[Levin]

That's all well and good, but I think we're all forgetting the point. Dire Avengers are glorified anti horde killers. They pack the equivilent of a shorter ranged stormbolter. This isn't the kind of firepower you want to be wasting on cc attack squads of death. Against marines (the most likely army you're referring too) they're gonna save 67% of the wounds you cause, so it's better to just shoot at em with all you've got and make them save more times. All this talk about attacking and defending is more than likely a pipe dream. And as stated before, getting a 5+ save against 4-8 power weapon attacks means you'll save anywhere from 0-3. What seems better to me is if you save yourself a lot of points and simply make the squads do what they were designed to do. Shoot the piss out of people before bum rushing foward. You do this with all your squads and your bound to kill more of him than he does of you and you'll outnumber him. If you give your exarch an extra shuriken cat. then you'll be getting 4-5 attacks before the charge, and 4 after. Going with the diresword, you get 1-2 shots before the charge and 4 power weapon attacks that have a chance to cause instant death after. Seems that mathematically, both of these configurations beat out the alternative plan involving the shield. If you take the shimmer shield you won't get any shots from your exarch before the charge, and you'll only get 3 power weapon attacks in cc that don't cause instant death. Sure, you might save 1 or 2 of your own guys, but if you'd taken more shots and the extra power weapon attack, you might have been able to kill off that guy that's swinging back at you with his power weapon. Especially if you charged him with two squads.

Truly, it all depends on the circumstances during the game what tactic is best, but I have a strong feeling that a lot of these tactical ideas are going to be highly ineffective once you start playing them out.