Detachment Focus: Wrath of the Rock

With the June 2025 Balance Dataslate, Games Workshop is once again giving us new Detachments to go along with balance updates. In this article we’re going to be looking at the new Wrath of the Rock detachment for Dark Angels – what it does and how to play it.

Bob Seger is coming out of retirement, and he’s got a new hit on his hands, “Wrath of the Rock.” Get in your Chevy and head down to the worksite while we cover Caliban’s latest detachment..

The Dark Angels detachments have not gotten a whole lot of play in 10th edition. Company of Hunters and Inner Circle have their fans, but the vast majority of players tend to take the excellent Dark Angels datasheets and use them in vanilla marine detachments. They don’t get the wound bonus on the Oath of Moment target, but the appeal of Big Azrael and 16-21 of his closest friends in the Deathwing can’t be discounted. Wrath of the Rock is Games Workshop’s latest attempt at luring the forces of Caliban back to their home.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

This newest Dark Angels detachment focuses on a combined force – the relentless terminator-clad Deathwing, the speedy hunters of the Deathwing, and the miscellaneousness of the regular green Dark Angels. This detachment exemplifies the stoic and unyielding nature of the Dark Angels – you hit them and they just keep coming.

All three groups really enjoy the benefit of the Detachment rule, and each get a specific benefit from one of the stratagems. The only group left by the wayside are the vehicles of the chapter – Ironwing stans will be seething. The Lion himself, funnily enough, also does not get much specific benefit here, although he will be happy enough with his datasheet improvements.

Detachment Rule: Dutiful Tenacity

Each time an attack targets an Infantry or Mounted unit from your army, if the Strength characteristic is greater than the Toughness characteristic of that unit, subtract 1 from that Wound roll.

With the removal of full-phase Armour of Contempt in last Winter’s dataslate, the durability of the Dark Angels units has been lacking of late. An army-wide -1 to wound ability against strong weapons, a benefit we used to call Transhuman in previous editions, goes a long way towards fixing that. There are few things more demoralizing to your opponent than telling them that they’re actually wounding you on 4s, not 3s. Forcing them to have to use a Lance stratagem to have any shot at pushing a good number of wounds through is just solid. Most Deathwing units already have protection versus Devastating and Mortal wounds through their Watchers in the Dark, so you’d need to suffer those in two separate phases for them to stick. By then, your Knights will have already done their damage.

Enhancements

The four options here are mostly solid and relatively cheap. The biggest drawback to them is that Epic Heroes can’t take them – you’ll need someone other than Azrael, Sammael, or the Lion to hold them, and they might already be eating up your character budget.

• Tempered in Battle (Aura) (10 pts): While a friendly ADEPTUS ASTARTES model is within 6” of this model, you can reroll Battle-shock and Leadership rolls for that unit. If you got ten points to spare, why not?
• Ancient Weapons (25 pts): Improve the Strength characteristic of the bearer’s melee weapons by 2, and the Armour Penetration and Damage characteristics of those weapons by 1. Expensive, so if you can take it, make sure to get a lot of use out of it. Windmill slam this onto a Gravis Captain with a Chainsword for the highest value. It also has use to help a Chaplain actually pull their weight, with the very funny option to go to Damage 4 when taken with an Outrider squad.
• Deathwing Assault (15 pts): DEATHWING model with the Deep Strike ability only. The Bearer’s unit can be set up using the Deep Strike ability in the Reinforcements step of your first, second, or third Movement phase, regardless of mission rules. The same great enhancement from the Inner Circle detachment at half the price. Worth taking if only to psyche out your opponent.
• Lord of the Ravenwing (10 pts): RAVENWING model only. You can reroll Advance and Charge rolls for the bearer’s unit. Cheap and extremely useful, but the big caveat that only Biker Chaplains and Ravenwing Champions can apply means you’ll never take it.

Deathwing Assault and Ancient Weapons are the clear winners here, with the other two being ones you’ll take if and only if you have the points available, or in a future where there are better Biker units.

Stratagems

It will be worth refamiliarizing yourself with what codex units get the -wing keywords. RAVENWING are any MOUNTED or FLY units, while DEATHWING are terminators, most 1st company units, Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, and Repulsors, though the latter two don’t get much benefit here.

