1 List, 27 Bikes

Hello battle brothers! It was a slow weekend for us, with no Dark Angels lists popping up in the lists that placed highly on the Meta Monday roundup, so I thought it would be a good time for an article about my new list.

I've been enjoying my Firestorm Assault Force list, but I have been wanting to play a list with a little more DA flair to it. Unfortunately, our codex supplement is pretty lackluster when it comes to our unique units and detachments, but there is one bright spot, and that's being able to attach Ravenwing Command Squads to other mounted units. So, I decided to build a list around that.

Here's the short version of the list:

Gladius Task Force - 1980 points
Azrael
Ravenwing Command Squad - Enhancement: Fire Discipline
Ravenwing Command Squad - Enhancement: The Honour Vehement
Ravenwing Knights: 6 awesome bikers
Ravenwing Knights: 6 awesome bikers
Outrider Squad: 3 bikers
Outrider Squad: 3 bikers
Outrider Squad: 3 bikers
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 plasma boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Gladiator Lancer
Predator Destructor wt lascannon sponsons
Predator Destructor wt lascannon sponsons

I'll start off the discussion of the list with my detachment choice. One would think the Company of Hunters would be the natural detachment for a list with so many bikes in it, and I did consider it. The detachment rule is good (though I state that with the caveat that Ravenwing Knights' plasma talons should have the Assault keyword instead of having to rely on a detachment rule), but the stratagems are mediocre, and enhancements wouldn't suit what I'm trying to do with this list. I considered the Stormlance Task Force, but while that detachment has some attractive features, it does a lot more for mounted assault units. I even considered the Firestorm Assault Force, because it's detachment rule suits big bricks of Ravenwing Knights right down to the ground, plus Champion of Humanity would be great to stick on a Ravenwing Champion leading such a brick. Unfortunately, the Firestorm lacks a mechanism to have a unit be able to fall back and shoot, and this is a list that really needs such a mechanism. Ultimately, the Gladius Task Force winds up being the best detachment for this list. I can choose a combat doctrine to suit my needs on a given turn, it has a good strat for enhancing shooting, a good strat for enhancing assault, a strat to allow me to flex a unit into a particular doctrine, and even a strat for out of sequence movement (which you'd think the CoH would have, but doesn't).

The obvious heart of the list is the two big combined Ravenwing Command Squad + Ravenwing Knight bricks. I messed with Ravenwing Knights a bit at the beginning of the edition and I was underwhelmed at the time, but being able to add the Command Squad to the unit increases their damage output by 33%. Potentially getting up to 27 plasma shots a turn is sexy. Plus, the abilities of the two units synergize with each other quite well. There's nothing wrong with being able to put 9 OC 3 bikes on an objective, it's great to have bonuses to advance and charge, being able to return a bike a round is fantastic, and getting Anti-Vehicle 4+ and Anti-Monster 4+ on the charge helps the unit punch up against those larger targets. As far as the enhancements go, Fire Discipline is fantastic on one of these combined units, especially when it's in Devastator Doctrine. The other unit got The Honour Vehement just because I had points to spend without any other convenient way to spend them. It's not bad, but it'll likely come off when I want to put points somewhere else. We'll see what the next points update brings. 

Firstborn Bikers on Outrider bases

The other 9 bikes in the list are my 3 squads of Outriders, which you may be surprised to see in a list because they're not very sexy. They do, however, have one useful feature - they can be relied upon to move 18" a turn, and that movement can put 12 wounds with a combined OC 6 onto an objective for a fairly cheap 80 points. I have them in the list so I can run them out onto no man's land objectives on the first turn and oblige my opponents to come out and deal with them while moving up my Ravenwing Knights into their threat range without exposing them before they can strike. Outriders are just tough enough that opponents aren't going to shift them with trivial units, so they have to move their big stuff out to clear them off.  Anything else the Outriders can accomplish beyond that is gravy. If a couple of them manage to survive, they can run around and score secondaries for me, but I'm not counting on it. 

The Storm Speeder Thunderstrike is in the list to help the Ravenwing Knight punch up against larger targets. However, it's also a pretty fair fire support platform in its own right, with its three AP -3 Damage D6+1 shots that hit on 2's, which it doesn't even have to put into the target I want the buff against, because it's also got a twin Icarus Rocket Pod with D3 shots, so I can put the Icarus Pod shots into the unit I want to apply the buff to and its big guns into something else. It has Deep Strike which simultaneously helps ease deployment zone crowding and lets me put it into the most advantageous position for its shooting. And, at T9 with 11 wounds, it's not a pushover to shoot off the table either. I'd like to have 2 in the list, but I had trouble sourcing them for a while, and the Gladiator Lancer is a points-neutral alternative.

