Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Death Company in Review

I've been thinking a lot about the 'Ardboyz tournament this week. I often think about tournaments once they're over, mulling over what I did wrong and right, and what I could correct for the future. It's actually why I like playing in tournaments -- they're excellent learning experiences, and you have a great opportunity to meet some new people and play against some new opponents. As part of my ruminations, I've thought a bit about the units I used last Saturday and how they fared. Actually, this tourney was perhaps the biggest learning experience I've ever had, as I had never played an all-assault army or quite such a mobile army before. But for today, I'd like to talk about one unit in particular:

Death Company. As you may remember from my list, I fielded them in a unit of 10, sporting one Power Fist and four Power Weapons. Now, I didn't want to shell out the extra 150 points to give them all jump packs, so I shoved them into a Stormraven. And let me just say -- they earned their points back in every single game. Round one, they charged and destroyed Commander Farsight and seven bodyguards, plus a Devilfish and Hammerhead. I can't be sure on the numbers, but that should ring in around 1,000+ points. Admittedly, they had help from a Death Company Dreadnought and Astorath the Grim, but even then, their cost would cap at 530 points, meaning they killed double their cost. I only lost one or two in the exchange.

In round two, I did not get them into the fight soon enough, but they did kill off five Nob bikers, and almost half of a full shoota boyz squad before time ran out. In another turn or two, they would have polished off the shoota boyz without a doubt, though there would not have been much else for them to attack. And in round three, while they did die off completely, they massacred two close combat Carnifexes, the Tyranid Prime Warrior and helped mop up a Hive Tyrant and his posse of Tyrant Guard. They later went on to destroy a Mycetic Spore before getting assaulted and eaten by some Genestealers. After all, only about half of the unit was left alive at that point, and Rending took away even their FNP save.

The unit is extremely durable, too. In the second round, they were assaulted by thirty shootas. First they managed to eliminate nine enemies before they could even attack, but even sucking up a total of sixty attacks at WS4 S4, only a single marine fell. Of course, two more fell to the power klaw-toting nob, but that's beside the point. PKs kill a LOT of things, including my land raiders.

All in all, they're a very durable unit that can dish out a lot of pain. The major difficulty is getting them into combat as well as steering them in the right direction. Provided their means of transport (Stormraven, Land Raider, Drop Pod, Rhino, etc.) gets them to where you want them to be, they can at least hit your major target. It's after that which presents a problem. Once they kill whatever they've charged, Rage brings them straight after the nearest enemy, which isn't always where you want them to go. For my next post, I think I'll talk about the methods of delivering your Death Company into the thick of the fight, and the pros and cons of each.

1 comment:

  1. You know what I'm diggin? The Death Company Dreads. I wish I could make a nice, fluffy Iron Hands list and not have to take Death Company in order to get the Dreads. Librarian dreads, I'm picturing converted thrusters. That could be a really fun project. So many projects....

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