Lists of the Week: 4/14/2024
This list is coming from The 36 Chambers #4, a 5-round, 40 player event held in Stockport, England. Lewis Archer of Mind Goblins went 4-1 and took 4th place with a Gladius Task Force. You can see Lewis' list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
Angels gladius
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Chaplain in Terminator Armour
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knihgts: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 3 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
This is a fairly conventional Dark Angels Gladius in that it's built around our good assault units with some fire support to back it up. Lewis made the decision to only use 2 Deathwing Knight squads in order to include Lion Dad. The conventional wisdom is that this is not an ideal choice, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. However, including Lion Dad gives opponents more of a variety of problems to deal with and gives Lewis more tools he can apply to problems he may encounter on the tabletop, so there's an argument to be made for it. It's also a little unusual to see a unit of sword-Knights with a Chaplain attached. The Chaplain does mitigate the swords not having Anti-Big-Thing 4+ and gives protection from Mortal Wounds all the time, but costs as much as a whole additional unit. It does seem to have worked for Lewis though.
It's also unusual to see someone take 9 Inner Circle Companions. One full squad of 6 is pretty conventional. Two full squads of 6 would be skewing into them pretty hard, but certainly wouldn't seem too remarkable otherwise. A squad of 6 and a squad of 3 I'm having a little trouble figuring out. My thought is that Lewis attaches Azrael to the squad of 6, while the Judiciar goes with the squad of 3 and lurks around as a Heroic Intervention threat, or possibly goes in Reserve to be popped out with Rapid Ingress to go mess up backfield units.
For his shooting element, Lewis took 3 Ballisti. Ballisti are decidedly okay as far as damage output goes. They can be a little underwhelming into some of the tougher Monsters or Vehicles out there, but a trio of them will probably do some work, and their missile launchers do have a handy Blast profile to put into squishier targets. Plus, with an 8" move and a 2+ save, they're fairly efficient units to throw onto mid-board objectives, obliging opponents to expose some pretty significant assets to deal with them.
Lewis has the expected utility units, with a pair of Scout Squads to do uppy-downy scoring and the Intercessors to sit on the backfield objective. One could do worse than starting every list with these units and then expanding out from there.
1st round, Lewis had a comfortable 81-57 win against an Aeldari Warhost. 2nd round he had a close 81-72 win against Black Spear Deathwatch. 3rd round he took a close 58-67 loss against Custodes Shield Host. 4th round he had a close 94-81 win against the redundantly named Berserker Host World Eaters. Ending strong, he stomped Shadow Legion Chaos Daemons 100-28. Maybe his Ballisti spiked into Belakor and the Bloodthirsters.
Our next list was played at Perils Of The Geekery, a 5-round, 45 player event held in Shawnee, KS where Kyle McCord of Midwest Monstars went 4-1 with his Gladius Task Force and took 3rd place. You can see Kyle's list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
Angels of the Blade and Bolter (good name Kyle!)
Azrael - Warlord
Captain in Gravis Armour: Artificer Armor
Judiciar
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Land Raider Redeemer
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
I find the most interesting thing about this list is the inclusion of the Land Raider Redeemer, which again prevented the inclusion of a 3rd squad of Deathwing Knights. What it brings instead is a problematic hull to remove, a devastating Overwatch threat, and a ride for the Judiciar-led ICCs to hop in and out of. Between the Redeemer and the three Ballisti, that's a lot of tough 2+ save hulls to chew through.
There's the interesting inclusion of the Captain in Gravis Armour just running around all by his lonesome. His Refuse to Yield ability halves damage he takes, which means when he's got the 2+ save and 5+ Feel No Pain from Artificer Armour, he can be an annoyingly tough nugget to chew through, and with a relatively small footprint can be put in Reserve to pop out when opponents have committed their major units to the forward push.
We've been seeing the 5-man Sternguard unit a lot. Presumably Azrael gets attached to them. They're a little bit spicier than the 5-man Assault Intercessor Squad, because they have Devastating Wounds on their guns and reroll Wound rolls against the Oath target. Even the 5-man squad will reliably put some Devastating Wounds into the Oath target, which can be just the thing for finishing off something big. They have the same number of attacks as Assault Intercessors, and the Sergeant even gets one more attack with his power fist, so they're a credible skirmishing threat too.
The utility units are the Intercessors, Jump Intercessors, and Scouts.
1st round Kyle gave a pretty sound 86-50 drubbing to an Imperial Knight Noble Lance. 2nd round he squeaked out an 88-86 win against a Tyranid Invasion Fleet list. 3rd round he got a solid 100-69 win against Hearthband Leagues of Votann. 4th round he drubbed a Grey Knight Teleport Attack force 88-44. Sadly, his loss was in the 5th round, a close 93-100 against Reaper's Wager Drukhari. It's disappointing to go out on a loss, but on the other hand Kyle got a 4-0 event start, which is a metric Stat-check.com uses to measure faction strength.
