[ntaw]

It's a cool list, but unfortunately in the current edition of the Codex the Deathwing are not a standalone force. To quote 'Summoned To War' from the Deathwing Strike Force Detachment,

All units in this Detachment must begin the game in Deep Strike Reserve.

Which means you'll only have a Drop Pod and a Dreadnought on the table at the end of T1, pretty easy pickings for a tabling before the rest of the force can arrive. It also means that you have to Deep Strike your Land Raider, which is pretty silly...Blood Angels used to be able to do this naturally and it's tricky to get something as big as a LR not to mishap on a medium-dense terrain table. If you were to play at 2k (and maybe shift around some things in your current collection) you could include some Ravenwing to at least get something else on the table T1 and even some Reserve manipulation. To continue with Summoned To War,

If your army includes a Ravenwing Attack Squadron or a Ravenwing Strike Force, you can choose to automatically pass or fail ny Reserve rolls you make for units in this Detachment; there is no need to roll.

To make this list playable, you have some options.

a) ally in another Faction that will be on table T1 (I would also look to spend 34 points on an Inquisitor with some servo skulls to assist with DS scatter)

b) include some Ravenwing

c) take more Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods so that you have a harder to remove alpha strike

Something that you could do to get more Terminators in T1 is take 'Seth's Taxi Service', the Fleshtearers Strike Force from the Shield of Baal: Exterminatus campaign book. You could ally in a Blood Angel HQ and Troop selection along with 1-6 Drop Pods that you can cram 5 man squads of Deathwing into for a stronger alpha strike. It would mean dropping some things from your list of course, but it's doable if you've got the models and the interest.

 

[ntaw]

How's he going to arrive? Drop out of the sky? Weird...

This guy, I would imagine.

b) May I take a Ravenwing unit in such a detachment? I thought it was exclusive Deathwing...

You don't take them within the Deathwing Detachment, you take the Ravenwing attack Formation or the Ravenwing Detachment in addition to the Deathwing Detachment. So long as all Detachments/Formations have their minimum requirements for unit selections the army is considered Battle Forged.

Wouldn't they be chopped to pieces?

That all depends on what you take and how you play them. I habitually play dual Furiosos in Drop Pods with my Blood Angels and they work wonders for me even if they get blown away after they arrive.

Maybe I got the deathwing strike rules confused somehow?

You're thinking of the old Deathwing Strike rule. Even the Formation is of no use, with that you pick either Turn 2, 3, or 4 for them to arrive in and they arrive full force that turn (Pods included).

I thought pods couldn't take termies...

Pods can hold up to 10 models, and Terminators are considered Bulky. Five Terminators takes up a 10 model capacity in a Transport. There's nothing under the Drop Pod or Terminator Armour entries in any Codex that I can see that prevents you from putting them in there provided there's space. Heck, people put Centurions in Pods and they're Very Bulky (take up 3 model's space).

Thanks again for the valuable insights, mate!

No worries man! I love me some Deathwing. I have been defeated by the new Codex's hindrance of the standalone Deathwing force, but in the event I get more Pods before a new edition/Formation comes out this is pretty much what I'll be doing.