The Darkshroud is in the list to help keep key units alive. Ideally I have it covering two of the Outriders squads in the first turn, them covering the Ravenwing Knights when they emerge into the open to make their strike.

The Gladiator Lancer wound up in the list because it's a points-neutral swap with the Thunderstrike and I as yet only have 1 of those. It does give me some confidence to have that Lancer Laser Destroyer to put into really tough targets though. 

The Predator Destructors are in the list on the strength of their main gun and special rule. If you haven't taken a look at it lately, the Predator Autocannon is 48" 4 shots S9 AP-1 Damage 3 Rapid Fire 2, with its AP improved by 1 vs infantry. That takes its attacks to the Invulnerable save of Terminators and the like, which is an important break point, so it can really do some damage to W3 infantry, of which there is a fair bit. I was tempted to field them with heavy bolter sponsons for a whole swath of AP-2 dakka, but with lascannons and a hunter killer missile, Destructors are not a bad anti-vehicle/monster platform either. The autocannon will do some work just on sheer volume of shots, and then with the lascannons and HKs they can cleam up a unit the Lancer has already damaged. 

The Scouts have two jobs. Their first job is to forward deploy onto or near a no man's land objective so my opponent can't completely screen me off them with their own forward deployment. I run them away from the enemy with their Scout move and pick them up into Strategic Reserve so they can come out later and score secondaries.

The Inceptors are in the list because sometimes I want D3 plasma shooting, sometimes I want a Deep Strike unit that's hard to zone out, and sometimes I want both at the same time.  

Azrael is primarily in the list to feed me CP. I assigned him to hang out with an Intercessor Squad because they can sticky that objective, which affords me the luxury of being able to move off the objective, either to deal with an opposing unit that had the temerity to drop in back there, or to run into a corner to score me Investigate Signals. Their bolt rifles are not unrespectable weapons either, with 2 shots, a 24" range and AP -1, so they can help Azrael contribute a bit of shooting when I need them to.

I'd like to take a moment to discuss something that didn't make it into the list: Sammael. You'd think you'd want Sammael in a list with 27 bikes in it. The problem with the current iteration of Sammael is that he wants to be in a mounted assault unit that Dark Angels just don't have. Ravenwing are more of a mobile shooting force than an assault force. The Black Knight bricks can do some work against the right targets, but I wouldn't want to send one into a full squad of Terminators and I wouldn't expect a good outcome if I did. For all of that, if I could attach Sammael to a Ravenwing Command Squad and then attach the whole shebang to, say, an Outrider Squad, that would actually be a pretty decent assault unit. However, GW didn't see fit to allow commanders to join a Command Squad for some reason. I thought about attaching him to Outriders, but then I'd have a unit of Outriders that I'd be reluctant to sacrifice to lure my opponent's units out of hiding, and that's counter to why they're in the list in the first place. Plus, for what he brings to the table, Sammael probably ought to be 80 points, not 130. 

As of this writing, I've played this list at two events. The first was at TJ's Cafe & Games Executive RTT in March of this year, and the second was at Five Star Games' April RTT. 

At the Executive RTT at TJ's Cafe & Games, I went 1-2, having scored 74-89 vs Alex Ing's Necrons and 58-79 vs Brad Flagg's Grey Knights, with my win being 66-42 against Andrew Tessier's Tyranids. My expectations weren't super high because it was my first time using the list, but that wasn't a terrible outing. I may have lost two games, but my score was not bad, and I learned from those games. Specifically, the major mistake I was making was overextending too early in the game in an attempt to get the Ravenwing Knights in rapid fire range. It's great if you can do so, but 18 plasma shots at 18" range is still pretty good output.

I try not to complain about dice too much, but they did do me dirty at a key moment in my second game. I baited Brad's big brick of Terminators into the open (sacrificing my Thunderstrike to do so), where I could bring the guns of both my Predators and my Inceptors to bear on them. After the fact, I calculated that average dice rolls should have killed 7 of them, but I only got 3. Sometimes the dice aren't your friend.

