Tactica: Deathwing 5th Edition

[Grazzy]

Hmmm. What about this for a pure list? It is similar to russel's teapots 1500 point list but with dread/termie squad instead of LRC and chaplain. The only thing it lacks is an apothecary.

What weapons should the LRC combat flamer squad have? I thought all LC's with one CF/HF guy.


Belial
5 termies AC
5 termies AC
5 termies AC
5 termies HF/CF
Dread TLLC/ML
LRC

[NovaScotius]

If you're going to chuck them in close with the enemy, then I'd say you're spot on with lightning claws. Although you're losing the protection of the Storm Shields, the better Initiative you're using should make you a little more survivable! Also, if you do come up against a big gribbly, you've still got the Chain Fist to slap them around with

[Lion El Jason]

Unless you're using the new C:SM rules for storm shields they are never worth it (I know theres a lot of clubs out there who do) Deathwing terminators using the dark angel storm shield rules are wasting their lives. They really are totally pointless.

[Grazzy]

Im liking this list more. The 4 LC's should cause 2.4 wounds on T6, so they are not totally useless. At larger points i plan on adding a chappie too, which shoulf make them a very, very scary unit.

[cowie165]

Yours in Hope,
Maynard, Grand Master of the Eradicators

Thought for the day: Hope is nothing without despair.
Message Ends.

Given your comments, I'm going to try a HF next time I go with a DCCW dread. You're right, at 5pts it can be a lot of fun and the no-cover save could have come in handy a few times for me recently. Cheers to you Brother Maynard.

[Maynard]

Aye I've found that hordes of deep striking daemons don't seem to like that HF

Played daemons last night and the ven dread soaked up a serious amount of stuff!! Ended in a draw, against triple daemon prince and flamers and 4 heralds of T that's fine by me

[G8Keeper]

I had my first outing as a pure DW force last night vs Tau at 1500pts. We played capture and control with dawn of war setup.

My force consisted of:

Belial (LC)
5 x Termies - Apoth, Standard, 2 LC's, TH + SS.
5 x Termies - Assault Cannon
5 x Termies - Cyclone
5 x Termies - 3 LC's, 2 TH + SS
Land Raider
Dread - Twin Las + ML

He had:

Crisis Commander
3 crisis suits (plamsa missile pod combo)
3 x Firewarrior squads
5 stealth suits
20 kroot
sniper drone team
pathfinders + fish
hammerhead

I deployed a shooty squad w/ Assault cannon and a semi assaulty squad to whom I attached Belial. My opponent deployed a unit of fire warriors and a unit of 20 kroot.

The first turns involved me shooting the hell out of his hammerhead only shaking and then immobilising it whilst advancing with the rest of my army, including the pure assaulty squad in the LR. On turn 4 my assaults hit home eventually seeing me roll up his right flank (my left) which contained 3 firewarrior squads (all destroyed in close combat) and the sniper drones. I was down to 2 terminators in this squad by the end of the game which I considered quite lucky.

Ther opposite flank saw me annihilate the kroot as well as finally the crisis suits after they'd wiped out my command squad who were nicely sitting on his objective. One of the final salvo's from my army saw the hammerhead's main gun finally destroyed having killed 2 terminators and failing on 2 occasions to penetrate my LR. As his last firewarrior died he conceded so I was quite happy!

Lessons:

Keep going! At times I thought it was all over as his firepower was taking its toll especially by turn 4 however, once my assaults hit home the battle was almost a foregone conclusion.

Be bold on the offensive! I almost succumbed to moving my LR a paltry 6" so I could get a shot off at the hammerhead but decided to go for broke. If I had have done this my guys would have arrived in combat on turn 5 which may well have been too late.

Get new dice! I just couldn't roll anything above a 3 to penetrate that blasted hammerhead's side armour! It took 3 or 4 twin lascannon shots as well as the same amount of cyclone shots to finally render it useless.

All in all a good first outing for the first company!

[Grazzy]

Get new dice! I just couldn't roll anything above a 3 to penetrate that blasted hammerhead's side armour! It took 3 or 4 twin lascannon shots as well as the same amount of cyclone shots to finally render it useless.

Well, if you are using GW dice then they have a far higher probability of rolling a one (according to a very technical study by a warseerite).

[bobafett012]

Well, if you are using GW dice then they have a far higher probability of rolling a one (according to a very technical study by a warseerite).

i don't believe that for a single second tbh, i read the entire thing and none of it even seems remotely plausable to me, but thats just my opinion, lol.

[purple40k]

Hey there Mr. bobafett, I believe we can all agree that dice with more rounded corners are not manufactured in a similar manner to casino dice. Additionally, I hope we can all agree casino dice are held to a higher statistical average/standard. As to whether or not you think the designs of particular dice influence the outcomes in a sample size that occur within a 1500 pt game I can certainly agree, luck will be a factor at least near so much as the design and statistics of a particular dice design/model. To believe dice with different designs will not favor different results is in my opinion short sited!

