# Dark Vengeance Armies: Balanced?



## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

I say horrendously no. The space marines win in every conflict using the models provided. We even got rid of the heavy weapon portion of the space marine army and Chaos still got ran. I'm not even talking just bad rolls. I managed to at least keep one game interesting when we switched sides, basically using the cultist squads as meat shields for the hell brute and marine squad. It was still sad.

Has anyone else ran into this? How can new players possibly want to play Chaos if this is the example they're given?? The models are absolutely great detail-wise, but jeeze.


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## BozlyLittle (Jul 3, 2011)

its not supposed to be a complete army. It's supposed just to be models. Who cares if its balanced that's not the point.


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## Creator of Chaos (Feb 8, 2012)

I find that if you remove the the liberian which is unessessary then the set becomes balanced. Its like the old black reach set you had to remove the dread for the teams to be on even footing as one was 480points the other was 585. Ridiculus really. They should have at-least given Choas a few more chosen or Given the lord extra Wargear to balance out the points because as it stands it does favour the marines


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## Da Joka (Feb 20, 2009)

They want new players to play SMs duhh! fuck all the other armies, MOAR SPACE MARINES!!!


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Da Joka said:


> They want new players to play SMs duhh! fuck all the other armies,


Considering space marines are a very forgiving army for someone just starting out, it actually make a lot of sense for them to push them in the starter. Then once you know what your doing (more or less) and have had enough of the marines, its time to start specializing with one of the other races.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

It definitely makes you feel solid moving out of the set, but you'll start to get ran as you face more experienced people. I feel like the starter sets should be more balanced, if for no other reason to make the gaming experience more fun for the two people involved. The set's still friggin' sweet as tits, I was just awestruck that it was such landslide victories each time.


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## Moonschwine (Jun 13, 2011)

> Has anyone else ran into this? How can new players possibly want to play Chaos if this is the example they're given?? The models are absolutely great detail-wise, but jeeze.!


It's part marketing and it's also part planned for GW staff to be Chaos (aka The Bad Guys). When a kid asks to go Chaos, any half decent member of staff will cut the points in the DA's in favour of the Chaos player. 

However I do agree the differences are shocking. Not just points wise, but fire-power. A lack of AP 2 weaponry on the Chaos Side makes the terminators crazy hard to shift. The strength of weapons is also radically different between the two; with I think the average strength of the DA side being 6 (which wounds Chosen on a 2+ and Insta-kills the Cultists) and the Chaos being 4 (wounding on 3+ and generally giving armour saves to everyone). I think this set could have benefited from a Mirror effect between the forces; with a tit-for tat (Chaos Termies, an Imperial D-Naught etc). 

I was reading about marketing psychology and consumer behaviour. By basically "throwing the game" as it was points wise (a fact that new players are generally Ignorant of points discrepancies to begin with anyway) and giving the win you generate a sense of happiness in the customer making them easier to influence in purchasing products. 

In a way it's shockingly shameful. In another it's nothing short of genius.

And yes, some could say it's to sell marines. I can't remember the correct technical term for it, but talking with my local GW staff they said that because SM's are popular, they sell more and further increase in popularity, which in turn generates more sales. Sort of self-perpetuating.


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## Tensiu (Aug 15, 2009)

Freakin' perpetuum mobile.
My sister, 11 years old, liked the idea of having Death Guard army, and only cause DV Chaos is so boringly underpowered, she's to get Murheenz.

Okay, Murheenz are damn popular so GW's making lots of money for them. Fine, it's, after all, all about money, but making starter armies balanced would be just nice. Paying not small money, expecting 2 small armies, getting 1,5. That's rude, money's not everything.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

You also have to realize that the starter set is not a stand alone substitute for 40k. It's not like buying a chess board or board game where everything you will ever need to play is included and both players are 100% balanced.

It's just a teaser/marketing tool/money-maker.


