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I've had Hellfire rounds used against me. I don't like heavy bolters but it can help a tatical squad out in a pinch.

Auspex Scan is fantastic. Being able to rapid fire some deep strikers before they can charge is well worth the CP

I use WOTDA and the Fallen strategem a lot. It's almost tradition to accuse tervigons of secret fallen knowledge now.

Flakk missiles are popular, but again I don't often pack the needed missile launcher.

Odd No has mentioned intractable, it's pricey but when my hellblasters get charged, people are in for a nasty surprise when they fall back and fire as normal.

DA actually have some really good strats, in my opinion. WftDA is an obvious stand-out, but SotR is underappreciated, in my estimation. First-turn charges with bikes can really cause a lot of disruption. Auspex scan and Intractable are fantastic situational defensive options. Hunt the Fallen is fabulous for 1 CP. I don't know any other DA players, but it's an auto-use for me if I'm running anything other than flyer spam or an Azrael gunline. Last but not least, nobody ever talks about Fortress of Shields. Deathwing Knights are rock hard to begin with but get ridiculous with -1 to wound them. I've been messing around with Librarian-buffed 10 man units, so negating at least 1/6 of the wounds coming back at me is a huge deal - totally worth a CP.

Yes, I use flakk missile and hellfire shells nearly every game.

Took part in a 40 player, 6 round tournament at the 2K level. I took a Battalion and a Spearhead. The Battalion consisted of Azrael, a Librarian, Sammael, four Scout Squads, a Ravenwing Bike Squad, a Chapter Ancient and an Apothecary. The Spearhead was a ten man Hellblaster Squad with Plasma Incinerators, a ten man Hellblaster Squad with Heavy Plasma Incinerators, a five-man Devastator Squad and a Primaris Lieutenant. We had to submit our lists a month out and then I checked out the missions. The missions were all different with a host of different special rules.

Game 1 vs Alaitoc with five objectives. My opponent had Wraithguard and Fire Dragons in Wave Serpents, Vipers, Jetbikes and a Fire Prism. I sent the Ravenwing off on a distraction mission using Speed of the Raven to stay alive while the Hellblaster deathball rolled up the other flank. Even with the -1, the Hellblasters and Devastators were able to chew through vehicles, while WFtDA is nice against Wraithguard. This was actually a decisive victory for me.

Game 2 vs Astra Militarum with Sisters and Celestine. He had plenty of Forgeworld including a big flyer and three Earthshaker Carriages in addition to a Basilisk. He had first turn and by the end of it I knew the game was pretty much lost. I had no real answer to the long range artillery that was out of LOS, but the Hellblasters did at least kill Celestine. This was a fairly big loss.

Game 3 vs Orks. There was only one Ork player and I drew him. My Hellblasters are overkill against Orks, and with six objectives to capture I knew that once again I was facing an uphill struggle. He had five full mobs of Boys and five Weirdboyz plus some artillery. This fun game ended up being a closer loss than I had thought possible. The Bikes did well trimming Ork boys until Smite spam took them (the Beta rules actually help Weirdboyz as the game progresses.) My loss was really due to my gambling that I would not face Orks.

Game 4 vs Custodes. He had a bike squad, a Terminator squad and three normal squads plus two champions with -1 to hit banners and a Lord of some kind. I went first (the only time of the tourney), but he rolled 3+ and 4+ saves like a boss. I grabbed some secondary objective points and killed his bikes, lord and Terminators (Auspex scan with rapid fire is nice) but this was still a loss. His invul saves were really good, and this could have gone either way in Turn 1. Still, this was the first time I had faced Custodes and it was fun.

Game 5 vs Dark Angels. This blue on blue match saw me face a big Black Knight Squad, a Deathwing Knight Squad, a Deathwing Squad, Belial, Scouts, Intercessors, two Predators and a Nephilim. This mission had everybody at +2 BS over 12 " (so 5+ BS for us) and -2 to movement. He got first turn, but my Auspex scan with supercharging rapid-fire Hellblasters and a Chapter Ancient spoiled his alpha strike. The Hellblasters and Devastators then dismantled his heavy stuff. A fairly close victory despite out of proportion losses for him as he played smart with this Black Knights and racked up some objectives to keep it close.