I do think boba is the type of player that wins and loses on skill more than a few clutch rolls, having read this entire flipping tactica. So his statement is pretty understandable. I am still trying to get over my scrub years with the hobby and trying to stop blaming the dice! More power to those of us that don't need hot dice to win!

G8Keeper, how could your opponent have deployed or played differently to beat you?
Do you think the standard is worth a cyclone and a heavy flamer?

[G8Keeper]

Well if I were the Tau player I would have deployed in one corner and made my whole army take that much longer to get to him, hence being able to focus firepower etc. I would also have tried to get the charge against my command squad with the 20 strong kroot (something which I was dreading).

I don't quite understand what you mean by

Do you think the standard is worth a cyclone and a heavy flamer?

[Grazzy]

I don't quite understand what you mean by

What he means is do you find the standard worth the points, which could have been spent on a CML and HF ( 1 for each squad )?

I think your list could be slightly improved by only having one assaulty squad to go in the LR and 3 shooty squads. Then you have my list

[NovaScotius]

Hi Guys,

May be a rather stupid question, but is a pure infantry Deathwing list viable? I'm looking to explore all the variants available, and was wondering if anyone runs a pure infantry list, and how it fares?

I realise that the list would be somewhat lacking in the anti-tank department (Due to no Dreads or Landraiders!), but is it possible to run the list and ignore enemy vehicles?

Thanks

[Lion El Jason]

The all-infantry list is viable... back in the day most people would tell you it was the best way to go with Deathwing!

You can have effective AT with CMLs and Assault Cannon (Mostly assault cannon, they are still good for anything but MBTs) and if they do get close (Or if you walk towards them all guns blazing) you can get some Powerfists into anything with big armour.

When I've played this I always went for an advancing tactic. You still want to get in there with all those powerfists eventually so advance every turn use the firepower to concentrate on important targets and trust the armour to see you through the rest.

If you're willing to include dreadnoughts then a TLLC/ML dread will fix AT issues and assault cannon/ DCCW fits the advance and kill theme perfectly. As a comprimise I like my multi melta /DCCW dread but it is best deployed from a drop pod.

[G8Keeper]

I was indeed thinking of swapping out one assaulty squad for a shooty one. I would then swap the LR for a LRC so I could put Belial in with them. I find the standard moves the effectiveness of the squad up another level, it even makes Belial suck less and it isn't too expensive. The apothecary is a must though, I must have failed one save on most turns at least and it definately prolonged their survivable!

In the other shooty squad should I go for a second cyclone, assault cannon or add a heavy flamer?

[Lion El Jason]

Its just a shame we cant put the Std in an assault squad and the medic in a shooty squad.

[G8Keeper]

Indeed it is

How would you expand to 2000pts? A LR and another squad perhaps?

[Oathwarden]

My ranking on heavy weapons for DW squads is always AC/HF/Cyclone.
Assault cannon-4 shots plus rending puts it at a good allround status despite the points
Heavy flamer-gotta love the template it gets thown into more 'assaulty' squads as they rush in, plus its the cheapest of the weapons
Cyclone-Good idea but the single shot krak for that many points hasn't been cost effective for me, if they were the generic SM Cyclone's you'd see more use of this one outa me.

I know people's 2nd hq's usually depend on what type of dw style we see but personal expierence has put the Librarian in termie armor w/combi-melta as my main 'pure DW' choice for the versatility he provides. After several battles with orks/nids Hellfire has been a gift from the Emperor Himself, the unlimited hood is great, yes LD 9 means the high end psykers have an edge, but it's still a good shot to block. the Combi-melta gives me a shot on a vehicle if I'm going to charge it and don't need to risk the perils for hoping a Str 10 hellfire to nuke the vehicle

[Lion El Jason]

Well, the 2 choices for a second HQ basically come down to personal preference or local metagame.

If you use lightning claw squads in land raiders and often come up against those few armies that have units where you need belial, a full assault squad with banner and a chaplain in a crusader then you take a chaplian.
If you don't use Lightning Claw squads at all, then a chaplain is pretty pointless so going for a librarian is a no-brainer.

Personally I've been using the librarian. Although he has by far the worst powers in the game and inexplicably only Ld9 I've been using him as an extra "Pseudo-medic" and those extra Init 5 attacks are still worth having.

Either way I like the crusader with 2 HQs and a squad in it. Even if you don't need all 7 models for any one single target you can always have the HQs leave the squad as they disembark and charge 3 or 4 separate units. A charging assault squad with banner should easily take 2 and the characters (Yes even belial!) should survive and cause enough casualties that their squads just need mopping up in the opponents turn.

[Grazzy]

I was thinking of doing that LEJ - although only with 1 character. Belial can charge one marine squad of 10 man and do well enough to hold them all off untill the assault termies squad has finished off their target and joined him.