Opinions about Dark Angels

[crisis_vyper]

Well, I have finally gotten my hands on the Dark Angels book and I have to say that it is perhaps one of the most, if not the most interesting Space Marine faction books in terms of power level. I actually find this book to be very balanced as there are multiple ways to approach the issue at hand to the many builds out there. It also gives a route for those who want fluffy armies without being penalized for choosing a theme.

Of course, as a competitively casual player, I find that some wargears/units are worth mentioning as they have interesting/powerful application on the field;

1) Sacred Standards: Despite their 'one-per-army' limit, they are very helpful for infantry-based armies as they provide a anchoring point for the whole army, with the Standard of Fortitude being the most amazing standard of them all in my opinion with their conference of Feel No Pain to every friendly Dark Angels within 12" of the banner. This can be used in a Dark Angels Terminator or Marine-based army. The Ravenwing I assume would be able take the banner but it appears that there is a errata over there which I have to wait to see what GW's stance on it is due to Relic Banner being nonexistent in the wargear section, but the Sacred Standard being present in the wargear section.

2) Tactical squads: Oddly enough, it harks a return to 3rd-4th edition as a 5 man squad could now have a special or heavy weapon in the squad. A particularly interesting application of this would be that you can get tons of flakk missiles for cheap with a five man squad with a flakk missile launcher is 95 points. You can also take a full squad and take a special weapon along with a Razorbacks with twin-linked assault cannons or flamers for anti-infantry. However, unlike the Vanilla Marines, they have to pay for their special weapons.

In essence, the Dark Angels army has the option to not bother taking dedicated anti-air units/flyers to gun down aircraft. Necrons will hate the proliferation of these guys along with a command squad with the Sacred Standard command squad behind an Aegis Defense Line. Add some cheap devastators with flakk missile launcher for taste.

3)Deathwing: Deathwing players can now take a full squad of 10 of them and they have the Splitfire USR. Another noteworthy rule that is specific to the termies is Vengeful Strike which allow them to have twin-linked weapons when they deepstrike during their turn. And by all weapons, they mean every weapon.

In addition, their Deathwing Assault is much more potent now. Instead of half your unit coming down on turn one, you have the option to have every Deathwing to come in during the first turn or the second turn (but this must be done secretly) and you do not have to make any reserves. In other words, they are really reliable. Combine this with teleporter homers from the Ravenwing, and you can have a dominating presence during your second turn with your shooting phase.

As noted before, this also gives the army options to not take flyers if they want to as twin-linked weaponry could help mitigate the lack of anti-air for Terminators. Also they have hatred (CSM) in addition to their Fearless special rule.

4) Ravenwing Attack Squadrons: Their Land Speeders are now able to have typhoon missile launchers which would help in providing greater long-ranged firepower. In addition they also have Hit-and-run which is amazing for them if they are forced to be stuck in close combat. However, they are no longer fearless, but instead got a new rule called Grim Resolve which is Stubborn plus the inability to automatically fail a Morale Check. This unit is interesting as everything in it is scoring.

5) Darkshrouds: They are interesting for Ravenwing armies, as they allow any friendly unit within 5" of them to gain Stealth, which would help in their defense during turboboosting and such. Sadly enough, from the wording it appears that two Darkshrouds being next to each other will not confer their 'stealth' field on each other. However they all come with Shrouded which makes this particular wording understandable, as it would potentially be broken if done right.

They are not an offensive unit, but they help in the overall defense of the army as I can just park a Darkshroud near an Aegis defense line and allow the unit/s within to have Stealth. Combine with that firebase that I talked about in 2), this could be potentially nasty.

6) Land Speeder Vengeance: I would say that their charged mode will be used more often than their burst mode, as the prospect of a large blast plasma shot is hard to ignore especially with the proliferation of infantry heavy armies these days.

7) Nephilim Jetfighter/Dark Talon: Flyers are flyers, but I feel that the aircrafts somewhat suffers from being very specialized. Surprisingly for a book with flyers, the flyers could be ignored.

The Nephilim is designed with anti-air in mind, with a secondary role in anti-vehicle and its special rule of changing 'Weapon Destroyed' results to 'Immobilized' could be amazing if it were not for the weapons choices that plagued this particular flyer. Of the two options that the Nephilim are allowed to take, I would say that the Avenger Mega bolter could be good against light vehicles/light aircraft but it is utterly useless against AV12 and above vehicles of any sort. The lascannon suffers from it being a single shot weapon (despite its twin-linked status), but honestly I would take it if all you are going to face are Stormravens and Heldrakes. The Blacksword missile also suffers from this as they are single shot weapons and they are not blast weapons, and their strength is the same as that of the Avenger Mega bolter. It could be quite ineffective when faced with certain armies, and thus caution must be taken with this.

