Dark Angels Update 10/5/2026 - Last Hurrahs and New Beginnings
First, we're going to do things in bass-ackward order and take a look at the statistics of the weekend.
Statistics
It wasn't as big a weekend as the previous one, but it wasn't a small weekend either. Las Vegas Open was held over the weekend, with 678 players overall and 33 Dark Angels players in particular, making up roughly half of the 61 Dark Angels players of the weekend. Overall, our brethren played 331 games and won 177 of them for a net 54% win rate, 7 X/0-X/1 results, 3 podium finishes, and 1 event win.
Company of Hunters + Darkflight Pursuit wrapped up its reign of terror as the most played and most successful detachment, with 30 players who earned a 64% win rate and all but 1 of the X-results, including the podium finishes and event win.
Wrath of the Rock in its 3 DP incarnation ended the pre-codex meta with a respectable 15 players and 51% win rate. Only 1 X-result was from a Wrath list, though I suspect there would have been more if CoH+Darkflight didn't exist.
The remaining 14 pre-codex lists used a diverse array of detachment combos, though no one combo was played by more than 3 players.
Top Lists
Jack Murphy is having a busy month. Fresh from having scored 4th place at the London GT last week, he jetted over to Los Angeles to take 4th place at the Las Vegas Open with a slightly-tweaked CoH+Darkflight list.
David Anderson took 7th at LVO with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Daniel Kelley took 9th at LVO with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Benjamin Fredericksen prevailed over 29 other players to take 1st place at the BCB 40K Championship GT with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Honorable Mentions
Sven Xu went 5-1 and took 19th place at LVO with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Conan Jennings went 5-1 and took 35th place at LVO with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Edwin Mehta went 4-1-1 and took 70th place at LVO with his Wrath of the Rock list.
Lachlan Booth went 4-1 and took 5th out of 51 at Bendigo open 2026 with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Tommy Pfrommer went 4-1 and took 4th out of 43 at 3. Traunstein Cup with his CoH+Darkflight list.
Brethren, I salute you!
A Peek At The New
The one event using the new codex rules was Pilsen Meta Rift Fall 2026. Two Dark Angels lists were played at that event. The more successful of the two belongs to Jan Brožák, who went 3-2 and took 10th out of 40 players with his Wrath of the Rock + Assault Brethren (T&H) list. Let's have a look at that!
Koťátko Riftí
Lion Dad - Warlord
Ezekial
Attached: Inner Circle Companions: 6 spooky awesome swordy boys
Captain in Terminator Armour: Deathwing Assault
Attached: Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Chaplain on Bike: Imperium's Sword
Ravenwing Command Squad
Attached: Outrider Squad: 3 choppy biker boys
Bladeguard Veteran Squad: 3 awesome swordy-boardy boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Terminator Squad: 5 awesome chonky boltery-fisty boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start with the detachments. For starters, Wrath of the Rock is now a 2 DP detachment with the Take & Hold detachment. It still has the Dutiful Tenacity detachment rule we all know and love. The Enhancements are mostly the same, though Ancient Weapons caught a nerf and no longer adds to a weapon's Damage attribute - probably because Damage 3 Thunder Hammers are now a thing and GW didn't want Dark Angels running around with Damage 4 T-hammers.
There's been an overhaul of stratagems. Only Lion's Will and Relics of the Dark Age still do what we're familiar with. Inescapable Justice now gives a unit's melee attacks Precision, which is cute and may be worth playing sometimes. There's In Sacrifice, Victory, which allows a Deathwing or Ravenwing unit to sticky an objective they just got killed on. Tactical Mastery lets you put a unit in a Doctrine for a turn. And, coming to us from the Lion's Blade, Knights of Iron confers Mobile to a Ravenwing Unit that was selected to move or declares a charge - important to note this does not appear to be phase-locked, so you can use it when a unit makes an out-of-phase move for whatever reason.
Wrath may be keyworded as a Terminator detachment, but I'd argue it makes a pretty fair Bike detachment too, between Knights of Iron and Relics of the Dark Age, and Toughness 6 Bikes that are -1 to be wounded will stick around on the table longer.
