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So, I'm considering starting a second space marine army, I already got Space Wolves, But I want a diferent marine army too. And since all other marine players here play Vanilla Marines or Chaos Marines, I thought Dark Angels might be fun, They have a few cool models. But how is their codex? Is it good and fun to use? Any units that should be avoided?

It doesn't really matter what color your Marines are, they all boil down to the same army.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It doesn't really matter what color your Marines are, they all boil down to the same army.

yup, counter attack wolf toting+riding marines play the same way as shooty,/deepstrike everything in 1 turn/super bike marines, who actually play the same way as jump-pack move fast and stab marines. Just like all 3 Eldar forms play the same, and all 4 chaos gods really play the same.

Can anyone confirm that the new Dark Angels hardback is a much needed improvement over the old hardback DA codex? Because I had heard the old DA codex was right back there with the current hardback CSM in terms of competitive level, i.e. bottom tier.

I can confirm the new Dark Angels codex is good. It's not Craftworld Eldar good, but it's probably about Codex: Space Marines good. The sexiest parts are the Ravenwing units and the Lion''s Blade detachment (very similar to the SM Gladius).

Deathwing are also improved, despite claims that say otherwise.

 Brennonjw wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It doesn't really matter what color your Marines are, they all boil down to the same army.

yup, counter attack wolf toting+riding marines play the same way as shooty,/deepstrike everything in 1 turn/super bike marines, who actually play the same way as jump-pack move fast and stab marines.

Agreed. These marines are red and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and bikes. These marines are green and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and bikes. These marines are light-blue and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and wolves (who are bikes with legs). So diverse.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Deathwing are also improved, despite claims that say otherwise.

Because being unplayable alone is better.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It doesn't really matter what color your Marines are, they all boil down to the same army.

yup, counter attack wolf toting+riding marines play the same way as shooty,/deepstrike everything in 1 turn/super bike marines, who actually play the same way as jump-pack move fast and stab marines.

Agreed. These marines are red and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and bikes. These marines are green and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and bikes. These marines are light-blue and have plasma guns, bolters, 3+ saves, and wolves (who are bikes with legs). So diverse.

Yup, just like those eldar with T: 3, high initiative, and jet bikes, those eldar with T: 3, high initiative, and jet bikes, and those other eldar with t: 3, high initiative, and jet bikes, and those OTHER eldar with t: 3, high initiative, and jet bikes! see, I can be extremely general too.

If you're trying to state that marines are functionally different when they are different colors outside of trivial minutia, you're never going to convince me.

They've become so interchangeable that tournament armies are now including 3 or more "different" chapters in the same unit.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Can anyone confirm that the new Dark Angels hardback is a much needed improvement over the old hardback DA codex? Because I had heard the old DA codex was right back there with the current hardback CSM in terms of competitive level, i.e. bottom tier.

The 6th edition book was pretty bad. It was frequently considered bottom teir.

The current book is much better, landing just shy of the big 4. Although some people like to lump it in with vanilla marines for power level, due to lack of different chapter tactics options and doctrines, our lions blade isn't quite as powerful as the vanilla marines full company. But to be honest, you don't run DA for lions blade, or you would probably just use the vanilla codex. We also lack some of the other vanilla marine tricks, such as skyhammer, cents, and fully customizable captains/CMS. We do have our own toys, most of them are ravenwing based. Also we got some grav.

Key improvements were:
The addition of formations. Only a few are really "powerful", most are just gimmicky or a way to take all bikes or terminators instead of troop swap hqs. Do note that the DA codex is one of the few to get an faq recently that allows you to use any hq on a bike in the raven wing detachment instead of only Sammael.

Points adjustment. Keeping most of our units in line with vanilla marines. Also point drops on our unique fliers and speeders. The flyers went from awful(on the table I love the look of them) to a solid average. The darkshroud is a key component to a ravenwing build. The vengence is still a little off, but at least considerable now, and I personally enjoy it.

No more terminator only armies(not rwally an "improvement"). As the two formations are the only way to take all terminators require you to arive from reserves on or after turn 2, this would cause an auto lose. You can of course work around this with a minimal detatment for board presense, but honestly, you probably aren't going to try and run a pure deathwing army for competative purposes.

New special rules. Ravenwing units can reroll jink saves. This is all your bikes, speeders and flyers. Combined with the darkshroud to push raven wing command squads and black knights to 2+ jink is the main reason this codex is upper teir. Also improved overwatch for the greenwing, which can be boosted by different formations. Also many of the smaller formations give little perks that make otherwise lower power choices at least tempting.

