Lists of the Week: Top Performers 9/16/2024

 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
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

This is identical to John Lennon's list from last week, so there's not too much to say about it that hasn't been said before. It's even in the list name, though to be fair at this point I think any reasonably avid competitive player would wind up with a pretty similar list through their own experience. Also, just copying someone else's list doesn't mean one doesn't have to put in the reps. The DA Gladius is good, but it's not an auto-win button, and Amador's record shows he's put in the work.

Amador went 5-0 through the first 5 rounds, losing in the final round to the 1st place player. 1ST round he went 87-57 against a Salamanders Firestorm. 2nd round he eked out an oddly low-scoring 44-41 against Aeldari. 3rd round he went 73-51 against Chaos Marines. 4th round was another oddly low score, 47-33 against Astra Militarum. 5th round he scored a tight 89-84 against Death Guard. 6th round he lost 47-62 against Astra Militarum.

Our next two lists come from the Warhammer 40K Nationals 2024 held in South Africa, a 59-player, 5 round event, where Dark Angels lists went 4-1 and took 7th and 8th place.

The 7th place list was played by Steven Wassink of Sword and Board. You can see Steven's list on BCP. The short version is below.

Papa L and the boys (this is how you name a list!)
Lion Dad
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Assault Intercessor Squad
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
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

The point of variance here is that Steven gave up one squad each of Deathwing Knights and jump Intercessors to include Lion Dad. Arguably this was not an optimal choice as Lion Dad is only 1 unit and he's not as durable as a squad of DWKs, but he does bring unique capabilities to the list, so I'm not going to criticize the choice harshly. 

Steven's trip on the win train had a stop in the 3rd round. 1st round he handed out a 93-48 drubbing to Orks. 2nd round he went 83-59 against Astra Militarum. 3rd round he dropped a 66-95 loss against Necrons. 4th round he was back aboard the win train, going 83-53 against Adeptus Sororitas. He ended strong with a 69-50 win against Chaos Knights.

The 8th place list was played by Michael Dawson of RGB Dungeon. You can see Michael's list on BCP. The short version is below.

Swish swish swosh
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Captain in Terminator Armor
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 chonky awesome macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 chonky awesome macey boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Land Raider Redeemer
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

This was an interesting variation to see. The Termie Captain obviously gets attached to a DWK squad and could mean Michael is putting it in Deep Strike reserve and Rapid Ingressing it for free. Springing for a Land Raider Redeemer for the Eradicators to ride around in would also suggest that, as the board presence of a Redeemer would allow Michael to put a unit of DWKs in reserve. The absence of a Judiciar suggests he's attaching Azrael to the ICCs, because otherwise he's leaving a lot of their utility on the table. It was interesting to see the Darkshroud pop up, we haven't seen one of those in a while. I suppose the idea was to put the Redeemer and the DWKs in its bubble to make them that extra bit harder to pick up. I'm inclined to wonder if it was worth the points when the Redeemer could just pop smoke when it comes under heavy fire.

Michael got on the wrong train 1st turn, losing 30-81 against Chaos Knights, but don't worry, Steven avenged him by beating that list in his 5th round. Anyway, after that initial loss, Michael boarded the win train nonstop for the rest of the event. 2nI d round he went 88-64 against Orks. 3rd round he buried Imperial Knights 96-23. 4th round he had a pretty close 85-76 win against Death Guard. 5th round he ended strong, crushing an Iron Hands Ironstorm 94-24.*

I have no idea how Michael got paired into that list in the 5th round. That player went 0-5 for the event and their best score was a 32. That really doesn't seem like appropriate pairing for a player who was 3-1 into the 5th round.

We have another event where two DA lists rose to the high placements. In this case, it was War for the Forge 2024 40k GT in Coraopolis, PA, a 5-round event with 28 players. Isaac Jernigan of Team Gitgud went 4-1 to take 3rd place, and Larry Paladin of Warmachine went 4-1 to take 5th place. We'll start with Isaac's list, which you can see on BCP.  The short version is below.

Isaac's list
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 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
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Repulsor
Impulsor

This is a modest variation on John Lennon's list. Isaac dropped the jump Intercessors down to 1 squad in favor of an Impulsor for the ICCs to ride around in, a second Scout Squad, and the upgrade on the Judi. It seems to have worked out for him reasonably well. 

Isaac's win train started off well with him going 77-40 against another Dark Angels list* in the 1st round. 2nd round he hit a bump in the track with a very tight 70-72 loss against Adeptus Custodes. 3rd round the win train's tracks got fixed, with Isaac going 80-57 against Chaos Daemons. 4th round he had a very solid 89-69 win against Orks. 5th round he soundly defeated Adeptus Sororitas 94-60.

