Chapter Update: 11/17/2025
The best-performing list of the weekend was played by Zachary Francey of Xenos Petting Zoo, who took a Stormlance Task Force to go 6-2 and place 19th out of 226 at The California Cup '25 - Warhammer 40K held in Pomona, CA. You can see Zachary's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
Zachary's list
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Ravenwing Command Squad: Fury of the Storm
Ravenwing Command Squad: Feinting Withdrawal
Ravenwing Command Squad: Hunter's Instincts
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Incursor Squad: 5 spotty boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys
Vanguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome flying choppy boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Callidus Assassin
Zachary hit the tables with a very interesting list. When I saw the detachment, I was expecting the usual Deathwing Knights, but Zachary instead decided to run the Stormlance as it was intended, with a lean into Mounted units. He has 3 Ravenwing Command Squads, 2 Outrider Squads, and 2 Ravenwing Black Knight squads.
As an aside, I'm at least half-convinced that whoever wrote the rules for the Stormlance detachment intended it to synergize really well with all the Space Wolves Thunderwolf nonsense their index had. It's hard to see what happened there and think it was coincidental. Even the naming conventions suggest intentionality.
Anyway, the Stormlance does offer a lot of utility to Mounted units, and we have unique Mounted units at our disposal. The most significant is the Ravenwing Command Squad, consisting of the choppy Champion, the Apothecary, and the Ancient, who all do what their Infantry-equivalent models would do, only faster, tougher, with better melee weapons and 3-shot plasma guns. Zachary took three of theses units,and gave upgrades to each.
One Champion got Fury of the Storm, which is the melee upgrade, boosting the Champion's sword's Strength and AP. When paired with Outriders (as that squad almost certainly is), the Champion is swinging 6 Strength 8 AP -4 Damage 3 attacks. That will leave a mark on most units.
Another Champion got Feinting Withdrawal, which lets the unit Shoot after it makes a Fall Back move. That Champion's Command Squad is certainly getting paired with a Ravenwing Black Knight Squad, because that gives the best return on the investment in points.
The third Champion got Hunter's Instincts, which lets the unit count the Battle Round as 1 higher than it is for purposes of coming out of Strategic Reserves. Zachary's list has 2 each of Outrider and Black Knight squads, so this squad could go with either, depending on what would be more advantageous in the matchup he's facing. If it was me, the default would be the Black Knights, because that lets him bring 12 plasma shots out of Reserves, but neither choice would be wrong.
Staying on the Mounted units, we have a pair of 3-man Outrider Squads. Outriders are 4-wound Toughness 5 models with a 12" Move, a twin linked bolt rifle, and 4 attacks with an Astartes Chainsword. The spice of the squad comes from their datasheet rule, which increases the Strength and Damage of the squad's melee weapons by 1 after making a Charge move. This carries over to whatever is attached to them, which provides very nice synergy with a Ravenwing Command Squad.
There is also a pair of 3-man Ravenwing Black Knight squads. Black Knights have 3-wounds each instead of the Outrider's 4, but enjoy a 5+ Invulnerable save. Their weapons are much more spicy, being a plasma talon (2 shots 18" Rapid Fire 1 plasma) and what us oldheads call corvus hammers, which are essentially power weapons with 3 attacks each and Devastating wounds. You'd think their datasheet rule would focus on their shooting output, but instead it gives their melee Anti-Monster/Anti-Vehicle 4+, which has never been bad, and became spicy when GW added Devastating Wounds to their weapons. It makes Ravenwing Black Knights a unit that activates well in both the Shooting phase and the Fight phase, as opposed to Outriders whose only good activation is the Fight phase.
So, why all the Mounted units? Besides the standalone merits of their datasheets, the Stormlance detachment has three spicy Mounted-keyworded stratagems. The first is Ride Hard, Ride Fast, which imposes on opponents' shooting into the targeted unit -1 To Hit and -1 To Wound (it constantly irritates me that the Company of Hunters version of this strat only imposes the -1 To Hit). This obliges opponents to go harder into the target unit than they wanted to, especially facing the prospect that the three units with attached Ravening Command Squads will grow back lost models if they don't kill enough of them.