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## Insanity (Oct 25, 2011)

Yeah it's in no way balanced. I watched 2 games of it the other day. 1st game, DAs went 1st and never even lost a single model.

2nd game, DA player wasn't allowed to use his bikes. Chaos went 1st and still lost, but managed to take out 2 models this time. Although it may have gone better if the DA Plasma cannon hadn't managed to overwatch the Hellbrute and kill it before it could attack.


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## Archaon18 (Feb 17, 2012)

To be honest, I never expected the points to be balanced. I knew GW would make Marines better than chaos, which I like because less people will play Chaos!

By the way IronFreak, this thread has broken your precious forum formula


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## ThoseKrazyKasrkin (Aug 2, 2011)

Insanity72 said:


> Yeah it's in no way balanced. I watched 2 games of it the other day. 1st game, DAs went 1st and never even lost a single model.
> 
> 2nd game, DA player wasn't allowed to use his bikes. Chaos went 1st and still lost, but managed to take out 2 models this time. Although it may have gone better if the DA Plasma cannon hadn't managed to overwatch the Hellbrute and kill it before it could attack.


Lucky blast weapons cant overwatch then............:spiteful:


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

It's an introductory tool to get people into the game and get them interested in those armies. Therefore they provided a variety of cool stuff that's representative of the two armies and looks fantastic. 

You're not supposed to simply play normal games with the two armies, rather the accompanying narrative based missions, which stipulate what each side takes each mission. 

For the purpose of the box the armies don't need to be balanced.


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## 18827 (Oct 23, 2009)

It's got nice NEW models(the best I've ever seen in a starter), the price is ok and the mini rulebook saves you gamer carrying a big book. Hell the bikes, cultists and hellbrute alone make it a worthwhile buy. 
But hay we are miserable humans who are never happy so let's cry about how unbalanced it is coz we got nothing else to moan about today. :laugh:


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## Tranx (Mar 8, 2010)

Balance wasn't ever the point of this box set. It was meant to be a set of cool models to play a narrative mini-campaign (as provided by the missions in the box). They really are trying to shift the emphasis away from winning games and towards the hobby as a whole.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

You get introduced to tennis by a friend. In your first match he says "You have to stand on one leg all the time when you're in the top court - it's in the rules". You play in the top court, and of course he smashes your face in. You feel like crap, and a bit stupid.

He then says "Hey, if you like, we can swap sides. I'll stand on one leg instead." so you then promptly win by miles. You feel a little bit better, but also rather patronised. You'd rather you either both stood on one leg, or neither of you did. Then it would be a fun and fair game. You tell your friend this. He replies:

"It's not meant to be fair, it's meant to be a teaser of what real tennis is like - and to get you to play in the bottom court all the time. When you're a big boy then you can maybe try playing in the top court again and you won't suck so much"

To which most sane people probably reply with "Why don't we just play a NORMAL GAME OF FUCKING TENNIS??"

Or is that just me?


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## Insanity (Oct 25, 2011)

ThoseKrazyKasrkin said:


> Lucky blast weapons cant overwatch then............:spiteful:


Ahh in that case they either played the rules wrong, or it was a plasma gun and I just thought they were doing the plasma cannon


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## WarlordKaptainGrishnak (Dec 23, 2008)

As has been mentioned the DV set was never going to be balanced.

It is formost a starter kit, for people newly coming into the hobby, or those who are just starting up the gaming side of the hobby.

If you look at the models presented to you, you can get a fair idea of what GW is aiming for:

Company Master - shows a standard HQ set up, mutliple wounds, Independant Character, Invulnerable saves

Librarian - shows Psychic powers, force weapons, multiple wounds, Independat character

Tactical - standard Troops choice, a show of heavy and special weapons

Termiators - standard Elite choice, shows its special weapons, introduction to a 2+ save, power fists, and Assault type weapons

Bike - standard bikes, introduces turbo-boost, jink, special weapons, alternate toughness

Chaos Lord - Another standard HQ, multi wound, higher stats, invul save, IC (more or less the same as the Company Master)

Helbrute - An introduction to Hull points, and how vehicles have 'facings', a new weapon (in the MM)

Chosen - A typical Elite choice, with a range of different melee weapons. This unit in itself showcases the most widely used melee weapons, and is an excellent additon to the starter kit!

