Who can beat Death Company?

[Bob821]

Who can beat Blood Angel Death Company? Not in a fair fight but for the total cost of a maxed out unit? I worked out a full squad of 30 with thunder hammers, plasma pistols, jump packs and Lemartus comes to 2850 points!

Is there anything that can beat this? Even forge world? The highest I know of is 2500 for a warlord titan!

[Pssyche]

Tell him about your Phantom Titan, Defenestratus...

[Nabterayl]

Depends on the battlefield. An Emperor-class battle titan would do a number on them, unless we start the exercise with the death company already in close combat with the squad. 90-120 thunder hammer attacks will still beat an Emperor in CC under the new rules, I think.

Otherwise, if we're limiting it to a single unit (meaning no ICs), I can't think of any, no. My best bet for facing 90-120 thunder hammer attacks would be a full squad of paladins with Nemesis warding staves. A paladin with a Nemesis warding staff kills 0.22 death company per Attack, while a death company marine with a thunder hammer kills 0.07 paladins-with-staves per Attack. Ten paladins get 30-40 attacks, killing 6.6-8.8 death company in return for losing 4.5-6.6 paladins, so the paladins are still going to lose that exchange eventually no matter who gets the charge.

[Cactus]

Depends on the battlefield. An Emperor-class battle titan would do a number on them, unless we start the exercise with the death company already in close combat with the squad. 90-120 thunder hammer attacks will still beat an Emperor in CC under the new rules, I think.

Otherwise, if we're limiting it to a single unit (meaning no ICs), I can't think of any, no. My best bet for facing 90-120 thunder hammer attacks would be a full squad of paladins with Nemesis warding staves. A paladin with a Nemesis warding staff kills 0.22 death company per Attack, while a death company marine with a thunder hammer kills 0.07 paladins-with-staves per Attack. Ten paladins get 30-40 attacks, killing 6.6-8.8 death company in return for losing 4.5-6.6 paladins, so the paladins are still going to lose that exchange eventually no matter who gets the charge.

I think he's talking about a single unit and spending as many points possible.

[Tyrendian]

well, there's obviously the Emperor Titan... Phantoms are "only" 2500 I believe...
but I've got you beat in regular 40k - at least somewhat... if a single FOC slot is legal as well, an IG Platoon can put over 3000 points into a single Troops choice...

[DarkLink]

10 Paladins with Draigo, Coteaz/Librarian, and a Rad/Psykotroke grenade caddy actually beats them pretty handily. You will never see 10 Paladins without most of those. Even if the DC get the charge, and if you ignore Psykotroke grenades since they're very unpredictable, and you ignore Coteaz/Librarian's second and third psychic power since that's random and we don't know what it is, the Paladins kill most of them before you strike.

And while 30 plasma pistols is pretty nasty, Paladins will just gain even more of an advantage if shooting is involved.

Draigo would give them either reroll 1's to wound or counter attack. Probably reroll 1's, since that affects shooting as well. The Paladins get at least one full shooting and one overwatch on the DC, and they'll position Draigo up front to tank wounds. All their shooting kills about 6.5 DC. The DC jump closer, though if the GK player is smart they'll be deployed such that the DC will need to make a 10-11" charge. The DC might not even choose to shoot their plasma pistols, but if they decide to do so, that'll put about 3 wounds on Draigo between his 3++ and FNP. The DC then attempt to charge, which will probably fail at that distance. Paladins then kill another 2.2 DC, which probably means the DC have to make like a 12" charge.

If the DC fail the charge, then they're dead. The Paladins move up, shoot another 6.5 to death, for about 15 dead DC, then the Paladins go for a 5" charge and wipe the DC before they get to hit.

If the DC make the charge, then rad grenades go off, Draigo hammerhands, and the Paladins activate their force weapons to ignore FNP. Hit on 4's with rerolls, wound on 2's, and no saves or FNP allowed. Now, I always run 4 Hammers, Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, and 4 Swords/Halberds. Just the Stave/Swords/Halberds kill 11 DC at I4/6. The Banner we can ignore, it's not a power weapon. Draigo kills 4 himself. The grenade caddy, either a Xenos Inquisitor or a Techmarine, are both actually pretty beefy offensively, and kill another 2.5. Coteaz is I1, but if you take a Librarian he'll kill another 2, but everyone takes Coteaz.