*Isaac's 1st round opponent was listed as playing Space Marines. I tend to be curious about other Space Marine lists, so I clicked on it. To my surprise, it was a Dark Angels list. It was even a Gladius with Azrael, a Harmacist, and a Judi. There were no Deathwing Knights, ICCs, or Eradicators though. Instead it featured Aggressors, Bladeguard Vets, and Hellblasters. It went 2-3 at the event.

Now let's take a look at Larry Paladin's list. You can see the full list on BCP. The short version is below.

Idea
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
Judiciar
Lieutenant: Artificer Armor
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Ballistus Dreadnought
Deathwing Knights: 5 chonky awesome macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 chonky awesome macey boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Repulsor
Callidus Assassin

The big surprise here is the Ballistus Dreadndought, though we've seen lists with Gladiator Lancers in them, and the Ballistus fulfils a similar role. We've also got a squad of Hellblasters, which evidently must get joined by Azrael and the Lieutenant for that tasty Lethal+Sustained action. What's puzzling me is what did Larry use to sit on his backfield objective? Was it the Ballistus? One of the Assault Intercessor Squads? There's not an obvious unit to task to that, not even a Scout Squad. 

Larry must have been on the same win train as Isaac. 1st round he drubbed Adeptus Sororitas 92-38. 2nd round he had the bump in the track, taking a 75-79 loss to another Dark Angels list!* 3rd round the win train was back on track with a rather low scoring 50-37 win against Leagues of Votann. 4th round he went 71-63 against Imperial Knights. 5th round he faced Imperial Knights again and must have honed his gameplay, because he drubbed them 93-42.

*Larry's Dark Angels opponent played a pretty conventional current-competitive list, went 3-2, and placed 10th. 

Our last list from the weekend was played at Riverhammer 2024, a 5-round, 24 player event held in Joensuu Finland. Juuso Sipilainen took his Gladius, went 4-1, and scored 3rd place. You can see Juuso's full list on BCP, with the short version below. 

Uusi Aika
Azrael
Apothecary Biologis: Fire Discipline
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
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying bolter boys
Repulsor
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads

The points of variation here are the absence of the Inner Circle Companions, the associated Judiciar, and the foot Assault Intercessors. In return, Juuso bought himself Hellblasters, Inceptors, and a 2nd Scout Squad. One of those Scout Squads must sit on the backfield objective for most of the game, but with 3 squads of jump Intercessors and the Inceptor Squad, Juuso certainly had plenty of utility units for scoring secondaries.

Juuso's win train took him most of the way to his destination, but hit a bump at the end. 1st round he got a convincing 88-48 win against World Eaters. 2nd round he got a solid 75-48 win against Grey Knights. 3rd round he went 87-65 against Thousand Sons. 4th round he went 83-59 against Blood Angels. His 5th round loss was a close 88-93 against Astra Militarum. 

Statistics

Dark Angels are sitting on a 50% win rate for the weekend, and a 47% win rate for the 12 weeks since Pariah Nexus dropped. 32 players played 164 games and won 82 of them. We had no event wins over the weekend, 6 X-0/X-1 results, and have won 9 events over the past 12 weeks, which is high-middling, with 5 armies having gotten more event wins, topping out with Adeptus Sororitas, who are leading this metric by a lot with 20. 

This weekend there were no smartypantses going 3-2 with unlikely detachments to give them the highest win rates. The winningest detachment was the Gladius, with a weekend 54% win rate (52% for the 12 week period) and all the X-1 results. 27 players played 139 games and won 75 of them. 

2 players took Unforgiven Task Forces, getting a 33% win rate, winning 4 out of 12 games.

2 players took Inner Circle Task Forces, getting a 29% win rate, winning 2 out of 7 games. 

1 player took an Ironstorm Spearhead, won 1 out of 6 games for a 17% win rate.

Personal Performance

I attended an RTT at the Clever Kobold in Groton CT on Saturday, and while I had a good time I also had the worst performance I've had at a competitive event all year, going 0-3 for last place. I went in a little overconfident because all of the area's best players were at the New England Invitational. I didn't play as well as I could have, made some mistakes, and sometimes the dice didn't convert the way I needed them to. Hopefully I can redeem myself at the GT I'm going to in a couple weeks.

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Thank you for reading, dear battle brothers! Congratulations to our successful brethren, and may we all learn from their excellent examples. For the Lion!