How to fix Dark Angels?

  I read a post on another blog site earlier this week and they mentioned how the other Space Marine chapters could be fixed and it got me to thinking (which is often painful).  So I figured I'd give this a go and think about what could be done, if anything is needed.

  In this post, the author mentions the 'big 3'- Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels.  The biggest complaints flying around the blogosphere are about how these chapters have nothing going for them and have fallen behind the power curve since the release of the new Space Marine codices.  And they're not totally wrong, but there some room for argument here.  Let's start with the red beakies...

  The Blood Angels are still really good.  In fact, they were so good for some time that GW had to put out a specific rule to nerf them.  The red ones have access to the best 'Smash Captains' (Captain with jump pack, thunder hammer, and storm shield) as well as golden angels dudes, black angry dudes, and strategems that allow them to come in and hit VERY hard.  That created the 'alpha strike' in close combat and basically destroyed many armies' chance of a fair fight against them.  If you don't know, close combat has some very distinct advantages in the current edition of 40k- not the least of which is locking units so that they have to retreat (if possible) and not be able to shoot.  Locking units in close combat is a game killer.  Add to that the 'fly' special rule that all these jump pack dudes get and suddenly the Blood Angels were just too powerful for the meta.

  Admittedly, the Blood Angels don't get such cool rules as the new Doctrines and their strategems are a bit outdated in many cases.  But their chapter trait is the best in the game for power-armored armies- they get +1 to wound when they charge, get charged, or heroically intervene.  Having Intercessors or those funny-colored guys with two attacks, armed with chainswords for extra attacks and then the new rule, Shock Assault, that gives an additional attack...  You can see how ridiculous this is.  Being able to wound Imperial (or Chaos) Knights on a 3+ with nothing more than a knife is really, really good.

  On that note, the Space Wolves' chapter trait isn't much worse.  They gain +1 to hit in those same circumstances.  Now, the feral boys don't have alpha-strike units like the Blood Angels, but they do have a preponderance of storm shields, multi-wound beasts that move really fast (but, but, there are no wolves on Fenris!!!) and the ability of the copious amounts of characters to heroically intervene up to six inches.  And the army is 'chaos-armed', meaning that they have the full suite of wargear that can give them all the attacks in every phase possible.  I know that my boys-in-blue would LOVE to have bolters, bolt pistols, and chainswords on the bog-standard tactical marines, even if they can't have two special weapons...  Moral of the story- Space Wolves aren't hurting that bad either.

  So then we get to the Dark Angels.  What's their deal?  They're hunters.  They're the army that runs around the galaxy hunting for some bad dudes based on rumors alone.  They have massive amounts of speed at their disposal, from a moving Chapter Fortress in space to speedy bikes and deep-striking Terminators.  This is represented in their chapter trait as...  oh, wait.  They get to reroll 1's if they DON'T MOVE.  What?  Oh, and they pass morale automatically or never lose more than one model for the rookies on the force.  This does not at all in any way match up with the fluff.  It helps Dark Angels players not have to worry about bringing Masters (Captains in other armies), but it also encourages them to bring static units like Devastators and sniper Scouts.  But it gets worse...

  The majority of the Dark Angel army is supposed to be made up of the 'greenwing', meaning Tactical Marines and the like.  Instead, you see them running Ravenwing and sometimes Deathwing more often than not.  Why?  Well, simply because they're better than the greenwing.  Getting to reroll ones doesn't match up to bikers with assault plasma guns or Terminators that can shoot the turn they deep strike while surviving awesome firepower in return.  To make matters even worse, White Scar bikers are better than Ravenwing (Ravenwing get a jink bonus save when advancing (and giving up shooting for normal bikers) while White Scars get to retreat and charge) and the Deathwing have to pay at least two command points to take advantage of shooting as soon as they deep strike- and that's if you forgo close combat weapons for storm bolters!  Oh, and both Deathwing and Ravenwing can get really expensive if you load them up to take advantage of their theme.  Hmm...

  There are some other, small issues as well.  For example, Dark Angels have company veterans, but not Sternguard, so no special issue ammunition anywhere in the book.  They also don't have access to Centurions or Vanguard squads, not to mention the other flyers.  I DO NOT want Dark Angels to be green-colored marines with access to everything the Ultramarines have like the Blood Angels seem to be (but red), but I do think that sharing some of the technology would be in order.  After all, Bobby G ordered Azrael to accept the Primaris guys, but he forgot the Centurion suits?  Give the Dark Angels some of this stuff, for Emprah's sake!

