DE vs Deathwatch

Those new heavy weapons (units can take 4) are pretty freakin crazy.

GW "rules designers" have obviously just given up, and are now sticking weapons together to keep up with the power creep... that they created

A heavy flamebolter is pretty sick but that Frag cannon... wow.  
Its like the one on BA dread but is also an assault 2 AP3 plasma gun and a 12" assault 2 lascannon.  

Think about a unit of 3-4 grots and succubus in a raider. Its a pretty common choice, maybe half of a grotesquerie.
They are turboing up the table as they should when this bunch of jerks drops in and does 8 S6 HITS to the raider and 8 d6 S6 rending hits to the passengers.
Its very likely the grots and succy get blended before they even touch the ground.
Like I said pretty freakin crazy.  

As with most of lifes questions the answer is probably MSU. Also get good at castling.
Thoughts on DE vs Deathwatch welcome.

We'll just avoid them cos Drop Pods plummeting from orbit are pretty inaccurate and there's no way the mon-keigh could just come down pretty much exactly where they want with no chance of any mishaps. What's that? Inertial Guidance does what?

Okay, well in that case we'll just crush them before they shoot with our vast array of Interceptor weapons. What do you mean we don't have any?

Well, it's usually mounted on a Dreadnought so at least it's a Heavy weapon and they can't fire it when they disembark from their Drop Pods. Assault 2, you say? Well I never!

Erm...well I guess we'll rely on our speed and agility to avoid their fire. No cover saves? Oh my!

Okay, we'll just have to tough it out. Our Coven guys are pretty sturdy! 28 S6 Rending hits you say? Whilst still inside the Raider? Just hold this crown for a moment would you, and go open that window

Lol.

How much does this squad cost? Is all that in a single squad, or are you talking about different units?

I have not yet fully read the new DW codex...

fisheyes wrote:

Lol.

How much does this squad cost? Is all that in a single squad, or are you talking about different units?

I have not yet fully read the new DW codex...

Single squad, 5 vets, 4 frag cannons and a drop pod is 245 points.

Meh. It's depressing, but drop pod templates have always been bad for us. In the end you just turn those now out in the open meq into red mist with copious amounts of poison, dissie, or even a fair few CC threats since they have been so kind as to clump up there for you.

It's an effective suicide unit, but I don't feel most of us are strangers to giving up first blood and at 245 points it is an expensive suicide unit.

It's worse than just pods I'm afraid.  Their decurion (which is easy to achieve) grants every non vehicle unit deep strike for free.  Every veteran can also take a free shotgun option which not only considerably out-performs (normal) bolters within 16" (and why do they get extra range?), but also comes with a template firing mode.

Sure, the template is only str 3 but do the math on 5 wyches charging 5 of these guys with shotguns - with average rolling they'll be wiped out.

But... it's not like wyches would rely on charging them or anything

Welp, looks like its time for me to get enough talos's to finally run a CTC

I'd prefer they not take pods. Pesky AV. Plus in their detachment they scatter and mishap just like us less loved factions. Sure a homing beacon can help (I think) but it's got to get up field first.

I don't expect we will see many all deep strike armies.

The Red King wrote:

I'd prefer they not take pods.  Pesky AV. Plus in their detachment they scatter and mishap just like us less loved factions.

Pods might cost 35 points as opposed to a free deep strike but basically they don't mishap as the only way to do so is to scatter off the table edge. Just aim the pod right next to your target unit. You've got a 1/3 chance of hitting anyway and any scatter that takes you towards the target is negated so you're only left with scatter that takes you away. But then you get a 6" disembark and a ~8" template weapon so there's basically no way the Deathwatch aren't fragging whatever the hell they want.

Lord... Movie marines finally made it in to regular 40K then? But, still not as broken as scat bikes IMO, since after they drop they go 6" instead of 12" and can't turbo boost to the other side of the board or jump shoot jump.
If you go extreme MSU and spread out as much as possible you can force them to drop away from objectives etc, and overkill a couple of cheap units. Then you can whittle them down with the death by a thousand beta strike cuts afterwards. The grotboat or any big expensive unit is definitely out though. Maybe the dark artisan might hold up against them for a round or two? No? Oh well.

They are ridiculous with or without pods.

They can DS if needed and their assault 12" and 24" shooting is also stoopid good AND rerolling 1s to hit most/all the time.

