Angel's Keep: A 40K Dark Angels Blog

Azrael knows how to play against that list  Hello battle brothers! I'd like to start off a series of articles to help us when we face off against common armies in the meta. It's always easier to play well into an opponent's army when we know what it does, and harder when we don't. Here I'd like to strive to fill the information gap, so we all can make the best informed choices we can when we play against other people's armies. I decided to start with the Adeptus Sororitas Bringers of Flame army as it's easily one of the most played armies in the competitive meta. According to stat-check.com,  the BoF detachment is 13% of the meta. That's over twice as many BoF lists as are playing Dark Angels lists. If you go to a tournament, you're likely to play against a BoF list. Full disclaimer: I'm not one of the Art of War guys. I'm a decidedly mid-table player at best. I'm writing this article and the ones that will follow as much to give me a rea...

 Hello, battle brothers! Another weekend has come and gone, and I am here with the news of how well the 1st legion chapter fared at the events. It was on the smaller side for weekend events, and apparently there were some major teams events over the weekend, so a lot of  top players were at those, but we had a Dark Angels list win the biggest singles event of the weekend, and 3 other lists place well. I'm going to start off discussing what is emerging as the gold standard for Dark Angels list. It's the list that John Lennon won the Crucible 2024 40K GT a couple weeks ago, and since then it's been pretty common to see players copying John's homework and taking that exact same list to events. John named his list Knights of the round bases, but I'm going to refer to it as the Lennon list (correct me if someone came up with it first). You can see the Lennon list on BCP. The short version is below. The Lennon List Azrael Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline Judiciar As...

  Hello battle brothers! As we all know, the Gladius is the most competitive detachment we can play at this point in 10th edition. There is some lament about this state of affairs, as I think we'd all like to be able to play our bespoke detachments without feeling like we're handicapping ourselves, but that just isn't the case.  What really seems egregious to me is that the Stormlance Task Force full of Space Wolf Thunderwolves is a competitive build, whereas the Company of Hunters with a similar investment in Ravenwing Knights doesn't come near to being as effective. I'd like to do a side-by-side comparison of the two detachments and the respective mounted units to see why one is a winner and one isn't even a blip in the meta. We'll start off taking a look at Thunderwolf Cavalry.They have a pretty beefy profile - T6, 4 wounds, 3+ save, OC 2. That's a lot of chonk to chew through, and it's not the end of their defensive profile Every member of a Thun...

 Hello battle brothers! With the beginning of another week, we have news of the lists that have done well over the weekend! We didn't have any event wins over the weekend, but there were some good showings. Let's take a look at what did well! Our first list came from the El Bunker, Bajio Open in Santiago, Mexico, a 6 round event with 75 players. Amador Perez of el bunker took a Dark Angels Gladius and went 5-1 to rise to 2nd place! You can see Amador's list on BCP. The short version is below. john Azrael Apothecary Biologis: 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 chonky awesome macey boys Deathwing Knights: 5 chonky awesome macey boys Deathwing Knights: 5 chonky awesome swordy boys Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys ...

Taken from Stat-Check.com   Since Dark Angels started doing well in the Pariah Nexus meta, I've been seeing a lot of people opine that our army is going to get nerfed. The argument is that, essentially, if Dark Angels are winning games and placing well at tournaments, then a nerf must be incoming.  Respectfully, I don't think the statistics bear that out. According to Meta Monday, the win rate for the Dark Angels Gladius in the Pariah Nexus meta stands at 52%. According to Stat-Check.com it's at a 54%, but they last updated on September 4, so they're missing a week of data. Neither of those figures are above Games Workshop's stated 45%-55% Goldilocks zone for army balance. Stat-Check has us at 5 event wins, which probably means we actually have 7 as it's not taking last weekend's wins into account. Not counting this weekend's results, Chaos Space Marines and Drukhari have 9 event wins, and Adeptus Sororitas have 15. 4-0 event start players using the DA G...

 Hello battle brothers! It was quite a week for the First Legion chapter! We had two event winners, including the biggest event of the weekend, and no less than 6 other lists placed well! This one is going to take a while, so make sure you're comfy, and let's get to the lists! Let's start with the biggest news - the Crucible 2024 Warhammer 40K GT in Orlando Florida, a 7-round, 115 person event, where no less a personage than the Art Of War's John Lennon took the Dark Angels Gladius all the way to the top!  You can see John's list on BCP. The short version is below. Knights of the round bases Azrael Apothecary Biologis: 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 Knig...