Lists of the Week: Top Performers 7/15/2024

 

Hello battle brothers! I bring you the news of the top performing Dark Angels lists from over the weekend! We have three lists that appeared in the Meta Monday roundup.

As I was writing about the statistics from the weekend, I saw that there were four Gladius lists that went X-1 over the weekend, but I could only find three. I'm not saying that fourth list doesn't exist, but I wasn't able to find it. I even looked at the lists from the North American Team Championship, but Meta Monday must not use those lists in their data, because in the 5-Player Team Event I found a list that went 6-0 that is not in the Meta Monday roundup. It may occasion an article of its own, but I'm not going to discuss it here.

The first list I'm going to cover was played at the J-Town Throwdown at Jonesboro AR, a 43 player event where Bryce Watson took 2nd place, going 5-0 with an Inner Circle Task Force list! There's already been a Facebook discussion of Bryce's list, which you can find here. It's definitely worth a look because Bryce himself commented on how his list performed and how he's likely to adjust it in the future. Since you can get commentary directly from the list's author, I won't offer the degree of commentary I'd otherwise do, but I will show the list below and what he scored against whom as usual. 

You can see Bryce's list on BCP.

Secret Agendas & Secret Missions
Azrael
Ancient in Terminator Armor: Deathwing Assault
Chaplain in Terminator Armor
Judiciar
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Impulsor
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 awesome spooky swordy boys
Predator Destructor
Predator Destructor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Callidus Assassin

Jumping right into the game path, Bryce went 91-59 against Astra Militarum in the 1rst round. 2nd round he went 83-76 against Grey Knights. 3rd round he went 83-63 against Thousand Sons. 4th round, 68-53 against Deathwatch. 5th round, a very tight 97-94 against Space Marines - the Space Marines list was the Ultramarines Vanguard Spearhead with the big brick of Centurion Devastators his opponent could pick up and put down every turn. 

The next list I'm going to cover was played at The Sheffield 40K Super Major in England, a 256 player event. There, Ben Jones went 5-1 to score 4th place with a Gladius Task Force. You can view Ben's list on BCP. The short version is below.

dangles
Azrael
Captain
Librarian
Librarian
Lieutenant: Fire Discipline
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Impulsor
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 awesome spooky swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 awesome spooky swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

Doing some speculation on who's going where doing what, I'd hazard a guess the Captain and Lieutenant are both getting attached to the Hellblasters, the Librarians to the ICCs to give them the 4++ saves, and Azrael to the Assault Intercessors to lurk behind terrain in the midfield so they can jump out and skirmish. Something I've started to appreciate lately is that Assault Intercessors are kind of unique in that they not only get buffed by Azrael, but buff him in return. The regular Intercessors probably mind the backfield objective, and I'd imagine one of the ICC squads goes in the Impulsor. My guess would be that the DWKs and the Hellblasters are the initial wave, with the ICCs and Azrael's Assault Itnercessors constituting the 2nd wave, and the jump pack Intercessors and Scouts being the utility units.

However Ben employed his units, it sure worked for him, because going 5-1 at a super major is not mean feat. He rode the win train for five rounds. 1rst round he got a decisive 100-22 against Necrons. Holy cow, his opponent only scored 22 points? That means he must have gotten only 12 points total from gameplay, because I doubt anyone goes to a super major without a fully painted army. 

Anyway, round 2 Ben went 94-43 against Necrons. Round 3 he went 100-30 against Necrons. Round 4 he went 76-53 against Chaos Daemons. Round 5 he went 89-72 against T'au Empire. At that point Ben was one of the final 4 players who went on to play off against each other, where he lost 71-99 against Adeptus Mechanicus.

The last list to make it into the Meta Monday roundup was played at the TGX Warhammer 40,000 Event in ON Canada, an event with 97 players. There, Daniel Guarnaccia went 5-1 to earn 4th place with another Gladius Task Force. You can see Daniel's list on BCP. The short version is below.

Space Marines
Azrael
Apothecary Biologus: Fire Discipline
Techmarine
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Gladiator Reaper
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Repulsor
Callidus Assassin

This list is interesting because it doesn't seem to quite fit the mold of the 2 waves of assault powerhouses that we've been seeing in a lot of lists. My guess is that the Deathwing Knights go out first to draw the opponent's army to midfield with the rest of the list acting as the 2nd wave, but it could well be sort of the other way around, with the Repulsor full of Eradicators being the 1rst wave and the Deathwing Knights being the follow-on elements. Also, Scouts are noticable in their absence. Instead, Daniel has 3 squads of jump pack Intercessors, who can be tasked both to skirmish or secondaries. And, of course, he also has the Callidus, who can uppy-downy as needed.

