Chapter Update: 5/26/2025
The first list for our discussion was played at the German Super Major 2025 40K, a 5-round event with 290 players. Jan Reisenauer went 4-1 with his Company of Hunters and took 16th place. You can see Jan's list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below.
Jan's list
Azrael - Warlord
Sammael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Ravenwing Command Squad: Recon Hunter
Ravenwing Command Squad: Master of Manoeuvre
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky shooty boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky shooty boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Vindicator
Vindicator
Vindicator
This list leans into the things the Company of Hunters is good at. The CoH definitely lends itself to a heavily shooty focus, with some supplementary Mounted units to skirmish and hold objectives. We've been seeing Centurion Devastators pop up in CoH lists with some frequency, and it's easy to understand why. Them and the trio of Vindicators form a pretty potent firebase with a lot of 2+ saves to make opponents chew through, and make his opponents reluctant to stick anything out into the open.
Jan went with a trio of Outrider Squads, with Sammael and a pair of Ravenwing Command Squads attached to them. Each of those will have a character swinging 3 damage on the charge, so they can do some work in assault. The Ravenwing Champions have the usual Recon Hunter and Master of Manoeuvre enhancements that help get their attached units around the board. They can do a little work in the Shooting phase too, with the RWCSes' and Sammy's plasma, and you can usually get a bike unit in a good position to for the Grenades strat too.
The rest of the list includes Azrael, a small squad of Sternguard for him to attach to, a pair of Scout Squads, and an Invader ATV. Jan doesn't have an obvious unit to mind his backfield objective unless it's Azrael and the Sternguard, or the Invader. He might be stickying the backfield objective with Hunter's Trail and just not worrying about it. The Scouts can be positioned to keep movement lanes open for the Bike squads, and then they and the ATV can uppy-downy around the board to score Secondaries.
European event, WTC scoring. Just to recap, 0-20 range, 10-10 is a tie, every point up or down past 10 is a 5-point difference in battle points.
1st round Jan buried a Chaos Knights Traitoris Lance list 19-1. 2nd round he paired into Chaos Knights Traitoris Lance again and similarly stuffed it 17-3. 3rd round he crushed a Death Guard Virulent Vectorium list 19-1. 4th round he took his loss against a Chaos Marines Renegade Raiders list 7-13. He bounced back though and handily beat a Ultramarines Gladius 15-5.
The other list we're looking at was played at the ATWN Open 2025, a 5-round, 20-player event held in Wollongong, NSW Australia. Joshua Brodie of Barbarian-Hipster Alliance went 4-1 with his Gladius Task Force to take 3rd place. You can see Joshua's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
This is Chaos,Right? (No, Joshua, it is not)
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Judiciar: The Honour Vehement
Judiciar
Intercessor Squad
Impulsor
Impulsor
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Bladeguard Veteran Squad: 6 awesome swordy-boardy boys
Gladiator Lancer
Gladiator Lancer
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad
Scout Squad
Joshua brought some innovation to the Dark Angels Gladius which is nice to see. We don't often see a list do well without Deathwing Knights, and we certainly all love are awesome chonky boys, be they macey or swordy, but it's refreshing to see a list do well without them too. In their place, Joshua brought not one, but two ICC squads, and a Bladeguard Veteran Squad gets to come out and rep the Deathwing in his list too. He's got two Judiciars and Azrael to attach to these squads. I'm sure Azrael attaches to one of the ICC squads, and the other ICCs and the Bladeguard get a Judiciar each. The squads with the Judiciars likely get to ride in the Impulsors, with Azrael's squad on foot so Azrael can generate CP every battle round. The Impulsors make the squads much faster than squads of Deathwing Knights would be, Joshua can use Squad Tactics to hop a squad back into the Impulsor whenever it's tactically advantageous to do so, they can throw out a lot of chaff-chewing firepower when it's needed, and they'll likely be in position to make a Tank Shock attack.
Let's not forget Lion Dad (which I almost did!). The Primarch packs a mean punch and is a lethal Heroic Intervention threat. Between him and two squads led Judiciars, that's a lot of Fights First an opponent has to cope with. That can't be easy for an assault list to deal with.
The Gladius supports a list with a balance of shooting and assault. The shooting element in this list is a pair of Lancers, which seems like a fairly small amount considering, but Lancers can do some work between their laser destroyers and another bucket of chaff chewing firepower each.
Joshua didn't stint on utility units. He's got Intercessors, Jump Intercessors, Infiltrators, and a pair of Scout Squads. He can leave the Infiltrators minding the backfield objective, and the rest of those units can run around, score Secondaries, and skirmish with opponents' utility pieces as needed.
1st round Joshua crushed Haloscreed Mechanicus 90-7. That's not a typo, BCP shows the other list as having scored 7 points. All the events I've attended grant the 10-point Battle Ready bonus automatically, so it's wild to see a score under 10 points. Anyway, 2nd round Joshua had a close 85-77 win against Black Spear Deathwatch. 3rd round he scored a comfortable 97-72 win against Thousand Sons Cult of Magic. 4th round he took a bruising 57-100 loss against Vanguard Tyranids. 5th round he bounced back and scored a comfortable 95-70 win against Death Guard.
Statistics
Overall it was another rough weekend for Dark Angels. we had 36 players who scored a 39% win rate, which is terrible, but we did manage to score 2 X/1 results. We're third from the bottom in results over the weekend, coming out ahead of only Black Templars and Imperial Agents. Rounding up, we've scored a 45% win rate since the beginning of the current meta, but that line has been trending down.
Meta Monday isn't separating out the Dark Angels detachments for me like it has in the past, which I expect is a temporary hiccup. Unfortunately that means I can't give figures for the Codex Space Marines detachments, but I can scroll through and give the figures for our bespoke detachments.
The Company of Hunters scored an 80% win rate - whoa, OP! Just kidding, only Jan played a CoH at a big event this weekend.
One player took a Lion's Blade, but it didn't reward him - he only managed a 20% win rate.
The Inner Circle Task Force was played by 4 players who managed only 29% win rate.
The Unforgiven Task Force was played by 2 players who managed a 50% win rate.
Factions and Detachments to Watch Out For
Death Guard was the dominant faction of the weekend, with 124 players who racked up a 58% win rate, 33 X-results, and 2 event wins. Their Virulent Vectorum detachment accounted for half of their players at 66, who also managed a 58% win rate, 19 of the X-results, and 1 of the event wins.
Imperial Knights are consistently rising to the top of the meta, with 64 players scoring a 57% win rate, 13 X-results, and 1 event win.
Aeldari Devoted of Ynnead remains probably the most overpowered detachment currently in the meta, with 45 players who brought in a 62% win rate, 13 X-results, and 3 event wins.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. I hope you can draw inspiration from the successful lists, and that you can be prepared to face the lists that are at the top of the meta. Be sure to check out Dank List Wargaming over on YouTube, and may you bring glory to the First Legion! For the Lion!
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