Chapter Update 1/12/2026
The number of events picked back up last weekend, with a corresponding increase in Dark Angels being played. There were actually six lists that went X/0-X/1, across multiple different detachments. Here we'll do a breakdown of the top list of each detachment, with the rest getting honorable mentions.
We're starting with the Wrath of the Rock detachment, which I think is fair to say is the general purpose detachment we should have gotten in our codex instead of the Unforgiven Task Force. It remains the most popular way to play Dark Angels by a wide margin, and our best performing list is a Wrath list played by Sturnguard Fat-Tits' Jay Seebarun. He took 2nd out of 36 at 40k Brawl - Beachhead Warm Up held in Poole, England. Here's Jay's list on BCP, and we'll break it down below.
Dark Angels: resistance Lion Dad - Warlord Azrael Chaplain in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault Chaplain in Terminator Armour Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys Incursor Squad: 5 spotty boys Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys Land Speeder Vengeance Land Speeder Vengeance Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
The appearance of Lion Dad, Azrael with Inner Circle Companions, and Deathwing Knights really needs no explanation in a Wrath list. They're all tough punchy units that can charge on opponents' turns with either Heroic Intervention or Leonine Aggression.
The Terminator Chaplains did make me raise an eyebrow. The conventional wisdom is that Deathwing Knights with maces don't need attached characters, and while that's generally true, it should be noted that with the attached Chaplains, the Knights will be wounding anything Toughness 5 or less on 2's, and of course hitting on 2's as well. Proximity to Lion Dad effectively allows those units full rerolls against most targets. Plus, attaching a character allows Jay to give a squad the ability to Deep Strike first turn with Deathwing Assault. I suppose he might have used sword Knights if he had them, but there is an argument for joining Chaplains to the mace Knights, and Jay's performance can be taken as proof that it's a solid idea.
Jay's shooting elements consist of a pair of Land Speeders Vengeance, a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike, and a Whirlwind. Vengeances are certainly en vogue at the moment with that very useful Twin Linked Damage 3 profile. They're excellent for picking up elite Infantry, and the Thunderstrike helps them punch up into tougher Monster or Vehicle targets. The Thunderstrike's own shooting output is a little underwhelming, but adequate for the points. It will do damage to mid-Toughness units with some reliability, and the buff it grants shooting is highly worthwhile. Then there's the Whirlwind, which can sit on the backfield objective while slapping some damage on units hidden behind terrain. A lot of armies' Infantry can cross a ridiculous amount of table in one activation, so being able to degrade those units before they pop out through a wall is to the good for Jay's army.
Jay's army is light on utility units, though his Speeders will often be able to score positional Secondaries while still being able to shoot. His only dedicated utility unit is the Scout Squad, so he's got to be pretty careful about how he uses it.
Jay got off to a strong start with a 1st round 95-56 drubbing of an Astra Militarum Grizzled Company. 2nd round was a close 68-55 against Rage Blood Angels. 3rd round was a similarly close 78-67 against VirVec Death Guard. 4th round he scored a comfortable 98-76 against more Rage Angels. Sadly, his loss was in the 5th round, but it was a pretty near thing, 73-80 against Grand Coven Thousand Sons. A 4-0 event start is still impressive though. Well done Jay!
Gladius certainly made a comeback last weekend. It only had about half the players the Wrath detachment did, but no less than five Gladius lists went X/0-X/1. The best performing of those lists was the one Objectives Optional's Jack Wolthers used to take 33rd place out of 355 at The Nottingham 40K Super-Major held in, unsurprisingly, Nottingham, England. Here's Jack's list on BCP. The breakdown is below.
Lion the rock Johnson Lion Dad - Warlord Azrael Captain in Gravis Armour: Articifer Armour Lieutenant with Combi-weapon Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys Aggressor Squad: 3 chonky flamey-fisty boys Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 super-chonky las-missile boys Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 super-chonky las-missile boys Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying plasma boys Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Once again, there's the unsurprising inclusion of Lion Dad, Deathwing Knights, and Azrael with Inner Circle Companions. These units can handle any melee threats that might come across the board. For fire support, Jack included a pair of Centurion Devastator Squads. If you've got them, enjoy them now because smart money is on them not making it into the 11th edition codex. They're the best long range shooting platform Space Marines have, with solid anti-armor firepower and built in rerolls both To Hit and To Wound.
