Dark Angels

Hi all,

I'm playing in a little tourney later in the month and I know a few of the lads play DA.  I don't remember playing them in a long time...what should I expect?

I'll be building an all-comers lis, probably with some Craftworld/Corsair allies.  Mainly I just want to know what their usual tricks are and what to look out for?

Ta,  S.

Firstly; best of luck.

Secondly; my knowledge comes from my best friend's first army being DA, and him thrashing me with it until I understood how it worked.
DA players tend to build lists revolving around one of three builds;
Deathwing, Ravenwing, or Standard of Devastation.

Deathwing - Expect heavy terminators. They can arrive from DS Turn 1 or 2 as the player chooses, no need to roll. Belial (the HQ that makes them count as troops, a rather stabby mon-keigh) and his retinue of terminators don't scatter, and it isn't hard for DA to get teleport homers on a couple of bikes or something so that further termies can arrive on-target.
Terminators are terminators; Tough-nut heavy hitters. In CC they'll thrash anything we've got short of a pile of Incubi, coming standard with PF or TH/SS. And even with Incubi, if any Termies survive to their initiative count you can say bye to your models. For ranged guns you're looking at the equivalent of a Heavy 2 Missile Launcher (or close enough to it), called the Cyclone, Assault Cannons (S6 AP4 Heavy 4 Rending), both at 1/5models, and Storm Bolters. The turn any Deathwing units arrive from reserve their guns are Twin-Linked. So that's something to be mildly wary of.
But with the amount of AP 2 we can bring, never mind the weight of splinter fire you can pour into Termies, you shouldn't have to worry much. They're still only 1-wound models.
Also, everything will be fearless.

Ravenwing - Bikes. Loads of Bikes. Moar bikes. Bikes strapped to bikes. And the Imperium's one jetbike, to share. As far as us DE are concerned, they're just faster and more expensive marines. Their inherent T5 that gives other armies trouble doesn't bother us in the least, and they still just run a 3+. Now with the change to Jink, anything AP3 or better will be giving them serious trouble since they'll have to snap-fire if they wanna live. They have scout, scoring bikes, and access to Black Knights; bikers with skilled rider and plasma talons (18" S7 AP2 Rapid-Fire TL), which are terrifying. Their HQ is Sammael, also stubby, who comes on the one single jetbike under human control packing a plasma-cannon.
Expect a few speeders to come with this force. Especially likely is the Dark Shroud, which grants stealth (or shrouded?) to all units within ~6" or something.
Hard to deal with, commonly packing melta and plasma, and harder to keep away from. They can match our speed easy, so it'll be a game of corners, angles, and rapid-fire. But again our weight of fire wins the day.

Standard of Devastation - All units within 12" of this banner have their bolter-type weapons (hurricane bolters, bolters, possibly bolt pistols?, combi-bolters) as salvo 2/4. Hilariously bad for anyone on the receiving end (YOU!) since both terminators [edit: doesn't boost storm bolters!] and bikes can fire the full salvo 4 AND move/charge/etc.
This gets mixed in with either of the above lists, more commonly bikes, or occasionally just TAC marines.

Regardless of what core force they're using;
-Librarians (termie armour, bike, or in a metal box) with access to Divination, and Power Field Generators (cheap bubble of 4++ to all models within 3" ish) will be a thing.
-Command Squads with an Apothecary giving the unit FnP, whether it's marines bikes or termies.
-DA flyers are absolute TRASH for their price, so don't worry about that. That said, they can ally SM flyers so keep your guard up.

After that, well... they're Space Marines. Rhinos, Whirlwinds, Predators, Land Raiders (or as we DE call them, expensive rhinos), Devastator Squads, Dreadnoughts, Drop Pods, Scouts, and no spikes anywhere.
Hope this helps!

Very detailed - many thanks. I'll have a ponder about list building. I tend to take lots of splinters rifles with SR on the Raiders, so weight of fire shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I may throw in the Duke and an Autarch and keep a few things in reserve to counter alpha strike (or just deploy miles away from the DS termies and whittle them down).

Anything else you'd recommend against them?

Hey Starkadder, much of what Laughingcarp says is right on the money, (it is my DA he's talking about), but I would like to add a few things

1- Terminators are not going to be an issue, you're looking at about 30 bodies at 1850, and Dark Lances will put them down hard, as well as just weight of fire as stated, but it should be noted they do have the option of heavy flamers, and with turn 1 deep strike (often very accurately) and with 7th edition BBQ into your boats rules, you might get some of that going on.

2- Ravenwing is good, and this made me lol.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Bikes. Loads of Bikes. Moar bikes. Bikes strapped to bikes. And the Imperium's one jetbike, to share.

If they get first turn, hiding in reserves might not be a bad plan, cause you're looking at bikes with melta/plasma on your deployment line turn 1, all kinds of inside melta range, and likely with a buttload of twin linked bolter shots to boot (Banner of Devastation, aka Dakkabanner) will give a 6 bike squad with 2x meltaguns' remaining 4 bikes 16 twin-linked shots, so you're looking at 14 hits average, and a couple of glances on your venoms/raiders. Expect a ravenwing command squad with plasma talons to have the libby for the 4++ and possibly some divination support (mostly fear the perfect timing ignoring your junk saves).

3- Dakkabanner gives units within 12" re-rolls on Ld tests, but the Salvo 2/4 conversion is only units within 6", so a dakkabanner ravenwing list can't chase you all around the board, and you'd be well advised to split up as much as possible to minimize the number of your units inside the range of all them tasty bolters.

Another list that Dark Angels can bring is full on mech, which if you have not got enough dark lances, and your raiders/ravagers are jinking and must snap-fire could be a serious issue.