Next up, there's Full Throttle. For 2 CP, a Mounted unit can auto-Advance 9", which is really spicy in a detachment that allows everything to Advance and Charge.
Finally, there's Shock Assault, which is played in the Charge phase, allowing rerolls on Charge rolls, and giving the unit's melee weapons Lance until the end of the turn. You can see how you might want units in your list to be able to exploit this one - especially the unit whose Champion has Fury of the Storm. It lets them punch up into targets that they ordinarily wouldn't pose much threat to.
The Mounted units ate up about a third of Zachary's points. For the rest of them, he started with Lion Dad. He hits like a truck, he has Fights First, he's hard to kill, he buffs nearby units, and it's not hard to see how he benefits from the Stormlance's detachment rule. He also helps Zachary supercharge his Ravenwing's plasma guns more freely, because Zach can Forestwalk him next to the plasma bikes with his 4+++ against Mortals aura up to mitigate the damage of bad Hazardous rolls.
Azrael also made it into the list. Most Dark Angels lists have Azrael, if only for the CP generation, but that's certainly not the only reason to take him. In this list he's being paired with a full squad of 10 Sternguard Veterans. If you've never had the pleasure, give it a try. Azrael gives the squad Sustained Hits 1 and a 4++ save, and in return benefits from their datasheet ability that grants them full To Wound rerolls against the Oath target. Azrael pairs with them like strawberry jam with peanut butter, because his gun combines all the best aspects of a Sternguard bolt rifle, a combi-weapon, and a plasma gun, plus he's got a Devastating Wounds melee attack. Azrael is basically what Sternguard Vets aspire to be when they grow up. The combined unit is Devastating Wounds generating machine that can easily be expected to pick up the majority of Monsters and Vehicles on Dev wounds alone, and certainly won't do any other type of target any good either.
Zachary saw fit to include a unit of Incursors, whose main job is to boost Shooting into a target a turn for as long as they're on the table, giving +1 To Hit. This is spicy with Azzy and the Sternguard in particular, because it frees Zachary up to go all-in on fishing for Sustained Hits, secure in the knowledge that he's not likely to get a worse result by picking up all of his non-Sustained-generating hits as well as his misses. Alternately he can boost the shooting of his plasma bikes, making them somewhat less dependent on Oath to be effective. They've also got the once-per-game haywire mine to generate a few Mortal Wounds.
The rest of the list is trading pieces and utility units. He's got Infiltrators to mind his backfield objective, Scouts and a Callidus for uppy-downy secondary scoring, and Jump Intercessors and Vanguard Veterans for skirmishing with his opponent's smaller units.
1st round Zachary brought the pain to a Experimental T'au 98-58. 2nd round he gave up a 71-73 loss against Grand Coven Thousand Sons. 3rd round he pummeled Starshatter Necrons 99-33. 4th round he had another tight loss, 67-70, against Lions Custodes. 5th round he drubbed Traitoris Chaos Knights 100-68. 6th round he humbled Biosantic Genestealers 90-64. 7th round he crushed Shadowmark Ravenguard 95-47. 8th round, he wrapped up the event by drubbing Warhost Aeldari 90-60. Man! Six wins and two losses, with the amount of points he gave up in those two losses combined only being 5 points! Well done Zachary!
The next best performing list of the weekend belongs to #REKT's Shaun Sharp, who took his Gladius Task Force to the Boise Diamond Series GT - November 2025 held in Boise, ID. He went 4-1 and placed 6th out of 54 players. Here's Shaun's list on BCP. Let's take a gander at it.
