Chapter Review 2/1/2026

 

Hello honored battle brethren! It was a slow weekend for singles events, so only one list made the cut for review. I think the reason it was so slow is because The Winter International Team Tournament was this past weekend, and that event drew 759 players, and there were three more teams events that had 100+ players as well. I don't know enough about teams play to comment on what does or doesn't make a good list for it, so I won't review those lists, but I will include which Dark Angels lists went undefeated at teams events, with links so you can check them out yourself.

I was at a GT this past weekend, and I came away with a positive record, so I'll write a little about my experience, since I only have one list to review.

Everything came up Ravenwing this weekend. Our list for review is a Company of Hunters, the Company of Hunters tied Gladius for second-most-played detachment, and everyone who played the CoH at singles events went at least 3-2. The list that went 4-1 was played by ELG's Ben Owen at Vault Hammer presents: Vault Hammer to the Face 40k GT held in Galashiels, Scotland, where he took 3rd out of 50 players. You can see Ben's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below. 

Company of munters
Azrael - Warlord
Chaplain on Bike: Recon Hunter
Chaplain on Bike: Mounted Strategist
Ravenwing Command Squad: Master of Manoeuvre
Sammael
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

By the Emperor, that is a lot of bikes! I count 42, including the characters. There are four 6-man squads of Outriders, with 2 Bike Chaplains, a Ravenwing Command Squad, and Sammael, so it seems likely all 4 of the big Outrider squads get attachments, but at the same time I don't think it's unlikely that at least one of those gets attached to the Ravenwing Black Knights squad - probably the Ravenwing Command Squad. I'll get back to that. 

Everyone reading this is probably already familiar with Outriders, but for the few who aren't, I'll touch on their profile. 12" Move, Toughness 5, 4 Wounds, 4 attacks with an Astartes chainsword, 2 shots with a twin bolt rifle, Mounted, Grenades, and they and any attached units/characters get + 1 Strength and Damage in a Fight phase after they made a Charge move. Note that does include if the move is off a Heroic Intervention. So, fast, chonky, decent melee, chip damage shooting. These guys are the base clay Ben used to sculpt his list.

Adding Sammael to a squad doesn't do a lot for the squad. He grants them +1 to Advance and Charge rolls in this detachment, and non-Big Things enemy units that want to fall back from his unit have to make Desperate Escape tests. Outriders do Sammy a solid though. His melee weapon is the Raven Sword, which is base Strength 6 AP -3 Damage 2 with Sustained Hits 2. Attached to Outriders, when he charges that becomes Strength 7 Damage 3. That will leave a dent in a lot of things, especially if Sustained Hits pops off. You'd probably want to fish for 6's To Hit if you put his unit into the Oath target. Sammy is the big melee stick to put into most things you'd want beat down.

Then you've got the Bike Chaplains. They do a lot more for the squad they are attached to. Like all Chaplains, they have Litany of Hate, granting the unit +1 To Wound in the Fight phase. With the weight of attacks a full unit of Outriders is going to swing, that makes them a credible threat into practically anything in the game. Bike Chaplains also have Catechism of Fire, which he can use to point to a target within 12" of him and grant his unit's shooting Devastating Wounds against that target. I'll point out that Outriders' bolt rifles are twin-linked, so they reroll wound rolls. Without buffs, I estimate average dice generates 3 Devastating Wounds. We're willing to spend CP to do on average 3 Mortal Wounds to a target, and these guys do it just with their rules synergies. Also, the Chaplains' melee attacks are also Strength 6 and Damage 2 base, though only AP -1, but they can threaten to pick up 3-Wound models with single swings, so that's not nothing. 

One of the Chaplains has Recon Hunter, and the other has Mounted Strategist. Recon Hunter grants the attached unit Scouts 9", which is a big deal on any unit, but very important in this list. Massed Outriders take up a lot of space on the table and can't go through walls higher than 2", so they can really get in each other's way. The Scout move helps alleviate the congestion in the available lanes of movement, and lets Ben put a brick of 31 Toughness 5 Wounds, likely with Stealth and Benefit of Cover in his opponent's way. Mounted Strategist can help with movement issues too, making the attached unit likely to go further more reliably. 

