Chapter Update: 9/29/2025
The first list we're looking at was played at Saimaa 40K 2025, a 5-round, 48 player event held in Imatra, Finland. Joonas Neva of Mukihammer went 4-1 with a Stormlance Task Force and took 7th place. You can see Joonas' list on BCP. We'll check it out below.
sl
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Techmarine
Techmarine
Techmarine
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
This one is certainly interesting. Toby Bennett of Black Crow Gaming has been saying the Stormlance is back, and here's some evidence to support that. If you're going to play a Stormlance, you can do worse than what Joonas did hear and start with Lion Dad and three squads of Deathwing Knights. I did wonder what was going on when I saw the three Techmarines - I thought maybe Joonas was running Redemptors or Brutali. I became even more puzzled when I saw the three units of Assault Intercessors (though they do like being in a Stormlance).
Things started to become clearer when I saw the three Vengeances. It did receive a significant buff in the recent dataslate, so we have an incentive to use them now. In case they've flown under your radar, I'm going to take a moment to go over the Land Speeder Vengeance's profile.
Let's circle back around to the Assault Intercessors and Techmarines for a minute. As we all know, Assault Intercessors are OC 2 and have full To-Wound rerolls when on objectives. That's going to make opponents prefer to shoot them off objectives, which can trigger the Vengeance's retributive shooting. It's also interesting to note that the Techmarines, while having Lone Op with 3" of a vehicle, can join Assault Intercessor squads, and have decent melee output with their Omnissian power axe, plus their Servo-arm extra attack is, I think, the only Damage 3 melee attack possessed by a non-named Infantry character without an enhancement. That would give Joonas a reason to attach them to the Assault Intercessor squads.
So, what I think Joonas is doing with these pieces he's put in his list is placing Assault Intercessor squads with attached Techmarines on his expansion objective and center objective, with Vengeances alongside but not on the objectives. He can easily position a pair of Vengeances such that each one is within 6" of each other and an Assault Intercessor squad on an objective, with the attached Techmarines each within 3" of one of the Vengeances so they can buff them, and so if they survive having their attached squads shot away from them they get Lone Op. If opponents run up units to charge the Assault Intercessor squads instead of shooting them, then Joonas can use Wind Swift Evasion to reactive move them out of charge range. He's giving his opponents all kinds of problems to try and resolve, and we're only talking about two of the squads and Vengeances. We haven't even discussed the third of each, much less Lion Dad and the three squads of Deathwing Knights.
Honestly, this is the most excited I've been about a Stormlance list for some time.
So, with the Assault Intercessors + Vengeance teams to hold the expansion and midfield objectives, Joonas' Deathwing Knights and Lion Dad are free to march forward and face-punch opponents' units. The Scout Squad can hold open a lane of advance during deployment and score secondaries through the course of the game. The third Assault Intercessor + Vengeance team gives Joonas redundancy and a counterstrike option for when his opponents do get into the first two teams. That just leaves Azrael to ponder. Azrael and Assault Intercessor synergize well, but honestly I suspect Joonas has him minding the backfield objective solo, which can leave him exposed to enemy Deep Strike units, but Joonas could use the Scouts to screen them away from Azrael until they're committed if he needs to.
Joonas had a strong start with a 1st round 95-67 against Dread Chaos Knights. 2nd round he mulched Daemonkin World Eaters 88-36. 3rd round he barely fended off Berserker World Eaters 69-66. I'm going to speculate that Joonas' opponent played really well, because on paper Joonas' list looked like it should handle it no problem. He took a bruising 55-85 loss against Kult of Speed Orks, but then came back in the 5th round with a solid 90-65 against Final Day Genestealer Cult. Well done Joonas!
The other top list of the weekend is also a Stormlance as it happens. It was played at Münsterland Major 3, a 5-round, 73 player event held in Rheine, Germany. BTTF's Andy Jespersen went 4-1 and took 10th place with his list. You can see Andy's list on BCP, and let's have a gander at it here.
Dark Storm - Wingman
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Ravenwing Command Squad: Fury of the Storm (awww yeah!)