Enrinchment time for the Senior Citizens
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Incursor Squad: 5 spotty boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Ballistus Dreadnought
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Redemptor Dreadnought
Redemptor Dreadnought
Redemptor Dreadnought
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Vindicator
It appears it's our week for different lists. Here's another high-performing Dark Angels list with nary a Deathwing Knight in sight. Instead, the list is built around a trio of Redemptor Dreadnoughts. Redemptors are a pretty solid all-around platform, Toughness 10, 12 Wounds, 2+ save, a pile of guns usually including a Macro Plasma Incinerator as the main armament, 5 attacks with a Redemptor Fist (which is Strength 12 AP -2 Damage 3), and a datasheet rule that reduces all incoming damage by 1. It can pretty much blast or punch to death anything in the game.
Because plasma isn't the solution to everything, Shaun also included a Ballistus Dreadnought and a Vindicator. Both of those have guns that will more reliably wound Toughness 10+ targets than the Redemptor's guns. They also both have 2+ saves, presenting opponents with a bit of a stat check.
When you have a bunch of high Toughness, 2+ save units in your army, a Darkshroud can become a valuable asset. It generates a 6" radius bubble of Stealth and Benefit of Cover, which tilts the math on dealing with things like Redemptors. Opponents need lascannon-equivalents to deal with them, which tend to have low rates of fire, so making one or two miss when they would otherwise have hit, or tanking the saves when they otherwise would have failed, can really play hell with an opponent's game plan. Plus, the Darkshroud just has to exist in a space to generate its field, so it can be used to score Secondaries while protecting friendly units.
The last of Shaun's vehicles is a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike. The Thunderstrike seems intended to be the Storm Speeder equivalent of the Gladiator Lancer. In this, it fails. It's las-talon being Strength 9 is usually inadequate to reliably wound opponents' Monsters or Vehicles, and the Stormfury missile only gets 1 shot per turn, which can also fail to wound or get saved against quite easily. However, it does give the rest of the army's shooting +1 To Wound against a Monster or Vehicle hit by one of its guns, which it can trigger with its Icarus Pod, and with Shaun relying heavily on the Redemptors' Macro Plasma Incinerators for his shooting, one can see why he would want the Thunderstrike to punch up into T10+ targets.
Shaun also has a few carefully selected Infantry and Mounted units. Plus Lion Dad, who is neither, but needs no further explanation. He has Azrael for all his many virtues. In this case Azrael is joining the Inner Circle Companions, who are a hell of a melee unit, but can be a bit of a glass cannon with only 3 wounds each and no inherent Invulnerable save, which Azrael provides. He's got Intercessors to sit on his backfield objective, and Incursors to boost his shooting - providing +1 To Hit to the rest of the army's shooting against something hit by the Incursor's guns is almost as good as having a second Oath. Finally, he's got an Invader ATV, most likely because it's a 60 point unit that can move 12", making it good for scoring Secondaries.
1st round Shaun drubbed a Forgefather's Salamanders list 85-48. 2nd round, he humbled Subterranean Tyranids 100-66. 3rd round he scored a comfortable 74-56 against Crusher Tyranids. 4th round he banished Plague Daemons 85-61. 5th round he finally took his loss, 56-71 against Spectacle of Spite Drukhari. It's disappointing to end on a loss, but good to get a 4-0 event start. Good job Shaun!
Our final list for this week was played at one of the bigger singles events of the weekend, the Show Me Showdown Warhammer 40k Championships held in Overland Park, KS, a 7-round, 128 player event. Dylan Wentz of Warpflame Flamingos went 5-2 and took 16th place with his Wrath of the Rock list. Here's Dylan's list on BCP. Let's see what we can learn from it.
Please don’t tell me you ignore mods
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Chaplain in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 super-chonky las-missile boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Vanguard Veteran Squad with Jump Packs: 5 awesome flying choppy boys
Callidus Assassin
Dylan brought a fairly conventional Wrath of the Rock list, based around Lion Dad and a pair of Deathwing Knight squads. Dylan went a little unconventional in that he took a sword Knight squad, but he paired it with a Terminator Chaplain for the +1 To Wound, which also gave him a character to hang Deathwing Assault on, giving him a strong first turn play if he happens to "win" the roll to go first.
