New Dark Angels. Another reason to hate GW!

Of those 4 you mentioned, only 2 are any good.

Kabalite Warriors are used because the alternative is wyches, they're really not good units.

The Ravager received heavy and entirely unnecessary nerfs. As above, it's used simply because there really isn't any alternative.

and the venom is useless against 4+ and up targets and is overcostly and the razorwing cant do anything in round 1 and sometimes not until round 4.

i agree with the ravager nerf, now it costs more and can do less makes me put up a sad face, but its the best we got in the HS section i think to acheive any AT firepower ... not the best but does the job

warriors, cmon 8pts with a poisoned 24" weapon i think they are right where they should be. what to you think they need ?

doriii wrote:

i agree with the ravager nerf, now it costs more and can do less makes me put up a sad face, but its the best we got in the HS section i think to acheive any AT firepower ... not the best but does the job

Well, "does the job" is debatable. Considering that it takes 3 of the things (375pts) to kill a 65pt Chimera in the open, I think it's fair to say they're not going to be winning the "Anti-Tank Unit of the Year" award.

doriii wrote:

warriors, cmon 8pts with a poisoned 24" weapon i think they are right where they should be. what to you think they need ?

Well, what I'd actually like is for them to have a different gun to the Venom - so that they're not just a tax to get some poison weapons with decent range.

However, I'd settle for them having access to melta guns and/or Haywire. And with the former, I mean a proper S8 melta - not the price of crap Heat Lance we're stuck with.

The problem is, Warriors are supposed to be a glass-cannon unit. And, while they certainly live up to the 'glass' part, they really don't have anything resembling a 'hammer'. Poison 4+ is, at best, misleading. Okay, we wound enemies on 4s and, in most cases, they'll then get their armour save. Now consider that most basic weapons wound warriors on 3s and deny them any save.

I don't know if I'm making my point well, but what I'm trying to say is that, even taking their lowish cost into consideration, 4+ poison weapons at average range just aren't enough to offset their inherent fragility.

doriii wrote:

and the venom is useless against 4+ and up targets and is overcostly and the razorwing cant do anything in round 1 and sometimes not until round 4.

i agree with the ravager nerf, now it costs more and can do less makes me put up a sad face, but its the best we got in the HS section i think to acheive any AT firepower ... not the best but does the job

warriors, cmon 8pts with a poisoned 24" weapon i think they are right where they should be. what to you think they need ?

Poisoned Guns having a proper strength score would help I think. 4+ autowounding is great vs MCs and toughness 5 and up... it is much less awesome against toughness 3.

The Shredder wrote:

Well, "does the job" is debatable. Considering that it takes 3 of the things (375pts) to kill a 65pt Chimera in the open, I think it's fair to say they're not going to be winning the "Anti-Tank Unit of the Year" award.

More weapon choices for the warriors -> more choices and quantity for trueborn

I like it, now there isnt really a choice... take a DL and the rest of the squad is immobile and useless, take a shredder and i dont know... (shredder needs longer range at least), splinter cannon ... meh venom does it better so its either blaster or rifle

yeah the ravager has so much potential yet it doesnt live to my expectations most the time

Raven Cowl wrote:

Poisoned Guns having a proper strength score would help I think. 4+ autowounding is great vs MCs and toughness 5 and up... it is much less awesome against toughness 3

proper strenght would never help us anything unless its S4 or more and if the rifle becomes S4 it would be to op i think, they'd have to cost much more than 8pt at least

Or make shredder a flame template weapon. Keep the rest and it would be awesome!

Actually, something else I feel I should bring up is that poison weapons are becoming less and less useful. They're supposed to make us good against MCs and bikes, but newer codices are basically preventing this.

Poison weapons *should* help us against things like WKs, but they don't because its now a Gargantuan creature and our poison can only wound it on 6s.

Poison weapons *should* help us against bikes, but the new DA codex has overruled this with the Ravenwing rule. Wounding bikes on 4s isn't worth jack when they then have a 2+ or 3+ rerollable jink save.

It's just another example of our codex losing more and more teeth. I think at this point we're the equivalent of a toothless, elderly cat trying to gum lions to death.

doriii wrote:

Raven Cowl wrote:

Poisoned Guns having a proper strength score would help I think. 4+ autowounding is great vs MCs and toughness 5 and up... it is much less awesome against toughness 3

proper strenght would never help us anything unless its S4 or more and if the rifle becomes S4 it would be to op i think, they'd have to cost much more than 8pt at least

I've been thinking about that too and I'd just change the weapon to S4, Poison 5. Rerolls on 5 are besser than a single 4 to wound and it makes us less a hardcounter to MCs.

