GENERAL STRATEGY & TACTICS

COMMAND PRIMUS By ( Shadow Guard )

This article has been reproduced with kind permission from the author.  It's use here is not intended as a challenge to the original authors copyright and is reproduced here for the sole purpose of enhancing the Dark Angel spirit and the warhammer 40,000 experience

Stage II: Second Acquisitions: Despite the economic advantages of the boxed set, it ultimately only contains one component of the minimum requirements to play the game. Of the one HQ unit and two TROOP choices you need, you now have one. It is now that most people would begin to buy individual sets and units to build up their army and it is here that you should spend a little time and plan ahead. A good place to start is to create a 1000 point army list that is well balanced so that while it may not excel in any one aspect, it would be able to meet most battlefield requirements. Such a list could also be tailored towards purchasing them in an economically advantageous manner. Most hobbyists may tend to buy their units spread out over a long time period due to economic constraints. However, as you have seen in the case of the WH40K Boxed Set, such sets do tend to provide you with savings that would otherwise evaporate were you to purchase them individually. With that in mind, I would suggest that t pays to hoard your hard earned money, be patient and make bulk purchases, especially of the boxed sets. The second purchase I would suggest for the newcomer is the Spacemarine Mega Force Boxed Set. At a price of £75.00 it is more expensive than the WH40K boxed set, and will certainly cause consternation amongst your parents or partners. However, let us consider their components and you will be very surprised.

HQ Master (121) Master in Power armour, Power Sword, Iron halo, Boltpistol, Frag grenades. Command Squad (184)  Tactical marines x  5 Apothecary + stormbolter, Techmarine + stormbolter Standard Bearer + Powerfist Meltagun Frags Rhino Transport, Stormbolter, Extra armour, smoke, searchlight. ELITES Dreadnought (134) Tw linked Lascannon, DCCW/SB, EA/Sm/SL

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So, surprisingly, even if you discount the tree sprue as an unwarranted component, you still make a saving of £13.00 by purchasing this lot as one boxed set than as its individual components. Let us now move on to see how we can convert these two purchases in to an effective spacemarine army. One other purchase I would strongly suggest at this stage is the Space Wolf Accessory Sprue (cat No: 9938010102) directly from GW Mail Order. I will explain the reason in the next section. Stage III: The first army list  1000 point list: Here is one such example that can be built starting from the WH40K boxed set. The point costs of individual items and units have been left out to preserve Games Workshops Intellectual property but total unit costs are depicted for your information.

Spacemarine Mega Force Boxed Set  Components and cost: 10 man Spacemarine tactical squad                    £15.00 5 man Spacemarine Combat Squad                     £6.00 5 man Spacemarine Assault Squad                     £12.00 1 Spacemarine Dreadnought                               £20.00 1 Rhino APC                                                     £15.00 1 Predator Tank                                                 £20.00 1 Trees Sprue                                                    (£3.00) Total                                                                 £88.00 (£91.00)

TROOPS Tactical Squad I (166) Tactical marines x 10 Missile Launcher, Flamer Tactical Squad II (166) Tactical marines x 10 Missile launcher, flamer FAST ATTACK Landspeeder Squadron (70) landspeeder with MM HEAVY SUPPORT Predator Annihilator(154) Tw lascannon, Lascannon sponsons, EA/Sm/SL TOTAL = 981 points

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Stage IV: Developing the acquisitions to fit the army list: Now let's get to the interesting part. I will discuss each unit in terms of why they were chosen, their battlefield role and how you would create them from what you have so far purchased. TROOP Units: The core strength of any battle force lies in its troop choices, and the basis for a well rounded and balanced army is to take an adequate number of these. If we look at our purchases, we will find two 10-man tactical squads. There is no better place to start with than these to create the main firing line of your force. The two tactical squads come with one missile launcher and one flamer each along with a sergeant who may be armed with a bolt pistol and chainsword. These two units are able to lay down good suppressive fire with their bolters. The flamer is useful as the enemy gets closer, but more importantly the missile launchers have the range and power to target enemy armour as well versatility to affect large troop concentrations. ELITE Units: The spacemarine dreadnought is also a very versatile unit which should be used to strengthen the firepower of the battle line. Of the weapons choices afforded in the kit, I would suggest that you choose the twin linked lascannons for the right arm and retain the Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon for the left along with the built-in stormbolter. This allows the dreadnought to target high toughness enemy units and armour while being available to counter charge any enemy units which will at some stage reach your frontline. Adding extra armour and smoke are mandatory in my view in order to maintain battlefield effectiveness. FAST ATTACK Units: The single landspeeder also plays an important role. You have two choices in which type you take. The Dark Angel codex allows you to take a standard (green coloured) land speeder belonging to the seventh company or a Ravenwing landspeeder (black coloured). It would be very much in keeping with the DA background to field a RW landspeeder, in addition to getting their special 6+ invulnerable save. The landspeeder kit gives you the option of arming it with a heavy bolter or a multimelta. Choose the latter as it allows you to take out heavily armoured targets. The role of the landspeeder would be to initially survive the battle by using as much of cover as possible. It then has the capacity to take out high threat targets, control quadrants in the last turn of the game and use its rapid movement to cross fire enemy units which are falling back. HEAVY SUPPORT Units: The predator also functions as support for your frontline. The kit comes with the option of arming the turret with either twin linked lascannon or an autocannon. You can also choose between not using any sponsons, or adding heavybolters or lascannon to them. My preference is to have lascannon in all three positions, which should ensure a high probability of killing your target. However this will also make your predator a high value threat to your opponent and so you must keep this in mind when you deploy the predator. Again, extra armour, smoke and search lights are a must for any armoured vehicle.   So far we have created the units from the components of the two boxed sets in a very straight forward manner. The Headquarters unit needs a little more fiddling.