"Hi Kirby,
As a long time Dark Angel player too stubborn to switch codexes, I've been trying to get the most competitive list possible based on some of your marine lists.
(1) Sammael on Jetbike
(5) Deathwing Squad w/ assault cannon, chainfist
(1) Dreadnought w/ twin lascannons, heavy flamer
(6) Company Vet Squad w/ 4 combi-plasmas, 1 combi-melta, 1 meltagun, Drop Pod
(3) Bike Squad w/ 2 meltaguns, attack bike w/ multimelta
(3) Bike Squad w/ 2 meltaguns, apothecary, attack bike w/ multimelta
(10) Tactical Squad w/ rocket launcher, flamer, Razorback w/ twin lascannons
(10) Tactical Squad w/ rocket launcher, flamer, Razorback w/ twin lascannons
1750pts.
Plan is for bikes to scout ahead, turn 1 drop off terminators via deathwing assault then move into melta range. The Vets come in later to further disrupt the enemy's back line. Long range support from the razors, dread, tact missiles and sammy's plasma cannon.
I know Marines can do a similar thing and still have points left over, but scouting bikes and accurate deep striking termies on turn 1 means I can be right in the enemy's face.
Any thoughts on how i could optimize this list?"I'm afraid the list is a bit all over the place. It looks like you're trying for a Fast'N'Slow concept but with some Termies and Tacs thrown into the mix so let's keep that theme but cut out the fat. Drop the Vets first of all. It's nice to have Drop Pods not automatically come in on T1 but you've got in your face fun from the Ravenwing Bikes, leave it at that. The Dread should be changed around as well to a more suitable weapon. An MM or Assault Cannon would be a better bet and replacing the Vet squad with a 2nd Dread would be wise, too.
The bike squads are good but you don't really need the Apoth. I'd personally take 4 of these tiny squads to really give your opponent fits and you've got great combat support from the Dreads and Terminators (this is what Dark Angels should be like when they are re-done). That's a lot of melta on fearless squads in your face ASAP. The tacticals don't provide much I'm afraid. For their points you're basically getting two heavy weapons, oh joy. I'd drop them down to 5 men with a flamer to make the RBacks scoring and provide a little bit of ranged firepower but that's about it. We still want some more ranged dakka (if only Ravenwing bike squads got good Typhoons!) and we've got plenty of FA and HS left for us to use (if not many points).
The DA Typhoon is a bit of fail and we've got quite a bit of melta in the Bikes + Dreads so we'll steer clear of the Speeders for the moment and shore up our anti-infantry and range with Preds. 2 Dakka Preds will put us bang on 2000 points...and yet we're playing 1750! Damnit. If we lose a bike squad we're down to 1810 but I don't really want to drop down to only two bike squads as they'd be quite vulnerable but looks like we have to. Losing another bike squad sits us at 1620 and we can upgrade one of our original squads with 3 extra bikes with 30 points left over. We'll give the Dreads Heavy Flamers and all the Sarges meltabombs (or some combi-weapons, up to you) leaving us with:
Sammael on Jetbike
2x Dread w/MM, HF
5x Deathwing Terminators w/AC
2x5xTacticals w/flamer, Sarge w/mbombs, RBack w/TLLC
6x Ravenwing Bikers w/2x meltagun, AB w/MM, Sarge w/mbombs
3x Ravenwing Bikers w/2x meltagun, AB w/MM, Sarge w/mbombs
2x Predators w/HB sponsons
Totals: 1750 points
12 bikes
6 vehicles
15 infantry
Trimmed the fat and got more guns and bodies which is good whilst keeping the same concept and codex alive. Is it done better by Vanilla? Sure but imagine this done with a new codex and special rules for the Bikes/Termies...ya, who can't wait for DA =D? lol
