DE vs Deathwatch

Sybarite Posts : 408 Join date : 2012-07-03

You know now that I'm re-reading their response, I'm not sure which one they are saying is the mistake =/

Ugg, will have to wait for the official version

Klaivex Posts : 2150 Join date : 2016-02-18

So these guys are spammable sturnguard with the ability to get smaller squads, and better/more numerous weapons. Are they Obsec?

The tried-and-true venom spam appears to be the only real solution. I can only hope that our codex will be equally amazing when it finally drops in 2020...

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

lessthanjeff wrote:: For them to drop 4 of these pods in turn one, they'd have to have 7 pods in their army. If it's a bigger size game, use a couple more units. The key part was saying look at your opponent's army to decide how many units he can engage and wipe out and make sure you have a sufficient amount to hold out. When he's paying 245 per unit and you're paying 36-40 per unit to keep on the table, there should be no problem having out more units than he can attack on the first turn and then coming back in to wipe him out the second.

I agree with you about 2 frag cannons per unit being the stronger option though. I expect I'll pick up some deathwatch stuff myself but I'm not convinced they'll be a strong standalone army yet.

Yes, they'd have to have 7 drop pods to bring in 4 on turn one, but the 3 that AREN'T coming on turn one don't have to have anything in them. They can be 3 empty pods, which I often take when I design drop pod lists. A 35 point tax to ensure your DPs with stuff in them comes on in turn 1 is almost always worth it.

Each unit with 2 frag cannons and a drop pod is 195 points. That means that in an 1850 list I could bring this:

2 CADs

CAD 1
Cheap HQ 75
4x 5 Death Watch w/2 frag cannons in drop pod 780
3x drop pods 105
CAD 2
Cheap HQ 75
3x 5 Death Watch w/2 frag cannons in drop pod 585
3x drop pods 105
TOTAL: 1725

So, this list has 7 of these units that can arrive on turn 1 if you want them to, and there are 125 points to spare. That's 35 space marine bodies and 7 obsec drop pods on the board turn 1. Also not nearly as easy to get off the table as people initially talked about.

Sybarite Posts : 468 Join date : 2012-12-04

To answer 2 previous posts, veterans (but not vanguard veterans) are troops, complete with |> in the upper left corner.

This army is another pretty smart move by GW as it's got some of our old school, inactive marine players interested. Besides being a "different" and more elite army type - these folks can just slap a black coat of paint on basically whatever mix of space marines they have laying around and be back in business. Chapter doesn't matter and most gear is legal.

Subject: Re: DE vs Deathwatch Sat Aug 27 2016, 17:31

Kromlech have been pretty quick off the mark to get in on the Deathwatch action. Smart cookies!

Subject: Re: DE vs Deathwatch Sat Aug 27 2016, 18:11

BetrayTheWorld wrote:: 2 CADs

CAD 1
Cheap HQ 75
4x 5 Death Watch w/2 frag cannons in drop pod 780
3x drop pods 105
CAD 2
Cheap HQ 75
3x 5 Death Watch w/2 frag cannons in drop pod 585
3x drop pods 105
TOTAL: 1725

So, this list has 7 of these units that can arrive on turn 1 if you want them to, and there are 125 points to spare. That's 35 space marine bodies and 7 obsec drop pods on the board turn 1. Also not nearly as easy to get off the table as people initially talked about.

That is a terrifying list that I would not want to face. The good news is that I haven't met any players with 13 drop pods yet. On the theoretical side, I'll definitely concede we couldn't deal with that because even if we null deployed they could have the empty drop pods come in first and then success would depend on who goes first or second which I don't like to count on.

I've been going through a lot of the tacticas and army lists people are putting up for deathwatch so far though and I've not seen anyone go in that direction yet. Typical lists are only including two or three units with frag cannons as most people are trying to diversify their army more and many players are working with their unique detachment. Most vet units I've seen in a list so far is 4, so what you're suggesting might be the kind of list that sounds terrifying but is unrealistic to make and field. That's what I'll hope for anyways.

