Terminators: the Deathwing are not much different than they were in 5th edition. Stats are the same and the cost is a little higher. Twinlinked shots on the deepstrike and the split fire are fun, but not good. Between the point cost going up and the prevalence of plasma guns throughout every opposing army these guys are shelved. The one area I would have liked these guys would be against helldrakes.
Bikes: I ran a Ravenwing/IG list at the tournament. I assumed with the hit that the terms took that the bikes would get the boost...not so much. Again the issue here is point cost. I don't think bikes themselves are overcosted in the book, seems fine. The issue is that DA is about the wings and people want to build wing armies. Ravenwing can't pull this off by themselves and I was not able to make it work even with the cheap guard backing them up. The bikes come off the table all too easily. They just are not survivable enough in the tournament scene in my area where there were at least 15 drakes on tables at any given time. While their survivability with the Darkshroud is decent, one bad hanful of dice just makes too much of an impact on how many models I kept having to sweep off the table.
So the two wings are over-costed, ineffective and nothing to write home about. The flyers are a disaster. One of my favorite models and despite the $ was interested in getting a pair of them...am I ever so happy I waited to see the point cost and the stats before I through that money down the drain!
I still think I can make many of the other parts of the book work, just not either of the two wings that are what makes this book different than Vanilla. The regular units (tacs, devs, etc.) have an improved point cost and a little more versatility (not having to buy a Vet serg or taking heavy weapons in the 5 man squad). I'll throw in some bikes or terms as compliment to the list, but I can't see either wing bringing anything to a competitive scene.
I won't do a battle report on any of the games, but will summarize.
Game 1: Helldrakes are stupid good. I don't like to call them broken, because I know what they do and I didn't take enough time to figure out how I would counter them effectively.
Game 2: Game was fun though I felt like I lost to a really bad list. Very interesting in that I was getting almost maz points on turn 5, about a tie on turn 6 and a solid loss on turn 7. It means the game was close throughout, but I think there was a couple of stupid things I did spacing out my troops that could have kept me in this for 7 rounds...I honeslty didn't expect it to go that far and should have assumed it was possible and started to maneuver troops to hold objectives sooner.
Game 3: I played and beat some one under 10 years old...go me?
Well, the day was harldy a complete loss as I did win the best painted army with the newly painted bikes. I was definitely thrilled with this!
All your points are right on Chris.
ReplyDeleteDeathwing is too few models, maybe they would be viable if they had "glorious intervention"
All my Ravenwing just don't last on the table, outflank is great but that's about it. I've been wanting to try a Ravenwing with Devestation banner but haven't gotten around to it.
Tac and Scout squads are great and the cheapest marines out there. Unfortunately for DA it sounds like the Vanilla codex is not that far away.