Vs Dark Angel Deathwing challenge. Advice much appreciated.

Hi all,

On Saturday. I'm facing my friends 2000 points DA Deathwing army. I rarely get to play him these days, due to his location and work. Once a year if I'm lucky. I know I'm going to be hit by 30-40, non scattering deep striking terminators. Probably all on turn one. My initial thoughts are that I need to really get my deployment spot on. And try to limit where he can serious damage my squishy stuff. That's my main fear, his first turn. Think I will have more than enough fire power to hopefully overwhelm him. And I'm assuming his all terminator army will be pretty small. I'm still a new and green D Eldar player. And normally we get to pick the fights with our speed. But not with Deathwing Assault, that puts a spanner in the works.

Any thoughts, tips and tactics would be great help.

len

My best bud, and first opponent, started with DA when I was playing CSM as we got into 40K. Since I've expanded into Dark Eldar, he won't bring his Deathwing army pretty much at all as DE can bring a hilarious amount of AP2 to the field.

You still get to dictate the location and speed of the conflict for the rest of the game. If you want to move and consolidate your forces, nothing stopping you from turbo-boosting your surviving boats/units over to one end of his force right after he lands. One thought would be deploy in DS-damage-denying castle, keep your expensive and important units bubble-wrapped, but deploy AWAY from all the objectives. He comes to you, then you boost away. He has to spend the rest of the match trying to slog @ 6" towards objectives while walking through all your fire at the same time.

If you start everything in boats, you're only really worrying about Cyclone Missile Launchers and Assault Cannons. Both of which are worth worrying about, to be fair. But that isn't a lot of dedicated anti-vehicle, and stormbolters just don't cut it, even twin-linked on the turn they arrive.

As DE, the usual rule of "Don't let them get into CC" applies doubly since PowerFists will wreck everything they touch, aside from the potential Incubi with Archon/PGL. Just be wary of Belial as he runs AP3 at initiative, if I recall correctly.

Bring Disintegrator Cannons, but also bring Dark Lances. Doubling out his HQs with AP2 means you're killing Belial with 1 shot. If he knows he's playing vs you, don't expect thunder hammer/storm shields unless he's feeling silly, 'cause they'll never catch you.

Other than that, volume of fire. Force him to roll those 1s.
I honestly think mass-termies isn't a bad matchup for us.
Best of luck!

Cool cheers laughingcarp. Feeling much more heartened now. Thought that I would have to bubble wrap and hope his alpha strike doesn't do too much, then he will be in a world of pain. I will definitely take your advice with the objectives. And will have Disintegrators on my 3 boats. 2 ravagers with lances for possible dreadnoughts. And a Jetfighter with Disintegrators, even if he does have a flyer I think it should take it down.

And i think he will have lots of Hammers and Storm Shields. But like you say movement and with the volume of shots we pump out. He's going to have a nice surprise. Make him roll them armour saves!

len

I love playing my friends deathwing, disinitergrators are a must but don't underestimate the weight of fire. Venoms with cannons and kabbies can be nasty for terminator squads with the amount they can pump out. Blasterborn squads in venoms also prove very very potent and frees up the ravagers to take dissies rather than dark glances.

I've played against a friend, fielding Dark Angels, about 4-6 times.
He was the reason, I use dissies on my ravager. 9 shots, S5, AP2 is the horror
of every terminator squad. Space Wolves, Chaos Space Marines...
They all got slain. Combined with massive splinter fire it's most devastating.

Are you facing normal deathwing termies, or deathwing knights?
There are differences, since the knights can't shoot.
Gives you one turn to shoot them. Normal termies can shoot, when they appear.

Get yourself a couple of Terminator sized bases and draw around them on a piece of paper in sets of 5, arranged in possible deepstrike formations. Then you can measure those shapes and determine the maximum gap you can leave between your units that he can deepstrike into. Once you know these dimensions you can consider the possibility of trying to 'bait' him into risking a mishap by leaving him what he thinks are unintentional spaces to drop into, when in reality there is very little chance of him landing there, let alone being able to get good shots on any key units.
Don't forget about his Deathwing assault giving his Termies twinlinked shots when they arrive, though, as his potential damage output is obviously doubled at that time.
It's always worth getting into position to possibly overkill Terminator units in the early game, even maybe wasting some shots to ensure that you completely eliminate entire squads. Once the majority of your firepower is gone; if he's smart he'll focus on Venoms and Ravagers, then you'll find the last 1 or 2 guys left over from squads could be a real thorn in your side later on in the battle.

Best bet is to take a Beastpack and bubble wrap your entire army in a corner, all he can do is shoot the Beatpack and will have to leave your expensive toys alone.

Shingen wrote:

Best bet is to take a Beastpack and bubble wrap your entire army in a corner, all he can do is shoot the Beatpack and will have to leave your expensive toys alone.

I did exactly that against a Space Wolves Drop Pod army at Throne of Skulls last year. Principle is exactly the same.