Dark Angels Update 7/13/2026
Greetings honored battle brethren! The weekend has come and gone, and in its wake we have news of the tragedies and triumphs of the
The top Dark Angels list of the weekend belongs to Alex Vian, who took Company of Hunters and Darkflight Pursuit, played the Reconnaissance disposition, went 4-1 and tied for 2nd out of 26 players at W4 - Western Wisconsin Wargaming Weekend held in Eau Claire, WI. Here's Alex' list on BCP. Let's check it out below.
Day of Judgment, God is Calling // On their Knees, the War Pigs Crawling
Sammael - Warlord
Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery
Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery
Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Ravenwing Darkshroud
Scout Squad
Storm Speeder Hammerstrike
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Stormraven Gunship
Alex is making a real swinging effort at portraying the Dark Angels Air Force with this list! As you can see, the vast majority of it are Vehicles with Fly, with just a token ground force to sit on objectives and be action monkeys as needed. The heart of the list are the three Land Speeders Vengeance with the Nightforged Battery enhancement. The Vengeance was already well known to be a quality unit, and the Darkflight detachment makes them better with the detachment rule and the upgraded t tailored to them. Being able to reroll their number of shots makes their output much more consistent, and being able to reroll Hazard rolls makes it exceedingly unlikely they'll actually suffer from one. They're a unit you can point at any target with a reasonable expectation of doing good damage.
The next most noticeable thing in the list is the Stormraven Gunship, which is a blast from the past that a lot of people think is destined to go to Legends this edition (I'm one of those people). However, Alex has one, and he put it to good use here. His Stormraven features the twin heavy plasma cannona nd twin multimelta, plus the hurricane bolters and Stormstrike missile launchers that are stock features. The twin heavy plasma cannon has a similar profile to the Vengeance's plasma storm battery, just with one less Strength and only D3 shots, but still Blast, Twin-linked, and supercharged Damage 3. That's a lot of firepower to bring to bear on a target, and the Stormraven is a fairly rugged chassis to try and bring down. Alex gave it the Thundercowl Turbines upgrade, allowing it to make an Ingress move Turn 1. He also gave that enhancement to one of his Thunderstrikes, which makes me think the two units are meant to hit the same target, with the Thunderstrike buffing the Stormraven's shooting into whatever he's putting it into. Most of its shooting is Twin Linked, so all the plasma cannon and multimelta shots have a 75% chance of wounding, and even the hurricane bolters stand a decent chance of doing not-insignificant chip damage.
Also prominent are the three Land Speeders. They are a handy little unit packing enough punch to be a significant part of a list's offense, but also cheap and fast enough to be useful utility units. It's helpful to remember they have Deep Strike, and the current Ingress rules allow them to enter play within melta range, potentially setting up slagging important units. Adding to that melta punch is a Storm Speeder Hammerstrike, bringing a whole pile of Strength 9 D6 Damage shooting to the fray.
Supporting all the plasma and melta shooting is a pair of Storm Speeder Thunderstrikes. They're in the list to bump all the plasma and melta from wounding most Monsters and Vehicles on 5's to wounding them on 4's. Their own shooting is okay but not remarkable. You really don't want to rely on Thunderstrikes to pick anything up if you can avoid it, but you may spike their To Wound rolls and actually get some damage through, in which case their three D6+1 Damage shots can make taking out that big thing easier than you were expecting.
Dude has two Darkshrouds in his list! At 80 points, that actually makes a lot of sense. They radiate their aura of Stealth regardless of whatever else they happen to be doing, so if you've got them you might as well have them as utility units, which they're remarkably good for, having a 14" Movement characteristic, Fly, and being T8, 10 Wounds, and OC 3. The Stealth benefit stacks with the CoH strat High-speed Focus, which imposes a -1 penalty on To Hit rolls on a unit for the Shooting phase, so you can potentially really debuff an opponent's offense into a key unit.
The existance of 5 Darkshroud/Vengeance chassis' in his list makes me think Alex has access to a good 3D printer.
Alex's ground presence is remarkably small, consisting of just three Invader ATVs, a small squad of Outriders, and a Scout squad. The Outriders are a delivery vehicle for Sammael, giving Alex at least a modest Fight phase threat, and the ATVs can sit on objectives and/or run around and do actions as missions require. The Scouts primary job is likely just keep opponents from setting up forward deployed units where they want, but might be a backfield objective holder or an uppy-downy scoring unit.