The Dark Talon is a dedicated anti-infantry unit, but even then it is not really effective at its role and it is utterly overpriced for what it does. Its statis bomb does have some unique effects, but with the stats of a lasgun it will not be doing its job very often. The rift cannon is also not as effective.

Between the two, I would take the Nephilim.

7) HQs: Alright, I believe that I am at the last leg of my review here, and I will say that a few HQs stand out. I will now start with the Generic HQs. In addition each HQ has access to the wargear section which allows for a greater customization of your HQ depending on the needs of your army. All of the HQ gains access to Command Squads, and depending on their upgrades they can gain access to specific command squads (example would be a Terminator Librarian would gain access to a Deathwing Command Squad). However, these command squads are locked at their size capacity, so you can't add additional units to the squad (this particularly sucks for the Ravenwing command squad as they only have three members ).

As for which HQ is the most effective I would have one choice in my mind; The Librarian. He is cheap and he has access to what is perhaps the best psychic discipline in the book; Divination. With the particular emphasis of the Dark Angels in shooting, this upgrade is perhaps the most precious psychic discipline to take.

The Chaplains are interesting for assault-based armies, but in my opinion the book's main strengths are in shooting and thus people would tend to ignore them in favor of other HQs. The Company Master is essentially a Dark-angels flavoured Captain and thus suffer from the same problems as the Chaplain.

However the dark horse of the HQs in the book would be a Techmarine. The reason why this is such is due to their unique way of being incorporated into the HQ slot. As the wording goes;

For each HQ choice in your army (not including other Techmarines or Command Squads of any type) you may include a Techmarine. These selections do not use up a Force Organization slot).

This means that you can have an 'extra' HQ for each of your HQ slots, and with their rather cheap point cost they could help in many ways, especially with the right wargear. They also have the abilities of the Vanilla HQ techmarines but with Grim Resolve included.

As for the special characters, Ezekiel and Asmodai are perhaps the most subpar of the HQs, and you can get cheaper and more versatile equivalents in the librarian and chaplain respectively.

As with the old codex, Belial and Sammael are used to unlock Deathwing Terminators and Ravenwing Attack Squadrons as troops, respectively. However, there is now a third option for unlocking both types of units to become troop choices; Azrael. In this sense he could be the go to HQ for unlocking both types of units as troop choices and you do not have to spend the points on two different HQs to unlock them as troops.

Let's start with Azrael. He is perhaps one of the most potent warlords in the game as he is the only warlord in the Dark Angels book that could choose his own Dark Angels Warlord Traits instead of rolling it. However, if he chooses a Warlord trait from the Rulebook, he has to roll them randomly just like anyone else. The whole army also uses his leadership for morale, pinning or leadership tests.His armor is an artificier armor with the FNP (6+) rule which is cute in my opinion. His cost has also gone down a little which is fun, as he still keeps all his old toys from the previous edition. Unfortunately, Azrael does not have Orbital Bombardment

Belial is now more expensive, but in return he gets some buffs in his stat and also gets a precision shot on a 5+ and also any unit that is composed of models with the Inner Circle rules that he joined do not scatter when he arrives via deepstrike (could be subject to nonsense when used with non-Deathwing Inner Circle units, but even then I wonder why). His warlord trait kinda sucks and does not help the army as a whole. He still gets to switch his weapons around which would be a good thing for everyone who armed him with lightning claws or Thunderhammer/Stormshield.

Sammael is more or less the same (his stats have buffed up but besides that he is still the same) but instead, he is now an IC. Goodbye the days where he could not be attached to any squad! As for his Warlord trait, it is somewhat helpful for himself and the unit that he is attached to, but otherwise not too amazing. For these two, I would personally pick another HQ as the warlord for taking warlord traits, and let Belial and Sammael unlock Deathwing or Ravenwing attack squadrons as troop choices, respectively.

PS: Azrael, Belial and Sammael can only unlock these formations as troop choices when they are in the Primary detachment slots. So having allied units with deathwing terminators as troops are now a concept of the past.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Is it just me or has this been cut a little short?

[crisis_vyper]

Is it just me or has this been cut a little short?

