Detachment Focus: Company of Hunters

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Company of Hunters Detachment from Codex Supplement: Dark Angels.

There wasn’t a lot to love about the Dark Angels when their supplement first released in early 2023; the new datasheets were lackluster and the point values were more or less “bonkers.” But a series of dataslate updates and point adjustments have helped them tremendously, making them much more broadly playable. The Codex gives the chapter three Detachments to work, and of those the Company of Hunters represents the forces fielded by the Dark Angels’ Second Company, otherwise known as the Ravenwing.

Detachment Overview

The Company of Hunters Detachment is the Ravenwing Detachment of Codex: Dark Angels, giving you a way to more or less play the chapter’s second company on the table. It’s geared firmly toward using a mix of fast, mounted units and vehicles with FLY. The bad news is that the only mounted units in Codex: Space Marines are Outriders and Bike Chaplains. The good news is that the Dark Angels Codex has a selection of its own bike units to choose from, giving you some much-needed melee options for your army.

The Company of Hunters Detachment gives you a fast, durable army with some interesting Stratagem options and some interesting units to consider. There’s some solid play here! So why hasn’t the Detachment seen any competitive success? Well, first and foremost, it’s beaten out by the Stormlance Task Force, which offers in most ways a more powerful version of the list, particularly since it gives you the army-wide ability to Advance and Charge and several stratagems that buff mounted units. The other reason is that Space Wolves – particularly Thunderwolf Cavalry – offer a much better mounted melee option when compared to Black Knights and Outriders, offering more durability and melee output at the cost of shooting. And once you get past Black Knights most Ravenwing units tend to be pretty bad.

That said, there are some legitimate options here if you want to build a Dark Angels army focused on Ravenwing units, and the Company of Hunters provides some solid tools for doing so.

Detachment Rule: Masters of Manoeuvre

Astartes units in your army are eligible to shoot in a turn in which they Advanced or Fell Back.

OUTRIDER units gain the BATTLELINE keyword.

This is pretty good! It’s a huge mobility boost for units which are already pretty fast, giving you the ability to freely Advance around the table with your bikes and speeders. Being able to Fall Back and shoot is solid utility, though it’s worth noting that this ability is generally a lot worse in Pariah Nexus than it was in Leviathan, since being able to shoot is no longer synonymous with being able to perform actions, and you cannot use the Grenades Stratagem on a unit which Advanced or Fell Back, even if it’s eligible to shoot. The other downside to this is that your bikers aren’t good enough at shooting to justify building an entire army around using them for that.

Giving Outriders Battleline is an underrated part of this – it immediately makes them worth consideration as real units in your army in Pariah Nexus missions, where the occasional ability to arrive early from reserves or perform actions while shooting or raise banners gives them a ton more utility.

Enhancements

The Enhancements in this Detachment can only be given to RAVENWING models. They’re surprisingly decent.

• Master-Crafted Weapon (10 points) – The bearer’s melee weapons gain the [PRECISION] ability. In a world where you could put this on a Land Speeder piloted by a Talonmaster, this is downright busted. As is, the only bearers for it are a Chaplain with bolters or a Champion with plasma talon and neither of those really excites. There are better options here.
• Mounted Strategist (30 points) – The bearer’s unit can declare a charge in a turn in which it Advanced or Fell Back. This is fire, and you want this in every list you build. Being able to Advance and Charge with Black Knights is huge, giving you the ability to zip across the board and threaten the opponent from nearly anywhere, and on turn one. Fine on a Chaplain or a Champion.
• Master of Manoeuvre (15 points) – If the bearer’s unit starts the battle in Strategic Reserves, they don’t count toward the maximum points limit for units you can put in reserves (whatever), and when you set that unit up on the battlefield, treat the battle round number as being one higher than it currently is. That second part is what makes this worthwhile, as a turn 1 Reserves drop can be extremely good for delivering crippling alpha strikes to the opponent. That said, you already had that ability with your high movement value and the ability to advance and shoot, so this really becomes more of a turn 2 play, where you use it to show up in your opponent’s deployment zone. This makes it more of a cute trick, and something you’ll look to spend your last 15 points on rather than build around. This combos well with the Ravenwing Command Squad to give you an 8″ charge from Reserves, if you’re really trying to make this work.
• Recon Hunter (20 points) – Models in the bearer’s unit have the Scouts 9″ ability. This is also great, and arguably better than arriving on turn 1 with Master of Manoeuvre, since it allows you to position well forward of your deployment zone and set up trivially easy turn 1 charges and rapid fire positions. A unit of Black Knights boosted by this functionally move 21″ on the game’s first turn without Advancing or Charging.