  How do we fix that?  To me, it seems like a return to the Dark Angels' theme- hunters.  Take away the goofy standing still rule, it just doesn't fit them.  They aren't Imperial Fists!  Keep the bonus rules against Chaos armies, but add something that actually matters against the other 95% of the game.  And I'm just not sure what I would do to make this real.  After all, I don't want to the White Scars or Raven Guard to lose their uniqueness, but there's got to be something.  We'll start with the my point above- just give them Centurions and Sternguard Veterans.  That'll be a great start (and a fantastic sales point for GW).

  After that, my suggestion would have to focus on the chapter trait...  First, I was thinking that the Dark Angels could lose the penalty for moving and shooting.  But there's two problems with that- I feel like that's going to apply to the Iron Hands when they get their book and this still encourages the standing still build for Dark Angels.  So maybe not that one.  Then I thought about just applying this to just bikers and Terminators.  But bikers don't need it and Deathwing don't really care.  So what then?

  I then thought about making this army the first 'fearless' army in this edition of 40k.  But they're Space Marines and the power-armored champions rarely care about that mechanic anyway, especially with the And They Shall Know No Fear rule and running smaller units than horde armies.  Plus, the Inner Circle rule already covers that and battle-forged armies can't lose more than one model on a failed check anyway.  So maybe not that rule.

  The last suggestion that I have would be...  Hmmm, this is harder than I thought it would be!  I even consulted with my son, who currently plays my Dark Angels and may have some insight that I wouldn't.  After much deliberation, we basically came to one possible suggestion-

  Allow the Dark Angels to advance and fire rapid fire weapons as assault weapons- the same rule that the Black Legion have in Chaos.  And this makes sense for a couple of reasons- first, it would make sense that the lead Chaos Space Marine legion and the First Legion would share similar traits.  Second, it would totally match the theme of being 'hunters' rather than static defenders.  As always, kids see things we adults simply can't.

  Let me know what you think in the comments below.  I'd be really curious to see what everyone comes up with.  That article I read suggested making bikers troops and that would be... uninspired.  What can you come up with?  Thanks for reading and please, comment below (it keeps me coming back to write more!).

  As always, Happy Gaming!

Did this codex ruin the game?

  Now that I have the new Space Marine codices and am trying to come up with army lists, I had a thought that has been niggling at me a bit.  Worse, I've heard this before.  Let's start where I've heard it for this edition (and previously) of the game and how this contention has grown, and then finish off with my impression...

  Each time GW releases a new codex, the concept of 'codex creep' pops back up and we have all the chicken-littles screaming that the game is totally broken and out-of-whack.  Admittedly, I'm one of those people.  It happened a couple editions ago when Imperial Knights became a full army and suddenly entire army builds became useless.  How good is a heavy bolter against that?  Then GW added formations in the last edition and this ratcheted that argument up to a whole other level.  Space Marines get 1200 free points of Razorbacks and Knights no longer have to pay for weapon upgrades?  Oh man...

  But codex creep, as an argument, only lasts as long as the next codex that gets released.  For example, Genestealer Cults completely devastated the 'meta' and introduced a playstyle that wasn't in the game before.  Funny enough, even the lowly lasgun is able to smoke a cultist and their attendant buggies and bikes.  But having that whole army creeping in the shadows and then popping up nearby enough to smack a Knight to death with some mutants rocking rock-saws was a shock to everyone.  Was this because the GC had better rules than everyone else?  Not at all.  Players adapted and were able to overcome the codex creep, edition after edition.

  This edition has introduced a ton of entirely new mechanics, like the Strategems and aura-based commanders.  When the game first launched, everyone complained about the lack of realism (which is a ridiculous complaint already) and then about the imbalance between armies and their need for these strategems being variable depending on the book.  And that wasn't untrue.  Space Marines and Death Guard came out first and happen to have some of the most useless strategems in the game.  As more of the codices were released, those newer armies had better and better rules that quickly left the SM and DG behind.  This matters.

  But then came the end of the cycle.  [Almost] Every army got their books and it was obvious that more was needed.  And in comes the Vigilus books.  In that, GW reintroduced 'formations' in a fashion, giving more strategems and rules to certain builds.  Suddenly, Orks could get a more powerful Shokk Attack Gun, Imperial Guard (I mean Astra Militarum) now have more powerful battle cannons, and Space Marine chapters could get some love (see Crimson Fists- wow!).  Most importantly to me, as an Ultramarine, was the fact that the Indomitus Crusaders made my Primaris army actually work.  You can only win with so much strength 4 dakka.  Luckily, that book introduced more of that and it made a difference.