Hekatrix Posts : 1239 Join date : 2013-07-09

I mean I wouldn't expect to see that at any tournament.

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

lessthanjeff wrote:: so what you're suggesting might be the kind of list that sounds terrifying but is unrealistic to make and field. That's what I'll hope for anyways.

What makes it unrealistic to make and field?

The Red King wrote:: I mean I wouldn't expect to see that at any tournament.

Why not?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, I'm considering buying 10 Death Masque box sets, keeping 1 whole box for myself, keeping 1 unopened to sell later, and taking the following from the remaining 8 boxes: 35 Death Watch Veterans & 12 Harlequin Players. Then take the remainder and sell it all on ebay individually. I expect, when all is said and done, that I not only wouldn't have paid for what I kept, but I'd probably get fairly close to paying a significant portion of the cost of 13 used drop pods.

Hekatrix Posts : 1239 Join date : 2013-07-09

This will be concise as I'm on a phone.

Do I think YOU could bring this list to a tournament and do well? Yes.

Do I think you will win that tournament? Possibly, but it certainly is not going to be because you brought that list. It's workable, even good, but it's hardly going to redefine the meta. The weapon is good, but I do not think it's crept beyond the current level of power creep.

So in closing, do I think this list will show up at my next tournament? No. It's unwieldy in a real world sense, you will never need 13 drop pods outside of this very specific list unless you have 13 pods already. Most people do not, nor do they have the funds to go out and hop on the deathwatch wagon quite so hard. Even your intelligently outlined buying plan requires an initial buy in I do not expect many to make, especially banking on selling harlequins.

Wych Posts : 935 Join date : 2011-12-12 Location : Canada

The Death Watch are another space marine army.

Kill the monkhei.

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

The Red King wrote:: The weapon is good, but I do not think it's crept beyond the current level of power creep.

The weapon is very good. But you're right in that, by itself, it's certainly no worse than grav or D-weapons. But it's also in a unit that gets special issue ammo, which bumps it up a bit. I'm not saying it's better than D-weapons or grav, or even that it's OP in the current meta, but there is a very real possibility of using it's versatility to good effect. I think it would wipe out most armies that currently depend on D weapons or Grav. The army-wide special issue ammunition virtually guarantees it beats most other space marine forces.

The Red King wrote:: So in closing, do I think this list will show up at my next tournament? No. It's unwieldy in a real world sense, you will never need 13 drop pods outside of this very specific list unless you have 13 pods already.

I probably wouldn't run this specific list, because I'd want to shore up the 1 weakness this list has against GCs. I'd probably shoot for 1 or 2 fewer veteran pods arriving. But that said, many people still have up to 12 drop pods due to all the strategies involving the flesh tearers strike force that allowed people to take 1HQ, 1 Troop, and 6 fast attack drop pods. That allowed an army limited to 2 detachments to cheaply and easily make 7 drop pods arrive on turn 1 with the previous way allies were ruled. I expect those people who already invested in all the pods to keep an eye out for ways to continue using them, such as this.

Speaking of which, allying a death watch CAD with a flesh tearers CAD would probably free up some extra points too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a related note, I just bought the digital edition of the death watch codex(and it sucks, I can barely read it on my PC due to exclusive tablet formatting and DRM that prevents conversion). The text is on different pages than the graphics it's supposed to be matched up with, but I can patch it together enough to understand it, mostly.

The formation benefits are almost exclusively rerolling 1's to wound vs. a particular slot (HQ, Troops, etc.) To me, most of the benefits to the various formations they get aren't worth giving up obsec, which they don't get from any of their formations, including their meta-formation. So CADs are probably the way to go with deathwatch in general. Even without formations, they get an army-wide ability to choose a tactic, which basically allows them to reroll 1's to hit versus a chosen category of units(HQ, Troops, Elite, etc.) They can change that category once per game by default. So, it allows the deathwatch player to look at the opponent's list, choose 1 category they have a lot of, kill them, then switch to a different category to kill.

