Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Army List: DA ThunderRazor



Man, I am stuck with Dark Angels fever right now! To maybe help me get it out of my system, or possibly convince myself to start a DA army, army lists have been jumping into my head like crazy.

The thing that got me started on this list was looking at what parts of the DA codex are costed appropriately in comparison to the 5th ed Marine books. Super cheap Typhoons already popped out to me in my last list, but what shocked me to see was that DA razorbacks are actually fairly competitively priced, the twin-linked lascannon version only costing 5 pts more than the 5th ed version. What DA get out of the deal is the chance to take a 5-man tactical squad armed with an honest-to-God meltagun or flamer instead of the combi version that Codex marines have to deal with.

So let's see what we can do with this concept as a base. A Razorback with 5 tactical marines and a flamer costs 175 points, which is the exact same cost for a Codex Marine razor squad with a combi-flamer. 6 of them will set us back 1050. We’ll build on this by adding in 3 land speeders with a multimelta and incredibly cheap and awesome Typhoon launcher for 75 a piece, setting us back another 225 and taking us to 1275.

We’ve got another… 575 to go before we hit 1850. We still need an HQ, but unfortunately most of them are not as good as the Codex Marine equivalents. The one exception is the Chaplain which is actually better than the standard chaplain thanks to possessing an additional attack for the same price. He can throw on a combi-weapon (we’ll say a Flamer) for a total of 110.

We now have 465 left. That is almost enough for two Deathwing squads with CMLs and TH/SS, just 5 points over. We can make room for them by dropping the combi-weapon from the Chaplain and use the remaining 5 points to upgrade one of our CML termies to chainfist duty.

This gives us the following:

Chaplain- 100
Deathwing squad with 5 TH/SS Terminators, 1 with CML- 235
Deathwing squad with 4 TH/SS Terminators, 1 with CML, stormbolter and chain fist- 240
6 Tactical squads with flamer and TWL Lascannon Razorback- 175*6=1050
3 squads of 1 land speeder with MM and Typhoon launcher- 75*3=225

I'd love to give the Tac squads meltaguns but a) can't find the points and b) don't want this list to instantly crumble against horde. 6 flamers and 30 tactical marines should hopefully help a bit with that at close range, while three multimeltas and the chain fist will just have to do against any Land Raiders that show up.

Let’s take this concept to 2k as well. Dropping a tactical squad would give us 330 points, more enough to get a third CML Deathwing squad. We lose a lascannon but gain a rock hard unit with 2 missile shots- worth it in my opinion. We can use the remaining 95 pts to upgrade the Chaplain to Belial with TH/SS and give one of our Deathwing squads the Deathwing Standard (+1 attack), an Apothecary (FNP) and an assault cannon. And finally we can make one of our non-rock Deathwing squads into a troop choice as Belial allows Deathwing to be both elites and troops.

Belial with TH/SS- 130
2 Deathwing squads with 5 TH/SS Terminators, each with 1 CML- 235*2=470 (one of which is a troop choice)
Deathwing squad with 2 TH/SS Terminators, 1 TH/SS Apothecary, 1 TH/SS standard bearer and 1 assault cannon/power fist terminator- 270
5 Tactical squads with flamer and TWL Lascannon Razorback- 175*5=875
3 squads of 1 land speeder with MM and Typhoon launcher- 75*3=225

I'd love to squeeze in another assault cannon but I'd hate to take 10 points off of anything. Tactics are DW assault with the Apothecary's squad and another DW squad (your choice of troop or no troop) with Belial attached while blasting apart anything you can reach... which is everything. The other DW squad teleports in or walks on the board later to either contest or hold objectives, depending if it's a Troop choice or not.

With just a few changes to the FAQ suddenly Dark Angels are an army that has actual benefits over the other Marine codexes. I'll be back to determine some more cool tricks that this old dog has, but for now I wouldn't want my Guard army to feel lonely before Adepticon...

*Image above property of Games-Workshop

3 comments:

Bartender said...

You don't beat around the bush with your armies!

HuronBH said...

Why don't you make the FNP Command squad Termie squad the score troops terminator squad instead. They will stick around longer and be able to take objectives lead by Belail.

Max said...

@ Bartender: WARHAMMER IS SERIOUS BUSINESS :) But seriously, after Adepticon my list-fu might ease up a bit.

@ HuronBH: I figured that the command squad would be a rock that wouldn't have time to score/would be killed at some point during the game. A deep striking squad later would be the better scorer I thought, though play testing might make me wrong.