Yeah, internet is lame. Editted.

[Arguleon-veq]

The new DA are easily the most powerful SM codex now. Its a bit of a mixed bag with some seriously powerful unit and then some terribly weak ones.

HQ

Azreal is amazing. He isnt too expensive, he is great in combat, he is good at shooting. He gives his whole unit a 4+ Invulnerable, he is durable. Most important of all he chooses from some very nice warlord traits and unlocks both raven and deathwing as troops.

Ezekiel is amazing too. For 145 points you get a Lvl3 Psyker with 3 wounds, better BS than normal, a master crafted force weapon, his own pretty nice power and he makes all friendly units with 6'' +1 WS. One of the most points effective special characters ive ever seen.

Belial is pretty poor in terms of personal power but he unlocks deathwing as troops and his unit doesnt scatter when it arrives, this is huge when deathwing twin link when they land so you can get 18+ bolt rounds and 8 assault cannon rounds exactly where you want it turn 1 or 2, all twin linked.

Sammeal is pretty much the same as he was an unlocks ravenwing as troops, pretty nice.

Asmodia is pretty poor. Chaplains are as poor as usual. Libbys are as good as usual, this DA variant being the best of the lot thanks to the fact you can get a Lvl2 for 100 points.

Troops

Pretty standard but very cheap. Super cheap Tac Marines and importantly with access to flak missiles. Still normal Tac Marines though.

Scouts just got even better. Scouts are a great choice in vanillam SM. These scouts are even cheaper AND can take flak missiles. So you get a 5 strong squad with cammo cloaks and a flak missile launcher for 95 points, 5 points cheaper than the SM version and with the added benefit of flak.

Elites

Deathwing got a lot better, split fire, 10 strong squads, twin linked on landing, better deathwing assault. Terminators are good anyway but these guys are the best of the lot.

Deathwing Knights are pretty average, sure they can be good for 1 turn and  are hard to kill but your probably better off with Thunder Hammer termies than these guys. They are great against Chaos SM though.

Fast Attack

Bikes are good now anyway, Ravenwing Bikers are even better. Very effective scoring when you unlock them as such. Good solid choice, possibly the best scoring in the book. There will be some effective ravenwing armies out there, mainly because of this next unit;

Black Knights. Possibly the best unit in the game right now. Sure they are as much as a terminator but look at what you get.

Fast,
T5,
3 S5 Rending attacks each, 4 on the charge,
EVERY guy has a shorter ranged twin linked plasmagun! [a full squad even blows away a flyer in a single turn, who needs flak],
Hit+Run [Huge with those plasma talons],
Special grenades that will reduce a targets unit WS, I and T all by 1 for a turn when both types of grenades hit. That is amazing. Instant killing paladins with plasma and nob bikes with melta, wounding on 2s against most units thanks to them and hitting on 3's and usually going first.
To top it all off, Skilled Rider! bikes pretty much ignore terrain anyway and now you dont even take a dangerous test, oh and +1 to your jink save, so you have a 4+ jink just for moving.

Utterly amazing.

HS

Same as usual for Marines.

New Flyers

Terrible. The one meant for ground attack is utterly rubbish at it and will never kill a never flyer if it has to engage in a dogfight. It will hardly kill ground targets and its 160 points, worst flyer in the game, even worse than the storm talon, much worse.

The jetfighter, designed for dogfights, is terrible at dogfights. Its one saving grace is that it is decent in a ground attack role. It can have 3 Twin linked S5, 5 S6 and 2 S6 missiles a turn at ground targets, at BS5. Thats probably better than a Necron flyer at killing infantry but it should be as it is a whopping 180 points.

New Speeders

The Darkshroud is ok, it gives some nice boosts to the rest of your army and at least its cheap. The plasma speeder is terrible, its as easily to kill as a normal speeder, way more points and its big plasma weapon is poor anyway.

Overall it is a powerful book mainly because of ravenwing and deathwing backed up by cheap psyker support. Black Knights really give the army a competative edge though, they are fantastic, the only thing that worries me about them is them getting shot up before they get to move but thanks to skilled rider they can deploy in terrain and with scout even if there isnt much in your deployment zone you can find some.

[crisis_vyper]

HQ

Azreal is amazing. He isnt too expensive, he is great in combat, he is good at shooting. He gives his whole unit a 4+ Invulnerable, he is durable. Most important of all he chooses from some very nice warlord traits and unlocks both raven and deathwing as troops.

