Playing Dark Angels: Building a Better Battleforce

One of the hallmarks of the very best players in 40k is their ability to bring an army that looks like a random sample of units from a codex, and continually trounce upon opponents of all skill levels. I don't consider myself quite that good at the moment, but I'd like to think I'm approaching that direction, especially with my primary army: Dark Angels. This actually isn't something that every codex is capable of, at least not in the most competitive scenes. Sure, great generals can take weak codices and do some significant things, but it's almost always due to vast amounts of player skill and an understanding of the army's strengths and weaknesses. Armies with better tools, more efficient tools, and multiple units with similar roles are much more able to pull this off. Right now, I'd probably limit just a few codices in the game to pulling this off really well. Space Marines, Necrons, Imperial Guard, and Dark Angels are the best, with Chaos Space Marines and Space Wolves coming in just behind them (in my opinion). Other codices are extremely competitive, but have very few competitive options.

So what's required to make and play one of these amazing "battleforce" armies? Let's take a look:

Playing Dark Angels: Allies for Now

When it comes to building a competitive list for 40k, there are many factors you have to plan for in your army list. Most of these boil down to 2 things: mission type and opponent's army composition. 6th Edition has added a new unit type that has become difficult for the Dark Angels to work around: Fliers. There is simply not a unit in the codex with the durability and firepower to handle them on a competitive scale. Your army needs to be capable of dealing with 3-5 opposed fliers in a competitive setting. Sure, the infamous Cron Air (Necron Airforce) can pump out 8-10 fliers, but I expect it will be living a short lifespan and already has some hard counters in some of the more popular armies.

Combine this with an increase in infantry and plasma usage and, and the traditional Dark Angels army (Deathwing) starts having problems. We can increase this capability, but it really comes down to needing to branch out with allies to get the tools we need. When we do this, we find that rather than shoring up DA weaknesses, DAs make the better allies, as the core of Belial and 2 squads of terminators give other armies some great durability and combat-effective units. The army that makes best use of these units and covers our needs most is Imperial Guard. Here is a look at how we would run with Imperial Guard primary with Dark Angels as allies.

Psyched up for Grey Knights

There's no need for me to really show off pictures, as GW has done all the work for us there. Head over to the GW Website and take a look through the Grey Knights list. Lots of cool things there.

What I can tell you is what I plan on doing with them in reference to my current Space Marine army, which I currently use with most space marine codices from time to time (though I mostly stick to Dark Angels). You see, back when I started playing about 3 1/2 years ago, I specifically set up my army to make use of multiple codices, including Witch Hunters and Daemonhunters. I even established my chapter's fluff based around the idea that space marines, guardsmen, and even power-armored humans fought together, and the entire chapter was high on psychic potential. The decision was completely gamist, but I came into the game to play. The universe is awesome, but the gameplay is what keeps me coming back.

The chapter's name is Platinum Angels, and they are a 3rd-founding successor of the Dark Angels. Their homeworld sits near a warp rift that for a time engulfed the planet. This has caused mutations and increased psychic potential, but also a natural resistance to warp phenomenon. I figure my chapter's almost as adept at fighting off demonic incursions as the actual Grey Knights :)

With the update to the Grey Knights and the removal of ally rules, I won't be able to mix Dark Angels with them anymore, but that is fine. I didn't do it often in the past, and the new rules might be too good when mixed with the recently updated Deathwing. I can do almost everything out of the GK book alone though!

What I WILL be doing, however, is grabbing up all the special weapon bits from the new GK stuff as I can. I have a set of 30+ robed veterans with magnetized arms that would perfectly fit as the elite power-armored GKs if I can get the weapons needed to be WYSIWYG.

A large chunk of my terminators are also magnetized, so I don't see any problems sprouting up there. They even have customized helmets that look like the older GK ones. Everone always asks me where I got my plastic Grey Knights when they see my models.

What I plan on purchasing immediately are the following models:

2 Nemesis Dreadknights
1 Grey Knight Terminator Box

With these bits (and some customization work) I will make a squad of Paladins and some fancy 'monstrous creatures'. I plan on sculpting up some robes for the paladin terminators. I'm unsure on the dreadknights; a part of me really wants to make at least one of them transform into something :)

My customized Belial model will serve just fine for Draigo. Since he is also magnetized I can easily equip him with sword and shield. This reminds me that I need to get pictures of my primary army pieces up. They are definitely coming soon, I just need to spend the time on getting that lightbox set up.