Alex had a good 1st round, scoring a close 80-71 against Space Wolves (Legends of Saga and Song; Saga of the Great Wolf; T&H). 2nd round was another close one, 97-92 against Tyranids (Ass Swarm; Talons of the Norn Queen; Priority or T&H). 3rd round he drubbed Orks (Freebooter Krew; More Dakka!; T&H) 100-67. 4th round he got pounded 62-100 against Recon Guard (Recon) with 100+ Guardsmen. 5th round he bounced back, dishing out a 100-69 thumping against Drukhari (Exhibition of Slaughter; Skysplinter Assault; Recon). Congratulations on placing 2nd Alex!
The second list I'd like to review belongs to Evan Stump, who went 4-1 with a Lion's Blade Task Force paired with a Librarius Conclave (unclear whether he chose Purge or Recon dispo) and took 3rd out of 42 at the First GT of 11th! held in Lehi, UT. You can see Evan's list on BCP. Let's check it out!
Uppy downy termies
Librarian in Terminator Armour: Temporal Corridor - Warlord
Ancient in Terminator Armur
Attached: Deathwing Terminator Squad: 10 awesome chonky boltery-fisty boys
Librarian in Terminator Armour: Fulgus Magna
Ancient in Terminator Armour
Attached: Deathwing Terminator Squad: 10 awesome chonky boltery-fisty boys
Azrael
Attached: Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Librarian: Fusillade
Attached: Sternguard Veteran Squad: 10 awesome bolter boys
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Invader ATV: melta buggy
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Reiver Squad: 5 creepy edgy boys
Evan has given us a really innovative list using a detachment we dismissed as irrelevant shortly after it debuted, making it relevant by pairing it with the Librarius Conclave. He's also making extensive use of standard Deathwing Terminators, and it's wild to see how he's using the resources from the detachments to enhance their performance. Let's start off by considering the profile of our beloved Deathwing Terminator. Toughness 5, 3 Wounds, 2+/4++ is a profile that takes non-trivial effort to pick up. The standard DWT is packing a storm bolter and a power fist, with a pair of cyclone missile launchers in the squad as well, which don't replace the bearer's storm bolter. Sadly the sergeant only gets an ordinary power weapon, so he will always wind up being the first casualty in the squad. In 10th edition, that shooting would barely rate considering, but 11th is a different story. Lists with 100+ bodies are starting to do well, so being able to clear out chaff is an important consideration. DWTs shine more in the Fight phase, a full squad swinging 27 power fist attacks. The thing that really makes DWTs worth a look in 11th edition is their Deathwing ability, which enables them to ignore modifiers to to Ballistic Skill, Weapon Skill, and to Hit rolls. Then of course there's Deep Strike, plus the once-per-game Watcher for Mortal/Dev protection. Finally, they add +1 To Hit against the Oath target with all their attacks. That's a lot of abilities on one unit.
Sadly, by themselves they would probably still not really rate being put on the table, but that's where the Librarius Conclave comes in. For starters, the Terminator Librarian gives them Sustained Hits 1 and a 4+ Feel No Pain against Psychic attacks, which is apt to make them absurdly tanky against Thousand Sons or Grey Knights - TSons had a decent showing over the weekend, BTW. Sustained Hits with +1 to Hit into the Oath target makes fishing for 6's a pretty solid option because you can be pretty sure you're not going to make your roll worse by doing so. More importantly, the Pyromancy Discipline gives all their shooting +1 AP at a unit within 12" of the squad, which with the volume of fire they're going to be putting out (full squad with attached characters is 48 storm bolter shots plus shots from two Cyclone Missile Launchers plus the Librarian's Smite) is going to do some work. On top of that, Evan has the option of having one of his inexpensive Ravenwing units zip in and tag a target unit beforehand for the Illuminating Fire strat, granting +1 To Wound as well. That's going to make even the toughest Infantry targets melt, and it's not going to tickle against Monsters or Vehicles either.
Each of the detachments Evan chose give him access to an uppy-downy enhancement. From the Librarius that's Temporal Corridor, which grants unlimited uppy-downy to a unit that inherently has Deep Strike. From the Lion's Blade it's Fulgus Magna, which is only once per game, but once is likely to be all Evan needs.
