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Played a game last week and got somewhat of a beating off my mate Bear.
He used Deathwing assault running two units of DW led by Belial, Sammuel and some Ravenwing.
Suffice to say the turn they dropped in was devastating, losing, a HWT, DP and Spawn.
I was obviously playing Chaos and with their twin linked guns rule when they drop in + hatred + being terminators I didnt really have an awnser for them.

Any advice on how to counter this - with Belial providing an auto lock for deepstrike and 2 units of terms + some good shooting I was at a loss. Not to mention Sammuel+RW floating about.
I'd dread to see even more units of them.
And they score due to Belial?

Im open to any ideas for a rematch as Chaos or would like to run perhaps an IG army VS them.

Any general tactics too?

Cheers.

Using the new Deathwing Assault I've had bad luck dealing with meched up armies. Although the meta of my LGS hasn't changed any from 5th, mech is still big. If you know you're going up against drop pods or deathwing assault you could try meching and then castling. Only Belial's squad is coming in reliably without scatter. The other squad has to have teleport homers from those bikers (which is a good tactic) to come in without scattering. Not being able to make lethal use of vengeful strike kind of sucks on the turn they come in... scattering onto spread out vehicles and mishapping sucks more.

If you allow them to come in with some sweet rear armor showing yeah they're going to tear you a new one though. Just don't give them that chance. At least that's how I've been countered.

Thanks BF.
I was also thinking of mech. However my fear would be if he took maybe 3 or 4 DW units would I have the firepower/LoS/terrain/availability to kill them all.
And then you're facing a charge the next turn (most of them armed with powerfists etc).
Would a few bubble wrap units be worth it or would they get nuked from the initial shooting phase?

Hmm this one requires experimentation or some NotMathHammer.

What is your actual list comprised of?

That will give us an idea of what you have available and how you can best deny your opponent the devestating affect of Deathwing Assault.

Depends on whos house we play in hehe.
In his most likely it would be probably:
Hellhound or variant thereof
2 leman russes
2-3 chims
range of HWTs
Can proxy in one or two more tanks as needed - we're not fussy.

PS havent actually made up a list yet - just bashing around a few ideas currently.
Could I see your mech list?

Ok cool, I think if you have the points swap out a Lemun Russ for a demolisher. That alone should deter the deathwing assault. The new codex upped the cost of thunderhammer/stormshield terminators to 5pts per model, so he most likely won't have a lot of good invul saves. Drop a str 10 ap 2 pie plate on his squads after they arrive as a nice welcome. If you're using Chimera transports (and you totally should) put heavy flamers on them.

What will you put in the chimeras? I'd recommend taking veteran squads. Plasma vets and/or melta vets go a long way with guard and again the invul save of those deepstriking terminators probably won't be better than a 5+. Just pour on the wounds once they arrive and deny them any soft targets.

There are a couple of threads about guard tactics and it's been stated before that the heavy weapon squads aren't really up to par. They cost a lot and are squishy, other things in the codex do the same thing for less. If you do take HWS then take an ADL to protect and hide them. They can always go to ground when being shot at, using orders like Get Back In The Fight will keep them cranking out shots and safe at the same time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One question: Was he saying Belial acts like a teleport homer for every DW squad? Because it could just be me but in reading the rules it appears the teleport homer on Belial only functions as a teleport homer (like normal) if it was on the board at the beginning of the turn. So he wouldn't be able to deep strike and bring in other terminators without scattering.

I think they gave him the teleport homer for when the player wants to put belial in a command squad with a land raider. Deathwing Assaulting on turn 2 after the land raider with Belial have driven up 18"

Yeah, a couple of demolishers with their bums against your back line are nasty against terminators. Its very unlikely that they would be taken out in the drop turn and then they can respond. For guard, marbo is a pretty cheap and effective terminator killer. He can turn up pretty much anywhere you like and bomb the poo out of a squad.

Bonus for Marbo when he doesn't blow up himself. However if he still gets a couple of kills it's worth it since he's so dirt cheap.

One question: Was he saying Belial acts like a teleport homer for every DW squad? Because it could just be me but in reading the rules it appears the teleport homer on Belial only functions as a teleport homer (like normal) if it was on the board at the beginning of the turn. So he wouldn't be able to deep strike and bring in other terminators without scattering.

