Physical Compatibility - Deathwing vs Dark Eldar 1750 pts

Heya all and welcome back!

Venom Pringles anyone?

I decided to test out a list that I know I will enjoy using for the sheer shenanigans on Saturday and managed to get a Deathwing player to play against. 

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Rhazal looks upon his fellow Reavers as he waits for his turn to race in the death circuit known as 'Ice Cage'. There are many circuits around Commorragh, but the 'Ice Cage' is perhaps the one that Rhazal is truly fond of. Meant to simulate an Ice World, the ring is as cold as his blood and death could come at any moment, either from the blizzards, the monsters within the ring, and especially the other Reavers. One by one, the Reavers leave the maintenance pit to race in the 'Ice Cage', their jet engines roaring and screaming as they passed him. 

It was then that Rhazal noticed chorus of sounds in the maintenance pit.

Sharp whistles and hooting howls are heard whenever Vespera passes the Reavers, but none of them dared to make a move as Vespera brough her own entourage of Incubi with her. The Incubi walked with a confident swagger alongside their Archite, their Klaives glowing with a cold fury ready to smite those foolish enough to come within a Klaive's length around Vespera.

Vespera could not believe what she is doing as of this moment, for it is not like her to ask for favours from anyone. Due to the complicated nature of this particular raid, she is forced to enter into the lair of the Reavers. Every once in a while she will have to come to this place to find pilots worthy for her Razorwing jetfighters and Voidraven Bombers, as her own Kabalites are too sluggish for aerial and space combat. 

But this time she will need the services of these imbeciles for a special task at hand. Sending any ordinary Kabalite Warrior or Trueborns to offer the deal to the Reavers would not be sufficient, as the information could be leaked to other rival Kabals. The Reavers stopped their hooting and whistling as soon as the Archite and her entourage stopped.

"I will make my deal simple. Help me and I will give those that survive the ordeal their own choice of attack craft." Suddenly the entire maintenance pit is filled with murmurs, and true to their Dark Eldar nature, none of them trusted her deal. Vespera knew that for a Reaver, being offered their own aircraft is a prestige all of their own and in essence granting those she chose an escape from the death races of Commorragh. 

"So....you are the reason for the commotion." 

A rather rough, boyish voice cuts through the murmur and Vespera turns around to see a young Dark Eldar with dark denim blue hair with bright, venomous lime green highlights walking towards her. The Incubi immediately burst into action and soon enough all the Incubi are gone.

"Stop." Vespera said, and the Incubi are once more visible, with their powered blades barely an inch away from his body. The murmurs increases in volume as the other Reavers watches on.

" Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there Milady." The Reaver jokes, and Vespera is surprised by the apparent lack of fear within the Reaver, and if he proved interesting enough, she might let him go. Not to mention that he is a rather dashing one, even if he does not realize it. She might give this Reaver an exception just for his looks, but there is something else that is bugging her about this Reaver.

"Your name." Vespera asked the Reaver.

"Rhazal, Arena Champion." The youthful Reaver answered the Archite without any hesitation, which is a feat in itself considering that four Incubi are pointing their blades at him and facing against an Archite no less.

"Khaine's Shadow." Vespera utters a word which made the Reaver smiled.

"You heard of me? I am honoured, Milady." The way in which he answers her is rather rude, and if this is any other Dark Eldar, he would be dead in a thousand pieces. Alas, she have her reasons for sparing the Reaver.

"Your voice is what saved you Reaver. You sounded familiar to me, and I now have the rare pleasure of seeing you without your visor. I did not expect that you are but a mere youngling......interesting." Vespera gives the Reaver a rather feline-like smile, and the Reaver could not help but to join in with the Archite as well, albeit this time with a little more nervousness in it.

Vespera puts a hololith in his palm, and her fingers are now caressing his chin. Soon enough her lips are now within nanometers of his ears, her voice now as soft and beguiling as the finest and most sensual of silk.

"I expect you to bring several of your Reavers along for the job." 

