Starting a Dark Angels (Deathwing) army

hey,

so the new Dark Angels dex has been out a while and since I got myself a Dark Vengeance box (like many of us) for the rulebook and some additional extremely cheap dark angels off ebay I thought, hey, why not start a Deathwing army. It would be the complete opposite of my Dark Eldar. Tough, relatively slow and they want to be in CC a lot.

So far I have acquired the following (thankfully for not a lot of money ):
15 Terminators
20 Tacticals
9 Bikes
various HQs

I played a couple of games with my desired 1,5k list yesterday which looks like this:

Belial

10 Terminators, 3 Hammer/Shield, 2 Assault Cannons, 1 Chainfist, rest StormBolter/Fist

6 Terminators, 2 Hammer/Shield, 1 Cyclone

5 Terminators 1 Hammer/Shield, 1 Cyclone

2x3 Ravenwing Black Knights with 1 Grenade Launcher

Comes out to 1495 or something


The plan is to scout the Black Knights, deploy the smaller deathwing squad on the home objective and deathwing assault the rest right in the opponents face.

Played 2 different semi competetive/friendly necron lists with it and got tabled twice. Basically the 22 Terminator bodies didn't withstand the firepower the necrons poured into me and were down to 50-70% before reaching assault. Both times the big squad with belial got caught by 6 canoptek wraiths and spent almost the entire game slaughtering them and suffering casualties in return.

I discussed the matches with my opponent afterwards and some things that occured were these:

I had terrible dice, I once had to roll 8 saves on my termies and rolled 4 ones and there were more such examples. My opponent said that I should never ever field termies again due to that horrible tendency to roll a lot of ones.

I should have done more target saturation. While I tried to do a refused flank or hit one flank with overwhelming force respectively I tried to stay out of LOS here and there (old DE habit) while I should have just put them right in the shooting range to offer a tougher choice of targets.


To the problems I've found myself with such a list (and that would be similar with a pure ravenwing list, albeit faster):

I roll too many ones!!!

The army totally lacks firepower: 4 heavy weapons in the termies and 4 more plasmatalons on the Bikers is just not going to cut it, no matter how deadly my termies are in CC they have to reach it first and without weakening the enemy firepower this is hard.

I roll too many ones!!!

The army is very immobile due to the lack of landraiders (which would cost me at least a third of my termies if I included them). It's either DWA or footslogg

The army has very few units which are all costly which makes target saturation very hard. There is also just 3 objective grabbing units, even if I split the 10 man squad in 2 squads of 5 it would be only 4 units that are not likely to survive the whole battle.

Oh yes, I roll a lot of ones.

I've read a lot of codices and I feel other armies while not that tough just have a lot more tactical options due to a greater number and variety of units. Especially the xenos. Crons are obviously awesome, Eldar are quite similar yet different to our beloved DE, Chaos Daemons and Tyranids now feel like a CC army with high model numbers and Tau have soooo much long range shooting even though they suffer from old dex syndrome and horrible CC capabilities.

You see I'm torn between trying out a new playstyle and wanting to go back to the xenos and to tactics I'm more familiar with. Needless to say I almost tabled the harder of the 2 cron lists with my DE.

I hope you guys can give me some feedback and advice.

Dogmar

Nothing, really?

It seems you may have already identified your biggest problems. Although I wouldn't necessarily think lack of mobility is too big a concern for a Deathwing army. Good placement when they arrive should mitigate their lack of transport. They don't really need a transport. Keep playing them. Try variations. And find a mix of units that appeal to you and works the way you you prefer to play.

everything just seems so slow compared to DE and the lack of ranged heavy weapons is a problem. I definitely need to playtest a bit. Any specific input on the list maybe?

Current tactic is: scout bikes, deploy small DW on homeobjective, drop other 2 to a critical point and kill things. Anything faulty there?

I'm really not used to so few units... it's awesome in KP games, but from my DE I have twice as many vehicles as units in that entire DW army.

Consider swapping the small terminator squad for two 5 man tactical squads with your choice of heavy weapons. Terminator squads do not make cost effective objective sitters. To get the most out of Deathwing Terminators I believe you need to deep strike them on top of the enemy. The two 5 man tactical squads will allow you to claim two objectives as well as diluting your opponent's fire. He'll have to get lucky shooting at two squads rather than swamp the small terminator squad with fire. A minor tweak but one that should give you some help.

Also keep in mind that small squads need to help each other finish off larger opponents. The two Black Knight squadrons can be used to finish off enemy units initially engaged by your other squads or vice a versa by using their Hit and Run USR at the end of your opponent's assault phase.

or maybe get rid of one of the blackknight squads for tacticals. Why do you really need them??? They are good source of AP2, but you already have fists and thunderhammers. You can easily fit in atleast 2 5 man heavy weapon squads in for them, and have some points to spare

I wouldn't have more than 50% term squads as anything over can not be placed in reserves. Missing out on the Deathwing Assault and Vengeful Strike rules is missing out on the full capabilities of a DW squad.

Mhh thanks for the advice, I've come up with a list with 2 objective sitting tact squads myself, but to the detriment of a DW squad instead of a Black Knight squad.

Then I came into my local GW and had a chat with someone who frequently plays tournaments and had a DW list in 5th. Result was this:

My new list (with Tacs) lacks focus, people will just ignore the tacs as they serve absolutely no purpose other than sitting on something and kill my bikes with teleport homers which are essential to my game plan.

Following suggestions were made:

Apparently units performing a Deathwing Assault do NOT count towards normal reserves... I personally find that bit quite blurry RAW.
Thus I could go full DW and just deepstrike something just short of 30 terminators into the opponents face turn one.
He then said that I should either go the whole way with DW or pick a different theme. Meaning this:
Have units of 5 at 1,5k and get one 10 man unit for bigger games. Have them all with 3 Hammer/Shield and 2 Twin LC - full assault. Add a Cyclone missile launcher which is twin linked on arrival for each unit. Learn to place my units effectively and then smash face.

Opinions? I think some of it makes sense, but as a shooty DE player I'm obviously scared about the lack of ranged power in this list. Also the DWA thing is sort of blurry.

yeah that DWA thing is very stetchy indeed. They wanted to stop all full DS armies. That is pretty clear.

As for a pure 100% DW army, Its not really advisable. While I really dont have much practice against the current DA dex, I played the old one extensively (a friend played dual wing all the time) and all DW basically turns into a duck shoot. You drop a bunch of termies on the field, and then walk around shooting cyclones at things. Now while this depends on your meta ofc (these magical all foot metas seem to be floating around somewhere...) but I dont think you have enough mobile firepower with all that staying power you get. And sooner or later your going to break by losing squads, and you arent going to do enough damage back to hurt them.

Dogmar

A focused army is one that integrates well. For 220 points of units placed in a supporting role I'd rather have, as an example, two 5 man tactical squads each with a heavy bolter and a sniper scout squad with camo cloaks than a basic 5 man terminator squad.

I don't have my FAQ on hand but I assume DW Assault does not alter the 50% rule. Even if allowed my personal preference would be for a couple of small support squads that give me some flexibility rather than another terminator squad.