With the upcoming Codex Supplement: Dark Angels and the Deathwing Assault box, fans of the First Legion have an even bigger excuse (as if they needed one) to field an entire army of models encased in Terminator armour! We asked Gaming Presenter Nick for some good tips on using such a force, after the Deathwing fought on Battle Report this week on Warhammer+.
Nick: Terminators are just cool, right? Iconic, hulking and even tougher in the current edition of the game than they’ve ever been before, it’s every Space Marine player’s dream to field an entire army of them.
But when it comes to fielding whole armies of models sporting Tactical Dreadnought armour no Chapter does it quite like the Dark Angels. It’s tempting, isn’t it? A whole army of super-elite models, nigh-on impossible to kill… Here are the advantages:
Not many models to paint! An all-Terminator army has way fewer models to paint than other forces. The 750-point army we use on Battle Report this week is just 16 models: three squads and Belial. To make this up to 2,000 points, simply double it, add a Land Raider, a Dreadnought, and a Librarian in Terminator Armour, and you’re away. They’ll be painted up in no time… as demonstrated by the Warhammer TV painting team.
Tough as a Bastion: With Toughness 5, a 2+ save, a 4+ invulnerable save, and 3 wounds, Terminators are living fortresses, taking punishment few other infantry can survive. Try putting a squad on an objective and see how many of the enemy try to come and take it off you. But if you think normal Terminators are tough, you need to check out the Dark Angels Deathwing Knights. They have four wounds apiece and their Inner Circle rule depletes incoming damage, which means you have to nail them with a Damage 5 attack just to kill one outright!
Deep Strike: Teleporting into battle means Terminators can impact the game exactly where they need to – whether targeting a troublesome enemy unit, dropping down onto that primary objective, or helping you score secondary missions like Deploy Teleport Homer, Behind Enemy Lines, and Engage on All Fronts. For extra spice, the Dark Angels’ Inner Circle Taskforce enhancement Deathwing Assault lets Characters and their attached unit Deep Strike in the first turn, so you can Alpha-strike before the enemy has a chance to react…
Teleport Homers: Terminator units can set up a Teleport Homer before the game begins, allowing them to arrive via Rapid Ingress for no Command Points. Opponents will have to be wary of this, and may sacrifice units to be near it to stop that happening, so you can even use it as just a distraction.
Dedicated Detachments: The 1st Company Taskforce in Codex: Space Marines is a great way to field an all-Terminator force, while Codex: Dark Angels includes the Inner Circle Taskforce. The Detachment Rule, Vowed Target, obliterates enemies holding objectives, and combined with the Deathwing rule giving you +1 to hit the target of your Oath of Moment, you can basically kiss goodbye to any important enemy units controlling an objective. Watch your keywords, too - in Dark Angels armies, all Veteran units and Dreadnoughts gain the DEATHWING keyword - useful indeed…
Most Squads have a Character: You won’t have many units in this army, so you’ll likely find that most, if not all units have a Character in it. My top picks from Codex: Space Marines are the Librarian in Terminator Armour, giving your unit Sustained Hits (1) and the Captain in Terminator Armour, whose Rites of Battle let you use a free Stratagem each turn on his unit. From Codex: Dark Angels, Belial is a must-have for Deathwing forces - he can give a whole unit Precision on Critical Hits so you can pick off enemy Characters.
Nick’s Deathwing Army
Here’s a typical Terminator-heavy army, based on two Deathwing Assault boxes with a few extras added in.
In this force, Belial is attached to one of the units of Deathwing Knights, mounted in the Land Raider, while the other unit of Knights is in Deep Strike and waiting to drop down. The Librarian is attached to the large unit of 10 Deathwing, arriving via Deep Strike on turn 1 with massed firepower (and Sustained Hits). The other Deathwing units and the Ballistus Dreadnought are deployed on the table to take objectives and dominate the battlefield.
Thanks, Nick! If you want to watch the Deathwing in action on the tabletop, make sure you catch this week’s episode of Battle Report on Warhammer+. And don’t forget, Deathwing Assault is available to pre-order this weekend!