So, ignoring psykotroke grenades or fancy psychic powers like full BS on overwatch, that's a grand total of 4 DC that actually get to hit. They swing, kill a couple of Paladins, maybe, but they're mostly going to bounce off of the Warding Stave and/or Draigo, and even if they don't, this is why I take Swords for a 4++ in assault. Anyways, they do 5 Str 8 wounds, so the odds of doing nothing thanks to the Warding Stave are actually pretty decent.

Then, my 4 Hammers and Coteaz hit. The rest of the DC die.


So, yeah, on average dice and a halfway competent GK player, the DC get owned hard even if they make their 12" charge and psykotroke grenades don't do anything and Coteaz's second power, or the Librarians third, are both relatively worthless against DC (e.g. Ignores Cover). If they do get good powers (e.g. psykotroke grenades make the DC punch themselves in the face, and the Librarian gets full BS on Overwatch and Misfortune so the GK shooting absolutely murders the DC), then the DC will never even see combat. Grey Knights are all about force multipliers.


Edit: Also, that unit is about 1200pts as I would run it, though I'd need a double FOC to fit in the Xenos Inquisitor and Coteaz. Draigo's 275, 10 Paladins with 4 Psycannons, Stave, Banner, and Apothecary is 750, Coteaz is 100, and the Xenos Inquisitor with grenades and a psychic power is about 90. So it's actually not that expensive of a unit, as far as those things can go.

[Nabterayl]

Sure. I don't get the same results with a single unit (you've got 4 in that scenario, DL). Do you?

[DarkLink]

Not with just 10 Paladins. But if you take away the Grey Knight's force multipliers, then of course they're going to suck. Though, if you do the same thing where the Paladins shoot, get shot, overwatch, and if you get another round of shooting if they fail the charge and the Paladins get to counter-assault, then the Paladins will probably make their points back. That's probably the most realistic one-on-one scenario, though the DC player might choose not to charge when they need an 11 to make the charge.

In that case, Paladins kill 4 in the first round of shooting. DC move forward, shoot their plasma. They realistically won't get all 26 shots off since they're going to be just inside of 12" and there won't be range to fit all 26 guys in range, so I'll assume half get close enough. 13 plasma does 3 wounds, and about .5 wounds on the DC from Gets Hot. DC probably won't try and charge, since they'll need an 11 or 12. Paladins get another round of shooting, and kill another 3.5 (so we'll assume 4 if we count the .5 wounds from Gets Hot). The Paladins charge, with about a 5" charge, so the odds are pretty good of them making it. They activate force weapons to ignore FNP, the banner does .5 wounds, and the four Swords/Halberds/Stave does another 4. At I1, the four Hammers kill 7 more, while the remaining 17.5 DC with 2 attacks each, hitting on 4's, wounding on 2's, does 14.5 wounds on the Paladins. Since it's hard to guess when the Stave dies, just assume it absorbs 6 and then dies. That's 8.5. I personally don't run Halberds, so there are 3 Swords with a 4++. That's another 6 wounds gone. 2.5 left, so two more Paladins die.

That would leave us with 4 Paladins (three Hammers and a Banner), and 10.5 Death Company left alive.

Next round of assault, the Banner strikes first, and does close enough to .5 wounds. 10 DC left. I1, and the Paladin Hammers kill 4 more, while the 10 DC kill off the Paladins.

Death Company wins, but there are only 6 DC left when the dust settles.


So, if the GK player takes 10 Paladins, Apothecary, Banner, Stave, 4 Psycannons, 3 Swords, and 4 Hammers, and is competent enough to utilize Premeasuring to keep the DC at precisely 23.5", then the Paladins more than make their points back. DC ultimately win, but it's quite the Pyrrhic victory. 750pts killing roughly 2280/2850pts is pretty impressive.

