Tactica: Deathwing 6th Edition

[Enigma6]

I'd have personally thought that, without allies to man it, the fortress would be a few too many points spent in deathwing.
You get the most value out of it with a squad on every battlement, and that is a HUGE chunk of any deathwing army. You couldn't use allies in the tourney so I'd have considered swapping out a DWT squad for some scouts or something to fire the weapons. Still keep one squad with TDA in there to do that crucial objective grab or counter charge.
Again, I'm with you if there's allied guard in there, and there are still the other advantages it brings, I just wouldn't have spent that many points on it myself.
Seems to have worked alright for you though.

[ErictheGreen]

Right, I'm fresh off a couple of beatings of y ravenwing in my last 5th ed tournament. But I have played 6th in the meantime.
I agree to an extent with RT. land raiders ensure you get where you need to be but work far better for blood Angels and space wolves who can pack a lot of efficient units around the raider squads. We can't so are relying a bit too much on them. Also - more objectives.

I also agree with all thss all the time. We are much better off in cc than we were in 5th but shooting is more deadly - less cover saves, more ap2 floating around.

For av13 at range, we need lascannons, ranged s10 or ravenwing melta. Missiles and autocannons don't cut the mustard.

Ravenwing add zero anti horde capability. We are generally seeing more bodies and given their price, I just don't see it as hugely viable especially when;
Typhoons are as good as ever. Cheap, efficient, moderately survivable at range.

As to the preds/vindi decision. An autolas pred will generally be the better anti vehicle choice BUT will have little to no impact against foot heavy armies after mech is dealt with.

Vindicators offer: s10 anti tank, pie plate for hordes and while RT doesn't find them that scary, plenty of marine players do. I don't know what the answer is.

By the by, I'm still not impressed with autocannon/bolter preds. I seethe value in regular marine lists with lot of cheap fire units, but I just don't think they pull their weight in a deathwing army.

If FW is allowed at your flgs, mortis pattern dreads are a godsend. Not just for the skyfire/intercept. That's nice, but there's a reason they are in competitive marine and grey knight armies. Efficiency wise they are as good as typhoons. Most of my tournaments for the next couple of months are fw friendly so they're staying in

[Bartali]

With that game, I have signalled the end of the land raider list. Too much invested in stuff that isn't useful to missions, and with assault being unreliable, no longer that helpful at what they do best.

I've come to the same conclusion, stopping vehicles being able to contest killed Raider lists.

Pure DW is in an awkward position at the moment. 6th is all about shooting and having numerous durable troops that can capture/contest objectives outside of transports. DW can do the second, but are outclassed in the first.

[Elios Harg]

Terminators work best in close combat now (with a few exceptions, the only things that break our armor save attack simultaneously with our hammers/fists). Close Combat is harder to reach thanks to random charge and over watch. Land Raiders let us reach close combat, but eat up a lot of our points. Foot slogging terminators die super fast, even with storm shields and FNP. The only real success I've had so far with 6th Edition has been with allied IG.

[Captain Collius]

Terminators work best in close combat now (with a few exceptions, the only things that break our armor save attack simultaneously with our hammers/fists). Close Combat is harder to reach thanks to random charge and over watch. Land Raiders let us reach close combat, but eat up a lot of our points. Foot slogging terminators die super fast, even with storm shields and FNP. The only real success I've had so far with 6th Edition has been with allied IG.

Okay I know believe it more than ever my Meta is wierd because I use footslogging DW And i do quite well. However it was stated earlier that in 6Th firepower is king and taking vehicles (unless you can spam them) against necrons is a sign of mental instability.

So then brother what are we thinking is the go to list at 2000 in this modern era?
belial
libby
5 terminator squads
2 speeders
2 AC/LC preds?

