Chapter Update 3/9/2026
One of the players who made that top cut has a familiar name - Liam Callebout of Sturnguard Fat Tits, who went 5-1 overall for the event and scored 5th place, which is very impressive indeed! You can see Liam's list on BCP. We'll take a look at it below.
Liam's list
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Chaplain in Terminator Armour: Ancient Weapons
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Desolation Squad: 5 steely-eyed missilemen
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Callidus Assassin
Liam started his list off with the bones of a solid Wrath list: Lion Dad, a pair of Deathwing Knight squads, Inner Circle Companions with Azrael to lead them, and Scouts and a Combi-Lieutenant for utility work. He opted for Infiltrators instead of Intercessors for his backfield objective holder, which is a bit of an indulgence, but maybe he just had 20 points left and no other good way to spend it.
One of Liam's squads of Deathwing Knights has swords instead of maces, so he invested in a Terminator Chaplain to help them punch up into tougher targets. Interestingly, he opted to give the Chaplain Ancient Weapons instead of Deathwing Assault, but the main drawback of the Chaplain's Crozius is that it's only natively AP -1, which Ancient Weapons addresses, along with bumping the Strength and Damage.
The Desolation Squad sticks out because we don't see them very often. I think most of us recoil at the prospect of paying 200 points for 5 Intercessor bodies. It can be very handy to have Indirect Fire though. A lot of the armies that give us trouble (thinking of Aeldari here) tend to stage fast squishy units behind ruins to have them pop out and get their alpha-strike. Desos can reach them behind those ruins and potentially pick them up. Even if an opponent doesn't have such units, most players will tend to put something fairly weedy on their backfield objective, and picking that up and obliging your opponent to hold it with something else throws off their game plan. The squad can also be used against Monsters and Vehicles if there's a need, with 4 of the members carrying Superkrak launchers, which are D6+1 damage shots. You probably wouldn't want to expose them for that early in the game, but in the later turns there might not be too many good targets for the Castellan and Vengor launchers left on the table, so if you lose them at that point it's not a catastrophe. They make a good squad to use Relics of the Dark Age on too, likely wounding targets they're hitting with Indirect on 2's and 3's instead of 3's and 4's.
For direct fire long range shooting, Liam opted for a pair of Land Speeders Vengeance. With the Vengeances, he chose versatility over units specifically intended to kill Monsters and Vehicles from range, but it's not a bad choice. Lion Dad, the Deathwing Knights, and the ICCs can certainly punch tougher targets to death. The only vehicles that it would be imperative to pop from a distance would be transports, so the punchy units can punch the contents of the boxes instead of the boxes. Vengeances can certainly accomplish that, as most dedicated transports are Toughness 9 or less. He opted for Assault Cannons for their secondary weapons, likely because they stand a chance of Dev Wounding off the last one or two wounds off something that's been mostly-shredded by the plasma storm battery. The Vengeances also give him a solution for units of 3-wound models, they're fast, and at 120 points Liam can afford to use them as early-game trading pieces, potentially getting some retributive shooting out of one of them if he has them stick close to each other.
Finally, there's that Callidus. 100 points is not a small investment, but having a Lone Op with Deep Strike that can uppy-downy is invaluable for scoring Secondaries. Don't sleep on her Vect aura either, plus all her weapons have Precision, so you might use her to snipe out a pesky support character.
Liam got the event off to an excellent start, smashing a Blade of Ultramar list 93-50 in the 1st round. 2nd round he faced another Blade of Ultramar list, prevailing with a close 85-76. 3rd round he scored a comfortable 63-44 against Berserker World Eaters. 4th round he scored a solid 69-54 against Spite Drukhari. 5th round he scored a close 81-77 against Hearthband Votann. The win train did finally come to a halt in the 6th round though, with Liam giving up a close 81-75 against GrizzleTarum. Amazing job Liam!
The next-best performing Dark Angels list at Windsor was played by Mike Spencer of Golden Valley Gaming. Mike went 4-1 and placed 26th. You can see Mike's list on BCP. We'll check it out below.
WOTR Windsor
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Captain in Gravis Armour
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Aggressor Squad: 3 chonky flamey fisty boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Eradicator Squad: 3 chonky melta boys
Gladiator Lancer
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
This is not what I expected to see from a Wrath list at all. It appears that Mike prioritized trading pieces more than we Dark Angels players usually do, at the cost of the usual second squad of Deathwing Knights and the usual squad of Inner Circle Companions. Turns out 430 points buys you a lot of trading pieces. He could attach the Gravis Captain to one of those squads, but I'm not sure he does, because there really isn't any synergy between the character and the units, and the Gravis Captain is a pretty functional trading piece all by himself.
That said, Mike didn't completely eschew conventional wisdom for the MSU approach. He's still got a squad of Deathwing Knights and Lion Dad to dominate the center of the table, and Azrael will deliver a pretty good charge when attached to the Assault Intercessors. He has the usual Combi-Lieutenant+Intercessors+Scouts trio for the usual reasons, with an additional squad of Scouts to either be an expendable speedbump or help with uppy-downy scoring.
