Dark Angels

Dark Angels
Battle Cry	"Repent! For tomorrow you die!"
Number	I
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	None
Successor Chapters	Hell of a lot of Chapters, most notably the Angels of Absolution, Angels of Redemption, Angels of Vengeance and Guardians of the Covenant.
Chapter Master	Azrael.
Primarch	Lion El'Jonson.
Homeworld	The Rock, originally Caliban.
Strength	1,000 (officially, actually much more).
Specialty	Plasma, terminators, bikes, historical revisionism, HUNTING DOWN THE FILTHY TRAITORS TO THE IMPERIUM, AND THE FALLEN TOTALLY DO NOT EXIST WE SWEAR!
Allegiance	SO LOYAL AND PURE THAT EVEN GREY KNIGHTS TAKE LESSONS FROM US
Colours	Green, black

The Dark Angels (also known as "The Dork Angels" or the "Dangles" (Hello, ladies)) are amongst the most accomplished and powerful Space Marine Chapters in the Imperium. Their grim determination and relentless persecution of their foe's are legendary, and their combat record tells a long tale of selfless heroism. THEY ARE WELL KNOWN TO BE THE MOST LOYAL OF ALL SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS, *Ahem* So loyal in fact that even the Ultramarines shit their power armor on sight of a Dark Angel and say "Loyalist battle brother, teach me your loyalist ways!". Anyone who insists that the Dark Angels have never been the most loyal and treasured of all space marine chapters, or mentions the fallen shall be hunted down and beheaded for their Heresy!

The Unforgiven

Their Primarch is Lion El'Jonson a.k.a The Lion. As a result, the Dark Angels are totally AWSOME AND WITHOUT FAULT, their Primarch happening to be named after a homosexual poet who wrote a poem called "The Dark Angel" and might've dated Oscar Wilde. Oh, and their homeworld is called The Rock, A REFUGE FOR PEACE AND HARMONY WHERE NOTHING SINISTER EVER HAPPENS(it's actually a mobile Space station that can take out most of Battlefleet Solar on its own.). They're now the posterboys for both 6E and Citadel's "new" line of paints. Fuck yeah, we guess? Russian fa/tg/uys believe that Dark Angels are Jews (it's because ALL DA names are in Hebrew, silly). Interestingly, they're also the only Space Marine Chapter in the Imperium that willingly employ xenos retainers, known as the Watchers in the Dark; they get away with this by claiming the Watchers are THE TOTALLY LOYALIST SOULS OF FALLEN DARK ANGELS, WHO SERVE THE EMPEROR AND THE CHAPTER WITHOUT QUESTION!

By the way, THIS ARTICLE IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND IS NOT REWRITTEN IN ANY WAY BY THE DARK ANGELS. ALL MESSAGES WRITTEN IN CAPS ARE THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. THERE HAS NEVER EVER BEEN ANY TRAITORS WITHIN THE DARK ANGELS, AND THERE NEVER WILL BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MOST LOYAL CHAPTER TO HAVE EVER EXISTED. The 1st Legion and its successors are composed entirely of THE MOST LOYAL AND STALWART SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR. When dealing with the Dark Angels it is important to bear in Mind that they are the very embodiment of the phrase “the end justifies the means” and they will go to any lengths and do anything that they need too to.

The new Codex heavily implies that they may be at Legion strength as no-one knows just how many worlds they recruit from or the number of recruits they actually have. The lack of clarification on this matter and the suspiciously close cooperation between the Dark Angels and their successor chapters hasn't gone unnoticed by the Inquisition, although their attempts at exposing the Dark Angels' secrets haven't met with much success thus far. However, one reason they and their successors work together so well is likely due to the fact that the pre-heresy Dark Angels Legion was already assembled out of chapters. After the heresy, they merely needed to give the chapters names instead of numbers and have the chapters adopt different heraldry and colors; as such, the Dark Angels and their successor chapters might still be (functionally and unofficially) a (more-or-less) cohesive Legion.

Their theme by HMKids,which SHOWS THEIR ABSOLUTE LOYALTY.

They have apparently also become the love-chapter of some of GW's writers, since they now have the best motorcycle squads around (yes, apparently even better than the White Scars), the "last" (they might have a ton of them or be making new ones!) jetbike in the Imperium, and invulnerable "Chapter Serfs".

