Chapter Update: 8/11/2025
Lone Star Open 2025 - 40k Champs was a 6-round, 322 player event held in Allen, Texas. Jay DeCunzo of Y'allHammer went 5-1 and placed 8th. Even more impressively, he went 5-0 for the first 5 rounds! Here's Jay's full list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
Ancient Weapons of the Dark Age
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Chaplain in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault
Lieutenant: Ancient Weapons
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky lascannon-missile boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deatnwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Inceptor Squad: 6 flying chonky plasma boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
This is a pretty well balanced list, with a mix of both good shooting units and good assault units. We've seen Wrath lists using Centurion Devastators before, and here Jay is putting a unit of them to good use. He's also got a unit of Hellblasters to attach Azrael to, and a Lieutenant riding along with the Strength 10 Ancient Weapons power fist, making the unit a good assault threat as well as a good shooting threat. That squad, with both Sustained and Lethal Hits, can be relied upon to punch up into bigger targets even without Relics of the Dark Age, and Jay has it in his back pocket when it will make a difference on the To Wound roll. He's also got a full squad of plasma Inceptors, which can also be relied upon to punch up into tougher targets with their weapons being Twin Linked, and Relics is an option if it makes sense to use it.
For assault threats, Jay has two units of Deathwing Knights and Lion Dad, and the Hellblasters with Azrael and the Lieutenant attached can be pretty effective too. As soon as I saw the Terminator Chaplain, I knew one of the Deathwing Knights squads would have swords. If you want to attach a character to one of your DWK squads for the Deathwing Assault enhancement, it makes sense to take the Chaplain and have a sword squad. One might consider a Terminator Captain instead, reverting to a macey boys squad, and having the Captain for discounted strats, but he's 20 points more than the Chaplain, and this is a list with a lot of expensive units.
The Darkshroud is an interesting choice, and not the most obvious, but I think what Jay did with it is place it behind terrain such that its aura can touch both DWK squads with one on the expansion objective and one on the mid-board objective. Plus, it does its job just by existing in a space, so Jay can have it do actions to score secondaries without losing the benefit of having it in the list. Plus, it's a fast unit with Fly and OC 3, which may allow Jay to occasionally flip an objective in the late game.
For utility units, Jay just has the one Scout Squad, and the Intercessors to hold the backfield objective. The Darkshroud can help in a pinch as well. Jay didn't score any 100's. He got a couple scores in the 90's. Maybe one more utility unit would have made the difference. Still, it's hard to argue with a 5-1 result.
Jay started strong, crushing Biosanctic Genestealers in the 1st round, 91-33. 2nd round he had a comfortable 85-70 against Solar Spearhead Custodes. 3rd round he squeaked out a 71-69 win against Hallowed Martyrs Sororitas. 4th round he took a solid 78-58 against Carnival Emperor's Children. 5th round he smashed Imperial Knights 95-44. Sadly, he took the loss in the 6th round, a bruising 61-91 against Mortarion's Hammer Death Guard, against the player who took 2nd overall. That was a very impressive run though, and there's definitely no shame in losing to a quality player using the cancer of the meta. Well done Jay!
Next I'd like to showcase the list that took 4th place at the Iowaaagh! Moose-tacular 2025, a 5-round, 64-player event. The list in question was a Wrath list played by Kyle McCord of Midwest Monstars. Here's Kyle's list on BCP. The short version is below.
