so why choose to play DA other than if you really love their fluff or colour scheme?

because DA can do things in one detachment what it takes vanilla to do in multiple ones.

 Slaphead wrote:

 ionusx wrote:
ANY other thing that DA can do, the vanilla dex does better, so why choose to play DA other than if you really love their fluff or colour scheme?

because DA can do things in one detachment what it takes vanilla to do in multiple ones.

Related to both recent posts.

You do know that gravguns are Salvo 2/3 AP2 weapons with 18" range and concussive. That is pretty substantial whatever way to slice it. To say not that big of a deal is downplaying them a fair bit.

Centurions are probably going to be banned from drop-pods before long, so i'll call this a wash but presently they're hugely powerful with 5 AP2 shots each.

The DA flyers need some adjustments to be useful, presently they cant really achieve anything. I would have been happier just to have a storm talon and be done with it.

Deathwing stuff is good but costs way more than it should and comes with a lot of tax options.
Ravenwing stuff is good but costs a bit too much when compared to other bike options in other books and usually requires a 200+ point tax to take.

The Dakka Banner is 6" range and limited but useful.
PFGs make things in 6" 4++ but only models in 6" so clumping up.
Sternguard ammo is the big deal as opposed to the units.

They're not too well thought out it seems. Just some minor tweaks and they'd be better.

Boniface wrote:

 Slaphead wrote:

 ionusx wrote:
ANY other thing that DA can do, the vanilla dex does better, so why choose to play DA other than if you really love their fluff or colour scheme?

because DA can do things in one detachment what it takes vanilla to do in multiple ones.

Related to both recent posts.

You do know that gravguns are Salvo 2/3 AP2 weapons with 18" range and concussive. That is pretty substantial whatever way to slice it. To say not that big of a deal is downplaying them a fair bit.

Centurions are probably going to be banned from drop-pods before long, so i'll call this a wash but presently they're hugely powerful with 5 AP2 shots each.

The DA flyers need some adjustments to be useful, presently they cant really achieve anything. I would have been happier just to have a storm talon and be done with it.

Deathwing stuff is good but costs way more than it should and comes with a lot of tax options.
Ravenwing stuff is good but costs a bit too much when compared to other bike options in other books and usually requires a 200+ point tax to take.

The Dakka Banner is 6" range and limited but useful.
PFGs make things in 6" 4++ but only models in 6" so clumping up.
Sternguard ammo is the big deal as opposed to the units.

They're not too well thought out it seems. Just some minor tweaks and they'd be better.

Yeah, I know about and use the vanilla weaponry such as grav etc as I play between Space Marines, Blood Angels and Dark Angels. I was just really trying to say that Dark Angels aren't as bad or hopeless as some people are trying to make out and that if players made more use of their relics, banners, unit combinations then they can do ok. I agree with all your points, especially the Sternguard ammo, that's why I don't use the Dark Angel veterans. Yes, all they need are a few minor tweaks. I had the same issue with my Blood Angels before their last codex came out, it seemed quite a bit out of place within the current edition (and in 6th), it was a 5th edition codex and I see something a bit similar now with the Dark Angels book. When it first came out it felt a lot better because all the other books were in 5th edition rule set mode. If the rumour mill is to be believed DA might be seeing a new codex this year at some point which should hopefully give them the update they need.

Let's hope.
I think DA are an interesting option it's a pity that they really just need some minor edits to make them more average (which to be honest is all I personally want).

Also I agree with you about too many people running solo wing armies. I think DA are supposed to be run (from a GW perspective) as triple wing. I only base this off every army box ever having a combo of units.

I have 2 DA Players in my area, 1 is relatively new and is running a 15-20 man terminator army with special characters and some other minor stuff. The other? he is a LONG TIME DA player and has an entire DA Company of marines as well as enough terminators/bikes to field Raven Wing and Death Wing detachments.

I have played both and each time they run some kind of low model high point armies that are easy to tear apart. The new guy DS his termies near my morkanaut and a boyz squad with a MA Warboss in it. After my turn of shooting his terminator deathstar disapeared under a hail of shoota rounds and ork wielding Choppa attacks.

"I feel like this is the misconception that people have of Dark Angels. Their play style is completely different than Codex: Space Marines."

It's not a misconception. Their usual play style is to drive into their own graves. If that's how mean different, then sure.

Just my opinion on the multiwing thing: Yes maybe the reason people think DA stinks because everyone is bringing mono-wing (i will), but you have to understand that it always depend on the setting you are playing.
When you see some net-list or tourney list, they will often go all-in in one strategy, accepting getting counter by some other, and sometime just add 1 or 2 unit to help the battle against their counter.