Cultists - Shows a typical Troop (?) choice with a worse save to anything else in the set, but has superior numbers. With a mix of auto weapons, flamers, shotguns, it seems to fill the gaps in the weapons that aren't featured within the other units. Also introduces, squad leaders with significantly differernt stats to the normal trooper (namely LD and Wounds)

If you read the narrative missions GW provides, they do a very good job in introducing these different units into the game, giving the -starting- player a good oppurtunity to learn the differences within the units.

Having read the WD featuring DV, yes the DA seem to come out on top more often. BUT there were situations were there was very little in the margin of the win.

Given the last 2 missions provided are using the whole collection, they DA do seem to come out on top, due to superior firepower mainly. So it isn't really balanced, but neither were Assault on Black Reach or Battle for Maccrage. So were we -really- expecting anything different this time round?

In short modelwise and set up wise I think that this is a smashing starter kit, as well as a nice additon to current gamers collections.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

Much like Island of Blood, Dark Vengeance gives you two starting armies. However, they were never intended to be balanced, and like Grish said, they were meant to showcase the different types of units in the game. I'm actually a little surprised that they didn't do Raptors instead of Chosen since out of all the non-vehicle unit types, Jump Infantry are the only ones not represented. 

For most folks, it's a good starting point for the hobby. You get some models and a rulebook to start you off at a much cheaper price tag than buying some models and the main rulebook on its own. Games Workshop realized (in a fairly dumb move, in my opinion) that they didn't want people buying complete armies out of these starter boxes-- it doesn't make sense for established gamers to buy a copy of Dark Vengeance unless they have a Chaos or Dark Angels army (or intend to start one, in which case they're still great starting points for those armies). You can't realistically build a complete army that's functional by buying several copies of Dark Vengeance the way you could with Assault on Black Reach (or in the case of Fantasy 7th, Battle of Skull Pass).


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

The scenarios in the booklet feel a bit more balanced than just lining the two sides up for a battle, so there's that. Plus the chaos models are just way more awesome than the dark angels models in this set, so it's hard to really feel bad for them.

Maybe the terminators should have been on the chaos side, with vets or the dreadnought switched to the dark angels. Would have helped points and game balance, and with the dark angels having so much plasma the terminators wouldn't have felt as dominating as they do, but on the other hand terminators are such an important fluff thing for dark angels....


Eh, I can't complain. It's a ton of models, including some exceptional chaos stuff, for a fair price - at least in the US.


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## Iron_Freak220 (Nov 8, 2009)

Archaon18 said:


> By the way IronFreak, this thread has broken your precious forum formula


Yeah what the hell is going on here? :laugh:

I agree with Grishnak that the goal of the starter set was probably to introduce a wide range of rules and units to a new player, but I also think it introduces a number of different army types as well.

You've got your hordes (cultists), your elite-heavy armies (termis, bikes), your close combat armies (chosen), and your shooty armies (tacticals).

So maybe if you're playing the Chaos side you'll lose more often than not, if the chosen were your favorite unit in the box then it would help you pick your first army (Blood Angels, CSM, etc). If you really liked the cultists, then it might lead you to Guard, Orks, or Nids.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Bottom lime is, Bar flyers... nearly every rule is covered.

It's better than Black reach. We can all agree on that.


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## ntaw (Jul 20, 2012)

The fact that everything is covered is awesome, the whole point of this was to see if other people have seen the same things I have or if I just absolutely suck using Chaos. I never bought any of the other sets, got back in to the hobby less than a year before 6th came out. Only box set I ever bought was the 2nd edition of Space Hulk and I was just a kid then, hahaha.


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