Edit: My bad, I meant S5

The Strange Dark One wrote:

I've been thinking about that too and I'd just change the weapon to S4, Poison 5. Rerolls on 5 are besser than a single 4 to wound and it makes us less a hardcounter to MCs.

You would only get the re-roll against T3 though.

Honest question here - do you think poison is still the route our army should be taking?

well maybe it shouldn't be so dominant in the codex but shurely we should have access to lots of it

What else is there? Grots and Reavers? Talosi? Sure that might work, but is it still DE ?

We have poison simply because we take Kabalites and Venoms/Raiders, and they are the ones who provide the critical mass of dice, wounds and shots.

Can you build a good list entirely without Kabalites without going all-coven?

Azdrubael wrote:

What else is there? Grots and Reavers? Talosi? Sure that might work, but is it still DE ?

We have poison simply because we take Kabalites and Venoms/Raiders, and they are the ones who provide the critical mass of dice, wounds and shots.

Can you build a good list entirely without Kabalites without going all-coven?

Sorry, that's not what I meant.

I was actually talking in terms of our book's design, and whether focussing on poison is really a good idea (especially when is appears to be at the expense of other options and weapons).

I was wondering if anyone thought it might be a better idea for the next book to drop most of our poison and go in a different direction?

I'm of the opinion that we should get access to tonnes of pinning weapons. As in, the most of any army. Surprise is our main weapon after all.

Fear and surprise. Our two weapons are Fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency. Three weapons!

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I was wondering if anyone thought it might be a better idea for the next book to drop most of our poison and go in a different direction?

Sure, i guess somebody thought about mass S3 atacks. Which will probably mean 2 S3 Atacks from basic gun/cc weapon. Death from a thousand cuts, you know. Elite army for true connoisseur.

Poison and Lance theme was a really cool design decision. DE was positioned as alpha-predators, able to take any prey with guile. Sure 4+ and Dark Lance doesnt seem hot, but in numbers it can take down any prey. Could take, now there are more strenght based weapons, loss of venom blades across the board. There isnt feeling of fragile but incredibly dangerous army.

There are good units, but those units have counters and bad targets, like every other army, and we are bad at playing everybody else game, i'd rather we play our own game. Its really obvious to me they screwed Phill Kelly design without him.

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I'm of the opinion that we should get access to tonnes of pinning weapons.

Thats not good at all, i saw such armies used. They are very gimmick. Morale isnt powerhorse of 40k.

Mushkilla wrote:

The Strange Dark One wrote:

I've been thinking about that too and I'd just change the weapon to S4, Poison 5. Rerolls on 5 are besser than a single 4 to wound and it makes us less a hardcounter to MCs.

You would only get the re-roll against T3 though.

I thought the poison reroll only happened in assault?

Heezayy wrote:

Dark Angels now get to re-roll their failed jinks with the new Raven Wing formation, meaning with a Dark Shroud near by they get a 2+ re-rollable jink save. If it is a command squad then they will have 5+ FNP on top. We would have to chuck like 50 poison shots to reliably kill a single bike. I thought we were supposed to have the jinkiest bikes in the game!!

Its actually worse than you think.

Apparently the formation allows them to re roll jink + fire at full BS in the following turn!!! No downside to jinking at all.

My beloved reavers are freaking ropeable.

Painjunky wrote:

Heezayy wrote:

Dark Angels now get to re-roll their failed jinks with the new Raven Wing formation, meaning with a Dark Shroud near by they get a 2+ re-rollable jink save. If it is a command squad then they will have 5+ FNP on top. We would have to chuck like 50 poison shots to reliably kill a single bike. I thought we were supposed to have the jinkiest bikes in the game!!

Its actually worse than you think.

Apparently the formation allows them to re roll jink + fire at full BS in the following turn!!! No downside to jinking at all.

My beloved reavers are freaking ropeable.

They only get to do that during the first turn.

Oh well now I feel much better.

Good to know tho. Thanks.

Quote :

They only get to do that during the first turn.

You sure? They were getting free shots without snap shots after turbo-boost on first turn. Thought they got reroll jink every turn. Can you confirm?

They definitely get to reroll Jink saves every turn.

Not sure about the snapshot thing.

Would it be a good idea to have this thread moved to a discussion forum, and start one specifically for tactics about the Dark Angel codex? This thread has been mostly (justified) complaining until now.

Either way their rerollable jink sucks for us, I'm pretty sure they can do that every turn, but the not snap firing only happens first turn. I guess we use mobility to try and maintain distance until we can line up an assault? I'm really unsure of how to handle this. For most armies this doesn't seem that op, but against us and our almost complete lack of ignores cover this seems like a massive pain. I'm sure to see it even in my relatively friendly non competitive meta.