What stuff are you guys looking forward to? Do you see any pitfalls in my plans to integrate yet another codex into my space marine collection? As always, my stuff is going to be completely WYSIWYG. A couple special characters might have 'counts as' special weapons, but it will be very easy to tell what everything is. While I don't necessarily agree with the responses I got, I did learn a lot from my attempt at using Craftworld Eldar with the DE Codex.

Works in Progress: Ravenwing Bikers

As you are all likely aware from my recent post on Death Hammer, I am adding some Ravenwing Bikers to the list. About a year or so ago I stripped the paint off of all of my bikes when I decided to update them to my new painting style.

Now that I am actively using them in a list, I have serious incentive to get paint applied to the models. Tournament use is my number one motivator for getting models painted, and it's easy for that to happen when you purchase up more than 13,000 points in the span of only 3 years.

Below is the first squad which I have painted for this. Each one was done over the coarse of last week. I am waiting on some new resin bases from Iron Halo to completely finish of the squad, but it gives a good look at what is coming up for the army.

The pics are kinda low-quality. I'm gonna set up a better area for photographs and get my whole tournament army photographed. This was just a white towel draped over a chair to give me a good surface for the camera to work with.

In the test games since the last tournament, the bikers have performed very well, and complement the missile output almost perfectly. I've had them beat up some Tyranid MCs, ignoring the Feel No Pain bestowed by Catalyst. I've also had them run up against chaos space marines and adequately deal with plague marines and armor while my missiles dealt with the infantry. So far I'm very happy with their performance.

Give me your thoughts on the look of the bikes. I'm going for high quality tabletop. The technique is quick to paint but looks pretty good. I could spend a lot more time to get something amazing, but I'm just not that patient.

Death Hammer - Post Tournament Series

Over the last two weekends I have played in two tournaments. The first one was at 2000 points, and my army worked its way to a solid 2nd place finish. What is interesting is that I lost a game to the tournament winner, but I accumulated enough battle points in that loss to still make me the clear 2nd place finisher. If I had denied the opponent the primary objective in round 3 (my loss) that would have been a tournament win for me.

My second tournament was the Battle for Stones River which runs a points value of 1863. My army did pretty well there as well up until round 4 when I got my face handed to me by a really good Null Zone based list, again my only loss for the day. I'll admit I made some mistakes in that game, mostly due to my inexperience fighting against Null Zone. My opponent capitalized and that cost me a great finish. Next time I'll need to be a bit more aggressive and strike that librarian as early as possible. As it was, I let him sit around and force me to reroll a ton of saves all game, and that eventually led to a cascade of death upon my terminators in the later rounds.

Overall the two tournaments showed that the core of my list is solid. Mobility played a much bigger impact in the BFSR tournament, and I think I've worked up what is probably going to be my favorite list for the next month. At least until I get my hands on some Grey Knights stuff. I'm making a few changes to the list to add in some better armor threats and increase my mobility. I am still keeping the solid gunline mostly in tact though.

I am moving towards 3 Storm Shields per Deathwing squad in an attempt to increase close combat durability. I have run Belial with both the storm shield and the lightning claws. Both are perfectly valid options. The TH/SS will be better for tackling monstrous creatures, but the lightning claws are a great deterrent vs standard infantry.

here is the updated list:

130 Belial
- Lightning Claws OR Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

290 Deathwing Command Squad
- 1 TH/SS/Cyclone
- 1 TH/SS/Standard Bearer
- 1 TH/SS/Apothecary
- 2 TH/SS

240 Deathwing Squad
- 1 Power Weapon & Storm Bolter
- 1 Chainfist & Storm Bolter
- 1 TH/SS/Cyclone
- 2 TH/SS

240 Deathwing Squad
- 1 Power Weapon & Storm Bolter
- 1 Chainfist & Storm Bolter
- 1 TH/SS/Cyclone
- 2 TH/SS

240 Deathwing Squad
- 1 Power Weapon & Storm Bolter
- 1 Chainfist & Storm Bolter
- 1 TH/SS/Cyclone
- 2 TH/SS

190 Ravenwing Attack Squadron
- 1 Sergeant
- 1 Meltagun & Bolt Pistol
- 1 Meltagun & Chainsword
- 1 Multi-Melta Attack Bike

190 Ravenwing Attack Squadron
- 1 Sergeant
- 1 Meltagun & Bolt Pistol
- 1 Meltagun & Chainsword
- 1 Multi-Melta Attack Bike

140 Ravenwing Attack Squadron
- 1 Sergeant
- 1 Meltagun & Bolt Pistol
- 1 Meltagun & Chainsword

170 Devastator Squad
- 1 Sergeant w/ Bolt pistol & Chainsword
- 4 Missile Launchers

170 Devastator Squad
- 1 Sergeant w/ Bolt pistol & Chainsword
- 4 Missile Launchers

Total: 2000 points.