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Well, I decided to bring out all the Reavers that I have painted so far and decided to play around with a splashing of my Archon and as many Incubi as I could bring;

1 Archon with venom blade, combat drugs, phantasm grenade launcher, shadowfield

4 Incubi in a raider

5 squads of 5 warriors with a blaster in a Venom with second splinter cannons

2 squads of 9 Reavers with 3 heatlances and a champion with a venom blade

3 Ravagers

As for my opponent, his list consist of the following;

Belial

Librarian in Terminator armour

1 squad of 5 Terminators with an Assault cannon and two Thunder hammers and Stormshields with a Land Raider Crusader

3 squads of 5 Terminators with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and two Thunderhammers and Stormshields

Both of us are bringing in our fun list, as we both are bringing in things that we have just recently painted (Reavers in my case, Deathwing terminators for his case) as we both gotten a little tired of bringing more hardcore lists to our games for the past few weeks (He plays pure Ravenwing, while my list have a lot more dakka) and also wanted to have a more tactically challenging play.

Our mission for the day is Crusade, with 5 objectives and the deployment is Hammer and Anvil. As for warlord traits, his warlord trait is set at the hunt which is the Outflannking one. 

I rolled for drugs and I got the Painbringer (a.k.a Rerolls to wound) while for my opponent's Librarian, he rolled in the divination discipline and decided to take Prescience.

There is no nightfighting and he won the roll to deploy and with that he sets his Land Raider with Terminators behind a small ruin while the rest of his forces are in reserve for his Deathwing Assault rule. 

As for me, I am unsure if he is daring enough to deepstrike his guys in front of my entire army for just some potshots and thus I deployed to the side where there is the largest ruin and go about an anti-deepstrike formation. 

This deployment took me a while as putting all these models on the table is just arduous, especially the Reavers

I decided to not seize the initiative and with that the game begins.


Turn 1
Rhazal managed to get several of his fellow Reaver allies to come with him to the raid, and for the first time in his life he was able to participate in a realspace raid alongside a Kabal. As they race through the webway portal, he could see that Kabals are truly organizations that have powers beyond compare. 

Immediately as he entered into realspace he could see that the buildings around him are rather crude and broken, and the world dusty and foul-smelling. However before he could even formulate his opinions about realspace a loud explosion erupted right before him, and the Venom in front of him just barelly survived due to the illusions of the Flickerfield. Suddenly several of the Reavers went down as well, as a missile exploded into several fragments piercing their armour.

As the crescendo of gunfire and explosion filled his hears, he could only keep calm and move on less he too fall in this battlefield. Alas his senses are now even sharper than they were in the arena and the sensation of pain and suffering invigorates him. 

The Deathwing player decided to play a more conservative play, and using the teleporter homer on his Belial, he deepstruck around the vicinity of the target and soon enough opened fire upon my forces with his missiles, killing two Reavers and reducing one hull point off a Venom.

My first turn was spend moving and Turboboosting a lot of things and getting lots of cover saves for myself, thus leaving me with two Venoms left to shoot at a Deathwing squad with the Librarian with it. This shooting phase is utterly hopeless, but I expected it to happen anyway.

Turn 2
Before Rhazal could even contemplate what is going on, his reflexes caused him to swerve his bike and barely avoiding several shots flying towards him and his unit. Several of the Reavers did not react in time and several more went down in flames. His heart started racing and his reflexes dulled down a little due to the myriads of emotion within his mind as he saw the bone white giants walking towards him, their eyes glowing red. For once in his life, Rhazal felt fear.

He immediately swerved his bike to move in another direction, but then noticed that another group of these giants are now upon the Archite and her retinue. For some odd reason, he decided that he must kill those giants coming towards the Archite and he revved up his engine and with unrivalled speed he used his bike as a weapon and sliced one of the giants down, and several of his Reaver brethrens also sliced down some of the giants.

My opponent disembarked Belial and his terminators while his other units moved on closer to the objectives near his side. During his shooting phase, he managed to gun down quite a number of reavers (both squads) down using his Land Raider Crusader and also his terminators. The Reaver squad at his deployment zone (designated Reaver A)and the one within mine (designated Reaver B) did not fail their leadership.

