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I cannot adequately communicate how much I abhor the 4th ed DA codex. That codex killed all hopes of making a nice DW list in 4th ed. I tried it and without adding various elements in the DA codex so many fanboys like to lovingly refer to as 'combined arms tactics', it is a failure. And even with those elements added, still not very good in 4th ed.

But...we are no longer in 4th ed, so I would like to give this codex a try again, because if this codex really was made with 5th ed in mind, then it should be a competitive list.

So in the spirit of second chances, I was curious if any of you out here on Dakka have played a basically 'pure' deathwing list (Or as close as possible to the spirit of the 3rd ed idea of pure deathwing) and have any success in 5th ed using it. What you use and how you use it.


Lets keep the rumours regarding the soon to be released SM codex and how they might relate to DA to a minimum, please. I will just report those posts as spam.
I am looking for what does work now and not what might work in a Utopian dream land of wishful thinking where DA get to share everything the new SM will.
If the DA do get new toys via FAQ, then I will remove this disclaimer.


So, any thoughts from Jervis' apologists? Grumpy grognards recently converted to the 'Jervis New Plan'? People who like to play with cool looking dollies in general?
Let the arguing commence.

2-3 LRCs + Terminators + Chaplain + Belial would be a very strong army. I played 1 game with a variant list using 2 vindicators, a LRC, some terminators, and belial (posted in the army list section) and did extremely well. I almost wiped my brother's death guard off the board by turn 3. I wouldn't know how they would perform against a mech eldar/tau, or a horde army, but I imagine not that poorly. 3 LRCs would be very difficult for orks to deal with. As for the mech lists, cyclone missile launchers are your best bet. TBH, it's best to just write your own fluff and add w/e units you'd like to add to your DW army, because pure DW will never be as strong as one with some variation.

I think 3 LR Deathwing is as strong as the list gets.

I lost to a guy who posts here on Dakka (screenname Cypher) playing a Deathwing list with Belial, a bunch or termies, one termie was an apothecary (!) and a land raider and a predator and most importantly 3 ven dreads. Those freaking ven dreads were the death of my Emp Childrens list. The ability to run makes them so much more effective.

I think we will see dark angels getting really good in about 6 months.

Let Vegas happen, orks are going to make a huge impact there. Let the rumors of how unbeatable orks are get to the less active players. Let the lazy obstinate 40k players finally change their las/plas packing, harlequin having, genestealer spamming lists...

When the heavy bolter/scatter laser/whirlwind/hellhound/leman russ/flamer spam finally becomes the norm, then you bring in the terminators and the land raiders.

terminators are the yin to the 180 ork yang. Using them now is too soon. People who are slow to adapt to 5th edition are still packing the over-costed tools with which to mow through termies. Once they finally get the memo, I'm willing to bet that an assault termie unit with belial, an apothecary and a librarian juggling force barrier and hellfire DWAing into range for a turn 2 charge is going to be a staple complaint.

And it doesn't look like marines are getting that trick...

Shep, your entire post I am mentally QFT. I agree completely. The 'Nerfing that was 4th/3rd will be long gone.

I have about 80 Terminators and 4 LR's.

Can't wait......

Keep a close eye on what changes on the new SM codex carry over

Cheaper (points & $) drop pods make deep striking Dreads a more viable option.

Heavy 2 Cyclones-assuming that they are still 20 pts, they jump way ahead of asscans. Plus you can mount them on assault terminators (like 3+ save THs)

Apothecaries FNP-not sure if this is good or bad. Probably good overall since we will see more template & multishot weapons.

Storm shields:
3+ shields are huge-having one or two models per squad to soak up hidden powerfists and special weapon shots is huge.

I don't know about DA/DW becoming "really good", but they will certainly be better than they are right now.

Drop pods have gone up in points from 30 to 50 in the DA and BA codexes.

Shep wrote:I think we will see dark angels getting really good in about 6 months.

Let Vegas happen, orks are going to make a huge impact there. Let the rumors of how unbeatable orks are get to the less active players. Let the lazy obstinate 40k players finally change their las/plas packing, harlequin having, genestealer spamming lists...

When the heavy bolter/scatter laser/whirlwind/hellhound/leman russ/flamer spam finally becomes the norm, then you bring in the terminators and the land raiders.

terminators are the yin to the 180 ork yang. Using them now is too soon. People who are slow to adapt to 5th edition are still packing the over-costed tools with which to mow through termies. Once they finally get the memo, I'm willing to bet that an assault termie unit with belial, an apothecary and a librarian juggling force barrier and hellfire DWAing into range for a turn 2 charge is going to be a staple complaint.

