Deathwing Tactics Part 2: HQ

Deathwing Tactics Part 2: HQ

Part 2 of my Deathwing tactics, as requested by the painting contest winner /u/Merendino.

The Deathwing have a number of pretty good options for their HQ choices. The most important decision is usually how to equip them and whether to put them with Deathwing Knights or a Command Squad.

Belial
If you played Deathwing in 6th edition or earlier you already own this guy, and while he is no longer mandatory to get those sweet troop choice terminators, he received a number of buff in this codex to make up for it. Like a lot of Dark Angels named characters, he got one of our worst warlord traits, but otherwise he has a lot of utility as both a beatstick and support character. Flawless deep striking makes him ideal for any Deathwing squad, as well as cramming into other imperial armies, and re-rolling hits in a challenge makes him relatively scary in combat. He’s a good choice, but his biggest flaw is that he’s always going to be stuck with that useless warlord trait and need to have another character come along to be warlord and hope to get Rapid Manoeuvre to make up for how slow terminators are. If you put him with Deathwing Knights, definitely give him a shield/hammer. It makes him much tougher to kill and combos well with the Knight Master striking at I4 but AP3. In a command squad his sword is fine to take advantage of his high initiative and the champion’s AP2 weapon.

Interrogator Chaplain
Probably the outright best choice for Deathwing, the Interrogator Chaplain has almost the statline of a Company Master, buffs his entire unit in melee, can take all of the good toys, and isn’t stuck with a bad warlord trait. Take the Mace of Redemption and a storm shield and he becomes an expensive but excellent force multiplier for Deathwing Knights. He can work ok with a Command Squad, but his potential is probably wasted there compared to with a unit of knights. There isn’t much else to say about him, just take him unless you have a very specific use for another character.

Librarian
A lot of the utility a Librarian gains while on a bike is unfortunately lost in terminator armor. The extra speed and point of toughness make a huge difference for the squishiest of the Deathwing, and the Interrogator Chaplain’s melee buffs are far more useful with terminators than with Black Knights. That being said, the Librarian is probably better suited to go with a Command Squad than Belial or an Interrogator Chaplain. Grab the Eye of the Unseen to buff both their melee and whatever ranged weapon you have in the unit, and the Librarian will benefit a lot from the Feel No Pain the apothecary provides. Like Belial, still a good choice for the Deathwing, but lacks the balls-out awesomeness of the Chaplain. Also can roll for his warlord trait which is big.

Ezekiel
Not in terminator armor, but Ezekiel is a decent choice to go with Deathwing who are footslogging or in a transport. Like the other named characters, Ezekiel is stuck with a crappy warlord trait, but his buff to attacks, good statline, and level 3 mastery make him worth more the more points you put into a unit. If you’re going to have another character to buff the unit (probably an Interrogator Chaplain) and hopefully get a more useful warlord trait, than Ezekiel is good for buffing the unit with things like rerollable saves or +1 toughness. I just wouldn’t take him unless you’ve already invested a fair amount in the unit.

Azrael and Asmodai
These are two other characters with the Deathwing rule that could potentially be used for a footslogging unit. Unfortunately, both of them end up being a lot of wasted points. Azrael’s 4+ invuln is wasted on Deathwing Knights and only a minor buff to a command squad, and while picking his warlord trait is good, Sammael is both cheaper and gives his unit Hit and Run as well if you need Rapid Manoeuvre. Asmodai is just generally overcosted and loses a lot of the options regular Interrogator Chaplains have, making neither of these guys very good options for Deathwing.

So the Interrogator Chaplain comes out as a clear winner thanks to melee buffs being far more important for the Deathwing, but Librarians, Belial, and Ezekiel all have their uses within a Deathwing army as well.

Next week I’ll wrap this up by going over the actual unit options for the Deathwing.

Deathwing Tactics Part 1: Rules and Detachments

Deathwing Tactics Part 1: Rules and Detachments

The prizes for the painting contest were that each of the winners got to request an article for the blog. Appropriately, /u/Merendino used his first-place Deathwing to request a Deathwing Tactics article. These next couple articles come courtesy of him.

