Warhammer 40K: Detachment Breakdown – Mastering the Dark Angel’s “Lion’s Blade Task Force”
Goatboy here to breakdown the 40K Advent Calendar Detachment – the Dark Angels ‘Lions Blade Task Force’ with tips, tricks, and a sample army!
With this 2024 Advent Calendar of fun stuff for Warhammer 40K coming out, it’s time to review the detachments as they come out. We’ll do as usual a Good, Bad, and Ugly little break down for each one then a look at the type of list I would play for this army. I will begin with one of the detachments and as the weeks go on break down a few in batches as they come out. I am very excited to see some new rules and maybe some new ways to play an army and create something new and unique. Right now the game is sorta of locking into “best” of style armies and while we do have some innovation from time to time it feels like the same tricks are what is going to carry “best of” armies to the top.
‘Lion’s Blade Task Force’ – The Good
The good news is that this is one of the “match old play styles” army detachments. The specific design it is trying to match up is the old days of Ravenwing being the scouting force for a crush blow of Deathwing terminators that suddenly appear in a crack of thunder and smell of ozone. You can see this in how the army really wants you to utilize both sides of the Ravenwing coin and create a combo force of Dark Angels destruction.
They do this by two sets of Detachment rules that utilize each part of the Dark Angels. The overall rule is called In The Lion’s Claws and it gives two abilities. One is for every Ravenwing unit to have the ability to force desperate escape tests when a unit they are engaged with tries to fallback. The other is that if a unit is in Engagement range with a Ravenwing unit, a Deathwing unit gets a +2 to charge that unit. This can allow you to get some fun 7-inch charges out of Deep Strike for your Terminators as well as create the “combo” aspect they want to push with this army build.
From there we have a host of other little combos to push this even further with some Enhancements and Stratagems to help round things out. There are two pretty interesting enhancements that I feel will be taken most of the time. One is the Calibanite Armaments which is a simple upgrade that gives an Adeptus Astartes model a +1 to their damage characters on their close combat weapons. Anything that helps a model hit that sweet 3 damage can be scary for a character. The other enhancement is Fulgus Magna which is a very simple upgrade to a Deathwing Character that allows the model and unit to be picked up during the end of your opponents turn and go back into strategic reserves. As we all know this is one of the few ways your an get a “first turn” deep strike if you are going Second and will be one of the big ways this Detachment will inject some Deathwing Knights into the enemies army.
The Stratagems seem pretty decent as they continue to get Armour of Contempt as another “protection” power in Strength in Unity that can used in the Fight Phase and gives each type of Dark Angels a different ability. The Ravenwing gets -1 to hit and the Deathwing gets -1 to wound if the attack Strength is greater than the toughness of the Deathwing unit. You can’t combo that one with Armour of Contempt. The next important one is the Knights of Iron that allows your Ravenwing to Ignore terrain during the Movement or Charge phase. It is worded that you can “use it” after you roll for a charge so you can check to see if your Bike Riding knights can make it thru the wall and into the enemy.
The Final one is of course the newest “Heroic Intervention” like power. It is a 2 CP stratagem that allows your Deathwing Infantry or Walker to declare a charge at a the end of your opponent’s charge phase if a unit is within 6”. The big thing is that it doesn’t need a charge to occur near it so it could be very powerful as if you somehow end within 6” of some Deathwing chumps you can expect them to get mixed in quickly.
‘Lion’s Blade Task Force’ – The Bad
I think this army really suffers from the Ravenwing side of things not being nearly as interesting as the Deathwing side. It also suffers from wanting both parts of the army together thus muddling a bit of what makes these dour boys good. I was always hoping more of the biker options were better for the Dark Angels or a return of the “character” speeders from the past.
The army also suffers from the fact that the Gladius Detachment for Space Marines just gives you a ton more “goodies” to play with when compared to this one. Between just the extra rules of shifting from the different Doctrines and some of the damage combos this choice is just a hard sell to really push the Dark Angels. It just feels like for any of the Marine Supplement choices to be picked they need to do more.
