The last nail in the coffin of Deathwing

[Stormxlr]

So its pretty much dead dead now isnt it? With new changes to DS and making sure its not just number of units in DS but also PL. GW seems to implement changes that are breaking more things than they are fixing.

I love deathwing, it was my first army and its still the biggest coolest army I got. I am very sad that everything good about it is so :cuss.

[shandwen]

Yup. Their day is done and gone. I dont think there were the tools to stand on deathwing before this, and now it demands deathwing being reduced to perhaps a single squad to support a Greenwing army?

[Naaman10th]

Well, it is only beta rules for now ... so there is still some hope. 

[Bryan Blaire]

How is Deathwing dead? The tournament only rules that playing with your group should be ignoring anyway unless you are specifically trying a tournament build, or the beta-rules for deployment that they want feedback on, so isn't concrete yet?

 

I don't see anything else that has removed units or changed a single thing that would make it "dead".

[G8Keeper]

How is Deathwing dead? The tournament only rules that playing with your group should be ignoring anyway unless you are specifically trying a tournament build, or the beta-rules for deployment that they want feedback on, so isn't concrete yet?

 

I don't see anything else that has removed units or changed a single thing that would make it "dead".

 

Seconded.  GK smite was "dead" with the beta rules.  Actual FAQ comes out and oh my gawd they listened to GK players and it doesn't apply to them.  I suggest we get our feedback in to GW about this change.  Also, DW are fine without massed deepstrike on turn 1.

[themortalgod]

How is Deathwing dead? The tournament only rules that playing with your group should be ignoring anyway unless you are specifically trying a tournament build, or the beta-rules for deployment that they want feedback on, so isn't concrete yet?

 

I don't see anything else that has removed units or changed a single thing that would make it "dead".

 

I'm not sure how it is in other gaming groups but in my local community "beta rules" and "tournament suggestions" are treated as rule of law as soon as GW publishes them. 

 

That said, even if you ignore the beta rules until they are official the CP changes are effectively a huge nerf to an army that already was one of the weakest in the game. It doesn't hurt them directly but nearly every other army gets stronger because of the change. Thus any army that doesn't use battalions/brigades is now comparitively weaker than it was 24 hours ago.

 

Pure Deathwing has been effectively dead since the start of 7th if your goal is to not be severely outclassed in every game. 8th edition made things a bit worse and this FAQ drives them down even further. 

 

Though, I think that was GW's goal, its not like they have made any effort, any any point, to improve the DW situation. It seems to me that they have decided DW are not intended to be a stand alone army anymore. (Though they aren't very good splashed into greenwing either which is a bummer). Perhaps that situation will change, but until then my 50 or so DW Terminators I adore and spent ages carefully painting are simply glorified dust collectors.

 

Personally, I sent in a suggestion saying they should simply make "Deathwing Terminator Squad" troops if the army is battle-forged for the Deathwing keyword. (and suggested they do similar to other armies in similar situations where in order to maintain the theme the army doesn't normally field any troops slots (Pure Ravenwing, Saim Hann all mounted, etc)). This won't fix the overcosted problem, but at least would bring us up a bit. 

[Bryan Blaire]

Pure Deathwing has been “dead” since something mid-Fifth Edition to Sixth. GW made the decision long ago that “competitive” play wasn’t going to see spam armies like Deathwing where the army is basically all one Elite type back around Sixth. It’s not like this is unusual or hasn’t been telegraphed by the way they’ve written the rules and Codexes for Dark Angels for the last eight years - whining about it now is a bit of having missed the boat. Expecting them to change that is at best a false hope.

 

I have probably 50-60 Terminators that I could use to play, and I will - in a reasonable narrative game where the army makes sense. However, full Deathwing armies are not the normal mode of operation for the Dark Angels, so seeing them on the board that way should be the exception, rather than the rule.

 

As far as the local community - be a trend setter - challenge people to non-tournament style games, talk with folks, get them to see that it isn’t the only way to play. Set up with your local shop a non-tourney night where people can play Kill Team, Necromunda, narrative/open play games, etc. If your players locally are so absolutely stuck in the tourney mentality that they really can’t comprehend or accept playing a different way, I’m really sorry for you - that absolutely sucks, because it isn’t the only way to play the game and people should agree to have fun first.

 

So let’s be reasonable regarding the beta Deepstrike rule: if you really want GW to listen, don’t rant and rave and complain how they ruined your army - that may have actually been their intent. Instead, show how you could have fun with your army and purchases you were intending to make before the beta rule was written, and be realistic about it, they will probably smell bullcrap if you say that you have 80 Terminators and we’re planning to buy another 80 in plastic with the new kit. Then contrast it to how games are played now, how it fundamentally changes how the army works, etc. Whatever you do, don’t mention “Now I have to buy things I never wanted to!” That indicates that you might buy stuff to keep playing, in other words you’ll keep being a customer. Indicate that you are willing to keep being a customer, but things have to change back so you can continue to have fun.