The other detachment Jan chose is Assault Brethren, which I think we're going to see a lot of. We have a lot of units that we like that are good at punching things, and Assault Bros gives one extra turn of Assault Doctrine, two good Enhancements and two good Stratagems. The Imperium's Sword enhancement gives a character a 6 attack 2+ Strength 7 AP -3 Damage 3 melee profile whose only assignment stipulation is Adeptus Astartes model - so if you want an Apothecary that can outfight a Captain, this is your jam. Then there's Furious Assault (keyworded to AA Infantry), granting the attached unit Sustained Hits 1: non-Monster/Vehicle. That's probably the best 10 point enhancement GW has ever published.
The stratagem suite gives Armour of Contempt, Gene-wrought Might, and Duty in Death. AoC you're already familiar with, and if you want it you have to take one of the Bros detachments. Gene-wrought Might gives Lance, with +1 AP in Assault Doctrine. Duty in Death is a 4+ Fight-on-Death with +1 to the roll if you're in Assault Doctrine. A pretty handy compliment to the strats in Wrath.
Now let's look at the units Jan brought, starting with Lion Dad. I don't feel the need to analyze his profile much here. If you're reading this, you know what it is. He's definitely been buffed from his earlier incarnation, with higher Toughness, more Wounds, and he always has a 4+++ against Mortals and randomly Psychic attacks now. However, he's 415 points. That is a not-insignificant chunk, so you can't just windmill-slam him into every list and expect him to be worth the investment. By way of comparison, a full 10-man Deathwing Terminator squad is 380 points. So, if you're using Lion Dad, you're really going to need to be leveraging his buffing auras to get maximum value from him.
Jan did that very thing with a healthy heaping of Deathwing units. He's got 2 units of Deathwing Knights (one attached to a Terminator Captain with Deathwing Assault for that 1st turn Ingress, the other with Furious Assault), a 5-man squad of Deathwing Terminators with Furious Assault, a full squad of Inner Circle Companions with Furious Assault led by (curiously) Ezekial, and a 3-man squad of Bladeguard which I figure are his backfield objective holders. All of these units are going to get a lot out of Lion Dad's Inspire The Boys (aka Martial Exemplar) ability. I'm just a little curious about pairing Ezekial with Inner Circle Companions. With him granting them +1 Attack, I see the logic, but I'd prefer to pair him with Bladeguard so they have that 4++ save, especially when you Lance on tap from a strat.
Jan didn't leave out Ravenwing entirely. He's got a Bike Chaplain+Ravenwing Command Squad+Outrider brick. With the Outrider Sergeant now able to take a thunder hammer, that's a unit that hits a lot harder than it used to. Especially note that weapon profile from Imperium's Sword is not a T-hammer, so it gets the +1 Strength and + 1 Damage buff from the Outriders' datasheet ability. Bike Chappy is roaring in swinging Damage 4 attacks with Lance, backed up by two unit members that are swinging Damage 3 attacks. That's a missile that will pick up some stuff.
For utility units, Jan just has a squad of Scouts. He's playing Take & Hold, so he doesn't really need button pushers. He just needs something to forward deploy to keep opponents from gunking up the midfield with chaff.
Jan had a strong 1st round, crushing Berzerker+Vessels (Purge) World Eaters 100-45. 2nd round he spanked VotLW+CoC Chaos Marines ( T&H) 94-57. 3rd round he suffered a 73-88 loss against Mechanised+Bridgehead Astra Militarum (Priority). 4th round he scored a comfortable 91-72 against PoP+SV Death Guard (Priority). 5th round he had a close loss, 88-95 against Conceited Emperor's Children (Priority). Man, he only missed going 4-1 by 8 points! Good showing Jan!
The other new model army list we have to look at belongs to Jiří Drex, who went 2-3 and wound up in 23rd place. Jiří rocked up with a Wrath+Inner Circle Task Force (T&H) list, which seems like a pretty natural pairing. Let's check it out.
