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I just finished processing as much of the Dark Angels book as I could. I don't think this book is as bad as Iron Hands, but it might be the strongest book for 9th.

Some of the issues aren't easily FAQ'd away. So let's discuss and compare notes to see if we've missed anything.

BGV can get Inner Circle. Is this worse than terminators having it? Probably not? The Impulsor is not Deathwing and cannot be initiated.

All the new Landspeeders can get Jink. Pretty gahd damn solid if you ask me - no downside here, I think.

Dark Age is back coupled with Plasma Inceptors sounds good, but it seems that Inceptors can't be initiated, so they would have to be in their own detachment.

The new spells are pretty slick and in tandem with 9th - a spell to turn off auras, one to turn off actions/obsec, one to give reroll all hits and wounds in melee to one unit. Librarians are only Deathwing ( I think ) so if you want to drop more than two spells you have to drop all your DW HQs into librarians and slap in 3 units of terminators.

The coolest thing I'm jealous about - you can spend 1 CP to hide one of your secondaries until it is scored.

So - what stands out to you?

That this is a ton of highly specialized and powerful stuff to bolt on top of an already powerful book.

Trying to remain positive but between the way 8th went and the fact my army will be one of up to 14 subfactions crammed into a single book I'm ready for yet another polishing a turd article:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/03/21/21st-mar-heretic-astartes-focus-the-word-bearersgw-homepage-post-1/

*Written for their second attempt at the book knowing full well what Loyalist insanity they were unleashing.

Yea, there isn't much I can argue about that. My CSM are shelved still.

For the purposes of 9th - do DA seem "IH 2019 crazy" or "a really good book the fits the edition"?

This is what happens when you go the Supplement/separate codex route for everything instead of consolidation. Anyone supporting the former had this coming to them and I have little sympathy at this point.

A lot of the issues are again because they are using one set of points values for like 9 different books that give wildly different bonuses. 35 ppm for BGV might be perfectly reasonable in UM or IF, but in BA, WS or DA? Get outta here.

Unless they start charging different points for different chapters, the inevitable points increase for BGV are going to screw over other chapters unfairly. In fact the DA book is likely what increased the points of Outriders.

I say this time and time again, but it is the old Ynnari problem, just continued and spread across over much more factions and much more units. Consolidating a lot of Marine stuff into less books is perfectly reasonable, but the points costs should not have been.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
This is what happens when you go the Supplement/separate codex route for everything instead of consolidation. Anyone supporting the former had this coming to them and I have little sympathy at this point.

It does create awkward situations where the cost for BGV is tied to models without permanent transhuman. Is the lack of transport an issue? Probably not.

Its a good supplement, but you will run out of points fast. You can't have it all, but highly specialized armies will at least have variety.

I play Dark Angels as one of my primary factions and I am serious when I say this.... Please, please make chaos marines as good as their loyal counterparts. They should be downright scary and terrifying. Hopefully not too far in the future too.

Also, please make Fallen a legitimate army.

 Bosskelot wrote:
A lot of the issues are again because they are using one set of points values for like 9 different books that give wildly different bonuses. 35 ppm for BGV might be perfectly reasonable in UM or IF, but in BA, WS or DA? Get outta here.

Unless they start charging different points for different chapters, the inevitable points increase for BGV are going to screw over other chapters unfairly. In fact the DA book is likely what increased the points of Outriders.

I say this time and time again, but it is the old Ynnari problem, just continued and spread across over much more factions and much more units. Consolidating a lot of Marine stuff into less books is perfectly reasonable, but the points costs should not have been.

That simply means that Imperial Fists BGV aren't THE MOST AMAZING but they still have use, no matter how minimal (for example, Ultramarines ones can still fall back and shoot with their pistols, and they're already a unit you want to use a fall back + charge strat with, which I believe they have). In fact, BGV aren't even impressive for Dark Angels either without getting the wound rule from Deathwing. You also forget that Imperial Fists and Ultramarines get a bunch of special Strats or Relics or Warlord Traits. Oh wait, we forgot how Successors work too! Yeah no, we don't need special snowflake pricing. Remember the laughable rules for Minotaurs back in the day where you have to pay like 6-10 points per model?