And it doesn't look like marines are getting that trick...

Thats actually what I am afraid of. Volume of fire is far more scary to me as a person who plays termie heavy lists. I much prefer over costed tools than large amounts of fire any day of the week.

MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy wrote:A bunch of wishful thinking.

As I remarked in the post originally, posts such as that is assumption and wishful thinking until it actually does happen. I am not asking for rumours. The expectation that it will happen is setting yourself up for failure.

How do they handle in V5 vs. the aforementioned orks?

Darrian13 wrote:I lost to a guy who posts here on Dakka (screenname Cypher) playing a Deathwing list with Belial, a bunch or termies, one termie was an apothecary (!) and a land raider and a predator and most importantly 3 ven dreads. Those freaking ven dreads were the death of my Emp Childrens list. The ability to run makes them so much more effective.

Darrian, Please do correct me if I am wrong. Judging by the exclamation point after the apothecary statement, it appears as if you might have been taken by surprise by this list. Do you think you would have lost to it if you expected what was in it to be there?

MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy wrote:Keep a close eye on what changes on the new SM codex carry over

Cheaper (points & $) drop pods make deep striking Dreads a more viable option.

Heavy 2 Cyclones-assuming that they are still 20 pts, they jump way ahead of asscans. Plus you can mount them on assault terminators (like 3+ save THs)

Apothecaries FNP-not sure if this is good or bad. Probably good overall since we will see more template & multishot weapons.

Storm shields:
3+ shields are huge-having one or two models per squad to soak up hidden powerfists and special weapon shots is huge.

I don't know about DA/DW becoming "really good", but they will certainly be better than they are right now.

Lovely. How does this affect the list as it currently stands, again?

Please keep the posts on-topic, people. If you would like to discuss future Space Marine tactics, please start a new thread.

Well, Lorek, in all fairness, it is pretty relevant to the discussion if those changes in the new SM book apply to DA as well, especially since it's right around the corner.

In the interim, is 1 CML better than 1 Asscan currently, hell no.

Are people still mixing in LC's with their DW squads, or sticking with storm bolters?

With the nurf to powerfists and the upping in price of most AP2 weapons they are getting better.
The new combat rules also help because charging termies will kill 8 or so of almost anything.

Against the 180 orc mob they can do ok if they have land raiders cleverly screning the men from the majority of orc firepower.
Against the buggy list that stylec is tooting around they have very little to counter with aside from the land raider itself.

If they get some of the new stuff from the marine codex they will only get better...

whitedragon wrote:Well, Lorek, in all fairness, it is pretty relevant to the discussion if those changes in the new SM book apply to DA as well, especially since it's right around the corner.

Actually, whitedragon it isn't relevant at all. And quite frankly an off-topic derailment of the thread.
Until it it gets FAQ'ed (and I hope it does) it is just assumption.
Thats why I asked in the original post to keep this thread based on facts as they stand, and not a possible fantasy.

Until it gets FAQ'ed, I will continue to report such posts as spam.

I think Deathwing is extremely viable in the new edition.

Personally, I would stick to Heavy Flamers as the Heavy Weapon of choice and use them to deal with Orks and other large numbers.

But the greatest asset the list has is the Land Raider. People haven't quite caught on how godly the Land Raider is now.

I say a force of a Land Raider Crusader with Beliel, his Terminator Squad, and a Chaplain in Termintator Armor. Supported by a Standard Land Raider, and maybe an anti-tank Dreadnought in a Drop Pod to deal with enemy tanks. And you fill out the rest of the points with pure shooty + heavy flamer Terminator sqauds and you have a tough list.

Versus gunlines, there is no way you will prevent the Crusader reaching the lines by Turn 2, and use dropping Terminators to flank and grab objectives.

Versus Assault armys, you just deploy as normal. Let them come to you, then counter charge.

It would be a tough list to crack.

Hellfury wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Well, Lorek, in all fairness, it is pretty relevant to the discussion if those changes in the new SM book apply to DA as well, especially since it's right around the corner.

Actually, whitedragon it isn't relevant at all. And quite frankly an off-topic derailment of the thread.
Until it it gets FAQ'ed (and I hope it does) it is just assumption.
Thats why I asked in the original post to keep this thread based on facts as they stand, and not a possible fantasy.

Until it gets FAQ'ed, I will continue to report such posts as spam.

Fair enough, but hardly worth reporting as spam I think. And you never said anything about Lightning Claws that I asked about. I have a huge mess of dual assault cannon lysdander wing and I'm wondering what I should add to make it deathwing.

