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AngryAngel80 wrote:
As well I don't see how being in a freezer for thousands of years would somehow make them the best of the best compared to those of the time in constant state of action. If anything they'd be a bit behind the times and antiquated.

They were the best of the best of their kin before going into the freezer. Thats why they were sent to take up the Long Vigil, while their brothers went to the myriad Chapters.

AngryAngel80 wrote:

Like, I'd probably value the tactical value of someone constantly fighting eldar over someone who fought an eldar once like 10k years ago and hasn't touched one since but has been napping instead. So to me, that feels like fluff disconnect to be sure.

Experience fighting xenos isnt a starting requirement for service in the Deathwatch. What's necessary is a level of skill, as well as capacity to learn. Thats the entire point of the Kill Team organizational structure, to impart that experience to newer inductees.

Maybe that's how you read it, I read it as they were taking the best of the best in certain areas so they could impart that knowledge on each other and teach it to others if needed. Being fine learners, while a boon to be sure, didn't seem to be why someone was chosen to head into their ranks.

As well, if they are all bad butt seasoned vets I do wonder why they have no real veteran skills over their base primaris kin, oh wait, they are all " the best ", forgot.

There's no need for a fluff fight brothers. DW already have Phobos-equipped infantry in deployment. The decision to withhold the latest units in the game is a balance-related one, as Sterling points out, and probably indicative of a future adjustment to the faction, where they'll be brought in after some consideration. Whether we'll ever get the Invictor is another question, I certainly hope so. DW was what, about 6 or 7 codexes after SM? We have a long wait before we can use them, would be my guess, but use them we will. Their absence or presence is totally unrelated to the fluff.

So sadly we’re not yet able to take Inceptors at the new price (feth you for that GW). Think I’m gonna stick with my 3x Bike, 2x Inferno Pistol VanVets as disruptor skirmish squads for now.

Did some additional reading though, and barring a new FAQ the new SM strategems will affect our lads since they let off the Astartes keyword. Trying to sort out a barebones Eliminator battalion right now to unlock those.

I can't wait for the new infantry models access. Very excited to use their tricksy abilities. The dread I can take or leave.

Yeah I'm sure their denial in the DW has something to do with how they'll interact with a kill team or if they'll be part of their own kill team just need to wait I suppose.

I expect we'll get a Phobos-variant Fortis kill team at some point combining the Infiltrator, Incursor, Eliminator and maybe Reiver models. The Invictor I'm a huge fan of, its cheap, its not the most durable thing in the world, but it cant be ignored or screened out easily.

With the advent of SM Codex 2.0, we're obviously the forgotten step-child for the foreseeable future.

But we can still do certain things ever so well:

1) 3++ on our troops is more powerful than ever, what with the spike in AP that will be generated by floods of SM armies hitting the table, and the reflexive meta changes that are sure to come.

2) T5 troops - yes it costs a lot, but we can field very punchy troops with 25 T5 wounds. These lists tend to skew due to how much the units cost (288pts for the standard 4 aggressors, inceptor and assaultercessors) but they might represent our best shot at competitive play now. It's just us and Custodes that can field T5≤ infantry armies.

3) Deepstriking dreadnoughts and infantry. We can drop 6 aggressors where 6 aggressors shouldn't be. That's not insignificant.

4) Special issue ammo is legitimately frightening to many army rosters, and can be used to wipe opposing troops from the board.

Is this enough, in your opinion, to keep us in the same league with the all-new SM threats that we're seeing emerging from the UM & WS supplements? Honest question.

Honestly ? I have no idea, we didn't get worse just vanilla marines grew up better around us. The codex creep being very real it leads to two ideas.

First, it is very real just in case anyone wondered at this point the power creep. Second being when we get our new book, we should be pretty tasty indeed but that is awhile down the road at this point.

Aside from some digression there, only time will tell. I honestly feel our lacking of options in terms of strats and just overall new stuff will cost us. We did get better with drop pods, and the better stats on some units.

The ability to have storm shields all over and access to SIA is still good even if it doesn't feel as good with the ability of marines to have that extra -1 all over the place now. Kinda makes me wonder why our vehicles can't use SIA, or we cant SIA with bolter discipline now seems punitive at this point.

Really depends I think on how good the new synergies will be vs our meat and potatoes set ups and uses as we don't have as much flash to fall back on, just quality.

I think it's going to be a rough road for awhile at the best but once the new smell fades we'll be alright though we're off the top line for awhile so I doubt you'll see people wanting to run their marines as deathwatch for the near future.

