Greenwing Tactics Part 3: Formations

Greenwing Tactics Part 3: Formations

I’ve decided to skip vehicles and go right to the formations below. I couldn’t really find enough to talk about other than a generally tactica for the vehicles, as Dark Angels don’t really bring much when it comes to tanks.

The Lion’s Blade Detachment
Our Decurion/Gladius. It’s a bit different from the normal Space Marines one, trading doctrines for full BS overwatch, which means giving up better offense for better defense. That lack of flexibility means that if you’re going to bring this to a tournament, you better take a full battle company for the free transports. There really isn’t much of a purpose to this detachment without the free transports, but it works perfectly well with them, and the Lion’s Blade is a powerful detachment for those looking to take the Greenwing to a tournament.

Battle Demi Company
Like the normal Space Marines, we give everyone objective secured, but we give up their extra doctrine for better overwatch. Unfortunately, this is completely replaced by the benefits of the Lion’s Blade, and this formation alone is a bit inflexible due to lack of fast attack options. It’s still a good formation, but it’s completely overshadowed by the benefits of taking two of them.
I left dreadnoughts out of the elites section so I’ll add a quick mention here. Like regular marine dreadnoughts, they’re in a bad place thanks to the bad state of walkers. However, with obsec and a free drop pod, they get a bit better. I’d give them an assault cannon to make use of that extra BS overwatch and drop them on a backline objective.

Deathwing Redemption Force
It’s bad, even worse here because of how expensive it is. See my Deathwing Tactics for details.

Ravenwing Attack, Support, and Silence Squadrons
If you need a little extra kick, the attack squadron isn’t bad, probably the second best auxiliary option for the Lion’s Blade. For further analysis of these three, see my Ravenwing Tactics.

The Hammer of Caliban
I really hope I’m not the only one who read this and asked “What were they thinking?” This formation is incredibly restrictive and forces you to squad a land raider with a unit of other vehicles, and take a techmarine. I guess a little extra BS and Monster/Tank Hunters is nice, but there is no situation where I’d ever want my land raider squadded with any of those vehicles. Land raiders are transport vehicles, and two of the other options have 48” range on their main guns. The last one is a vindicator which needs to move slowly, in addition to being significantly worse than the other two options. The weirdest thing about this formation to me is that Dark Angels aren’t known for doing any strange/special things with their vehicles, so something like the Space Marines Armored Company or even just “take a squad of one or two vehicles” would have been both better and made more sense fluff-wise. Short story, never take this. It isn’t even fluffy.

10th Company Support
This auxiliary option is probably the single best choice between both the Lion’s Blade and the Gladius (I’d say best of any marine decurion, but stupid Fists had to go and get Thunderfire Cannons as an aux). It’s dirt cheap, gives the scouts a pretty useful benefit (BS4 Overwatch) and lets you complete a Lion’s Blade easily. Unless you’re taking a Ravenwing Attack Squadron, take this. It gives you plenty of other points to play with for other units while letting you take a Lion’s Blade for a powerful base of obsec, difficult to charge units.

That wraps it up for Greenwing Tactics. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and thanks to /u/Redbaron67 for requesting it.