Gene-Seed

The Dark Angels, the flagbearers of grimdark gothic design.

Much like the Ultramarines, the Dark Angels have some of the most stable gene-seeds of all the progenitor chapters, with no significant mutations documented. Due to this, they remain one of the most favorable ones to use for founding successor chapters. Although, the High Lords are supposedly iffy about using the DA's gene seed due to the rumors that all Dark Angel successors stay in one command structure, with the Dark Angels still calling the shots, effectively still all of their descendant chapters still acting as acting as part of a legion. Never-the-less, because there's no official proof of this (and because anyone who would dare present any factual evidence about this would be GRACEFULLY DEBUNKED BY THE DARK ANGELS IN PRIVATE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY WOULD BE COMPELLED TO TAKE A LONG, EXTENDED VACATION TO REFLECT ON THEIR FOLLY), the Dark Angels are still allowed to found future chapters in either case.

One of the Lion’s greatest legacy’s to his sons is his strategic genius – a quality passed on to his sons through the Chapter’s gene-seed. This trait manifests exponentially as a Dark Angel ascends toward the rank of Company Master. Such officers can plan a campaign to the last detail, execute faultless assaults, and assemble impenetrable defences instinctively. Central to this ability is the deployment of the correct mix of squads, vehicles and support elements. To this end, the Dark Angels form strike forces – self-contained armies assembled to prosecute a specific campaign or defeat a particular foe.

According to the Dataslate-Cypher-Lord of the Fallen at close ranges, Librarians from the Unforgiven can pick up the unique psychic signatures of those who bear traces of their shared Primarch. Even the most spliced or tainted gene-seed of Lion El’Jonson emits a distinct signal powerful enough to detect. Basically all you need to do is put a Dark Angels Librarian near a A FELLOW DARK ANGEL PLAYING A MILLENIA-LONG GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK and they might as well have a great big flashing neon light saying “SON OF THE LION HERE COME AND GET ME”.

Battle Cry

Unlike more warlike chapters like the Wolf Wolves or the Black Templars, who would go into battle screaming on how they're going to skullfuck the enemies of man, the Dark Angels go into battle in cold, efficient silence, almost similar to that of Angry Marine Terminators, who are so enraged that they march into battle with stone hearts and steel faces. Infact their "Repent! For tomorrow you die!" is less of a battle cry and more of a foreboding proclamation against their real targets: Fallen Angels DAMNABLE TRAITORS FROM THE 9 TRAITOR LEGIONS WHICH THE DARK ANGELS DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH. This makes more sense, the more you realize what the Chaplains do to the Dark Angels' greatest obsession: torture them in the depths of The Rock, until they repent their sins.

History

Dark Angels Crusade/Hersey symbol

The original Dark Angels had black armour, back in the days of the Corvus pattern helmets. Modern Dark Angels instead use a dark green colour, except for the Deathwing and Ravenwing companies, which are composed entirely of bone-white Terminators and black Fast Attack units respectively. They were introduced in the Deathwing expansion to 1st edition Space Hulk with a spiffy background story by Bill King.

Due to a slight mutation in their gene-seed, the Dark Angels had a slight predisposition to be emo, but other than that, they were cool.

Veterans wear robes and capes and such on the field of battle representing any number of ritualistic ranks and titles that are mostly unknown to those outside of the Chapter but harken back to the traditions of "The Order", plus they look pretty awesome.

Great Crusade

Dark Angels Lance Decurion

Luther, the Clint Eastwood of the 31st millennium

• Numeration: the 1st Legion
• Primogenitor: Lion El'Jonson
• Cognomen: The First, Primaris Angelus Mortis (Honorific)
• Observed strategic tendencies: Combined arms and multi-spectra warfare, Exterminatus and purgation campaigns, extended independent void operations.
• Noteworthy Domains: Caliban(home world), Terra, an unknown number of void outposts and watch fortresses on the Imperium’s fringes.
• Allegiance: Fedelitas Tenebrae(Latin for shadows/darkness or “to the”/”from, out of” the shadows/darkness; seeing as GW use dog-Latin, you could theoretically say that it could mean something like 'Questionable' or ‘Obscured Loyalty’).