Angels of the Silent Blade
Azrael - Warlord
Captain in Gravis Armour - Ancient Weapons
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky lascannon-missile boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky lascannon-missile boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 chonky lascannon-missile boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Vanguard Veterans: 5 awesome flying choppy boys
Vanguard Veterans: 5 awesome flying choppy boys
Vanguard Veterans: 5 awesome flying choppy boys
What we have here is a classic case of spamming strong datasheets. I don't mean for that to sound disparaging, because it's not. Kyle chose units with proven effectiveness and used as many of them as he was allowed to do so. Centurion Devastators are a solid shooting platform that have built-in rerolls, can benefit greatly from Relics of the Dark Age, and with Toughness 7, a 2+ save, and 4 wound apiece are not trivial to pick up. Deathwing Knights give Kyle tough, hard-hitting assault units he can send forth to cause problems and give his opponents difficult target priority decisions. The VanVets can score Secondaries or skirmish as Kyle sees fit, and having the Deathwing keyword are legitimate lala-charge threats. Azrael and the Sternguard can do a bit of both shooting and close combat. There are Intercessors to sit on the backfield objective and the Combi-Lieutenant for Secondary scoring. Finally, there's the Gravis Captain with Ancient Weapons. There aren't any Gravis units for him to join, so Kyle is evidently using him as a sneaky melee threat. One lone figure will be easy to hide in terrain, he'll punch up with Ancient Weapons, and he halves incoming damage. The only downside to him is he can only lala-charge units within 3" of him
Kyle started strong with a solid 83-63 against Subterranean Tyranids in the 1st round. 2nd round he scored a comfortable 83-69 against Liberator Blood Angels. 3rd round he scored a respectable 80-60 against MortHam Death Guard. 4th round he had a close 91-84 win against Scintillating Daemons. 5th round he suffered a close 71-77 loss against more MortHam Death Guard. He bounced back to deliver a 90-60 drubbing against Dread Chaos Knights. Well done Kyle!
Our next list was played at the Krefeld Major 2025 event, a 5-round, 164 player event held in Krefeld, Germany. Andy Jespersen went 4-1 and took 14th place with a Stormlance Task Force, reminding us we shouldn't sleep on the other detachments. Here's Andy's list on BCP. Let's take a look at what he brought.
Dark Storm - Knights End II (This sounds like the title of a superhero franchise movie!)
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Gladiator Lancer
Gladiator Lancer
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Invader ATV - melta buggy
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys
This is a brutally simple Stormlance list. Andy mostly dispensed with any pretense of Stormlance being for Mounted units, and just took Lion Dad and three units of Deathwing Knights for some quality Advance-And-Charge, face-smashing action.
Backing up his face smashers, Andy took a pair of Gladiator Lancers, which are quality all-around tanks. Their primary job is likely to pop transports, so Andy's face-smashers can charge the squishy contents. They can also soften up bigger targets, and dump buckets of dice on chaff.
Andy! Booby! Azrael and 10 Sternguard! You are a man after my own heart. Azrael and 10 Sternies can put a lot of hurt on a variety of targets, bypassing most defenses with their mass Devastating Wounds, and they can do some quality work in the Fight phase too. You'll always get value out of this combo.
For utility work, Andy has the Combi-Lieutenant, Scouts, an Invader, and Infiltrators to sit on his backfield objective. The Invader does give Andy a token unit to use all those Mounted-keyworded stratagems on. It's fast enough to throw onto an opponent's expansion objective, durable enough to be a nuisance to remove, and cheap enough to lose.
WTC scoring incoming! 0-20 range, 10-10 is a tie, 20-0 is a face-stomping, 0-20 is a crushing defeat. 1st round Andy crushed Infernal Chaos Knights 20-0. 2nd round he scored a solid 14-6 against Dread Chaos Knights. 3rd round he squeaked an 11-9 against Lions Custodes. 4th round he had a more comfortable 13-7 against more Lions Custodes. Sadly, 5th round he got edged out 9-11 by that cancer of the meta, Death Guard, though playing Champions of Contagion instead of the more usual VirVec or MortHam detachments. Good show Andy!
Next we go to Proleb, Austria, where the WTC Warmaster GT 2025 was held. At this 6-round, 263 player event, Lochie Callaghan of Team vic m went 4-1-1, placing 26th with his Wrath list. You can check out Lochie's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
Cucumber eyes
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Apothecary Biologix
Captain in Gravis Armour: Ancient Weapons
Chaplain in Terminator Armour
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Eradicator Squad: 6 chonky melta boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Lochie made some interesting choices. For starters, we don't usually see Wrath lists with three units of Deathwing Knights and Lion Dad. One of Lochie's squads has swords, so he included a Terminator Chaplain to help that squad punch up.
I find the Eradicator Squad with the Gravis Captain and the Biologis really interesting, in part because because I was running a similar combo. The Eradicators give Lochie something that should reliably kill at least one big Knight dead with their shooting. Then, with the Ancient Weapons Gravis Captain attached, they have a good Fight phase activation as well. I liked to hold mine in Reserve and Rapid Ingress them. They don't necessarily need to come in particularly close, just close enough where they can get within 9" of their primary target with an Advance move. The squad is a good target to put the Relics strat on if it has to punch up into big Knights, or possibly target them at a couple little Knights. I didn' t use a Biologis with mine, but he does give the whole squad Lethal Hits all the time. Plus, he brings OC to the table, potentially a lot of OC if the squad can manage to pick something up in the Fight phase, which the Gravis Captain makes likely.