Finally there's the Ravenwing Command Squad. The RWCS grants its attached unit a whole lot of benefits: +1 to Advance and Charge rolls, free Heroic Intervention, +1 OC, and revives a destroyed Bike in their Command Phase. That's not to mention 6-9 plasma gun shots, 6 attacks with a master crafted power weapon, and 6 more attacks with power weapons that have Devastating Wounds. The Champion is a character, and he's got Master of Manoeuvre, which allows the unit to count the Battle Round as being one higher for purposes of coming out of Reserves. This lets them enter play in the first Battle Round, including by Rapid Ingress. There's a lot of synergy going both ways when you attach a RWCS to an Outrider Squad. 

That said, there's a strong case for attaching the RWCS to the Black Knight squad. For one, that allows Ben to get maximum impact out of any buffs he may want to apply to all his Black Knight models. Black Knights, like members of the Ravenwing Command Squad, each have 2-shot 18" range Rapid Fire 1 plasma guns, the aforementioned 3-attack power weapons with Devastating Wounds (technically they're called Black Knight combat weapons), and when they charge their melee attacks get Anti-Big-Thing 4+, which they confer to their attached squad. Having one unit that can chuck 27 plasma shots into a target, and then hit another with 24 melee attacks that can Dev Wound on 4's is a big deal. Also, Ben's opponents are likely to want to hit the Black Knight squad with everything they can before he can bring it to bear, so by having it be in Reserve he can get the alpha strike with it, and opponents have to respect the Rapid Ingress threat.

Also in the list is a Ravenwing Darkshroud. We're all familiar with its 6" bubble of Stealth and Benefit of Cover. Ben is doubtless using it to make it harder for opponents to chew through all those Outrider bodies, and since it provides that benefit just by existing in a space, it's free to do actions to score Secondaries for him.

The last Ravenwing unit is the Storm Speeder Thunderstrike. It's got okay anti-armor shooting, but the real reason Ben brought it is for its Thunderstrike ability, which grants all the rest of Ben's shooting +1 To Wound against a Big Thing (Monster or Vehicle) hit by one of its shooting attacks. The aforementioned 27 plasma shots with +1 to Wound are a dire threat to anything in the game, and all those Outriders have twin-linked guns, so suddenly their chip shooting is not so inconsequential. Plus, all Storm Speeders have Deep Strike, so Ben can hold it in Reserve till his Black Knights are on the table and ready to fry something, then plop it down to grant the buff they need to punch up. Its shooting might even contribute to the effort, though from my own experience I've learned not to count on that. Also bear in mind that Storm Speeders get the Ravenwing keyword in a Dark Angels list, so Ben can use Rapid Reappraisal to pick it up and then re-Deep Strike it. 

Ben has a little non-Ravenwing in his list as well. He sensibly included a couple of Scout Squads. They're very important for a list like this, because he can forward deploy them to hold open lanes of advance for his bikes, and provide an early-game hindrance to his opponents' movement. If they accomplish anything besides that, that's gravy. 

Finally, he's got a squad of Intercessors, and at least somewhat surprising to me, Azrael. Don't get me wrong, Azrael is great, but the Company of Hunters has kind of mediocre stratagems, so CoH lists often do without him. Having him in the list does allow Ben to be pretty free with defensive strats (High-speed Focus for -1 to enemy shooting for the phase and AoC), and he may be able to afford to more freely sticky objectives with Hunter's Trail and pick units up with Rapid Reappraisal. Talon Strike (+1 to Wound in either the Shooting or Fight phase against an Infantry/Mounted Character unit) can be quite good into the right target as well, and who knows, maybe he even uses Death on the Wind (make an opposing unit hit by a Ravenwing shooting attack take a Battle-shock test), but I'll tell you what, the next time I play Death on the Wind will be the first time. 

Phew. Apparently when I have only one list to review, I dive deep. Or maybe I'm just excited to review a Company of Hunters list.

1st round Ben scored a comfortable 85-66 against Berserker World Eaters. 2nd round he crushed Pactbound Chaos Marines 100-60. 3rd round he murdered Aeldari Aspect Host 100-30.  4th round he took a disappointing 53-71 loss against Invasion Tyranids. He bounced back in the 5th round to drub Starshatter Necrons 94-63. Well done Ben!

Statistics

Over the weekend, 23 Dark Angels players attending GTs played 113 games and won 50 of them, scoring a mediocre 47% win rate. We had just the 1 X/1 result. 

The Wrath of the Rock was the most played detachment by a wide margin, being just over 50% of the total player base. Wrath players took home a dismal 41% win rate.

The Gladius was played by 4 players who took in a not-much better 43% win rate. 

Two players played the Stormlance and earned a 50% win rate.

One innovator tried an Orbital Assault Force, but that poor soul didn't win any games.