Not simply a Legion numbered "one", they were quite literally the First legion created by the Emperor and in their earliest incarnation fought as the personal army of the Master of Mankind in the dawning years of the Great Crusade. HH: Extermination tells us that as the prototype Legion the Dark Angels served as the template for all the Legions that would follow after which the Emperor decided to make the following legions more specialised and engineered their development towards different roles, and as a standard by which these successors would be measured (however they would eventually get supplanted by the empire-building Ultramarines when times changed). So basically the Emperor simply intended the First Legion to sally forth and "just be Space Marines".

That meant the Dark Angels had to figure out warfare all on their own, and by the time of the Heresy, there existed six specialised "Wings" or “Hosts”; each acted as an independent formation that was both a part of the main body of the legion but also separate from it at the same time. Each was dedicated to a different form of warfare, of which two survived into the later 40k:

• Ravenwing - Cavalry & Fast Attack
• Deathwing - Veterans in Artificer Armour (later Terminator Armour)
• Stormwing - Boarding Assault Marines. Possible void warfare specialists.
• Dreadwing - Were apparently the 1st Legion's "dirty tricks department" with all sorts of secret and very nasty gear that they really shouldn't have - really shocking stuff. The commander wields a big axe.
• Ironwing - Battle tanks and other lethal vehicles.
• The remaining "wing" has not yet been confirmed

In this fashion, acting all on their own without support from the other legions that followed they killed lots of Orks and other xenos scum for great justice and were the most successful Legion during the early years of the Crusade.

Once the most numerous and powerful of the legions, their numbers would be depleted by decades of savage warfare, particularly in the wars of the Rangdan Xenocides. The Scares of these battles would change them, as would their reunification with their Primarch and his adopted world of Caliban. Unyielding, technologically capable, ruthless and insular the Dark Angels by the time of the Hersey were once again a powerful and highly independent Legion used to operating on its own to conduct large scale campaigns and compliance actions.

Later, some planetary ruler insulted Leman Russ and he got all pissy about it. Then Lion ended up killing the leader and Leman was like "Whatchu do that fo' fool?" because he wanted to take the bitch-ass out. And Lion was like "fuck off, furry," despite his own furtastic name and his dickish kill-stealing. Leman, never being good with words, reason, or sobriety, megaton punched the Lion. The two of them fought for a day or two, an epic struggle between cool-headed tactician and hot-blooded barbarian, douchebag and bro-tard. Then Leman said "this is stupid" and started laughing... then the Lion knocked him out.

In true anime fashion, after Leman regained consciousness and was less-inebriated, the two eventually became best buds and treated it as water under the bridge; their respective chapters still carry on the friendly rivalry, a pair of champions engaging in sacred and non-fatal honour duels whenever the Dark Angels and Space Wolves meet. And a couple of light years away, the Tyranids eat a planet while two of the most important Space Marine chapters waste time on this Nerf-chainsword-duel-honour-bullshit because that's how they roll.

Horus Heresy

++Much of the history of the First Legion during the events of the Horus Heresy are largely unknown to the Imperium at large, thus you will find that WHAT THE DARK ANGELS TELL YOU HAPPENED IS THE TRUTH, BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MOST RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY WITNESSES IN THE ENTIRE IMPERIUM. ONLY THE GOD EMPEROR COULD POSSIBLY BE MORE RELIABLE OF A SOURCE.++

During the Horus Heresy Lion El'Jonson rushed to come to the aid of the Emperor, fighting his way through the Night Lords, Death Guard and traitor guard to reach Terra. Stopping off at Macragge to kick Roboute Guilliman out of inaction and start actually paying attention to the Horus Heresy. In fact, despite all of the mystery surrounding the intentions of the First Legion, the Emperor still had complete faith in them. A discussion between Him and Malcador the Sigillite during Graham McNeill's Vengeful Spirit proves that even the Emperor expected Guilliman to procrastinate and start building his own Empire and they were somewhat relieved when Russ told them that the Lion had intervened.