We shouldn't ignore the Ancients either. They make the combined squad 22 OC, which is going to hard to out-OC without degrading the squad, but doing so triggers the Ancient's +1 To Hit for the squad, potentially going to +1 To Wound if the squad is below 50%.
Opponents can't afford to ignore the possibility of being charged out of Deep Strike either. The Lion's Blade detachment rule grants +2 to Charge rolls against a unit already engaged with a Ravenwing unit, and Evan has 5 small, cheap, and agile Ravenwing units at his disposal to trigger that ability. Even if he doesn't particularly need the Charge buff, he might throw one of his Ravenwing units in there anyway, because for sure any surviving unit will want to fall back from a pile of angry Deathwing Terminators, and having the Ravenwing unit in there too makes them have to take Desperate Escape tests, at -1 if the unit is Battle-shocked.
That's where the Reiver unit becomes relevant. Reivers force opposing units in Engagement range take a Battle-shock test at -1 at the start of the Fight phase, which now has the potential to carry through into the opposing unit's next Movement phase. Plus, they inflict -1 OC to enemy units within 3" from them, which will help Evan flip objectives. Finally, hilariously, armed as Evan has them with special issue bolt pistols and combat knives, all their attacks have -1 AP and Precision, so you might just snipe out an opposing character before they get to activate. It's just unfortunate the models look like they were designed by adolescent edgelord-wannabes.
Rounding out the Deathwing element of the army, we have Azrael with a squad of Inner Circle Companions and Sternguard with a Fusillade Librarian. It's hard to go too far wrong with either of these units, and they will pretty reliably kill anything they can put their preferred mode of attack into..
The Lion's Blade needs some Ravenwing units to make it tick. Evan chose to go with a lot of inexpensive ones - three ATVs and two Land Speeders. They can get wherever he needs them to go pretty reliably, between the Land Speeders having Fly and the ATVs being able to go through walls with the Knights of Iron strat. It's never a bad thing to have high-speed multimelta platforms in your list either, and this gives him an abundance. One of those ATVs probably has to sit on his backfield objective though.
I have one modest criticism of the list - there aren't any Vehicles, so opponents can freely cycle Bring It Down when they draw it. My proposed solution to this would be to use a Firestrike Servo Turret as the backfield objective holder. It has the Vehicle keyword, and it hits on 4's when it fires Overwatch, so fielding one with autocannons to sit on the backfield objective does make a certain amount of sense. Evan would have had to find an extra 15 points for that somewhere though, and there's not really a lot of fat to cut from this list.
Evan had a baller 1st round, massacring T'au (Montka; Purge) 100-38. 2nd round he crushed Death Guard (Contagion Engines; Death Lord's Chosen; Purge) 100-54. 3rd round he drubbed War Horde Orks (T&H) 97-72. 4th round was his loss, 68-94 against Salamanders (Forgefathers'; Librarius; Purge). 5th round he bounced back for a solid 100-80 against Tyranids (Ambush; Vanguard; Recon). Way to go Evan!
The final list I'm going to review in this article belongs to Hendrik Alvarez, who went 4-0-1 and took 2nd out of 20 at Twin Dragons July GT! held in Naples, FL. He went with a pairing of the Unforgiven Task Force and the Darkflight Pursuit detachment, Take & Hold dispo. You can see Hendrik's list on BCP. Let's check it out below.
Take and Hold Angels
Lion Dad - Warlord
Assault Intercessor Squad: 5 choppy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Eradicator Squad with Heavy Bolters: 3 chonky bolter boys
Eradicator Squad with Heavy Bolters: 3 chonky bolter boys
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
This list looks a bit like a throwback to last edition, except it's an Unforgiven Task Force instead of a Wrath of the Rock list. Deathwing Knights are our OG hard-to-shift units, and Hendrik went with a full 15 of them, plus Lion Dad to hang out nearby, granting them buffs and just generally being another hard-hitting melee unit that opponents will want to avoid.