I’m going to write these articles in the reverse order of how I wrote the Ravenwing tactics, starting with special rules and detachments and then moving to individual units. It’s worth noting that terminators as a whole are in a bad place, being slow, expensive melee units reliant on low toughness and a good armor save. However, a number of the bonuses Deathwing have help push them above other terminators, if not to tournament-playability then at least to useful units.

Deathwing
The titular rule actually provides very little to Deathwing terminators and Dark Angel special characters. Fearless is fairly redundant with their Ld 9/10 and Stubborn, and Hatred(CSM) doesn’t make up for the fact you’re going to want Hatred on their melee units anyways.

Split Fire
Both Deathwing Terminator and Command Squads get this rule, and it is excellent. Terminators have some pretty good ranged weapon choices, and being able to shoot them and then charge a different unit is great. It also combos well with the next rule.

Vengeful Strike
Another extra rule we got to justify the higher price tag on Deathwing terminators, twin linked ranged weapons on the turn you Deep Strike is good. It’s nothing amazing but it helps make that expensive heavy weapon worth it.

Deathwing Redemption Force
Our unique formation, and the only way to get Deathwing into a Lion’s Blade Detachment, this formation is not very good. When compared to the Deathwing Strike Force below, you are taking a mandatory two units of Deathwing terminators and giving up two HQ slots. In return, you get Preferred Enemy(CSM), can run and shoot or shoot and run on the turn you Deep Strike, and pick a turn before the game starts that all models in the Redemption Force will arrive. The second rule is shared by the Strike Force, the first rule is pretty useless (all you’re getting is rerolls to-wound of one and reroll hits of one after the turn you deep strike) and the third rule is patently worse than the Strike Force version. Unless you’re going for a fluffy army there is no reason to take this formation over a Strike Force.

Deathwing Strike Force
This, along with the Ravenwing Strike Force, was GW’s way of letting us play our old pure-terminator and pure-bike armies from the 6th edition codex. While you technically can’t do that with the Deathwing Strike Force thanks to all units starting in reserve, it’s a decent detachment and piles more rules onto the Deathwing to help make them useful. 1-3 HQ and 2-12 Elite choices, all must be terminators or venerable dreadnoughts. Seems appropriate, and puts it head and shoulders above the Redemption Force already by letting us take more of our best terminator units (HQ’s) and doesn’t make us pay a tax of basic terminators. For the rules, we get the run/shoot or shoot/run from the Redemption Force to make sure we don’t eat templates the following turn, re-roll warlord traits, and if our army also includes a Ravenwing Attack Squadron or Ravenwing Strike Force, each terminator unit can choose to pass or fail it’s reserve roll. While that last part may seem like a bit of a restriction, remember it’s impossible to run this detachment alone without tabling yourself, and Ravenwing bikes are all equipped with teleport homers. The synergy is both fluffy and crunchy, and makes this detachment head-and-shoulders above the Redemption Force.

Combined Arms/Allied Detachment
While this is still an option, I would almost always take the Deathwing Strike Force. The only time I would want to take Deathwing terminators in a CAD would be to start them on the board in a land raider or other transport. However, land raiders, like terminators themselves, aren’t in the best place right now and aren’t a great investment for carting around an expensive unit. Barring that situation, keep them in their specialty detachment.

With a pile of special rules, and a detachment that lets you take a bunch of the best units tax-free, Deathwing terminators definitely stand out above other faction’s terminators. While they share most of the weaknesses of other terminators, the extra buffs make them more capable offensively and a bit less vulnerable when Deep Striking. The Deathwing Strike Force is a clear winner in terms of how to get them into your list.

Next week, we’ll go over individual Deathwing units.

November Painting Contest Results

November Painting Contest Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in this awesome contest! We unfortunately didn't make our goal for entries, but I still have prizes for the winner and runner-up. But you guys are probably more interested in seeing those:

Runner-Up, /u/Redbaron67's Dark Talon:

This was the first entry to the competition, and set a high standard for everyone else. The extra work on the masonry is what put this above the competition and into second place. You can see the full gallery here.

