Lists of the Week: 2/3/2025
Our first list was played at Dearg Doom II: The Redder, The Deader in Cork, Ireland, a 5-round, 46 player event. Peter Ghelfi of Brethren Wargaming went 4-1 and placed 3rd overall with a Company of Hunters! Way to go Peter! You can see Peter's list on BCP and below.
dark angels bikes
Azrael - Warlord
Judiciar
Ravenwing Command Squad: Master of Manoeuvre
Ravenwing Command Squad: Recon Hunter
Ravenwing Command Squad
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Gladiator Lancer
Gladiator Lancer
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Invader ATV: multimelta buggy
Invader ATV: multimelta buggy
Invader ATV: multimelta buggy
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Storm Speeder Hammerstrike
I find this list really interesting! I think the idea is high-mobility MSU. At first glance I assumed Peter was attaching his Ravenwing Command Squads to the Black Knight squads, but now I'm not so sure. The argument for doing so would be to take better advantage of enhancements and stratagems, but I'm not sure he finds that super-important. I certainly like to use Talon Strike when I'm putting my Ravenwing Knights into a unit I can use it on (helped me pick up a unit of Wraiths with the attached supporting character on Saturday), but I can see how one might take a look at the limiting terms and conditions and decide to live without it. By not attaching the Ravenwing Command Squad, Peter gets an absurd abundance of high-speed units that can run around, jump on objectives, pick up opposing units, and score secondaries. Also, smaller units are certainly easier to move around the board than the big bricks of bikes I've been using.
The Invaders can either afford Peter some out-of-sequence shooting, or expendable units he can throw onto objectives on his first turn when he's obliged to go first. The Outriders can jump out onto objectives to out-OC anything that isn't a Battleline unit, and chew up a lot of the things that are. Finally, there's the Hammerstrike, that can Deep Strike, put a bunch of mid-strength high-damage shots into a target, and strip cover from another, enhancing the shooting from the swarm of little bike units.
For the non-Ravenwing elements, Peter has a pair of Gladiator Lancers to bring down big tough targets with their laser destroyers and throw out a bucket of dice to chew up chaff. Lancers certainly like to be able to advance and shoot. It's no surprise to see Azrael in any Dark Angels list. It is a little odd to attach him to Inner Circle Companions in a Company of Hunters, and even more so to see a second squad of them attached to a Judiciar. The detachment rule doesn't do anything for Infantry assault units. There is something to be said for having one or two baller assault units in the list even if the detachment rule doesn't do it any good. I used Lion Dad in my CoH for a while. A lot of opponents will want to try and and punch the Lancers to death, and keeping a couple of extremely threatening assault units near them presents a Heroic Intervention threat.
Tangent alert! I took a different approach to this problem. I attached Azrael to a squad of combi-weapon Sternguard Veterans. Objectively, bolt rifle Sternguard are a better overall choice, but I happen to have a lot of Firstborn robed veterans with combi-weapons kicking around, and they can still do a credible job against most targets, and will rip the heart out of any Infantry unit that stumbles into their threat envelope. Plus, they do derive benefit from the detachment rule.
Getting back on point, my one criticism of the list is that Peter should have made one of the Ravenwing Champions his Warlord, to open up an easy Command Insertion Secret Mission score. That said, he certainly didn't need to try and pull Secret Missions to win most of his games.
Anyway, if anyone needs proof-of-concept about Peter's list, his scores are certainly evidence of its effectiveness. He scored two 100s, a 94, and even on his loss he got 66 points. 1st round he savaged Space Wolves 94-47 - the Space Wolf list was a Stormlance too, which must have made that win extra-satisfying. 2nd round he crushed Orks 100-21. 3rd round he had a close game against Chaos Daemons, prevailing 81-72. 4th round he took his loss, another close game, 66-77. He ended strong with a 100-85 win against Chaos Marines.
We'll have to keep an eye on the meta. MSU Company of Hunters seems like a list worth watching!
The other list we're looking at this week was played at Dicehammer Open 40k GT VIII in Irvine, CA, a 5-round, 42 player event. Ryan Averill of Xenos Petting Zoon went 4-1 and placed 6th with his Stormlance Task Force. You can see Ryan's list on BCP and below.
The (un)Cowardly Lion
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Sammael
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
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 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Callidus Assassin
This is a pretty conventional Dark Angels Stormlance. If I were playing a Stormlance list, I'd want Lion Dad, Deathwing Knights, and Inner Circle Companions in my list. Looks like Azrael gets to join the ICCs, which is a more fun way to use him than having him guard the backfield with Assault Intercessors. It's nice to see Sammael in competitive play, and he's got the nice big brick of Outriders to join. Sammy and the Outriders mutually buff each other and give Ryan a unit that can exploit the Stormlance's spicy Mounted-keyworded strats. The Invader is likely a cheap unit to run around and do secondaries with. One squad of Intercessors can sit on the backfield objective, the other can follow Lion Dad and the DWKs to sticky objectives so they can move off them. Everything else have their functions and do what they do. It's a solid list that obviously worked for Ryan.
1st round Ryan crushed Chaos Daemons 90-40. 2nd round he squeaked out an 86-83 win against Adeptus Custodes. 3rd round he took a punishing 96-51 loss against T'au Empire. 4th round he bodied Necrons 97-63. 5th round he housed Adeptus Custodes 89-56.
Tangent Alert 2! Our brethren, Jeff Jew, stepped out on us and played Orks at this event. Boo for not playing Dark Angels, but congratulations on coming in 2nd! Maybe Jeff just does well with armies that are green.
Statistics
Meta Monday has 5-week win rates and event wins up. The army with the most event wins is Space Marines at 9, followed by Chaos Daemons with 7, and then Necrons with 6.
Chaos Daemons have the highest 5-week win rate at 54%, with the Legion of Excess sitting at a 64% win rate. Necrons are tied for next-highest at 53%, with the Shatterstar Arsenal having a 56% rate and all 6 event wins. Necrons are tied with Imperial Knights for win rate at 53%. Astra Militarum are next at 51%, but with the Bridgehead Strike detachment at 62%. It seems like Legion of Excess, Bridgehead Strike, and Shatterstar Arsenal could do with a little toning down.
By comparison, Dark Angels are sitting at a 5-week 47% win rate with 2 event wins. The detachment with the highest 5-week win rate is actually the Company of Hunters at 57%, followed by the Stormlance at 55%. The Gladius is at 47%, and none of the other DA-unique detachments are above 45%, with the Lion's Blade doing the worst out of all of them at 30%.
For the week, Dark Angels are at a 44% win rate, which isn't great. We didn't have any event wins, but we did have the 2 X/0-X/1 results listed above. 16 people played Dark Angels over the weekend, played 75 games, and won 33 of them.
The most played detachment was the Gladius, with 9 players getting a 41% win rate.
The Stormlance was the detachment with the highest win rate, with 2 players getting a 60%, and it also had one of the X/1 results.
The Company of Hunters had the next-highest win rate at 54%. 3 players played the CoH. One of the X/1 results came from the CoH.
The only other detachment that got any play over the weekend was the Vanguard Spearhead, with 2 players getting a 30% win rate.
That, battle brethren, is what I've got. If you enjoy my work, hunt down that Follow button like it knows something about the Fallen. Shout out to Heath and Bailey at Dank List Wargaming for their videos on YouTube. May you be forever victorious! For the Lion!
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