Hendrik's shooting element is equally robust, anchored by a trio of Land Speeders Vengeance, with help from a pair of Land Speeders, a Thunderstrike, and a pair of heavy bolter Eradicator squads. The Vengeances are a known performer. I'm a little surprised Hendrik didn't spring for Nightforged Batteries for them, but he'd have had to sacrifice elsewhere to get them. The Thunderstrike is in the list to help Hendrik's shooting punch up into tougher targets, also a pretty well known advantage to have. The Land Speeders can be striking units or utility units as needed. There seem to be a lot less action secondaries than in 10th, but there are a few, and the Speeders are cheap enough to be not too much of a sacrifice to task them to scoring secondaries if needed. I'd say the most interesting innovation in the list are the heavy bolter Eradicators. I have to admit, I'd kind of dismissed them when I saw the preview for them, but Toby Bennett extolled their virtues on his TacticalRock40K YouTube channel, and I have to admit I'm coming around. At 70 points a squad, they're only 5 points more expensive than a Scout Squad, and they give Hendrik something he can put into chaff units or even not-so-chaff units, as Damage 2 will pick up Intercessor-equivalent bodies pretty handily. I'm kicking myself now for not picking some up for cheap at Ironweld this past weekend.
The Unforgiven Task Force rates a new look in 11th edition. In 10th, it was a detachment with good stratagems that was hampered by a mediocre detachment rule. In 11th edition, the detachment rule got a lot more relevant, and it has synergy with the Take & Hold disposition. Being able to both keep having OC when Battle-shocked and add OC to a unit really helps with maintaining control of objectives. As for the stratagems, he probably gets a lot of use out of Unbreakable Lines, which inflicts an unconditional -1 To Wound on a charging unit in the subsequent Fight phase, which will really matter to anything trying to pick up Deathwing Knights. Between that and AoC, he has a lot of tools to make an opponent's go turn fizzle. The rest of the strats in the detachment probably aren't as relevant as those two, but they will all come in handy at times.
Hendrik's 1st round was a bit of a nail-biter, with a close 84-80 win against Chaos Daemons (Plague Legion; Warptide; Recon or T&H). 2nd round he handed out a 97-40 battering to Forge-Lib Salamanders (Purge or Recon). 3rd round he scored a comfortable 78-59 against Imperial Knights (Dominus Foebreakers; Gate Warden Lance; Purge). 4th round he dished out an 82-55 drubbing to Custodes (Lions: MoM: Purge - who are the Lions of the Emperor now?) 5th round was that rarest of results, a tie with the event winner, 91-91 into Drukhari (Exhibition of Slaughter; Skysplinter Assault; Disruption or Recon). Undefeated! Way to go Hendrik!
Honorable Mentions
Will Nelson took a Company of Hunters+Darkflight (Recon) list to the Iroweld: Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament held in Wakefield, MA. He went 4-1 and took 7th out of 73 players. Here's Will's list on BCP.
Oscar Dyer went 4-1 with a Wrath of the Rock list (Priority) to Shark Tank Winter 2026 held in Crow's Nest, NSW Australia and took 10th out of 64 players. Here's Oscar's list on BCP.
David Kerr went 4-1 with a Company of Hunters+ Darkflight list, also at Shark Tank Winter 2026, and took 12th place. Here's David's list on BCP.
Brethren, I salute you!
Statistics
Our player numbers were up from previous weeks. They haven't reached the heights of early in the year, but there was still a solid 27 players who played 138 games and won 67 for a 51% win rate. There were 6 X/0-X/1 results and 3 podium finishes.
The most popular detachment combo was Company of Hunters and Darkflight Pursuit, with 8 players who scored a 59% win rate and brought home 3 X-results and a podium finish.
The most popular single detachment was Darkflight Pursuit, with 12 players using it in their lists.
The Unforgiven Task Force is having a bit of a renaissance, with 6 players comboing it with something else.
Wrath of the Rock was used by 4 players.
The Dark Age Arsenal detachment was used by 5 players, but none of those lists did better than 3-2.
The Inner Circle Task Force was used in a couple lists, but those didn't perform very well.
A couple players used the 1st Company Task Force, which surprised the hell out of me!
The Meta
Orks dominated the meta over the weekend, with Ork players bringing in 11 top three results, almost twice as many as the next nearest contender. The single most successful detachment combo for Orks was Green Tide plus Taktikal Brigade, which accounted for 4 of those top three results. So you can see why those heavy bolter Eradicators may be more valuable than we first thought.
The next most successful faction was Necrons, with 6 top three results, spread out across 4 detachment combos.
After Necrons, I have to give it to Salamanders, who brought in 5 top three results. Of those results, 3 were scored with the Forgefather's Seekers/Librarius Conclave combo, two of which played Purge, with the outlier playing Recon.
That, honored battle brethren, is what I have for you.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. Until next week my brethren. May your games be fun and victorious. For the Lion!
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