First Place, /u/Merendino's Terminators and Land Raider:

I got a few beautiful terminator entries, but it was the icon on the land raider that sold this one for me. The extra conversion work on the gunner was also something I really liked. You can see the full gallery here.

I hope everyone who participated had fun working on their entries, and congratulations to our two winners. While we didn't reach our entry goal to get a free copy of Deathwing as the grand prize, I do have some smaller prizes to give out to our winners. I enjoyed doing this and may revisit this idea in a few months, probably with a lower goal for entries for a grand prize. Thanks for reading!

All Lists Do Not Have to be "All-Comers"

All Lists Do Not Have to be "All-Comers"

There’s a lot of common misconceptions about tournament lists that I’d like to take some time to talk about.

I have a lot of people who ask me for tournament advice get upset when I tell them about their list’s bad matchups. People seem to be holding onto this notion that just about any list can and should be capable of taking on any potential list you will play at a tournament. I’d like to talk about why this is impossible, impractical, and not a bad thing. Before I continue, I’d like to include a disclaimer: There is no unwinnable game. Even the worst matchups can be won if you’re just a flat out better player than the other guy, but a lot of what I say is going to be based around the assumption the players are close to the same skill level, unless otherwise specified.

First, there are “all-comers” lists in the current competitive meta. Lists that still have a decent chance to win in their worst matchups. These are the S-tier lists, Eldar Scatterbikes, Battle Company, and Incursion. There’s some variations on these but the ones you see sweeping a lot of tournaments are all lists that have pretty much entirely good to bad matchups, with no terrible ones.

If that’s true, why ever play another army? Shouldn’t we all just play those lists until something comes in to smash up the meta (hello, 5th edition). No, we shouldn’t. One thing about those S-tier lists is that they are pretty hard to pilot. Plenty of people have seen their local powergamer running one of those “netlists” and crushing some hapless newbie, but a lot of those guys don’t put up good (or consistent) results in tournaments. The reason you see those kinds of lists dominating tournaments is because those are the top players playing the top lists. S-Tier lists have an incredibly high skill ceiling, and when combined with no truly bad matchups, in the hands of a great player they will win.

This isn’t to say less-skilled players can’t do good things with those lists, but they will need practice and will find themselves struggling to max out their wins. So if you don’t want to run an S-Tier list, or are new to the tournament scene and don’t want to try to get your feet wet with an army that’s hard to pilot, you want what I usually call a Spoiler List. While these lists are ideal for newer or less skilled players, there have been great examples of spoiler lists performing well and even winning large events, such as Sean Nayden’s infamous Tyranids list.

Spoiler lists operate on the principle of “win big, or not at all”. Instead of trying to make these lists capable of taking on any enemy army, you make them very good against certain armies, while understanding that your bad matchups are pretty much always going to be a loss (barring amazing dice or a bad opponent). These lists often operate on the concept of taking a lot of a very good unit, or bringing only one type of unit to deny a lot of your opponent’s threats. Two good examples are my NOVA list and the list I played against last tournament with 5 riptides and 2 knights. My ravenwing list was incredibly resilient to shooting attacks that didn’t ignore cover meaning a lot of my opponent’s shooting would be wasted on them. However, the low model count meant I had a weakness to being drowned in bodies, so armies like Incursion or Battle Company gave me a hard time. Meanwhile, that riptide/knight list obviously shrugged off most shooting, and was capable of quickly removing units that threatened the knights and riptides, but was susceptible to being bogged down and swept by many smaller melee units, like my Orks.

Spoiler lists are great if you have a good idea of what kind of armies you will be facing going into a tournament, and also let you get into tournaments with a list that has a solid “comfort zone” of armies they will beat reliably. If you want to try a spoiler list, either pick a certain type of army you’d like to beat (probably one of those S-Tier lists) or pick a type of unit you’d like to take a lot of. Vehicles may not be the best, but an all-tank Imperial Guard army would certainly give some armies a hard time, or building a dark eldar list specifically designed to mess up daemons (usually with some eldar/corsairs allied in). I’ve seen both of these armies used well and put up good tournament results thanks to maxing out their wins.