Just played a game against the new SM.

I have to say, DW still trumps SM in many ways. Not just the 2+/3++ regular kill team with termies and stormshields, also the new intercessor with the assault bolters and 2 dmg stalker bolt rifle. I have to say the 2 dmg with poison round stalker bolt rifle does work very well against the new primaris flood.

Ran 2 sqauds of 1 aggressor w/ 8 stalker bolt rifle intercessors. Dishing out 16 2 dmg -2 ap poison bullets against any high toughness non-vehicle things; mortarion, crisis suits, riptide, and nids love these poison rounds. For anti-infantry i use a souped stormshield/stormbolter kill team and leviathan with double storm cannon for lulz.

That's not the correct use of the firestorm rule though is it? That rule is updated on the Aggressor data sheet, not the Intercessor.

As i read it, there are no changes to kill team rules in the recent errata etc. The only changes are angels of death and the stat changes.

So 8 intercessors would have 8 attacks...

He had two squads, presumably that's what he meant.

Oh my bad. There's an argument going on over on r/competitive40k about the firestorm rule applying to Fortis teams.

I see, i misunderstood as well, soz. I looked a the rough numbers and the stalker bolt is a very effective primaris killer.

2 squads tooled up as he describes the intercessors would kill on average 9 primaris per round of shooting (rerolling all to hit and 1's to wound with poison rounds), where assault bolters would kill 6 primaris.

The difficult choice is whether you want 16 good shots, or 48 D1 shots - there is the duality of horde control with the assault bolters to consider.

They are definitely a threat though...

edit - interestingly... if you get the assault bolt rifles within 18inches and use the minus 2 ap rounds, the body count goes up to 8 Pimaris, which is nearly as good as stalker.

Im personally not entirely sold on the new Stalker (it could entirely be my local Meta as we dont really see much W2/W4 models played), but im going into a match this week packing ten so I'm going to give them a fair shake.

Bringing in a small Marine battallion for CPs, a Burning Blade stabby cappy to play wingman to my DW Smashie, a White Scars libby for psyker artillery (bless you non-los Smite) and some scouts. If nothing else the eliminators will scare the pants off characters and help with precision fire to get the Gravis-Fortis team into drop position.

We'll see how it goes.

My two cents is I'm betting on the assault bolters.

My reasoning being, force multipliers. I'd rather a hail of bullets over less more potent hits taken. Couple that with the speed you can have in the squad with moving and running gives you more free mobility with the assault weapons and able to close range and use the -2 ap ammo for instance.

As well the assault bolters get you better horde clearance which can't be over looked and allows you to have more potent weapons sitting elsewhere to do the heavy work.

If we ever get access to say, suppressors or eliminators they'd help with that as well.

All in all I usually favor a storm of fire to clear problems over more dedicated and potent fire which tends to fail me more often. I wouldn't be adverse to a couple small stalker teams though pitched up and doing the lords work reaching out and touching hard squads I'll need to try them out in proxy and see how they feel.

Assault bolters sync better with aggressors, which is what really swings it for me. Fortis teams have zero long-range punch, other than intercessor shooting.

That is the best part as well. Mixed with the new assault buff and giving the sgts Pfists or the like, the mobility and synergy with the aggressors is what pushes it for me too.

The rest is more open thoughts if anyone cared as to what also factors into the decisions, for me anyways.

I kind of like the idea of 5 man stalker teams sitting back and dropping the long hard hitting shots downfield though.

I'd rather we had eliminators for such tasks.

 grouchoben wrote:
Assault bolters sync better with aggressors, which is what really swings it for me. Fortis teams have zero long-range punch, other than intercessor shooting.

Moving and firing heavies opens up some potentially interesting options. Five stalkers and an Aggressor pack a schizophrenic but useful duality of function. If you can get em to midfield objectives (preferably in terrain) they can in theory lay down the fire across most of the board, and be nasty to dislodge in melee (plus provide a potential late game melee threat).

Again Im not really sold on the concept yet, but knowing how my local meta does terrain and how some of the regulars tend to play, its a threat most dont normally have a good easy counter for. Plus it'll very likely draw fire from my backfield SPB/Missile teams hunkering down in my deployment zone. I typically run two to three bike+VV squads as my frontline Skirmishers, so the Stalkergressor teams will have time to make a statement.

Interesting ideas in all that, I look forward to hearing how it'll all work.

So for now, you guys prefer stalker bolter and stormbolt rifle instead of the normal bolt rifle?

