Chapter Update 3/30/2026
The best performing Dark Angels list of the weekend was Sean Dahlin's Company of Hunters (yay!), with which he went 5-1 and placed 4th out of 48 players at the LDXP Tacoma 2026 Grand Tournament held in Tacoma, WA. You can see Sean's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
Mobile Plasma Donation Services (Good name!)
Chaplain on Bike
Chaplain on Bike
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Ravenwing Command Squad: Recon Hunter
Ravenwing Command Squad: Master of Manoeuvre
Ravenwing Command Squad - Warlord
Outrider Squad: 6 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
I have to hand it to Sean. The only non-Ravenwing model in this list is the Lieutenant with Combi-weapon. That's a concession that has to be made to have a unit that can be forward-deployed to prevent opposing units with Infiltrate or Scouts plugging the lanes of advance you want to use. If I was going to make a list that was as entirely Ravenwing as is practical competitively, it would look a lot like this. The only reason it would differ much is because I don't actually own all these models, though I'm not missing by much.
Sean has a lot of characters besides the Combi-Lieutenant. He brought 3 Ravenwing Command Squads and 2 Bike Chaplains. I expect the Command Squad with Recon Hunter is being attached to the 6-man Outrider Squad. That gives Sean a unit with 36 wounds he can run up his opponent's nose and gum up their ability to get out of their deployment zone. I'm confident the other Outrider Squads are having the Bike Chaplains attached to them. That gives Sean a couple of highly mobile skirmishing pieces he can send forward to engage opponents' trading pieces with a reasonable expectation of doing some damage without costing him too many points.
The big sticks of Sean's list are the two Ravenwing Knight Squads, doubtless with Command Squads attached. These combined units are powerful because you can get two good activations out of them per turn, in the Shooting phase and the Fight phase. They can potentially do a lot of damage with both the hail of plasma fire they can deliver and with their Devastating Wounds close combat attacks. You do have to have a pretty clear idea of what you can expect them to do in each phase though. Their plasma will wreck the day of most units, but may underwhelm into a Knight, and their close combat attacks are apt to pick up a decent sized tank, but you can't run them into a fresh unit of Exalted Eightbound and expect a good result.
One of the Command Squads has Master of Manoeuvre, granting it the ability to come out of Reserve Turn 1, including via Rapid Ingress (it's phrasing states it counts the turn as 1 higher for coming out of Reserve). I've used this extensively in my own Company of Hunters list. I've found the play is not to try and get them in my opponent's backfield early in the game, but to screen out an area they can be Rapid Ingressed early in the game where opponents aren't positioned to engage them, but from where they can use their mobility to use their killing power to good effect.
Sean has a pair of the ever-popular Land Speeders Vengeance. Generally speaking, these are trading pieces that can trade up, but they can be important when an opponent has a lot of 3-wound models on the table, and can also do some work picking up Vehicles or Monsters, particularly if they can also benefit from a +1 To Wound buff.
Speaking of such things, Sean has a pair of Storm Speeders Thunderstrike in his list. The Thunderstrike's firepower is, frankly, a little underwhelming, but it grants a +1 To Wound buff against Monsters or Vehicles to the rest of the army's shooting. If you've ever found it annoying that an opponent has spiked 3 or 4 Invulnerable saves against your Ballisti or RepExes, try a 9-man plasma bike brick supported by a Thunderstrike. If you can get the bikes within 9", they're pumping out 27 plasma shots. Good luck saving against all of those!
For utility work, Sean has a pair of Invader ATVs and a Darkshroud. I expect one of the ATVs is his backfield objective holder. I've used ATVs for this, and they are just big enough that you can have one tire on the backfield objective and screen out the back corner from opposing Reserves. Also, the ATV can sticky the objective with Hunters's Trail, and potentially be repositioned with Rapid Reappraisal. The Darkshroud can give some of Sean's units an aura of protection, making them harder to bring down, and can do actions to score Secondaries while it's doing so.
I really like Sean's list, but I do have a couple criticisms. One is that I think he'd probably be better off with a unit of Intercessors as his backfield objective holder. Up until recently, I've been using Outriders for that in my Company of Hunters list, on the theory that I can sticky it with Hunter's Trail and then Rapid Reappraisal the squad somewhere late game, but in practice I've almost never done this. I recently switched back to using Intercessors who sticky the objective without me having to spend CP on it, and I'm a little happier with it. My other criticism is Sean lacks a unit that can reliably pick up tanks on its own. No, the Thunderstrikes don't count. One thing Ravenwing Knight bricks aren't good at is popping transports and dealing with the contents on their own. They really need something that can destroy a Rhino so they can bring their plasma talons to bear on whatever pops out of it. Sean can do that if he's willing to commit two units to it, either both Thunderstrikes, or both Vengeances, or most likely one of each, but it would be more efficient if he could just point a Ballistus at such targets. All that said, though, Sean went 5-1, so his list clearly worked for him.
Sean had a good 1st round, smashing Forces of The Hive Mind (no list was submitted) 100-40. 2nd round he brutalized Grizzletarum 98-20. 3rd round he crushed Grand Coven Thousand Sons 100-57. 4th round he took his loss, getting drubbed by Oathband Votann 54-83. 5th round he bounced back, massacring Haloscreed Mechanicus 97-19. He ended strong with a comfortable 74-58 against Champions of Faith Sororitas. Well done Sean!
