Home > Editorials > Dark Angels – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Dark Angels – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Posted on January 12, 2013 03:35 pm by Epaminondas

Dark AngelsDespite being Mr. Mom this weekend, I managed to get to my LGS before lunch, and pick up my advance order.

It is going to take a long time to digest the codex changes. It is such a reduction in points and collection of neat new stuff, it will be months before the Dark Angels lists start to stabilize. Gone are the days of it being the Deathwing codex!

The Good

To start, power armor marines are dropped down in price to C:SM cost levels or lower.

The Dark Talon and Ravenwing have some obvious debuff combinations which can be brutal.

All of the special character are much, much better. Belial, while almost 50% more expensive has fleshbane, precision shot on a 5+, 4++, a teleport beacon and does not scatter when deepstriking.

A librarian clocks in at the cost of an old typhoon speeder. Did I mention characters can take night vision goggles for nominal points? I can see spamming two level one librarians with night vision goggles being a good answer to necrons and night fighting missions. Get two units of devastors with missile launchers (did I mention flakk upgrades) and maybe one lascannon and night fight is no longer an issue.

Deathwing has preferred enemy Chaos Space Marines. Welcome to room 42.

I expect to see a lot more multiwing, rather then just pure Deathwing and some Ravenwing.

The Bad

Ultimately, the flyer is a fail. Nice model, but the rules and point costs are bad.

Nephilim – Advertised as a dogfighter, with the looks of an A10… armed with missiles and a main gun that will struggle to pop a rhino. You know its bad when the twin linked heavy bolter is a significant boost to your anti AV11 firepower… The biggest problem with this flyer is that megabolter is only strengh 6, and the missiles are also strengh 6. So much for dogfighting against AV12. The sheer number of shots will be decent against medium/light infantry… but any marine force will have plenty of bolter equivalent weapons for that job.

Oh, and the cost is 150% of a new predator.

Dark Talon- Some interesting possibilities with the bomb and cannon against deathstars… considering those deathstars were getting dealt with by TH/SS terminators in the first place, not very interesting.

The cost is high as well.

The Ugly

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I do not care how cheap the cloaking device one is, or how good the plasma cannon. That model is so bad even its mother can not love it. I might convert a rhino chassis with the parts… but that is one ugly model.

 

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  • http://creativetwilight.com/ Thor

    It will be nice to see DA take the field with something other than 1st and 2nd company. I should say, be able to and not be hurting themselves for it.

    It’s possible the weaknesses you expressed are in fact intentional for the sake of balance. I know most think GW incompatant but sometimes they can surprise us.

    • khorne Inquisitor

      I never once considered GW incompetent. Tools…yes. Unfortunately, they are businessmen…not gamers. This means that they do what makes money, not what makes the game more enjoyable for the community at large should the two be in conflict.

  • JustHippie

    I want to know what the advance order was? Did you buy a Flyer or speeder?

    • Chris

      Codex, terminator box and the flyer.

      The banners are
      appropriately priced as you pay between 45 to 85 points for them, but
      you basically have to take a command squad to field them. The command
      squad is limited to 5 men (tactical or termie)… so its a priority
      target, and not scoring.

      Gone are the days of the 5 man TH/SS with banner and apothecary unit that scores.

      Apothecaries got nerfed as well, no weapon upgrades for them. Stormbolter and the FNP kit takes the powerfist.

      • Khorne Inquistor

        Oh, cool to hear about the banners. Stoked to see non-terminator dark angle lists out there.

        Also, later realized, that 2/4 salvo meant that if you move it cuts your range down as well so it comes with a pretty severe hit to boot.

        Also, I personally love some of the look of the models and stuff. Gonna have to go pick up some bits as the banners, scrolls, and parchments would work great for so many other armies! The knights and flyers (except for poses) look amazing. Looking forward to seeing them on the table.

  • Khorne Inquisitor

    Skimming over the codex, the Dark Angels look just downright nasty. Not really too overpowered with Terminators going up a fair amount and then extra for THSS, so for 5 you would have to drop 245 before any extra upgrades beyond the THSS.

    However, radius affect banners seemed a bit overpowered, such as the Salvo banner (destruction). Didn’t see which units could take it, but the possibilities are just obscene. However, at the end of the day it doesn’t look anything too disgusting and I look forward to seeing more flakk missiles hit the table. Maybe people will suddenly start to think twice about running a bunch of flyers knowing that they will just get blown out of the sky!

    • Lukas

      Thats what everyone said when CSM hit the tables, yet I still haven’t seen flakk missiles, OR a decrease in flyer usage (except for myself cause Scythes are too good :P )

      • Khorne Inquisitor

        I feel there HAS been a flyer decrease, if for no other reasons than if you sink a TON of points into flyers, people are grasping how to handle them better as well as more people have anti-air flyers to counter.

        Regardless, people don’t take flakk missiles because frankly it’s cheaper to crank out spammed AC shots. Less hits, same strength, and 10 pts vs. 25. You can run 12 AC for 345 points while 4 flakk missiles runs in at 175 for a single squad.

  • TheRhino

    I haven’t gone over it with a fine-toothed comb yet, but somethings stood out that I liked:
    Techmarines as non-slot HQ choices, as are Servitors. One of the reasons people never take them in Codex Marines armies is because they eat up a valuable Elite slot. I like them as non-slot HQs.
    Minor points reductions across the board. Most everything is 5-10 points cheaper than its Codex Marine equivalent, but some units can quickly inflate far BEYOND those equivalents. Deathwing Terminators, for example. They start just slightly more expensive than Codex TDA, but have extra rules (Split Fire and DWA) and such. But when you start tacking on extra bodies and upgrades, you start spiraling your points out of control. A full 10-strong unit can top out somewhere near 600 points!
    Deathwing Vehicle is a very cool rule. Everything is Venerable! it won’t save you from being hull pointed to death, but can keep your stuff going for one more turn, at least.
    Ravenwing look complicated to run pure, so I doubt I’ll see any upstarts honing in on my biker monopoly at the shop ;).
    All the non-Deathwing, non-Ravenwing units look viable due to points reductions or additional options. You keep half of the min-max las/plas squads of 4th Edition fame. The ability to take a special or a heavy in a Tac Squad below 10 men is nice, and the bump in points for those upgrades keeps people from just spamming 5-man lascannon squads. I predict a few 5-man squads with missile launchers armed with flakk though.



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