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Predator Annihilator
Predator Annihilator
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
This is a much more conventional Stormlance list than the last one, but it's conventional because it works. The lead punch is the Mounted unit - the Outriders with the Ravenwing Command Squad attached. If Andy goes first, he runs those suckers up the board and puts them in jail. Opponents then have to chew their way through 36 wounds just to get out of their deployment zone, and if they have to do it with shooting then Andy can play Ride Hard, Ride Fast to make it more difficult, and if they don't manage to clear the squad Andy can bring back a bike a round in his Command phase. If opponents aren't really careful with their placement, they may find themselves eating a 1st turn charge from these guys, as they can auto-advance 9" with the Full Throttle strat, then get Lance and a reroll on the Charge roll from the Shock Assault strat, with +1 to the roll from the Champion. Speaking of the Champion, between the buffs from Fury of the Storm and charging with Outriders, he's swinging 6 attacks at Strength 8 AP -4 Damage 3 (possibly with Lance), which is not what opponents want to be hit with. Anything that survives that still has to face the two other Command Squad members, who will be swinging between them another 6 attacks at Strength 6 AP -2 Damage 2 with Dev Wounds, not to mention a whole pile of AP -1 Damage 2 attacks from the Outriders. I once brought down a Stormraven with this exact package (my opponent had deployed it out front in Hover mode).
There are no surprises in the rest of the list. It's not hard to understand why having Lion Dad and three units of Deathwing Knights is good in a Stormlance. Azrael and Sternguard are a common sight in any list, and the Combi-Lieutenant and Scouts are commonly used utility units.
That leave the Predators, which I think are the new Ballisti. What I mean by that is they are an adequate-for-the-points long-range fire support unit that can probably be expected to at least pop transports. Having them in the list obliges opponents to deploy turtled up behind terrain instead of on the line, and they give Andy a means to de-mech squads so his DWKs can punch them instead of their rides. I used them last weekend. They're okay. They're more Oath dependant than Ballisti, but probably a little better at what we need them for, as they have more Strength 12+ shots than Ballisti have, with one of them being Twin Linked to boot.
Andy went 4-0 his first 4 rounds, taking his loss in the final round. 1st round he humbled Berserker World Eaters 16-4. 2nd round he hammered Needgaârd Votann 17-3. 3rd round he drubbed Conceited Emperor's Children 14-6. 4th round he bodied Mont'ka T'au 15-5. 5th round he was playing at the top table, in contention for 1st place, but his bruising 4-16 loss against Infernal Chaos Knights dropped him down to 10th place. Still, an impressive performance! Well done Andy!
Statistics
Because this was almost entirely a teams event weekend, there's not much to report on. Only 10 Dark Angels players went to singles events, scoring a 52% win rate and picking up 2 X/1 results.
Wrath of the Rock was the most played detachment, with 6 players who scored a dreary 41% win rate.
Stormlance was the most successful detachment, but with only 2 players. They scored an 80% win rate and picked up both the X-results.
One player used a Gladius, scoring a 60% win rate.
Factions To Watch Out For
As Meta Monday is still incommunicado, I'm using Stat-check.com for data for this section.
Aeldari appear to be rising as a problem faction, with 5% of the player base scoring a 64% win rate and an Overrep of 2.88. Those figures are wild. The win rate speaks for itself.
Overrep, if you're not familiar with it, is a measure of how often a faction places at events (takes 1st-4th place basically). Ideally, all factions would have scores pretty close to 1, indicating that the faction places at events as often as it should given its player base. A 2.88 Overrep means Aeldari are placing at events three times as often as they should relative to their player population.
The three top detachments are Warhost, Windrider Host, and Aspect Host. Warhost has a 75% win rate, and 36% at 4-0 event starts, which if I'm interpreting the data correctly means one in three Warhost players are going 4-0 in their first 4 rounds at events. That's nuts.
Grey Knights are next in order of win rate, at 63%. Their Overrep is a much more reasonable 1, but their 4-0 event start is 25%, which is higher than Aeldari's overall 17%. They're only 2% of the player population, but that may rise if players start picking up the faction.
Adeptus Mechanicus are on the rise, with a 57% win rate, 2 Overrep, and 17% 4-0 event starts. They make 3% of the player base. They strike me as kind of a fiddly faction, so I'd be surprised if their player numbers grow much, but if you're across the table from them, expect a stiff fight.
Finally, Emperor's Children have a 56% win rate, and also a 2 Overrep, but apparently aren't going 4-0 at events, or at least haven't yet. They're 3% of the player population, and that seems like it could rise if the faction gets a reputation for being strong.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. Be sure to check out Dank List Wargaming and Black Crow Gaming on YouTube for more good Dark Angels content. As always, I hope you find my work enjoyable and helpful in your quest to be ever-victorious! For The Lion!
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