I think it depends on the set up.

For me I've enjoyed the bolt rifles coupled with hell blasters.

Auto rifle works well in functionality with aggressors.

Stalker bolt rifle can also benefit from being mobile with aggressors or sitting off at stand off distance in a mixed or solo squad.

I'd say its all about what you feel the most. Though bolt rifles with hell blasters does feel a lot like an old marine tac squad.

Thx for reply and explain =)

hmm ya you are right, atm for me it is so hard to write a DW list^^

My first thougt was 2 squads 7 Stalker bolter with 1 Aggressor and 1 squad 9 auto bolt with 1 Aggressor but what to include else? storm bolter vets?

AngryAngel80 wrote:
I'd say its all about what you feel the most. Though bolt rifles with hell blasters does feel a lot like an old marine tac squad.

The Interblaster team can do work, but if you're dead set on plasma I'd personally go with vets packing plasma guns instead. Yes they're more vulnerable to MWs, and have 3" less rapid fire range, but the capacity to present a 2+/3++ defensive profile cannot be overstated. Its going to be a priority target once it hits the table, and every ounce of durability counts.

Hesselhof wrote:Thx for reply and explain =)

hmm ya you are right, atm for me it is so hard to write a DW list^^

My first thougt was 2 squads 7 Stalker bolter with 1 Aggressor and 1 squad 9 auto bolt with 1 Aggressor but what to include else? storm bolter vets?

We'll have to see how the next few months play out, but based on the changes in SM 2.0 I'm leaning towards mixing Primaris and Veterans again. The ABR at Assault 3 is for all intents and purposes a storm bolter, and the Aggressor packing four power fist swings on the charge (plus gonzo shooting and unit synergy) is practically an auto-take now. A single large Gravis-based team that can hit the T5 break point, supported by smaller specialist teams is where my head is currently at.

I like to add a single inceptor to squads of assault rifle intercessors, 2 aggressors. You can even add a power fist to the intercessor sergeant. The threat of 12 powerfist attacks on the charge is a biggie. The inceptor makes charging easier and allows fallback and shoot if needed and the icing on the cake is a 17% chance of a mortal wound on the charge :-) .

Maximumbob wrote:
You can even add a power fist to the intercessor sergeant. The threat of 12 powerfist attacks on the charge is a biggie.

This I think is the biggest functional change DW is seeing from the updates. For most of 8th melee has been an "yeah you can do it, but its not the best idea" situation for us (or at least for my addled brain, YMMV of course). Now, for a modest investment the bulk of a Deathwatch army can be a legitimate threat in both punchy and shooty situations.

So, out of curiosity, where are we supposed to get "primaris sgt" melee weapons? The oldboi stuff looks silly small on a primaris body. Like the villian from scary movie with the baby hands.

Has anyone seen Primaris Powerfists? I mean I could vis-mod them from a box of inceptor fists, but that looks even worse, and is not cost efficient.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, out of curiosity, where are we supposed to get "primaris sgt" melee weapons? The oldboi stuff looks silly small on a primaris body. Like the villian from scary movie with the baby hands.

Has anyone seen Primaris Powerfists? I mean I could vis-mod them from a box of inceptor fists, but that looks even worse, and is not cost efficient.

The Imperial Fist upgrade sprue has a PF. I suspect the Iron Hands one will have one as well. Sallys will have the Thunder hammer.

Alternatively the melee weapons from the existing DW Kill Team kits are pretty size-compatible with Primaris (and much more cost-efficient to acquire). It'll take a bit of modeling work though.

I run two squads of assault intercessors, 4 aggressors and a dakkaceptor for 288pts. It's a seriously hefty cost (576pts in total) but I love that Fortis team, what can I say. With rise of bolters and marines, T5 counts for a LOT, and the squad can threaten every unit in the game. Don't be afraid to tank a D2 shot on an aggressor, as it takes 2 to down one now, and that can really blunt the damage to your chaff intercessors, if the rest of the fire incoming is S4 D1 stuff.

 grouchoben wrote:
I run two squads of assault intercessors, 4 aggressors and a dakkaceptor for 288pts. It's a seriously hefty cost (576pts in total) but I love that Fortis team, what can I say. With rise of bolters and marines, T5 counts for a LOT, and the squad can threaten every unit in the game. Don't be afraid to tank a D2 shot on an aggressor, as it takes 2 to down one now, and that can really blunt the damage to your chaff intercessors, if the rest of the fire incoming is S4 D1 stuff.

Do you play this killteam on tourneys?