‘Lion’s Blade Task Force’ – The Ugly
Really the truly only ugly thing is the Lion El’Johnson continues to not have either the Ravenwing or the Deathwing keyword. It just feels off that the leader of this great army of robe loving meanies still can’t get that keyword. Would it be too powerful? Probably not as any combo you could really push would get knocked down by this guy just not having the Infantry keyword. It just feels like a simple tweak that could easily have rules written around it to make sure it isn’t nearly as devastating as it could be.
Sample Detachment Armylist – Lion’s Blade Task Force
Dark Angels
Lion’s Blade Task Force
Strike Force
CHARACTERS
Captain in Terminator Armour (115 Points)
• 1x Relic fist
• 1x Storm bolter
• 1x Fulgus Magna
Captain in Terminator Armour (110Points)
• 1x Relic fist
• 1x Storm bolter
• 1x Calibanite Armaments
Captain in Terminator Armour (95 Points)
• 1x Relic fist
• 1x Storm bolter
Ravenwing Command Squad (120 Points)
• 1x Ravenwing Champion
◦ 1x Bolt pistol
◦ 1x Master-crafted power weapon
◦ 1x Plasma talon
• 1x Ravenwing Apothecary
◦ 1x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 1x Bolt pistol
◦ 1x Plasma talon
• 1x Ravenwing Ancient
◦ 1x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 1x Bolt pistol
◦ 1x Plasma talon
Sammael (115 Points)
• Warlord
• 1x Bolt Pistol
• 1x Master-crafted plasma cannon
• 1x The Raven Sword
• 1x Twin storm bolter
OTHER DATASHEETS
Brutalis Dreadnought (160 Points)
• 1x Brutalis talons
• 1x Twin Icarus ironhail heavy stubber
• 1x Twin multi-melta
Brutalis Dreadnought (160 Points)
• 1x Brutalis bolt rifles
• 1x Brutalis fists
• 1x Twin Icarus ironhail heavy stubber
• 1x Twin heavy bolter
Deathwing Knights (250 Points)
• 1x Knight Master
◦ 1x Great weapon of the Unforgiven
• 4x Deathwing Knight
◦ 4x Mace of absolution
Deathwing Knights (250 Points)
• 1x Knight Master
◦ 1x Great weapon of the Unforgiven
• 4x Deathwing Knight
◦ 4x Mace of absolution
Deathwing Knights (250 Points)
• 1x Knight Master
◦ 1x Great weapon of the Unforgiven
• 4x Deathwing Knight
◦ 4x Mace of absolution
Ravenwing Black Knights (180 Points)
• 1x Ravenwing Huntmaster
◦ 1x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 1x Bolt pistol
◦ 1x Plasma talon
• 5x Ravenwing Black Knight
◦ 5x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 5x Bolt pistol
◦ 5x Plasma talon
Ravenwing Black Knights (180 Points)
• 1x Ravenwing Huntmaster
◦ 1x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 1x Bolt pistol
◦ 1x Plasma talon
• 5x Ravenwing Black Knight
◦ 5x Black Knight combat weapon
◦ 5x Bolt pistol
◦ 5x Plasma talon
Lion’s Blade Strike Force Tactics
The idea here is to utilize your larger Ravenwing units to go touch/grab enemy units and get a pile of +2 to charge rolls for all your Deathwing stuff. The two Walkers would get a +2 as well which can help as they crash in, throw out some mortal wounds, and hopefully break the enemies line. The one Terminator unit with Captain and the Fulgus relic could do a surprise redeploy on the 2nd half of Turn one if you happen to go second or a way to crash into your enemies backfield and get mixed in. It should be a fast moving army as you try and get Ravenwing units where they need to be and the hammer crushing Terminators following afterward.
Download the Detachment Here (PDF)
For The Lion!