Mike didn't just go for a lot of units, but he also bought himself a variety of abilities. He's got a lot of chaff-chewing melee with all the Assault Intercessors (flying or otherwise), a fair bit of Damage 2 melee with the Gravis Captain and Aggressors, and some Anti-Big-Thing melta with the Eradicators. The Gravis units can potentially give devastating Overwatch, with the Aggressors having Flamestorm Gauntlets and the Eradicators having all the rerolls into Monsters and Vehicles. The Gravis Captain could be attached to either of those units, but I'm not sure that happens very often. The Captain doesn't really have good synergy with either of those units, and he functions pretty well as an independent trading piece fielded solo.
Unfortunately Mike's 1st round ended with a punishing 56-100 loss against Grand Coven Thousand Sons. 2nd round he rallied to crush Shadow Legion Daemons 92-50. 3rd round he squeaked out a 75-72 win against Death Lord's Chosen Death Guard. 4th round he drubbed Tallyband Death Guard 80-44. Apparently he wore Death Guard attracting cologne that weekend, because his 5th game was against Virulent Vectorum Death Guard, which he smashed 100-57. Well done Mike!
One more Wrath list went 4-1 at Windsor over the weekend. It was played by Daniel Summons, who took 28th place. You can see Daniel's list on BCP. We'll check it out below.
Daniel's list
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon: Ancient Weapons
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
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys
Storm Speeder Hammerstrike
Daniel's list has the elements of a pretty conventional Wrath list. It's got Lion Dad, Azrael, and the two squads of Deathwing Knights we've come to expect, along with the Combi-Lieutenant and some Scouts. Like Liam, Daniel sprung for Infiltrators for minding the backfield objective. He also as an Jump Intercessor squad, because it's often useful to have a unit with Deep Strike in your list. For long-range transport-popping, Daniel included both a Ballistus and a Lancer. It's good to have some redundancy in your list.
Daniel included a Storm Speeder Hammerstrike in his list. If you don't have Land Speeders Vengeance, the Hammerstrike is not a bad alternative. It's 5 points more and lacks the Invulnerable save, but it's Toughness 9 and 11 wounds, which is comparable to a lot of armies' gun tanks, and for firepower it can throw 7 Strength 9 shots, 2 at AP -1 D3 Damage, 2 at AP -3 D6 damage, and 3 at AP -4 D6 Melta 2 Damage. The first and last of those profiles only have an 18" range, but it's a platform with a 14" Move and Fly, so that shouldn't be too much of an impediment. It can also strip Cover from a unit hit by one of its guns, which can be helpful to make sure Daniel's other shooting pieces do the damage he wants them to do.
Daniel included a full squad of Sternguard to attach Azrael to, which is never a bad choice. With Azrael's Sustained Hits, they should pretty reliably do 7-9 Devastating Wounds to a target within 12", not counting what Azrael himself will do, and that's a pretty good way to deal with pesky units with stacking defensive abilities, like C'Tan. They make a pretty credible melee threat too, having 4 attacks each and a Sergeant with a power fist. Sometimes it won't be a bad play to use Relics of the Dark Age on the unit. Against all but Toughness 12 Monsters or Vehicles, that would have the Sternguard bolt rifles wounding on 5's. You'd still reroll 5's the first time around, but it could sneak that critical 1 or 2 more wounds through to finish off the target. Or, you might be shooting at Infantry and score a bunch of extra wounds an opponent has to save before they even deal with the Devastating Wounds.
I'm bemused by Daniel's decision to put Ancient Weapons on the Combi-Lieutenant. While it does make him a fairly credible threat in melee, we don't generally consider it his job to be a melee threat. Five more points would buy a Callidus Assassin, which is not a lot of points to pay for that upgrade. It also wouldn't have been too hard to work the points around to have a Gravis Captain to carry that upgrade instead, and he would be both considerably punchier and harder to kill. Maybe Daniel was just really happy with the units he selected and didn't have another good way to spend that last 25 points. Or maybe he just likes making opponents second-guess before trying to pick up his Combi-Lieutenant with a small skirmishing unit.
Daniel took a 1st round loss, a punishing 23-92 against War Horde Orks. 2nd round he bounced back to crush Liberator Blood Angels 100-50. 3rd round he smashed Crusher Tyranids 91-40. 4th round he obliterated Grand Coven Thousand Sons 99-32. 5th round he drubbed Kroot T'au 86-57. Good job Daniel!
Honorable Mentions
There's just the one honorable mention this week, and it goes to Nemo Zerbini, who went 4-1 and took 4th out of 24 with his Wrath of the Rock list at Conquest Fest - Warhammer 40.000 held in Livorno, Italy.
Statistics
As previously mentioned, it was a lighter weekend. There were 24 Dark Angels players who . played a total of 117 games and won 56 of them, scoring a slightly underwhelming 49% win rate and 4 X/1 results.
Wrath of the Rock was played by literally five times as many players as all the other detachments combined, with a total of 20 players who took in a 47% win rate, and all 4 of the X-results.
Two players played the Gladius, scoring a 60% win rate. Not bad.
One player played an Unforgiven Task Force, and scored a 60% win rate. Good job!
One optimist played an Inner Circle Task Force and scored a 40% win rate. It was a manly effort.
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!
Comments
Post a Comment