This list doesn't have anything really exciting for Azrael to do. He must get attached to the Intercessors, and those guys probably sticky the backfield objective, then go deal with anything with the temerity to land in Lochie's backfield.
For utility work, Lochie has the Infiltrators, the Combi-Lieutenant, and the two Invaders. That's a pretty good spread of utility units, but I'll bet Lochie missed having a unit he could uppy-downy more than once during this event.
You will not be surprised to learn that the WTC Warmaster GT used WTC scoring. 1st round Lochie scored a close 12-8 against Champions of Faith Sororitas. 2nd round he had a 10-10 tie against Shadow Legion Daemons. 3rd round he had a solid 14-6 against Host of Ascension Genestealer Cult. 4th round he squeaked out an 11-9 against Starshatter Necrons. 5th round he took a punishing 2-18 loss against Imperial Knights. He ended strong with a 6th round 16-4 drubbing of Grand Coven Thousand Sons. Well done Lochie!
Our next list comes from Summer Showdown 40K, a 5-round, 38 player event held in Levittown, New York. Garrett Yablonski of Wildfire went 4-1 with his Wrath of the Rock list and took 4th place. Here's Garrett's list on BCP. Let's take a look at what he brought.
Wotr 2k (You gotta up your list name game Garrett!)
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Judiciar
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
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Gladiator Lancer
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
This is a fairly conventional Wrath list. Starting off, Garrett has a couple long-range firepower vehicles to keep opponents honest in their deployment. He went with a Ballistus and a Gladiator Lancer, which is a nice 1-2 punch if you can put both into the same target. Leading with the Ballistus gets you rerolls on a fresh target, and then ideally the Lancer can finish it off. It's good for a Wrath list to have a couple solid transport-popping options if nothing else.
Next, we have the pair of Deathwing Knight squads and Lion Dad. Adding to the close combat threat, Garrett also employed Inner Circle Companions with a Judiciar. I think we want to have at least one Fights First unit in a Wrath list for the Leonine Aggression threat, and the Judiciar-led ICCs have the advantage of the Deathwing keyword, so they can lala-charge a unit within 6", whereas Lion Dad can only lala-charge a unit within 3". I'm a little surprised Garrett didn't stick Ancient Weapons on the Judiciar. I suspect limitations in his model range may have something to do with that.
Azrael and the Sternguard Veterans provide a little of both shooting threat and assault threat. They can put some Devastating Wounds on target, potentially peeling the last wounds off something his Lancer and Ballistus have mostly killed, and put some pain on an Oath target in particular with the Sword of Secrets and the sergeant's power fist.
For utility units, Garrett has a couple squads of Jump Intercessors, a couple squads of Outriders, and the Intercessor Squad to mind that backfield objective. Notable by their absence are Scouts and the Combi-Lieutenant. With 4 highly-mobile squads, Garrett probably thought he didn't need them, and certainly acquitted himself well with the list he brought. He may have done better with Vanguard Veterans instead of the Jump Intercessors, and Invader ATVs instead of the Outriders. The VanVets can bring storm shields and the Deathwing keyword to the party, whereas the ATVs are 20 points cheaper each than a squad of Outriders, which would have enabled Garrett give Ancient Weapons to his Judiciar. My guess is Garrett may not have had VanVets and ATVs, and made the best list he could with the models he has. No shade to Garrett. My first two ATVs are on my painting table, and the next squad of VanVets I own will be the first squad.
Garrett started the event strong with a solid 1st round 90-76 against Blood Legion Daemons. 2nd round he had a comfortable 95-83 against Grand Coven Thousand Sons. 3rd round he took a bruising 61-97 loss against Imperial Knights. Garrett bounced back to crush Infernal Lance Chaos Knights 100-44 in the 4th round. He rounded out the event with a close 76-68 against VirVec Death Guard. Good show Garrett!