TLDR. The new DA codex is a vast improvement over the last one. And falling just under the big 4, it is in a nice place competatively.

RULE #2 is STAY ON TOPIC.

IF Space Marines are something that 'you' (in the general sense) do not like, or if their prevalence in 40K makes 'you' (again, in the general sense) angry - best to not post in threads about them.

+1 for the Mod

Dark Angels do Terminators and Bikes really well. If you want to bring lots of those than Dark Angels are a great army. The new codex is pretty competitive because SM bikes are at a good place in the meta right now, and Dark Angels have the best bikes. Interomancy is also a pretty good discipline

If you avoid the varieties of bikes and terminators, its a pretty boring army. Dark Angels have much less choices than the Vanilla codex. They got grav in the new codex but no LotD, sternguard, vanguard, Centurions, Honor guard, stormtalon/ raven, thunderfire, or stalker/ hunter. You also miss out on the variety of the different chapter tactics, specail characters and formations.

TL;DR play Dark Angels if you want to bring lots of bikes and terminators. Otherwise, stick with the vanilla codex, it's not as boring as we make out to be.

Haven't messed around with Greenwing or Deathwing yet, but Ravenwing is a friggin bomb. I bring the Strike Force against people who I know I need to bring my A-game because the turn two everything Outflanks is devastating for board control.

Edit: The Librarius Conclave can be a lot of fun too because 24" Mind Worm has never felt so good. It doesn't harness as well as the SM conclave but that Mind Worm tho...

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Deathwing are also improved, despite claims that say otherwise.

Because being unplayable alone is better.

Some people will play it that Drop Pods ignore the restrictions, and even then you were bringing along Ravenwing for the Teleport Homers.

An all-Terminator army was going to fail anyway, so...

I won a tournament at my LGS with the 5th ed codex running all terminators . Told no one about what I was planning, showed up with 35 terminators, most deep striking turn 1. Wouldn't recommend it now with how the game has changed, too much ap2. Not sure how many points it is but a Deathwing + Ravenwing strike force could be pretty cool. Pure Ravenwing would probably be more compeitive though

Ravenwing is definitely good. But pretty boring to play with and against. Dark Scars.

People like to rip on Terminators (and really it is not out of place as they are bad in general), but Dark Angels Deathwing are some of the best. They get Twinlinked with their shooting weapons on the turn they drop, making a decent alpha strike, plus they are Fearless (I don't think anyone else's are Fearless naturally). They are not meant to be played alone, but I've used them together with Ravenwing and they work okay, since they can drop without scatter if they come down within 6 inches of a bike. Deathwing Knights are pretty dangerous as well with their built-in 3++ storm shields, making AP2 weapons somewhat less dangerous. They really need a Land Raider to be truly effective, as they have no ranged weapons and have to sit and take it for a turn before they can go to work.

Ravenwing are amazing this edition. Those Black Knights can jink for a 2+ rerollable cover save if there's a Darkshroud near them, which is crazy good! Even the basic bikes are solid, given the ability to take grav weapons. The flyers are solid, if still a bit costly, but the Dark Talon has a chance to score the big D and insta-kill those pesky Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and Stormsurges. Just watch out for those sneaky Tau bastards with their ignore cover markerlights, and Chaos Marines/Khorne Daemonkin and their Hellturkeys. These will bone your Ravenwing hard.

Greenwing are solid as well, although if you want to run pure Greenwing you might as well run Vanilla Marines, as they get more options. Lion's blade is solid, although if you want to run a full company you should take vanilla instead. The advantage a single demi-company Lion's Blade has over the Gladius is that you get full BS overwatch. This is big. Vanilla marines have to take two Demi-companies to get this. I've run the Lion's blade with Ravenwing as the auxiliaries, and it does pretty well and is a lot of fun.

In-game performance of DA is far better overall than many armies, but to me one of the best things about DA is the models themselves. I love the look of the army, and how we get three schemes in one since Ravenwing and Deathwing look different than Greenwing. The flyers are way cooler looking than the vanilla bricks, and the Darkshroud/Vengeance is a pretty awesome-looking model as well, despite all the people who decry it as ugly. Plus we have the only jetbike in the Imperium and it's an awesome model! How cool is that?

My 2 cents.

You might want to look at this.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Dark_Angels%287E%29

Dark Angels are, for the first time in probably the history of the entire game, pretty damn good. Pure Deathwing kind of suffer with the proliferation of AP2 these days, but Ravenwing, battle company, or some combination thereof can be really effective.