Of these, you pretty much have to take Mounted Strategist, but Master of Manoeuvre and Recon Hunter tend to be more like “nice-to-haves.” They give you some cool added utility, but it’s doing things you’re already good at

Stratagems

Aside from Armour of Contempt, all of the Stratagems in the Company of Hunters Detachment can only affect Ravenwing units. Two of these only affected Mounted units.

• Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the opponent’s Shooting or Fight phase when one of your units is targeted to reduce the AP of incoming attacks by 1 against that unit for a phase. Always useful to have, and a staple for the Space Marines faction. Particularly useful when combined with High-Speed Focus, or if you’re just bringing Deathwing Knights along to hold midtable objectives.
• Hunters’ Trail (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Command phase on a Ravenwing MOUNTED unit within range of an Objective Marker you control. That marker stays under your control even if you have no models within range of it until an opponent controls it at the start or end of any phase. This is a very solid utility ability to have, and allows you to untether yourself from holding midtable objectives with fast units that want to hit the opponent.
• Talon Strike (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase or the Fight phase when a Ravenwing MOUNTED unit is picked to shoot or fight. Until the end of the phase, they get +1 to wound against INFANTRY CHARACTER or MOUNTED CHARACTER targets. This is pretty situational. The Infantry side is going to come up more than the Mounted side of things, and +1 to wound against Infantry targets is really only going to matter into heavier infantry like Terminators, where you were wounding on a 3+ with plasma talons. It’s good when you can use it but it will be rarer than you’d like – just be sure to remember it for the times you can use it.
• Death on the Wind (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase on a Ravenwing unit that just shot. Pick an enemy unit hit by one or more of those attacks, and it has to take a Battle-shock test. If there are any Ravenwing units from your army within 6″ of the unit testing, they get -1 to the test. This just isn’t reliable enough to matter, and is something you’re only going to use when the upside is so high (i.e. stopping an opponent from scoring a secondary mission or contesting an objective) that it’s worth burning a CP on if it doesn’t work.
• High-Speed Focus (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase, just after they pick a RAVENWING unit as a target. Until the end of the phase, their attacks are -1 to hit. This is always useful, particularly when thrown at an opponent who doesn’t have re-rolls to hit for their attacks.
• Rapid Reappraisal (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used at the end of your opponent’s Fight phase on a RAVENWING unit that isn’t within Engagement Range of an enemy unit. You can pick them up and put them into Strategic Reserves. This is very useful and doesn’t require that you actually have charged or fought, giving you an easy way to pick up and put down Ravenwing units every turn.

These Stratagems are pretty mediocre – the stand-outs are Hunters’ Trail and Rapid Reappraisal, and they enable some solid mobile objective play. What’s missing here is anything to boost damage output or enable more advances-and-charge movement, and not having those hurts the army overall. In trying to differentiate this detachment from the Stormlance Task Force they made it more of a move-and-shoot army, but without the kinds of solid boosts to shooting it would need.

Playing This Detachment

We mentioned the lack of damage output boosts in the Stratagems section puts the list in a kind of weird limbo where it’s not quite good enough at the up-and-down shenanigans (bikes don’t deep strike and you can’t do the 3″ arrival), not deadly or fast enough to alpha strike an opponent into oblivion, and not durable enough to put someone in bike jail. That leaves us with an army that can do lots of things moderately well, but isn’t so great at any one thing. This means that the Company of Hunters are a real high-skill Detachment to play, in which you need to make careful use of all of your units in order to achieve success.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about those units. Ravenwing Black Knights, despite not gaining BATTLELINE, are the core of your army here – they’re a little squishy for 30 point models, but at T5, 3 wounds and a 3+/5++ profile, they’re not that squishy and they come with power swords and plasma talons which give them a moderate – but not amazing – punch. They also gain the [ANTI-MONSTER 4+] and [ANTI-VEHICLE 4+] abilities in the turn they charge, which can help them punch up effectively against more aggressive foes. That said, punching up doesn’t mean punching out – with only three 1-damage attacks each, even a full unit of six models isn’t going to take down as much as a Rhino in melee. Instead, this melee output is better-used to clean up after blasting a unit in the shooting phase, and to move onto an objective after decimating your target.