Despite all this he didn't make it to Terra in time because he was more interested settling what amounts to a pissing contest against Konrad Curze than risking his life in the Siege of Terra THE ENGINES WERE A LITTLE SLOW THAT DAY. Afterwards he returned home to Caliban only to find that to his shock his closest friend Luther had turned to Chaos, converting the garrison force with him EVERYTHING WAS A-OK. The Lion fought his way into his own fortress KICKED BACK and dueled Luther for the fate of the legion HAD SOME BREWSKIS. When daybreak came Caliban was nothing more than an asteroid field, a result of the Dark Angels loyalists bombarding their own planet so mercilessly SOMEBODY LEAVING THE GAS ON IN THE FORTRESS MONASTERY. When Dark Angel forces reclaimed the void shielded remnants of their headquarters they found that Luther was a gibbering wreck, and Jonson was nowhere to be found THE LION WENT OUT FOR SOME SMOKES HE'LL BE BACK IN A MINUTE. Oh, and the surviving Dark Angels painted their armour green to distinguish themselves from their Chaos worshipping former Brothers BECAUSE GREEN IS THE EMPRAH'S FAVOURITE COLOUR AND THE DARK ANGELS ARE THE MOST LOYAL OF ALL CHAPTERS. This rather stressing turn of events caused one Dark Angel to comment "I hate Mondays".

Because Caliban was far away from many Imperial Worlds, the core leaders of the Dark Angels known as the "Inner Circle" decided to cover up Luther's treason THE COMPLETELY RANDOM ACCIDENT INVOLVING SOME FUCKTARD FIRING A FULL SALVO OF ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT CANNONS ON THE PLANET and mask it as an freakish warp accident. The Imperium's not exactly sure what happened to Caliban as anyone who investigates about this matter, even Inquisitors, disappear faster than Candlejack snatching away a victim after saying Ca TAKE A HOLIDAY

Ahem, to carry on where my predecessor left off after his mysterious COMPLETELY UN-SUSPICIOUS disappearance, the Dark Angels became the most obscure chapter in the millennium following the Horus Heresy. Where as Imperial officials can try to order around chapters like the Space Wolves and Black Templars, the Dark Angels can never be approached because they can't be found 90% of the time. They are known for mysteriously appearing out of nowhere to aid Imperial forces and disappear just as fast, even if the forces they were aiding were still in need of their help. This has led to much complaint from Imperial commanders, who are often understandably pissed off.

After the destruction of Caliban

Ever since that fateful day ten thousand years ago, the Dark Angels have striven to prove to the Emprah and their Primarch that they are still cool guys to hang around with, despite their earlier Heresy HAVING THE FLASHIEST BITS OF ANY CHAPTER. To this end they have acquired toys like plasma cannon jetbikes, more suits of Terminator Armour than most chapter can shake their chainswords at, and a mini-Gitmo in a flying chunk of planet to torture the Fallen ENEMIES OF THE EMPEROR FROM THE NINE TRAITOR LEGIONS, in order to prove that they are still loyal, and to attempt to disprove the rumour that that they are flaming homosexuals.

Luther himself is kept within a special cell equipped with stasis fields (both to keep him from escaping and to prevent him from dying of old age before some kind of confession can be extracted from him). He's still barking mad from Chaos withdrawing its influence from him HIS OVERWHELMING LOVE FOR THE EMPRAH! But his ramblings have occasionally assisted the Dark Angels in apprehending the Fallen FINDING NEW WAYS TO IMPRESS CHICKS and locating lost relics within the Rock. Recently, he's been claiming that the time for the Lion to return and absolve the Chapter of its past SHOW HOW AWESOME THE DARK ANGELS ARE is growing closer...

Unknown to the Dark Angels, Lion El'Jonson is alive and well- after his duel with Luther TRIPPING OVER A POWER SWORD THAT LUTHER FORGOT TO PUT AWAY, the Watchers in the Dark AFORMENTIONED LITTLE HUMANS IN CLOAKS brought him to a hidden chamber in the depths of the Rock so he could be healed of his wounds. He has long since healed now, and now all that is needed for the last loyal Primarch to return is for the Emperor to give him the signal to do so.

The Legion with "Dark" in its name

Their scouts are never to be underestimated. Also this is probably the best scout artwork so far. and it's not new.

After the Horus Heresy, the remaining Legions were forced to split into chapters of around 1000 men according to Roboute Guilliman's brand new Codex Astartes and the Dark Angels followed suit mostly because they had no Primarch to disagree; not that it mattered by this point anyway.

Where Rogal Dorn RAGED against the idea of splitting his legion, but eventually relented on the threat of civil war, the Dark Angels quietly split themselves up but maintained in covert contact with each other. Keeping the same chain of command as before, and mostly the same traditions and expectations. Particularly with co-operation in the hunt for the Fallen Angels CHILLIN' OUT MAXIN' RELAXIN' ALL COOL, but they also refer to each other as "brothers" in arms. (Kaldor Draigo noted that the correct terminology for different chapter is "cousin" and resolved to have a word with Azrael over it) and the Supreme Grand Master of The Rock is deferred to as the highest authority on the secrets of the newly formed Inner Circle.