The next best performing list of the weekend was Keith Peck's Wrath of the Rock list, which he played to a 4-1 record and scored 3rd out of 33 players at Welcome To ThunderMania 2 held in Tipp City, OH. You can see Keith's list on BCP. Our discussion is below.
Wrath of the Rock
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Ancient in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault
Judiciar
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
Desolation Squad: 5 steely-eyed misslemen
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
We see in Keith's list a lot of the best units available to us as Dark Angels players. There's Lion Dad, a pair of Deathwing Terminator Squads, a squad of Inner Circle Companions, and a pair of Centurion Devastator Squads. Lion Dad and the Deathwing units provide the melee punch, and the Centurions provide supporting long-range firepower to pop transports and suppress big shooting units. He's also got a Desolation Squad to lay the smack on units hiding behind terrain, which is very handy, particularly into pesky armies that like to stage punchy-but-squishy units behind walls before having them cross half the table and annihilate you (looking at you Aeldari!). The Desolation Squad can serve double-duty as a backfield objective holder, which frees Keith up to have his Infiltrators screen out more of the midfield than he'd otherwise be able to.
Keith's list is a little unconventional in a couple of ways. The first is that he's a little light on unit drops. Usually we look for the vicinity of 12-13 units, not counting characters attached to other units. Keith has 9, 10 if we count Azrael. That doesn't give him a lot of trading pieces to work with. Another reason Keith's list is unconventional is that there's no unit to attach Azrael to other than the ICCs, and Keith has a Judiciar in his list who clearly is being attached to them. That leaves Azrael just hanging out solo. I suppose Keith might just have him in the backfield generating CP and possibly going and skirmishing with any small units that might drop in back there, but it seems like a terrible waste of his unit buffs, and makes him vulnerable to being assassinated. I'm actually rather puzzled by this decision because Keith could swap the Judiciar for a second Scout Squad and attach Azrael to the ICCs. This gives them Lethals and Sustained with their Strike attacks, plus gives them an Invulnerable save, whereas not having the Fights First is less important because Lion Dad is in the list and there's diminishing returns on Fights First beyond the first unit with it.
I can't say the list didn't work for Keith though, because it clearly did. 1st round Keith squeaked out a 69-65 win against VirVec Death Guard. 2nd round he crushed an Imperialis Fleet Imperial Agents list 90-49. 3rd round he smashed Rubricae Thousand Sons 91-50. 4th round he had a close 92-83 against Homeowner's Association Host of Ascension Genestealer Cult. Sadly, 5th round he got drubbed 71-96 by Scintillating Chaos Daemons. No shame in losing to the event winner though, and he scored a 4-0 event start to boot. Well done Keith!
Our last list from the weekend was Marc Kitos' Wrath of the Rock list, with which he went 4-1 and took 6th out of 32 at Batalla por la Roca held in Palma, Spain. Here's Marc's list on BCP. We'll discuss it below.
Sa roqueta
Lion Dad - Warlord
Judiciar
Lion El'Jonson
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
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
Hellblaster Squad: 10 plasma boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying plasma boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Marc's list is a little more conventional than Keiths, with a couple more units running around. He's also got an obvious place for Azrael to go, the Hellblaster Squad. I think Hellblasters are a little overcosted, but being able to bump them to Strength 10 with a strat makes them more of a threat to most Monsters and Vehicles in the game, only dropping off into Toughness 11+. Marc has a couple extra Deep Strike threats with his Jump Intercessors and Inceptor Squad. He went with plasma Inceptors, which is understandable because he can potentially Relics their guns up to Strength 11 and they're twin linked.
I'm interested to see that Marc took a small Black Knights squad as a trading piece. I've been thinking about doing this myself. Spending 80 points to get up to 9 plasma shots and 12 AP -2 close combat attacks is pretty reasonable, and seems like it ought to be able to at least trade laterally with opponent's scoring pieces.
Marc is also a bit low on unit count. I think it's because both Marc and Keith included 200+ point shooting units separate from their long-range de-meching platforms, and included a Judiciar to attach to the ICCs instead of Azrael.
Sadly, Marc took his loss in the 1st round by a close 67-77 against War Horde Orks. 2nd round he scored a close 74-61 against Lions Custodes. 3rd round he crushed Mont'ka T'au 95-40. 4th round he massacred Talons Custodes 93-37. He ended strong, drubbing Spite Drukhari 91-63. Well done Marc!
Statistics
A lot of players took Dark Angels to events over the weekend, but not a lot had much success with them. We had 48 Dark Angels players who played 228 games and won 100 of them, scoring a quite bad 45% win rate, and only picking up 3 X/1 results.
The most played detachment by far was Wrath of the Rock, with 32 players who scored an an abysmal 42% win rate, but did pick up 2 of the X/1 results.
Next most played was the Gladius, with 6 players who managed a 52% win rate but no standout high scores.
After that comes the Company of Hunters with 4 players, a 58% win rate, and the last X/1 result.
The Stormlance was used by 3 players wo earned a 54% win rate.
The Ironstorm was played by 1 player who earned a 60% win rate.
The Unforgiven Task Force was played by 1 player who took home a 50% win rate.
Coming out of left field, 1 player played the 1st Company Task Force. I imagine it won't come as much of a surprise to hear he took only a 20% win rate.
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