Anyway, to build off of Mahu's comments. I'm hearing that heavy flamers are the new hotness? But in your example, you only have 2 LR's, Mahu, thats not very many, even with the new vehicle rules, they will be cracked. Running 3 LR's puts you into dangerously low amount of troops. Ven Dreads are a nice option, but once again, everything is expensive.

Would it be better to go Heavy Land Raiders, or Heavy Terminators mixed with Venerable Dreadnoughts? Playing pure DW, without access to homers, I think its not wise to deep strike, and to have as much of your army on the board as possible from the beginning.

Maybe treat DW like pure Grey Knights, the way Deadshane (I think) proposed in his tactica? Stand back and shoot as much as you can, and then countercharge when they get close. That calls for mostly infantry, so as many termies as you can, with Assault Cannons and Stormbolters, supported by Tank Hunting Ven dreads?

Mahu wrote:I think Deathwing is extremely viable in the new edition.

Personally, I would stick to Heavy Flamers as the Heavy Weapon of choice and use them to deal with Orks and other large numbers.

Interesting. Would you still include HF as a weapon of choice if you had other items that took care of that type damage? Say for instance, a siege dreadnought?
Possibly *gasp* a a lonely whirlwind? (unfluffy I know for a purist DW army, but I am not certain it is possible to be pure in 5th ed, a minor concession or two might be in order).

I ask because even if the assault cannon didn't have rending, I would still take it due to its massed fire matching the range of the rest of the squad. HF basically force me to engage the enemy to be effective, and I prefer to engage them on my own terms rather than focusing on CC.

whitedragon wrote:Would it be better to go Heavy Land Raiders, or Heavy Terminators mixed with Venerable Dreadnoughts? Playing pure DW, without access to homers, I think its not wise to deep strike, and to have as much of your army on the board as possible from the beginning.

I also find this idea interesting. I hadn't thought of that before and feel somewhat ashamed.

Half the army on the ground already in land raiders while the rest deepstrike.
Get a couple squads set up for key firing/scoring positions after deepstrike. Next turn roll in with the rest of them in LR.

Sounds good in theory.

Hellfury wrote:
Thats actually what I am afraid of. Volume of fire is far more scary to me as a person who plays termie heavy lists. I much prefer over costed tools than large amounts of fire any day of the week.

All of my examples except for heavy bolters and scatter lasers are actually templates/blast markers. Not volume of fire. I'm aware that torrents of fire are a good way to get rid of terminators. But people will choose templates more and more over any kind of direct shooting. The platforms that allow for torrents of fire in many army lists are vehicle squadrons mind you, which the added trick of DWA are very good at countering.

Whirlwinds, leman russes, hellhounds, destructor warlocks, missile launcher dev squads, deathspitter warrior broods, hammerhead submunition...

These are just examples of units that are becoming wildly popular... all of them underperform against a properly spaced terminator unit.

There are other new unit archetypes that are being designed by people who tech out lists. These units are designed to attack large numbers of low armor save low initiative models, and survive the return attack of high volume armor save allowing attacks... These units can not beat initiative 4 lightning claw terminators with banners.

One example is the nob biker with painboy. It is becoming a real sensation. A unit that costs over 500 points, that attacks before orks, but allows saves. Belial will kill a biker before it attacks, you'll fail two saves, having assigned as many as possible to belial. All the claws can still attack at I4, causing between 5-6 more wounds at initiative. Warboss will cause 1.68 more wounds.... lets round it up to 2. Your 380 point unit just beat a 585 by 4 wounds. Add in the terminator librarian, which gives you another multi-wound model to gaff wounds onto and you can even force barrier one of the warbosses claw attacks. Makes that margin even wider.

Striking scorpions are another unit that is gaining traction in the community, They kill 1 termie at initiative 4, after belial kills 3 of them at I5. Around 8 die at initiative 4 to lightning claws, which will clear off the exarch before scropions claw gets to attack. A 217 point unit dead at the cost of a terminator.

But I think I just need to summarize all my thoughts with this... I play about 4 games a week, because I'm single and have a large active gaming group. My roommate plays deathwing, and my good friend plays horde orks. They are both good, so am I... I have NOT been able to make a take on all comers list that can handle both of their armies. My roomates deathwing assault dismantles my scatter laser spam, he drops 3 units of termies down and takes apart three units of either war walkers or vypers before they shoot. The more I increase my games against the termie spam, the more outlandishly curb-stomped I get by just a simple, brainless ork army. This goes for my eldar, imperial guard, and necron armies.