I'm going to give an honorable mention to Joseph Delagarza of The Worst Generation. He played an Unforgiven Task Force at the Amarillo Warhammer 40k Grand Tournament, a 5-round, 34 player event. He didn't play past Round 3, but he went 2-0-1 in the three rounds he did play, so technically his list went undefeated, and even not playing the last two rounds he came in at 16th place, which is above the 50% mark. His list is kind of interesting too, which you can see for yourself on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings obliteration. I will face my fear and I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past... I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain”. Paul Atreidis
Azrael - Warlord
Apothecary
Librarian in Terminator Armour
Librarian in Terminator Armour
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Techmarine
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs - 5 flying choppy boys
Brutalis Dreadnought
Gladiator Lancer
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Incursor Squad: 5 choppy spotty boys
Terminator Squad: 10 chonky bolter-fisty boys
Terminator Squad: 10 chonky bolter-fisty boys
I'm going to beat around the bush a bit before getting to the meat of my commentary. Anytime an Unforgiven Task Force does well, it's probably got a shooty unit that would be a good target for the Grim Retribution strat, and the Hellblasters cover that consideration. I'd have teamed them up with a Lieutenant instead of an Apothecary so they can get Lethals with their out-of-sequence shooting, but Joseph probably figured he can get Lethal Hits from the Unforgiven Fury strat, so he might as well grow a few Hellblasters back to keep them shooting a little longer. He's got 2 squads of Intercessors, one doubtless minding the backfield objective and the other probably going midfield to exploit the detachment rule. I'm going to raise an eyebrow at the Techmarine, because it doesn't seem like Joe has enough vehicles to warrant one, and of the two he has, one is hanging back shooting and one is barrel-assing at opposing units to beat face. Maybe Joe finds making the Lancer hit on 2+ worth the cost of the Techmarine. For utility work he's got the Combi-Lieutenant, Jump Intercessors, and the Incursors when they're not buffing the rest of the army's shooting.
And then there's the 830 points Joseph spent on 20 Terminators and 2 Terminator Librarians. I have to admit, I've looked at Terminator Squads and at Terminator Librarians and wondered if the Sustained Hits conferred by the Librarians makes the Terminators worth putting on the table. Joseph went big on this idea with two full squads. Within 12" they certain put out a high volume of shooting with 8 storm bolters and a pair of assault cannons, and in close combat that is 24 power fist attacks. That is a lot of opportunities for Sustained Hits to activate. Between Azrael and the Termie Librarians, there's a lot of Sustained Hits in this list. Terminators also have the Fury of the First ability, giving them +1 To Hit against the Oath target, so potentially hitting on 2's with their attacks. Actually, between the Techmarine, the Incursor Squad, and the Terminators' Fury of the First, he's packing a lot of ways to get +1 To Hit on his attacks, which is almost as good as having Oath on a target. Hmm, lots of Sustained Hits and lots of +1 To Hit - I think a design philosophy is starting to become clear here. Also, 22 Terminators is a lot of 2+/4++ bodies to have to pick up, which some armies are going to struggle with. The Librarians providing a 4+ Feel No Pain against Psychic attacks is going to give them extra durability against some armies.
1st round Joseph crushed Death Guard Plague Company 90-40. 2nd round he drew 85-85 against Custodes Shield Host. 3st round he got a comfortable 88-70 win against a Chaos Daemons Shadow Legion list. We can only guess how he'd have done in the 4th and 5th rounds, but he was off to a good start.
Statistics
As a faction, Dark Angels had a 45% win rate last weekend, which is pretty bad. Only 5 factions did worse than that. We're credited with 3 X/1 results, but that appears to be an error, because I only found 2 such results. 22 players played Dark Angels at GTs or bigger events, playing 112 games and winning 50 of them. We have a 4-week win rate of 47% and only 1 event win in that period. The high for 4-week event wins is Orks with 13, but 11 of those are attributed to the pre-nerf More Dakka! detachment.
The most played detachment was the Gladius, with 11 players getting a 48% win rate. The Gladius accounted for the weekend's X/1 results.
The Stormlance had 3 players who between them only racked up a 35% win rate. The Stormlance seems to lose bigger when it loses for some reason.
The Vanguard Spearhead had 3 players who scored a 50% win rate.
The Unforgiven Task Force was played by 2 players for a 33% win rate.
One player each played the Company of Hunters and the Inner Circle Task Force. Surprisingly, they both scored 60% win rates.
Factions To Watch Out For
Chaos Daemons were the 2nd-most played faction over the weekend, with 72 players, the 3rd highest collective win rate at 54%, 14 X/0-X/1 results, and 3 event wins. The Shadow Legion was the most played detachment by far with 41 players, a 56% win rate, 9 X-results, and 2 event wins.
Aeldari had 71 players who scored a 51% win rate, 16 X-results, and 1 event win. The Devoted of Ynnead detachment was the most played with 34 players, scoring a problematic 63% win rate, 12 of the X-results, and accounting for the event win.
Adeptus Custodes the most-played faction with 73 players, who only scored a 50% win rate, but racked up 12 X-results and an event win. The Lions of the Emperor detachment was played by 48 players who accounted for 8 of the X-results and the event win.
That's what I have for you this week, battle brethren. Follow me to keep up with my work, and if you like this, check out Dank List Wargaming on YouTube. I hope my work helps you be more successful in your efforts to win glory for the legion chapter. For the Lion!
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