In casual setting like at my FLGS, they are 3 type of players:
1- People that bring whatever they think look cool, and try to mix and match to have a sense of 'balance' (ie. a bit of anti-tank there, a bit of anti-infantry there, some armour vehicule there and some objective holder infantry). Those list, get crushed by a mono-wing because they are balance and you are not.
2- People that bring net-list but have no idea how to play them. Those one are the real buggers, because if they pick the right list (at random), you are screwed if you play mono-wing. Having a multi-wing here helps mitigate the chance of getting hard counter.
3- People that played for a long time, got a decent mid-top tier army, and made their own good list because they are familiar with the codex and knows what is the meta. Those can sometime lose against player of the type #1, but rarely against type #2. If you say DA, they think mono-wing. If you bring a balance multi-wing, you might just get enough balance to avoid getting counter.

All in all, I don't think the fact that some player play mono makes them bad, it's just a meta question. But other got 1 things right: most of the things DA do, other can do, better or at least more efficiently. There is no real penalty for bringing multiple CADS, apart for some tourney that restrict to 2. With the actual codex, the only way they will shine is if the meta switch drastically, and the Terminator become a hard counter to it.

TLDR; I think Ork are messed up due to high variance in roll.

I don't think there is a magic combination of DA units that suddenly makes them good. Both the RW and DW have substantial flaws and they don't cover each other's flaws when combined.

When people say DA, I don't think of a monowing. I think of no grav cents, no tiggy, and no smashbane.

I wouldn't like to see centurions, storm talons, stalker/hunter etc added to the next Dark Angel codex as I think it would take away some of their uniqueness/flavour over vanilla marines. All GW need to do is make the existing DA units a bit better rule and stat wise.

Fluffwise, they were the very 1st legion created and the original Space Marines and were out on campaigns before all the others were created, kind of like the emperor's test legion (hmm sounds a bit like GW with Space Marines and DA's). The 1st legion were designed to be able to operate effectively in any situation with lots of unit specialisations within the legion. Meaning that whatever stuff all of the different chapters tactics within the vanilla marine codex can do, the Dark Angels should also be able to do, plus they have access to all this secretive/arcane/ancient technology that the other chapters don't have. GW really should work on this a lot more.

As a side note, I love the model of the Nephilim jetfighter, just wish it was good in the game... :-(

Another poll for minidexes could be interesting.

MT, Harlies, Skitarii, Assassins, etc...

DA do need some lovin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also would like to know who voted grey knights lol. Their power is definitely up there.

I think it's an awkward question. Worst in what way? Every army in that list has the ability to feel really strong in certain situations. "Weak" armies generally seem so because they can't create as good of a TAC list for tournaments.

Astra Militarum has their issues, but they will absolutely paste some armies with little trouble. Orks are often laughed at, but armies that can't deal with a lot of Bikes will get tabled pretty quickly.

I think a "bad" army is only so because the good units it has can't make up for the bad units. Remember that stint when everyone considered CSM actually really good because Oblits and Heldrakes could basically carry the army? And then Heldrakes got a nerf and the rest of the army couldn't hold it up.

Some armies are like that. Change/buff one unit and suddenly a bad army becomes great. That's partially why some armies suddenly become awesome with the inclusion of a new Detachment or Forgeworld (hello Tyranids with Malanthropes and Flyrantspam!).

 Smotejob wrote:
DA do need some lovin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also would like to know who voted grey knights lol. Their power is definitely up there.

they have some good units, but due to the smaller size of the 'dex and the number of subpar units, they definatly could use some varity.

I just bought the Dark Vengeance set with my bro - seems like our armies are pretty weak according to you guys, haha.

Ivara1 wrote:
I just bought the Dark Vengeance set with my bro - seems like our armies are pretty weak according to you guys, haha.

Don't worry, CSM are getting some love with the Daemonkin books, and there's rumors that both of those armies are in for an update at some point or another.

I see alot of people in the poll are getting sisters of battles lack of plastic models getting confused with the rules! SoB can be brutal!

Requizen wrote:

Ivara1 wrote:
I just bought the Dark Vengeance set with my bro - seems like our armies are pretty weak according to you guys, haha.

Don't worry, CSM are getting some love with the Daemonkin books, and there's rumors that both of those armies are in for an update at some point or another.

Is it easy to combine CSM and Daemons?