Hekatrix Posts : 1239 Join date : 2013-07-09

Well my opinion on people's access to that many drop pods is based on looking at tournament lists where I have never (personally) seen that many drop pods. It's a real possibility that I am mistaken.

In opposition to my earlier claim about it not being strong enough to base a list that heavily on it, I don't see a weakness to GMC. 8 strength 9 shots per squad is going to put a pretty serious dent into anything with a toughness value, safety from that weapon comes in numbers (ie not being the person being shot by it) or a serious enough deathstar to actually weather that fire, which point for point is more than doable.

My opinion is, that list could be just as hard countered as it hard counters most people's TAC lists.

Obviously you weren't looking to tailor but that is still a clear cut example of a worst possible scenario for dark eldar.

You yourself say you wouldn't run that (exact) list, and you're the most vocal person I've seen arguing to use deathwatch like that. As was stated, most deathwatch players thought trains aren't on your track. So my claim was never that that list isn't a terrifying proposal, only that it was an unlikely list to play against at a tournament. I'm sure after whatever tweaks you feel would best cover your bases the list would still be daunting for Dark eldar to face, but that exact list as stated is still a "worst case" thought experiment that the average player is likely never to see and thus should not unduly affect that average players list making decisions. So my summary is, throwing out that hypothetical monster does not invalidate any claims that the average dark eldar can successfully face down the average deathwatch. Though it is most certainly an uphill battle I grant without hesitation.

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

The Red King wrote:: So my summary is, throwing out that hypothetical monster does not invalidate any claims that the average dark eldar can successfully face down the average deathwatch. Though it is most certainly an uphill battle I grant without hesitation.

I guess the issue is that we're talking around each other, here. I was basically just pointing out a very strong way to play Deathwatch, that I was personally excited about, that would be highly effective as a TAC list, just talking about the list, not necessarily how terrible it is for DE.

I don't feel like it takes much to be terrible for DE, so DE can be bashed on their own merit(or lack thereof). If I was going to make an argument to the weakness of DE, it would be this:

Spoiler:

Hekatrix Posts : 1239 Join date : 2013-07-09

I suspected we weren't arguing with each other so much as at each other.

That list is depressing. I'm going to go have a good cry and purge until gw thinks I'm pretty again.

Oh that's what the purge coterie is, we've been living in denial.

Subject: Re: DE vs Deathwatch Sun Aug 28 2016, 18:18

BetrayTheWorld wrote:: What makes it unrealistic to make and field?

I think primarily the cost would be prohibitive for most people to indulge. When a new book comes out, I often see people dreamlisting these great sounding armies, but when the time comes I rarely actually face any of them. A player having to pick up that many drop pods and death watch kits has not only a large financial investment but also a substantial time investment for painting and assembling them. I do it plenty myself too. I have 7 armies already and I still have a long list of things I want to buy and paint, but I can't get to all the projects (and sadly by the time I do sometimes, the rules have changed to make the plan ineffective).

I keep reading through the tactics and army lists people are posting and planning out online and I'm finding most of them have a very different design in mind. The low model count armies I'm seeing look like they'll be very advantageous for dark eldar to fight because we have more than enough chaff units to feed their elite squads. These players are building their lists to fight deathstars, flyrants, and riptide spam so I expect we'll have nothing to fear from them as far meta changes go.

Your list looks really good, but I don't think that's what we're going to be seeing in the field. As far as tactics for facing deathwatch competitively go, I think Dark Eldar will be in good shape. If you just want to discuss pros and cons of the list you're specifically designing I'd be happy to look into that more though.

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

lessthanjeff wrote:: As far as tactics for facing deathwatch competitively go, I think Dark Eldar will be in good shape. If you just want to discuss pros and cons of the list you're specifically designing I'd be happy to look into that more though.

