Tactica: Deathwing 5th Edition

[Russell's teapot]

Another win for DeathWing!

Played against Daemons last night at 1500 points, a monstrous creature list:
Lord of Change
3 x walking DPs with Bolt of Change (an AP1 krak)
1 x 6 horrors with Changeling & BoC
Tzeench Herald on chariot with Boc
Khorne Herald on Juggernaut
3 x 6 plague bearers
3 x fiends of Slannesh

I took the following:

Belail - TLC - 130 points

Chaplain - TDA - 145 points

Squad 1 - 220 points - rides with the chaplain
Sargeant - SB/PW
Terminator - TH/SS
Terminator - SB/CF
Terminator - SB/PF
Terminator - SB/PF

Squad 2 - 250 points - rides with Belail
Sargeant - SB/PW
Terminator - TH/SS
Terminator - SB/CF
Terminator - SB/PF
Terminator - AC/PF

Squad 3 - 240 points - walking
Sargeant - SB/PW
Terminator - TH/SS
Terminator - SB/CF
Terminator - SB/PF
Terminator - SB/PF/CML

LRC - EA - 265 points - chaplain's ride

LRC - 250 points - Belail's ride

Mission was kill points, with a 12" set up. I won the roll off & the Daemon player went first & dropped all the monstrous creatures & Chariots in front of my lines.

Belail's Land Raider got stunned (no EA!), but otherwise no damage. In retaliation, the Khorne Jugger was shot to death by the LRCs, Belail & squad dealt with the Tzeench Chariot, Chaplain & his squad assaulted 2 of the DPs, killing both of them.

The LoC assaulted chappers squad & it took him 3 player turns to get rid of them all, but the final squad (which I'd reserved to walk on) took him out in the end. The final DP had a few goes at taking out the LRCs, but was gunned down eventually. The fiends and horrors came down to help out, but Belail took them on in combat, eventually dieing to the fiends, but took them all with him. The plague bearers deepstruck far from my lines & hid.

The final result was:
KP to me: 8
KP to him: 3

The inclusion of the THSS terminator was good, the one fighting the LoC managed quite a few, but the other 2 squads rolled 1s on their first attempt. I'm keeping Belail with TLCs for the moment - the high number of high I attacks easily made its points back here. Machine spirit at BS4 is wicked, and firing at different targets is wicked too!

Needs more games...

[Bartali]

I still see on other forums that they favour foot DW. I think its bizarre but even on here (Well on portent) I would face a majority of DW players saying Foot DW is the only way to play.

I do like Raiders, but I've been trying to incorporate them into a list at 1500pts without success. Raiders are still far too fragile against some opponents for my liking, going foot removes all the finger crossing I had to do in the first couple of turns that they didn't get blown up !
Foot with the new CMLs also gives me an extra turn of shooting - first turn previously with LRCs and AC based Deathwing was always more or less a re-deployment turn to get into mid-field.

Raiders may still work at higher points values - but unless I'm doing a fun assault based list, I just can't see a use for them

[Lion El Jason]

I just can't see that myself, terminators are so fragile they need protecting in land raiders. LRs protect terminators from all but the best weapons in the opposing army which would otherwise be killing terminators.

I've never really had an issue with them getting popped, it just doesn't seem to happen. Even against Dark Eldar I only lost one LR out of 3 at 2k points, the other two were unscratched.
People who haven't used them assume they are fragile but they certainly take more to put down than a squad of terminators!

[Bartali]

No really - five meltagun shots will reliably take down a Land Raider. You also have the danger of a 'lucky' Lascannon shot taking the Raider out.

To take down 5 TH/SS Terminators (assuming BS4) :-
27 S6+ AP1/2 shots (Plasma, Melta).
or
90 S4 AP3+ shots

[landingshortly]

I mindgamed this and wanted to ask your opinion [this is not supposed to be an army-list post, rather than strategic thoughts.]

