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Hey all

Apologies if this has been covered before.

I'm going to be playing a game at the weekend, and I'm going to be using my Dark Angels army, with 5 Deathwing Knights and 5 Deathwing Terminators. So, naturally I'm going to Deep Strike those Deathwing...

However, I've used Deathwing before. I've also used other races variants of Deep Strike troops, such as Ork Stormboyz, and the rules for [insert faction specific variant of Deep Strike name here] seem to make it pointless to be Deep Striking.

Firstly, as I read the rule, you can't move after arriving, because the unit arrives at the end of the movement phase. Secondly you have to be more than 9" away from enemy models, so only just in pistol range, and quite unlikely to be in charge range. Thirdly if you're not armed with a shooting weapon at all it means you're wide open to being shot at before having any sort of involvement in the game - you literally end up standing around for a turn doing nothing!

For Orks at least, who can't hit a barn door at point blank range, it makes the Deep Strike ability rather useless. It's a bit less useless for Deathwing as they have Terminator armour, so a better save, and multiple wounds, but you're still left standing around for a turn doing nothing unless you're equipped with a Storm Bolter and/or heavy weapon.

The only thing I can see it being useful for is camping on an unoccupied objective where no enemy units will be within range for a turn or so, and you've got to be playing against a bad player for that to even be the case, and in the case of Deathwing, they're rather expensive just to be campers.

Thoughts?

A you can come down turn 2 onwards those objectives are unlikely to be unoccupied. But yeah I don't think its as strong as it used to be. Still has potential tactical usage.

Guess that's what happens when you take a rare specialized rule and roll it out as an option to almost any unit in the game. It then gets nerf hammered because one or two combos abuse it.

Rob Lee wrote:
Hey all

Apologies if this has been covered before.

I'm going to be playing a game at the weekend, and I'm going to be using my Dark Angels army, with 5 Deathwing Knights and 5 Deathwing Terminators. So, naturally I'm going to Deep Strike those Deathwing...

However, I've used Deathwing before. I've also used other races variants of Deep Strike troops, such as Ork Stormboyz, and the rules for [insert faction specific variant of Deep Strike name here] seem to make it pointless to be Deep Striking.

Firstly, as I read the rule, you can't move after arriving, because the unit arrives at the end of the movement phase. Secondly you have to be more than 9" away from enemy models, so only just in pistol range, and quite unlikely to be in charge range. Thirdly if you're not armed with a shooting weapon at all it means you're wide open to being shot at before having any sort of involvement in the game - you literally end up standing around for a turn doing nothing!

For Orks at least, who can't hit a barn door at point blank range, it makes the Deep Strike ability rather useless. It's a bit less useless for Deathwing as they have Terminator armour, so a better save, and multiple wounds, but you're still left standing around for a turn doing nothing unless you're equipped with a Storm Bolter and/or heavy weapon.

The only thing I can see it being useful for is camping on an unoccupied objective where no enemy units will be within range for a turn or so, and you've got to be playing against a bad player for that to even be the case, and in the case of Deathwing, they're rather expensive just to be campers.

Thoughts?

Where is the rules question here? Deep Striking is powerful because it protects the units from enemy shooting for 2-3 turns, and allows you the chance of charging without having to foot-slog up the board. Furthermore, Deep Striking a unit in which has Storm Bolters (ya know, getting 4 shots each) is pretty powerful against lightly armoured units. Have a roughly 50/50 chance of mulching potentially multiple enemy units in melee with (effectively) zero way to retaliate is pretty good I think.

Also there are armies that can pull off a Charge after deepstriking more than 50% of the time. Deepstriking is still stronger and more reliable than ever. In Previous Editions you had much less control over when or where your guys would pop up and you could even lose the whole unit in a mishap.

Not useless at all.

Deep striking affords you a tactical option.

Lets be honest here, your issue is more with Terminators than anything else. Plenty of other armies have access to DS and better charge abilities, DW do not.

I personally preferred when deep striking involved scattering and you could come down were you wanted to. High risk high reward was more fun than the current just pop up safely and then possibly make a low percentage charge if your melee based.

Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

The way it was implemented could be slow, frustrating and a source of conflict.

On the other hand the idea of deep striking units (and artillery barrages) coming down in unintended places was fun.

It's somewhere north of 200 points to do it, but don't forget the Cyclone Launcher. 20 Bolter shots and 2 Krak missiles is not a bad chunk of firepower, and nothing says you can't drop it 23.9" into your opponent's back-field as a significant distraction. Many armies have important fire support units that are vulnerable to that sort of thing.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

I can't comment on the other posters motivation but both my gaming group and myself loved templates and scattering. I rarely had arguments break out during games because and it lead to some memorable and/or hilarious situations. Pulling off a clutch deepstrike in between terrain or having a shot scatter off and killing your own guys was the right combo of funny, frustrating and memorable.

I think it greatly depends on the unit.. I never leave home without a unit of 20 defenders And their 2 cannons in deepstrike. They do wonders. On the flip side, I sometimes deepstrike a unit of 10 wraithblades w axe and shield. I do attempt a charge, sometimes I get it and sometimes I don’t, but with a 4+ invul and 3 wounds a piece, as well as 10 of them, they will still be there in massive force... and kill whatever they want the following turn. And continue killing. So I think it’s just fine..