Scrz wrote:

Maybe the dark artisan might hold up against them for a round or two? No? Oh well.

No, if you take pain engines they just use their S9, AP2, assault 2 weapons, which are the same ones that screw over every other unit in our codex but in a different firing mode. No need to plan for every contingency now chaps, just take frag cannons and kill anything that moves.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Scrz wrote:

Maybe the dark artisan might hold up against them for a round or two? No? Oh well.

No, if you take pain engines they just use their S9, AP2, assault 2 weapons, which are the same ones that screw over every other unit in our codex but in a different firing mode. No need to plan for every contingency now chaps, just take frag cannons and kill anything that moves.

Thought as much. To be fair, grenades are the solution to every single problem.
-Hey this vending machine just ate my change! FRAG OUT!

But this 5 man squad would still have one wound each and a regular marine save?

Oh yeah, they're still just normal marines in terms of survivability. They're easy enough to take out but they absolutely will kill anything they look at before you can do so.

They die just like Marines.
Yes, they can hit harder, but a Dark Eldar (any Dark Eldar) attacking a Deathwatch Marine has the same chance of killing him as a killing a standard Marine.
And nthey cost more points, so theres less of them.

Trade a 250 points unit for a 105 point unit? Yes please.

They are just 5 dudes. They die to a stiff breeze. Nothing new for us. So they are even more killy? So what. Have fun wasting it...

CptMetal wrote:

Trade a 250 points unit for a 105 point unit? Yes please.

Erm, we were initially talking about them taking out half a Grotesquerie, plus Succubus, plus Raider. Which is considerably more than 105 points. Yes, you can go MSU and they will "only" take out half your army (with basically no saves of any kind) when they arrive. But if you like to have anything other than minimum units of warriors in venoms then you're right out of luck.

Yes they die as usual muhreens but that offensive power is so great that it has to be respected. It encourages MSU and castling. It will change you tactics and maybe your list too.

As per my example you might not be turboing that grot unit forward so hastily when you know these jerks are coming next turn will you? No... no you wont.

My brother has decided to pick them up. Kind of excited to play against a new army. I wonder if we will see them more as a stand alone list, or just icing on other cake lists.

Draco wrote:

My brother has decided to pick them up. Kind of excited to play against a new army. I wonder if we will see them more as a stand alone list, or just icing on other cake lists.

You can get a pretty decent 'minimal' (2 Frag Cannon Kill Teams, Libby, Dread) Black Spear Strike Force for ~600 points that would make a good addition to a lot of other imperial armies. And I'm sure we'll see some fluff murderer team them up with a Xenos army too!

The no escape rule deals D6 hits per template weapon that hits the open top vehicle, being assault 2 doesn't equate to 2D6 hits. And GW has had ample opportunity to clarify if they meant otherwise.

That said this weapon is up there with Grav cannons, and scatter lasers, d-scythes but not more powerful.

At least its range is short. I suppose you could bubble wrap your venoms with warriors, then boost the vehicles to the other side of the board after he drops and snipe them down for the rest of the game?

Seshiru wrote:

The no escape rule deals D6 hits per template weapon that hits the open top vehicle,

This wording is debatable, as the wording used in the BRB could be construed as to mean each TIME a template weapon hits, it does 1d6, and an assault 2 template weapon would hit, triggering the rule, then hit again, triggering the rule again. Both templates from the same weapon don't even have to be placed the exact same way, so long as they're hitting the maximum number of models in the primary target that is possible, IIRC. This means the same weapon could potentially hit the primary target twice, then 2 different secondary targets once each, for example.

Here is the actual rule for reference. As you can see, the triggering of the rule is based on the hit, not the weapon, so it would trigger twice.

Rulebook wrote:

No Escape
If a Template weapon hits a building’s Fire Point or an Open-topped vehicle and there is a
unit embarked inside that building or vehicle, then in addition to any other effects that
unit suffers D6 hits, resolved at the Strength and AP of the weapon. These hits are
Randomly Allocated.

I don't find myself fearing deathwatch with my dark eldar, but that's probably because every army list I'm seeing has had very few units and lots of upgrades. I've always subscribed to more units over more upgrades and they're taking the exact opposite approach. If I'm running my grotesquerie against those units, I'll just bubble wrap the raiders or reserve them till after the pods come in. It won't take long for players to realize they aren't getting their points back with that expensive of a suicide unit.