Just here to back up what the others said: Dark Angels are a blast to play and fairly strong, too. They're similar to other Space Marines, but you can definitely choose to play them in their own unique way, combining Ravenwing+Deathwing and some sweet unique vehicles.

 Brennonjw wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It doesn't really matter what color your Marines are, they all boil down to the same army.

yup, counter attack wolf toting+riding marines play the same way as shooty,/deepstrike everything in 1 turn/super bike marines, who actually play the same way as jump-pack move fast and stab marines. Just like all 3 Eldar forms play the same, and all 4 chaos gods really play the same.

indeed they are how good of you to concur

anyway if you try to be different the dark angels are totally fun and theres nothing wrong with them. my army is very much against the grain and does fine and is full of fun units

 ZergSmasher wrote:

Greenwing are solid as well, although if you want to run pure Greenwing you might as well run Vanilla Marines, as they get more options. Lion's blade is solid, although if you want to run a full company you should take vanilla instead. The advantage a single demi-company Lion's Blade has over the Gladius is that you get full BS overwatch. This is big. Vanilla marines have to take two Demi-companies to get this.

What? Vanilla Marines do not get full BS overwatch. They get a use of each Combat Doctrine, none of which provide full BS overwatch.

Both Lion's Blade and Gladius Strike Force gain free dedicated transports if they bring two battle companies. The part about having two battle companies is identical for both books.

You get more options within a Demi-Company itself for Codex marines by way of subbing assault units for bikes or assault centurions, or devastators with devastator centurions, and having more options for dreadnoughts in general. However, Dark Angels can bring a squad of Company Veterans per demi-company so before going to Auxiiary formations, so it's not all give without some take.

ANYWAY: REPLY TO OP COMMENCING!

Dark Angels are pretty good, but IMO they are clearly substandard marines in a tournament setting because we just don't have as many broken formations collected from various non-codex publications. The Skyhammer formation, for example, is top tier marine play and Dark Angels simply do not have access to it (which is dumb, because we can bring literally the exact same units. Feel free to use it anyway.) Don't forget about the stupid as hell White Scars relics like the one that lets the HQ unit and his squad ignore cover. That said, in an average game, Dark Angels are pretty good. It's my army. I've done fairly well with them this edition. Eldar and Tau are goddamn nightmares but that's to be expected from having a book that says "We literally ignore everything and fighting every army for us is the exact same because we can't fail." I've actually held my own against Necron which is the other top tier army. Turns out our unique units are pretty good at fighting them in ways normal marines tend not to be, plus being Stubborn helps you sit on your objectives and makes close combat an even more enticing option against Necron than it already is.

Our unique units are mostly worth using now, which is a good thing. The Dark Talon with it's rift blast thing is amazing. I can't think of any other flyers in all of 40k with an S10 AP2 weapon outside of Superheavies and the like. Black Knights are as incredible as they ever were. The Land Speeder Vengeance is actually worth using, especially as part of a Ravenwing Attack Squadron formation. The terminators are still garbage, but the Deathwing formation is good in a gimmicky way because it essentially lets you bring as many venerable dreadnoughts in drop pods as you could ever want.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Deathwing are also improved, despite claims that say otherwise.

Because being unplayable alone is better.

Some people will play it that Drop Pods ignore the restrictions, and even then you were bringing along Ravenwing for the Teleport Homers.

An all-Terminator army was going to fail anyway, so...

How does that argument work?

pm713: For the Deathwing STRIKE FORCE formation, you don't auto-fail because half-rounded-up of your drop pod dreadnoughts arrive turn 1. The stipulation that you ignore "Drop Pod Assault" is not in that formation. It is in the Deathwing REDEMPTION FORCE formation, which is an auxiliary formation you can attach to your regular Lion's Blade Strike Force. Don't get the two confused.

I did the same thing my first time through the book, but upon further reading of the Deathwing Strike Force rules, it's actually pretty good specifically because you can bring a boatload of Venerable Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods. Technically, your warlord for that strike force doesn't even need to be in Terminator armor. They just have to have the Deathwing rule, and because they are forced into being in deep strike (as is the whole formation), you can get away with just giving the HQ a jump pack. Not fluffy, but allowable.

That said, taking a Ravenwing Attack Squadron to support the formation just makes sense and is fairly cheap. A lone attack bike and a stock land speeder is 95 points. Definitely worth taking, also definitely not that hard to hide for a turn.

In general, the Codex is decent. It however contains a gem that can take on pretty much anything even on a competitive level, this being the Ravenwing Strike Force.