Trystis wrote:

Either way their rerollable jink sucks for us, I'm pretty sure they can do that every turn, but the not snap firing only happens first turn. I guess we use mobility to try and maintain distance until we can line up an assault? I'm really unsure of how to handle this. For most armies this doesn't seem that op, but against us and our almost complete lack of ignores cover this seems like a massive pain. I'm sure to see it even in my relatively friendly non competitive meta.

I've been thinking the same.

The trouble is, we're also light on good assault units. Grotesques are the only ones I can think of that are likely to reliably kill their squads.

Also, after you've assaulted once (or if your transport gets shot down) it seems unlikely that you'll get to assault again (or at all) - since every enemy will thereafter be moving twice as fast as you.


Honestly, rerolling Jink is just a bad game mechanic. It's either too good against armies with a lack of Ignores Cover (not just our army, but any army that hasn't sunk sufficient points into Assault or Ignores Cover weapons), or worthless against armies with an abundance of Ignores Cover. There's no middle ground - it either ignores 90-95% of incoming fire, or it ignores none of it. It's the same problem as our Night Shields, but hugely scaled up because Marines.

The Shredder wrote:

Trystis wrote:

Either way their rerollable jink sucks for us, I'm pretty sure they can do that every turn, but the not snap firing only happens first turn. I guess we use mobility to try and maintain distance until we can line up an assault? I'm really unsure of how to handle this. For most armies this doesn't seem that op, but against us and our almost complete lack of ignores cover this seems like a massive pain. I'm sure to see it even in my relatively friendly non competitive meta.

I've been thinking the same.

The trouble is, we're also light on good assault units. Grotesques are the only ones I can think of that are likely to reliably kill their squads.

Also, after you've assaulted once (or if your transport gets shot down) it seems unlikely that you'll get to assault again (or at all) - since every enemy will thereafter be moving twice as fast as you.


Honestly, rerolling Jink is just a bad game mechanic. It's either too good against armies with a lack of Ignores Cover (not just our army, but any army that hasn't sunk sufficient points into Assault or Ignores Cover weapons), or worthless against armies with an abundance of Ignores Cover. There's no middle ground - it either ignores 90-95% of incoming fire, or it ignores none of it. It's the same problem as our Night Shields, but hugely scaled up because Marines.

Yeah, you're right about rerolling jink being bad game mechanic. It's making what is otherwise a kinda fun fluffy list totally unstoppable vs some armies, but pointless against others. I thought about allying some harlequins in addition to grots, but I'm not sure that I would be able to get them into combat. Maybe a shadow seer with psychic scream through a cast of players or heroes path could work?

I'm sure if allied in CWE I could solve it but I don't want to, and I don't have any anyway.

The Shredder wrote:

Trystis wrote:

Either way their rerollable jink sucks for us, I'm pretty sure they can do that every turn, but the not snap firing only happens first turn. I guess we use mobility to try and maintain distance until we can line up an assault? I'm really unsure of how to handle this. For most armies this doesn't seem that op, but against us and our almost complete lack of ignores cover this seems like a massive pain. I'm sure to see it even in my relatively friendly non competitive meta.

I've been thinking the same.

The trouble is, we're also light on good assault units. Grotesques are the only ones I can think of that are likely to reliably kill their squads.

Also, after you've assaulted once (or if your transport gets shot down) it seems unlikely that you'll get to assault again (or at all) - since every enemy will thereafter be moving twice as fast as you.


Honestly, rerolling Jink is just a bad game mechanic. It's either too good against armies with a lack of Ignores Cover (not just our army, but any army that hasn't sunk sufficient points into Assault or Ignores Cover weapons), or worthless against armies with an abundance of Ignores Cover. There's no middle ground - it either ignores 90-95% of incoming fire, or it ignores none of it. It's the same problem as our Night Shields, but hugely scaled up because Marines.

I agree about rerolling Jink being a wonky game mechanic due to its all or nothing nature.

However, I do have a slightly different opinion on our assault units.  Grots are awesome, but I've also been having a lot of fun and success with Reavers lately.  With decent combat drug rolls, their speed, Rending HoW/Caltrops, 2D6 assault move,  effective 24 inch rapid fire range (putting out the firepower of a Venom if taken in a unit of six), and 3+ Jink, I think they're really versatile and a good jack-of-all-trades type unit.  They make a great nuisance/harassment unit.  Of course, I will add that I don't face a lot of Tau, so that probably skews my perception of them.   Incubi require more care with how you use them, but they are a good mop up unit.  And Talos of course, particularly in a DA or Corpsethief Claw are always awesome (if you're not facing D-spam or Grav-spam).  But I agree that one's mileage may vary depending on one's meta as Reavers, Grots, and Talos have hard counters in the form of Ignores Cover and ID/Grav/D-weapons.