Lists of the Week: Top Performers 5/27/2024

Hello, battle brothers! It's a little late, but Meta Monday finally posted the results of the events over the weekend, and I'm here to bring you the most important information from that, which Dark Angels lists performed well! Two DA lists went undefeated at major events over the weekend, and while (as you may have guessed from the photo) they were Ironstorms, they were at least different enough from the template to be interesting, and to show there can be some deviation from the 2 Stormraven formula and still be competitive.

Just a quick note - according to Meta Monday, three DA lists performed well, but when I went to the Best Coast Pairing listing for one of them (The Alamo GT '24), the top list wasn't a Dark Angels list as shown on Meta Monday, but Chaos Daemons instead. Oops. Maybe the author saw the event was in Texas and just figured Kit Smith Hanna crushed it the way he crushes all other events in the state.

We travel a pretty fair distance from Texas to see our first list. Ryan Burns of Mid Table Tactics went 5-0 at the Heroes of the Mid Table Spring GT in Langley, Canada, placing first out of 42 players. Here's the link to his list, but as always I'll give you the TLDR version below.

DA Ironstorm
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi Weapon: Master of Machine War
Techmarine: Target Augury Web
Techmarine: Adept of the Omnissiah
Gladiator Lancer
Gladiator Lancer
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Redemptor Dreadnought
Redemptor Dreadnought
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Stormraven Gunship

For me the surprising thing about this list was the Hellblasters. I did not expect to see them in an Ironstorm list. They appear to have taken the place of one of the Stormravens we typically see in these lists. I imagine Ryan may have even used the remaining Stormraven to transport the Hellblasters instead of just a Redemptor the way these lists usually do. Maybe not though. Hellblasters' plasma incinerators have the Assault keyword and a 24" range, and infantry can just Kool-Aid-Man it through walls, so they don't necessarily need a ride to get to where they can inflict damage.

The rest of the army shows solid list-crafting. The Ironstorm detachment rule makes the Lancers absurdly reliable when combined with their own special rule, pretty much ensuring that all their laser destroyer shots are going to hit and wound without having to commit Oath of Moment to their targets. The Infiltrators grant some board control, with the combi weapon Lieutenant probably being tasked with holding the backfield objective and hanging out with the Lancers so they don't get stuck in firepower-restricting combats. 

I'm gratified to see the Thunderstrike in the list. That is a very useful bit of tech, able to inflict a fair punch on its own while simultaneously helping another unit punch up. The Redemptors remain a solid unit, not too much more needs to be said about them. The virtues of the Stormraven are well known at this point too. The list seems a little light on utility units, but we should remember the Darkshroud can act as one while it's providing its protective aura to friendly units. Having risen to the top, Ryan clearly was able to score the secondary points he needed. 

Ryan didn't have any 100 point games, but when you're the only player at an event to go 5-0, you're going to wind up winning. First round, he went 83-73 against the pre-MFM boogeyman of the meta, Necrons. Second round he went 82-51 against Leagues of Votann. Third round, 74-42 against Tyranids. Fourth round, 87-53 against Imperial Fists*. Fifth round, Ryan cemented his 1rst place position with a 90-50 win against Drukhari.

As an aside, I was curious about the Imperial Fists list, so I clicked on it. Turns out it was an Anvil Siege Force! I would not have expected one of those to get played at a GT, much less win the first 3 rounds! That player, Steve W, actually went 4-1 and placed 5th. I don't want to discuss it too much because it's not a Dark Angels list, but if you're curious about it, you can see it here.

The other Dark Angels list to go undefeated over the weekend was played by Johan Norman of O.S.T. at GRIMDARK 21: New venues to conquer! in Stockholm Sweden. Johan scored 2nd out of 32 players, going 4-0-1. You can see the full version of Johan's list here, and below is the short version of his list:

Lalalalala
Azrael
Techmarine: Target Augury Web
Techmarine: Master of Machine War
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 jump pack choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 jump pack choppy boys
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Brutalis Dreadnought
Gladiator Reaper
Gladiator Reaper
Predator Destructor
Predator Destructor
Predator Destructor
Redemptor Dreadnought
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

The first thing that jumped out at me about this list was the 3 Predator Destructors. I've previously written a review of the Destructor wherein I identified it as a sleeper powerhouse that's been flying under the radar, so I'm gratified to see a list with 3 of them do well. They have a lot of hitting power for their cost.

Also, the Darkshroud is remarkable by its absence. I don't think I've seen a high performing Ironstorm without one. I've even written about an Ironstorm that lacked Azrael but had the Darkshroud in it. I don't want to add fuel to the Not-real-Dark-Angels fire, but this list could swap out Azrael and one of the jump pack Intercessor Squads for Marneus Calgar and function about the same.

For the rest of the list's hitting power, there are a couple of Gladiator Reapers to cut swathes through hordes and dish out Devastating Wounds, and an assortment of Redemptor-chassis Dreadnoughts, with a pair of Ballistus Dreads providing the primary anti-vehicle firepower (supplemented by the Preds), and the Brutalis and Redemptor for close in smashing. This list has an abundance of utility units, with 2 squads of Scouts and 2 squads of Jump Pack Intercessors, plus the foot Assault Intercessors to hang out on the home objective with Azrael. It's a solid list utilizing quality points-efficient units en masse.

GRIMDARK 21 used that European scoring system where the players of each game are competing for 20 points, with how many of those 20 you earn reflecting how well you did. For those of us used to the ITC points, it can look like a pair of players barely scoring and not even getting the Battle Ready points. Anyhow, in the first round, Johah won 12-8 against Iron Warriors. Second round was a 12-8 win against Chaos Space Marines. Way to take it to the heretics Johan! Third round, Johan went 15-5 versus Orks. Fourth round, 17-3 against Blood Angels. Johan's tie came in the 5th round against Imperial Knights, which was the list that wound up taking 1rst place. 

Those were the Dark Angels lists that were piloted to victory over the (for the U.S.) Memorial Day weekend. While I was disappointed to not see the greater variety of lists we saw the previous weekend, I'm always glad to see Dark Angels players do well, and while they may have used Ironstorms, the composition of those Ironstorms at least showed some variance from the established template.  Congratulations to Ryan and Johan! You did the legion chapter proud!