General New advice for Competitive DW lists.

[vigitant]

Assume your 2k lists are 1915pt lists.

One assassin for 1cp is too powerful a toolkit for DW to ignore.

They go quite a long way to fixing some of our rougher matchups.

One Culexus to pull some teeth from smite-spammy lists.
A vindicare to put some hurt on lists with nasty characters or linchpin characters.
a callidus if theyre going to be burning through a lot of CP turn1.
An eversor, cuz..  he's super good.  he will likely never fail to earn his points. 

[BrotherAetherick]

Any Imperium army really. They are that good.

 

However it's worth pointing out that the culexus got nerfed. It affects your psykers as well now so you no longer have an edge at denying their spells and makes your spells harder to cast if your psykers are near the culexus (who would be protecting your vets)

[ONDIG]

Ez fix . DONT run a Psyker!

If you have the magic bullet 4 psykers why take the chance?

Additionally how great are librarians anyway?

Ez fix . DONT run a Psyker!

[vigitant]

Ez fix . DONT run a Psyker!

If you have the magic bullet 4 psykers why take the chance?

Additionally how great are librarians anyway?

Ez fix . DONT run a Psyker!

For all that a librarian can help DW a lot, and is at a pretty great price point for all it brings, I'd actually now advise against it.

Played a test game this last friday and let my opponent fill out his last 100pts with a vindicare using the new rules.  It was brutal.

I'd already been looking at shifting some of my list in response to assassins and GSC, but now im going to be radically changing the list.

Still debating whether to set up to ignore the assassins(taking my 3 chaplain vens in my battalions, and maybe deep striking my watchmaster), or fighting fire with more fire and throwing in 4 vindicares.

[BrotherAetherick]

Excited to hear vindicares are actually good now. My favourite assassin. 

 

It's too bad DW don't have access to any bodyguard units.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I reckon it will be a lot of spy vs spy which is a win-win for GW. Vindi trumps the Culexus since he hits on unmodified 2+ now.

[Mobius0288]

Ya Vindicares are good now because you can shoot twice with them (separate targets) and you can get a CP back on assassination. And you can hit a vehicle for some mortal wounds.

 

Sad to hear about the Culexus rule change, I didn't see the new data sheet yet. It was a pretty dirty combo pairing him up with a librarian against thousand sons.

 

And the Calidus is now good for up to the first 2 turns of the game (CP to make it last another turn).

 

Back to your competitive DW lists.. I'd say building some kind of core for your lists, then build a couple variations. And I don't mean a full up detachment either, just the common units you use.

 

For example in most of my lists I have at least:

- 2 mixed kill team vets (5 SB vets, 2 Termies, 1 VV)

- 1 Jump Pack Captain

- 1-2 units of Bikers with a combi-melta

 

From there I build out my different variations based on meta and allies on hand. Keeping just to deathwatch units, I definitely round at least a Battalion. Then I take a look at anti-tank, a twin-las contemptor being my go to and a supporting plasma (or melta) unit. A watchmaster is also probably in my list if I have the space. Then I fluff it out with bodies and anti-tank the best I can.

 

I think it's hard to dictate an exact competitive list because there are several different synergies you could go with, and it depends a little on the rules you play with (ITC vs regular matched play, banned units, forgeworld, etc.)

 

Synergies I've noticed:

- MSU kill teams with rhino/transport spam

- Max size kill teams with auras

- First turn push (bikes, Beacon Angelis)

- Primaris-watch / gunline

- Castle-up (giving 5+ invuls to as many units as possible... deredeo, Dominus Aegis relic)

- Double battalions for CP spam

[Mobius0288]

It's probably also worth saying: certain allies can make deathwatch more competitive.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yeah for sure I run mine with Blood Angels and Deathwatch.

[vigitant]

After testing a game vs one vindicare, I should stress that any list relying on a character aura needs to be very careful.

Vindicares are especially nasty now. 

the unmodified 2+ to hit makes it more difficult to los block(since he can shift to make los if possible).
The extra mortals make it difficult to play into(it changed it from unlikely to kill, say, a watchmaster, in one hit, to entirely within the realm of probability.  you should now expect a vindicare to one shot a character at least a couple times a game if not more, and vs squishier factions, more often than not.)