[Elios Harg]

I'm thinking for a Pure Dark Angels list with 1 FOC allowed at 2000:

Belial
Librarian in TDA
2x DWS w/ 5 TH/SS CML
3x DWS w/ 5 SB CML
3x Typhoons
3x AC/HB Preds

OR

Belial
Librarian in TDA
2x DWS w/ 5 TH/SS CML
3x DWS w/ 5 SB CML
2x Typhoons
3x Vindicators

I think AC/LC predators are complete crap, they're expensive and do not add anything to a deathwing list that it doesn't already have (AT). On the other hand, AC/HB preds are cheap and add anti-infantry, while still being able to pick off light vehicles and vindicators work against everything.

[Captain Collius]

While i like the idea of the second list. I'd probably throw a couple of Assault cannons into my SB squads because I like them and have seen my assault cannon take out a land raider also you lose nothing in the way of overall shots.

[ErictheGreen]

I think AC/LC predators are complete crap, they're expensive and do not add anything to a deathwing list that it doesn't already have (AT). On the other hand, AC/HB preds are cheap and add anti-infantry, while still being able to pick off light vehicles and vindicators work against everything.

In 5th edition they were necessary to knock out rhinos in the early game to give us the advantage as our opponents were then on foot.
In 6th edition its debateable. We'll see less full mech and weight of fire can strip hull points. I wouldn't go so far as to call them crap though.
I've never been impressed with ac/hb preds except in fully meched PA armies (codex or DA).

I like the vindicator list though Elios. I'm still not sold on the libby. Re-rolls are nice and all, but in your list its a third vindicator which aids target saturation and is another big gun.

I'm going back to basics after all my mucking about with vindicators tonight. belial, 5 dw squads (2-3 thss each) w/ cml and 2 ravenwing squads with double melta and mmab. I'm playing against an all infantry grey knight army which is an acid test to see if the bikes can contribute without their ideal target (mech).

I am, however, more convinced of the need for 5 DW squads at 1750.

[Russell's teapot]

I would argue that lascannons have increased in usability and helpfulness in 6th. Missiles at very nice, but at ap3 they aren't very good at tank killing. If you aren't killing tanks then you'll need more shots to strip hps, which means more of your DW squads are shooting the same rhino or whatever.

Whether predators are the best way to get lascannons is another matter, but without fast melta, they're your best bet. Vindicators are ok but side shots will cripple them early which predators can negate with range.

[Bartali]

I do wonder about double wing lists, instead of taking Preds. 2xPlasmaguns, Plasma Pistol and Multi-Melta Attack bike.

It'd probably be the route I would try if I had a pile of bikers lying around.
I'm waiting though until the new codex before buying any new DA models

[ErictheGreen]

I do wonder about double wing lists, instead of taking Preds. 2xPlasmaguns, Plasma Pistol and Multi-Melta Attack bike.

It'd probably be the route I would try if I had a pile of bikers lying around.
I'm waiting though until the new codex before buying any new DA models

belial, 5 dw squads with thss and cml, 2 rw squads with 2 melta, mmab and meltabombs is 1695. You have the points to add the apothecary (still damn useful), and upgrade both bike units to double plasma. Personally, THSS will do the anti 2+ save duty. And anything remotely good with a 2+ has a 3 or 4+ invun anyway. melta still hammers tanks good. still double taps paladins (though not nob bikers, sadly). i see the use of plasma for 24 inch ap2 tank shots. i also see RW sargeants with power weapons joint charging with a dw squad, taking the challenge and then running down whatever is left. hell, attack bikes can do that (minus the challenge, ofc).

plus the ability to drop down deathwing squads onto objectives turn 1 is golden. your opponent has to spend the entire game trying to shift them.

i'll let you know how tonight goes. like i said, it's an acid test because the guy runs all infantry and still does well at tournys thanks to the power of the GK codex.

i do look forward to being in combat with his halberds and swords though. nom nom nom.

[Elios Harg]

I think something to heavily consider is squadrons of landspeeders, for 205 points, you can get 3 MM and a Typhoon launcher, keep the typhoon in the back. They have a 36" threat range with their MM and a 24" double pen range. In addition, you can turbo-boost 1" with your lead speeder rather than shooting to improve it's jink save making it a little more difficult to punch through to the next speeder.