Just be optimistic, make a deathwing army if you want to. I am very confident that side by side with orks, they will be good.

Hellfury: Fine, my previous post was slightly OT. The current rumors state that the chapter codices will be FAQ'd when the new codex comes. DW armies will quite possibly look radically different in 2 months. But your point is valid and I'll get back to the topic.

Heavy flamers
I'm not sold on going for all heavy flamers. As Hellfury said, heavy flamers force you to engage the enemy. I think a Deathwing army has to be versatile enough to sit back and shoot. 3+ assault cannons still does a good number on footslogging Orks over the span of 2-3 turns.

Footsloggers
I used to run this a lot back when Land Raiders were fragile. The Infantry + Dreadnought can work but I fear that there are too many armies out there that can outshoot you.

Half the army on the ground already in land raiders while the rest deepstrike.
Get a couple squads set up for key firing/scoring positions after deepstrike. Next turn roll in with the rest of them in LR.

How many points are we talking about here? 2 Terminator squads + 2 Land Raiders runs you almost 1,000 pts. You can probably squeeze in 1 or 2 more Terminator squads, only one of which can arrive VIA DWA. You might be spreading yourself too thin.

If you're willing to make a concession and use a non DW unit, I'd go with a bike squad rather than the whirlwind. Makes deep striking a lot more practical. You can zip up and DWA 3 Terminator squads for a turn 2 charge if you think you can stand 1 turn of fire. Or you can use it to simply move one squad into a better firing position if you think you would be better off starting your entire army on the board.

In the end it boils down to 3 schools of thought:

1) All on foot - Pure terminator or terminator + dread
2) Mech DW - 3 LRs
3) Mixed list - 1 or 2 LRs

edit:
Shep: What kind of Eldar list do you run? And does your DW buddy take bikes to set up the DWA?

Shep wrote:I have NOT been able to make a take on all comers list that can handle both of their armies. My roomates deathwing assault dismantles my scatter laser spam, he drops 3 units of termies down and takes apart three units of either war walkers or vypers before they shoot. The more I increase my games against the termie spam, the more outlandishly curb-stomped I get by just a simple, brainless ork army. This goes for my eldar, imperial guard, and necron armies.

Hopefully this won't be regarded by the OP as spam. But I found your last paragraph there very interesting and conforming to what I've observed playing and watching games. It's hard in 5th to have a well-rounded all comers army that isn't at risk of getting hammered by something. I've currently got an ork army (11+ years), but I've always liked the idea of a deathwing army. It seems to be the opposite of the orks (and possibly their counter) with low model+high armour. I definitely think that in regards to orks, a 3 LR/LRC army would give it fits. And LR are just ugly in how resistent to damage they are. I don't think people have really realized yet just how much gentler the new damage system is yet in regards to LR.

@Hellfury, I have played against Deathwing maybe 3-4 times since the new codex and I had never seen an apothecary in termie armor. I own the codex but I just never bothered to read all of it. The apothecary was a very unpleasent suprise.

MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy wrote:If you're willing to make a concession and use a non DW unit, I'd go with a bike squad rather than the whirlwind. Makes deep striking a lot more practical. You can zip up and DWA 3 Terminator squads for a turn 2 charge if you think you can stand 1 turn of fire. Or you can use it to simply move one squad into a better firing position if you think you would be better off starting your entire army on the board.

This actually makes me wonder if Deepstriking for the most part will be impractical in the new edition in comparison to LR spam.

The reason being is that you must take a biker squad to ensure no deviation and then the termies still more than likely will have to weather a turn of fire. The bikes really aren't that effective for the points you spend (especially if they are taken to just get a homer), I can think of other units I would rather take for that price.

Where as if you take a land raider, you can still pull off the same turn 2 fire and assault and do so in a higher degree of safety. The landraider (or LR variant) is still very formidable after it has done its main job of delivery, unlike the bikers.

MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy wrote:
Shep: What kind of Eldar list do you run? And does your DW buddy take bikes to set up the DWA?

The game I was surprised I lost with eldar was with a somewhat typical 80 scattershot eldar list

a couple fire prisms, 3x warwalkers, 9x vypers, and guardians.... I'm going to build a warlock council bike army and try it against deathwing, but although I think that is an excellent list, the fearless 2+ save of termie units plus the volume of fire from 5 termie units that start on the table, before my warlocks can charge means that i don't think the locks can just domino down units, they'll have to avoid belials units for a while too. (i know this is a no-no to mention, but if belials termie unit gets FNP, they really look good against the warlock bike council, I mean really good)

My deathwing buddy sometimes takes a 3 man melta bike and multimelta attack bike, he has tried sammael and 2x bike 2x attack bike too, but lately we've been seeing a lot of belial, librarian, 6x termie units.


