Angel's Keep: A 40K Dark Angels Blog

Ah, those old Forge World action photos! Good day, battle brothers! I was listening to The Art Of War Down Under podcast last weekend. The host, Adam Camalleri and his guest were talking about Space Marine units, and they mentioned the Predator Destructor as a unit that was really good value for the cost. That prompted me to take a look at it. I know the Predator Destructor is not a unit unique to Dark Angels armies, but it is one I think is worth calling attention to, in case it's flying under your radar. The basic profile is what you'd expect from a Space Marine gun tank. It's neither remarkably good or remarkably bad. The sex appeal is in the main gun profile and its special rule. When I saw the profile on the Predator autocannon, my eyes popped a bit. 4 shots at Strength 9 AP -1 and 3 damage with a 48" inch range and Rapid Fire 2? That got my attention. Everything except the AP is pretty solid. Damage 3 in particular is a powerful break point. That makes the main g...

And I thought the Nephilim couldn't be prettier! Good day, battle brothers! Another weekend has gone by, and I'm pleased to report that a Dark Angels list has gone undefeated at a GT! At the JP Cup in Poland, Grzegorz "Grzelich" Hellich went 4-0-1 with his Vanguard Spearhead, coming in 2nd out of 46 players.  Over the past few months, I've reviewed enough list to come to expect to see certain things based on the detachment listed in the rankings. What's cool about Grzelich's list is that it defied my expectations. I did not find the big brick of Centurion Devastators I was expecting to find. Instead, Grzelich's list looks more like what I'd expect to see in an Ironstorm Spearhead, and I was really surprised when I saw a Nephilim Jet Fighter! Here's the short version of Grzelich's list: Librarian in Phobos Armor - Enhancement: Shadow War Veteran Librarian in Phobos Armor Lieutenant with Combi-weapon Assault Intercessor Squad - 5 choppy boys ...

My last list from 9th edition Hello, battle brothers! With the release of the new codex supplement and everyone building new Deathwing armies with their contents of the Deathwing Assault box, I naturally figured now would be a good time to try a new Ravenwing list! I tend to be like that. Back in 9th edition when Deathwing was all the rage because of the perma-Transhuman effect, I was playing a Ravenwing list, and even when I decided if I couldn't beat them join them, the ultimate iteration of my Deathwing list still featured Sammael, 10 Ravenwing Knights, and a couple Talonmasters. My final 9th edition list returned to majority Ravenwing, built around the idea that putting a Ravenwing Ancient around 3 units of 3 multimelta Attack Bikes might be good.  I dabbled with some of the Ravenwing stuff at the beginning of 10th edition, but was underwhelmed with how Attack Bikes and Ravenwing Knights performed. My lists featured a 10-strong Deathwing Command Squad and 5 Deathwing Knights fo...

 Hello battle brothers! I wanted to take a bit of time to muse about something I've been noticing lately. Since I started this blog a few months ago, I thought it would be a nice idea to write posts about Dark Angels lists that are doing well at major events. These posts are a lot more popular than when I blog about how I did at a local RTT, I've kept doing them. However, I've noticed a particular criticism of these lists come up with some frequency. "That's a Space Marines list with Azrael in it." Okay, sure, that's accurate, but so what? We haven't always had a bunch of unique units Back when I started playing in 3rd edition, besides characters there were no unique Dark Angels units, other than reskins of Terminator Squads and Bike Squads. Also, the named characters were listed in the book with the caveat one could only use them with opponent's permission, which definitely implied that one was not supposed to use them in regular games. The only u...

Hello, battle brothers! It is once again my pleasure to bring you news of a Dark Angels list that performed well at a Grand Tournament this past weekend. It wasn't as exciting a weekend for us as the previous one, with only one list rising to 8th place at the Planet arKCanite 2024 GT in Kansas City Missouri. The list in question was run by Bret Ebaugh of Macragge's Crabshack, and interestingly it is not the Ironstorm Spearhead that ran roughshod last weekend. Instead, this one is the bog-standard Gladius Task Force we've had since the Index was released. It's nice to see the Gladius still has legs. Let's take a look at Bret's list and see what we can learn from it. Apothecary Biologus wt Fire Discipline Azrael (warlord) Techmarine Assault Intercessors: 10 choppy boys Aggressor Squad: 6 chonky punchy bolter boys Gladiator Lancer Gladiator Lancer Inceptor Squad: 3 bolter boys Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys Land Raider Redeemer Redemptor Dreadnought Redemptor Dre...