I also think predator annihilators are more worth their heavy point cost now. 3 Lascannon shots is really good at downing AV12 or less vehicles (I've been testing out Vendettas) I agree with RT that we need more lascannons in the list, I just don't think AC/LC is worth it now over a vindicator, especially since Vindicators now have the potential for killing multiple tanks with one shot. Unfortunately, Dark Angels do not have a cost effective way of putting Lascannons in our list outside of allies.

I really like the idea of plasma guns on bikes, it's essentially have an AP2 autocannon (or 2 if you get within rapid fire), however, I think the landspeeders are more cost effective 5 S8 shots vs. at most 5 S7 shots with only a 40 point price difference and the speeders have no chance of gets hot.

[manitoujoe]

I've been running a pretty pure DW army against my buddy's Dark Eldar and getting tabled by Turn Three. He runs a pure vehicle list and I just can't get to the Objective because he gunlines it and pops my Termies and LC with little effort. Man, I'm getting frustrated. How do we handle DE vehicles with flickerfields and such?

[Elios Harg]

I've been running a pretty pure DW army against my buddy's Dark Eldar and getting tabled by Turn Three. He runs a pure vehicle list and I just can't get to the Objective because he gunlines it and pops my Termies and LC with little effort. Man, I'm getting frustrated. How do we handle DE vehicles with flickerfields and such?

Well, first, is he tailoring his list specifically to fight your terminators? If so, you pretty much can't beat Dark Eldar as they can be the absolute best anti-terminator army in the game. Disintegrators and venom spam make terminator armies disappear fast in 6th. In addition, they're one of the better armies at killing Land raiders thanks to Lances. Ultimately, you have an uphill battle to fight. You need to deploy smart. Try and make it so you only fight a little of his army at a time. Make sure you prioritize your targets. Venoms with blaster-born are usually priority one for me since that's 2 threats in one, next would be ravagers, finally once that's done, focus on taking out his scoring units. Try to combat void ravens or razorwings through maneuvering rather than shooting them. Wyches take a lot of effort to kill in CC, but very little in shooting, so gun them down (frag missiles work well for this, as do assault cannons).

[Finn]

Unfortunately for pure DW (I assume you mean Terminators + LR/Cs), there isn't much you can do against paper mache vehicle spam - you just don't have the volume of fire to take (enough of) them out. I mean, you have LRCs, but DE are going to make pretty short work of those with all the lances they bring to the table. And they have the volume of fire to end your Terminators.

My answer would be to put away your purism in such a matchup and take Predators/Speeders. They will still die pretty quickly against DE, but you get more of them and all of their weapons can strip HPs off of the DE vehicles.

[Elios Harg]

Depending on the points, purely on foot, you can theoretically drop one DE vehicle per turn per unit. However, that requires some above average to really good rolling.

[ErictheGreen]

Right. So I've now been tabled twice by players that in 5th edition we would have fought tooth and nail and the games were tight.
More infantry is killing me. Now, I'm up against necrons (tesla) and grey knights (Psycannons). So they are 2 of the better shooting armies out there but my opponents have quickly realised that these units threaten a wide range of targets through the volume and strength of fire. I simply can't reach combat in enough shape to take advantage of the improvements in tda against power weapons.
Maybe I need to work on the vindicator list more. That seems to have the killing power and threat that I'm missing to thin the herd.

[Elios Harg]

Land raiders may work but not terribly well against the necrons depending on how much gauss he has. You may try relying on being shootier since neither of those armies are particularly good at AP1/2. So maybe more shooty squads and Vindicators. Remember, prescience can be cast on vehicles.

[Captain Collius]

Against the shootier lists we have to be careful and anything that can cause a lot of wounds is at a premium meaning template weapons are in as well as high rate of fire weapons. Personally i feel that our bad matchups are GK, SW, DE, and Necrons. Anything else we can pretty well take. Against gk you simply have to be lucky they are really hard to deal with. Against DE you havet ot take away their vehicles. Against Crons stay out of sight. Against wolves take away their long fangs and then kill everything else..

[Elios Harg]

Against GKs you just need to get into CC. We pretty much own them in close combat now