No, I'm not really looking for pros and cons of my list in particular. Just that I expect to see lists like this in the competitive meta at some point. Even if we WOULDN'T have seen lists like this before, we will now, because I've put it out there on the internet. People will scoop it up, modify it(or not), and run with it.

Hekatrix Posts : 1239 Join date : 2013-07-09

I mean, I doubt that. Though the odds increase if we consider net listers are the kind of people to jump on the bandwagon with every new release and are more likely to have the funds or fiscal irresponsibility to put this together I would still be quite surprised to see this at any serious tournament.

Wych Posts : 915 Join date : 2015-05-01

You know, not everyone is a collection and some people will trade/sell old armies to get what they need for their current power list plans.

Sybarite Posts : 468 Join date : 2012-12-04

lessthanjeff wrote:: I think primarily the cost would be prohibitive for most people to indulge. When a new book comes out, I often see people dreamlisting these great sounding armies, but when the time comes I rarely actually face any of them. A player having to pick up that many drop pods and death watch kits has not only a large financial investment but also a substantial time investment for painting and assembling them. I do it plenty myself too.

Really? Drop pods are probably the easiest thing in 40k to scratch build. I have a buddy who's probably built over a hundred of them out of dollar store foam board and I'd say the majority of pods in my meta came off of his cutting mat. There was also a time where I would see 10+ pods pretty regularly as a result, although that time has passed.

I have my suspicions that the ease to reproduce these is why the drop-pod door position ruling is a thing.

I don't know where he got his template but they look a lot like this. Keep in mind that blog post is almost 10 years old and is only the 2nd google search down, I'm sure he's not the only one who mass produced these.

Subject: Re: DE vs Deathwatch Thu Sep 01 2016, 00:35

I'm sure there are people out there who scratch build pods, but I haven't met any of them yet. The only non-gw models I've had much exposure to are from players who buy stuff from chinese recasters. The most drop pods I've ever even faced in a list has been 7. If someone really wanted to do a drop heavy list, I think they'd be better off just doing it with skyhammer annihilation forces and 1st company task forces which were already available though. The frag cannon version just doesn't seem like it would do as well in the current meta against Flyrant or Riptide spam lists to me. I'd definitely be interested to hear if you guys see people running that in tournaments though.

Kabalite Warrior Posts : 212 Join date : 2016-06-27

I too have never witnessed someone bringing self-made pods to the table. Sure that guy won't be the only one who builds them himself, but be realistic here. The percentage of SM players who also build their own Drop Pods is very, very small.

Trueborn Posts : 2665 Join date : 2013-04-04

I haven't seen a lot of scratch-built pods, but I've seen a lot of custom drop pods that aren't designed exactly as normal space marine pods are. I've seen drill-style and chaos themed pods, and plastercasts of pods that resulted in a one-piece pod that was heavy, but otherwise looked good.

All of them were allowed to be used in a tournament environment. I'd let my opponent use glass mason jars of the correct size in a friendly, non-tournament game.

Kabalite Warrior Posts : 212 Join date : 2016-06-27

Talk about the infamous Cola-Can-Carnifex! :') But yeah, when playing a friendly game it's alright to proxy. I remember when I first started 40K and my buddy came over to play. I didn't have any scenery, so we just cut a piece of paper into some shapes and wrote "ruins" or "woods" on it. Along with some LOS blocking books etc. we made our own "terrain". It was alright. Later I made my own terrain with some garbage lying around (empty water bottles etc.).

Example:

Spoiler:

Subject: Re: DE vs Deathwatch Fri Sep 02 2016, 17:29

Now I'm disappointed. At first glance I thought those brown things are cookies.
...
I want cookies... Sad

Hellion Posts : 57 Join date : 2016-06-01

"Now I'm disappointed. At first glance I thought those brown things are cookies.
...
I want cookies... Sad"

Lol.I didn't at first but now that you opened me to the potential...I want cookies.

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