More Musings (Deathwing Vs Wolfwing + C:SM whinging)

While trawling through a few of my forums I have come across a few topics that peaked my interest and I just want to delve into them a little bit. I do tend to ramble a little as thoughts come to me as I write so just bear with me.

One of the interesting things I have seen is that people want a lot more out of Codex: Space marines. I see talk about being able to make viable armies from 1-10th company. Which is fair enough I suppose since people want to mould their armies like they want.

The problem I see with that is it is just not realistic, in either the game or fluff. C:SM is meant to be a template for the typical Generic Marine Company deploying to a Typical Generic Scenario. This means mixed units. It means assault units supported by tactical and heavy units.

I think GW are doing rather well with how they have disbursed these specialized companies across various codii. If you want to do an Assault company then use the BA codex. 1st co then you can take Dark Angels Deathwing or  the SW codex. A Crusade/Legion army then you have Black Templar to use.

I have seen people say that you could gain access to these companies via wargear options i.e. Want access to an Assault Company then giving your Captain a Jump Pack allows Assault Squads to be used as troops or give him Carapace Armour to make him into a scout captain or even arm him with a heavy weapon ala Davian Thule from DoW to make a devastator captain with devs as troops.

However this would dilute the specialness of the other chapters and make them less interesting. We have already seen some of this with Bike Captains being able to take bike squads as troops. This has had an impact with Ravenwing players (and there is no end to the bitching I have seen)

It also allows them to expand the fluff of various elements of the Space Marines. You would not get the reams of lovely stuff found in the DA codex if you were to have a unified Space Marine Codex.

So I see C:SM being very good for what it is. A generic codex for use by the majority of players which allows a fair amount of selection. If you want specialized companies then you need to use specialized codii.

The second is the debate when it comes to First Company and which codex to use. Dark Angels vs Space Wolves.

To be honest I don’t care much either way which codex people want to use. I am not a long time Dark Angels player (in fact I am not a DA player at all) but I do use their codex for the Deathwing rules to fun my Ultramarine First Company. I do have a few thoughts though.

I can see and understand why the DA players are getting pissed. They have had the 2 things that made their chapter unique taken away. i.e the ability to take Terminator and Bike units as troops. Without those they are just over priced marines with obsolete wargear. I am not going to look at the bike issue as it doesn’t effect me one bit.

I am a new comer to the whole Deathwing and have only had the codex for around 2 months. What this means is that I had a choice when it came to what codex to choose: SW or DA and I can tell you that the GW staff really tried hard to get me to buy the SW one. I had to sit and think long and hard about it and despite the fact that the SW codex was far stronger, had better wargear and more versatility I decided to go with the DA codex.

My reasoning for this (and I am sure that many people would disagree with me on this) is down purely to fluff and appearance. The Dark Angels are, baring a few bits and pieces, generally Codex adherent which means they are closer in rule set to the Ultramarines than the Space Wolves are. I also believe that the Deathwing rules represent a Codex 1^st Company far better than the Space Wolves do. The reasons they do are:

•         Wargear options are closer.
•          Led by a captain, not a Chapter Master.
•          Able to teleport.
•          Ability to take a “command squad” i.e. apothecary and banner bearer.
•          Can take Chaplains and Librarians in TDA. (I know that SW have the equivalent but it’s not the same)
•          I know many would not agree but I feel that the 4++ save in CC only of the DA Storm Shields is a far better representation than the 3++ always of the current C:SM and C:SW

While I know that there are some major issues with C:DA (like why on earth Belial is the only DA Captain not to have a 4+ Invulnerable) I feel that the good far outweighs the bad.

That being said, there are just as many reasons to have taken the SW option, they just weren’t the right reasons for me.