[Cactus]

So, if the GK player takes 10 Paladins, Apothecary, Banner, Stave, 4 Psycannons, 3 Swords, and 4 Hammers, and is competent enough to utilize Premeasuring to keep the DC at precisely 23.5", then the Paladins more than make their points back. DC ultimately win, but it's quite the Pyrrhic victory. 750pts killing roughly 2280/2850pts is pretty impressive.

That is impressive with so few points putting out so much firepower.

Math, statistics and odds never bother with pay attention to my dice rolls though so I'd likely lose all 30 DC to overwatch when I charge.

[Wolfshade]

I believe we have been through this before now.

The biggest issue people have with a full on 30 man squad is that it is huge.

In CC the paladins have a chance if they are such that they can minimise the amount of DC in CC, though with the pile on moves it does limit this somewhat.

[DarkLink]

That is impressive with so few points putting out so much firepower.

Math, statistics and odds never bother with pay attention to my dice rolls though so I'd likely lose all 30 DC to overwatch when I charge.

Yeah, with the Warding Stave, if I have to roll them one at a time I'll fail the first one every time. But if you make me roll 15 2+ saves all at once, I'll fail one.

[Bob821]

It amazing how powerful knights are sometimes. How do they cope with the latest batch of Tau and Eldar gundams? All those high strength low AP blast weapons must mess them up. Or do they have a workable counter? I'm really struggling against them at the moment with my Blood Angels.

[Demonus]

I wonder how a Suncannon/Shield Wraithknight would do vs the DC. With 3 twin linked small blast ap2 shots it should kill 1/2 before they get into charge range. Another 2 dead in close combat before the survivors get to assault. Of course if you matched points, 2000pts of Wraith Knights would destroy them ;)

[Allen Broussard]

however, ive seen draigo+5 paladins+a chaplain charge 6 thunderhammernators with vulkan and wipe while only killing 2 termies........

[Deathscythe91]

Not sure exactly how effective it would be but a fully tricked our royal court should do fairly well against it. Add in Nemesor Zahndrekh and Vargard Obyron for extra shenanigans.

[DarkLink]

It amazing how powerful knights are sometimes. How do they cope with the latest batch of Tau and Eldar gundams? All those high strength low AP blast weapons must mess them up. Or do they have a workable counter? I'm really struggling against them at the moment with my Blood Angels.

Tau hard-counter non-Draigowing Grey Knights. It's simply a matter of numbers. Tau are much, much cheaper, with more guns at higher strength and AP and range, can ignore LOS and cover, and trying to charge them just gives them another shooting phase. They have trouble dealing with Paladins, because Paladins just don't care about small arms fire, and Draigo can tank the few high AP shots they get, but GK shooting has trouble killing Riptides and Broadsides due to the lack of high AP. I've been playing Draigowing lately because power armor Grey Knights just lose against Tau and Heldrakes.

You might think that Riptides would be really good against Paladins, but you'd be wrong. Spread out the Paladins, and the Riptides will never be able to hit more than 2 with a blast, ever, and Draigo can tank a few Str 8 AP2 hits every turn for pretty much the whole game.

As for normal Marines, take Land Raiders and THSS Terminators. Tau have trouble dealing with Land Raiders. Also, Drop Pods are decent, just be careful to spread out a lot because you will get hit with stupidly cheap Interceptor. But that's actually not that good of a deal for the Tau, because they won't get Markerlight support then so they won't be denying cover and hitting at BS5+ and all that crap. Play it smart, and it still won't be a fun game because Tau are such a terribly designed codex, but you can still win.

[Mr.Pickelz]

Just curious, but what about a squad of Leman Russ Eradicators ( or whatver the ones with Plasma turrets are called) And give them Plasma cannon sponsoons with a lascannon in middle (or a third Plasma if you can do that) then tack on a storm bolter or heavy stubber up top, and hunter-killer missiles on all three.