His missiles failed to do much this turn once more, but his Belial squad managed to bring down two Venoms, and thus earning First Blood. His Belial squad then charged into one of the Kabalite warriors squad and wiped it out.

As for my turn,I maneuvered a number of my units towards Belial and hope that I could kill them off and earn Slay the Warlord. My Raider moved itself to the space between the Land Raider and my own forces while my Venoms decided to move forward to put the Librarian squad within its sights. During the shooting phase, I managed to reduce the hull point of the Land raider down by one and stunning it, while my Venoms and their passengers managed to kill off three terminators.

My Ravagers combined with the bladevaning from Reaver A and shooting from Reaver B managed to kill off a number of Belial's retinue off and reducing it down to one dude with Thunder Hammer and Belial himself. Reaver B failed to try and jump back (damn you double 1s) after they shot, and I soon learned that I can never rely on that 2D6s roll to roll an average.

My Archon and the Incubi decided to charge in to try and finish the job. I did not offer the challenge, but my opponent did, and with that we are locked in combat. I managed to kill off the remaining Deathwing dude, but since Belial is fearless we are locked in combat.

Turn 3
Sensing that the Archite is in good hands, Rhazal and his Reavers moved ahead and soon come face to face with a large brutish vehicle, armed to the teeth with a myriad of weapons. The vehicle opened fire and suddenly the other Reaver squad was mowed down by the firepower. Rhazal could see that the survivors are now making a run for it, and Rhazal knew that if he were to survive he would have to kill that thing.

One of the other Reavers fired its Heatlance and managed to penetrate the vehicle, but failing to kill it. Before long, several shots from the passsengers in the Venoms grazed its armour but the hulking vehicle did not want to go down. The gun of the hulking thing soo swivelled and Rhazal knew that death is coming soon. However a trio of darklight came from behind him and destroyed the vehicle in a spectacular explosion, bringing down several of the Reavers accompanying him as well.

My opponent's third turn is rather uneventful as he understood that he had lost the game of maneuver with my forces and could only hope to try and make my life difficult with the attempts to reduce my forces. He casted his prescience within a problem upon one of the Deathwing squad and soon enough he fall back to a more defensible location. With that done, he fired upon my forces.

His Land Raider managed to reduce Reaver B down to two dudes, and Reaver B failed their leadership check and ran away. He also shot some of the dudes in Reaver A down as well, reducing them to three dudes. Luckily for me Reaver A passed their leadership once more. He also managed to bring down another Venom down during his shooting phase, but he failed to kill any of my Ravagers. During the combat phase, my Archon managed to bring Belial down to a single wound, but since he is fearless we are both stuck in combat.

In my turn I managed to regroup Reaver B and with my forces I pushed on ahead, with the Kabalite warriors running towards the objectives due to their dismal range. The Land Raider Crusader is the primary target for this round, and with the combined firepower of one Ravagers, one blaster and a Heatlance from Reaver A, I managed to kill it. My shooting towards the Deathwing squads that was near the objective is quite successful as I managed to kill off three  Deathwing on each squad.

In the assault phase, Reaver A jumped far enough to hide behind a terrain in my deployment zone while the combat with Belial ends in a stalemate.

Turn 4
Rhazal is now filled with the euphoria of battle and could not contain his excitement, however it did not last. He suddenly hears a bone-chilling scream and turns around to see the Archite being struck down by bone-white giant's weapon. Believing her dead, he wanted to avenge the Archite but then noticed that the Incubi are now violently hacking at the brute with all their might. However the brute did not seem bothered by the weapons and with a single swing, struck two of them down. Realizing that they are outmatched, the Incubi dropped their weapons and began pulling the Archite away from the beast.  

Realizing that I was also going for the objectives, he rushed his Terminators towards the objectives, he managed to move them all closer to the objectives. He tried to shoot down my Ravagers, but he failed to kill any one of them. In  In the assault phase, my Archon finally failed her invulnerable save and bit the dust. My Incubi managed to pass their leadership and stayed in the fight.

Seeing that the only way I could win this is to play to the mission, I went ahead and managed to move my two Kabalite warrior squads to the two objectives. Another good thing that happened during this turn is that I managed to regroup Raver B, which also opens even more avenue for contesting objectives for me.

