Deathwing doldrums — the January 2017 Dark Angels faq

26 January 2017 | 7th Edition

Still waiting for a Dark Angels faq that actually solves issues.

So on 20 January Games Workshop dropped a set of faqs on us. You can imagine the excitement in the Isiah household.

But the excitement frankly was fairly short lived I can assure you as there were no pleasant surprises. So here's the mini-moan. But first, why am I moaning exactly?

Deathwing Redemption Force, special rules, Deathwing Assault

Replace the first sentence of the first paragraph with the following:
‘All units in this Formation that can do so must begin the game in Deep Strike Reserve (this includes any Venerable Dreadnoughts which must be in their Drop Pods). All other units must begin the game in Reserves.’

Replace the final sentence of the first paragraph with the following:
‘All units in this Formation in Deep Strike Reserve automatically arrive by Deep Strike at the start of the chosen turn. All units in this Formation in Reserve automatically arrive from Reserve at the start of the chosen turn.’

and…

Deathwing Strike Force, command benefits, Summoned to War

Replace the first sentence with the following:
‘All units in this Formation that can do so must begin the game in Deep Strike Reserve (this includes any Venerable Dreadnoughts which must be in their Drop Pods). All other units must begin the game in Reserves.’

Basically, given the opportunity to make changes to these formations' rules in the eratta, they were changed, the result being that there is no longer a role for a pure Deathwing force at all in 40K. It must now always be fielded as part of a larger, combined force. Unless you houserule things differently of course.

Now that everything in the Deathwing Redemption and Strike Force formations must start in reserve this denies you the opportunity to deploy at least something on Turn 1 to avoid autolosing.

Yet another ill-considered output when an opportunity was available to at least offer an olive branch to the pure Deathwing brigade. I mean, why not? It's not as if such a force is a tournament-winning beast that needs taming, because it wasn't.

I really don't know where their heads are at.

Actually — making folks buy more models as their current ones no longer cut it on their own is where their heads are at. So no, no surprises at all here.

Ends