He played it that Belial allows the terms to auto lock - ie not scatter on arrival. I havent read the DA coded myself. Was that incorrect?
The other squad locked on via a RW telehomer.

Any general tactics if not playing mech VS DWA?
Is it a case of sucking up the damage they do and having a good counter ready?

I might try Mech tonight if I get the chance and will report back

After reading the codex I'd ask to see where it says Belial makes the other squads not scatter. If he points to the teleport homer then read the entry in the codex for teleport homers. They have to be on the table at the beginning of the turn to function. So I think he may have just been incorrect in his assumption. Only Belial's squad comes in without scattering.

The squads coming in within 6" of the RW bikers are actually fine since the bikers were most likely deployed on the table on turn 1.


If you choose not to go mech you need to be prepared to eat a lot of wounds when those squads deepstrike in and hose you down with vengeful strike. My suggestion in that case is to use an Aegis Defense Line and when he opens fire start going to ground. You can always use Orders to Get Back In The Fight.

If you're not doing full on mech are you planning on doing blob guard? you can still field quite a few special weapons and then just drown him in weight of dice. If you can't use special weapons to kill terminators than a bucket of dice will usually do it.

With a sufficiently big enough blob you could always ally in a SM Librarian or Dark Angel Azreal to give that blob a 4+ invul save. The SM will give them ATSKNF and access to some psyker powers for buffing. I swear by rolling on telepathy and hoping for invisibility. Nothing is as funny as Al'Rahim in a blob with a librarian attached. Invisible blob with shrouded, stealth, and enemies in assault act as though having weapon skill 1 against them. Take Creed and outflank a demolisher and marbo for extra lols.

Only Belial's squad comes in without scattering.

Apologies, I was probably unclear, thats the way he played it.

I'll probably try full mech and hope Sammuel dosent cause too much trouble on the charge :(

In my one game vs DA, I took 2 executioners and 2 devil dogs, and a goodly amount of bubble wrap.

When he dropped in, I had 2 tanks that are AV14/13/11 that spit out 3 S7 AP2 blasts and 2 tanks that spit out S8 AP1 blasts.

It's too many tanks for him to take out. ~80% of the terminators were dead the turn after they landed.

Dark Angels lack the guns that would prevent me from clustering up my tanks.
I curious why I never see DA with vindicators. That would be a problem.

-Matt

How did you cap objectives guys using mech?
Last time we had 5 objs and it was tough to capture them.
What would you recommend?

All his unit are scoring with Bel/Samm.

I play Eldar (so YMMV) and had reasonable success (I still lost, but it was close to the end of turn 4) castleing behind an ADL with a Quad-gun. The Quad lets you fire intercept at DSing units like Belial.

If he gets wise to you using demolishers and the like to deter deepstriking he might play to the objective. One thing about Deathwing terminators being fearless is that they're tough to shift off an objective.

When I play my guard I usually have my troop choice maxed out. However I do what most people do: melta vets in a chimera X 4 to 6 depending on points. Only one unit can hold an objective at a time. So there's two ways to look at it with Guard: Try place all of the objectives as close to you as you can and then park on them, use an ADL to hide behind, etc.

Or if you're going mechanized guard I like to put all of the objectives in a line going toward my opponent. If they don't see what I'm attempting to do my armored fist is going to just drive forward. Try and keep your troops in the chimera until the last turn when they get out and stand on the objectives (assuming they're alive or even have chimeras left to speak of). Remember a chimera has a pretty broken fireport for troops inside; up to five men can fire from the hatch in any direction. Used with melta or plasma vets this can be nasty since the guys can also overwatch if the vehicle is assaulted.

I have a friend who plays guard at our LGS and he uses conscripts. They kind of suck and are expensive but with Chenkov and Send In The Next Wave he puts an objective as close to his table edge as he can. He sets them on the objective and just has them go to ground, then uses send in the next wave over and over again to perpetually have one objective. It's infuriating but funny... I don't know if I'd recommend it but to each their own.

Cool ideas and food for thought, many thanks.

Good luck

the Emprah protects