Game 6 vs Astra Militarum. A wild game agaist three Baneblade variants, twenty Ratlings (on board one of the superheavies) and some character support. Oh, and there was a Chaos Warhound Titan walking down the centre of the board shooting the closest squads. The good news was that my opponent had a Shadowsword that dealt with the Warhound. The bad news was that his other two Superheavies were kitted out for anti-infantry and pounded my Hellblasters. I had formed a tight ball around Azrael and while the Heavy Plasma squad was down to one man after two turns the others were still in the fight. The regular Hellblasters and Devastators killed one superheavy per turn while the Jinking Ravenwing cleared out his light troops. A decisive victory that looked really grim at the end of his first turn as I contemplated the killing ground. His Ratlings on a superheavy killed my Ancient in the first round but they were neutralized when their ride was destroyed and the Ravenwing got in amongst them. This meant I went 3:3 over the weekend and finished in the exact middle of the pack.

Observations - Hope is not a method with list construction! I needed more crowd control. The Hellblasters were awesome against most opponents, however, and they will stay in my lists in some form. The Scouts might get reduced a little to add some Intercessors for balance. The Chapter Ancient was awesome while the Apothecary was a waste. The Librarian was underwhelming in every match. Azrael, Sammael and the Lt were worth every point. The Ravenwing Bikes were really good!

Key stratagems were WFtDA, Auspex Scan, Speed of the Raven and Intractable. I budgeted four CPs for WFtDA, at least 1 CP for Speed of the Raven and then tried to keep 2 CPs in reserve for either an Auspex Scan or Intractable as the situation dictated.

A fun tournament that forced me to think on my feet as every mission was a home brew with really interesting twists.


TL/DR - I took too many Hellblasters even if they did awesome!

Intractable is excellent , hellfire and flak are also handy. I’ve won games with WotDA and SotR, but my favorite moment so far was a squad of Black Knights and a Company Champion charging into a squad of Berserkers, failing miserably to do much, dying, and then the Champion popping the stratagem that let’s you attack again after dying and causing just enough wounds to kill the Berserkers from morale. His sacrifice saved the game for me.

I also learned well the importance of proper bubble wrap that game. My opponent deep strikes turn one with 30 Bloodletters, pops a stratagem to charge 3d6 and mulches 2 Assault Cannon Razors and a small dev squad with missile launchers. He also killed my one screen unit of scouts, damaged a Rhino, and shot up half of my other Devastators. I thought I was done for, but Azrael, Hellblasters, Black Knights and a Talonmaster can do stupid damage if they can live long enough to get off 2 or 3 volleys of fire.

I’ve been very pleased with my mobile gun line so far.

I so want to run 2 talos masters for my anti infantry firepower. 12 hb shots and 24 assault cannon shots plus protection for being a charecter just seems stupid good. Add Samuel on a bike and I don't see how it could go bad. (Or on his own speeder for more dakka)

Azuza001 wrote:
I so want to run 2 talos masters for my anti infantry firepower. 12 hb shots and 24 assault cannon shots plus protection for being a charecter just seems stupid good. Add Samuel on a bike and I don't see how it could go bad. (Or on his own speeder for more dakka)

Sammy on a bike is very underwhelming compared to sammy in the speeder.

Given the prevelance of units with the FLY keyword, like many Eldar and Tau units, as well as demons, Tyranids, Stormravens, not to mention the new Custodes bikes, are people having success with fielding Stalker units? Hunters seem like they would be a waste of a single shot.

Hey everyone, do you play Company Veterans ? And if yes, in which setup ? I really like the models (robes and armour are my weakness) but don't know how I would use them. Given we pay extra points for more attacks I believe they're best geared with CC options, but they'd need a transport. And using them as special weapons carriers would be costly, for a unit no more resilient than regular TAC squads, with fewer numbers.

Got a lovely little comp Ravenwing force, but I'm looking to expand. I'd love a Deathwing force to compliment my army thematically, but is there any way to play them at least semi-competitively? Tanks and gunline it more than a terminator force? Advice pls

In my opinion, company vets are best run cheap: stormbolter and chainswords for chaff clearing. I played a game where I dropped 5 of them plus 5 company champions in a drop pod, and it seemed to work pretty well. Some people enjoy putting plasma weapons on them, but I think we have much better options for plasma than that.

As for Deathwing, the only reasonably competitive option available at the moment is Deathwing Knights. They're ridiculously slow, so you have to either transport them (probably in a LRC or a Stormraven) or use other units to box in the stuff you want the DWK to mulch. Relying on making a 9" charge with such an expensive unit left out on its own just isn't viable, even with charge distances rerolls. They crush things once they get to combat, though, and with Fortress of Shields, they never, ever die.