 

Beta rules are a test period - they’ll listen to feedback about it better if you actually show you tested it, rather than just complaining without having actual game descriptions in there.

 

In the end, playing in a competitive situation is about adapting and overcoming - view this as the challenge and adapt and overcome and show everyone that you are a true competitor.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Every edition someone claims the death of Deathwing. Yet for those that want, it's still there and giving hours of fun to those that dare.

[march10k]

I'm with Luci on this.  Delaying DWA till turn two causes a dilema for the other guy, not for me, I've been doing it a lot anyway.  Everyone's deploying all bunkered up to survive an alpha strike.  Well, now they have to "waste" a turn trading long ranged fire with my eight twinlinked lascannons, or come out of their shells and be more vulnerable to my turn two DWA.  I don't care which one, I see it as a positive for me. 

 

It could be a little rough on my chaff if I'm DWAing on the bottom half of turn two, though.  I was really only delaying till turn two when going first.  Except against hordes. 

 

Those 80 twinlinked bolter shots on the top of turn one were solid gold against hordes. 

 

So maybe it's a mixed bag.  But not a disaster.

[Volt]

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and strange editions even lords of war may die. 

 

Everybody used to say Dark Angels were crap and the army was hopeless, and then 7th Edition dropped and turned Dark Angels into an absolute monster of an army, and Dark Angels + Guard allies is still an obscenely strong and competitive army in 8th. When another edition rolls around, there's no reason to write off the chance that GW might realize that deathwing sells for $60 for a box of five, and that buffing them might be a great economic idea.

[Company Master Holden]

I personally don't feel like the Deathwing are dead, though that may be because my Deathwing list is tailored around two Crusaders with Knights and supporting cast shoved inside with two squads of Deathwing Terminators waiting to reinforce wherever they are needed, usually dropping on turn two. To me deep striking was a very high risk/high reward operation. There have been times where my 7 man squad of Deathwing Knights dropped with a Termi-Librarian and Belial, all of them made the charge, and I swung the tide of the game in my favor. There have also been times where my Deathwing dropped, I failed the charge, and they were shot off the table. Thus I drifted towards the Crusader list to deal with chaff and take some of the randomness out of my gameplan. 

 

I will be the first one to admit that this list is not very competitive, but then again I felt that Deathwing only armies in their current format aren't very competitive anyway. When I play Deathwing, I play it purely for fun and the challenge. To me a thematic army and having fun is more important than competitiveness, though I certainly understand the draw of competitive gaming and that it makes up a large-ish part of the gaming community. Still, I think that the Deathwing remain as they were, and as march10k pointed out armies were deploying to prevent deepstrike shenanigans to begin with. Imo I am actually kind of relieved to be rid of the fusion/plasma Tau turn one alpha strike, and personally if the price I have to pay is waiting until Turn 2 to deploy the Terminators I bring, I'll do it every time. 

[lhavoc]

+++snip+++

 

Deathwing are (in the fluff) supposed to be the most versatile, elite Termies in the Imperium. A Terminator is Supposed (in the fluff) to be able to wade through Guard Lasgun/Eldar Splinter fire without flinching, not get shot off the board.

 

A Deathwing Assault is supposed to be a devastating blow, not a tickle.

[Bryan Blaire]

+++snip+++ the Deathwing will always be less elite than the Grey Knights. They are good, but they aren’t on that level.

[PhilB]

As others have noted, I feel that beta changes to deep strike have presented an opportunity to address the command point cost of Deathwing Assault without ruining the strategy surrounding deep striking Deathwing. Personally, like March10k describes, I've only had the opportunity to use the stratagem once and I struggled to find a good place to drop the 10 man squad in and capitalise on their firepower, in hindsight, I probably should have waited a turn for my opponent to disperse his deployment castle and if he didn't well then I would have just had a free turn to establish board control myself.

 

Perhaps if the Deathwing Assault stratagem was reworked to either provide the shooting ability, or deep strike within the minimum 9" but didn't circumvent the beta rules for first turn more people would be happier about it?

 

Having said that, I can't say I'm a fan of the rule whereby you loose the unit if you don't bring it down by turn 3. Surely that doesn't matter as if you've nothing on the board yet still have units in reserve you loose anyway?

[Komodo]

+++snip+++

 

I used to play DW a lot, my latest games included around 1.2k points of DW. You still can kick ass (not again all the lists though).

 

I found that 1st turn DWA is still kinda pointless, as you have to get rid of the bubble-wrap that most armies have now.

[sneakybamsen]

DWA is all about getting rid of chaff, at least with 10 storm bolters. Not using it first turn can be beneficial however.

[Interrogator Stobz]

I don’t understand the love DWA gets from our guys here. Killing 24 GEQ, 8 MEQ or 4 Primaris EQ is only okay at best. And spending 3CP to achieve that is ridiculous.

I’ve used it and achieved the average results, never did it turn the tide of the battle.

I agree with those who think DW could or should get an exemption from the T1 restriction.