Ezekiel is amazing too. For 145 points you get a Lvl3 Psyker with 3 wounds, better BS than normal, a master crafted force weapon, his own pretty nice power and he makes all friendly units with 6'' +1 WS. One of the most points effective special characters ive ever seen.

Belial is pretty poor in terms of personal power but he unlocks deathwing as troops and his unit doesnt scatter when it arrives, this is huge when deathwing twin link when they land so you can get 18+ bolt rounds and 8 assault cannon rounds exactly where you want it turn 1 or 2, all twin linked.

Sammeal is pretty much the same as he was an unlocks ravenwing as troops, pretty nice.

Asmodia is pretty poor. Chaplains are as poor as usual. Libbys are as good as usual, this DA variant being the best of the lot thanks to the fact you can get a Lvl2 for 100 points.

Ezekiel is alright, but in terms of competitiveness, I believe that the humble Librarian is a much better buy. For the same amount of points, I can actually have Mastery 2, mounted on a bike and with a Displacer Field for defense. Of course you can run him even more cheaply without the upgrades.

Troops

Pretty standard but very cheap. Super cheap Tac Marines and importantly with access to flak missiles. Still normal Tac Marines though.

Scouts just got even better. Scouts are a great choice in vanillam SM. These scouts are even cheaper AND can take flak missiles. So you get a 5 strong squad with cammo cloaks and a flak missile launcher for 95 points, 5 points cheaper than the SM version and with the added benefit of flak.

Yeah, would agree with you on that. But given the better defense of the SM over the scouts and the ability to take a razorback, the SM will win over the scouts.

Elites

Deathwing got a lot better, split fire, 10 strong squads, twin linked on landing, better deathwing assault. Terminators are good anyway but these guys are the best of the lot.

Deathwing Knights are pretty average, sure they can be good for 1 turn and  are hard to kill but your probably better off with Thunder Hammer termies than these guys. They are great against Chaos SM though.

Agreed here. The Vets are sadly the underdog again.

Fast Attack

Bikes are good now anyway, Ravenwing Bikers are even better. Very effective scoring when you unlock them as such. Good solid choice, possibly the best scoring in the book. There will be some effective ravenwing armies out there, mainly because of this next unit;

Black Knights. Possibly the best unit in the game right now. Sure they are as much as a terminator but look at what you get.

Fast,
T5,
3 S5 Rending attacks each, 4 on the charge,
EVERY guy has a shorter ranged twin linked plasmagun! [a full squad even blows away a flyer in a single turn, who needs flak],
Hit+Run [Huge with those plasma talons],
Special grenades that will reduce a targets unit WS, I and T all by 1 for a turn when both types of grenades hit. That is amazing. Instant killing paladins with plasma and nob bikes with melta, wounding on 2s against most units thanks to them and hitting on 3's and usually going first.
To top it all off, Skilled Rider! bikes pretty much ignore terrain anyway and now you dont even take a dangerous test, oh and +1 to your jink save, so you have a 4+ jink just for moving.

Utterly amazing.

But the thing is that the rad grenades are S3, which is kinda not that hot. In addition, the Ap- of the Corvus hampers it in a way and you really want to roll that 6s on the rending. Lastly, for their point cost, they do not have invul saves in close combat, which is where they are supposed to shine. In a deathstar kind of way, they are okay, but they are a shiny toy. In my opinion, I actually rather go with Terminators for such a role as they will do their role in a more stellar fashion not to mention that you could potentially make them scoring thanks to Belial or Azrael.

HS

Same as usual for Marines.

New Flyers

Terrible. The one meant for ground attack is utterly rubbish at it and will never kill a never flyer if it has to engage in a dogfight. It will hardly kill ground targets and its 160 points, worst flyer in the game, even worse than the storm talon, much worse.

The jetfighter, designed for dogfights, is terrible at dogfights. Its one saving grace is that it is decent in a ground attack role. It can have 3 Twin linked S5, 5 S6 and 2 S6 missiles a turn at ground targets, at BS5. Thats probably better than a Necron flyer at killing infantry but it should be as it is a whopping 180 points.

New Speeders

The Darkshroud is ok, it gives some nice boosts to the rest of your army and at least its cheap. The plasma speeder is terrible, its as easily to kill as a normal speeder, way more points and its big plasma weapon is poor anyway.

Agreed, but I believe that the Darkshroud is more of a combo tool than anything else, so one needs to be creative with it to utilize its best capabilities.

