Lists of the Week: Top Performers 8/12/2024

 Hello battle brothers! Once again, I'm here to provide you a roundup of the best performing lists of the weekend. Unfortunately, we didn't have any event winners this weekend, but we did have some undefeated players and players that went X-1, so let's get into those.

By far the biggest event of the weekend was the World Team Championship held in Mechelen, Belgium. At the WTC, forty 8-man teams competed against each other. A member of the 4th placed Team Sweden, Jesper Unander-Scharin, was the 2nd place individual player, going undefeated with a Dark Angels Gladius! In the placings, his list is actually entered as Space Marines (Astartes), but I've learned to click to see those lists, because I've found they're often Dark Angels lists. You can see Jesper's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.

Jesper's List
Azrael
Harmacist: Fire Discipline
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 swordy boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Gladiator Lancer
Inceptor Squad: 3 flying chonky bolter boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

We're on some familiar territory with the list being built around 3 squads of Deathwing Knights, a heavy investment in jump pack Intercessors, and a brick of Eradicators with a Fire Discipline Harmacist. The surprises in the list were the Gladiator Lancer and the Inceptors. It makes sense to me one would want something that can reach out and touch opposing units across the table, but the Lancer is in there instead of Inner Circle Companions, and it's been a while since we've seen an Inceptor Squad. I think Jesper used the bolter Inceptors to make sure he used them as a tech piece and not be tempted to try and kill something with them. It clearly worked for him. There's the Repulsor for the Eradicators to ride in and Scouts for uppy-downy secondary scoring. One thing I'm unclear on is what unit Jesper tasked with sitting on his backfield objective. I'm inclined to think it was the foot Assault Intercessors with Azrael, which is a boring use of Azrael, but does keep him safer than if with a fighting unit in the midfield. They may not screen out as much territory as Infiltrators, especially not against 3" Deep Strike strats, but an opponent would have to consider the damage even a small squad of Assault Intercessors led by Azrael can do.

The World Team Championship, as you can imagine, uses WTC scoring. To recap, the score range is 0-20, with 10-10 being a draw, and every difference of 1 point equaling a 5 point difference in score. The scoring metric is meant to encourage not just scoring your own points, but also preventing your opponent from scoring.

In the 1rst round, Jesper blew out his opponent, winning 20-0 against World Eaters. 2nd round he trounced an Adeptus Sororitas list 20-0. 3rd round he went a much closer 13-7 against Necrons. 4th round he went 13-7 against Adeptus Sororitas. 5th round he bodied an Eldar list 17-3. In the 6th round he went 14-6 against Custodes. He ended strong with a 7th round 17-3 against Tyranids.

Jesper's list was not the only Dark Angels list to go undefeated at the WTC. One of Team USA's players and one of the top players in the world, John Lennon, took a Dark Angels Gladius and went 7-0, placing 5th in the singles rankings! You can find John's list on BCP, and we'll take a look at it below.

Mom says we have Custodes at home
Azrael
Harmacist: Fire Discipline
Judiciar
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 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 swordy boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Callidus Assassin
Voidsmen-at-Arms: 5 space sailor boys

This list continues the trend of the DA Gladius built around Deathwing Knights. John has the 2 squads with maces and 1 with swords, which is a pretty common distribution. I expect the ICCs usually get joined by the Judiciar and Azrael goes with the Assault Intercessors. John opted for the Eradicator+Harmacist brick, and he invested in a Repulsor to extend their threat range and to be able to do reactive move reimbarking tricks. He's got a couple squads of jump pack Intercessors and Infiltrators to hold his home objective and screen out a big chunk of his backfield. Interestingly, he went with the Callidus and Voidsmen as utility pieces instead of Scouts. He actually paid more points for them than he would have paid for a pair of Scout Squads. That said, the Callidus brings a lot more to the table than any single Scout Squad, or even a pair of Scout Squads, other than the fact that she can only be in once place on any given turn. The Voidsmen, by comparison, don't have much going for them, but they're cheap and they are OC 2, so they may be able to flip an objective on the cheap from time to time.