Stormbolter+Chainsword. Put 5 in a Razorback. Put 2 company champions, 1 librarian and 5 tacticals with combi plasma and plasma in a rhino. Use the psychic power of rerolling hit and wound rolls in mele in the Company Veterans.
Profit.

Shrapnelbait wrote:
Given the prevelance of units with the FLY keyword, like many Eldar and Tau units, as well as demons, Tyranids, Stormravens, not to mention the new Custodes bikes, are people having success with fielding Stalker units? Hunters seem like they would be a waste of a single shot.

When I ran AM I'd try to run Hydras following this exact chain of logic. The problem is such units are too swingy. Either your opponent brought flyers, in which case you get to blow one up before they all concentrate on the AA (making back more than its points usually) or no flyers were brought and you are playing with something that can't get any other work done. Meanwhile I could pack flamers and have the best AA of all. DA doesn't get any nice 16" flamers that I know of, but you'd be better off packing a couple of flamer sponsons on key vehicles rather than dedicating an AA unit.

MilkmanAl wrote:In my opinion, company vets are best run cheap: stormbolter and chainswords for chaff clearing. I played a game where I dropped 5 of them plus 5 company champions in a drop pod, and it seemed to work pretty well. Some people enjoy putting plasma weapons on them, but I think we have much better options for plasma than that.

As for Deathwing, the only reasonably competitive option available at the moment is Deathwing Knights. They're ridiculously slow, so you have to either transport them (probably in a LRC or a Stormraven) or use other units to box in the stuff you want the DWK to mulch. Relying on making a 9" charge with such an expensive unit left out on its own just isn't viable, even with charge distances rerolls. They crush things once they get to combat, though, and with Fortress of Shields, they never, ever die.

Galas wrote:Stormbolter+Chainsword. Put 5 in a Razorback. Put 2 company champions, 1 librarian and 5 tacticals with combi plasma and plasma in a rhino. Use the psychic power of rerolling hit and wound rolls in mele in the Company Veterans.
Profit.

I feel we have enough choice in the anti-horde department :/ Between bolter Inceptors, the Bikes, every hing that has an Assault Cannon, regular DW... Wouldn't it be redundant to use a specific squad to go deal S4 AP0 hits ? The benefit would be locking units in CC of course, but I'm unsure it's worth the investment.

Anyone ever tried a footslogging Deathstar with Asmodai, DW Ancient, Ezekiel (for the extra attack + Righteous Repugnance) and DW Knights ? It would take an eternity to cross the board, but you'd have 10 Knights with 4 attacks each, that reroll hits and wounds, with each model within 6" of Ezekiel doing a last strike before dying, + the CC of all the characters. Just a theory here but it looks hilarious.

I'm picking up 2 boxes of Devs this week and was wondering how best to arm the 2nd squad (obviously the first will be all plasma).

My army is mostly DW Terminators with 1 LR & 1 LRR, and I plan to add a Deredeo alongside the Devastators at some point.

Lascannons tend to draw a lot of fire, but they're effective this edition.

 xttz wrote:
I'm picking up 2 boxes of Devs this week and was wondering how best to arm the 2nd squad (obviously the first will be all plasma).

My army is mostly DW Terminators with 1 LR & 1 LRR, and I plan to add a Deredeo alongside the Devastators at some point.

I think the general consensus for SM has been three lascannons and a pair of heavy bolters. Just enough shooting to threaten elite infantry, all the lascannons needed to threaten a knight.

Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

 Aaranis wrote:
Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that works, thanks. I was already considering using a Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolter to buff devs & backfield dreads.

Shrapnelbait wrote:
Given the prevelance of units with the FLY keyword, like many Eldar and Tau units, as well as demons, Tyranids, Stormravens, not to mention the new Custodes bikes, are people having success with fielding Stalker units? Hunters seem like they would be a waste of a single shot.

I usually field 2 (sometimes 3) Relic Sicarians with heavy bolters and they are great. Costs 25pts more than a predator but T7 14 wounds and most importantly a str7 assault 8 -1ap weapon that ignores the benefits of Fly (and also has -3 ap when rolling a 6 to wound). With the 14" movment they are very good jack of all trades.

 xttz wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that works, thanks. I was already considering using a Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolter to buff devs & backfield dreads.