For skirmishing pieces, Jack has a Gravis Captain, a small Aggressor Squad, and a small Inceptor Squad. You could attach the Gravis Captain to the Aggressors, but there's not a super-compelling reason to do so because they don't really compliment each other very well. Fielded as separate units they give Jack a couple cheap skirmishing pieces that can potentially trade up and require dedicating some real resources to removing. The Inceptors can do that as well, plus they can potentially hit units opponents might think safe from being shot at with some pretty respectable firepower.
Finally, Jack has the typical utility units. He's got Intercessors to mind the backfield objective until opponents commit their reserves, and then leave it stickied to come out and skirmish. Plus, he's got Scouts for early screening and for uppy-downy objective scoring, and a Combi-Lieutenant for holding an expansion objective and secondary scoring. You really could do worse than starting all lists off with these three units.
1st round Jack started strong with a 97-68 drubbing of Needgaârd Votann. 2nd round he crushed Peerless Emperor's Children 100-59. 3rd round he scored a close 80-67 against Beastslayer Space Wolves. 4th round he took his loss, 45-79 against Hearthband Votann. He ended strong with a 95-70 humbling of VirVec Death Guard. Well done Jack!
The last list I'm reviewing today is Advanced Warfare 40K's Scott Blegen's Stormlance list, which he went 4-1 with and took 16th place out of 92 players at New Years Knockout 2026: Hosted By Mindgames and Magic held in Lee's Summit, MO. You can see Scott's list on BCP. Let's look at it below.
Dark Angels - Need for Speed…. Lion Dad - Warlord Azrael Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon Ravenwing Command Squad: Fury of the Storm Ravenwing Command Squad: Hunter's Instincts Sammael Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys Bladeguard Veteran Squad: 3 awesome swordy-boardy boys Gladiator Lancer Gladiator Lancer Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying bolter boys Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
It's nice to see bikes in the detachment that's supposed to be about bikes, isn't it? Scott is, I imagine, using three units of bikes in this list, two consisting of Outriders with Sammael and the Fury of the Storm Ravenwing Command Squad, and the Ravenwing Black Knights with the Hunter's Instinct Ravenwing Command Squad.
Sammy and the Fury Command Squad will synergize quite nicely with Outriders. Sammy is likely the second-best close combat character we have, behind only Lion Dad. His datasheet abilities are kind of marginal in a detachment like the Stormlance, but he's packing the Raven Sword, which swings 6 2+ attacks at Strength 6 AP -3 Damage 2 Sustained Hits 2. At 115 points, an argument could be made for just using him by himself. With a 12" Move and Fly, he can zip around and snipe opponents' utility units, and it would take not-inconsequential effort to pick him up as he's Toughess 5, 3+/4++ and 7 Wounds. He even triggers Desperate Escape against models falling back from him. Attached to Outriders, that Raven Sword weapon profile goes to Strength 7 Damage 3, which potentially has him picking up a lot of elite Infantry with single swings, and you could even expect some modest damage into Monsters and Vehicles.
The Fury Command Squad is a similar story. The base profile of the Champion's master crafted power sword is 6 2+ Attacks at Strength 5 AP -2 Damage 2, which is decent but not amazing. Fury of the Storm improves the profile to, at minimum, Strength 6 AP -3, and with the buff from also being attached to Outriders when the charge, jumps to Strength 8 AP -4 Damage 3. That's a lot of break points the profile is going past. In either case, the total package is floating around 200 points and can reasonably be expected to punch up into more expensive units, especially using the Shock Assault stratagem, granting a Charge reroll and Lance that turn.
The combined Ravenwing Black Knight and Command Squad unit is not cheap, weighing in at 305 points, but it does have the potential to be worth its points and more. The biggest value of this unit is that it moves fast and can have two good activations a turn. The nine bikes with their plasma talons can deliver up to 27 Strength 8 AP -3 Damage 2 shots if you can get them all within 9" of their target. Then, if you can have the charge a Monster or Vehicle, they can swing up to 24 attacks triggering Devastating Wounds on 4+, plus the Champion's AP -2 Damage 2 attacks. That profile is not bad into a lot of Infantry targets either. They even have the Grenades keyword, so if you can get them where you need them to go without an Advance move, they can add some Mortal Wounds to the tally they're dishing out. Getting those two activations is where Hunter's Instincts comes in. I use Master of Manoeuvre in the Company of Hunters, which does the same thing - counts the turn as 1 higher for coming out of Reserves. I use it for a Turn 1 Rapid Ingress to put the unit in position to rush out and bring the pain. There's also the Full Throttle strat to auto-Advance the unit 9" if Scott needs to do so.