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

I agree. My CSM Raptor squad regularly used the Deep Strike USR in the past to land on roof tops and then proceeded to either destroy or cripple battle tanks in a major way with their three plasma pistols. Keep in mind that you always targeted the lightly armoured rear of tanks irrespective of your position when you had a certain height advantage (Source: First Cityfight edition). This tactic was a thing in 40K long before Obi Wan came to realize the perks of having the "High Ground" in one of his numerous meditation sessions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etcx9EVRb_U

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

No its not a joke. I enjoyed the randomness of it, as few others pointed out it was a recipe for some funny moments.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I personally preferred when deep striking involved scattering and you could come down were you wanted to. High risk high reward was more fun than the current just pop up safely and then possibly make a low percentage charge if your melee based.

Wasnt the old rules you deepstrike but can't assault? Now its deepstrike but you have a low percentage chance to attack unless your have special rules. Seems to work better IMO.

Rob Lee wrote:

For Orks at least, who can't hit a barn door at point blank range, it makes the Deep Strike ability rather useless. It's a bit less useless for Deathwing as they have Terminator armour, so a better save, and multiple wounds, but you're still left standing around for a turn doing nothing unless you're equipped with a Storm Bolter and/or heavy weapon.

Well for orks we are looking at shootas wiping out IG infantry squad and then have 58% chance to charge. 78% with evil suns. Generally evil suns do 78% charges fine. For vehicles we have extra ability to do 3d6 charge so...Bloodletters likewise 3d6" charge.

Blood angels are also able to do 3d6 charges which makes it easy and generally anything you are charging with is going to come down with rerolls as minimum if not boost to distance or more dices.

And of course shooty units don't worry about 9" minimum distance generally as they do those anyway. Being able to come where you want safe in advance is helpful in it's own right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smirrors wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I personally preferred when deep striking involved scattering and you could come down were you wanted to. High risk high reward was more fun than the current just pop up safely and then possibly make a low percentage charge if your melee based.

Wasnt the old rules you deepstrike but can't assault? Now its deepstrike but you have a low percentage chance to attack unless your have special rules. Seems to work better IMO.

One thing though with old rules negating deep strikers was lot harder. Now with all the pregame scout movements and coming T2 it's quite plausible to shut off deep strikers all together from reaching useful targets with each model creating 18" no land bubble. Add in terrain and outer layers being cheap chaff...I remember game vs eldar where in the end T3 I was deep striking my orks practically on my deployment zone because all those vehicles and characters were making sure I couldnt' land anywhere. Even my own DZ had huge area I couldn't land(eldar flier had flown there)

I've seen Deathwing used to chain in other deepstrikers. It's expensive and probably not "super competitive", but fun when it works.

Step 1: 10 Deathwing Terminators with Stormbolters deepstrike into save cover and use their special Deathwing strat to immediately (in the movement phase as they arrive) fire 40 bolter shots at 24" into the frontmost screen.
Step 2: Seraphim with Handflamers deepstrike into the spot of the screen the Deathwing just wiped, using their handflamer stratagem to immediately (in the movement phase as they arrive) fire 12" handflamers into the second screen.
Step 3: Blood Angels Smash-Captain or something deepstrikes into the spot the Sisters just cleared and later charges 3D6" into the juicy centre of the opponents army.

HoundsofDemos wrote:I personally preferred when deep striking involved scattering and you could come down were you wanted to. High risk high reward was more fun than the current just pop up safely and then possibly make a low percentage charge if your melee based.

In the past, you couldn't charge out of deep strike at all, and were forced base to base. This is definitely better.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Spoiler:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

I can't comment on the other posters motivation but both my gaming group and myself loved templates and scattering. I rarely had arguments break out during games because and it lead to some memorable and/or hilarious situations. Pulling off a clutch deepstrike in between terrain or having a shot scatter off and killing your own guys was the right combo of funny, frustrating and memorable.

Argive wrote:

Spoiler:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Scatter in general was a brilliant fun mechanic IMO. Great fun!

Is this a joke? I can only assume this is a joke.

No its not a joke. I enjoyed the randomness of it, as few others pointed out it was a recipe for some funny moments.

As a IG player, I'm glad scatter is gone. While it was a useful tool to make up for poor ballistic skill, for every "fun" or "funny" moment born of randomness, there's like 10 arguments about where that template exactly went.

Also, it's not really fun, and only funny after the fact, when a Manticore scatters into your gunline. Actually, I can't think of any positive memorable experiences with templates and scattering; only those borne of them backfiring on their user, which isn't really something that needs to be a thing.

You dont sound bittet about it one bit...


I played nids in 3rd ed. Spore mines randomly moving around the table were cool. And yes sometimes bloeing up your own troops is funny. I think friendly fire wasnt a problem if you throw a bunch of poorly trained and equipped guardsmen at the enemy... mistakes of the friendly fire veriety will happen.

As an army that pays points for deep strike on their every model. I must say it does not work very well. Maybe if someone can stack defensive rules, or have other support rules helping the deep striking units. droping in with +2/++5 even with 10 bolters doesn't do much. Maybe a screen unit gets hurt, if blessed bolts don't get cancled it is better. But it is still never worth the points. A BA cpt can at least kill more points then he costs. A lot of other deep striking units don't. droping down 250-300+pts of bolters to kill a 100pts units, only to see the deep striking unit die on the opponents turn, aint much fun.