Lists of the Week: 4/28/2025
The first list we'll look at was played at Leoben 40K Singles 2025 - Alpine Cup event held in Proleb, Austria. At this 5-round, 219 player event, Konrad Schmuck of WARHEIMER went 4-0-1 and took 6th place with his Gladius Task Force, which is a very impressive result! Not many of us can claim to have gone undefeated at a 200-player event! You can see Konrad's list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
Dark Angels (Konrad! Come up with more creative list names!)
Azrael - Warlord
Ancient
Judiciar
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy 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
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Vindicator
Vindicator
This is a pretty conventional Dark Angels Gladius list. We've got Azrael, a Judiciar, a Combi-Lieutenant, some foot Assault Intercessors, some flying Assault Intercessors, the squads of ICCs, 3 squads of DWKs, a couple squads of Scouts, and the two Vindicators as a shooting element.
The one eyebrow-raising innovation is the Ancient. What's that guy doing in there? There are two squads he can attach to, and he can attach to the same unit Azrael is attached to, but both of them are already rocking OC 2, so he doesn't seem that necessary. I suppose making one of those units OC 3 might be worthwhile at times, and he can (and does) carry a power weapon, so that can add a little oomph to the Assault Intercessors while making them OC 3. Alternately, maybe he holds the backfield objective all by his little lonesome. He does get a 4+ Feel No Pain when on an objective, so that might make sense.
This event used WTC scoring, so a 0-20 scale, 10-10 representing a tie, and every point difference from that representing a 5 point difference in battle point score. Konrad started strong, crushing Liberator Blood Angels 18-2. 2nd round he scored a comfortable 12-8 against Necrons. 3rd round he drubbed Iconoclast Chaos Knights 16-4. 4th round he tied Aspect Host Aeldari 10-10. 5th round he solidly beat Kauyon T'au 14-6. Undefeated! Way to go Konrad!
The next list we're looking at was played at RGB Dungeon - The Fourth Cataclysm, a 5-round, 19-player event held in South Africa. Harley Millar of RGB Dungeon went 4-1 to score 3rd place with his Gladius Task Force. You can see Harley's list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
Maybe
Azrael - Warlord
Captain in Gravis Armor: Artificer Armour
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Bladeguard Veteran Squad: 6 awesome swordy-boardy boys
Centurion Assault Squad: 6 chonky smashy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Land Raider Redeemer
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Vindicator
Assault Centurions? That certainly wasn't on my Bingo card! That said, in melee their Siege drills give them 3 attacks each at Strength 10 AP -2 Damage 3 and Twin-linked. Their Annihilator Protocols datasheet rule gives them Sustained Hits 2 against Monsters and Vehicles (and, hilariously, Fortifications). They're T7, 2+ save, 4 wound models with OC 2. They even pack some decent firepower with their Centurion bolters and twin meltaguns. Their main weaknesses are they're slow and they lack an invulnerable save, but those are mitigated by giving them a Redeemer to ride in style. I'm not sure that would work at a super-major, but it brought Harley to 4-0 in the first 4 rounds, which is a potential tournament winning position.
Dang. I keep on seeing players use Centurions to good effect. It makes me wish I'd gotten some when they released, but I thought they were pretty goofy looking at the time. These days, they look pretty reasonable next to Aggressors. I don't want to buy them now because I'm not confident any Firstborn models will be sticking around in 11th edition.
Also, it looks like Harley was trying to have his cake and eat it too by having Bladeguard Veterans to link up to his Judiciar instead of Inner Circle Companions, so he can have both Fights First and a 4++ save. I'll admit, I've thought about it myself. Bladeguard are cheaper than ICCs now, so maybe it was a points-saving measure.
Speaking of such things, Harley's list was really light on utility-scoring units. He's got Infiltrators, who can either sit on the backfield objective or screen as needed, but other than that, he's got Intercessors and that Gravis Captain who can be plopped into a corner of the opponent's backfield and be a nuisance to remove, but Harley has to wait till the 3rd turn to put him in his opponent's deployment zone and then he'd better be pretty happy with him where he is. He will be a nuisance for an opponent to dig out without diverting a pretty serious unit to do it though.