I hope this gives you guys a little insight on list building and why it’s ok to bring lists that aren’t S-Tier. Painting Competition closes December 6th by the way. Send me those entries on reddit or by email!

The Myth of Bad Armies

The Myth of Bad Armies

I think a lot of people were expecting this after my last post.

Reactions to my last post were mixed.

I was surprised to see so many people actually upset that I was claiming Orks aren’t as bad as everyone has said. But before I go on with the meat of this post I want to step down from my soapbox for a second. I know I speak from a pedestal when I write this blog, partly because that’s how these kind of blogs work, but also because I like to think my tournament results have given me a bit of a position of authority. But I’m someone who enjoys the game, just like everyone else, and some of the more spiteful comments I received in the last week or were pretty hurtful not just to me but also to the people I play with. I don’t understand why some people took my post as some kind of personal attack, but I certainly received a lot of personal attacks back, questioning my integrity as a player, saying I cheated, or claiming I only beat bad players. Rather than respond to all of those individually, I want to remind everyone that insisting your own army is bad competitively, and insulting someone who put up good results with it serves absolutely no purpose. It doesn’t make you a better player, it doesn’t make anyone else care that you think your army is bad, it won’t make GW update them, and it ends up just making me and maybe some other people reading it feel bad. If my post was that big a blow to your pride that you felt the need to personally attack me and others, you might need to re-examine what you take pride in.

Alright. Back up to the soapbox. In a more constructive manner, let’s discuss WHY so many people think Orks and other armies are bad, and how we as players can look at them. This will be strictly in a competitive sense, but I’m going to address casual play at the end.

Out With the Old
I’d bet the most common problem for people who claim that armies like Orks or Dark Eldar are bad is that they’re upset the old staple units have fallen out of favor. Trukks, Boyz, Nob Bikers, Raiders and Venoms are all formerly powerful units that just don’t work well competitively anymore. The thing is, this happens to every army. While it’s more obvious when these units are advertised as the core units of the army, like in the above examples, it’s not restricted to them. Almost every week on reddit I see people asking “Why are terminators bad?” “What happened to terminators?” “How do we fix terminators?” Terminators are a unit in several competitive codices that have fallen by the wayside thanks to meta shifts, just like those units in “bad” codices. Orks have plenty of good units right out of their codex like Lootas, Warbosses, Deffkoptas, Warbikes, and even Grotz for troops, these just aren’t the units that have traditionally been their strong point.

Best Buds
Another problem of people clinging to old styles of play is those who refuse to use allies. There is no reason to shoot yourself in the foot like this when making a competitive army. CSM and Dark Eldar are armies who both have very good battle brothers who they can bring plenty to the table for. If you want to continue playing your old favorite army in today’s competitive environment, sometimes the best way to do that is to just bring some friends. I’ll also quickly address people who say using FW or supplements is somehow wrong in tournament play: This is an old mindset that has no place in the current state of competitive play.

The Bandwagon
One last problem I notice is the often perpetuating cycle of “bad armies.” People say the army is bad, so no one brings them to tournaments. Then people point to the fact they aren’t popular in tournaments as a reason that they’re bad/not popular. 40k already has a massive copy-cat problem where people try to pick up the S-tier armies because they believe it’s the only way to win, and discouraging innovation by believing only the popular armies are good ones perpetuates this problem.

You can take any army to a tournament and do well, as long as you’re willing to make concessions to change up your old style of play, maybe by adding allies or getting rid of your favorite units that aren’t as good as they used to, but don’t let the myth that your army is bad discourage you.