I.M.O, the tanks would only need one shooting phase to unload everything, FA of 14 won't care about the plasma, and BS3 won't matter cause of the DC's Unit Size. If the DC deepstrike near them, then one shooting phase is all the Tanks would get, however if they walked on... two phases at least.

@ Darklink - Also, if your taking Coteaz, then you have the "I've Been Expecting you..." for another shooting option against the DC. I don't think you mentioned this on the first page, if ya did, sorry. :P

[Maelstorm]

A pair of loaded Necron Royal Courts joined together (just over 2100 points) should punk 30 DC in 1 or 2 rounds of close combat with few losses. Sempiternal Weave and Phase Shifter for 2+/3+ saves, 10 sets of Mindshackle Scarabs so the DC in base to base kill their buddies for you, 10x Warscythes at Strength 7 with Armourbane, 10x Resurrection Orbs, 10x Tesseract Labyrinth, Reanimation Protocols on a 4+ against any weapon, Ever-living on every single model...

Another option might be Lychguard (Hyperphase Swords + Dispersion Shields) with a -upooled Destroyer Lord. Reflecting Plasma shots back onto the DC might be fun...

[Tynskel]

Everyone keeps adding characters...
I think DC should up the ante and add characters to the DC, too.

[DarkLink]

Bring it.

[Deathscythe91]

Everyone keeps adding characters...
I think DC should up the ante and add characters to the DC, too.

I thought Lemartes was a character or at least and upgrade character.

[Cadian122]

Death Korps of Krieg Death Rider Platoon (1 FA Choice)
Command Squad, with Commissar with Power Axe, Squadron Commander with Demolition Charge. (165 points)
6x 10-man Death Rider Squadrons (160x6 points)
So well under the 2,800 points, 1 slot on the Force organisation charge. Assuming a) we get the charge with 5 of the 7 squads, (highly likely, as I'd probably lose one to Plasma fire, and I'd use another one to draw the charge), then that's 31 attacks/squad (4-5 squads), WS4, S5, I5, AP3 on the charge, plus 16 from the command Squad at those stats, and another one at WS4 S4, I1, AP2 from the commissar (and lobbing in the demo-charge on the way in for good measure). Should do enough.

Otherwise the squadron of 3x Executioners with Plasma Cannon Sponsons (don't even need the pintle-mounted guns for this) should do enough

[DarkLink]

Including ICs in a unit is one thing, taking an entire army to kill the DC really doesn't make sense in this context.

[Cactus]

I've been toying around with making this build in my head and worked up a couple of variations on army builder for an 1850 point list. 30 DC with a combination of power fists, power weapons, a couple of infernus pistols, jump packs... Then a DC dread in a drop pod to fill out my second "Troops" choice with a few points left over for a real scoring unit.

[Bob821]

As for normal Marines, take Land Raiders and THSS Terminators. Tau have trouble dealing with Land Raiders. Also, Drop Pods are decent, just be careful to spread out a lot because you will get hit with stupidly cheap Interceptor. But that's actually not that good of a deal for the Tau, because they won't get Markerlight support then so they won't be denying cover and hitting at BS5+ and all that crap. Play it smart, and it still won't be a fun game because Tau are such a terribly designed codex, but you can still win.


Thanks for the advice DarkLink. Its pretty much what I have doing... Land Raider Redeemer with THSS termies and Librarian with divination power, Pod of Stern Guard vets with combi melta's, Danta and Sanguinary guard with a couple of extra melta pistols, Devastator squad or two and finally a couple of scout squads or small assault squads for grabbing objectives. It can work... Just getting bored with having to take pretty much the same build each game. I miss 5th! In my fairly uncompetitive gaming circle I could take loads of different builds and get a good fight. I still lose sleep thinking about what happened to my poor Assault Marine based army the first time I played the new Tau Codex. Arse kicked does not even come close!

Maybe I'll try a DC of doom charge in the next game... It will at least be fun. Will just have to keep shouting 'ZULU' and charge!

[cebalrai]

Who can beat Blood Angel Death Company? Not in a fair fight but for the total cost of a maxed out unit? I worked out a full squad of 30 with thunder hammers, plasma pistols, jump packs and Lemartus comes to 2850 points!