What we end up here is a list with a LOT more mobility and the ability to inflict significant more damage to enemy armor. We basically trade 4 lascannons and 2 missile launchers for 6 meltaguns and 2 multi-meltas. We get the perfect mix between traditional double-wing and the original Death Hammer's gunline.

We do lose some close combat potential because we dropped a terminator squad, but we also increase the durability of the remaining squads a little bit to compensate. Our extra bolter shots are moved into the bikes. We have a nice little bit of duality in those squads, and if the bikes run out of juicy targets for meltaguns, the bolters do good against standard infantry.

While we also lose a durable scoring unit, we gain two fast ones. While they are relatively flimsy, the attack bikes are always scoring units for DA. I'd say be a little more aggressive with the 3-man bike units and be only SLIGHTLY more cautious with the attack bikes.

As for the terminator squads... Chainfists aren't as necessary with the inclusion of meltaguns, but they are very nice for dealing with walkers. Making a model or two in each squad wield lightning claws is not a bad idea either. This slight shift in the army layout doesn't need as much emphasis on terminators keeping storm bolters around. I think at this point it comes down to personal preference.

Please give me some feedback on these changes. I really like the way this list is shaping up!

Death Hammer Revisted

I have had some time to get some serious playtesting in with the Death Hammer theme. The list has migrated away from vehicle support and has embraced the same all-foot strategy my Loganwing list had. I must still give props to Chumbalaya for the initial inspiration for that list. Modifying that to my play style and playing it for 3-4 months allowed me to quickly bring this new DA list to its current level of kick-ass.

I'm gonna give the basic outline at 2000 points and explain some of the insights I've learned with it as I have played. Depending on how things work out with Grey Knights or other rules changes, this is starting to look like the army i will be taking to NOVA. I think it is awesome that this army is capable of high level competition thanks to the updates.

Click through for the list and analysis:

Playing Dark Angels: Death Hammer (2000 Points)

Many of you should be familiar with the evolution of my Loganwing list after I first nabbed the idea from Chumbalaya. With the advent of the DA FAQ, we now have access to a similar amount of punishment to be doled out by our very own Deathwing.

The following list lacks the fast-moving assault threat of the Thunderwolf Cavalry as well as the counter-assault and cover screen protection of the Lone Wolves. It makes up for that, however, by having a much more durable and hard-hitting troop base. We're clocking in at 26 Deathwing Termiantors plus support. This is gonna be fun.

Playing Dark Angels: Adjusting to the new environment.

Everyone has had the opportunity to look over the new FAQs by now, and there is a lot of hubbub about the changes to Dark Angels and Black Templars. While you won't see sweeping changes in what exactly works for each of those armies, a few outliers on the realm of competitive gaming have just stepped up for each list and are ready to swing against the forces of 5th Edition.

These two armies have lost their greatest asset (old smoke launcher rules) which will make mechanized forces a good bit weaker, especially those based around Land Raiders. Trying to compare BA or BT mech vs SM or SW will have you coming up wanting. Things may change when the Storm Raven rolls across all the SM armies in a couple of months, but for now things are a little to expensive for BT and DA.

It's not that their mech is necessarily more expensive (though for BT they are), but also that the component elements of the army are still overcosted. The extra mech durability these old armies had helped make up for the lack of units due to point costing.

What these armies have gained, however is rules parity for almost all the wargear available to them (DAs still have full table Psychic hoods, probably because all librarians short of Zeke only have a Leadership 9).

What these changes really do is bring a few unit options back into the competitive mix. For DA, these are still the same units that were being used competitively before, bu there is now some greater variety in loadouts. Basically what you will be seeing is a lot of cyclone missile launchers, typhoon missile launchers, and storm shields. Cheaper Land Raider Crusaders (free multi-melta and cheaper storm bolter upgrade) might see some more use with the new Machine Spirit, but the loss of old smoke will make that army not as durable in the mid field.