The good news is that the four players who played the Company of Hunters (including yours truly) took home a 67% win rate and the one X-result. The CoH also tied the Gladius for second-most-played detachment!

Prominent Teams Lists

Two Dark Angels lists went undefeated at the Winter International Teams Tournament held in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, England. Conor McNama took 26th place out of 759 players with his Stormlance Task Force. 

Jay Seebarun took 44th with his Gladius Task Force.

Scott Whitley, Giulio Sinibaldi, and Matt Pocock all went 4-1.

Alex Sánchez went undefeated (4-0-1) with his Wrath of the Rock list and took 9th out of 110 players at Espeto Wars 40K held in Fuengirola, Andalucía Spain. 

Salvador Prados Pérez went 4-1.

Honored brethren, I salute you!

Playing at CaptainCon

Over the weekend I attended CaptainCon 2026 40K Event Hosted by Away Games, to give the event its full name, held in Warwick, RI. The location was less than an hour away from where I live, so it was convenient, and at 70 attendees it was a pretty good sized event. I brought the Company of Hunters list I've been playing for a while, and went 3-2. For all I've been playing 40K since 3rd ed, I can still count the number of GTs I've been to on one hand, and this was a personal best for me. I brought our win rate up, not down! Here's my list on BCP, and I'll show it to you below. 

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
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

My list is inspired by Jofonz Bow's, but obviously not identical to it. For starters, while I do own 3 Ravenwing Command Squads, I don't own 18 Black Knights, and I'm making the investment in the last 6 when they seem likely to go to Legends in 11th. So, instead of a third brick of plasma bikes, I've got the pair of Land Speeders Vengeance. My primary long-range anti-tank are obviously the Cent Devs, and the Vengeances are pretty good for that as well. Two of the squads of Outriders are the units I tend to send out first to try and pick up opponents' forward deployed units and draw out their units. The third is my backfield objective holder. The idea behind them is that when my opponent has committed their reserves, I can sticky the backfield objective and uppy-downy them with the detachment's strats. They're also 2 more wounds and 1 higher Toughness for the price than Intercessors.

Then there's Lion Dad. He's got two purposes in my list. The first is to be standing next to Ravenwing Knights when they supercharge to protect them against failed Hazardous tests. I don't always have him in the right position to do so, but I like to have the option. The second is simply for the dire melee threat he represents. Opponents who might rush forward if I just have the bikes to fight back with are more wary when Lion Dad is out in front of everything. 

The event used GW Terrain Layouts 1 and 6. By sheer chance, I played all my games on Layout 1. First round was Mission J: Linchpin, Search & Destroy.

My 1st round opponent was Joe, who brought a Necron Hypercrypt Legion list. The talk about Necrons is they are the boogeymen of the meta again because of C'Tan, and that may be so, but I didn't find Joe's list to be unreasonable. He had 2 C'Tan, which I can imagine were in his list before they got buffed. He had the Nightbringer and a Transcendant C'Tan, a Doomsday Ark, a unit of 6 Wraiths with the usual Technomancer, and some diverse other stuff.

I had the first turn, and started off well. I was able to kill a Doomsday Ark right away with long shots from my gun units, but I lost my Thunderstrike early, which cost me when I had to go into his C'Tan. I also wound up losing Lion Dad when I sent him out after the Wraiths. I used Epic Challenge and obliterated the Technomancer and picked up about half the squad, but then got counter-charged by the Nightbringer and proceeded to fail the two Invulnerable saves he caused, plus failing the reroll. I made the mistake of splitting my efforts into the Nightbringer and the Transcendant C'Tan, killing neither. I actually brought Nighty down to 1 wound twice over two consecutive turns. Joe even let me re-do a Fight phase because I forgot I we were fighting on my Combi-Lieutenant marked objective, and that round of attacks brought him down to 1 Wound. Joe wound up outscoring me on Primary pretty handily, but for all of that my score was not bad. It wound up being a 68-88 loss. 

2nd round I paired into Hallowed Martyrs Sororitas played by Vincent. We played Mission O: Terraform, Crucible of Battle. Vincent had the 1st turn. I've played against some good Sororitas players over the course of 10th, so I was pretty confident that I at least had some idea how to play into it. I was not wrong, though I did lose an Outrider squad to Overwatch from Sanctifiers because I was not familiar with what they did. I can't complain too much though, because that was after I destroyed a Castigator with long shots from a squad of Cent Devs and my Vengeances. I kept a 9-man brick of Black Knights in Reserve until Vincent committed Morvenn Vahl and the Paragons to the table, and then handily picked them up. It was a very solid 94-59 win for me. I forgot to take pictures of this match though.