Is there anything that can beat this? Even forge world? The highest I know of is 2500 for a warlord titan!

Prince Yriel. :D

[Ravingbantha]

Has anyone run the number on Lord Calgar with a full 3 Honor Guard squads, complete with 3 champions weilding hammers and lasers, everyone else has relic blades, and Chapter Banner. This comes out to 1850pts

[Lord Krungharr]

Hmmm, assuming they had a full squad on the charge and didn't die to Overwatch in droves, a max unit of Bloodletters with a Champion with a Greater Aetherblade might do a fair job against the Death Company being all AP3 and a few AP2 at I4, though the DC FNP would help them survive to some extent. With the Champ, that would come to 205 points. Add in a Herald of Khorne with a Locus of Rage or Hatred and they'd do even better, and still only be like 335 points.

If the Death Company got the charge, and plasma pistoled on the way in, then it would be different story (but if the Bloodletters were Grimoired, and Forewarned ahead of time too,the a 2+ invul save would help!).

As for CSM, 10 Khorne Terminators with lightning-claws with an Icon of Wrath and Kharn would also kill many DC jerks on the charge, or even if charged. The Hatred and Shred AP3, plus Kharn's AP2 hitting on 2s w rerolls in the first round, that would have to be pretty good. Such a unit would be like 615 points.

That's what I came up with for Chaos. Not sure but it seems like a crap ton of Possessed with the random Vorpal Claws roll could work too, but only if they got that random boon....and they could be Grimoired too :)

[chicop76]

I was gonna say Aun'va with body guard, but remembered that fist are ap 2 and not 1. If they was ap 1 Aun'va would win over time in combat.

If we looking at infinite turns I would say St. Celestine would technically win. Since she can keep coming back and never die she would win. If you count her down the first time than no, but under unlimited time conditions than she would win and under 150 points.

A Furioso Dreadnought is another option, but the dc sould win. If the dreadnought charged in combat first I think it would have a good chance of possibly winning.

[Havik110]

Bring it.

They fact that this is even a question, that 750 points could kill 2000+ should tell you a few things...

-1st DC are either pointed well or overcosted...(I tend to say they are over costed especially since they lost I5 due to FC)

-2nd lets look at a normal grey knight before we even look at a DC marine...one is 19 points, with the ability to be I6 for 21 points...This does not take into account the cost of one of the best if not the best assault weapons in the game being the Psycannon...then lets add a psycic power that would keep the DC marine from deep striking next to it so board control...then lets add one of the few stacking powers in the game with hammer hand...oh and lets not forget that that I6 weapon is an AP3 weapon and a str 5 storm bolter...

Or

-for 20 points you get a 2A assault marine with FNP and relentless with +2 attacks when it charges. A power weapon costs 10 points. a jump pack costs 15 points. So after upgrades you have an assault marine that may get lucky and kill the GK with a hammer of wrath attack or die to its AP3 weapon...

Then we have a paladin which costs less than the kitted out DC as talked about in the 1st post, has a 2+ 5++ or 2+ 4++ or even 2+ 2++ and with an apoc has 5+ FNP...

I would say that grey knights are the single most undercosted codex ever...can they be beaten Of course, at 2000 points they enjoy eating lance fire from 6 ravagers and 9 venoms and i dont feel bad about it because i hate them that much...

[DarkLink]

Death Company are overpriced. Or, at least, taking expensive squad-wide options like this makes them overpriced. It's about a year too late to be thinking that paladins are underpriced, though. Keep in mind that a 3000pt army will shoot 10 Paladins to death pretty easily, or that 750pts of THSS Terminators will slaughter 10 Paladins.

If Paladins were any more expensive, they would be unplayable. They'd be too slow and don't have the firepower or durability to handle any halfway decent army. As it is in 6th ed they take a lot of skill to play competitively, and even back in 5th ed they were far less point and click than most people assumed, at least for competitive play. People tend to forget that deathstars have an inherent disadvantage in only being able to be one place at once, only shoot one target, and assault one thing at a time, and 6th ed has only compounded those problems by nerfing assault.