Zkuste me z toho objectivu sundat
Lion Dad - Warlord
Ezekial
Bladeguard Ancient
Attached: Bladeguard Veteran Squad: 6 awesome swordy-boardy boys
Captain in Terminator Armour: Champion of the Deathwing
Attached: Deathwing Terminator Squad: 10 awesome chonky boltery-fisty boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky macey boys
Deathwing Knights: 5 awesome chonky swordy boys
Ravenwing Black Knights: 3 awesome plasma biker boys
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
Scout Squad: 5 sneaky lads
We've already discussed Wrath, so let's take a look at the Inner Circle Task Force. The ICTF's detachment rule grants Deathwing Infantry's attacks +1 to Wound against units on the Objective you vow in the Command phase. That's a downgrade from what it had been previously, but ICTF is a 1-DP detachment now and that ability seems appropriate for a 1 DP detachment. Plus, in the context of 11th edition, it is straight-up better than that same ability in 10th.
For Enhancements, there's Singular Will and Champion of the Deathwing. For 20 points, Singular Will grants a Deathwing unit D3+3 Consolidation moves. Note, not Consolidation and Pile-In moves, just Consolidation moves. I'm a little underwhelmed by that. Champion of the Deathwing, on the other hand, for the same 20 points grants Sustained Hits 1 to a units attacks targeting a unit on a Vowed objective. Yes please I'd like some more of that. It does kind of encourage sticking it on big units to get maximum effect out of it, which is going to incline players to bind up a lot of their points in one unit, which is the downside. Also, it's a character Enhancement keyworded to Deathwing Infantry, so there's no sticking it on a Librarian and attaching him to a Sternguard squad.
I'm a little less enchanted with the stratagems from this detachment, though I think they'd pair well with other detachments. There's Relic Teleportarium, which grants Deathwing Infantry with Deep Strike a 6" minimum bubble instead of the usual 8", but with the usual no-charges caveat. Duty Unto Death is a 4+ Fights-on-Death with +1 to the rolls on a Vowed objective, and Wrath of the Lion grants Deathwing Infantry impact Mortals in the Charge phase on a 3+ roll per Engaged model to a maximum of 6.
Clearly the big stick of Jiří's list is the big brick of Deathwing Terminators with the CotD Captain. Within 12" that's 40 storm bolter shots and either 4 krak Cyclone shots or 16 frag Cyclone shots with Blast 2, all potentially with Sustained Hits 1, +2 Strength, and/or +1 to Wound. Not to mention if that unit sticks its charge (the Captain retained his ability to reroll charges) and they crash into something with all those power fist attacks. The downsides are it's a lot of points to stick in one basket, and it can only stand in one place at a time, but it's got a big enough footprint it could plausibly stand on two objectives, especially if there are two center objectives, as they tend to be pretty close to each other.
Jiří's other big combo unit is the Bladeguard Veterans with Ezekial and the Bladeguard Ancient. That pair of characters grants the unit +2 attacks, which is a big steaming pile of attacks, and not dependent on hitting a Vowed objective, though they may need the +1 to Wound as their Master-crafted power swords are still only Strength 5. Ezekial's sword is Strength 6 though, and while it lost the random Anti-Chaos 2+ it used to have, it has Precision, as do all of his ranged attacks, and he does cute Battle-shock things with his Psychic powers which can be helpful in a T&H list, but really you take him for the +1 Attacks he hands out.
Supplementing these two packages, Jiří brought Lion Dad and two squads of Deathwing Knights, which are known quantities. For utility units, he's got two squads of Scouts and one small squad of Ravenwing Knights, which are likely in the list to go hunt down enemy skirmishing units.
Jiří had a good 1st round, drubbing Combined Arms+Bridgehead Militarum (Priority) 96-69. 2nd round he took a 77-93 loss against Reaper's Drukhari (Priority). 3rd round he took a 93-82 loss against CC+LoF Mechanicus (Priority). 4th round he squeaked out a 97-94 win against Warpbame Grey Knights (T&H). 5th round he took a 90-74 loss against Awakened Necrons (T&H). A negative record at an event is always disappointing, but Jiří didn't get blown out in any of his games. You gave a good account of yourself buddy!
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. I reckon this weekend the floodgates will open, and we'll see the full spectrum of what we've all schemed up! Until next week my brethren. May your games be fun and victorious. For the Lion!
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