Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Dark Angels (section)

===Flyer===
8th Edition brings our vehicles in line with the other Codex-adherent armies.
*'''[[Nephilim Jetfighter]]:''' The Nephilim moved away from being an general purpose aircraft to a solid ground-attack fighter. In previous editions this was pretty much your primary source of anti-aircraft, although thankfully that's not such a huge problem these days. The Nephilim got a nice little buff to its Blacksword missiles this edition; they are no longer one-use items, now exist as launchers which never run out, and fire a pair of S7 AP-3 D2 shots each turn. However, ALL of its weapons are Heavy, so the Nephilim suffers a -1 for firing them while moving, and it cannot cease moving. On the plus side, it still has ''Strafing Run'' granting it +1 on to-hit rolls against anything which doesn't '''FLY''', meaning it essentially negates the Heavy penalty on to-hit against ground targets, firing on a 3+ at the start of the game. Of course as a member of the '''Ravenwing''' it has the ability to Jink, for that 4+ invulnerable save so long as it advances in the movement phase, though it cannot then fire any weapons at all, However if you use the Speed of the Raven Stratagem, then it can still shoot normally. Other slight changes tend to come from the surrounding meta than anything else; it has three attacks in the close combat phase ''(you know, just in case another flyer decides to have a go)'' but these do not diminish as the vehicle takes wounds like they do with other flyers, for whatever that is worth, and the Avenger Mega Bolter now behaves like a longer ranged Assault Cannon with 10 shots, since the latter weapon lost any ability to ''Rend''. Or you could swap that for a Twin Lascannon for some vehicle hunting. All of this wrapped in a solid flyer statline with T6 and 10W with a 3+ save and Hard to Hit, which forces enemies to shoot with -1 to hit, means that the Nephilim is still a fine support unit with plenty of reach on the battlefield.
**Additional Note: The Darkshroud can add a further -1 to hit, meaning this thing will mostly be hit on a 5+/6+ as long as the base is touching that 6in radius. Got to be care of movement, though. 
*'''[[Dark Talon]]:''' The Dark Talon got an interesting set of changes to its unit in 8th, with the dropping of templates the fundamentals of the Rift Cannon and Stasis Bomb completely change. The former is now a Heavy D3 ''(Heavy forces you to -1 to hit while moving, but is negated against ground targets by the Strafing Run rule.)'' S10 AP-3 Dam3, and any damage causes a roll on the Rift Vortex chart ''(Degrading with wounds)'' and on a 3+/4+/5+ you'll inflict D3 Mortal Wounds which is much more reliable than getting doubles on scatter and then luckily scattering onto an enemy. The end of templates now allows you to fire at enemy flyers with the Rift Cannon, although the Dark Talon does not gain any hit bonuses for fighting Flyers. The one-use Stasis Bomb activates as you fly over a unit, then you roll a D6 for each model in the unit, '''Up to a MAXIMUM of 10.''' on a 4+ the target <u>unit</u> suffers a mortal wound. ''(Not each model as the wounds have to be allocated to one model until it dies, then you choose another.)'' The average being 5 Mortal wounds on a single unit is a big deal. The Dark Talon also has two [[Hurricane Bolters]] which means [[Awesome|24 SHOTS at close range]]!!! While just the standard Bolter profile they are still excellent for clearing out light infantry units, and are no longer useless against the vehicles the [[Dark Talon]] often hunts. The Hover Jet special rule will prevent the Dark Talon from flying off the board and allow you to bring it back into the fight after flying off away from the fight. Now a total 185 points.

*'''[[Stormraven]] Gunship''' FINALLY!!! Ahem... Dark Angels get access to one of the better supporting unit that Space Marines have had for a while now. Some interesting combos can be transporting plasma vets and a lieutenant for more punishment were you need it. Also Terminators can be deposited to their destinations extremely quickly, where before you could only rely on Forgeworld vehicles to do this ''(see the Storm Eagle below)''; this goes double for your new Cataphracti Terminators who really benefit from a fast transport vehicle, though surgical charges from Deathwing Knights can be devastating. Unfortunately no Inner Circle or Ravenwing rules for this vehicle, guess they can't trust the Techmarine pilot (cool little fluff bit, the Dark Angels don't trust techmarines with their secrets due to their pledge to the Omnissiah). The transport capacity; being able to transport 12 regular guys (or 6 terminator, 1 squad and 1 TA character) AND a Dreadnought meaning you can now pop that thing where you wish now, rather that it walking a long distance.
** Weapon wise, the Twin Multi Melta is generally your better lower option. The Twin Heavy Bolter isn't that useful since more stuff gets Heavy Bolters than Multi-Meltas and compared to the Typhoon, for 4 points more, you're halving its range (no big deal for a flyer) while making its AP stronger by 2 and having a chance of higher damage. Upper wise, Assault Cannons are for taking out Infantry, Lascannons for Monsters/Vehicles and Plasma Cannons for somewhere in the middle. Supercharging them also doesn't insta-kill you, which is a nice bonus. 