You're also falling into the design fallacy of ignoring diminishing returns. If you really think that a power weapon should be worth 10 pts, and thus giving 10 Marines in a squad 10 power weapon is worth 100 pts, then every elite army in the game would be terrible.
Also, the apothecary upgrade for Paladins is the most expensive FNP upgrade in the game. Don't complain to me about how underpriced it is.

The Grey Knight units themselves are actually very well priced in general, considering these issues. The problem with GKs in 5th was cheap psybolt ammo and spamming Razorback that were immune to shaken/stunned, and rad/psykotroke grenades. In an edition that revolved around light vehicle spam, GKs did that better than anyone else. Now with hull points and needed assault, GKs aren't top tier anymore. In fact, with Tau and Eldar and probably the new SMs, GKs will probably be middle of the pack, shortly.

Edit:also, your point costs are completely wrong. No Grey Knights are 19ppm, nor can you get Halberds on any of them at 21ppm. And, yes, while the psycannon is really good and overall the best special weapon in the game, there are a lot of things it isn't very good at. Plasma is better at killing Marines and Terminators, melta is better vs vehicles, and soon grav weapons will supplant psycannons as the best single gun.

[Lord Krungharr]

Aren't all Death Company WS5 and have FNP? Doesn't matter too much if they're striking at I1, though FNP can save their butts.

Anyways, since nobody liked my Bloodletter scenario...

-let's see they'd have 40 attacks on the charge, x 1/2 for hitting on 4s=20 hits x 2/3 for wounding on 3s=40/3 x 2/3 for the DC who didn't make the FNP roll=80/6= 13 1/3 dead Death Company (not factoring in a Champion w a Greater Aetherblade or Locus of Hatred or Rage).

Then the DC hit back with 51?! thunderhammer attacks....51 x 1/2= 25.5 hits x 5/6 for wounding on 2s=127.5/6 x 2/3 for Bloodletters failing their normal invul (or 225/6 x 1/3 if Grimoired)= 255/18 (or 127.5/18) = 14.17 (or 7.08) dead Bloodletters....depending greatly on the Grimoire, the Bloodletters could survive (in theory) especially if they didn't have to take an Instability check. Of course the next round they'd strike at I1 too, and then die for sure.

If the Death Company got the charge, the Bloodletters wouldn't be much more than a speedbump, taking a handfull of DC with them.

-Today I thought a huge unit of Chosen (though I'm unsure of their max squad size), all Khorne with Lightning Claws would be neat:

Let's say 20 Chosen on the charge: 20 x (base 2 +1 for pair of claws +2 for charging)= 100 attacks! x 1/2 hitting on 4s = 50 hits x (1/2 + (1/2 x 1/2)) wounding on 4s w Shred = 37.5 AP3 wounds x 2/3 for failed DC FNP = 25.125 dead Death Company That's WAAAY better, though WAAAY more expensive at (I think) about 720 points. That's without an Icon of Wrath granting S5 Furious Charge too. But again, not sure if one could take 20 Chosen (or if one would ever really want to do that). And then of course at I1, the Death Company would still hit back with 15 hammers and kill 6 or 7 Chosen.

So my recommendation is not to take all Thunderhammers on your Death Company, striking last kinda stinks sometimes!

[Wolfshade]

I would imagine that if you were to run a 30 man DC you would have points enough to have the a chaplain running with the DC so on the charge re-roll to hit and to-wound that would increase their out put somewhat. But still the 20 chosen is beastly, I think power axes might be the way forward.

[DarkLink]

I think you can only get 10 chosen.

[Bob821]

My original post had the DC with Lemartus his attacks keep getting missed out... Sad Guardian of the lost :( and he would give them re-rolls on the charge like a normal chaplin!

[DarkLink]

Oh, and he's not an ic, right? Just an upgrade character?

[Nabterayl]

Yeah, Lemartes is just an upgrade character.