So what about casual play? This is going to be the hardest for a lot of people to grasp I think, but casual play is casual. If you’re having trouble winning with your army in casual games, no matter what army it is, one of two things is happening. Either your opponent is not bringing an appropriate list to play with you, or you are a poor player or have a poor attitude. Casual games are about both players having fun, and if one of you isn’t, both of you have failed. Standing there complaining about your codex will not change that situation, because if your codex gets buffed the next day and you start sweeping all of your casual games, then your opponent won’t be having fun. Most people already ask their opponent if it’s ok to bring someone like a Superheavy to a casual game, or to play a unique mission. There should be no problem saying “hey, I want to bring a big horde of Ork boyz, please bring an army or pick a mission that will be fun for both of us.” It’s on the two of you to create a situation where both of you have fun no matter what armies you want to play, and if your opponents are otherwise good players, maybe it’s time to look at yourself and ask if it’s your own attitude that’s stopping you from having fun, not your codex.

Alright, that got pretty heavy. Back to business as usual next week. Don’t forget to send me those entries for the Dark Angels painting competition! It ends December 6th!

November 19th, Elliscon Tournament. First Place!

Format: ITC
Number of Players: 18
Rounds 3
Placing: 1st

This was the first solo tournament I've ever won, and I couldn't be happier with my results. The list performed well, and I beat a lot of good opponents (everyone I beat went 2-1). According to one of my teammates there were people walking around asking how the Orks were winning any games, and one person thought I was kidding when I said I won the whole thing. Matchups are below, along with some ideas for you guys if you're going to a tournament.

List:
Orks Combined Arms Detachment
Zhadsnark (Warlord)
Painboy, Bike
Mek
Mek
5 Warbikers, Nob, Power Klaw
4 Warbikers, Nob, Power Klaw
Deffkopta, Rokkits
Deffkopta, Rokkits
Deffkopta, Rokkits
5 Lootas
5 Lootas
Buzzgob's Big Mek Stompa, Klaw, Kannon

Orks Combined Arms Detachment
Warboss, Bike, Klaw, Lucky Stikk
Warboss, Bike, Headwoppa's Killchoppa
Mek
Mek
11 Grotz
10 Grotz
10 Grotz
Deffkopta, Rokkits
Deffkopta, Rokkits
Deffkopta, Rokkits
5 Tankbustas
Void Shield Generator, 2 Extra Shields

Game 1: Eldar

He was running all of the wraith formations and had a bunch of wraithguard, wraithblades, a wraithknight, two wraithlords, and a wraithseer and spiritseer. I let him go first and waste a turn coming towards me thanks to his short ranges, then counter-charged him. The wraithknight died to the stompa in CC, but by the bottom of 3 all he had left was the knight and a unit of wraithguard anyways.

11-0 Win

Game 2: White Scars Battle Company

This was a tough game against a very good player. I benefited a lot from the mission being The Relic, and the Stompa was able to control the center-field. He couldn't touch it so he was forced to try to get around me. We ended up trading deployment zones and I was able to snag the relic at the end and leapfrog him in maelstroms by killing all of his guys in the back.

10-1 Win

Game 3: 5 Riptides, 2 Knights

The mission was kill points, which meant I pretty much auto-won the Maelstrom, but had to table him to win the Eternal War. And that I did. I locked the riptides down with bikes, shot the knights to death, then swept in with the stompa to finish off the riptides.

10-2 Win

I couldn't be happier to win my first tournament with my Orks. I played against very good players and threw a lot of people for a loop. Also, I went with two members of my club and a member of another Boston club who played for us at this tournament. We set ourselves some team goals (8 wins, 90 battle points) which ended up being a great idea and added an extra layer to the competition. We met all of our goals and our honorary member finished 2nd with his Daemons and one of my other teammates finished 3rd with his Tau. Anyone going to a tournament with some friends, I recommend you try setting these kind of team goals for yourselves to add some extra fun and stat-keeping to the tournament. I don't talk about my club much but it gave me a reason to be proud of the group I play with, so congrats to Korey, Dylan and Dave as well.

Later this week I think I'm going to discuss the common misconceptions of "bad armies" and talk about how we can all be more productive in that regard. As always, feel free to ask me questions about the list or anything else.

