Dark Angels

The Dark Angels are one of the original twenty First Founding Legions of the Space Marines serving the Imperium of Man.

The Dark Angels have the honour of being the first Legion created by the Emperor. Like the others, their Primarch was lost while he was still in his infancy. He later turned up on the distant planet of Caliban, a deathworld filled with demons and other creatures. They had a fighting force known simply as the "Order". They were an organization that fought to protect the people on Caliban. The Primarch was discovered by the Order and, at first, they thought he was a monster, but one person saw that it was in fact a real person and was saved. This person was Luther, who became a great friend to the Primarch. The Order named this person Lion El'Jonson which meant "the Lion" He grew up to be a great warrior and caused the reputation of the Order to spread. This caused many more people to join and the Order to grow so much, El'Jonson decided it was time for one final crusade to clear Caliban of it's monsters. Luther was the one who convinced the leaders of the Order to declareit, but it was Jonson who reallycaused the campaign to be a success and was appointed Grand Master of the Order and Caliban.

When the Emperor discovered El'Jonson, many of the knights in the Order were transformed into Space Marines in the Dark Angels Legion, including Luther. The Legion was thusly named due to the fact that they were the only Legion at the time who wore jet black armor. The Dark Angels were one of the most successful Legions in the Great Crusade. This caused frustration in Leman Russ, the Primarch of the Space Wolves chapter, because only El'Jonson and horus were able to claim more victories than him. This turned into violence at one battle where both Primarchs were present. Both wanted to slay the leader behind a Chaos incursion. Jonson got there first and Leman Russ was only able to howl in fury as Jonson slayed the leader. In the aftermath, Russ went to Jonson's quarters and initiated a fight. They wrestled for a day before Russ stopped and laughed at the reason they were fighting. Jonson, not knowing this, struck Russ unconscious. When Russ came to, he swore to clear the stain on his honor. Now, whenever the two Chapters meet, they each select a champion to duel another champion in honor of the duel their Primarch's had.

During the Horus Heresy, both the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves Legions were far from Terra, and were unable to participate directly in the events taking place on Terra. However, their imminent arrival forced the traitor leader Horus to take his last gamble, knowing that if they arrived before he took control of the planet, they would tip the balance in favor of the loyalists. He lowered the shields around his ship, allowing the Emporer to teleport onto his ship and defeat him. By the time the Dark Angels and Space Wolves arrived, the battle was already over and the damage was immense.

After the Heresy, the Dark Angels helped restore order to the Imperium. During this time, Luther had been left on Caliban to oversee the training of new recruits. However, Luther had always been jealous of Jonson's rank. The Chaos gods manipulated Luther, using the fact that Luther was jealous, into poisoning the new recruits with facts that they had been left to babysit a planet while Jonson was out getting honor and fame.

When Jonson returned to Caliban, he and his fleet were immediately fired upon by the orbital guns. Puzzled, Jonson withdrew. when he learned what happened, Jonson fell into a terrible rage. He had gone from one point in the universe to the next, clearing away traitors and demons, when he finds that his own planet had fallen to the Ruinous powers. Jonson's fleet bombed the planet and destroyed the orbital guns. Jonson then led a strike force into the Tower of Angels and dueled his former friend. They were equally matched, but finally, Luther keeled over in exhaustion, leaving him open to a deathblow. Jonson couldn't bring himself to kill his former friend and so, Luther lashed out with a psychic attack. As Luther saw his oldest friend dying, his mind cleared and he forced back fell to his knees, sending out a cry for help in the Warp. the Chaos gods, angered that they had lost such a valuable person, caused a great warp rift near Caliban.

The Dark Angel space fleet also bombarded the planet mercilessly, and this caused the structure of the planet to collapse. The bombardment, combined with the newly formed warp rift, broke the planet up and it is now an asteroid field. The largest piece, which survived due to the massive void shields in operation around the largest fortress-monastery, called the Tower of Angels, was hollowed out and became a gigantic battlebarge which is now the home of the Dark Angels. This ship is known simply as The Rock. The Legion, like all others, then broke into smaller Chapters. Among these are the Angels of Absolution, Angels of Vengeance, and the Angels of Redemption.

When the Dark Angels searched the Tower, they found Luther, babbling incoherently, but their Primarch was no where to be seen.

This betrayal has tainted their Legion's honour, in the eyes of the Dark Angels themselves. They adopted the name the "Unforgiven" and would not be forgiven untill every last Fallen had repented. Given that the event was purely within the Legion itself, and was on a world far from Terra, nobody outside of the Legion knew it had occurred. Within the Chapter itself, only the elite veterans are permitted this knowledge- In the modern Dark Angels chapter, only the Deathwing know the full extent of the secret. The chapter leadership will go to great lengths to ensure that this knowledge does not reach the Imperium at large, for if it did, the Dark Angels would be labeled heretics, even at times going so far as to disobey direct orders from Inquisitors and cause overly curious individuals to "disappear". The people in charge of hunting the Fallen and commanding the Dark Angels Legion are known as the Inner Circle, and there are many secrets known only to them.