My performance was better at Five Star Games this past weekend. First round, I got an 82-44 win against Death Guard. I had a good Turn 2, when I was able to pick off Morty and an PBC with the combined efforts of both my bricks of Ravenwing Knights, but in the 3rd turn I made a blunder that almost swung the game back for my opponent, moving Ravenwing Knights I didn't need to move within Overwatch range of a Plague Marine unit with a ton of Torrent weapons in it. For the record, don't do that. 

Second round was my 90-70 loss against Adeptus Sororitas. An odd aspect of this game is that I can't think of much I might have done differently to get a better outcome. I drew a couple unfortunate secondaries at bad times and my opponent was able to score 10 more points on Primary. About the only mistake I can think of that I made was dropping my Inceptors into my opponent's deployment quarter to try and pick off one of his Exorcists, which didn't work because he was able to just Miracle Dice a 6 for the one save he needed to keep it alive. I'm actually a little salty about Exorcists now. 

Third round I won 89-72 against Chaos Knights. Obviously I took fixed secondaries and chose Bring It Down and Deploy Teleport Homers, and the only reason I didn't max it out secondaries was I couldn't get a unit into my opponent's deployment zone on the first turn. Other than that, my Ravenwing Knights performed well to excellently, and everything else pulled its weight. After I brought down one of my opponent's big Knights with my Fire Discipline Black Knights, my opponent observed that I baited him out with my Outriders, and I was like "Oh yes, absolutely!" It was a pretty brutal game, but I ended it with one brick of Knights mostly intact.

Unlike my experience with my Firestorm Assault Force, I'm pretty happy with how everything in the list has performed thus far. Every unit is doing what I want it to do. That said, I'm already thinking about adjustments. For starters, I'd originally conceived the list as having two Thunderstrikes, but I only just got my second Storm Speeder kit last weekend. I haven't been unhappy to have the Lancer in the list, but it's going to be replaced by the second Thunderstrike when it's ready to hit the table. 

Second, I'm a bit concerned about unit that have damage reduction defensive abilities, because when the heart of your list is a pair of mass-D2 shooting, damage reduction effectively halves their damage output. The solution I've come up with is a little more high-impact shooting. The Predators are good, but I think I'm going to replace them with either Gladiator Valiants or Storm Speeder Hammerstrikes. Both of them put out a bunch of lastalon and melta shots, with the Valiant packing 1 more melta shot, but the Hammerstrikes having better mobility and the ability to strip Benefit of Cover from enemy units, which synergizes nicely with the rest of the list. Plus, the Hammerstrikes fit the overall theme better. So, the Hammerstrikes would be my preference, but I currently only have 2 Storm Speeders, but I do also have 2 Gladiator hulls, and my fully assembled and painted one did originally start life as a Valiant, so the 2 Valiants are apt to make it into the list first. Either way, to pay for it, I'll have to drop Honour Vehement off my Ravenwing Champion, and Azrael will likely wind up hanging out with Assault Intercessors instead of regular Intercessors, and I can use that 20 points I haven't spent because finding a way to spend 20 points in a 10th edition list can sometimes be challenging. 

Then there's Azrael. I'd bet money that Azrael will go up in points when GW releases updated points in a couple weeks. I'm hoping enough other stuff in my list goes down to compensate, but in case it doesn't, the Inceptors may get replaced with jump pack Assault Intercessors. Jump pack Intercessors don't have the ability to drop in silly close, and they don't pack the damage output plasma Inceptors do. What Jump pack Intercessors do have going for them is that they are 45 points cheaper, and I won't have any doubt about using them to score secondaries, whereas I often find myself pressing my plasma Inceptors into service killing things. I even ordered some smoke trail things so I can convert some of my Firstborn Assault Marines into a reasonable facsimile of jump pack Intercessors. 

That's the story of the 27 bike list thus far.  I've enjoyed playing the list, and I've received compliments for playing something a little different from what people have been seeing in 10th edition. It's not easy mode 40K, but it's not unreasonably weak either. I'm hoping to improve my performance as I get in reps with the list. With any luck, I'll get good enough to start threatening to place at the local RTTs. Maybe I can even get my list in a Meta Monday roundup for an area GT. A guy can hope!

Thank you for reading. I hope you like my list. Feel free to make comments, and may you all play well and be a credit to the legion chapter!