Like Ben, Daniel had a 5-round trip on the win train. 1rst round he went 84-44 against Blood Angels. It had to be kind of wild for a Blood Angels player to get beaten by a Dark Angels list with so many jump pack and assault units. 2nd round, Daniel went 93-58 against Thousand Sons. 3rd round he went a very close 60-58 against Adeptus Sororitas. 4th round he went 84-64 against Necrons. 5th round he went 100-70 against Adeptus Mechanicus. That got him to the final four playoff, where he finally took an L, going 77-98 against Orks.

As an aside, the vagaries of ITC scoring can be a little confusing to me. Daniel scored 4th place with his 6th round loss, whereas John Henry playing Orks took 2nd place, also going 5-1, but with his loss coming in the 2nd round. You'd think taking a loss in the 6th round would hurt one's score less than taking a loss in the 2nd round, but on the other hand John did have a 6th round win, and for sure you're facing a tough opponent in the 6th round of an event. In fact, come to think of it, John's 6th round opponent was Daniel. Anyway, it does go to show that one can come back from an early round loss to place quite well, which was something I wanted to highlight.

There is one more list that had a X-1 performance over the weekend. It didn't make it into the Meta Monday roundup, but fortunately I didn't have to look for it very hard. It was played by James Bedford at The Sheffield 40K Super Major. He went 4-1 to score 30th place out of the 196 players who attended, which is still a very impressive performance. You can view James' list on BCP. The short version is below.

G.D.A.
Azrael
Captain in Terminator Armor
Lieutenant: Fire Discipline
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

This list actually seems pretty easy to figure out. The 3 squads of Deathwing Knights go out early to oblige opponents to deal with them. Then, they get lit up by the Hellblasters being led by Azrael and the Lieutenant, probably with the jump pack Interessors skirmishing on the flanks, the Infiltrators minding the backfield objectives, and the Scouts doing utility work. It's not the only way I could see playing this list, but that game plan would probably work against most opponents. 

Whatever James' game plan actually was, it did indeed work for him against most of his opponents. Unfortunately, not against his first opponent. Happens sometimes. I've been to a number of RTTs and GTs where my first round game was against the player who wound up winning the event. Anyhow, James' 1rst round game was his loss, 60-76 against Blood Angels. Maybe Blood Angels are more comfortable fighting Dark Angels when they see a lot of plasma like they'd expect to see. Kidding aside, from there James rode the win train for the rest of the event. 2nd round he went 96-71 against Grey Knights. 3rd round he went 76-49 against a Space Wolf Thunderwolf Stormlance - it's nice to know we have the tools to deal with the Thunderwolf spam list. 4th round James went a close 82-78 against Thousand Sons. Then, in the 5th round, James went a really close 77-76 against Grey Knights. Now that is a match to end a weekend on!

Looking at the stats for the weekend, the detachment with the highest win rate was...wait for it...an Unforgiven Task Force! OMG GW is gonna nerf it tomorrow! Seriously, the UTF did have a 60% win rate, because the one person who played it managed to win 3 of his 5 games. I am curious about that list, but not enough to go looking for it. 

By the other metrics, the Gladius Task Force was the most successful detachment, with a 53% win rate, 4 X-0/X-1 performances, and the most played by far with 16 players. 

The Company of Hunters got a 50% win rate because the one player who took it won 3 out of 6 games. 

Two players kept flying the Ironstorm flag, but to not much success with a 40% win rate.

Another 2 players took Vanguard Spearheads, to similar results to the Ironstorm players, getting a 36% win rate. Both detachments won the same number of games (4), but one of the Vanguards was played at a 6-game event, whereas both Ironstorms were played at 5-game events.

In spite of Bryce going undefeated with his ICTF, it was the second-worst performing detachment of the weekend, with it only scoring a 35% win rate. It was the second most-played detachment, with 9 players winning a total of 17 out of 48 games. Taking Bryce's games out of the equation, and it's only a 28% win rate. 

It is, however, still a better win rate than the Firestorm got over the weekend. It pains me to see it, because I played a Firestorm for at least half of early 10th, but it only got a 17% win rate over the weekend, with one player taking it to a 6-round event and only winning 1 game.

That, battle brothers, was the weekend for Dark Angels! Congratulations to Bryce for going undefeated, and to Ben, Daniel, James, and that mystery fourth battle brother for their X-1 results! They can be proud of how well they represented the legion chapter. May we all rise to their examples and acquit ourselves equally well. Thank you for reading, and good luck in your future games!