  The following book of the Vigilus set introduced a bunch of Chaos Space Marine stuff.  And it was stupid good.  Abaddon was able to stand toe-to-toe with Primarch Guilliman and the various legions suddenly got some love.  And this made it more than obvious that GW realized that there was a problem in the game and was using campaign supplements to fix it.  This was then followed up by the new battle box, Shadowspear, and introduced even more stuff to the Chaos Marines.  This was very necessary as the Chaos Space Marines were even worse off in the game than normal, long left behind, Space Marines.

  And then the cycle restarted, in a manner.  The new Chaos Space Marines codex was released with all the new updates and rules.  It was so good that CSM shot up the tournament rankings almost instantly.  And I have a theory as to why, but that's another post.  In the meantime, it was apparent that the Space Marines were being left behind in a bad way.  It wasn't that they weren't being used, but there was another fundamental problem with 8th edition that contributed to this-

  Souping.  For those that don't know what 'soup' in this case means, it represents the ability of armies to ally in detachments from other codices.  Chaos Space Marines can (and should always have been alllowed to) ally with Chaos Daemons, while Eldar also have the ability to ally with Dark Eldar and Harlequins.  Space Marines can ally with...  well, nobody allied their Space Marines with anything!  Imperial armies would ally Space Marines with their cheap IG (see the 'Loyal 32') and the overpowered Knights.  And the only Space Marines that would hit the tabletop were the obligatory cheap Scouts to contribute command points and the so-called 'Smash Captain' (SM Captain with jump pack, storm shield, and thunder hammer) for the ability to run up and destroy enemy Knights.  That's right, Knights were so common that building one's army around being able to handle them became a priority across the gaming world.  And because of that cheeziness and focus, Space Marines never actually got to see the table.

  And if you haven't seen me in the discussion forums of so many gaming sites across the interwebs, just know that I hate the entire existence of the 'Smash Captain'.  Space Marine armies are supposed to be made up of Tactical squads, but where are they?  Every battle force of Space Marines is led by a Smash Captain, apparently better than even special characters.  Really?  Land Raiders, Terminators, Assault Squads, standard Dreadnoughts, and even Chaplains all disappeared from the game.  You know- the lynchpins of the Space Marines' lore and glory of past editions!  In other words, Space Marines were crap!

  So now it comes back to the question- did the new Space Marine codex break the game?  Imperial (and Chaos) Knights broke the game, but no more than they already did in previous editions.  Genestealer Cult and Adeptus Custodes broke the game, but not in such a way that they became the go-to for tournament players.  Orks broke the game, but not because of being overpowered.  They simply became effective in their randomness, finally.  But then comes along Chaos Space Marines.  They gained things like Obliterators with more dakka and more survivability and Lord Discordants with their massive speed and potentially huge damage output.  Add to that the psychic shenanigans that allowed them to buff these up even mroe and...  well, they may have actually broken the game legitimately.

  And now we're to the Space Marines.  Remember how that army was all but gone in the tournament scene?  If you weren't racking a flying captain with the armament of a medieval knight and accompanied by the trainees with sniper rifles (and all likely painted red), then you probably never saw the battlefield.  It was nice that the Imperium finally learned how to combine forces to make... combined forces, but we needed to get the Space Marines back at some point.  This new book actually makes the other units in the codex useable again.  We might see Space Marines being used in a game centered around Space Marines!

  They did NOT break the game.  This book, less than two weeks old at the writing of this post, has done nothing to upset the balance of the game as a whole.  The meta still revolves around cheap battalions and brigades to get the most command points and some big stompies that do massive damage, from the Imperial (or Chaos) Knights and Smash Captains to daemonically-gifted grifters with great speed to sneaky gits that pop up and smash things with Stop signs.  But at least now the Space Marines can make an appearance.

  As I talk to my buddy, consummately a cheezeball with competitive play in mind and walking away with trophies from every tournament he ever plays in, I found the best way to describe my impression.  You see, whenever a tournament player sees the matchups, they have certain reactions.  Here's the impact that these new codices have on the game for Space Marines-

You won't pump your fist in joy instantly when you see that you're playing against Space Marines anymore!

  That's it!  I don't believe that Space Marines are 'broken' or have completely changed the meta of the game.  If anything, these codices made Space Marines competitive again.  They will bring the poster-children, the mascots of 40k back to the tabletop.  And that is a GOOD thing.  

  Let me know if you agree or disagree.  Provide some examples of what you think is broken or your experience playing with and against them.  I always love to see the blogosphere explode with needless angst and I'm darn sure that this is that.  After all, don't we all love Space Marines?

  Happy Gaming!