I'm currently piecing together a few sample army lists that I expect to pop up and actually work well for almost any mission. I've got a list based on my Loganwing List that I am expecting to perform superbly. Dark Angels have received about a 60-80% firepower boost and a 100% durability boost in close combat. Combining those two tools will allow them to make up for their shortcomings much more reliably, even though they are outnumbered. Expect some news tomorrow.

New List for a New Year

So I have been having some great success running the Space Wolves codex using the Loganwing Missile Spam. Through playing and learning I've found something that works super well for me, and is my mostly likely candidate for Nova at this point. I've ordered 3 Cyclone Missile Launchers to add to the army to replace the 3 assault cannons I was running which will bring my total number of missile shots up to 20 (with 4 lascannon shots to help against heavier armor), and it will allow the entire firebase to operate at a much greater range. Good thing my terminators are magnetized. Setting up these 3 cyclones will require some slight repainting on 3 models to cover up the new magnet locations, but it should be a quick and painless procedure.

But that's not the big news. After reading over some lists and strategy discussion on Bolter & Chainsword, I developed a new Dark Angels list that I think could be truly competitive and it takes advantage of DA's nuances without using terminators or Bikes. Imagine that!

Testing Out Some DA Updates

I'm gonna play some test games with an 'updated' Dark Angels list this weekend. Here is what I'm working with. Note the list is going to be built to be fairly balanced, but isn't going to be strictly optimized for tournament winning. I am taking a look at what options are opened up with just the bare basic updates to the DA codex. For the most part units are updated to mirror Codex: Space Marines/Imperial Armor Volume II. The biggest changes appear in Ravenwing and Deathwing, but even those are extremely minor.

Project Unforgiven: Revitalizing Dark Angels for a new generation

For the past month, the Dark Angels community over at Bolter & Chainsword has been setting up the framework for a project that will bring an update to the Dark Angels codex. There are really two parts to this project.

The first, titled Project Redemption, is taking the current DA codex and updating wargear, special rules, and unit discrepancies that would at least put it on par with the fundamentals of 5th edition. The second one, titled Project Unforgiven, is taking a look at all the fluff available to 40k players currently and reworking the codex from the ground up.

The end goal is to produce a set of documents to aid Games Workshop in a timely release of a new Dark Angels codex. We are researching fluff, mechanics, design, and a myriad of other issues over the coarse of the project and plan to playtest the project extensively once we being working with the rules development. Discussion with Jervis at GamesDay UK suggests we will be uniquely positioned to influence GW's normal process as the studio members are just now starting to turn their wheels on possible DA updates.

This isn't the first time the DA community at Bolter & Chainsword have influenced the rules for the better. In 3rd edition, the FAQ update that led to the 3.5 DA codex was in fact a result of a similar set of documents sent in by this community.

I suggest you all take a look at the project, give some feedback, and participate in the discussions. Things got sidetracked recently, but are now getting back on track, and this is a great opportunity to learn just how difficult it is to make a balanced codex that feels right!

All of the appropriate threads can be found in the Unforgiven Rules Development subforum.

RayJ Goes Undefeated!

You heard it here first folks. I have attended my first ever tournament where I have not lost a single game, and I was playing Dark Angels to boot. The catch here, however, is that I walked away with two draws on the day, going 1-0-2. The missions were fairly straightforward, and actually not all that bad after the final edits got in. One of these days I'll learn not to play with a handicap and use a real codex.

I've got a lot on my plate today, so I'm not gonna go very in depth on the games themselves. My camera phone (which was working on friday and I got fine-tuned for 40k pics) decided it wouldn't even start up at the event, so no pictures from me yet again :(

My first game was table quarters against an ultramarines player running Lysander and Tigerius. Lots of elite spam in his list, and anyone with volume of long-ranged firepower could take him easily. That wasn't me, and his 3+ storm shield saves laughed at my powerfists and lascannons all game. I almost had the win before Lysander came over and sucker-punched my command squad off the board.

My second game was seize ground against Orks who were running 3 battlewagons and a kustom force field. Thing is, his battlewagons were about 3 and a half times the size of a land raider, and all the terrain on this board was huge impassable line-of-sight blocking stuff (pretty much the only board at the event like that). It made movement around his army super-hard and side-armor shots on the battlewagons almost impossible after turn 1. Getting a draw under such circumstances seemed good to me. I failed to take down even a single battlewagon, shooting every lascannon (and some multi-melta at it) pretty much every turn.