Game played and won ! But honestly couldn't test the Dev squad thoroughly, they ate infiltrated flamer Aggressors in the face turn one and had 1 plasma cannon left after the losses + 1 from morale. BUT ! Stoically facing the prospect of his near death, he promptly avenged his fallen brothers by overcharging his plasma cannon, killing an Aggressor, and as he saw his arms hadn't melted yet, he used the Armorium Cherub as fuel to shoot once more, and kill the two remaining Aggressors by himself. He then stood there for the rest of the game, because he had no targets in sight.

So overall, I'll likely play them again, the 2 ablative wounds from the regular Marines were worth it, otherwise these Aggressors would've been wandering forever.

TAC squads are absolute trash however, I use 5 to charge at a wounded Primaris Lieutenant, and they manage to all die in CC in two turns. I'll soon have 10 Intercessors, these are nice. I'll buy Scouts someday too.

 Aaranis wrote:

 xttz wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that works, thanks. I was already considering using a Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolter to buff devs & backfield dreads.

Game played and won ! But honestly couldn't test the Dev squad thoroughly, they ate infiltrated flamer Aggressors in the face turn one and had 1 plasma cannon left after the losses + 1 from morale. BUT ! Stoically facing the prospect of his near death, he promptly avenged his fallen brothers by overcharging his plasma cannon, killing an Aggressor, and as he saw his arms hadn't melted yet, he used the Armorium Cherub as fuel to shoot once more, and kill the two remaining Aggressors by himself. He then stood there for the rest of the game, because he had no targets in sight.

So overall, I'll likely play them again, the 2 ablative wounds from the regular Marines were worth it, otherwise these Aggressors would've been wandering forever.

TAC squads are absolute trash however, I use 5 to charge at a wounded Primaris Lieutenant, and they manage to all die in CC in two turns. I'll soon have 10 Intercessors, these are nice. I'll buy Scouts someday too.

Could you have auspex scanned them ?
yea when I run Plasma Dves I usually run an Ancient near them. Even if they die to overcharge they shoot again.
Scouts for me are go too. I have tried Intercessors but when I figure in cost I just want another unit of scouts. Deployment outside of Deployment zone is key vs infiltrate and DS. I think this would have saved your Devs as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 xttz wrote:
I'm picking up 2 boxes of Devs this week and was wondering how best to arm the 2nd squad (obviously the first will be all plasma).

My army is mostly DW Terminators with 1 LR & 1 LRR, and I plan to add a Deredeo alongside the Devastators at some point.

I think the general consensus for SM has been three lascannons and a pair of heavy bolters. Just enough shooting to threaten elite infantry, all the lascannons needed to threaten a knight.

When running Lascannon Devs I have been going 2 LC, 1 HB and 1 ML. The HB and ML allows me to possible use 2 strats for 2-6 mortal wounds

 Aaranis wrote:

 xttz wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that works, thanks. I was already considering using a Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolter to buff devs & backfield dreads.

Game played and won ! But honestly couldn't test the Dev squad thoroughly, they ate infiltrated flamer Aggressors in the face turn one and had 1 plasma cannon left after the losses + 1 from morale. BUT ! Stoically facing the prospect of his near death, he promptly avenged his fallen brothers by overcharging his plasma cannon, killing an Aggressor, and as he saw his arms hadn't melted yet, he used the Armorium Cherub as fuel to shoot once more, and kill the two remaining Aggressors by himself. He then stood there for the rest of the game, because he had no targets in sight.

So overall, I'll likely play them again, the 2 ablative wounds from the regular Marines were worth it, otherwise these Aggressors would've been wandering forever.

TAC squads are absolute trash however, I use 5 to charge at a wounded Primaris Lieutenant, and they manage to all die in CC in two turns. I'll soon have 10 Intercessors, these are nice. I'll buy Scouts someday too.

Cool. Just curious, isn't the Cherub it's own model? I believe it can be sacrificed first like the Ammo Runts for the ork Nobs. As a bonus it's not considered when calculating moral, so you might have kept 2 extra Devs (one in place of the cherub and if you only lost moral by one, or was that from grim resolve)

Shrapnelbait wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:

 xttz wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Going to try a 7 men Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons wednesday, I'll tell you how they fared. Going to run a Lieutenant nearby for more effectiveness.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that works, thanks. I was already considering using a Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolter to buff devs & backfield dreads.

Game played and won ! But honestly couldn't test the Dev squad thoroughly, they ate infiltrated flamer Aggressors in the face turn one and had 1 plasma cannon left after the losses + 1 from morale. BUT ! Stoically facing the prospect of his near death, he promptly avenged his fallen brothers by overcharging his plasma cannon, killing an Aggressor, and as he saw his arms hadn't melted yet, he used the Armorium Cherub as fuel to shoot once more, and kill the two remaining Aggressors by himself. He then stood there for the rest of the game, because he had no targets in sight.