Thats mostly the problem with throwing rules on top of rules on top of rules. Every Chapter Tactic is going to encourage use of certain units one way or another. You simply have to ensure the Chapter Tactics themselves don't make the unit broken. You make mention of White Scars BGV, but they don't even have use for half of the Chapter Tactic. Advance + Charge is just good because of how melee works, and that's a core rules issue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
This is what happens when you go the Supplement/separate codex route for everything instead of consolidation. Anyone supporting the former had this coming to them and I have little sympathy at this point.

It does create awkward situations where the cost for BGV is tied to models without permanent transhuman. Is the lack of transport an issue? Probably not.

Dark Angels shouldn't even HAVE some random durability rule. Literally none of the fluff goes over how amazingly durable they are alongside Death Guard or Iron Hands or Salamanders. It's literally just something they added randomly for the sake of adding it because "muh Deathwing".

 bullyboy wrote:
Its a good supplement, but you will run out of points fast. You can't have it all, but highly specialized armies will at least have variety.

I play Dark Angels as one of my primary factions and I am serious when I say this.... Please, please make chaos marines as good as their loyal counterparts. They should be downright scary and terrifying. Hopefully not too far in the future too.

Also, please make Fallen a legitimate army.

With DA finally a force to be reckoned with it'd be cool to see.

I do think DA armies will be really small model counts. It is hard to parse everything they are and are not allowed to have since there is no easy lookup and I'm not well versed on all the listings from the SM book.

Fallen are an army, the entire 1st legion are chaos marines so.....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Dark Angels shouldn't even HAVE some random durability rule. Literally none of the fluff goes over how amazingly durable they are alongside Death Guard or Iron Hands or Salamanders. It's literally just something they added randomly for the sake of adding it because "muh Deathwing".

Yea, I don't get where they conjured it. I wouldn't think they needed it with W3 termies, but it should be interesting to watch develop.

I play DA and I'll wait some time before playing. They seems functional, definitely better than Necron, not necessarily better than DG.

I suspect that they will be more or less in line with the new Codexes, and eventually very strong due to mission structure and objective placements rather than intrinsic power (something I already suspected during the Index due, essentially, to Transhuman...)
I think maybe it's a 9/10 now, but will be more realistically a 7/10 going forward. Solid, bit not highest tier.

I don't think there has ever been flagship GW game without an embarrassing power creep. So DA coming out early probably at a disadvantage on the long run

Until supplement 2.0

So I got curious on DW Termies vs PM.

3 Disintegrator -- 3 (4) v 2.5 (PM)
5 Plasma -- 4.5 (5.5) v 3.7 (PM)
10 Bolt Rifle -- 2.2 v 2.2 (PM)
10 HI Bolt Rifle -- 3.3 v 2.2 (DW)

It seems like DG remain the kings of durability except when their T5 loses some of its edge against D1. The DW also technically took more damage on multi-damage weapons, but I reduced it from the W3 breakpoint.

I don't know if they will be as strong as iron hands. I doubt it. But at least they seem fun to play, and thats a first since I started playing them. Being "the worst marines" wasn't really that engaging as a gameplay experience.

I've never really got why Dark Angels 'specialise' in so much stuff to be perfectly honest. They have access to older more powerful weapons, so they get buffs to shooting and an eye-watering plasma strat. Oh but they also have that super-special biker element so they get crazy speed and durability on their bikes too. Ah, and don't forget they have the most *and* the toughest terminators of any chapter (?), and they have this martial/knightly theme going on, so they get a ton of bonkers combat stuff. I realise this must all come from the lore (not up on loyalist lore I'm afraid) but it seems an awfully unfocused approach to a chapter in light of how the other chapters are designed, and was bound to end in tears. Still, I understand that despite all this they were pretty awful rules-wise for a long time, so I'm glad DA players get their time in the sun.

The funniest thing to me is just how COLLOSSALLY BAD it would be to try and run a "Fallen army" against these dark angels.

Just fething imagine, an army limited to Cypher, Sorcerors on foot, Rhinos, and Fallen Squads, with no chapter tactics, 1W first born statlines, no strats, no auras, no heavy weapons at all...

Just fething BLOWING them away in two turns no matter what they did. lol.

Eldarain wrote:That this is a ton of highly specialized and powerful stuff to bolt on top of an already powerful book.

Trying to remain positive but between the way 8th went and the fact my army will be one of up to 14 subfactions crammed into a single book I'm ready for yet another polishing a turd article:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/03/21/21st-mar-heretic-astartes-focus-the-word-bearersgw-homepage-post-1/

*Written for their second attempt at the book knowing full well what Loyalist insanity they were unleashing.