3rd round was Mission C: Linchpin, Tipping Point. I played Matt, who brought Angelic Inheritors Blood Angels. That was not the Blood Angels list I expected to face, but it's what Matt brought. His list was pretty simple - Sanguinor, Dante, 2 Jump Captains, one unit of Jump Intercessors, three small units of Sanguinary Guard, one Devastator Squad with lascannons, two Hammerstrikes, two Vindicators, and a few other odds and ends. Matt had the 1st turn. 

I think I played my worst game of the event this match, which is not a dig againt Matt. I was intimidated by the Sanguinor's ability to come out of Reserve right in Engagement range. I also think I should have focused less on Matt's vehicles and more on the Sanguinary Guard units. I think both of us were playing with the idea in our heads that whoever committed first was going to lose, and I wound up committing first. Hilariously, we both wound up taking each others' home objectives, which is why the scoring was pretty low. I was actually only 3 points below Matt on Primary, but he scored 12 more points than me on Secondaries. The final score was a 51-66 loss.

On Sunday, the 4th round started a half hour earlier than the 1st round had on Saturday. Not knowing this, I showed up 20 minutes late. Oops. My opponent Evan waited for me though, and we got our whole game in with time to spare. He played Haloscreed Mechanicus. We played Mission N: Hidden Supplies, Crucible of Battle. I had the 1st turn.

I was not super-confident playing into this game because I almost always get rocked when I play Mechanicus. Thing is, the local Mechanicus player is Sean Keaveny, who is as of this writing the 6th ranked Mechanicus player in the North America. 

Once again, I opened by destroying a tank my opponent had left sticking out with long shots from my Cent Devs and Vengeances. I kept my cool, played well, and got good Secondaries. I think my opponent waited too long to bring in his unit of Kataphron Breachers. I denied him Primary for two full turns and he had trouble scoring Secondaries. I ended with a decisive 96-52 win. 

The 5th round was Mission L: Take & Hold, Search and Destroy. I played Casey, who brought Starshatter Necrons. His was a pretty straightforward list: The Silent King, Nightbringer, a pair of Doomsday Arks, Wraiths with the Technomancer, a unit of 20 Warriors, and some diverse other units. Casey got the 1st turn. 

Casey deployed well, with nothing sticking out, but I deliberately deployed a unit of Outriders exposed to see if I could tempt him to stick a Doomsday Ark out to pick them up, and he took the bait. That let me pick up the Doomsday Ark on my 1st turn. 2nd turn Casey brought in the Nightbringer, who charged and obliterated a Vengeance, and he had the Silent King come out to shoot. That gave me the opportunity to pick up both the Silent King and the Nightbringer in the same turn. The photo is just before I started my 2nd turn Shooting phase. 

I put 900 points of shooting into the Nightbringer and brought him down to 1 Wound, and then picked him up with the charging Black Knights. I didn't even bother to shoot at the Silent King because I had a plan for picking him up in the Fight Phase. Something to be aware of if you're across the table from the Silent King - Szarekh has the Character keyword, but his Menhirs do not. That means you can play Epic Challenge to Precision him out if, say, you have a character like Lion Dad to do it with. Sadly, I just missed Precisioning out Szarekh with Lion Dad by 1 wound, but fortunately the full brick of Ravenwing Knights that charged as well blew through the Menhirs and peeled that final wound off Szarekh. From there the game cascaded in my favor. I only outscored Casey by 5 points on Primary, but I did much better on Secondaries, scoring 33 to his 17, for a final score of 93-72. Casey told me afterward that our game was the one one of the weekend where the Silent King got destroyed. 

Overall the event was a positive one for me. All my opponents were lovely to play with, and I feel like I played well. I'm getting better at screening and setting up situations for my Ravenwing Knights to have maximum impact, and generally using all my units well. The games I lost were winnable games if I'd played a little better and/or been a little luckier. I was even asked to set my army out for painting judging. I didn't win anything, but I was in contention, which is pretty satisfying all by itself. 

That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you this week. Be sure to check out Dank List Wargaming and Black Crow Gaming on YouTube for Dark Angels content created by real enthusiasts for the legion chapter. It's good to be back! I'm looking forward to a new year, both for putting my skills to the test and bringing you the news of our beloved army. As always, I hope you find my work enjoyable and informative. May we all strive ever for glorious victory! For The Lion!