So overall, I'll likely play them again, the 2 ablative wounds from the regular Marines were worth it, otherwise these Aggressors would've been wandering forever.

TAC squads are absolute trash however, I use 5 to charge at a wounded Primaris Lieutenant, and they manage to all die in CC in two turns. I'll soon have 10 Intercessors, these are nice. I'll buy Scouts someday too.

Cool. Just curious, isn't the Cherub it's own model? I believe it can be sacrificed first like the Ammo Runts for the ork Nobs. As a bonus it's not considered when calculating moral, so you might have kept 2 extra Devs (one in place of the cherub and if you only lost moral by one, or was that from grim resolve)

nah.. as far as I know the cherub isn't a separate model.. just wargear

Cherub is indeed a separate model. You can see that it has a profile in the dev datasheet. It doesn't have 3+ armour though so you have to roll 1 die at a time for its saves till it dies.

 zedsdead wrote:
When running Lascannon Devs I have been going 2 LC, 1 HB and 1 ML. The HB and ML allows me to possible use 2 strats for 2-6 mortal wounds

Good thinking.

I have some scouts coming on the same order, so I'm thinking of giving them the HB for Hellfire. The devs can take 3 lascannon 1 ML which combine well together, and the signum can be used on any Flakk missile attempts.

 zedsdead wrote:

nah.. as far as I know the cherub isn't a separate model.. just wargear

The Cherub has a profile and can definitely be used as an ablative wound, and even has a rule to say that for morale purposes you ignore it dying. However it does only have a 6+ save, so you'll likely find it doesn't last very long.

 Swillsswil wrote:
Cherub is indeed a separate model. You can see that it has a profile in the dev datasheet. It doesn't have 3+ armour though so you have to roll 1 die at a time for its saves till it dies.

thx for the correction. didn't realize it could eat a wound for the unit

No I kept it so as to be able to shoot twice with any survivors. I lost 5 men to the flamers, and one more to morale with Grim Resolve. Rolled two 5 for morale anyway, so one Marine gone nonetheless. Couldn't Auspex them, because the Raven Guard infiltration is not considered "coming from reserves" as you deploy it on the table before the first turn. It's like the Alpha Legion or Stygies VII stratagem. I had a Lieutenant for the rerolls of 1 to Wound, and he's the one that finished that immortal Primaris Lieutenant so I was happy to have him.

On another subject, I just found out about the stratagem "Data-link Telemetry", the one that allows you to chose a target within 12" of a Land Speeder and in LoS, to shoot at it with a Whirlwind with auto-hits. Given I intend on having at least one LS (Sammael or regular ones) I'm wondering if I should consider buying a Whirlwind too. The Vengance missiles look pretty neat, I didn't run the maths yet but 2d6 autocannon shots at 72" without LoS, that auto-hit, seems pretty good. Anyone tried that ?

EDIT: Nevermind I ran the maths with just the Whirlwind + Launcher and it's awful. Following numbers are those obtained with the auto-hits from the stratagem, on average.
- The Castellan Launcher is only effective against 1W light infantry, like GEQ (3,89 W), Scions (2,92 W) and MEQ (1,56 W). When you aim vehicles with it you quickly obtain 3/4 or 1/2 of a Wound.
- The Vengeance Launcher is all the opposite, it's overkill against GEQ (2,78 W), Scions (2,22 W) and MEQ (1,33). due to the 2D, but manages good results nonetheless, even if less efficient points-wise than the Castellan. It gets way better than its counterpart against multi-wounds models such as Primaris (2,67 W), TEQ (1,78) but is still mediocre. Against Vehicles such as Rhinos (2 W), Land Raiders (1,33 W) and Leman Russes (1,33 W) it can scrap off the occasional last wound to finish it off, but you're paying 1 CP for these results, remember.

We have to consider it can shoot without LoS, at 72", and on a Rhino chassis, but I believe it's still not worth bringing one to the table. Consider paying for the hunter-killer missile if you want to play it though, as all his weapons benefit from the stratagem, it can help do 1d6 more damage.

 Swillsswil wrote:
Cherub is indeed a separate model. You can see that it has a profile in the dev datasheet. It doesn't have 3+ armour though so you have to roll 1 die at a time for its saves till it dies.

Also good for eating mortal wounds, or the Grim Resolve moral check