Dark Angels Update 5/11/2026
The top Dark Angels list of the weekend belongs to William Willoughby, who took a Bastion Task Force to The 2026 Central Arkansas Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament, went 3-1-2, and took 7th out of 45 players. You can see William's list on BCP. We'll break it down below.
Oops wrong game Lion Dad - Warlord Ancient in Terminator Armour: Hero of the Chapter Captain in Terminator Armour: Blades of Valour Ravenwing Command Squad Tactical Squad: 10 Original Gangsta boys Tactical Squad: 10 Original Gangsta boys Rhino Rhino Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys Devastator Squad: 5 OG lascannon boys Devastator Squad: 5 OG lascannon boys Predator Destructor Predator Destructor Ravenwing Black Knights: 6 awesome plasma biker boys
There's a lot of stuff in this list that wasn't on my 10th edition Bingo card. Take Lion Dad out of it, and it could be a 7th edition list.
I haven't reviewed a Bastion Task Force list before, so it's worth going over some basics about the detachment. The detachment rule makes Battleline units eligible to Shoot, Charge, and/or perform Actions after making an Advance or Fall Back move. In addition, any enemy unit hit by an attack from a Battleline unit in the detachment is "auspex scanned" until the end of the turn, and other models attacking those units 1's on their Hit rolls. The stratagems of the detachment either key off of Battleline units or attacking auspex scanned units, hence the robust Battleline presence in the list. You can find the full details in Faction Pack: Space Marines over on the Warhammer-Community page.
Going into William's unit choices, Lion Dad is an obvious choice for almost any list, and the Ravenwing Command Squad attaches to the Ravenwing Knights and makes a nice big plasma bike brick that can exploit the Light of Vengeance strat, which grants either Lethal or Sustained Hits to attacks against a unit that's been auspex scanned. I've often lamented that 6's to Hit with that squad's plasma talons don't do anything spicy. In this detachment, they can.
The Terminator Ancient and Captain are unconventional choices. William evidently wanted to have both those enhancements with his Deathwing Knight squad. Hero of the Chapter makes the attached squad Battleline, and Blades of Valour improves the AP of the bearer's and an attached Battleline unit's melee weapons by 1. While I see the utility of those enhancements, I'm not sure they justify the points cost - particularly Blades of Valour. In my experience, AP -2 takes most things down to their Invulnerable saves, so having more AP is of dubious value. Personally, I'd have put Hero of the Chapter on the Ravenwing Champion, let the Deathwing Knights operate without a character, and added Azrael for CP generation.
Moving on, William reached into the wayback to field a pair of Tactical Squads! For upgrades he chose power weapons and plasma pistols for the sergeants, and each squad has a plasma gunner and a grav cannon gunner. Tactical Squads are bought as units of 10, and can be broken up into two 5-man squads at the start of the game, giving William four Battleline units to run around and auspex-scan things. One of those units doubtless gets tasked to sit on his backfield objective, and I wouldn't be surprised if he tasks one to run out and sit on his expansion objective. I expect all the upgrades go into the squads that are put in the Rhinos, which I'd imagine they share with the pair of Devastator squads, in an arrangement not unlike what a lot of Chaos Marine players do with their Rhinos. Tactical Squads aren't near as punchy as even a unit of CSM Legionaries, but William really just needs them to auspex-scan things with their bolters or combat knives to trigger eligibility to play the detachment's various stratagems, which include being able to Advance/Fall back and Shoot and Charge auspex scanned units, and/or getting Lethal or Sustained Hits against them.
Partnering with the Tactical Squad combat squads are William's Devastator Squads. Again, that might be a unit newer players aren't very familiar with. They're the OG heavy weapon squads, with 4 heavy weapon gunners, a sergeant, and the option to take an extra 5 ablative bodies for 80 points that no one ever actually does. Besides the 4 lascannoneers and the sergeant with a power weapon and plasma pistol, each squad has an Armorium Watcher Cherub that lets William flip a To Hit roll to a 6 once per game per squad. They also get Ignores Cover when they Remain Stationary, but you can imagine how infrequently that happens. At only T4 with 2 Wounds each, they're pretty squishy, but half the squad can shoot from inside the Rhinos, and they offer a greater density of lascannon fire than we can get from much any other source.
