Dark Angels Update 4/20/2026

 

Greetings honored battle brethren! Dark Angels players have battled it out with heretics, xenos, traitors, and misguided jealous lesser Astartes players across the globe over the weekend, and I have the honor of reporting on the lists that did the best. It was a bit of a slower weekend, with about 10 less Dark Angels players than usual. That said, it seems like the drop off of high performing lists is sharper than the drop off in player count, as only three lists went X/1 over the weekend.

That said, one of those lists took 3rd place at the biggest event of the weekend, the ALPINE-CON 40K Singles 2026 - Alpine Cup, an event of up to 7 rounds with 202 players held in Graz, Austria. Zugzwang's Niklas Frerichs went 5-1 with a Gladius list and beat out 199 other players for his spot. You can see Niklas' list on BCP, and of course we'll check it out below.

Niklas' list
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Librarian
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 stay-off-my-lawn boys
Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Vanguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome flying swordy-boardy boys

It's pretty conventional for a Dark Angels list to start off with Lion Dad, Azrael, and two units of Deathwing Knights. The Knights and Lion Dad bring the punchy fists in the iron gloves to the party, and Azrael provides CP, which will be put to good use in a Gladius list, as the detachment has good strats. Niklas also has a fairly standard set of utility units, with Infiltrators holding the backfield objective instead of Intercessors, which is a little more pricey but screens out much more of his backfield. The Vanguard Veterans are likely also a scoring piece, being just a little more expensive than Jump Intercessors while bringing storm shield 4++ saves to the party. They also afford Niklas something to allow Lion Dad to get Lone Op if he opts to forestwalk him up the field somewhere. Rapid Ingressing Lion Dad to a spot where he's exposed to some of an opponent's shooting but not all of it thanks to Lone Op can be a good way of messing with their target priority choices.

For shooting Niklas relied on a trio of Land Speeders Vengeance with assault cannons. That's a pretty solid choice, as their shooting is useful into anything in the game and good into a anything Toughness 9 or less. Also, they're fast, have Fly, are reasonably tough, do a decent job screening, and are cheap enough to use as trading pieces.

An interesting list design point to me is that Niklas included a squad each of 6 Inner Circle Companions and 5 Sternguard Veterans, with Azrael and a Librarian to attach to them. This makes me wonder who gets attached to what, because there's good arguments for either likely configuration. It may be matchup dependent, but I suspect the Librarian goes with the Sternguard and Azrael goes with the ICCs. Either way, everyone is getting the 4++ save, but attaching the Librarian to the Sternguard lets Niklas put them in Reserve without sacrificing Azrael's CP generation. They can come out of Reserve in Rapid Fire range of the Sternies' bolt rifles, and the Librarian's Focused Smite shooting attack has Devastating Wounds, which synergizes well with Sternies' datasheet ability. 

This event used WTC scoring, so we're looking at a 0-20 scale, with every WTC scoring point differential representing a 5-point difference in battle points one way or the other.

Niklas had a 5-0 event start, which is very impressive at an event this size. 1st round he drubbed Chaos Marine Renegade Raiders 15-5. 2nd round he crushed an Ultramarines Gladius 18-2. 3rd round he humbled a Salamanders Space Marines Firestorm 14-6. 4th round he bodied a Blade of Ultramar list 15-5. 5th round he buried a Tyranid Invasion Fleet 20-0. 6th round an Ultramarines list finally ended his run with a close 8-12 defeat. Well done Niklas!

Our next list is a Wrath of the Rock played by Tom Roberts at the Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament held at Warhammer World held in the cradle of 40K, Nottingham, England. Tom went 4-1 and placed 8th out of 65 players. You can see Tom's list on BCP, and we'll check it out below.

fallen? never heard of em
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Librarian: Ancient Weapons
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon
Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
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
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys
Vanguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome flying swordy-boardy boys

Right off the bat, it's clear that Tom's list is very similar to Niklas'. He's got one less Land Speeder Vengeance, and instead of a Scout Squad he's got an Incursor Squad, and he has the cheaper Intercessors to hold his backfield objective. However, instead of 5 Sternguard, he's got the full squad of 10, and the Librarian has Ancient Weapons.

Having 10 Sternguard instead of 5 gives Tom a tool to really load Devastating Wounds onto a target. Again, having a Librarian to attach to them affords Tom the option of putting them in Reserve and having them come out in Rapid Fire range of whatever he wants to delete. That said, there's a stronger argument for attaching Azrael to them in this list. The Incursors are a good unit to have buff Sternguard's shooting, as it affords one the luxury of being able to pick up all Shooting misses that aren't 6's and reroll them, but the only reason you'd bother is if Azrael was giving them Sustained Hits. Giving the Librarian Ancient Weapons isn't the most obvious choice for that upgrade, but it does kick his close combat attacks past a lot of break points, making them Strength 8, AP -2 and Damage D3+1. That would make him a much more useful leader to attach to the Inner Circle Companions, as he could actually do some damage on his own rather than just be there to provide the 4++.

