Lists of the Week: 2/10/2025
Anyhow, our one hero for this week is Jay Seebarun of Vanguard Tactics, who has not succumbed to the lure of a +1 on To Wound rolls. Jay played a Gladius Task Force at Beachhead Brawl 2025 in Bournemouth England, went 5-1, and placed 17th out of 202. You can see Jay's list on BCP and below.
Dark Angels: Beachhead
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knihgts: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Vindicator
Vindicator
Whirlwind
There are a couple interesting variations on the typical Dark Angels Gladius in this list. The first is the Whirlwind. Whirlwinds are pricey enough to make them not-anyone's preferred thing to spend points on, but they do provide a way to affect units that are otherwise hidden from view. I've often thought a good initial use of a Whirlwind would be to pick up an opponent's backfield objective holder. Those are usually pretty weedy unit, so a Whirlwind's Vengeance launcher stands a decent chance of picking it up in one activation if one is willing to put Oath on them, and on that first turn one might as well. Even if the Whirlwind doesn't delete the unit, it still has to take a Battle-shock test per the Whirlwind's datasheet rule, and that's almost as good. Either way, it would oblige an opponent to leave something on their backfield objective they weren't planning on leaving there, which deprives them of whatever they planned on having that unit doing. Then as the game progresses, the Whirlwind can keep deleting tech pieces, depriving opponents of their scoring tools and forcing them to choose between scoring and killing with their killing pieces. There is real potential there. It's just, dang, does it really have to be 180 points? It clearly worked for Jay though.
Another interesting consideration is having 2 squads of Infiltrators. Again, it's pricey, but it does allow Jay to screen out huge swaths of board from opposing units entering from Reserves. Also, a lot of Secondaries could be scored by a unit that has Infiltrate and can be pre-placed to score them with the expectation that they'll eventually come up in the draw. Alternately, they can be used as a tool to push back opposing units and speedbump armies that might like to rush out and put Jay's army in jail, or pull off first turn charges (cough*WorldEaters*cough). Jay doesn't particularly need them to mind his backfield objective because he can have the Whirlwind do that.
The rest of the list is pretty conventional, except for the lack of Scouts or any other uppy-downy units, but Jay's got a Combi-Lieutenant that can run around and score Secondaries, and the Intercessors can do that as well. He can have the Vindicators motor up, sit on objectives, and blast opposing units while Lion Dad, the Deathwing Knights, and Azrael either wait to counter-punch anything that runs up to punch the Vindicators, or moves up the board using terrain to avoid incoming fire while opponents try to blast the Vindicators off the objective, and I can tell you from experience they take considerable blasting to pick up.
Jay started strong with a solid 1st turn 87-72 win against Death Guard. 2nd round he took his loss, a bruising 49-88 against Chaos Marines. 3rd round he got back on the win train with a crushing 95-52 win against Adeptus Custodes. 4th round he picked up a similarly convincing 93-55 win against Blood Angels. 5th round he scored a solid 78-55 against Adeptus Sororitas. 6th round he ended with a tight 85-72 win against T'au Empire.
Statistics
It was not a good weekend for the First Legion, with 22 players collectively scoring a 39% win rate, which was the worst win rate of all the genuine standalone factions. Only Imperial Agents did worse. Our 6-week win rate is a depressing 46%. We only had the one X/1 result Jay brought in and no event wins.
The most played detachment was, as usual, the Gladius Task Force, with 10 players managing a 45% win rate - that's with Jay winning 5 of the 23 games that were won by the detachment. It has a 6-week win rate of 46%, so at least that's pretty consistent.
The next most played in the Stormlance Task Force, with players no doubt drawn to it by the successes some of our brethren have had. However, the 5 players who played it scored only a 38% win rate, probably proving there's more to playing it than taking a bunch of Deathwing Knights and just having them rush at the enemy. It's got a 6-week win rate of 53%, which is the best of the bunch, so maybe it was just an off week for the detachment.
After the Stormlance comes the Inner Circle Task Force, with 4 players getting a dismal 26% win rate, the worst of the weekend. The 6-week win rate of 34% isn't very encouraging either.
One player played a Lion's Blade and got a 33% win rate. The 6-week win rate is 31%, which is the worst of all the detachments played over the weekend.
One player used an Unforgiven Task Force, and that poor sucker got a 20% win rate. At least he played all 5 of his games. The UTF has a 6-week win rate of 33%.
Finally, one out-of-the-box thinker played a Vanguard Spearhead, and that free thinker got a 60% win rate. The detachment has a 6-week 44% win rate, which isn't great, but is better than the Dark Angels-unique detachments.
The 3 factions at the top of the meta this week are Necrons, Thousand Sons, and Drukhari.
Necrons scored a 57% win rate overall, with 1 event win and 12 X/0-X/1 results. The Canoptek Court, Awakened Dynasty, and Hypercrypt Legions all scoring over 60%, and none scoring under 50%. The Shatterstar Arsenal was the most played but had the lowest win rate of 50%.
The Thousand Sons had a 55% win rate and 2 X/0-X/1 results. Their only played detachment was the Cult of Magic, because their Grotmas detachment is objectively worse.
Drukhari scored a 54% win rate and picked up 1 event win and 1 X/0-X/1 result. Their Reaper's Wager detachment got a 67% win rate.
That's what I've got for you this week brethren. If you haven't already, check out Dank List Wargaming for some fun Dark Angels content, and if you like my work track down that Follow button like it's a member of the Fallen. Here's hoping for a better weekend next weekend. For the Lion!
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