I don't think all the Legions will be stuffed in one book. Giving all of the Undivided Legions the supplement treatment, and giving WE and EC their own codexes, is just too much money for gw to pass up. How good they'll be waits to be seen. I'm still waiting on CSM 3.5 2.0.

Daedalus81 wrote:Yea, there isn't much I can argue about that. My CSM are shelved still.

For the purposes of 9th - do DA seem "IH 2019 crazy" or "a really good book the fits the edition"?

A week ago, everyone was freaking out about Death Guard, now it's Dark Angels. We're six codexes (effectively) into 9th, I'm sure we'll see a lot more crazy stuff before it's time for the next cycle of PA style books.

What makes DA look scary is how well they play the "objective game". Super tough obsec units, super fast vehicles and bikes, and psychic that shuts down your opponent's own obsec and ability to do actions. They weren't just built around 9th's general mechanics, they were built around the missions. That's some nasty rules writing right there. Can't wait to see what's next.

And what's this crap about shelving your CSM?

Racerguy180 wrote:
Fallen are an army, the entire 1st legion are chaos marines so.....

This "joke" is ancient. And not funny.

Blastaar wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Fallen are an army, the entire 1st legion are chaos marines so.....

This "joke" is ancient. And not funny.

You say its a joke

 Gadzilla666 wrote:


And what's this crap about shelving your CSM?

I'm a black legion kind of guy. Hasn't been enough to keep me hooked lately so I just work on painting Abby. Hopefully I can put him on the table when things (hopefully) go back to normal.

@ Gadzilla I'm sceptical but would like to be wrong. So far 9th books seem very good and I don't mind if this is where everyone ends up. Though again very sceptical. Will be very interesting to see the first glass cannon army here pretty quick.

People should be aware that there is a -1D banner for an Ancient for one unit. Problematic, but then I guess don't shoot that unit with multi damage weapons? More points and more CP likely.

 Eldarain wrote:
@ Gadzilla I'm sceptical but would like to be wrong. So far 9th books seem very good and I don't mind if this is where everyone ends up. Though again very sceptical. Will be very interesting to see the first glass cannon army here pretty quick.

Aye, I'm hoping the trend keeps going. Dark Eldar will be interesting, as it should give us some ideas on how the other Eldar factions will be handled, just like Death Guard for Chaos. There's going to be a dud eventually, I just hope it isn't CSM. Again. Supplements or not. They do at least appear to be trying to make every codex good.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
There's going to be a dud eventually, I just hope it isn't CSM. Again.

Well I have both Thousand Sons and CSM so its like 50/50, right? *hyperventilates*

At least I have my trusty Necrons. feth I love Necrons.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
People should be aware that there is a -1D banner for an Ancient for one unit. Problematic, but then I guess don't shoot that unit with multi damage weapons? More points and more CP likely.

Targeted? I'd prefer it was an aura. Then I could just Vox Scream the little bugger and let rip with the plasma. Damn.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It is hard to parse everything they are and are not allowed to have since there is no easy lookup and I'm not well versed on all the listings from the SM book.

And yet despite your lack of knowledge you'll make a post concerning DA being overpowered...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
There's going to be a dud eventually, I just hope it isn't CSM. Again.

Well I have both Thousand Sons and CSM so its like 50/50, right? *hyperventilates*

At least I have my trusty Necrons. feth I love Necrons.

Well, Death Guard is good, so now we just have eight chances to get screwed.

Edit: Sorry for the multiple posts in quick succession. Everybody posting all at once all of a sudden.

ccs wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It is hard to parse everything they are and are not allowed to have since there is no easy lookup and I'm not well versed on all the listings from the SM book.

And yet despite your lack of knowledge you'll make a post concerning DA being overpowered...

Yea...like...a discussion post...on like...a forum...where I ask people for input...
Weird.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

So - what stands out to you?

Just that we're back to 'if you want to power-up the units you already wanted to take, you must be subfaction <X>.' We never really escaped it, but this seems to double down on the concept again.
Why would most folks run terminators or speeders in any other flavor of space marine army? Bikes have White Scars in theory, but WS can do their advance and charge thing with anything. Free universal Jink is probably better if you want to run bikes- they're fast enough to get into charge range anyway (especially with the extra speed buffs RW can also pile on).

I don't see any particular reason to run regular infantry in DA lists, unless you're really super-obsessed with plasma.

Its seems another unnecessary power up on top of the powered up SM codex.