Overall it is a powerful book mainly because of ravenwing and deathwing backed up by cheap psyker support. Black Knights really give the army a competative edge though, they are fantastic, the only thing that worries me about them is them getting shot up before they get to move but thanks to skilled rider they can deploy in terrain and with scout even if there isnt much in your deployment zone you can find some.

I believe that this army needs synergy more than the other Space Marine books, as the book is really highlighting the combined Deathwing-Ravenwing as its main selling point, with an option of letting people make very strong and deep firebases to supplement the Deathwing/Ravenwing assault. The Salvo banner is an great example of highlighting this mentality.

[Chicop76]

Can you say darkshroud and blackknights. The blackknights can turbo with a +2 cover with a +3 cover normally with the darkshround aura.

I think I may start playing with more ap3 flame weapons. Banewolf +2 might be included in some list with hydra support.

[Arguleon-veq]

The normal libby is a great buy but Ezekiel is only 45 points more than a basic Lvl2, for that you get an extra wound, so there is an extra 50 points anyway really, a 2+ save which would cost at least 15, Lvl3 which would be 35, a master crafted weapon for 10 and the book which is worth at least 20. I think he is worth at least 220 points.

SM have worse defense in cover and razors are pretty poor and have been since 6th was released. I think scouts are way more viable for nice cheap scoring although 5 man tac squads with flak is nice too. I dont think it matters though as death and ravenwing put them on the shelf.

The S of the rads does not matter in the slightest as it doesnt need to wound to reduce the unit toughess, just hit. You dont take it to actually kill anything, you take it reduce a units toughness. The AP of their close combat attacks doesnt matter at all either seeing as though you are getting 4S5 each and have 2 AP2 shots before you even charge in. Rending isnt even all that important its just a nice bonus, simply having 4 S5 attacks, after your hammer of wrath, on a unit that you can reduce the WS,I+T of is amazing, they will just die to weight of attacks. You dont need the invun in combat so much as after you shoot and charge, pretty much any unit in the game will have nothing left to attack back with. Black Knights are much more powerful unit for unit than deathwing and even provide anti air but as you say deathwing are scoring which is big.

You just point black knights at the best thing in the opposing army and have them kill it. They also pretty much invalidate termies in a straight up match.

If we have 10 thunder hammer termies, the knights move into 18'' and down some with plasma talon shots, the termies cant reach them in their turn. They then move up, rapide fire, then charge. They actually wipe out all 10 stormshield termies without the termies getting to make a single attack back[this is without even bothering to take rending into account]. Thats with 9 black knights so they are actually cheaper than the termies. Obviously this is without any outside influence but they just utterly dominate most units like that.

As it is wraiths are the best unit in the game and I think black knights trump them.

With them you have a unit that is VERY mobile, very durable, probably has the best firepower of any unit in the game and are amazing in combat. Id love to see two full units of these backed up by deathwing for scoring.

[crisis_vyper]

The normal libby is a great buy but Ezekiel is only 45 points more than a basic Lvl2, for that you get an extra wound, so there is an extra 50 points anyway really, a 2+ save which would cost at least 15, Lvl3 which would be 35, a master crafted weapon for 10 and the book which is worth at least 20. I think he is worth at least 220 points.

SM have worse defense in cover and razors are pretty poor and have been since 6th was released. I think scouts are way more viable for nice cheap scoring although 5 man tac squads with flak is nice too. I dont think it matters though as death and ravenwing put them on the shelf.

The S of the rads does not matter in the slightest as it doesnt need to wound to reduce the unit toughess, just hit. You dont take it to actually kill anything, you take it reduce a units toughness. The AP of their close combat attacks doesnt matter at all either seeing as though you are getting 4S5 each and have 2 AP2 shots before you even charge in. Rending isnt even all that important its just a nice bonus, simply having 4 S5 attacks, after your hammer of wrath, on a unit that you can reduce the WS,I+T of is amazing, they will just die to weight of attacks. You dont need the invun in combat so much as after you shoot and charge, pretty much any unit in the game will have nothing left to attack back with. Black Knights are much more powerful unit for unit than deathwing and even provide anti air but as you say deathwing are scoring which is big.

You just point black knights at the best thing in the opposing army and have them kill it. They also pretty much invalidate termies in a straight up match.

