As most of you can see from the past few months of my painting log, and those that have been down at the club recently, I've been using my Deathwing army.
Over the last 3 games, I've used 3 different lists at 3 different points values.
Game 1 - 900pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Land Speeder Typhoon - Multi Melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher.
Now this list was to team up with another Marine player with a balanced list of Tactical marines, transports, assault marines and another unit of Terminators.
We played against a Space Wolf / Salamander combo army in a Kill Points game, which suits me down to the ground aside from losing an easy kill point in the Speeder. And spending most of the game tied up against Dreadnaughts and not doing much in the way of damage.
Game 2 - 1500pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Interrogator Chaplain - Terminator Armour
Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 1 Lightning Claws, 1 Lightning Claws Apothecary.
Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
In this list, I removed the Speeder due to points costs and added in some "Fire Support" Terminator squads to help out around the place. After playing a Khorne / Tzeentch Daemon doubles list for the past few months, I've found the shooting units to be invaluable.
This list I played against Guard with and did alright. I can't remember the mission or the result, but I can remember 1 Terminator squad spending most of the game in assault with a 30 man Infantry blob that refused to run away and eventually chipped the Terminators down.
Game 3 - 2000pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Interrogator Chaplain - Terminator Armour
Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 1 Thunder Hammer, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Deathwing Banner, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 1 Lightning Claws, 1 Lightning Claws Apothecary.
Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Land Speeder Typhoon - Multi Melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher.
Venerable Dreadnaught - Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer, Venerable, Drop Pod.
Venerable Dreadnaught - Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer, Venerable, Drop Pod.
I played Guard again with this list most recently, and played Capture and Control. The game ended up a draw due to a combination of things (time restraints ending on Turn 5, a poor Run roll for a unit of my Terminators, etc.) All in all, I was happy with the list, even though in Turn 1, my Chaplain and his Terminator squad Mishapped and got destroyed. So I was immediately 400ish points down.
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| Anyone remember the Neo v Swarm of Agent Smith's ? |
Saving Throws
Whilst Terminator armour fantastic for small arms fire, I've managed to lost most of my Terminators simply to low S AP - fire (Lasguns, Space Wolf psychic Power) than I have to Lascannons and whatnot.
Again, same with the Storm Shields. They've got a big reputation to live up to and it's good for dealing with Lascannons, Meltas, etc. they're still only a 2/3 chance of passing.
What I'm trying to say is, with my shoddy dice rolling, lots of Terminators still die!
Wound Allocations
My close combat squads all have more or less different wargear (aside from the 2 lightning claws) so it means I can mess around with wound allocation a bit, putting the AP2 or 1 stuff on the Storm Shields and using the Lightning Claws to soak up the smaller arms fire. This has come in really handy, and although a lot of people swear by all Thunder Hammer / Storm Shields, I like the mix that the Lightning Claws can throw in there.
Fire Support Squads
In my earlier games I was running close combat Terminators (with the exception of the Cyclone missile launchers). Now I've added 2 units with Storm Bolters and an Assault Cannon. I find what these guys lack in survivability (when stood in the open), they make up for with flexibility.
As I've found whilst playing with Khorne Daemons, the turn you drop is the harshest part and I like having something to do in the shooting phase. 8 Storm Bolter shots, plus the 4 Assault cannon shots can thin out small squads or wreck a light vehicle on the turn they drop - which is always good!
Cyclone Missiles
Everyone online seems to love these, and I dread to think what they were like as just a 1 shot weapon, but I'm really not sold on them. Part of my idea when making the Deathwing army was to take lots of missiles because I'm then flexible and can target armour / elite infantry or hordes. So far, my Cyclones haven't done very much at all.
Deep Striking
Lastly, it's something I had to deal with whilst playing Daemons, was that the hardest part of my game was deciding on my Deep Strikes. Last game I got really risky with them and ended up with 1 Terminator squad and Chaplain being destroyed, the other being misplaced.
I guess it's something I have to think about a bit more, it's not good enough just to drop close enough to assault next turn, but at the same time, dropping too far away means you end up chasing faster moving units like a dog chasing an ice cream van.
