Lists of the Week: Top Performers 7/22/2024

 Hello battle brothers! Another weekend has passed, and with its passing comes word of the Dark Angels lists that performed well during the weekend's events. There were three standout lists over the weekend, and two of them were played at Baltic Cup XII in Altenholz Denmark, a Grand Tournament with 98 players. The first of the two lists was played by Niklas Frerichs, who went undefeated to earn 2nd place with his Gladius Task Force. You can see Niklas' list on BCP. The short version is below.

Custodes at Home
Lion El'Jonson
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Aggressor Squad: 6 chonky fisty 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 macey boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

This list seems fairly straightforward. It looks like it's designed to go forth and smack things. Azrael likely goes with the ICCs and the Harmacist goes with the Aggressors in the Repulsor. The combi-weapon Lieutenant hangs out with Lion Dad to keep his Lone Op up. The first wave is likely the Repulsor full of bad news and the two squads of DWKs, with Lion Dad, Azzy and the ICCs, and the Jump Pack Intercessors acting as the second wave. The Intercessors hang on the backfield objective, maybe leaving it stickied and coming forward to help a bit once an opponent's reserves are committed, and the Scouts are there for scoring secondaries. It clearly worked for Niklas It's hard to argue with a 5-0 performance, so I'm not going to.

Niklas rode the win train all the way to the last stop. The event used WTC scoring, with scores from 0-20 representing how close in points the game was. 10-10 would be a draw, 0-20 getting owned, 20-0 blowing out your opponent. In the 1rst round Niklas went 15-5 against Thousand Sons. 2nd round he went 17-3 against Grey Knights. 3rd round he went 14-6 against Death Guard. 4th round was his closest game, 11-9 against Necrons. Then in the last round he bodied World Eaters 20-0. I have to say, I like where we're at with the current rules, but I must say it's strange for Dark Angels to be blowing out World Eaters at their own game.

Another Dark Angels list at Baltic Cup XII went 4-1 to score 4th place. This list was a Gladius played by Marvin Petersen. Here's Marvin's list on BCP. The short version is below.

Dosenravioli !
Lion El'Jonson
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Judiciar
Aggressor Squad: 6 chonky fisty bolter 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
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

This list is very similar to Niklas' list, so much so I was able to copy-paste a lot instead of typing everything out. The main differences are that Marvin traded out the Repulsor for another squad each of Inner Circle Companions and jump pack Intercessors. Marvin's list also doesn't have an obvious backfield objective minder. Maybe he uses one of the Scout Squads.

I'd have thought a Judiciar makes a more obvious choice to assign to lead a squad of Bladeguard Veterans. The ICCs do have better offense than BGVs, but they don't have their own invulnerable save.  Marvin's winning more games at GTs than I am though, so maybe you should give his example more weight than my opinion. 

1rst round, Marvin won a very decisive 18-2 against Death Guard. 2nd round was his loss, 5-15 against Tyranids. 3rd round Marvin went back to winning, 20-0 against Necrons! 4th round Marvin handed out another drubbing, 20-0 against Orks. In the 5th and final round, Marvin took it a little easier on his opponent, or he just got tired and slacked off a bit, scoring only a 19-1 win against Black Templars.

The third list I'm going to review was played at the biggest event of the weekend, the Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament: US Open Tacoma. There, Jeff Jew scored 6th out of 438 players, going 6-1-1 over the course of 8 rounds. Jeff's list was a Gladius Task Force, which you can see here on BCP. The short version is below.

hold the line
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Assault Intercessor Squad: 10 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
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Vindicator
Vindicator
Callidus Assassin

I can't help but think this list is what happens when a late 10th ed Dark Angels Ironstorm list and an early 10.5 ed Assault Dark Angels list have a kid that resembles both parents. It's got the 3 squads of DWKs and 3 squads of jump pack Intercessors, plus Azrael joining a choppy squad, just in this case being a big Assault Intercessor Squad, which buffs Azrael as well as being buffed by him. Then you've got the Darkshroud and a couple of tough 2+ save tanks with big guns to bring the pain at range. It's got the Infiltrators to mind the backfield and a Scout Squad and the Callidus to uppy-downy for secondaries. It's definitely an interesting hybrid of the two list styles, and it clearly worked for Jeff.

The list and Jeff's managing of it came out swinging Round 1, with a 100-46 win over Leagues of Votann. Round 2, Jeff scored a 95-71 win versus Death Guard. Round 3 Jeff won 77-56 against Tyranids. Round 4 was his draw, 78-78 versus Tyranids.* Round 5 Jeff won 76-66 against World Eaters. Round 6 he won 72-54 against Space Wolves - a Champions of Russ list, but still spamming Thunderwolves, it could have just as easily been played as a Stormlance. Anyway, Round 7 Jeff beat T'au Empire 92-88. Then, finally, in Round 8, Jeff lost, 67-100 against Tyranids. 

*I just always find it wild when a game ends in a draw. With all the different ways a game can unfold, it's such an unlikely occurrence!

Here are the weekend statistics.

The Gladius Task Force was by far the most played, with 20 players collectively getting a 50% win rate. 2 players went X-0/X-1 - I imagine that's Niklas and Marvin from Baltic Cup XII.

The detachment with the highest win percentage was the Ironstorm Spearhead because 1 player won 4 games at a 6 game event to give it a 67% win rate.

The Unforgiven Task Force was only played by 1 player and it didn't serve him well, winning only 2 out of 5 games for a 40% win rate.

The Inner Circle Task Force performed worse though. It was the 2nd most played detachment, with 14 players, but it only scored a 30% win rate.

The worst win rate of the weekend goes to the 1rst Company Task Force though, with 1 poor sucker only winning 1 game out of 5 with it for a 20% win rate.

The overall win rate for Dark Angels over the weekend was 42%. There were no event wins. There were the 2 X-0/X-1 results I mentioned earlier. 

I'd like to wrap this article by offering congratulations to Niklas, Marvin, and Jeff. I'd also like to compliment Jeff on his interesting hybrid list. May we all aspire to the excellent performances of these three battle brothers! They are a credit to the legion chapter!