The list I use as a base at the moment is about 1900 pts and includes this:

belial th/ss
chaplain ta
deathwing terminator squad (sarge/tllc - tllc - tllc/banner - tllc/apo - pf+hf) in lrc/ea
deathwing terminator squad (sarge/pw/sb - th/ss - pf/sb/cml - cf/sb - pf/sb)
deathwing terminator squad (sarge/pw/sb - th/ss - pf/ac - cf/sb - pf/sb)
deathwing terminator squad (sarge/pw/sb - th/ss - pf/ac - cf/sb - pf/sb)
dreadnought (dccw/ac/hf) in drop pod
dreadnought (dccw/ac/hf) in drop pod

strategically speaking ... the plan is to distract the enemy with the dreadnoughts, command squad in lrc as the other squads move up. i think this is good, as the pressure from those dreadnoughts takes away pressure off the terminator squads. dreadnoughts + command squad can tackle deathsrar units together.

i think that footy termies are good. But they need to survive nonetheless. With distracting the enemy elsewhere, this is a good option together with SS/TH in a squad.

What do you think?

[Lion El Jason]

No really - five meltagun shots will reliably take down a Land Raider. You also have the danger of a 'lucky' Lascannon shot taking the Raider out.

To take down 5 TH/SS Terminators (assuming BS4) :-
27 S6+ AP1/2 shots (Plasma, Melta).
or
90 S4 AP3+ shots

How many Bolter shots does it take to kill a land raider?

[Bartali]

The five that the combi-meltas are attached too

@landingshortly - If you want to use Dreads in a tar-pit holding role, they really need to Venerable. Dreads go down very quickly in CC against Power Fists/Hammers/MCs etc without Venerable.

[Lion El Jason]

The simple fact is we lose way more terminators to 2+ saves than we ever do to AP1-2 weapons. Land Raiders protect against those huge quantity of anti infantry fire.

Just standing out in the open is a good way to get terminators shot and they are too expensive and fragile to leave to get shot. Land Raiders allow us to position terminators where we want them, block LOS and provide more firepower than a terminator squad. This is why mechanised DW is the best option if you're trying to be competitive. Foot DW just got a boost but it will never match the abilities of mechanised.
This is just my experience of course, and now the days of melta spam are waning Land Raiders have become an even better investment. Plama is back (A bit) and is at a Land Raiders favourite Str, I also see a lot of autocannon to deal with the huge amounts of light transports.

I'd love to hear more from someone who gets foot DW to work, I have found it quite a struggle over the years.

[KaldCB]

I think we have to give it some time, im building up a 6 terminator squad foot DW now, but it will take some time to build it with th/ss's.

In my mind I think it will work, But you never know before you try

The new walking DW will be very different then the old one, as you will try to get into assault instead of away from the enemy.

[Asher]

The simple fact is we lose way more terminators to 2+ saves than we ever do to AP1-2 weapons. Land Raiders protect against those huge quantity of anti infantry fire.

True enought; but the Land Raider come at a steep prize, namely a unit of terminators that you can't take in your list.

In the current meta-game any list that calls itself compeditive will have something to crack that Land Raider open fast. Feeding such list an all Terminator force leaves it with a lot of wasted potential.

This is ofcourse a lot of theoryhammering, but thinking back at turnament lists I faces, it holds true to a great degree.

[Lion El Jason]

In the current meta-game any list that calls itself compeditive will have something to crack that Land Raider open fast.

Nah, in my experience it doesn't happen. Between cover, LOS blocking terrain and the firepower we have its easy to protect Land Raiders. Honestly people who don't use them really don't get just how safe a prospect they are.

Also while they cost as much as a terminator squad, they have more firepower, so you only lose out on the assault capability.

[Xyon]

Indeed, two hurricane bolters, a twin linked assault cannon, and a multi melta.

So you basically get 6 twin linked bolters shooting out 6 or 12 shots, the 4 shots of assault cannon and 1 multi melta. Generally more effective than a round of shooting from a 4 storm bolter 1 assault cannon squad of termi's.

[Bartali]

Nah, in my experience it doesn't happen. Between cover, LOS blocking terrain and the firepower we have its easy to protect Land Raiders. Honestly people who don't use them really don't get just how safe a prospect they are.

Out of interest, how much melta do your opponents generally take ? If I drive LRCs towards my regular Space Wolf opponent, they will die - double melta on three rhino grey hunter squads, and melta on a bike squad + attack bike.

As KaldCB said, I think foot players are still on a bit of a learning curve. Foot lists only really became viable after the FAQ.

[Lion El Jason]

Don't move forwards then?
If I were up against 3 2xmelta in rhinos I'd take out the rhinos from 24" away. 3 Melta squads on foot is much easier to deal with. Also 3 melta won't take out a raider reliably, even at 6" 3 melta shots will likely get 1 penetrating hit. If that one LR goes down, the troops inside are in assault range of the squads with the melta which they will kill.