At 1850 this is a viable mech list
Libby, PFG, lvl 2
Command Squad, Razorback, Heavy Bolter
Tactical Squad, drop pod, Meltagun, combi-melta
Tactical Squad, drop pod, Flamer, combo-flamer
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Speeder squadron: 3x Typhoon speeders (48" S8AP3 Heavy 2), Heavy Bolter
Speeder squadron: 3x Typhoon speeders (48" S8AP3 Heavy 2), Heavy Bolter
Speeder squadron: 3x Double Heavy Flamer
Predator, TL Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator, TL Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons
Whirlwind (S4AP5 Ignores cover Large blast, or S5AP4 Large Blast)
Aegis defence line to hide everything behind for a 4+

poison will kill the few marines in the drop pod, but you'd need a buttload of lances to kill this many armoured vehicles. Nobody seems to do this, but its a thing that could happen (inspired by my last game vs Laughingcarp)

oh and for 15 points.... downgrade one predator to auto cannon turret, you can give the 3 dreadnoughts skyfire and interceptor if they stand still, which will make razor wings and void ravens sad, sad pandas

Inspired by our last game that he won, I might add.

nwabudikemorgan wrote:

Hey Starkadder, much of what Laughingcarp says is right on the money, (it is my DA he's talking about), but I would like to add a few things

1- Terminators are not going to be an issue, you're looking at about 30 bodies at 1850, and Dark Lances will put them down hard, as well as just weight of fire as stated, but it should be noted they do have the option of heavy flamers, and with turn 1 deep strike (often very accurately) and with 7th edition BBQ into your boats rules, you might get some of that going on.

2- Ravenwing is good, and this made me lol.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Bikes. Loads of Bikes. Moar bikes. Bikes strapped to bikes. And the Imperium's one jetbike, to share.

If they get first turn, hiding in reserves might not be a bad plan, cause you're looking at bikes with melta/plasma on your deployment line turn 1, all kinds of inside melta range, and likely with a buttload of twin linked bolter shots to boot (Banner of Devastation, aka Dakkabanner) will give a 6 bike squad with 2x meltaguns' remaining 4 bikes 16 twin-linked shots, so you're looking at 14 hits average, and a couple of glances on your venoms/raiders. Expect a ravenwing command squad with plasma talons to have the libby for the 4++ and possibly some divination support (mostly fear the perfect timing ignoring your junk saves).

3- Dakkabanner gives units within 12" re-rolls on Ld tests, but the Salvo 2/4 conversion is only units within 6", so a dakkabanner ravenwing list can't chase you all around the board, and you'd be well advised to split up as much as possible to minimize the number of your units inside the range of all them tasty bolters.

Another list that Dark Angels can bring is full on mech, which if you have not got enough dark lances, and your raiders/ravagers are jinking and must snap-fire could be a serious issue.

At 1850 this is a viable mech list
Libby, PFG, lvl 2
Command Squad, Razorback, Heavy Bolter
Tactical Squad, drop pod, Meltagun, combi-melta
Tactical Squad, drop pod, Flamer, combo-flamer
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Dreadnought, 2x TL Autocannons
Speeder squadron: 3x Typhoon speeders (48" S8AP3 Heavy 2), Heavy Bolter
Speeder squadron: 3x Typhoon speeders (48" S8AP3 Heavy 2), Heavy Bolter
Speeder squadron: 3x Double Heavy Flamer
Predator, TL Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons
Predator, TL Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons
Whirlwind (S4AP5 Ignores cover Large blast, or S5AP4 Large Blast)
Aegis defence line to hide everything behind for a 4+

poison will kill the few marines in the drop pod, but you'd need a buttload of lances to kill this many armoured vehicles. Nobody seems to do this, but its a thing that could happen (inspired by my last game vs Laughingcarp)

oh and for 15 points.... downgrade one predator to auto cannon turret, you can give the 3 dreadnoughts skyfire and interceptor if they stand still, which will make razor wings and void ravens sad, sad pandas

Haha.  Many thanks again for this.

I haven't played in 7th at all, but I had a lot of success with this list in 6th (sorry no pts values to hand):

---

HQ Baron Sathonyx
Haemonculus

Troops
2x 10 Warriors, spl cannon, blaster, Raider + SR + NS

5x Wyches, Venom 2xspl cannons + HWG

5x Wracks, Raider, Liquifier

Heavy Support

Ravager x2 (sometimes a Talos for counterstriking DS units)

Fast Attack

Beasts - lots of beasts (Khymerae and birds)

Elites

Blasterborn x4 (RFJ) HWG

ALLIES

Farseer on JB - Shard of Anaris (if with Beasts) - SS

6x Windriders (2SCs)

Then if over 1500 - 3x WWalkers, Scatter Laser + bright Lance

---

Alternatively I had great fun with a Haywire wych cult (in my sig).  I sometimes would chuck in either the Duke or a Succubus and some Incubi in place of the beasts in the list above. I won a couple of smaller tournaments in London with this list (& variations), but I don't think it will transition well into 7th.

For 7th I've been thinking about a combo of a couple of fliers (now we can 4x missile on arrival) and a WWP detachment of Talos/Trueborn with lots of splinter / blasters coming out. Perhaps even Voidbombers now that exploding an AV11 flier got a bit harder... I love the idea of them comined with a Corsair Prince for his s9 lance large blast, plus deepstriking units...

All very vague at the moment. What have you had success with in 7th?

Also perhaps some spiritseers to camp with a big blob of warriors in cover...?

Given the changes to explodes results, I think 7th is going to be all about glancing to death - HW cannons could be very viable (esp coming out of a WWP with a bit of presience).