Here's a bonus writeup I'd already finished before I found some more events I missed in my first sweep with lists that rate more highly with the criteria I use. Which is not to say this list did badly. It was played at Arch City GT 4, a 5-round, 63 player event held in Columbus, Ohio. Keith Peck of Gem Wargaming went 4-1 with his Wrath list and took 7th place. Here's Keith's list on BCP. Discussion follows below.
Dark Angels Tournament
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Sammael
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter 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
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Vindicator
Vindicator
This is another pretty solid Wrath of the Rock list. It's got a solid Deathwing presence to kill things in the Fight phase and threaten to lala-charge a broad swath of the midfield. It's got Sammy with a squad of Outriders to go up the sidelines, or potentially be put in reserves, to skirmish with opponents' tech pieces. Lion Dad is there for that threat that can come from anywhere. For his shooting element, Keith went with the pair of Vindicators, who also add a couple of tough 2+ save chassis' for opponents to deal with. A single Vindicator can potentially pick up anything in the game, and a pair of them is a threat opponents have to respect.
For utility units, Keith just has a pair of Scout Squads, plus Infiltrators to mind the backfield objective and keep opponents from entering play in about a quarter of the table. If Keith is playing into Death Guard, he might task a Scout Squad to the backfield objective and move his Infiltrators up with his front line units, to prevent Deathshroud 6-inch-charge-out-of-Deep Strike nonsense. Two Scout Squads don't seem like a lot for utility purposes, but their ability to uppy-downy makes a pair of them more than enough to score most any positional Secondary in the game.
Keith started strong with a close 92-82 against Houndpack Chaos Knights in the 1st round. 2nd round he drubbed Imperial Knights 91-61. 3rd round he took a punishing 32-100 loss against an Ultramarines Stormlance. 4th round he won a tight 70-59 against Hypercrypt Necrons. Finally, because Keith apparently never gets tired of defeating big stompy robots, he manhandled Lords of Dread Chaos Knights 94-63. Way to go Keith!
Here's my list of honorable mentions from the weekend.
Tobias Lindenberg of Grotkikaz went 4-1 at the Krefeld Major 2025 40K with a Gladius list and took 20th out of 164.
Nick Laney of Delhi went 4-1 at the Arch City GT4 with a Wrath list and took 8th out of 63.
Antonio Mejias of Nova Core went 3-1-2 at the WTC Warmaster GT 2025 with a Wrath list and took 51st out of 263
Well done, honored brethren!
Statistics
I'd like to thank Meta Monday for the numbers crunching here. Over the weekend 39 Dark Angels players played 205 GT games and won 93 of them, for a win rate of 45%, which is pretty bad. We had 7 X/1 results and no event wins. We do have an X-Rep score of 1.19 though, so that's encouraging at least.
Continuing to be the most played detachment by a country mile, Wrath of the Rock had 29 players who scored a 44% win rate, but accounted for 5 X-results
The winningest detachment was the Stormlance, with 2 players, a 64% win rate, and 1 of the X-results.
Four players played Gladius lists, scoring a 57% win rate and 1 X-result.
The Unforgiven Task Force had 2 players who scored only a 33% win rate.
One plucky sucker played the Company of Hunters, going 1-4.
One last poor soul played an Inner Circle Task Force, but only played 3 games, going 1-2.
Factions to Watch Out For
Death Guard continue to be the cancer of the meta, with 120 players who scored a reasonable-seeming 53% win rate, but picked up 20 X-results and 3 event wins, including 5 undefeated runs at the 3 biggest events of the weekend, going 1st and 2nd at Lone Star Open, 1st at WTC Warmaster GT 2025, and 3rd and 4th at Krefeld Major 2025 40K. Their X-Rep score was 1.1. As usual, the most played and most high placing detachments were VirVec and MortHam.
Imperial Knights continue to hover high in the meta, with 73 players, a 56% win rate, 19 X-results, 4 event wins, and an X-Rep score of 1.72, which is nuts.
Deathwatch, Sisters of Battle, and Genestealer Cult rounded out the top 5 by win percentage, but only 8 people played Deathwatch, and Sisters and the Cults between them didn't even equal half of the Death Guard players.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. Be sure to check out my pals at Dank List Wargaming on YouTube for their insight into the meta. As always, I hope you find my work fun and informative. May we all strive ever for glorious victory. For The Lion!
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