Casual vs. Competitive Play and Player Attitudes and Expectations

Casual vs. Competitive Play and Player Attitudes and Expectations

In addition to being an avid tournament player, I also help run my local club and often have to help new players learn the game. I wanted to use that experience to talk about competitive vs. casual play.

To start with, let’s define competitive and casual play. For this article, “competitive” play is going to be tournaments, competitive events, and games specifically agreed on to be practice for those. Everything else will be “casual” play. Those are pretty broad but that’s often how I see them loosely defined elsewhere. Both of these types of games and the difference between a good and bad experience in either of them depend on managing the expectations and attitudes of both (or more) players involved.

For competitive play, expectations are very easy to define. Both players are trying to win, and you shouldn’t go to a tournament without the understanding you might get a bad matchup or play against a very good player who kicks your ass six ways to sunday. I don’t like the kind of shaming I sometimes see towards competitive players for taking a list that’s “too cheesy” or “uses unfluffy units” for a tournament. The goal is to win, and it’s fair for anyone going to an event to bring the best they can.

Player attitudes are the tougher part to manage in competitive, because you may get an opponent who’s rude, tries to cheat, plays horribly slowly, or throws a temper tantrum. Luckily, this is what TO’s are for and the best way to mitigate how bad an experience a crappy opponent can give you is to call a TO over and let them know what’s going on. For the most part, your experience at a tournament is going to be governed by your own attitude and the luck of the draw on which opponents you get.

Defining expectations for casual games is where I think a lot of players fail and end up with a bad experience. Some people like to just play with whatever models are on their shelf, or even only what’s painted. They throw together a list and use it. Other players, like myself, can’t help but make sure their list is a “good” list. I often use bad units (I LOVE Vanguard Veterans) but will equip them and support them within the list to make sure they have a job to do and can hopefully do it. This is a difficult expectation to manage because both players are building what is, in their opinion, a “casual” list. The only real way to manage this is to ask the second group of players to tone down their lists, or maybe help their opponent write a list if their opponent wants to bring a better army. Also, try a scenario that puts that person at a disadvantage (with their consent of course) to make both the game and matchup more interesting.

Attitudes are easy to manage in casual games. If a player is consistently difficult to play with for any reason, just don’t play with them. The benefit of casual games (and tabletop games in general, usually) is that you always have a choice about who to play with and when. If you feel like you need to play with someone with a bad attitude, talk to them. I’ve had plenty of bad games with otherwise good guys because they were having a bad day.

So what happens when these two cross over? Usually nothing special actually. A lot of competitive players will fall into that second category of casual play, and may need to be given a disadvantage to ensure a fun game. Trying out a new army or radically different list is a great handicap. Also, as a casual player playing with your more competitively-minded friends, don’t immediately point to their attitude and list as a reason for a tough game. I see a lot of people with the belief that tournament players all have a “Win at All Costs” mentality that means they’ll always stomp you in an unfun way. I think this often comes from those competitive players just being better players, and the casual player looking for an excuse. If you felt the game wasn't fun, talk to them. Maybe they can tone down their list, or point out a few places where you could've just played better to make the game closer.

Finally, let me quickly address “That Guy”. I think when most people talk about having a bad experience with a competitive player, they played against those people who bring an overly competitive list and/or attitude to a casual game. Even when you were clear the game was casual, they brought a top-placing tournament list they pulled off the internet, and act like a jerk or talk down to you all game. For the most part, there is nothing you can do about this kind of person except not play with them. In my experience, these are often middle/lower-tier tournament players who need an ego boost by smacking around people’s fluffy armies. The very good tournament players who I’ve encountered have all been friendly and enjoyable people to play with, and are usually just as capable of fun casual play as competitive play. If you have “That Guy” in your group, refuse to play with them until they tone it down. There doesn’t have to be a line between competitive and casual players.

Sorry that ended up being a bit long. Hope you guys liked this departure from tactics/list analysis. Let me know if there’s a topic you’d like to see me cover next.