I promised a riveting Deathwing-related tournament post today, and it's here. My only issue is that I'm handing my friends information to help them beat me...oh well.
So, the first thing to do when approaching a tournament is to examine your army's strengths and weaknesses. With the new FAQ, Deathwing gained strength in a few areas, but retained it's glaring weaknesses. Let's take a look.
The Good:
- Almost all the wargear got brought up to codex marine standards.
- The hardest hitting unit in the codex is a troop choice.
- With the stormshield being a 3+ invulnerable save, your troops are now incredibly durable.
- The army is now pretty decent at de-mechanizing other armies, which is huge in this edition.
- Fearless troops mean your terminators won't be running at a crucial moment.
The Bad:
- Low model count.
- Very little mobility. I would argue Deathwing is the slowest army in the game.
- Drop Pods don't benefit from the Drop Pod assault rule.
- Relying on deep striking to close with the enemy quickly makes you dependent on reserve rolls. That can be painful.
- Fearless can be more of a detriment in the assault phase than a benefit.
My army can take a ridiculous amount of punishment, but it takes me a long time to get to grips with the enemy. I also need to constantly make sure I'm in a position to achieve mission objectives. The odds of me actually tabling someone with this army are incredibly slim, the vast majority of my games have been nailbiters down to the last minute. The deployment of my army will often dictate how well I do.
My main focus during deployment and the first few turns is to make sure I'm in a good position to take away my opponent's advantage of mobility. The biggest question I face during deployment is whether or not I'll be deepstriking my terminators. Against most of the tournament armies out there, I'm not going to. There are three issues with deepstriking: most tournament armies have a counter unit that can put the hurt on my squads I put near them, be it by shooting or assaulting, they can simply just move away, and it forces me to bring some of my squads in by reserve. The vast majority of the time, I'm better off starting with everything on the board and moving in such a way that the fight will be on my terms. While my terminators are durable, I'm not going to be able to handle a 10 man assault squad hitting me, or Sternguard jumping out of a rhino and combi-plasma double tapping me. I also want to maximize my shooting phase every turn. The best idea is to deploy and move as one, that way I can't be taken apart piecemeal.
I have two lists that I'm considering bringing to CarnageCon, a 2,000 point tournament I'll be attending at the beginning of November. It was a blast last year (there's a bar one floor above the gaming area), and I'd like to have a good showing this year. The first list is a little more standard and true to what I've been running lately. The second is a high risk, high reward army that has the ability to put out an intense amount of damage.
List One - You see my spaceship, this is a Dodge.
HQ:
Belial
Troops:
Upgraded Deathwing Terminator squad with 4 Thunderhammers/Stormshields, 1 Stormbolter/Powerfist/Cyclone Missile Launcher, Apothecary.
4 Deathwing Terminator Squads with 4 Thunderhammers/Stormshields, 1 Stormbolter/Powerfist/Cyclone Missile Launcher
Fast Attack:
3 Land Speeders with Multimelta and Cyclone Missile Launcher. These guys aren't in a squadron.
Heavy Support:
Land Raider Crusader
2 Predators with Autocannon and sponson Heavy Bolters
This list has a lot going for it. I'm running 25 terminators, and 6 vehicles. Saturation is huge for any tournament army, you want to make your opponent have to think about what they're going to shoot. If you bring 1 land raider or monstrous creature, it's going to be really easy to figure out where that melta/lascannon shot is going. My troops are all durable, so they'll most likely get where they need to be. I'm also throwing out a good amount of firepower a turn - 16 missiles, 3 multimeltas, and 8 shots from each predator is nothing to sneeze at. There's also a bit of mobility in the list with the land speeders, and they can be used to contest objectives last minute...provided they aren't blown out of the sky.
What's wrong with the list? The vehicles. Experience has shown me how easy it can be to make vehicles ineffective. All it takes is a crew stunned result to have my metal boxes reduced to doing nothing. You have to do 5 wounds to my terminator squad in order to just have a chance to kill the missile launcher and keep them from shooting.
Overall the list is solid. It can put out a good amount of anti-mech firepower, a decent amount of anti-horde, and it's solid in assault. I would feel very comfortable bringing this to the tournament.
List Two - I'm like your raincoat, bitch. You can't run.
HQ:
Belial
Elites:
10 Veterans with 6 Combi-Meltas, 2 Powerfists, 2 Meltabombs, Drop Pod.
Troops:
Upgraded Deathwing Terminator squad with 4 Thunderhammers/Stormshields, 1 Stormbolter/Chainfist/Cyclone Missile Launcher, Apothecary.
4 Deathwing Terminator Squads with 4 Thunderhammers/Stormshields, 1 Stormbolter/Chainfist/Cyclone Missile Launcher
Deathwing Terminator Squad with 3 Stormbolters/Powerfists, 1 Stormbolter/Powersword/ 1 Assault Cannon/Powerfist.
This list removes the one issue I had with the other list, vehicles. Unfortunately, all of those anti-vehicle weapons are now aimed at my terminators, making the game hinge on my ability to make 3+ invulnerable saves. I do have 30 terminators to remove, making it very unlikely that I'm going to get tabled. The veteran squad can be hugely helpful, as it can combat squad and nuke two vehicles pretty reliably. The issue is that it's coming down by reserves. If they wait until turn 5 to come in, their killing potential is mostly wasted. While I think this list could do extremely well in some situations, it has a chance to crash and burn. I'll play test it before I make a verdict.
That's it for this article. Feel free to weigh in with comments. If you aren't following the blog, please make it happen. I would love to have some discussion.
- Max
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