I've just replied to a quite a few e-mails which I would normally post on the blog personally as I was quite behind on my replies thanks to holidays and the FAQs taking up a bunch of space. With this e-mail I'm up to Jan 12th and have just under 20 remaining so if you've sent me an e-mail, don't worry! it's coming.
"Hi
Ever since RT I kind of dug the Flesh Eaters (I was a kid back then and liked the fact that the marine had "Pray for death" scribbled on his armour). In the new BA codex they got undone by the flaw. Perfect. Really. I liked it. So I started thinking, I could start a small Flesh Eaters army, all Death Company to illustrate their final days as a chapter. Astorath shows up and leads this bunch of raving madmen (not advertisement kind) and their chaplains to their doom. Yeah, that would be cool.
Enter problems. All DC means no scoring units. So I need to wipe the table to win. With the high points cost per model and some what problematic delivery with the black rage and all, wiping the table should be hard. But DC have access to all dedicated transports and I wouldn't mind adding a Stormraven or two even if they aren't DC. And when the DC hit close combat they pretty much destroy anything they charge.
I play 1500 points. That means that Astorath will take a pretty big chunk out of the army, especially when adding a couple of jumping DC (man, the jump packs are expensive). I'm thinking Stormravens for fast delivery and anti-tank. I guess two is the way to go, one will just be shot out of the sky. So that's another big chunk. Chaplains are pricey but re-roll to hit and wound - yes please! Storm ravens would be cool but they aren't an absolute. Razorbacks or Land raiders, why not. (Rhinos ... well I have another rhino based army already.)
I know that all Death Company is far from the top build. Pretty sub-par I guess. I've already opened up for some other units (Storm ravens, chaplains) and I guess some other vehicle or independent character (HQ or priest) might work but marines other than DC, no thanks. Is it possible to build a rock hard kill 'em all list? I like to win games with the army. Well I'm kind of stuck at the moment.
Astorath the Grim
Chaplain
Chaplain
Death Company (5, jump packs, thunder hammer, power weapon)
Death Company (8, power fist, power weapon)
Death Company (8, power fist, power weapon)
Storm raven (Multi melta, Assault Cannon, Hurricane Bolters)
Storm raven (Multi melta, Assault Cannon, Hurricane Bolters)
24 models
2 vehicles
Pretty straight forward - Astorath join the flying DC, one chaplain and DC per Storm raven. The Storm ravens take out armour and the DC charge out and start killing until there is nothing left. The low models count is a big issue but I can't get around it.
Any views? Any room for improvement?
Thanks
Thomas"
Well the list you've given is probably the best you're going to get with a pure Death Company list but it's not going to be reliably able to table people. You'll do quite well against many foot based lists but anything with a lot of tanks and you're going to have issues as you rely on combat and only a couple of MM/assault cannons to break open tanks. The Chaplains are okay additions in making the Death Company more reliable but not necessarily better in terms of point efficient. Perhaps replacing them with a third Stormraven and dropping the Jump Packs from the smaller DC squad to make them larger and put them in the Stormraven is your best bet. You're only presenting three targets initially to your opponent but at 1500 they are decently survivable. Extra armor instead of the hurricane bolters might also be a better choice since you've got plenty of anti-infantry already through the Death Company.
If you're looking at being a bit more competitive I'd add in some Land Speeders, either Typhoons or MM/HF. This ups your saturation and target count and helps deal with your biggest issue in armor but if you were keeping with the pure DC theme I'd lean towards the 3rd stormraven and dropping the Chaplains.