My chapVens are pretty durable still, but we're going to have to be very careful with our other hq's playing into imperium.

If youre building on having a lot of SB shots with rerolls, it might be worth throwing in another Watchmaster for redundancy instead of a smash cpt.  the 2+/4++ is going to be slightly better that a 3++ SS, and when the vindicare aces a WM, you've got pretty good odds the other will survive or be los-blocked.

TLDR:
Vindicare assassins are incredibly potent.  Do not underestimate them.  Assume you will lose any character in LoS.
 

[Kallas]

Bear in mind that the "always hits on 2+" is only if they remain stationary. It means they can bypass any to hit modifiers, but they can't ignore the Heavy Weapon moving penalty (and moving makes them susceptible to other to hit modifiers).

[CCE1981]

Faced my first Vindicare this weekend, with the new rules. He would be good against Commisars but not so much against Space Marine Characters. My opponent did bring one each of all 4 assasins, he managed to kill a Librarian, a Watch Captain and an Intercessor, in 2 turns, 3 of them came in on turn 2. My opponent conseded at the end of turn 2 when my reserves dropped, only one squad.

[BrotherAetherick]

Yea the 2+ bs ability only works when he doesn't move the following movement phase, so doesn't work if he deepstrikes either. 

[Mobius0288]

Bear in mind that the "always hits on 2+" is only if they remain stationary. It means they can bypass any to hit modifiers, but they can't ignore the Heavy Weapon moving penalty (and moving makes them susceptible to other to hit modifiers).

 

So take 2-3 and you have an anti-supreme command detachment of Shield Captain on Dawn Eagle Jetbikes? :) The stratagem dropping the mortal wounds... plus the headshot ability? Might be reaching but still good in either situation. Definitely will be useful (and kinda already was) useful against company commanders supporting those artillery units.

 

Do you think this will drive more of a transport meta for Deathwatch in order to protect our characters? Probably not as bad against space marines, having cheaper bodies... and for other factions, they usually have transports of some kind out except for the few biker equivalent HQs.

[BrotherAetherick]

Vindicares only wound Dawn eagles Shield captains on 5+ since they aren't infantry. I'm actually more inclined to use Shield captains as my heavy hitters as they are much more resilient against all the anti char stuff GW has been releasing.

[Mobius0288]

The Turbo Penetrator round stratagem forgoes the wound piece and causes D3 mortal wounds against vehicles/monsters. The headshot ability of the vindicare says: "After the model has made an attack with a ranged weapon, roll a D6 if a model suffered damage from that attack; on a 3+ it suffers a mortal wound..."

 

So maybe not against a fleet of dawn eagle jet bike captains but can be effective against one or two.

[Kallas]

The Turbo Penetrator round stratagem forgoes the wound piece and causes D3 mortal wounds against vehicles/monsters. The headshot ability of the vindicare says: "After the model has made an attack with a ranged weapon, roll a D6 if a model suffered damage from that attack; on a 3+ it suffers a mortal wound..."

 

So maybe not against a fleet of dawn eagle jet bike captains but can be effective against one or two.

 

Dawneagle Shield-Captains aren't MONSTERS or VEHICLES.

 

Edit:

Also, the Turbo-Penetrator Stratagem specifically says Headshot doesn't function for that attack.

[Mobius0288]

 

The Turbo Penetrator round stratagem forgoes the wound piece and causes D3 mortal wounds against vehicles/monsters. The headshot ability of the vindicare says: "After the model has made an attack with a ranged weapon, roll a D6 if a model suffered damage from that attack; on a 3+ it suffers a mortal wound..."

 

So maybe not against a fleet of dawn eagle jet bike captains but can be effective against one or two.

 

Dawneagle Shield-Captains aren't MONSTERS or VEHICLES.

 

Edit:

Also, the Turbo-Penetrator Stratagem specifically says Headshot doesn't function for that attack.

 

 

Fair enough, it does say it doesn't trigger it. Wishful thinking I suppose.

[KGatch113]

Do you take a single Assassin in a detachment? Wouldn't this negate the Mission/Chapter Tactics of a marine detachment?

[Shas Oh Dear]

The new assassin rules have a stratagem that allows you to add an assassin to your army during deployment so long as your warlord is IMPERIUM.