So, 1rst round, John blew out his Drukhari opponent 20-0. 2nd round, he beat Thousand Sons 14-6. 3rd round he went 13-7 against Adeptus Sororitas. 4th round he beat another Thousand Sons list 14-6. 5th round he went 15-5 against World Eaters. 6th round he had his closest game, 11-9 against Astra Militarum. In the 7th and final round, he beat Chaos Marines 15-5.

The next two Dark Angels lists I'd like to discuss were both played at the Iowaaagh! Open 2024 in Cedar Rapids Michigan, a 6-round event with 69 players. A repeat performer whose lists I've reviewed before, Kyle McCord took a Dark Angels Gladius and went undefeated, going 5-0-1 to earn 2nd place! You can see Kyle's list on BCP, with the short version below.

Indomitable Angels
Azrael
Harmacist: Fire Discipline
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 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
Land Raider Redeemer
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Vindicator
Vindicator

Apparently Kyle likes him his units with 2+ saves, because he's got 6 of them in this list, between the DWKs, the Redeemer, and the Vindicators.. Kyle went with a more ranged approach with this list, but the choice of the Vindicators means he can use their demolisher cannons on anything that tries to tie them up in assault. In this list the Eradicators are riding in style in the Redeemer, making a package opponents are not going to be happy about getting close to their stuff. Of course, he still has the 3 squads of DWKs, who are bad news for most things that stumble into their charge radius. I suppose it's possible for Kyle to have the vehicles take over sitting on objectives from the DWKs so they can move forward and punch faces, assuming things go well in the midfield. 

This is another list that appears to be having Azrael and Assault Intercessors sit on the home field objective. I suppose it's possible the Combi-weapon Lieutenant is tasked with that job, but that would leave the backfield objective horribly vulnerable to any kind of Deep Strike shenanigans. And there's the usual 2 squads of Scouts for scoring secondaries. 

Kyle won his 1rst round match 96-78 against a Deathwatch list having its last hurrah as an army with its own bespoke codex. 2nd round he went 99-50 against Thousand Sons. 3rd round he had a wild 90-90 draw against Leagues of Votann! 4th round he won 83-66 against Imperial Knights. 5th round he went 89-81 against Adeptus Mechanicus. And, in the 6th round, he went 98-81 against Grey Knights.

The other list that placed highly at this event was also played by a person with a familiar name, Alex Vian, who with his Gladius went 5-1 to place 4th. You can see Alex's list on BCP. The short version is below. 

My Other Car is a Land Raider Redeemer
Azrael
Asmodai
Harmacist: Fire Discipline
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy 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
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Callidus Assassin 

This list is certainly starting to feel solved - or at least about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the points of it. Azrael - check, Harmacist - check, jump pack Intercessors - check, Deathwing Knights - check, Eradicator brick - check. The Eradicators have had a ride in every list, with the only deviation being one of them used  Redeemer instead of a Repulsor. 

This is only the second list in this article that has featured Inner Circle Companions, and it is the first time we've seen Asmodai, whose utility is obvious, but I think Judiciars are turning up to lead the ICCs more frequently, but in this case they have an Impulsor to ride in, so maybe Alex figured they didn't need Fights First that bad. . Sticking Azrael in the backfield with Assault Intercessors seems to be the trend today. Just the one Scout Squad, but the Callidus Assassin, 40K's answer to Mystique, is also on hand for uppy-downy-Secondary duty.

Round 1, Alex beat World Eaters 97-32. 2nd round he won against Black Templars 85-66. 3rd round he went 83-81 against another Dark Angels list!* 4th round he went 85-75 against Adeptus Mechanicus. 5th round he went 88-78 against a Chaos cultist list that was led by Cypher! It doesn't get much more thematically appropriate than that! (The Chaos list was pretty wild, you can see it here on BCP). The 6th round was where Alex finally took his loss, going 59-75 against an Aeldari list played by the player who took 1rst place.

