Dark Angels Update 8/3/2026

 

Greetings honored battle brethren! It was a busy weekend for Dark Angels players. There weren't as many events over the weekend, but one of those was the Lone Star Open with over 300 players, and there were two more events with 100+ players, so as you can imagine we had quite a few fellow brethren fighting for the honor of the legion chapter! Our scores were more reasonable than the weekend before, but our fellows still managed to score some quite impressive results, including an event win! It is my genuine pleasure to review a sampling of those lists for you. 

Apparently after plodding along with powerful-but-slow Deathwing Knights for most of 10th edition, we as a player body feel the need for speed, because all of the lists we're looking at today used a combination of the Company of Hunters and Darkflight Pursuit as their detachments, all of which with the Recon disposition. We'll start in the obvious place, with the event-winning list. 

That list belongs to Jack Armstrong, whose CoH+Darkflight (Recon) list went 6-0 and earned him the top spot out of 86 players at The Kent Major 2026 held in (I presume) Kent, England (English addresses are weird). Here's Jack's list on BCP. Let's check out out below.

Lion Dad - Warlord
Belial
Sammael
Judiciar
    Attached: Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Judiciar
    Attached: Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Land Speeder
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

This is an unconventional list. It's not what I expected to see at all, but I think I understand what Jack was going for with it. I think he tried to design a list that presents his opponent with bad choices: either hang back and get pummeled by the trio of Vengeances and the pair of Thunderstrikes, or come forward to get jumped by Lion Dad and a pile of Judiciar-led Inner Circle Companions. 

I'm not going to go too in-depth about why the firebase of speeders is good. I'm just going to let the profile of the Vengeance's plasma storm battery speak for itself. What I would like to discuss is the choice of Lion Dad and the two Judiciar-led units of Inner Circle Companions. 

Conventional wisdom has it that Fights First is bad now. It's certainly not as good as it was. Opponents will get to have at least one unit activate before one of our Fights First units on their turn. However, it bears remembering that they'll only be able to have one unit activate before our Fights First units. That makes it a lot more valuable than it used to be to have multiple Fights First units. If we just bring Lion Dad, an opponent can chuck something into him he things stands a reasonable chance of picking him up. Bring Lion Dad and a unit of ICCs led by a Judiciar, then opponents have to make a difficult choice, who do they swing into first?

I'm thinking it's likely Jack used Lion Dad and the J-ICCs to control the center of the table, with Lion Dad parked on one side of a wall and the J-ICCs on the other side. If an opponent charges Lion Dad, then Jack can have a unit of the J-ICCs Heroic Intervention into them, and then that opponent has to choose which unit to activate into. Activating into Lion Dad is problematic because there's a pretty considerable chance he'll just tank whatever output gets thrown into him, and also his damage ceiling is 40, whereas an intact unit of J-ICCs has a damage ceiling of 58. The J-ICCs are a much squishier target, but chances are the opponent threw his best chance of picking up Lion Dad into Lion Dad, and if he doesn't try to do it right then, he might not get another chance, and Lion Dad can rampage around the board at will. 

That explains having one unit of J-ICCs, but why two of them? My first thought is that Jack is sticking one on his expansion objective in case opponents try to go broad on their go turn. Another thought is that it gives Jack a second bite at the apple with the above trick. Say an opponent picks up the first squad of J-ICCs. Jack can have the second one step up to cover Lion Dad. A third thought is the J-ICCs can support each other this way while Lion Dad forestwalks to some other part of the table to make Jack's opponents sad.

The remaining units in this list are Belial, Sammael, and two 3-man units of Ravenwing Knights. I expect the Ravenwing Knights are Jack's early-game skirmishers. They ought to be able to pick up most light units with little difficulty, and they can potentially contribute significant damage to something bigger if opponents don't dedicate resources into picking them up. I originally thought Belial might be Jack's homefield objective holder, but upon reflection I think Sammy gets that job. Sammy has the Mounted keyword, so he can sticky the backfield objective with Hunter's Trail and then zoom out and be a nuisance, and/or take care of any light units opponents might drop in the backfield to score Secondaries. Belial, I think, exists in the list because he's 75 points with a Terminator Captain's body and Deep Strike. Jack can drop him somewhere either to score points or to give Lion Dad a friendly Infantry model to activate his Lion Op ability.  It's also kind of funny that all of Belial's attacks have Precision, so he might use his Damage 2 storm bolter to spritz a pesky support character like an Apothecary or Hospitaller out of a unit.

Jack got the event off to a roaring start, massacring Mont'ka T'au (Priority) 100-16! I want to stop for a second - assuming that player showed up with a painted list, that means Jack somehow limited him to scoring 6 points! Jack must have tabled him by Turn 3 or something. 

