Monday, March 11, 2013

Deathwing Knights vs a Defiler?



Hi everyone,

I got in a quick game of 40k today with a buddy of mine. It was his first game of 6th edition so we worked through things fairly slowly and took our time to make sure we were doing it all correctly.

I brought a plain Deathwing list (Belial, Librarian, 5 Knights, 10 Deathwing terminators, 9 Deathwing terminators, 5 sniper scouts)

My opponent brought Chaos marines (Terminator Lord, terminators, chosen, a Helbrute, noise marines, havocs and a triple lascannon predator).

Neither of us were right on the nose as far as 1500pts goes but it was enough for us to enjoy the game well. The deployment was diagonal and we played an objective game with 5 objectives. As I often do, I placed two objectives close to his deployment zone. Since the Deathwing want to get close to bully people around I figure it works to place objectives where I want to go rather than back in my own deployment zone. One point went nearby to give the scouts something to hold.

The Actual Battle

The Chaos marines popped a few shots early on but didn't do much except killing off some scouts and causing them to run back before rallying. I'd reserved the 10 terminators with Belial and the knights with both coming in on turn 1. The knights scattered a bit further back than intended but got into a fortress position for +1 toughness.

Belial's non-scattering deathstar was, quite frankly, lethal. It dropped in right behind the Helbrute, predator and havocs. They split fire so the assault cannon could take out the walker while the rest of the unit wiped out the havocs with their twin-linked shots. The unit costs nearly 700 points but damn does it hit hard.

After that the game was largely in the bag. When the Chaos terminators and Lord teleported in they had a bad round of shooting against the Deathwing (no plasma or melta in the unit) and then got mobbed by the larger numbers of bone-white walking tanks.

The Deathwing knights finally managed to slog close enough to get into combat with the Defiler. They got their one turn of Strength 10 goodness but didn't kill it off. In the end, the big beasty killed the three knights who'd make it to combat but lost 3 hull points doing so, leaving it open to a final volley from the main Deathwing squads.

In the end, 4 scouts, 5 terminators and Belial fell (the latter to a lascannon) but we managed to kill off the Chaos marines. Now I look at the lists though I feel that my opponent may have been underpointed with his choices. I'm not sure where his second troops choice was. I should also note that my Deathwing were a bit muddled together as I'm short of models to work things out how I would like to.

Deathwing thoughts

Belial - Much nastier in combat against power armour now and deadly when it comes to bringing in the deep strikers. Thumbs up for an Alpha strike HQ choice.

Librarian - Cheap and cheerful. He brings some divination goodness to the field and helps bring down more accurate shooting. Not to be knocked.

Knights - Tough and hard hitting. The fortress of shields is particularly tough and nice to have, though it puts you in prime position for blast weapons. Slow but if you get them into combat they are mean.

Deathwing - Always a solid choice, I feel like the shift has happened now to bringing mostly shooting terminators with a few storm shields to back them up. Their automatic deep striking with twin-linked shooting is a great tool to use. Adding Belial so they don't scatter is just mean.

Scouts - Always a fun unit to bring to the table, due to the first turn havoc shot the scouts did little except draw fire and hold an objective. Still not a bad investment for 70 points.

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