Monday 7 December 2009

Ultrawing spanked by Wolves :(

I have decided to use the DA Deathwing rules to run an Ultramarines First Co Army aka Ultrawing.

Played my Ultrawing for the first time yesterday against a fairly nasty Space Wolf Terminator army and got tabled by round 4. 


Though my dice rolling was fairly horrible (And it was horrible, Belial killed 2 Blood Claws over 3 turns of Combat, Dreadnoughts hit nothing over 3 turns of combat etc etc) I believe the main issue that led to my defeat was :


A: I dont know how to play Deathwing properly yet. This will change as I get more games under my belt and peruse more forums etc. Its a radically different type of game style compared to how I usually run my Marine army.


B: This is related to the above but I have no idea what the ideal weapons mix is. I think I mixed my squads up far too much which made them ineffective in support or assault. Not enough shooty to kill from range and not assaulty enough to mix it up.

Reading through various topics on various forums seems to indicate that you should keep the squads in a full support or assault role with perhaps a single terminator in each squad equipped differently for wound allocation and versatility.



Do the Deathwing players out there agree with that or am I missing something.

The list I ran yesterday (and its pretty much every model I have) looked like this:

Belial with LC @ 130

Interrogator-Chaplain @ 145

Command Squad @ 300
• Banner Bearer
• Apothecary
• SB/PW Sergeant
• LC
• Assault Cannon

Squad 1 @ 225
• SB/PW Sergeant
• H/Flamer + Chain Fist
• SB/PF
• TH/SS
• LC

Squad 2 @ 220
• TH/SS Sergeant
• LC
• Chain Fist
• SB/PF
• TH

Squad 3 @ 220
• Chain fist
• LC Sergeant
• SB/PF
• TH/SS
• LC

Dread @ 130
• Heavy Flamer
• MM

Dread @ 125
• Plasma Cannon

Land Raider @ 250

Total: 1745



As stated before, its an entirely new dynamic playing this army. A total of 25 models including dreads and LR means you don't have the ability to absorb casualties like other builds.


I am hoping to be able to get another squad of terminators for christmas which will hopefully allow me to add some versatility into the army with additional HW's like AC's and CML's which I think will help.

3 comments:

  1. I mix and match my weapon loadouts in my squads.
    Playing Deathwing is definitely different from "other" armies na dit takes time to learn it.
    With only a handful of models, it's not very forgiving of mistakes.

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  2. Unlucky in those games mate. Space Wolves are the current "monster" army, so considering you are trying a whole new army I think it could be forgiven.

    As for loadouts, I would avoid straying too much into Jack of All Trades territory. The TH/SSs are wasted unless they are together in one squad where they become very hard to kill and very high on your opponent's priorities (both good things). Equally, shooty elements should be kept together as you will often want to run your assaulty elements.

    Also, I know it's expensive but please get some heavy weapons in there! Cyclones are much better than they used to be in previous editions of 40k , so get a couple included!

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  3. the problems with DA cyclones is that they are the old single shot variety. The TH/SS are also the old rules, so the storm shields are not particularly useful. I put a TH/SS on one guy in my Deathwing force just because I liked the dark angle's SS upgrade bit. Unless you are like the models I am not sure they are useful.

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