For his fire support element, Dylan selected a Centurion Devastator Squad and a pair of Land Speeders Vengeance. Vengeances (Vengeanci?) are certainly having a moment, having had their Damage 2/Damage 3 profile restored while remaining a very reasonable 120 points. Their plasma storm batteries being twin-linked helps them punch up into Toughness 10+ targets, and anything Toughness 9- they line their big gun up on is going to have a bad day. Plus they're fast, reasonably durable, and have that retributive shooting datasheet ability. We'll definitely be seeing these things for a while.
For their part, Centurion Devastators are a good unit to shoot at bigger targets with. With twin linked lascannons, they're going to wound even Toughness 12 targets reliably, plus they have a slew of missile shots, and they have their own built-in To Hit rerolls.
Let's not forget Azrael and the Sternguard. Where high Strength and good AP can fail, mass Devastating Wounds can succeed. This unit should reliably put 5-6 Dev wounds into a target every time it activates to shoot. Just the thing for finishing off a pesky unit that saved a little more than average.
Utility units: Intercessors, Combi-Lieutenant, Invader ATV, Scout Squad, Van Vet Squad, and Callidus. It's been a minute since we've seen a Callidus. It comes from the Imperial Agents book. Uppy-downy, Infiltrate, Deep Strike, Lone Op, Precision, and Fights First. She's kind of squishy though, so use her wisely.
1st round Dylan crushed an Imperial Fists Gladius 92-40. Round 2 he had a close 83-72 against Aspect Aeldari. 3rd round was a close loss, 61-72 versus Starshatter Necrons. 4th round he bounced back to massacre Invasion Fleet Tyranids 95-54. 5th round he scored a comfortable 96-79 against Warpbane Grey Knights. 6th round he had another reasonable 84-68 against Lions Custodes. Sadly 7th round he took a brusing 54-100 loss against Final Day Genestealers. Still, 5-2 for the event! Well done Dylan!
Honorable mentions are going out to:
Joshua Hirschfeld of Mon'keighing Around for going 5-3 and scoring 39th out of 226 at The California Cup '25 - Warhammer 40K with his Wrath of the Rock list.
Edwin Mehta of Making Saves for going 5-3 and scoring 47th out of 226 at The California Cup '25 - Warhammer 40K with his Wrath of the Rock list.
Ali Manhal for going 3-1-1 and placing 6th out of 35 at WARPStorm GT 2025 with his Wrath of the Rock list.
I'd also like to give a nod to Patric Willis, for playing an OG Battle Company list at a 10th edition GT. No kidding, he played a list containing 100 Firstborn Marines at Ratcon 2025. He only went 1-4, but his scores weren't bad. You should check his list out.
Statistics
We had a lot of brethren playing their Dark Angels at GTs this weekend - 48 to be precise. They played 270 games, won 126 of them, and tied 6, for a total 48% win rate, which is a little underwhelming but okay. We didn't have any event wins, but had 4 noteworthy performances, 2 of which were X/1 results.
Wrath of the Rock was by far the most popular detachment by a margin of almost 4 to 1, with 38 players who scored a 46% win rate and picked up 1 of the X-results.
Four players used the Gladius, netting a 54% win rate and 1 of the X-results.
One player used a Vanguard Spearhead and scored a 57% win rate
There was Zachary Francey's aforementioned performance with the Stormlance, netting him a 67% win rate. He was the only Stormlance player this go-around.
One player used an Unforgiven Task Force and scored a 60% win rate
One player used an Inner Circle Task Force and scored a 20% win rate.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you. Be sure to check out Dank List Wargaming and Black Crow Gaming for more news and analysis about our beloved legion chapter. As ever, I hope you find my work both fun and informative. Let us all strive to be ever-victorious! For The Lion!
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