[Helycon]

Dropping T2 can be a challenge as well. If your opponent has a lot of chaff, they can push out and spread even more to deny your T2 deepstrike. Your 8 lascannons will do very little to chaff anyway, so your opponent will be fine in this case. It just means a bit more measuring on their end to make sure nothing is 9" from anything else.

 

And I agree that DWA is way to expensive for what it does. Storm Bolters are great, but only effective against chaff anyway. Theres cheaper options for this by a longshot, points wise.

 

I adore Deathwing, but terminators in general are too expensive and too easy to kill. Just look at our overcharged plasma and tell me it isn't so. If they whiff their chargeyou can just keep moving away and still shoot at them, and they will never catch up. It's a shame, since they are supposed to be tanks, but simply are paperweights.

[PhilB]

It’s just something cool and thematic to use Stobz.

As others have said, no one here is playing DW to be competitive.

[lhavoc]

I don't mind Turn 2 Deep Strike, I just want it to actually be effective. Make Terminators Great Again!

 

+++snip+++

 

Terminators!!

[FarFromSam]

Ehhhhh, them not being troops killed the DW tourney attempts for me. And having to take scouts/tacticals for the much needed cmd points ruined the theme. It was nice of them to slowly phase out the list to ease the sting.

 

Hopefully this means that they'll start getting buffs now that there's no way to take a bunch of em

[breng77]

Competitively it was already dead.  The FAQ doesn't change that much, pure deathwing is unchanged in that you needed to start some squads (dreads or landraiders) on the table.  If you were going cheap scouts on the table , then it hurts a bit.  But DW was already non-competitive as a pure army.  A single squad as support maybe.  I think the real loser is the already bad DWA strat, DW shooting is best for clearing chaff, which you want to do turn 1, now you cannot deploy in range to do that so it will likely never see play.  DWK assaulting units should have been a turn 2 drop most games anyway and so are unaffected by the change IMO.

[Berzul]

Competitively it was already dead.  The FAQ doesn't change that much, pure deathwing is unchanged in that you needed to start some squads (dreads or landraiders) on the table.  If you were going cheap scouts on the table , then it hurts a bit.  But DW was already non-competitive as a pure army.  A single squad as support maybe.  I think the real loser is the already bad DWA strat, DW shooting is best for clearing chaff, which you want to do turn 1, now you cannot deploy in range to do that so it will likely never see play.  DWK assaulting units should have been a turn 2 drop most games anyway and so are unaffected by the change IMO.

 

That is a pretty good point.

 

DWA has already been seen mostly as overly costly, and hard to work into an Elite Army like the DW. With regular batallions and brigades getting extra CP, the imbalance in CP for elite armies is even bigger now, so spending what will most likely be between half and three quarters of your points on the stratagem, means it really needs to be useful.

 

Dropping the unit on your zone turn one means you will most likely be out of range, or just barely, to the Stratagem to be worth it most of the time. Dropping turn two means a full turn of firing lost, as well as delaying units that NEED the room to be cleared through the stratagem to turn 2 or even turn 3.

 

This makes me think even more about the Relentless Stratagem, and a cost reduction for DWA

 

It would be a good way of solving this, to have two ways of "improving" our DW as they teleport.

 

Drop them for DWA at 1/2 CP instead of 2/3 CP, and have them fire. You will most likely use this on turn 2, to provide mid to close range fire support to your advancing land forces, and the cost reduction balances out the extra CP that Batallions and Brigades get.

 

Drop them for Relentless at 1/2 CP and have them march forward for better positioning, while firing as Assault instead of Rapid Fire. You can make good use of this on turns one or 2, and in conjunction with DWA. Either drop them early as a reactionary deployment to the enemy advances, cross a bit of the gap, and then fire; or drop them turn 2-3 after a DWA to press on the advance.

[march10k]

I don’t understand the love DWA gets from our guys here. Killing 24 GEQ, 8 MEQ or 4 Primaris EQ is only okay at best. And spending 3CP to achieve that is ridiculous.

 

Well, that's why you bring Belial.  Twinlinked, it's 31 GEQ, 12 MEQ, 6 PrEQ. Not counting potential CML shooting (brings MEQ to 15, PrEQ to 9, not bothering calculating the GEQ) Still not worth 3CP unless you're deleting devastators or the nastier varieties of primaris, but that's why people have been wishlisting a CP drop in the first place.  I think a flat 2CP regardless of unit size.  A whole extra shooting phase early in the game is worth more than 1CP, IMHO.

 

Ehhhhh, them not being troops killed the DW tourney attempts for me. And having to take scouts/tacticals for the much needed cmd points ruined the theme. It was nice of them to slowly phase out the list to ease the sting.

Hmm, I see it a little differently.  I remember 3rd edition, when termies supported tacticals, fondly.  I think I was running 3x10 tacticals with plas/plas and 10 devs with 4 lascannons, plus a couple of vehicles....and 10 tactical terminators.  I'm kind of back to that build now, and it doesn't anger me at all.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Nope, my math is correct with Belial.

But adding that CML is a good idea.