Outrider Squads are your battleline bike option, and that Battleline keyword add here is transformative, changing them from an overpriced mediocre unit into a solid objective holder and action-doer. Armed with chainswords and twin bolt rifles, their output is pretty mediocre, but they can be solid counter-charge units and objective holders, particularly when paired with a Ravenwing Command Squad.

While we’re on that note, you have three options for leading your bike units:

• Chaplain on Bike. This guy normally flounders as a Leader given he can only attach to non-Battleline Outrider squads but when paired with Ravenwing Black Knights he can create some real value. Giving Black Knights +1 to wound doesn’t so much combo with their Charge ability but it does work well with their power swords to give you a unit which can wound T4 targets on a 2+ and punch a bit harder. He also provides a solid boost to your shooting output with Catechism of Fire, which lets you pick an enemy unit within 12″ when you start shooting and you gain [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] against that target. This does its best work on Black Knights as well, where you can combine it with Rapid Firing Plasma Talons to drop out a dozen mortal wounds against your Oath target.
• Ravenwing Command Squad. This three-model unit of 4W models gives you a Champion with a 2-damage sword, an Apothecary with the ability to bring back dead bikes, and an Ancient who ups the OC of the unit by 1. In addition to that the Champion gives the unit +1 to Advance and Charge and free use of the Heroic Intervention Stratagem. While these abilities are OK on Black Knights, they’re arguably stronger on Outriders, where having OC 3 bikes who can be brought back gives you a nasty battleline unit who can pinch hit in melee using the free Heroic Intervention.
• Sammael. Sammael can join a unit of Outriders or Black Knights, and gives his unit the ability to Advance and Charge, plus the ability to prevent enemy units from Falling Back by forcing them to take Desperate Escape tests. He comes with a Plasma Cannon and a 2-damage melee weapon. He’s OK, but as we mentioned above, neither Ravenwing Black Knights nor Outriders has good enough melee output to justify spending points on him. Again, his value is more in his shooting attack and using melee as clean-up and objective positioning.

Beyond bikes, you also have the Flying Armory of the Space Marines to consider. And you won’t have to consider it for very long – most of your options here are just cost way too much to be useful. Of the Ravenwing-specific flyers, the Darktalon Bomber is the best, but at 210 points is too expensive for its output (though to be clear, we love its cannon and bomb and if it were cheaper, we’d give it a serious look). Likewise, the Stormraven was a major threat earlier this year in Ironstorm lists but multiple point hikes have made it too expensive as well. Among the speeders only the Thunderstrike sees any play, and usually only as a one-off. Its ability to give your army +1 to wound against a hit target can be solid for helping plasma talons get there, and its own output is fairly solid. That said, the biggest problem here is that all of these Ravenwing units have pretty anemic damage output, and the detachment doesn’t boost this for them.

If you’re playing this Detachment, you want some Outriders to hold and sticky objectives and you want to be picking up a bike unit every turn with the Rapid Reappraisal Stratagem and repositioning it to perform actions, attack weak spots in the enemy line, and hold objectives. You need to pick and choose your spots to engage with opponents, using your bikes’ shooting to soften targets before finishing them off in melee.

Sample List

Chase “Gunum” Garber of “Hear Me Out” fame and a long-time Dark Angels player put this list together as a best stab at what you can build for the Detachment. If you’re looking for successful competitive lists using this Detachment, well, it might be a while. We think it’s certainly possible, but you’ve just got better options, both in Detachments and units you could use, making this a bit of a hard mode choice. That said, Chase did say he would play this list competitive without qualms.

The list - click to expand

Final Thoughts

Ravenwing armies have a lot to offer in terms of utility, but struggle to deliver the raw output needed to handle threats. The Company of Hunters Detachment gives you a decent set of utility tools to work with, encouraging more of a hit-and-run playstyle with your bikes that sees you picking and choosing your spots while scoring secondary objectives. This creates a difficult but rewarding play style where you need to be elusive while still engaging with an opponent. If you can make it work, let us know.

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