As a point of interest, Alex's 3rd round opponent was Chris Green, who also took a Dark Angels Gladius. Chris went 3-2, which puts his list outside the scope of this blog entry (one has to draw the line somewhere), but it's worth noting he didn't score less than 81 points in any of his games (both his losses), and for his 3 wins he scored 100, 97, and 95. It looks like he decided not to play his 6th game after taking a loss in the 5th and I suppose I don't blame him. Five games of 40K is plenty for one weekend. Anyway, if you'd like to check out his list, here it is on BCP.

Also going undefeated over the weekend was Shaun Reynolds, who took a Gladius to go 5-0 for 2nd place at Tables and Towers Summer GT in Westminster Maryland, an event with 36 players. You can see Shaun's list on BCP. The short version is below.

When life gives you lemons, use Lennon's Aid
Azrael
Harmacist: Fire Discipline
Judiciar
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
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Callidus Assassin

Shaun wasn't kidding about copying John Lennon's homework. I literally copy-pasted John's list, omitted the Infiltrators and Voidsmen, and added a 3rd squad of jump pack Intercessors and a Scout Squad. Maybe Shaun just doesn't have the Voidsmen models?

Shaun may or may not have decided to netlist, but it sure looks like he put his reps in. 1rst round he went 100-45 against T'au Empire (always satisfying to me to see T'au get bodied). 2nd round he went 96-35 against Tyranids. 3rd round he went 86-47 against Adeptus Sororitas. 4th round he went 98-43 against World Eaters, and in the 5th round he went 90-49 against Necrons.  Dang. Shaun's lowest score over 5 games was an 86, with all his other scores being 90-100! No doubt, dude put in the work. 

Weekend Statistics
The overall win rate for Dark Angels was 43%.

The detachment with the highest win rate was, hilariously, the Unforgiven Task Force with a 60% win rate, because it's got that 1 partisan who insists on taking it to events and keeps going 3-2 with it.

The detachment with the next highest win rate and the most played was the Gladius, with a 47% win rate and 4 players going X-0/X-1, which I'm pretty sure don't include the WTC lists, which means there's another list out there somewhere, but I feel like reviewing 5 lists is enough. Anyhow, 25 players are listed as playing the Gladius at GTs over the weekend. 

The Inner Circle Task Force was the next most played with 8 players, but only got a 34% win rate.

2 players tried their luck with the Stormlance and 1 with the Vanguard, but their luck wasn't very good, getting 22% and 29% win rates respectively.

My Weekend
I don't just write about Dark Angels, I also play them! Over the weekend, I went to a little local tournament at Battleground Games and Hobbies in Norton MA, where I went 2-1. I'm using a list that evolved from the one that had 27 bikes in it. It still has a vestigial squad of 3 Outriders, but more excitingly it has Lion Dad, Azrael, 1 squad of DWKs (still battling hobby lag), Hellblasters, Eradicators, and assorted other stuff. My first game was my loss, 84-86 against Sororitas. 2nd game was my most fun game, against Orks. I was able to play Epic Challenge to have Lion Dad single out Ghazgkull and put him down. We had to end the game Round 4 due to time, with me up 56-41. We could have talked out the last round, but I didn't feel the need to win by more. 3rd round was a tight game against T'au, 73-70 in my favor. 

I only placed 5th, but I got modest awards for best painted army and best painted single mini for Lion Dad! The event coordinator made a point to mention that my having a display board tipped the balance in my favor - not that it's a very good display board, but I have it, and that made the difference. So, if you want to have your army's painting judged, remember a basic display board is far better than no display board. 

That, brave battle brothers, was the weekend for the legion chapter. No event wins, sadly, but Dark Angels were a presence to be reckoned with at the WTC and a number of lists performed well at GTs. I think we can all learn something from the lists that performed well, and emulate the performances of our most successful battle brothers! May we all serve the Lion with as much distinction!