Game 3 was killpoints against an IG army. I got the first turn and took a small but early lead. The catch in this mission was that any non-hq unit that died came back on that player's turn. I ended up immobilizing most of his heavy-hitting tanks so that they couldn't bring all their guns to bear and I farmed on some chimeras and the vendetta. He managed to kill two dreadnoughts and immobilize all my land raiders, but by that point they had fire coverage on the whole board. This was a fairly hefty win by turn 5 when I sprang ahead by a large number of kill points. Other than the immobilization of another dread when it came on, he killed a single terminator.

Two draws with mediocre battle points puts me in the same bracket I always end up in, right in the middle of the pack in scoring. I'm gonna start looking heavily at Eldar and the other marine codices to see what the future might hold as far as tournaments go. I love playing the Deathwing, but I'd like to go in and completely smash face from time to time, and that's extremely hard to do when one isn't playing a 5th edition codex.

Rocket City Invasion: Yay for Mediocrity

Saturday I played in a local event being run at the university in town. Here's a rundown of the basic points:

2000 point armies
Standard Missions used for 3 games (deployment and mission type pre-selected for each round)
Bonus objectives to earn up more kill points.

Here is the list I ran. It's a pretty basic mechanized Deathwing list that I ahve been using for a couple of months now:

Belial with Claws
2 Dreadnoughts with Missile Launcher/Lascannon
Deathwing Command Squad with Assault Cannon, Apothecary, Standard
Deathwing Squad with Assault Cannon
Deathwing Squad with Cyclone
2 Land Raider Crusaders
1 Land Raider

All Deathwing squads had 1 chainfist and 1 thunder hammer model.
All Land Raiders has an extra storm bolter

In the event I played against Space Marines, IG, and Blood Angels. here's a general overview of the games:

Playing Dark Angels: The Apothecary

As I have been mentioning in my previous articles, one of the best ways to utilize the Dark Angels codex is to capitalize on its units that provide durability.  So far we have looked at how the Smoke Launcher keeps our vehicles on the field longer, and then ventured into the realm of dreadnoughts, where the venerable variety can shake off glancing hits like its no tomorrow.  Now we turn our focus to the apothecaries, the last piece of our durability puzzle.

Playing Dark Angels: The Dreadnought

Space marines on the battlefield are a lot like one-man armies. They have a tool for almost every job, and are pretty good at applying that tool to the appropriate situation. They're durable and hard to take down. Occasionally a foe will get lucky or prove to have just enough skill to take a marine down for good. If that marine was one of the most honored members of the chapter, he can be brought back from the brink of death and serve his chapter as a true machine of death, impervious to almost all forms of attack.

Of course, here I am referring to the dreadnought, the armoed walker that wrecks havoc on the opponent's mainline troop units. These little gems are quite amazing the Codex: Dark Angels, and you're about to learn why.

Playing Dark Angels: The Smoke Launcher

If one is to point to a single item in the Dark Angels codex that makes it truly viable, it is actually not the ability to field Terminators as troops. The humble smoke launcher which comes as standard equipment on all but the Land Speeder uses different rules from the rest of the Imperium, as the rule is printed in the Dark Angels Codex. Instead of providing a cover save, the DA smoke downgrades all hits to glancing hits.

This has the effect of drastically increasing survivability for the target vehicle for the turn smoke is in use. Consider, if you will, how hard it is to kill a land raider using only krak missiles. With the basic load-out 3 weapons, the vehicle requires a minimum of five glancing hits to destroy. Chances are, the opponent will not be rolling 5s and 6s for every single glance, and on average, the opponent will need about 12-15 glances to take down a land raider.

'Ard Boyz: Updating the list

Having had a chance to go over the new missions being used in the 'Ard Boyz event this coming weekend, I have made some changes to the list I was going to run. I am still going in with my Dark Angels; I don't have the wysiwyg models to run a viable BA or SW list, and I'm way underpracticed with Eldar.

My list for 'Ard Boyz

'Ard Boyz 2010 is just around the corner, and after some lengthy discussion with some folks over at Bolter and Chainsword I have come up with the following list. I feel it has a proper mix of what is needed to succeed, and that by choosing the appropriate deployment or use of reserves for each matchup it will fair well.

I have chosen to use my Dark Angels successor chapter which I have been using for over two years now. I have developed my skills in the game with this army, and it is the one I am most comfortable with. I will point out that I am using Codex: Dark Angels and bringing in Daemonhunters as allies for psychic protection and some added oomph rather than spinning off into the Space Marines or Space Wolves codices.