Lion Dad, obviously, likes to be in a detachment where he can Advance and Charge, but he's also got synergy with the Ravenwing plasma bike brick. With Mist-wreathed Shadow Realms and No Hiding From the Watchers, Scott can have him be standing next to his plasma bikes when they supercharge-full-send with the plasma, which protects them from the damage of failed Hazardous rolls. They don't hate being in the Martial Exemplar bubble either when Scott can afford to have him in it.
If you're using a healthy contingent of Mounted units in your Stormlance like Scott is, you've got an abundance of really good stratagems to use, which means you want Azrael generating CP for you so you're not just getting 1 per turn like a peasant. Scott doesn't seem to be doing anything too exciting with him - likely just attaching him to the Assault Intercessors and having him skirmish in the late game.
Scott's fire support is a pair of Gladiator Lancers, whose primary job is going to be to pop transports. Scott wants units to be on the table for his bike units and Lion Dad to obliterate. If they start the game in boxes, Scott needs a means of unboxing them so his bikes can get at them. Lancers will do that pretty handily, can throw a bunch of chaff-chewing firepower while they're at it, and are a threat to bigger targets opponents can't ignore.
Scott has a pretty significant spread of utility units. There's the usual Combi-Lieutenant and Intercessors. In addition, he's got Jump Intercessors, bolter Inceptors, and a small Bladeguard squad. All three of those units will skirmish with small units pretty well, and with two of them having Fly and Deep Strike, he can hold them in Reserve and drop them when he wants to score a positional Secondary.
If I could change one thing about this list, I'd squeeze in a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike. There are times when you need to destroy something big with a 4+ Invulnerable save, and opponents might spike those saves against the Lancers or even Lion Dad. If you've facing the 9-man brick of plasma bikes though, good luck spiking enough saves to not take critical damage from their fusillade of plasma talon shots with +1 To Wound, especially if they can follow it up with a Dev Wounds on 4+ charge.
Sadly in the 1st round Scott gave up a bruising 55-87 loss against Starshatter Necrons. He rallied after that though. 2nd round he squeaked out a 78-75 win against Long War Chaos Marines. 3rd round he scored a close 71-62 against Crusher Tyranids. 4th round was a tight 84-74 against Solar Custodes. 5th round was his highest score, a comfortable 86-68 against Pactbound Chaos Marines. Good show Scott!
Honorable Mentions
Jorgan Goulet went 4-1 with his Gladius list at Winter Assault In St. Albert, Canada and took 6th out of 36 players.
Mat Kohlruss went 4-1 with his Wrath of the Rock list at Winter Assault in St. Albert, Canada and took 7th out of 36 players.
Asbjørn Løvlie Meyer went 3-1-1 with his Stormlance list at The Nottingham 40K Super-Major and took 61st out of 355 players.
Brethren, I salute you!
Statistics
We've come roaring back after a three week hiatus. Overall, we had 47 players who played 219 games and won 102 of them, earning a 49% win rate, which is hard to complain about. We didn't have any event winners, but we did have 6 lists go X/1, spread evenly across Wrath, Gladius, and Stormlance.
Wrath of the Rock is still the most played detachment by a lot, barely missing doubling all the other detachments combined with 30 players. Wrath only had a 46% win rate, but accounted for 2 of the X-results.
Gladius was the next most played, and a lot of people played it - 11 all told, who scored a 55% win rate and 2 X-results
The Stormlance was played by 4 players, who scored a 53% win rate and 2 X-results.
Our man Alan Percival played an Ironstorm at Nottingham and scored an even 50% win rate.
One player played a Vanguard, scoring only a 30% win rate.
A Personal Success
It's not as exciting as going 4-1 or better at a GT, but I won a small 6-person RTT held at Sarge's Comics in Groton, CT. I was asked to include my list in my next article, so here it is.
When Angels Get The Zoomies 1.3
Lion Dad - Warlord
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Ravenwing Command Squad: Master of Manoeuvre
Ravenwing Command Squad
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 super-chonky las-missile boys
Centurion Devastator Squad: 3 super-chonky las-missile boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
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