Deathwing Knights
SWORD: what Deathwing Knights kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 255 pts kill ~110 pts in one activation.Typical melee unit: 55 per 100
Best against line infantry, weakest against hordes
Into each enemy type
SHIELD: how hard Deathwing Knights is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 255 pts take ~1114 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical melee unit: 307 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
In Dark Angels
Across the game· melee units
What creators say
7 creators- Near-unkillable anvil that holds the middle 6 of 7
- Two units in most lists 3 of 7
- Love the detachment's wound penalty 2 of 7
- Cheap for the first two units 1 of 7
- Protection does not stack with other sources 2 of 7
- Hit poorly into the toughest Terminators 1 of 7
- Down from last edition 1 of 7
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deathwing Knights255 pts | A | Bottom 24% | Top 9% | 210of 323 |
| Deathwing Terminator Squad190 pts | B | Bottom 36% | Top 38% | 46of 323 |
| Inner Circle Companions180 pts | A | Top 33% | Top 34% | 131of 323 |
With a leader
| Solo | Led | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 65 | 65 |
| SHIELD | 437 | 437 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then with the leader joined.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Deathwing Knights, 5 models, 255 pts, with 1 Great Weapon of the Unforgiven, 4 Mace of Absolution, in Wrath of the Rock. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: its own abilities and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
255 pts → kills ~110 pts → 43 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~1114 pts → 437 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 566 melee units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 7 creators' newest Dark Angels tier lists: Black Crow Gaming (Lion's Den Dark Angels unit tier list, a DA GT player and his Death Guard opponent) (22 Oct), TacticalRock40K (epic heroes after the codex, 24 Oct; the Dark Angels board of 28 Jun for the other units) (24 Oct), Battleborn 40k (a Dark Angels tournament player on the new points, and three lists from one core) (27 Oct), Auspex Tactics (Dark Angels full rules review after the update, with three 3-0 lists) (5 Oct), TacticalTortoise (The Best Armies in 40k: the two undefeated Dark Angels GT lists, 12 and 19 Oct) (19 Oct), Art of War 40k (new Dark Angels units and detachments, preview points) (19 Sep), Grimdark Breakdown (the leaked Dark Angels rules, guessed points) (21 Sep). Questions? Get in touch.
Lists
323 public Dark Angels tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer, MiniHeadQuarters, ChampionsHub. Questions about a list or an event? Get in touch. Numbers run 6 Nov.