The New Year's State of the Chapter

 

Hello battle brethren! It's been a couple weeks without a major event (I looked on BCP), so I thought I'd take a little time to look back at how we did in 2024 and take a look at what we have to work with in the new year.

The Year in Review

It seems like forever ago, but at the beginning of 2024 we were using the Leviathan mission deck. The Ironstorm Spearhead with Azrael, a Darkshroud, and Stormravens and/or Repulsor Executioners were the most reliable high-performing DA lists. Our codex released in February and landed with a thud, with underwhelming dataslates for all of our most iconic units. Only Azrael and the Darkshroud saw much play in DA list.

Ironstorms pretty much ruled the roost until the summer Balance Dataslate. That was when Games Workshop buffed Deathwing Knights and Inner Circle Companions. Maces of Redemption getting Anti-Monster/Vehicle 4+, DWK swords getting Damage 2, and ICCs' swords getting AP -2 were enough for the most common Dark Angels lists to shift to the Gladius Task Force featuring multiple units of DWKs and ICCs. That was when Lion Dad learned to walk through walls, and not coincidentally he also began occasionally appearing in competitive lists. Arguably the Dark Angels Gladius era peaked when John Lennon won the Crucible 2024 Warhammer 40k GT with it, his list becoming the template all subsequent DA Gladius lists were compared to. The Pariah Nexus mission pack released at the beginning of summer as well, so we entered a new meta with our new Gladius lists.

We took a hit when the Fall Balance Dataslate released, which was illogical because neither our win rates nor our tournament win numbers were remarkable, but Games Workshop did it anyway, with practically every unit in the Lennon List going up in points. Games Workshop didn't give us a viable alternative to the Gladius for competitive lists though, so players adapted to the new points. In my observation, the most common adaptation was to replace the Eradicator brick and their Repulsor with other units - usually tanks like Vindicators or Gladiator Lancers. Unsurprisingly, our win rates went down, but Dark Angels players  could still aspire to win events with a Gladius, and very occasionally a Vanguard or Stormlance. 

We kept plugging along for the rest of the year, most of us with aspirations to play competitively using variations of the Gladius list, but some of us tried (and mostly failed) to make our bespoke detachments work. Then along comes December, and hoo boy did things change! We got the Lion's Blade detachment, which seems like it has competitive potential, and at the very least supports using a fun mix of Ravenwing and Deathwing units, though it doesn't do anything for Lion Dad. Ravenwing got a boost too, with the Company of Hunter's datasheet rule being reworked to allow Mounted units to charge after advancing or falling back, adding to the pre-existing rule that allows everything in the list to shoot after advancing or falling back. On top of that, Black Knight combat weapons gained Devastating Wounds and Outriders gained a reworked datasheet ability, granting the unit's melee attacks +1 Strength and Damage on the charge. I don't know if the Lion's Blade or the Company of Hunters are going to be a competitive staples, but a CoH list did win a small GT the weekend of 12/14, and a couple of Lion's Blade lists placed well at a mid-sized one.

Statistics

According to Stat-check.com, over the course of 2024, Dark Angels have had a 47% win rate, which is 4th from the bottom, beating only Deathwatch, Leagues of Votann, and vanilla Space Marines. Dark Angels players consisted of 4% of the player population, had 7% of the 4-0 event starts, and had 22 event wins.

Of our detachments, over this time period the Ironstorm had the highest win percentage at 55%, the highest 4-0 event start percentage with 11%, and 5 event wins. The Gladius only had 50% win rate and 8% of 4-0 starts, but the most wins with 14. The Stormlance and Vanguard detachments each won 1 event.

Going Forward

As we go into 2025, it seems like we might have three detachments that are credible competitive options, with two of them, the Lion's Blade and Company of Hunters, being bespoke Dark Angels detachments. That said, the Gladius seems apt to remain the most straightforward path to competitive success, anchored by Azrael, Deathwing Knights and Inner Circle Companions, with assorted Space Marine units providing fire support and utility work. 

I think the next most competitive detachment will be the Lion's Blade, because it encourages a complimentary mix of Ravenwing and Deathwing units, and all the units that I think are likely to crop up in the list are either good or cheap (which is its own kind of good). It does require that you pay a lot of attention to how you move your units, but rewards good movement setting up big plays. I had a competitive league game against a very good player with it yesterday, and I used a broad spread of the detachment's abilities. The only stratagem I didn't use was Knights of Iron. Even the Ravenwing part of the detachment rule took effect, my opponent losing a few models from it. We wound up having a 66-66 draw, which is fairly remarkable in that my opponent, Ben Rubenstein, is highly ranked at the national level and is undefeated in the competitive league. The Lion's Blade was fun to use too, so I'll definitely be playing it more going forward.

I think we'll probably see some 4-1 results and event wins from the Company of Hunters too, but of the three I think it's going to be the least forgiving detachment. It's now got a fantastic detachment rule, and both Ravenwing Knights and Outriders are good units to send against a wide variety of targets. That said, the detachment is still saddled with mediocre situational stratagems, and it's still challenging to move Mounted units around a 10th edition table. I think if you're trying to make it work, you want to include at least one unit of 6 Outriders with either a Ravenwing Command Squad or Bike Chaplain (I prefer the former) with the Mounted Strategist upgrade. That will let you pick them up off the table with Rapid Reappraisal and bring them back in with a reroll to Charge rolls (the RWCS granting +1 to that roll). Make the character your Warlord, and you can use that unit to fulfill the conditions of either the Command Insertion or War of Attrition Secret Missions. And, in general, that's going to be a unit with a lot of damage potential and a lot of beef to chew through.

Edit: Both Alan Percival and Toby Bennett commented on Facebook that the Stormlance Task Force should be considered a competitive DA detachment. I'm not as bullish on it as they are, but there is an argument to be made. We do have access to a lot of excellent-but-slow assault units in the shape of Deathwing Knights, Inner Circle Companions, and Lion Dad. Being able to advance and charge with those units is certainly spicy. If you're not building around Mounted units, then most of the stratagems don't do you much good, but the reactive move strat, Wind Swift Evasion, can be played on any unit and is a guaranteed 6" reactive move, and there's never going to be a bad time for that. The detachment doesn't do as much for your shooting elements as the Company of Hunters does, but you can keep at least one unit shooting with the Feinting Withdrawal enhancement and Blitzing Fusillade strat, or if you can' be bothered with that nonsense just take Vindicators, which are a solid fire support unit in any detachment and don't care if enemy units are banging on the hull. You're not going to be able to stick just any collection of units in a Stormlance and be able to do well, but it will enhance a carefully considered selection of units.

That said, I think the most competitive Space Marine builds are going to be Ultramarines builds. Games Workshop has released a buff to Oath of Moment that only applies to armies built without bespoke codex supplement units, and it's a hell of a buff. Getting +1 to wound against the Oath target makes borderline units good and good units astounding. Ultramarines were already outperforming the variant chapters except (arguably) Black Templars on the strength of their bespoke characters. Now that they are also going to be getting access to improved Oath, I think they're poised to take off in the meta. If you find yourself across the table from Ultramarines, be ready for a pretty challenging game.

That, battle brethren, is the New Year wisdom I have for you, such as it is. There will be challenges, but I think we have reason to be optimistic. If you enjoyed my take on the state of the legion chapter, I suggest tracking down that Follow button like you're a Ravenwing Huntsmaster and clicking on it to keep an eye on my content so it doesn't slip into heresy. I'd also suggest following Heath and Bailey over on Dank List Wargaming on YouTube. I always like listening to those guys while I'm hobbying. Good luck in the new year, and may you play to glorious victory. For the Lion!