So looking into 2013 what will the state of the game of 40k
be? For me personally it brings TempleCon 2013 and the Onslaught GT within it.
For this tournament I have been hoping on using a new Dark Angels book, expected
to be out just in a month before the tournament, with my Guardians of the Covenant
army. I expect this to be consisting of
large, beefy new units of deathwing
terminators, some ravenwing bikers and hopefully a plasma predator or two as
well as a skyfire whirlwind.
This all sounds nice but, even with the Ward-Effect will
this be any good by then?
I do remember the last TempleCon I went to, which was the
2011 one, a new deathwing FAQ/Errata let one of the attendees win with that
army, but I don’t think at the 2013 edition a new Dark Angels book can win the
day. Saying we live past the 22nd of this month ;) ... Basically its due to the scourge of daemons and the likelihood that you
would play at least one or two of these in a tournament these days. Last week I
played a game with my deathwing against a friend of mines Tzeentch daemon army
and got tabled. The problem was between the flamers and screamers my only advantage
was effectively neutralized. Flamers ignore my terminators armor and the
toughness boost of my bikes, aka my only trump card is burned. Even with a
points reduction and the weirdo-ward effect adding in some wacky thing like on
a 2+ your unit clones itself every phase or some crazy BS like that a
terminator is still a terminator and a biker is still a biker. These daemons
will still exsist taking away our main advantage. Counting out everything except
for a really broken psychic powers chart the new Dark Angel book cannot conceivably
take away the daemon scourge.
Really right now the only thing that seems to trump daemons
is blob guard. Who almost benefit from a flamer only wounding them on a 4+
instead of a normal one wounding on a 3+ and who cares about ap2 screamers when
everything outside of a wet paper bag penetrates guard armor. They take their hits and then FRFSRF a blob
guard unit and lay down 100+ lasgun shots vaporizing any daemon unit around.
This with bubble wrapping make them almost necessary to win a CURRENT 6th
edition east coast styled tournament…..I even have this army and love it but
think its lame.
My new Angels have about just as many advantages against the
guard scourge as anyone else as well, except those who make 2+ saves like a
champ will always have a slight edge. Its the same deal with fighting space pups. With the rumors of
plasma-domination in the Dark Angels book will make the new Angels have a
slight edge over MEQ’s in general although.
So Deathwing will be common but ravenwing is a serious
contender of an army that we should see more with a set of them in the starter
set. Realistically everyone is already taken plasma guns without any real viable 2+ save targets
to shoot at already, so with finally something to shoot at that needs a plasma gun to do real damage with will only
be compounded. Yet nothing will really
change until a new daemon book possibly comes out in April or May. In which they will either be pulled back in or be
fully unleashed in a new age of Brokenhammer to make 5th edition Grey Knight cheesiness
look childish in comparison. Then we will need to wait for a summer or fall
Eldar book to hopefully reign everything in.
I just hope Ezekiel can fit somewhere in my list…..more on
this later.
Disagree about the only thing stopping the current flamer/screamer spam being IG blob.
ReplyDeleteAny army that can leverage massive small-arms fire is capable of doing well, particularly "MSU" style that prevents screamers from killing big units in one go, now I have to either risk mutli-charging or take twice as long (hint: combat-squads!).
I've had my ass handed to me by armies that can shoot units at a time away. A million splinter shots; thousands of psybolt stormbolter shots; dozens of flamers to take advantage of deep-strike formation.
Similarly, hordes can be a problem. More often than not the hordes can take the alpha-strike and shit out enough firepower to remove several units. Think Shoota Orks backed up by Lootas and Lobbas.
The problem with the Deathwing is that it has neither the massive firepower nor the massive bodies. But these two problems aren't only going to be problems when dealing with Daemons. Armies that have massive small-arms fire are going to generate enough wounds that the Terminators will roll handfuls of 1s, and the low anti-infantry firepower of the Deathwing will not be able to stop hordes.
I don't see Deathwing doing well at all in the current meta. Maybe as allies with some IG? :)