• Inescapable Justice (2 CP): Any phase, after your Oath of Moment target is killed, you can pick a new oath target, provided it is within 12” of one of your ADEPTUS ASTARTES characters. The big blue boy can’t have all the fun. Expensive, and might be worth working a Captain into your list to make the cost go down just a little bit.
• Lion’s Will (1 CP): Command Phase, pick an ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit in engagement range, until your next Command Phase they’ll get +1 OC, and if they are not a DEATHWING, RAVENWING, or VEHICLE unit, you also get +1 to Hit. The boys in green want senpai to notice them. This is an excellent stratagem to use alongside a Lieutenant, as you get to fallback and shoot with that +1 to hit. It is a bit hard to be in combat with a good shooting unit, though.
• Armour of Contempt (1 CP): -1 to incoming AP for a single activation. You know it, Terminators in cover love it.
• Tactical Mastery (1 CP): In your movement phase, one ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit can shoot and charge in a turn where you advance, and if they’re RAVENWING, you can fall back then shoot and charge as well. The best parts of Gladius, in one teeny tiny stratagem. It should be noted that this does activate the second part of Sammael’s ability, unlike more other advance and charge strats.
• Relics of the Dark Age (1 CP): Your shooting phase, one ADEPTUS ASTARTES INFANTRY or MOUNTED unit, +2 Strength to their ranged weapons until the end of the phase. S10 Hellblasters and S11 Eradicators are the first thought, but Inceptors are another good option, and a big blob of Heavy Intercessors firing at S6 get awfully scary.
• Leonine Aggression (1 CP): End of the opponent’s charge phase, one ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit within 3” of one or more enemy units, or within 6” if they are DEATHWING. You can now charge that enemy unit, but don’t get Fights First. Cheaper and better here than in Lion’s Blade, and a good way to set up a unit for Lion’s Will.

Playing This Detachment

You’re going to want to focus on your infantry units here to get the most out of the Detachment Rule here, The obvious play here is to go for a kind of phased jail strategy – if you get the top of turn, then you can put the Lion and a large brick of Terminators or a unit of Deathwing Knights in your opponent’s face early to try to stop their early game scoring. By the time these units are dealt with, the rest of your army will be in a position to capitalize on your opponent’s disarray. You definitely will be vulnerable to infiltrators and scouts, who can zone out your alpha strike, and there’s also a 50/50 shot you lose the go-first roll, so this can’t be the only card in your deck.

Knowing when to launch your go-turn will be key. Your infantry will be among the most durable loyalist marines around, but your datasheets are expensive and every death will significantly hamper your own damage output. There are precious few ways to juice your own damage output here, so you’re going to have to make it count when you expose your assault threats. Hug cover and make good use the terrain on the board to minimize shooting and assault threats.

At least two units of Deathwing Knights, a brick of Inner Circle Companions, and Big Azrael are going to be essential here, and you might as well pencil them onto your army list after slotting in your basic scorers. Azrael in particular is key for his extra CP generation, so don’t put him in a position where he will die early. Remember that Azrael’s unit will have the DEATHWING keyword, so you won’t be getting sustained Hellblasters that hit on 2’s with Lion’s Will.

Strengths

• Plenty of Tools – most things you want in your pocket are available here – on demand Advance and charge, a way to get your infantry shooting past a big strength checkpoint, on-demand bonus OC, and 9th edition style counter charge are all great to have.
• Durability is Back – Transhuman style effects are deceptively effective. Every 2 your opponent will roll with their Angron will be like a dagger through their heart. Just be aware it won’t do anything versus masses of lower strength attacks.
• Finally a decent Dark Angels Detachment – The flavor is here, and it actually feels like you have a Detachment Rule, unlike Lion’s Blade. Just looking at it makes me excited to give Dark Angels a turn.

Weaknesses

• It isn’t Gladius Task Force – There’s a lot of tools here, but it pales in comparison to the gold standard Gladius. The fact that terminators locked in combat have no ability to leave and re-engage elsewhere is a huge downside. You only get to pick one detachment, and it’s hard to argue for giving up the sheer strategic flexibility of the Gladius. Wrath of the Rock will miss having access to Honour the Chapter for Lance and an AP bump.
• It isn’t Stormlance Task Force – Gladius’s big competitor, Stormlance makes all your slow power armor and terminator clad units so much faster. You get one advance/charge strat here, but a crashing wave of bodies is much more effective when all of them get there at once, rather than one unit at a time. Stormlance too has a Lance stratagem that Wrath sorely lacks.
• It is very CP hungry – all of the strategic buffs here require a stratagem to use, making Azrael near-mandatory, and you need to be very choosy about which ones you can afford to use. You can’t rely on having the points spare to afford a throwaway command reroll or Armour of Contempt to get you out of a sticky situation.

A Sample List

Deathwing Knight Moves - click to expand

The Deathwing Assault chaplain goes with the power sword Deathwing Knights to apply early pressure, and to ensure their swords can still slice up most vehicles on a 4+, and most infantry on a 2+. They should be pretty effective at bullying your opponent off of grabbing a midfield objective – if they touch one, they’ll need to eat a counter charge.

With no long range shooting, cracking transports is going to be your biggest concern. It might be worth giving up some of the scoring to fit in a Ballistus or a Vindicator to give you that option.

Final Thoughts

“Wrath of the Rock. Ooohhh, Wrath of the Rock.”

Will Wrath of the Rock be enough to pull the scions of Caliban away from the core Space Marine detachments? I’m not really sure it is, but it’s closer than any of the other detachments have been. Regardless, it looks to be a fun change of pace for veteran Dark Angel players who might be getting tired of running the same variations on Gladius and Stormlance lists week in and week out.

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