1st round Tom pummeled Rage Blood Angels 69-38. 2nd round he drubbed Renegade Chaos Marines 81-61. 3rd round he took a punishing 46-97 loss against Starshatter Necrons (his opponent this round took 1st place). 4th round he bounced back to hand out a similar 98-48 spanking to Valourstrike Imperial Knights. 5th round he ended strong, humbling a Blade of Ultramar list 96-70.  I'd like to point out that Tom faced all three of the bullies of the meta (Chaos Marines, Ultramarines, and Necrons), plus a stat-check 4-big-Knight list. Good show Tom!

I thought about not doing the full breakdown of this list because I'm a lazy man, and this list went 3-1-1, which is still an X/1 result but would usually land a list in the Honorable Mentions category, but only 3 lists total went X/1 over the weekend, so I'm giving this one its chance to shine. The list in question is Harry Wheeler's Wrath of the Rock list, and he placed 11th out of 65 at the Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament, just three places behind Tom Roberts. You can see Harry's list on BCP, and we'll check it out below.

Tis But a Mortal Wound
Lion Dad - Warlord
Azrael
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon

Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys
Brutalis Dreadnought
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying plasma boys
Inceptor Squad: 3 chonky flying plasma boys
Infiltrator Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys

Let's get the conventional stuff out of the way first. Lion Dad, a pair of Deathwing Knight squads, Azrael with a squad to attach him to with spicy synergy (in this case a nice big squad of Sternguard), the Vengeance, and the Combi-Lieutenant+Intercessors+Scouts trio, all are perfectly suitable units to have in a Wrath list. They'd do fine in a Gladius or Stormlance too. You could do way worse than starting every list with these units.

It's a little unusual to see Infiltrators as well as Intercessors. It's easy to see the utility though. Screening opponent's units from coming out of Reserves within 12" of the Infiltrators is going to be clutch against many armies.

Inceptor Squads aren't something we see very often, but that doesn't mean they're not good. They give Harry a Deep Strike threat that opponents will have to work harder to screen out, and they give him units to use Relics on. I imagine he staggers when they come down to get maximum punch out of them.

Let's talk about that Brutalis. I think this is the first time I've seen a Brutalis Dreadnought in a Wrath list. Looking at the datasheet, you'd think it'd be more at home in a Stormlance list, because its datasheet ability triggers when it charges, and Always Be Charging. However, there are some synergies here I hadn't considered before. All Dreadnoughts get the Deathwing keyword, and Leonine Aggression is not keyworded to Infantry, just Adeptus Astartes units for the 3" threat radius and Deathwing for the 6" threat radius. That means opponents' units standing within 6" of him at the end of their Charge phase can be subjected to taking up to 6 Mortal Wounds at the end of the phase, and then 6 attacks from a Strength 12 AP -2 Damage 3 Twin Linked Dreadnought fist. It gives Harry a second big smacky threat to supplement Lion Dad with. I have to say, this is neat.

The other reason I decided to do the full treatment of Harry's list is that his tie was pretty high scoring. He did have his loss in the 1st round though, an uncomfortable 61-74 against Hearthband Votann. 2nd round was his tie, 86-86 against Spite Drukhari. 3rd round he finally scored his first win, humbling Champions of Faith Sororitas 80-53. 4th round he crushed Cybernetica Mechanicus 91-50. Finally, 5th round he prevailed with a close 89-79 against Valourstrike Imperial Knights. Good job Harry!

Statistics

Over the weekend 34 players played Dark Angels lists at GTs with 20+ players, playing 166 games and winning 68 of them, which resulted in a pretty dismal 44% win rate and only 3 X/1 results, although one Dark Angels player did take 3rd place at the biggest event of the weekend as mentioned earlier in the article.

Wrath of the Rock beat out all the other detachments combined by a 2-1 margin, with 23 players who scored a 45% win rate and 2 of the X/1 results.

Gladius was the next most popular detachment with 8 players and the one X/1 result at the weekend's biggest event. That didn't help the win percentage much though, coming in at a depressing 42%.

The Company of Hunters was given a try by 2 players, who sadly between them managed only a tragic 35% win rate.

One player tried the Vanguard detachment, scoring a 40% 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!