For vehicle support, William included a pair of Rhinos to schlep around all his OG boys and give them a layer of protection, and a pair of Predator Destructors, which are fairly solid gun platforms for the price. Between the four HK missiles his tracks provide, the lascannons on the Preds, and the Devastator lascannons, William can send some pretty withering big thing-killing firepower downrange.
Supporting William's throwback to earlier editions are a unit of Deathwing Knights and a unit of Ravenwing Knights, with supporting characters as appropriate. The Ancient and Captain attached to the Deathwing Knights boost their OC, grant them discounted strats, and lets them reroll Charge rolls, which is always valuable on that squad. The Ravenwing Command Squad brings a pile of benefit to the Ravenwing Knights, plus adds 3 plasma talon+corvus hammer (and MCed power weapon) toting members to to the squad, which adds to the killyness when William plays Light of Vengeance on them.
One thing William does not have a lot of is utility units, though the Rhinos can perform actions as needed when their embarked units debus. That said, with this list William probably discards action Secondaries for CP, which he's going to want a lot of with the strats the detachment provides.
For some reason the event held in Arkansas used WTC scoring. That's the 0-20 range with each point deviation from a 10-10 draw representing a plus or minus 5 point difference is Battle Point score. 1st round William trounced Berserker World Eaters 20-0. 2nd round he got edged out 9-11 by a Chaos Daemons Incursion. 3rd round he crushed Persecution Prospect Votann 20-0 4th round he drubbed more Berserker World Eaters 16-4. 5th round he tied 10-10 against Questoris Imperial Knights. Then in the 6th round he had another tie, 10-10 against Infernal Chaos Knights. That was a pretty good last hurrah for the OG boys!
Our other list is William Nicholl's of T.N.T. Gladius Task Force, which he went 3-1-1 at and took 6th out of 26 players at the Gulf Tournament Circuit: Abu Dhabi held in the United Arab Emirates. You can see William's list on New Recruit. We'll check it out below.
Willliam's list Lion Dad - Warlord Azrael Captain in Gravis Armour: Artificer Armour Judiciar Lieutenant with Combi-weapon Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys Assault Intercessor with Jump Packs: 5 flying choppy boys Incursor Squad: 5 spotty boys Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads Storm Speeder Thunderstrike Vindicator Allied Imperial Knight: Canis Rex
I find this list kind of wacky, because William basically took a fairly typical Dark Angels Gladius, dropped the usual pair of Deathwing Knight squads, and in their place shoved in Canis Rex.
The Dark Angels part of this list is pretty conventional other than lacking Deathwing Knights. There's Lion Dad and Judiciar-led Inner Circle Companions to punch things, the Thunderstrike and Vindicator to shoot things, and the usual compliment of utility units.
I think the investment in supporting the Vindicator's shooting is a little strong. Instead of buffing the one Vindicator with the Incursors and Thunderstrike, William could have bought a second Vindicator and saved 30 points in the process. Either that or I'd have gone with a pair of Ballisti instead of the Vindy and Thunderstrike. That said, there is something to be said for both the platforms William chose for his list.
I also raise an eyebrow at having only a unit of Intercessors to attach Azrael to. It seems like an unglamourous assignment for him. They can do some work, but even Assault Intercessors seem like a more obvious choice to attach Azrael to. The synergies go both ways instead of just Azrael buffing the Intercessors.
And then there's Canis Rex. I'm not going to go too deep into that choice because this is a Dark Angels blog, and Canis is not a Dark Angels unit. I can see the appeal of including a big mech in your list though, and if you're going to do it, you can do way worse than making it Canis Rex.
1st round William got his loss out of the way, a close 74-78 against Invasion Fleet Tyranids. 2nd round he smashed Steel Hammer Militarum 100-52. 3rd round he had a 79-79 draw against Solar Spearhead Custodes. 4th round he absolutely murdered another Steel Hammer Miltarum list 100-25. 5th round William had a close 43-37 against a Starshatter Necron list. Those are really low scores, which made me wonder if his opponent was playing a really unwieldly list, but no. It was a little weird because he only had one Doomsday Ark, but didn't seem like it had an overly-large model count. Well done William!
Statistics
With only 4 players the statistics aren't going to be very meaningful. There were 4 players, an overall 57% win rate, and 2 X/1 results.
2 players played Wrath of the Rock, scoring a 45% win rate.
1 player each played Bastion and Gladius Task Force, each getting a 66% win rate and an X/1 result. How convenient!
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!
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