If we have 10 thunder hammer termies, the knights move into 18'' and down some with plasma talon shots, the termies cant reach them in their turn. They then move up, rapide fire, then charge. They actually wipe out all 10 stormshield termies without the termies getting to make a single attack back[this is without even bothering to take rending into account]. Thats with 9 black knights so they are actually cheaper than the termies. Obviously this is without any outside influence but they just utterly dominate most units like that.

As it is wraiths are the best unit in the game and I think black knights trump them.

With them you have a unit that is VERY mobile, very durable, probably has the best firepower of any unit in the game and are amazing in combat. Id love to see two full units of these backed up by deathwing for scoring.

The only gist I have with Ezekiel is that he is unable to keep pace with the rest of the army. I did not say he is bad as I stated in the first post but for the sake of the Deathwing/Ravenwing army, they need something that can keep pace with them.

True about the Tacticals, but as stated they are not all that bad and the Salvo banner makes it all worthwhile. The Razorback + Tacticals is more of a gunline approach than anything.

After rereading the Ravenwing grenade launcher, I missed the fact that the rad grenade's effect goes off on a hit rather than a wound. Not to mention that I missed out on the fact that the Ravenwing Grenade Launcher has 4 modes of firing, which made them very flexible. For that I will amend my statement a little but the fact still remains that   they are not scoring. But I now have a higher opinion for them and am inclined to agree that I may have underestimated them due to me not reading their rules properly.

And Veq, they can't carry meltaguns.

[Narric]

What are these "Black Knights?" I don't think I've heard of them 'til this thread. Are they a Bike unit, or Infantry?

For me though, its interesting to hear what to expect if I ever play aginst a DA player blind, which is likely with the way my LGS works.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

So, this whole dex seems wonderfully built to screw over the Chaos Marine dex

And do you have to play for flakk missiles on top of the cost of a missile launcher? If not I am going to be really annoyed. I am already a bit miffed that you can have them in any missile launcher.

[Narric]

I am already a bit miffed that you can have them in any missile launcher.

Foolishly making a comparisson to real life, but aren't anti-air Missiles something light ground troops can use? Yeah, they probably need a specific type of missile Launcher, but surely in the far future a missile Launcher would have been developed to house multiple types of ammunition.

[crisis_vyper]

What are these "Black Knights?" I don't think I've heard of them 'til this thread. Are they a Bike unit, or Infantry?

For me though, its interesting to hear what to expect if I ever play aginst a DA player blind, which is likely with the way my LGS works.

Bike unit.

So, this whole dex seems wonderfully built to screw over the Chaos Marine dex

And do you have to play for flakk missiles on top of the cost of a missile launcher? If not I am going to be really annoyed. I am already a bit miffed that you can have them in any missile launcher.

You must pay for the Flakk Missile in addition to the missile launcher cost.

[BigToof]

I've taken a look at the dex and although not as incredibly smitten as some of my DA fan-mates, I think it's a solid codex that has some very fun builds.

I'm going to try and get in games versus a Ravenwing or Deathwing army soon.  Hopefully it'll pan out nicely.  I'm actually not sure which one will be worse...

Best,
-BT

[crisis_vyper]

I've taken a look at the dex and although not as incredibly smitten as some of my DA fan-mates, I think it's a solid codex that has some very fun builds.

I'm going to try and get in games versus a Ravenwing or Deathwing army soon.  Hopefully it'll pan out nicely.  I'm actually not sure which one will be worse...

I am first and foremost a Xenos player, so whenever I approach an army I always ask all the Xenos questions to myself. Never really though about Deathstars and stuff usually, and sometimes it frustrates Imperial players a lot when an Imperial Army is played like a Xenos army. So far my Ravenwing has some theoretical stuff that I wanted to test on the field, and hopefully I can get a game in this week with my Ravenwing.

To be honest Bigtoof, I say a combination of the two would be the most potent build.

[Will's on Fire]

I read it and thought pretty much everything looked like it would be useful in an army at some point. I think GW have done a good job on balancing it for all the options you could want to take from it. Ravenwing will work, Deathwing will work, and as will a 'normal' army.

It did not surprise me that it contained ap2 weapons that strike at normal init. I think that was something that would only be a matter of time before they were introduced to 6th ed codices.

I'm not so sure about the Darkshroud, I thought it screamed all shades of lame. I thought it would just be too easy to kill and can't actually cause that much damage itself.

The Deathwing Command squad could get a banner that gave +1 attack for Deathwing units within 6" is great news for deathwing armies. The apothecary seems to be a waste of points though for that squad. Don't think it would be worth the points.

- Will