Back to pure deathwing for a moment. Someone mentioned tricks with deployment and keeping some flexible amount of who is going to deep strike and who is going to deploy on table. Land raiders are a good interchangeable choice... drop a terminator unit, add a land raider. You have to consider what your opponent is doing. If you DWA just for the sake of it, you'll cut your firepower in the first turns too dramatically against an army that is on the offensive. When facing an army with units that are comfortable firing at 36" and beyond, especially fast moving 36" range, thats what the DWA is for. When facing 24" range or less units, its really important that you start on the table, with everyone except maybe 1 unit (which will DWA on turn 1 anyway)

I'm already seeing favorable match-ups when my roommates deathwing faces my friends ork horde. Without any rumored changes, they have played to some really close games... the ork player has an edge, but its slight. It really boils down to the lootas, are they having one of those games? Or are they performing normally or sub-par... everyone who regularly faces lootas knows what i mean. A deathwing army has to ignore them, and that is hard to do when they keep getting three shots...

Deathwing are great for 5th ed because they are probably the the toughest most elite troop choice in the entire game, and you can take an entire army of them.

Plus they can be transported in the most elite resilient transport in the game.

Together they are a pretty tough combo to deal with. Plus most lists are moving toward horde clearing which only helps this army.

Pete

Mahu wrote:But the greatest asset the list has is the Land Raider. People haven't quite caught on how godly the Land Raider is now.

Yes, we have.

Darrian13 wrote:@Hellfury, I have played against Deathwing maybe 3-4 times since the new codex and I had never seen an apothecary in termie armor. I own the codex but I just never bothered to read all of it. The apothecary was a very unpleasent suprise.

Be glad you didn't face the 3 apothecary version of this list then.

It's even more annoying.

Pdeflorio wrote:Deathwing are great for 5th ed because they are probably the the toughest most elite troop choice in the entire game, and you can take an entire army of them.

Plus they can be transported in the most elite resilient transport in the game.

Together they are a pretty tough combo to deal with. Plus most lists are moving toward horde clearing which only helps this army.

Then you toss in the volume of fire (kills termies dead), the incoming horde of meltaguns (kills land raiders dead), and you are back to having a list.

Sorry.

Stelek wrote:Then you toss in the volume of fire (kills termies dead)

Just for academic purposes... (I'm not really all that excited about talking deathwing until after the FAQ) What platforms are we talking about for this fire saturation. There are platforms that output lots of shots that are difficult for terminators with DWA, but there are also some fire bases that fall apart very easily, when they can't control the range between themselves and their target. Of course i will give you a great deal of latitude when it comes to some shooting... Sisters spam is not so easily handled by terminators, but open topped armor 10 vehicle squadrons are. When people on message boards talk about armies, they tend to talk about how either a list wins every game it plays, or loses every game it plays. I think there are some lists that wreck deathwing, and i think deathwing wrecks lots of lists when played well. And this is before some people have adjusted to orks, and before a rumored 'big deal' FAQ.

Stelek wrote:the incoming horde of meltaguns (kills land raiders dead)

Again, Of course I'm going to give you this one for some cases. Deep striking guardsmen can trade their 75 point unit for a 250 transport. Fire Dragons, although more costly, can also easily trade, and control the circumstances of that trade. But that's 2 out of what... 14 armies? I'm sure I am forgetting some units here and there. Triple multi-melta from obliterators will wreck a land raider, but will the fearless assault termies be within 12" of those oblits after they skip out... unharmed... (rhetorical... yes they will) and now that is a 225 point unit traded for a 250 point vehicle. Are we talking about drop pods? Single BS4 meltaguns as a consistent killer of land raiders? Or is this another 50 point +/- trade again, with the land raider getting the advantage in kill points?



I'm not going to try and say "get ready for deathwing to dominate". But it is more than a little hyperbolic to say that they are just destined to lose to any well built army. Some armies deal with orks through high volume dice throwing, half of those armies get those shots from sturdy platforms... half of them use speedy, flimsy platforms... Terminators can handle one, not the other. Other armies handle orks with blasts... blasts suck against termies. All of these army builds will also need to invest in said meltaguns to handle land raiders, these same meltaguns that are completely terrible against 180 orks.