Getting back to the event performance, 2nd round one of our brethren, Dominic Drury with his UTF+Lib Con (T&H) list, had the honor of pairing into Jack . Jack administered a crushing 95-34 beating to Dominic, who went on to go 4-2, which is still a very respectable event performance. 3rd round Jack brutalized Imperial Knights (Foebreakers+Valourstrike; Purge) 100-50. 4th round he scored a close 89-80 against the Salamanders list (Forgefather's+Lib Con; Priority). 5th round T'au came back for more, this time with the Kroot Hunting Pack (T&H), and did better but got drubbed 100-75. 6th round Jack faced War Horde Orks (T&H), but coolly stomped them 100-70. Congratulations on the win Jack! Represent!

Our next list arguably performed better than the last one. It belongs to Noah Lockard, who took his CoH+Darkflight (Recon) list to Lone Star Open 2026 - Warhammer 40k Champs held in Allen TX, went 6-0, and took 2nd out of 336 players. You can see Noah's list on BCP. Let's check it out below. 

Bikes
Lion Dad - Warlord
Sammael
Ravenwing Command Squad
    Attached: Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Ravenwing Command Squad: Recon Hunter
    Attached: Outrider Squad: 3 choppy boys
Ravenwing Command Squad
    Attached: Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Azrael
    Attached: Sternguard Veteran Squad: 5 awesome bolter boys
Incursor Squad: 5 spotty boys
Invader ATV: gatling cannon buggy
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Land Speeder Vengeance
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

This list is more like what I'd expect a Company of Hunters plus Darkflight to look like. It's got the bike squads to run forward and put the hurt on opponents, and the Land Speeders Vengeance to provide fire support. In a sense it's not unlike the previous list, only Noah decided to take the choice of whether or not to face the pain in melee out of his opponents' hands with melee that can come across the table to rapidly deliver it. 

He's got 3 units of 6 bikes, with Sammy leading one of them. He attached a Ravenwing Command Squad with Recon Hunter to a squad of 3 Outriders, giving him a unit that can bomb forward and potentially reach into an opponent's deployment zone Turn 1. He has Sammy leading a second version of that package, giving him a unit with two Damage 3 melee weapons that can go through walls  and hit targets that opponents might think otherwise safe. His third Command Squad is attached to Black Knights, bringing less raw damage in the Fight phase, but a heck of a lot more damage in the Shooting phase, and potentially delivering Devastating Wounds to something big the two Outrider-based squads might struggle with. 

For the non-Ravenwing units, Lion Dad is a heavy-hitting melee threat all by himself. Now that he has Mobile and we can have him Advance and Charge, he can keep up better with the Mounted units, hitting alongside them and granting his melee buff. Being able to give him Lance on top of that will occasionally be useful, if we have to put him into a Great Unclean One or Knight Castellan or something like that. Azrael is present attached to a small unit of Sternguard, which isn't a bad choice. It gives Noah something that can reliably put damage into any units opponents might try to drop in his backfield, but doesn't tie up too many points doing it. 

For utility units, Noah included an Incursor Squad, an Invader ATV, and a pair of Scout Squads. I think the ATV is his backfield objective holder. It's cheap, and he can use strats to have it sticky the objective and go into Reserve from the table. He made an unusual choice by equipping it with the Onslaught cannon instead of the multimelta, but I'm here for it. It's got a relatively small footprint and opponents often put a pretty weedy unit on their backfield objective, so it's got the potential to pop out in that back corner and threaten it. The pair of Scout Squads are always useful. Noah really wants to have them hold open corridors for his bike squads to advance through, and then stand in places to score points, and potentially grant Lion Dad is Lion Op.

Noah got the event off to a good start, brutalizing Mont'ka T'au (Priority) 100-40. 2nd round he had a close 75-67 against Freebooter+Equatorial Orks (T&H), which is one of the more meta combinations right now. 3rd round he faced more Orks (War Horde; T&H), crushing them 100-43. 4th round he humbled Berzerker World Eaters (Purge) 100-77. 5th round he drubbed EPC+Kauyon T'au (Priority) 95-60. 6th round he faced his third Orks list (Freebooter+Equatorial; T&H again), prevailing with a comfortable 97-81. Good job on the undefeated record Noah!

The last list we're looking at today belongs to Jeremy Atkinson, who took his CoH+Darkflight (Recon) list to The Salt City GT 40K Grand Tournament held in Syracuse, NY. He went 6-1 and placed 2nd out of 100 players. You can see Jeremy's list on BCP. Let's check it out below.