Overall, I'm really enjoying playing the Deathwing. I don't have the bodycount of my Orks, fear factor of my Daemons or the speed of my Dark Eldar. It's a nice change of pace and it also means my games are a lot faster since I don't need to deploy on the board and miss out half of the phases.
My next step with the list is I think to drop the Chaplain and add in another Land Speeder.
Any thoughts on Deathwing folks? Either using them or in what you don't like about them when facing them?
Cheers,
SB
I recently played 2500 Deathwing against Necrons with the Stomlord, Nemessar and his bodyguard. I ran...
ReplyDeleteBelial w/ Claws
2 AssCan HvyFlam Dreads
1 PlasmaCan Hvy Flam Dread
All ThunderHammer Apothecary and Banner Command
3X 4 TH/SS 1 PF/Chainfist CML Squad
2x 1 TH/SS 3 PF/SB 1 PF/Chainfist CML Squad
3x 3 Bikers 2 Melta + MM Attk Bike
I enjoyed having the bikes for teleport homer. The bikes allowed me to deepstrike on top of objectives and then run off to make suicide runs against vehicles. Running 3 squads costs 594 points, which could be 2 land raiders. Another issue with the bikes is that they create too many easy killpoints.
Finally, the Deathwing were dominating the game for the first 4 turns, but the game went to turn 7. By that point, my squads were too shot up to survive. I was rolling hot on my saves, too. If the game would have ended turn 5, I would have won. Turn 6 would have been a draw. 7 was his game.
My loss was an issue of model count and not using my command squad to full affect. I deepstruck them on a different side of the board to fight the Stormlord and a unit of Immortals off an objective. I got the charge, wiped the squad, and the Stormlord rolled boxcars for his retreat to run off the board edge. Altrenatively, I should have ran the command squad to destroy his other shooty squads that were pummeling my objective holding shooty terminators. Live and Learn.
I can't really say if bikes, all terminators, or mech is better. It depends on the opponent and your playstyle. The dreads were pretty worthless in this matchup, but I run them to tie up blobs of units, i.e. guants.
I'm surprised you haven't liked Cyclone Missiles; I run a very Deathwing-like BA army (20 Terminators in 2K points) and I find their long-range shooting to be invaluable for disabling tanks and limiting the firepower I have to endure. Assault Cannons are just too short-ranged for my tastes. Now, you can't expect the Cyclone to work miracles, but you should consistently shut down a Rhino with each of them, which is really what you want- just keep the enemy in place long enough for your heavy hitters to get to them.
ReplyDeleteYou're entirely right about those "weak" guns killing Terminators, though. With so few models at the table, you have to expect to eat a lot of shots and cover does very little for you, so sometimes it's a real marathon of save-rolling. It only takes one bad turn of the dice to lose a lot of points sometimes. FNP helps this a lot, but obviously you only get that on one squad.
Have you considered running 2-3 Storm Bolter models in your squads? I find that the shooting from them is extremely helpful in whittling down enemy units so that I can handle them better once I close. The setup I've seen recommended is Sarge with Sword, Cyclone and SB, two TH/SS guys, and two SB/PF, although you could play around with that some if you wanted to get Claws in there or found you had enough heavy hitters without two Hammers and two Fists. Obviously the Apothecary squad wants to stay all melee, though, since that's what they excel at.
I would always play it safe with Deep Strikes- Terminators are just too expensive to risk losing to a mishap. You don't have to place them in places where it's impossible to mishap, but choosing reasonably safe spots is my preference- you'll be able to shoot on arrival pretty much no matter where you land and you're going to have to slog for a couple turns to engage most armies no matter what, so don't go nuts trying to get that extra 4" closer in hopes of an assault next turn.
Being able to finish every game to the end is the best part about playing an elite army. :P I love finishing 30 or 45mins ahead of the rest of the players in the shop.
Are they no teleport homers in the da codex as you need to reduce the chance of a mishap to enable you to control the battle. Also terminators used to be able to use drop pods back in the 4th ed marine codex is this not the case with the DA.
ReplyDeleteRavenwing Bikes have teleport homers. Sadly, Ravenwing bikes cannot turboboost pre-game and are expensive.
ReplyDelete