====Forge World====
*'''[[Storm Eagle]] Gunship (Forge World):'''  It's a transport gunship armed with a Vengeance Launcher amongst other wing and nose mounted weaponry. The Vengeance Launcher this edition is practically a Heavy Bolter that fires 2D6 shots and is the only thing you cannot change about the weapon loadout. The nose can have either a twin heavy bolter, twin multi-melta or a Typhoon Missile Launcher, allowing you to customise for ground clearance, vehicle hunting or a combination of both. While the wings are armed with with either Hellstrike Launchers or Twin Lascannons. The whole thing has a transport capacity of 20 so is one of the only transports that can carry a full Deathwing Squad, so makes for a great alternative to teleporting to battle since you can get right in the enemy's face before disembarking. The Eagle also has the Power from the Machine Spirit rule, so does not suffer penalties to hit when moving, great considering all the heavy weapons it is packing.
**Unlike the previous edition the Vengeance Launcher can now target other aircraft though with S5 it might not cause a whole bunch of wounds, either way considering it's other armaments, the Storm Eagle makes for a pretty good interceptor once it has delivered it's transport payload.
**Hellstrike Missiles in the wings might be worth keeping this edition. They used to be limited-use Ordnance which meant they hindered all of your other shooting, but now they are unlimited weapons that sit between Lascannons and Krak missiles in effectiveness: they have a longer range of 72" so can reach further over the table and they also do fixed 3 points of damage which means you can more comfortably rely on them, rather than risking the higher strength Lascannon fluffing a critical shot and doing 1-2 damage. 
**The ROC pattern has the Minotaurs key word, so isn't for us. It can't transport our men anyway.

*'''[[Fire Raptor]] Gunship (Forge World):'''  A flyer that pointedly puts out '''more''' than double what the Nephilim is capable of. For starters, the Twin Avenger Bolter fires 10 shots at S6 just like the Nephilim Avenger Bolter, but is AP-2 and 2 damage. It has two quad heavy bolters throwing out [[Rape|12 Heavy Bolter shots EACH]] and two twin Hellstrike launchers ''(no more limited use missiles)'' that are better than Blacksword launchers by firing two S8 AP-3 Dam3 missiles each. Now that's a LOT of firepower. It also has Power of the Machine Spirit just like Land Raiders do, so it never suffers ballistic skill penalties for moving and firing heavy weapons. This thing is a pure hurricane of dakka that will cause carnage no matter what you point it at.  It also can't get the '''Ravenwing''' key word, so you can't get the full benefit of Sammael's rerolls or the ''Jink'' rule.
**It probably won't be a massive shock to find out that before you spaff ropes of nerdy jism all over the place that this pointedly puts out '''more''' than double the dakka of the Nephilim unit pointedly costs '''more than double''' the points.  About a hundred more than double, in default loadout.  Pew!

*'''[[Xiphon pattern interceptor]] (Forge World):''' The essential anti-aircraft interceptor. Thankfully changes to the rules this edition means that the Nephilim and the Xiphon do not stand on each others toes as much. Firstly, for shooting, the Xiphon does not suffer penalties for moving and firing heavy weapons ''and'' gains +1 when shooting at other flyers: So hits aircraft on a 3+ even after you factor ''Hard to Hit''. It's two twin Lascannons now fire four shots altogether and it's rotary missile launcher fires three shots that are weaker than black sword missiles; S6 means it can only wound most other vehicles on a 4+ or worse, but can do three damage if they inflict unsaved wounds. So the Xiphon is really built for taking out high value targets whether on the ground or air, where the Nephilim can deal with hordes or double down if it takes the lascannon and go after bigger targets, but generally only on the ground. Secondly, in some strange reversal, the Xiphon is actually more resilient than the Nephilim, having T7 and 11 wounds. It is '''not''' ''Ravenwing'' so it cannot benefit from certain auras or the ''Jink'' ability. But Jinking is hardly as useful this edition as in previous, so that's not actually a problem. The Xiphon really has its place in Dark Angels lists because the Nephilim is a general purpose flyer and they don't have their own interceptor like the Stormhawk. Sure, Stormhawks are more customisable, but the Xiphon really does stick to its job of high damage.

*'''[[Caestus Assault Ram]]:''' The Caestus is a bizarre cookie this edition. Though it does exactly what it sets out to do. It transports ten infantry men, irrespective of (terminator) bulkiness ''(no Jump Packs though)'' and if a building needs assaulted, then this flyer will take men there. The Ram itself is S8 AP-3 D6 and hits buildings multiple times on a 2+, so has a decent chance of punching a hole in a wall for your disembarked troops to assault through. But all of this happens in the assault phase ''(rather than being a "Ram" action like before)'' so your men disembark and you both have to charge your targets at the same time and even if your Caestus does destroy the building, any survivors can crawl away and need not necessarily be engaged any more. Leaving your close-assault troops standing around for a while.
**The other big consideration is that it's "Airborne Ram" special rule doesn't allow it to charge buildings. To charge a building, you'd have to go into hover mode.
**For ranged weapons, it has the twin magna-melta which will likely punch the crap out of its target, doing 2D3 shots ''(average 4)'' at S10 AP-4 and a rerollable D6 worth of damage. This is what will pop open those buildings for your troopers to get a go at. It also has a pair of Firefury Missile Launchers, which are no longer one-use and now behave like a four shot assault cannon ''(remember you have two, so eight shots altogether)''. So can be good for clearing out hordes of infantry around your landing zone.
**Note the Caestus gets no bonus to hit against vehicles -only buildings- which means it only gets four attacks that hit on a 5+, So it doesn't really do so well as a bludgeoning tool for knocking other flyers out if the sky, save your ranged weapons for that.