This allowed me to at least have options when I play for the subsequent turns. With that I decided to unleash even more firepower upon the Terminators, but unfortunately I was not that lucky and only killed one off the Librarian squad. My Incubi went on ahead and try to kill Belial, but they utterly failed to penetrate that Storm Shield of his and he bahses two of them to oblivion. I failed my leadership and ran away.

Turn 5
As Rhazal speeds towards the beast, ready to kill him with his own hands the beast soon  turned his attention towards a ravager speeding past him, and with one throw of his hammer he downed the vehicle. Rhazal could not even comprehend the skill of the brute in bringing down a Ravager as the vehicle is among the fastest in the universe and the monster brought it down

Rhazal suddenly realized that this beast is a great warrior, and the Dark Eldar within him is telling him that if he dares to go ahead and challenge the beast, he would be dead. However, a darkligght beam came out of the blue and brought down the beast before he could do even more harm. 

"You...."  Rahzal could hear the Archite's voice calling for him and he realized that the Archite and her retinue are now below him. 
"Milady....you are alive!!!" Rhazal exclaimed with surprise.
"That would not kill me. Remember your just reward ....you fool." Before he could even reply, the Archite once again fell limp. 
"Fear not Reaver, Lady Vespera is just unconscious. We will take care of her." The Incubi said to him. Recalling that the Incubi are the only trustworthy Dark Eldar, Rhazal left her to the care of her Incubi. As he races throughout the entire burning battlefield, he could see the dead and the dying everywhere and wondered where could that thing that she seek be. 

"Rhazal, look up ahead. Something's going on there." One of the Reavers pointed out, and Rhazal's eyes noticed that the Dark Eldar forces are now concentrating their fire on that particular location. Without even a second's hesitation, he revs his jetbike and zooms towards the war zone. As he draws closer he sees a bone white giant holding his ground shooting his weapons at the Dark Eldar forces. Rhazal decided to ascend through the heavens to the point where the bike started stalling.

With a death-defying dive, Rhazal dived down spinning his entire jetbike towards the bone white giant. As he descends faster and fast, Rhazal could feel the exhilaration of speed coursing through his body and he could only smile behind his visor. He powers back his jetbike and drifts his jetbike in a scything arch while barrel-rolling towards the bone giant..

The bone giant was caught by surprise and the jetbike manages to slice the throat of the bone giant off but without decapitating him. As Rhazal regains control of his bike and stops, the Dark Eldar forces cheered him on. The bone giant twitches before collapsing on its knees.

The Reaver walks towards the fallen brute and notices something under its feet. Rhazal soon realize that it is what he was looking for.

My opponent moves his forces towards the objectives, and tried to gun down my ravagers, and managing to strip two hull points off one of the Ravagers and killed off the Raider. In the assault phase, Belial made short work of the Ravager with the single hull point.

Since this could potentially be the last turn, I really need to kill Belial for that extra VP and also to protect the kabalites that were sitting on my objectives. For that I decided to use Reaver A to do something about it along with the Kabalites on the objectives, while the rest of my forces concentrate on the two man Deathwing squad to take it off the objective.

In my shooting phase, one of the Kabalite squad managed to kill Belial off, thus earning me the Slay the Warlord point as well.

The two man Deathwing squad suffered the wrath of the remainder of my army and even with that one Deathwing still survives and will let him win the game by a big margin. I was actually thinking a little harder than I shouldd have, when I realized that Reaver A is still alive. With nothing else to lose, I decided to turboboost the squad and bladevane the lone Terminator and really hope that I could pull it off.

To my amazement, the Deathwing terminator died, and man was I happy as hell. However, I was expecting a loss, as I thought that the Deathwing squad with the Librarian was also holding an objective.

Since this is the end of turn 5, we rolled to see if the game goes on and with a roll of one, the game ends.