Though only the Inner Circle, knows this, Luther was kept inside the Rock. Because he is connected to the Warp, the Dark Angels have been able to use him as an Oracle. Azrael and others before him, have tried to extract a confession from him, but all he has said is that The Lion is returning and will forgive him for his sins. The time is also nigh.........

There is one secret that only the most senior members of the Inner Circle know. The Lion was infact taken by the mysterious Watchers in the Dark to a secret chamber deep within the Rock. He is slowly healing and may very soon return.........

Characteristics
The Dark Angels are characterized by their unusually stubborn warriors, who often refuse to not only flee from a foe, but sometimes to not advance on them either, preferring to blast them from a distance with their guns. Their leaders and veteran troops, the Deathwing, are fearless. Curiously, the Dark Angels also feature a special sub-unit which specializes in utilizing motorcycles and hovercraft known as landspeeders; this unit is known as the Ravenwing.

A notable feature of the Dark Angels is that they constantly hunt for the Fallen Angels, those who betrayed the Legion just after the Heresy. These Fallen are nominally led by an enigmatic character known simply as Cypher, however, no real organization is seen among the Fallen. Some have maintained their dedication to the Chaos Gods, becoming Chaos Space Marines; many have not and have instead become pirates, mercenaries, or have otherwise attempted to create a new life for themselves. Either path makes little difference to the Dark Angels' leadership, however, and Fallen who are captured are brutally tortured, eventually being executed for their crimes- a Fallen who confesses to his crimes and repents is generally executed sooner.

The Dark Angels paint their armor a deep dark green; some also wear off-white monkish robes over their armor. The elite Deathwing units wear bone white armor with special heraldry. The Ravenwing wear jet black armor, very similar to that worn by the Dark Angels before the Horus Heresy. Successor chapters typically wear a variation on the Green-Bone White-Black scheme.

The Chapter symbol is a vertically standing sword, blade down, with a stylized wing on either side. The Deathwing wear the same symbol, however the blade of the sword bears a jagged crack towards the end, a symbol of their broken honour. The Ravenwing changes the motif to be a single wing with an eagle's claw extending from the bottom, bearing a sword.

Gameplay
Currently, in Warhammer 40,000, the Dark Angels have their own stand-alone codex. This was released in February 2007, along with a new model range for the Dark Angels.

Dark Angels are generally seen as more of a shooting army as opposed to assault oriented armies such as the Blood Angels army, meaning that they generally excel at standing back and destroying an enemy at range, rather than closing with them and engaging hand-to hand combat. They have plentiful access to specialized weaponry such as plasma guns.

This does not mean that they have no close combat ability: They are still marines, and indeed, the Deathwing are Fearless, making them excellent warriors at close range, but can be overrun by masses of troops. However, they lack dedicated veteran squads and except for a few HQ units they receive no special bonuses to hand-to-hand combat. They are generally a well rounded force with a predilection for ranged combat. The fact that they are still Space Marines makes them highly adaptable to changing situations.

The all-Ravenwing and all-Deathwing armies, on the other hand, are much more difficult to use owing to the high ratio of points/model. Deathwing and Ravenwing commanders must take special care to avoid excessive casualties, and to only engage a foe when the outcome is likely to be favorable.

In an all-Ravenwing army, the fact that no unit in the army has a movement range of less than 12 inches allows a commander to quickly close with objectives and unleash devastating close-range firepower and are also able to take out armored bulkheads by equipping a biker with a meltagun, utilizing they're ability to move quickly to bring targets within range. They can be excellent assault troops due to the fact that all bikers are Fearless. They can also bring in squadrons of Land Speeders to cut bloody swathes through infantry or taking out tanks using a Multi-melta. Their flaw is that the army is pricey and models have 3+ saves which means that you should not excessively put upgrades on squadrons unless they can really make use of the weaponry.

In an all-Deathwing army, a commander has an entire army composed of Terminator-armored units which can be very resilient in the face of even the heaviest guns owing to their strong armor and Crux Terminatus. Deathwing Terminators are Fearless and so can be good assault units. One of the things that make the Deathwing unique is the fact that you can equip an assault-equipped Terminator with a Cyclone Missile launcher. This is something only the Deathwing can do. The problem with a Deathwing army is thefact that the units are extremely expensive and can be overrun by army's with large numbers such as a Tyranid army.

In the new edition of the Dark Angels army, a player is now able to make a new extremely deadly army variant, the Ravenwing-Deathwing army. All Ravenwing bikers are equipped with teleporting homers which allow a unit of Terminators to Deep Strike with out missing their mark. This allows a player to bring in units of Terminators exactly where they want them. Deathwing Terminators also have a special rule that doesn't help the opponent. The Deathwing are famous for teleporting right into the middle of battles and this is represented by their rule, Deathwing Assault. This allows for a first turn Deep Strike which can brig in Terminators right behind enemy lines very early in the game.