1st round Harley pretty comfortably beat a Dark Angels Gladius 92-59. 2nd round he had a solid 65-31 win against a Salamanders Firestorm. 3rd round he crushed Mont'ka T'au 78-20. 4th round he got a solid 86-52 win against World Eaters Vessels of Wrath. Sadly, in the final round, he lost to a Daemonic Incursion 52-94.
Our next list was played at Ice Breaker 2025 - Warhammer 40K GT, a 5-round, 62 player event held in Minneapolis MN. Kiran Arquin went 4-1 to place 8th with a Gladius Task Force. You can see Kiran's list on BCP, with the discussion of it below.
Clever list name goes here
Azrael - Warlord
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ballistus Dreadnought
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying bolter boys
Incursor Squad: 5 spotty knifey boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
This is a pretty conventional Dark Angels Gladius. The firebase is the three Ballisti, who have pretty solid if not exceptional damage output, but do have the advantage of being a pretty tough 2+ save chassis to bring down. There are only 2 squads of Deathwing Knights, and of those one has swords, but the Gladius has the strat gives Lance, which covers them into anything short of T12.
For utility, there's the Combi-Lieutenant, the Jump Intercessors, the Scouts, and the Inceptors. Inceptors seem like they'd be handy into pesky Aeldari nonsense. Azrael presumably hangs out with the Sternguard, who can put some Dev wounds onto targets that are maybe hanging on by a thread after the Ballisti have shot.
Kiran had the bad luck of being paired in to the boogeyman of the meta, Ynnead Aeldari, in the 1st round and took a 66-92 loss. 2nd round he crushed Awakened Dynasty Necrons 90-40. 3rd round he had a solid 82-66 win against Renegade Raiders Chaos Marines. 4th round he drubbed Berserker World Eaters 93-48. He ended strong with a tight 5th round 67-62 win against Shadow Legion Daemons.
Statistics
As a faction, Dark Angels had a 42% win rate last weekend, which is pretty bad. 30 players played 145 games and won 61 of them. Our 6-week win rate is 46%, which is still pretty bad. Meta Monday is crediting us with 4 X/1 results, 2 Gladius lists, 1 Vanguard, and 1 Stormlance. Darned if I could find the Vanguard and the Stormlance though. I did find a Vanguard that went 3-1-1 at a 10 person event, and a Company of Hunters that went 2-1-2 at a 14-player event, but while interesting I don't think those results rate the full analysis.
The most played detachment and also the most successful detachment was the Gladius, with a 47% win rate and all of the X/1 results I could find. 16 players played Gladius lists.
The Stormlance was the next most played detachment, with 7 players, but it had a pretty sad 41% win rate.
The Vanguard had 2 players who got a 43% win rate.
The Inner Circle Task Force had 2 players and av36% win rate.
The Company of Hunters had 3 players, but a dismal 21% win rate.
Factions/Detachments to Watch Out For
Imperial Knights had a good weekend, with 70 players who scored a 55% win rate, 16 X-results, and 2 event wins. 69 of those players played the Noble Lance detachment.
Generally speaking, its probably always a good idea to be prepared to play into an all-big-thing army, as between Knights, Chaos Knights, Tyranids, Chaos Daemons, and Astra Militarum, there's a pretty good chance you're going to encounter an army dominated by either big Vehicles or Monsters at any given event.
Devoted of Ynnead Aeldari continue to be a boogeyman of the meta, with 49 players scoring a 58% win rate, 16 X-results, and 1 event win.
Chaos Daemons had 80 players, with 67 of them split between Daemonic Incursion and Shadow Legion. Those detachments scored 5 and 6 X-result respectively, and 2 event wins each.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. Follow my blog if you like my work, and I recommend checking out Dank List Wargaming over on YouTube. I hope I've helped you with your list construction and strategizing, and may you, with your games, win glory for the Lion!
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