Post-Game and Afterthoughts

Rhazal is now in the heart of the Kabal of the Rapturous Venom along with the other four Reavers that survived the raid, and he could not believe that he and a few others would be granted the riches needed to get out of the ring forever. As he stands uncomfortably in the throne room, he also remember that a Dark Eldar is by nature treacherous, and he was wondering if the Kabal called him all the way here to make him 'disappear'. Indeed that is something not unusual in the dark city, and Rhazal's mind is literally going to places where even he is not sure of.

"Reavers...." the soft, sultry and silky voice enters his ear and the Reavers turn around to see that the Archite is no longer in her armour like those she clads herself in during her visit to the racing circuit and also the battlefield. Instead he is now looking at a being of impossible beauty, matching those of Leiltih Hesperax herself, her gown almost translucent, revealing her naked amourous form and her long, velvety dark turquoise hair running down her back. As she stared at him with her bright azure eyes, Rhazal could only looked at her and her......assets. As she walks towards her throne, the dark reflective surface of the floor only serves to inflame their masculine nature.

"Well done all of you, for surviving. My Kabalites shall lead you to your prize. Rhazal, you shall remain here." Before long, the Kabalite warriors led the other Reavers out of the throne room, leaving Rhazal alone with the Archite.
"They will not leave this place alive won't they?" Rhazal finally opens his mouth, and in response the Archite could only smile devilishly.
"Indeed. But you will. Come closer till I ask you to stop." 

The Reaver walks closer to the Archite, not sure of her actions. Before long, he is already standing right before her. He hesitated as soon as he is in front of the throne.
"Reaver...did I ask you to stop?" Before long, he is now leaning towards the throne and he could feel her breath on his neck, and the sensation of her smooth flesh wrapping around him in an embrace. He could feel her soft bosom on his chest, and before long he could feel her body heat upon his own. He tried to keep his arousal down, however it all broke down when he heard Vespera's words

"I have always been a big admirer of yours, and indeed I was looking for you.....I am yours for tonight.' Vespera's lips meets the Rhazal's own, and she gives the young Reaver a rather sensual kiss that ignites the passion within the young Dark Eldar. 

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Well, the game result in the end of the day;

Deathwing: 6 VP

Dark Eldar: 8 VP

Dark Eldar Victory!

I was honestly surprised when it turned out that the Librarian-led Deathwing were 5" away from the objectives, short of capturing it. 

As for the tactics in this game, I find that my opponent's target priority was a little off due to the presence of the Reavers messing with a lot of things in his army. In addition, his forces were outmaneuvered and outgunned by my own which caused a lot of problems for him. 

My mistake would be that I moved Reaver A too aggressively during the first turn which allowed my opponent to shoot at them. I should have waited a little more patiently before I commit them. I really need to learn to use my Reavers patiently, less I killed them off for nothing. Target priority-wise, I should have shot a little earlier at the Crusader instead of trying to murder off the Belial squad, and I almost paid the price for my hubris.

Nonetheless, I was pleased with my performance in this game as some daring play on my part worked out for me.

Edit: Turns out that Belial is the one with the teleporter homer. Editted.

Ravenwing update - some WIP models

Heya all and welcome back!

Well, life has been quite busy, but at least I got some time on Martin Luther King to finally sit down and go about making two very interesting models. These are work in progress as I do not have the parts and/or decisiveness to choose a wargear and also that I am going to do more work on them.

Without further ado, here is the first bad boy of the bunch; the Techmarine. 

I find him to be one of my most enjoyable kit-bashes and also conversion, as I essentially used exclusively Ravenwing parts to make this guy without spending a penny. Some putty here and there, and some blade work gave birth to this guy. So far, I am uncertain about what kind of weapon I should give him other than the melta and also whether I want to model him sitting on the bike or standing next to his bike in a calm, collected manner.

The second model would be my Biker Librarian.

This guy take a lot of work, as I essentially went on to sculpt the cloak and his scarf to fit the mood of the model. That and there are some putty work and serious bladework on fitting the book and other nonsense on his back. I am very satisfied with this guy as he looks like he is pausing to cast a power or something. Weapon-wise I am highly unsure about what kind of force weapon I would like to give him.

