Chapter Update: 6/2/2025

 Hello battle brethren! It's going to be a short one this week because it wasn't a very busy weekend event-wise. We only have one list to discuss, so we'll get to that straightaway.

I apologize for this article getting out so late. In my defense, food poisoning laid me low at the beginning of the week.

Our list for this week was played at the Nailhammer 8 - 2k 2 Day Tournament held in Wellington Court, England, a 5-round, 30 player event. Max DeBarr of Phoenix40K (which sounds to me like it should be a team in Arizona) played a Gladius Task Force and took 3rd place. You can see Max' list on BCP, and we'll discuss it below. 

god i am such a pathetic coward (No one taking Dark Angels with our 40% win rate to GTs is a coward Max!)

Lion Dad
Azrael
Judiciar
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
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
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Vindicator
Vindicator

This is a pretty conventional Dark Angels Gladius list. The most interesting things about it are the inclusion of Lion Dad and the absence of Scouts. We all want Lion Dad to be good, and arguably he's borderline good. For his points he's probably not quite as competitive as a 3rd squad of Deathwing Knights would be, but he's reasonably close, and he does bring abilities to the table DWKs don't. The opportunity cost for bringing him is a third squad of DWKs and most of the points for a squad of Scouts. He seems to have worked for Max well enough.

Then there's the absence of Scouts in the list. Most of us like at least one squad of Scouts for their uppy-downy scoring potential, but Max dispensed with them in his list. Instead, he's got a couple squads of Jump Intercessors and the Combi-Lieutenant to do that work. Again, it seems to have worked for him. Jump Intercessors may not be able to uppy-downy, but they have Deep Strike and have a 12" Move characteristic and Fly, so it's not hard to put them where they need to be to score, and of course Combi-Loo has the built-in reactive move.  Again, Max did fine with what he had.

For the meat of the list, he has the two squads of DWKs, the ICCs, Lion Dad, and to an extent Azrael and the Sternguard to punch things, and the pair of Vindicators and, again, Azrael and the Sternguard to shoot things. These are all proven units. Plus there are the Infiltrators to mind the backfield objective. All in all, fairly solid. 

Max started strong, drubbing a VV Death Guard list 100-56 in the 1st round. It seems to me Death Guard have been one of our personal boogeyman for the most recent meta, but maybe that's changed some with the new DG codex, plus Max wasn't relying so hard on Damage 2 attacks. Anyhow, 2nd  round he took his loss, but it was a squeaker: 82-85 against Militarum Mechanized Assault - that's the one buffs units that hop out of transports.  3rd round he spanked Traitoris Lance Chaos Knights 88-53. 4th round he scored a close 70-59 win against Reaper's Wager Drukhari. In the 5th round he ended strong with a comfortable 86-72 win against Chaos Daemonic Incursion.

Statistics

Again, not a good weekend for Dark Angels. We had 12 players who collectively scored a 40% win rate and only took home 1 X-result. Sadly, we were 5th from the bottom for the weekend. 

Meta Monday's tables still aren't parsing out Dark Angels lists using Codex: Space Marine detachments, so I can't tell you too much about how each detachment is performing for us beyond reporting on the specific lists that do well. Of our bespoke detachments, only 1 player used one of them, a Company of Hunters, and scored a 40% win rate.

Factions/Detachments to Watch Out For

The top faction of the weekend was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Death Guard, with 36 players, a 58% win rate, 12 X-results, and 4 event wins. The Virulent Vectorium detachment had 19 players and was responsible for 9 of those X-results and 3 of the event wins, racking up a 63% win rate. The Mortarion's Hammer detachment accounts for most of the rest of the scoring lists, with 8 players scoring a 59% win rate, 2 X-results and the 4th event win.

Tyranids were the second-best faction of the weekend, with 17 players scoring a 59% win rate, 5 X-results, and 1 event win. The Invasion Fleet detachment was the most successful detachment, with 13 players scoring a 57% win rate, 4 X-results, and the event win.

Third-best were Aeldari, with 21 players scoring a 56% win rate and 7 X-results. The Devoted of Ynnead detachment accounted for 6 of the players and 3 of the X-results, scoring a surprisingly sedate 54% win rate.

World Eaters, Imperial Knights, Necrons, Emperor's Children, and Chaos Daemons all scored over the 50% mark on win rate.

That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. I'd like to shout out Dank List Wargaming for some fun Dark Angels content. I hope you find my work entertaining and helpful. May we earn glorious victory for The Lion!