Flying on the Wings of Victory

Hello everyone! Still-not-first ITC Dark Angels Gunum here, bringing you another write-up on trying to come up with my own powerful Dark Angel meta, one unit at a time. This time with a special guest, a fellow Goonhammer writer, Wings (as Cyle is away for the week). I’ll see if I can bring him over to my side of righteousness and hopefully provide him with a much-needed distraction from all of his ELDAR he’s playing.

The way I do this, is that I’ll start with a unit that I think has some real Gold-Star potential that you could bring to a competitive event and have a real shot at doing well, and then build a list around it. Hopefully, through my painful and almost methodical thought process, you’ll be able to glean some insight on how even if some units or even ideas are bad, you can still take a battle plan to an event and see it through with some success. These lists will be primarily Dark Angels focused, but I play a wide variety of armies and will explore this format often.

In Cyle’s absence, James “One_Wing” Grover is stepping up to the plate and preparing his most skeptical eyebrow. James is normally seen piloting Eldar lists when he heads to events, but is one of Goonhammer’s regular authors on Codex reviews and Start Competing, and also does list reviews for tournaments he attends, so is more than ready to have opinions about Space Marines. He also has a special affinity for Dark Angels, as being exposed to Final Fantasy VII at an impressionable age has given him a lifelong appreciation for the swords, robes and wing aesthetic (as well as a screen name he’s still stuck with). He also loves planes, which can only help here.

++++++Wings’ Notes++++++

Look I really want Dark Angels to be good, OK, so I’m game to play along here. Like a lot of early codexes, they’re stuck in that frustrating limbo where it’s clear from recent releases that GW understands how to fix their problems, they just haven’t got round to it yet. It feels like there’s a good amount of untapped design potential scattered among the Ravenwing, Deathwing and Inner Circle theming, it just currently hasn’t really had much done with it. However, the thing Dark Angels definitely do have going for them is that their various weird and wonderful units are frequently nearly great, so I’m hoping that in Chase’s hands one of them can be molded into something that stands out.

++++++End Notes++++++

You know, that’s a really kind thing to say… I’m so used to being down-trodden by Cyle that maybe this will be a great new experience. I mean, the Inner Circle thing… I’ll just pass by that! The rest totally fits though.

This week the unit I will be trying to focus on is…

~Dark Talons~

The List