The librarian would be an auto-include in my army as I like Prescience, but the Techmarine is more like me wanting to go a little crazy on my conversions. Either that or I can always include him with the Librarian and Sammael in a Ravenwing Command Squad with the Banner of Awesomeness (Whatever Banner I want to field for the day) and be happy that they could potentially survive enough shots or something. Not even sure about the Ravenwing Command Squad, but I guess I can always put them in for fun and for the Dakka.

See ya on the bounce!

The Dark Angels in Progress

Heya all, and welcome back! Well my semester is starting out with a bang, and there is so much to do, but it is a much more enjoyable semester (so far). Whenever I have some free time or something, I have been assembling some Ravenwing. And now, with the exception of the special weapons (which I do not have) and  some wargear decisions, I am done assembling the bulk of my Ravenwing force.

It looks pretty impressive once I put them on the table. Now the question is to see how this army will work, and also to try and get a few more models to make this army functional (more or less).

Ravenwing Black Knights - Deathstar extraordinaire?

Heya all, and welcome back to the webway.

Today I would like to talk about a certain unit from the Dark Angels codex; The Black Knights.

Fluffwise, they are a souped-up Ravenwing bike squad. Gamewise, they are potentially a nasty deathstar.

In order to understand why this unit is a deathstar you will have to see what a certain wargear does; The Ravenwing Grenade Launcher. The Ravenwing Grenade Launcher is essentially 4 weapons rolled into one; with the option to fire either a frag grenade shot, a krak grenade shot, a Rad grenade shot, or a Stasis grenade shot. The first two are essentially Guardsmen grenade launchers with rapid fire slapped onto them, but the last two will be the one we will be talking about.

Both of these are assault 1 blast weapons, with the Rad grenade shot being Str 3 while the Stasis being Str -. Despite their apparent mediocre wounding (in the case of the statis, very bad wounding), the main effect of these shots kicks off if you hit with them. The Rad grenade is similar to the Grey Knights book that it reduces the toughness of the models that were hit by the grenade, and it could affect instant death. The Statis grenade on the other hand is similar to that Tyranid power, that it reduces the Weapon Skill and Initiative of the models that were hit by the grenade. Even though they only reduce the characteristic by one, but the fact still remains that they can stack and thus make a lot of units feeling really dumb about themselves.

Now that we know about the grenades, we now need to look at what the Black Knights have in addition to these things. They are mostly armed with the Corvus hammmer, which is a +1 str Shred weapon with no AP. The weapon may be mediocre, but combined with the rad grenades you find yourself with a rather mighty weapon, and since it is a one handed weapon, you can use this in conjunction with the bolt pistol to give yourself a +1 attack. This combined with the Plasma Talons would usually make short work of anything that have to suffer their wrath. Last but not least, this unit is really fast and mobile, with the USR Hit and Run, Scouts, and Skilled Rider to boot.

Now that we have the pros, now we will have to go to the cons.

For one, they do not have any invulnerable saves. This could mean trouble especially when they are facing an unit that could withstand their attack and strike back with everything they have. Powerfists and Thunderhammers are big threats to this unit. In addition, they are not scoring which makes the investment on them really a question of how much points are you willing to spend on this unit while not weakening your scoring options. Thirdly they might be a victim of their own success and kill off whatever unit that they are assaulting and thus expose themselves to retaliatory firepower. Last but not least, Flyer armies will be a challenge for this unit.

The ways that I would actually improve this unit is actually a simple Darkshroud. Why is that you ask? With the Darkshroud, I could confer Stealth upon these crazy bastards and if they move they will get a 3+ cover saves when they move, and a 2+ when they turboboost. This would actually help them defend themselves from stupid nonsense such as an IG static defense line, and actually mash through an enemy unit. In order to make this combo into a spicy dish, I can always take two squads of 9 Black Knights with 3 Ravenwing Grenade Launchers with some scoring Deathwing and a Librarian on a bike with stuff from the Divination discipline to rock the house hard. Will anyone be crazy enough to try this? I sure believe so. Do they have the money to make such an army? I sure believe so too. Will this win games? Not necessarily.

Just a review for what is perhaps one of the best unit in the game right now.

Dark Angels Opinion

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 book 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 6" 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;

Quote

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.