- Error - Ravenwing Lion Dad - Warlord Azrael     Attached: Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys Sammael Ravenwing Command Squad: Recon Hunter     Attached: Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys Intercessor Squad: 5 bolter boys Land Speeder Land Speeder Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery Land Speeder Vengeance: Nightforged Battery Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys Ravenwing Darkshroud  Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads Storm Speeder Thunderstrike

As you can see, this list is pretty similar to the last two. There's Lion Dad, Azrael with ICCs, and Sammy and a RWCS attached to Outriders to punch things, and a trio of Vengeances for shooting things, with some help from Land Speeders and a Thunderstrike. There's an Intercessor Squad for holding the backfield objective, a pair of Scout Squads for forward deploying to secure lanes of advance, early skirmishing, and utility work, and a Ravenwing Black Knight squad as a trading piece. As we've seen from the previous lists, it's a pretty well-tested template. 

I want to talk for a second about the Ravenwing Darkshroud. We've been lamenting the loss of Inner Circle Companions being -2 to be hit by Shooting attacks, but we can still get that double-debuff for our Ravenwing units. The Darkshroud provides Benefit of Cover, which debuffs Ballistic Skill, and then we can play High-speed Focus on any Ravenwing unit, which subtracts 1 from Hit rolls till the end of the Shooting phase. That can really put a crimp in opponents' ability to shoot down the Vengeances. Plus, it's a 70 point unit that just needs to exist in a space to provide its protective aura, so it can peform actions if you need it to. 

Jeremy got off to a good start, thrashing Admech (Rad-zone Corps; Lords of the Forge; Priority) 100-60 in the 1st round. 2nd round he scored a close 84-77 against Lions-MoM Custodes (T&H). 3rd round he trounced Hallowed Martyrs Sororitas (Priority) 100-57. 4th round was a tight 100-91 against Hearthguard+Mercenary Votann (Priority). 5th round he pummeled Foebreakers-Valourstrike Imperial Knights (Purge) 100-62. 6th round he smashed Freebooter-Equatorial Orks (T&H) 100-66. His rampage finally got stopped with a brutal 45-100 stomping by Emperor's Children (Carnival of Excess+Frenzied Host; Recon). A disappointing ending, but a 6-round winning streak and a 6-1 record to finish 2nd place is nothing to sneeze at. Well done Jeremy!

Honorable Mentions

Christian Alessi went 6-0 at Lone Star Open 2026 with his CoH+Darkflight (Recon) list and took 5th out of 335 players. 

James Walsh went 4-1 with his CoH+Darkflight (Disrupt) list and took 7th out of 43 players at Village Brawl. 

Joshua Conant went 4-1 with his Inner Circle Task Force+Librarius Conclave (Priority) list at Ringkriege 7 "Castle Clash" and took 6th out of 50 players. 

Hunter Williams went 4-1-1 with his ICTF+Lib Con (Priority) list at Denver 40K Fight Club Aug Open ‘26 and took 8th out of 81 players. 

Joshua Kopp went 4-1 with his Wrath of the Rock (Priority) list at OtherRealms Battle for Brew-mageddon and took 4th out of 26 players. 

 

Well done, my brethren! I salute you!

Statistics

It was quite a big weekend for Dark Angels players. 57 of our brethren played 322 games and won 171 of them, for a reasonable-but-high 53% win rate. We scored 8 X/0-X/1 results, with 4 podium finishes and 1 event win. 

Company of Hunters was our most popular single detachment at 21 players and a 64% win rate.

Company of Hunters and Darkflight Pursuit tied for the most popular combination of detachments, with 13 players and a 66% win rate. This combo scored 5 X/0-X/1 results, with 4 of those being podium finishes, one of which was an event win. 11 of those players chose the Recon dispo, 2 chose Disruption.

Wrath of the Rock also had 13 players who scored a 51% win rate and 1 X/1 result.

Inner Circle Task Force plus Librarius Conclave (Priority) had 9 players, a 48% win rate, and 1 X/1 result.

Unforgiven Task Force had 6 players. 3 combined it with Lib Con, 2 with Darkflight, 1 with Dark Age Arsenal. Between them they scored a 37% win rate.

The only one of our 1 point detachments that saw much use was the Dark Age Arsenal, with 11 players. 5 combined it with CoH, 1 each with ICTF, UTF, and Firestorm, 1 with Darkflight and Fulguris, and 2 with Darkflight and Lib Con. All told they scored a 52% win rate.

What to Watch Out For

Orks continued to be the top faction in the meta, with 9 top three finishes. 

Emperor's Children had 6 top three finishes.

Space Wolves had 5 top three finishes.

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!