This is now almost pure Theoryhammer now but one thing I will state as fact:
Land Raiders are tougher than you think.
It should be part of the mantra, they really do take a good beating.

EDIT: I think that is a lot of melta, in my recent games I think total melta (And Lance for eldar/ DE) never went above 5 models. I hear the meta is swinging away from melta, maybe one of our local environments is skewed?

[the gribbly]

I agree that many players are opting for missiles and TLACs etc rather than pure melta spam as used to be the case. Thank you SW and BAs . It seems foot DW has become far more viable now. However, so far IME there are still enough threats to an unmech'd DW army that I think raiders are still preferable. For example, without land raiders I pretty much auto lost against all things nids (both current and last edition). With raiders the matchup becomes alot better. I know th/ss made this better vs. rending and MC attacks but volumn still kills us. Also I dont enjoy being forced into the center to avoid outflanking units of any kind, especially stealers.
Pesonally I think our strongest lists will still include either a raider or two, or alternately ravenwing support or both.

[Lion El Jason]

OK, thats a good point. I haven't done much recently so can any Foot players say how they do vs nids/orks etc...

[Doomseer]

On the subject of Meltas, I run into some lists with many and other lists with very few but tons of Krak Missiles and Lascannons instead!

I think foot Deathwing has become more viable with the update but I'll stick with the Crusaders I think. Small arms fire kills terminators, having every gun on the table able to force armour saves on a small model count is something I will be avoiding, especially with my dice rolling!

[Lion El Jason]

This thread is discussing wound allocation which we need to use a lot so it may be worth a look.

[Thalenchar]

hey guys,
just wanted to say what a great thread I think this is! Really a lot of useful stuff on here. The recent FAQ rekindled my interest in DA (Im man enough to admit it ). Ive been playing 40K for about a decade and a half, mostly for fun. Ive mostly been playing CSM or Vannila Marines but have played other armies as well. Anyway, Ive always had an interest in doing an all-terminator army, but as Im sure some of you will know you can only have so many cool army projects going at a time, and for some reason the terminator army always got pushed back.
No more!
Recently Ive had my interest in the hobby rekindled (I blame the fantastic looking new Dark Eldar) and this had me looking through my stash of bought-but-never-painted miniatures. And wouldnt you know, there I find numerous squads of terminators Ive bought over the years, as well as two land raiders!
Now, myself and a couple of friends will be participating in a small (20 players or so) tournament, 1700 pts, in early march and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to a) finally get round to doing a proper all-terminator army (boo Loganwing!) and b) learn how to play with it competently.
So over the weekend Ive started converting my version of Belial and his command squad members, and started painting my first terminator. I decided to do my own DA successor chapter (still a lot of bone though!).
Anyway, just thought Id let you guys know Ill be keeping a close eye on this thread. I like the discussion on the Foot vs Raider tactics. Been wondering about that myself.
I hope to play my first game with Deathwing this Sunday, probably vs a BA Land Raider spam, so will be interesting to see how thatll go!
Keep up the great dialogue!

[KaldCB]

Another victory for the deathwing!!
I played a 2500 points battle yesterday and it's the most one sided battle i have played in a long time.

At the end of turn 7 he was completely wiped out, and i had lost around 10 terminators out of 30. And I still had all 3 raiders and my dread left.

My opponent had a bad list, but he still had around 50 chaos marines in various forms and defilers/dread and spawns. So I'm still amazed I managed to kill him so easy.
I DWA Belial and his command squad 2 inches from enemy units turn 1, and Belial and the apothecary was still standing when the game ended.
The th/ss/fnp command squad is just beyond amazing.

On the matter of walking vs mechanized, I think that will be an debate that will last for a very long time.
Against certain orky builds you might struggle, not that i have had much problems in the past with orks. They still die in droves, as every wound you do kills 2 orks.

I think nids will struggle against both raider and walker lists, i have used a space wolves raider list against tyranids 3 times, and have destroyed the tyranids with ease every game.

Almost every tyranid player focus on big monsters supported by hive guards and i really don't see them having a chance against 30 terminators with th/ss.
The cyclones alone should kill a trygon each turn, and the hammers will kill the rest of the monster easily. Unless they use lots of expensive upgraded hormagunts i don't think the little critters will do much against terminators ether.