A full 2+ save army dream



During a constitutional the other morning I started thinking of a super elite force that I could or would want to run. I grabbed the first codex that screams small elite force, Codex Dark Angles. Hello Deathwing!

Why would I want to run Deathwing? Well it would be a low model count to paint. It is comprised of fearless Terminators. There is the fact not very many people play it, or Dark Angels at all. It would be the cheapest army to build in a growing expensive 40K hobby.

So the Deathwing, they went to white armor due to some non-Native American Native American-esqe tradition. They killed a pack of genestealers infesting their homeworld, and went all white armor on them to make them ghost warriors or some such nonsense. I’ve read the short story about this fight. It wasn’t great, but hey all can’t be right? So they are bone white Terminators and have the typical Dark Angel iconography and the occasional feathers and such. I can work with that, I think.

Well what do we need to run these guys? Well first we need Belial as our HQ. He unlocks Terminators as troops. So we have already started. He isn’t terrible. WS 5, BS 5 S 4, T 4, I 5, LD 10, 3 wounds and attacks and the Deathwing standard 2+/5++. Comes with a master crafted power sword, old edition re-roll one close combat miss. He can also swap out for power claws or hammer and shield for free. Honestly I’d probably keep the sword or go claws. Having a HQ waste their speed with a thunder hammer is bad.

He also has the option to let a terminator be an Apothecary, old school with auto pass a failed save within 6” (as long as doesn’t Instant Death and non power weapon and such in close combat). It also reduces the number when needing to roll 25% casualties from shooting leadership tests, which doesn’t matter since the whole of these guys are Fearless.

Then one guy can also carry a banner which lets you re-roll pinning and moral checks with 12”, which once again doesn’t matter, since the Fearless rule is there. It does let the squad it is in fight with +1 attack, and that can be handy.

After Belial I have 1370 left to build to my 1500 usual. Now I go to the meat of the force Terminators! These can be elite or troop with Belial as the HQ. What makes the cool? Well, they can only be bought in squads of 5. They are Fearless, which helps with the small numbers in the squad. They come with storm bolters and powerfists as standard. They can also swap out for power claws or hammer and shield for free. Sure it is the old 4++ storm shield, but that is better than a dumpy 5++ isn’t it? 

They can also take a heavy flamer, assault cannon or cyclone missile launcher in the squad. Sure it is also the old one shot frag/ krak missile launcher, but it is still a moveable (thank you Relentless) heavy weapon. So these 5 guys can be built to be shooty with the assault cannon, somewhat anti most vehicles with the missile launcher, or anti troop-ish with the heavy flamer. They can also be loaded out with power claws for extra attacks and re-roll wounds or thunder hammers for the big guys that need a mallet to the face.  They can also just take a little of everything and play the, albeit lesser, Nob Biker game of lots of different guys to spread the wounds around. Now if only they had multiple wounds, people would for sure be doing that nonsense.  

We all know now that this unit is fearless. It can also perform a Deathwing Assault. What is that? Well before game pick ½ of the Deathwing and they deploy via Deep Strike on turn one. Awesome if you are going second or useless depending on the mission/opponent. The rest can deploy normal or Deep Strike in as well. So they have that going for them too.

Now we all know what these guys can have let me put them in a squad. Ideally I need a Cyclone Launcher. Sure it is subpar compared to now, but we can’t play that game. This means one guy gets a missile launcher. Then we will have 4 gentlemen with hammers and shields. Let’s just take two squads like this then! So we have 470 points for our two troop choices and that takes us to 600 points for troops and HQ.

Now let me get some more bodies on the field. I like the missile launchers en mass so we will run another squad with one and then the rest of the squad with fists and storm bolters. I think I’ll just take another squad similar to that one. So yes, two of those please.

This gives my 430 odd points to play with still. So let me just take the Apothecary upgrade in one squad. So this gives me 400 points left. That is not enough for two more squads, so I’ll just grab one squad at points and give them all power claws, just for kicks.

Well still too many points and not enough for Terminators. So if I can’t add more units of Terminators, I’ll just add a guy with Terminator armor. Let me just throw in a Librarian with Terminator armor and a combi weapon of some type. The full field psychic hood is fun, his powers really aren’t though. A random strength and AP flamer and a modified armor save taken off leadership aren’t great. However, he is, I think, better than a chaplain. Why? Well the full field hood and force weapon are nice options. The flamer power might be fun (2D6-2 for strength just roll higher than 6 please!) and the 50% chance to make it AP3 or less will scare marines….if they are outside of vehicles and near this guy.

Well that leaves me enough points to throw in the standard bearer and have 5 whole points left over. So let’s look at the full list!

HQ- Belial with claws

HQ- Librarian with Terminator armor and combi weapon of some type (probably melta)

Troop- Deathwing with Hammer/Shield, Cyclone Launcher

Troop- Deathwing with Hammer/Shield, Cyclone Launcher, add Apothecary here (Belial runs here)

Troop- Deathwing with Cyclone Launcher

Troop- Deathwing with Cyclone Launcher

Troop- Deathwing with Power claws x5, add Standard bearer here (Librarian with these guys for fun)

So yes, this is a foot list and BOO!  BOO! screams most of the interweb. I like the 1^st turn Deep Strike and with six squads I’m sure to get what I want when I want 1^st turn. The where can be worst part, if scatter is bad, but no risk/no reward.  I have proxied these guys twice before. Once was three squads in Landraiders, and a drop pod Dreadnought which was semi viable if there isn’t a lot of melta (when isn’t there?).  The other time was similar, but minus the dread and more Terminators on foot. On was a kill point game the other was objectives. The kill point game was a loss vs. double Demon Princes; the objective game was a tie. Having fearless Terminators on an objective is fun!

This list is the cheapest I can think of and that is with Terminator boxes going for $50 retail. Three Assault Terminator boxes and three regular Terminator boxes (or Black Reach for cheaper with Cyclone bits from the web) should build most of this army. This is way cheaper than the armies I have and am still working on. Will I build this? Probably not, but it would be fast. Especially if I painted them as Consecrators or Disciples of Caliban instead of typical bone white. Dark green and black 9or black and red) are so much faster than off white, green and red. Yet, the bone white does make an striking appearance on the tabletop.