It transpires from Gav Thorpe's 2015 novel Unforgiven that the Inner Circle was in fact formed decades AFTER the Second Founding when Cypher revealed himself at The Rock and made it evident that survivors from Caliban would be dropping out of time and space who could reveal the truth of what happened. So the Grand Masters of the Twelve Second Founding chapters held a council and formed the Inner Circle to make sure their collective honour remained intact. Previous to that we must have assumed that the descendants of the First Legion were just relieved to have weathered the Horus Heresy and followed Guilliman's commands quietly.

Therefore the Dark Angels still function unofficially as a Legion, and this gets the Inquisition particularly worried, though they can't prove anything, since from the outside, each chapter has its own distinct chain of command and adheres to codex requirements.

So far (and for ten thousand years) these indiscretions have passed as little more than quiet rumours, since the unforgiven go to extreme lengths to protect their honour, plus they mostly keep to themselves so no-one knows what they're actually up to.

However, if the Inner Circle ever decided to go rogue they could cause an impressive shitstorm for the Imperium. Statistics indicate that the Dark Angels successors make up around 15% of the total space marine chapters at large in the Imperium, and while this does not seem like a massive amount (Ultrasmurfs make up around 50%-60%), the fact that GW doesn't have any divergent rules for the successor chapters or implied anything other than the tight-knit brotherhood of the unforgiven fluffwise, leads us to conclude that the entire Unforgiven (around 150 chapters. That's atleast 150,000 marines, assuming they're all at full strength.) function as a SINGLE, UNIFIED unit across the entire galaxy; This is further compounded when you factor in the unknown size of the Deathwing and Ravenwing, possibly meaning at each of those chapters is much larger and better equipped (with such relics as Terminator Armour) than a codex compliant chapter.

Given all this (and not forgetting the small matter that they're the only loyalist chapter whose Primarch is still alive), it seems fair to conclude that no-one should be able to stand against them if they put their minds to it. Thankfully they're on the Imperium's side.

Daily rituals

04:00-Morning Prayer: the sluts are roused from their cells to begin prayer at the leadership of the Interrogator-Chaplain. Prayer is extra long compared to most other Chapters due to DARK ANGELS BEING SO LOYAL THAT THEY WANT TO SHOW THEIR DEVOTION TO THE EMPEROR AND THE LION.
06:00-Morning Firing Rites: The Dark Angels take to the ranges to begin firing practice.
07:00-Battle Practice: The Dark Angels descend to the Battle Cages to practice in close-combat. Members of the Ravenwing will practice with their bikes and land speeders, while members of the Deathwing will practice counter-Fallen scenarios ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE ENEMIES OF THE EMPEROR, WHICH MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT INCLUDE ANY OF THE SONS OF LION EL'JONSON.
9:00-Chocolate milk and cookies break.
12:00-Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the Chapter Serfs.
12:30-Tactical Indoctrination: The Dark Angels will engage in tactical briefings on opponents they will be facing in the future. Members of the Inner Circle will determine targets such as traitors from the First Legion THE NINE TRAITOR LEGIONS WHICH REBELLED AGAINST THE EMPEROR, BECAUSE THERE ARE ONLY NINE TRAITOR LEGIONS.
At this point a battle-brother may visit the Apothecary, while Interrogator-Chaplains will interrogate Fallen Angels they have been assigned to HERETICS WHO ARE AIDING THE EMPEROR'S ENEMIES, ALL FROM DIFFERENT LEGIONS AND CHAPTERS.
14:00-Afternoon nap with dimmed lights and soft instrumental music playing in the background.
16:00-Evening Fire Rites: The Dark Angels take to the ranges to begin firing practice. They usually use black-colored targets to better hone their skills at shooting Fallen Angels in the dark FOUL TRAITORS WHO ARE NOT FROM THE FIRST LEGION WHO USE BLACK ARMOR AND THE COVER OF DARKNESS LIKE COWARDS.
17:00-Evening Prayer: The Dark Angels assemble for prayer under the Interrogator-Chaplains, who have just finished torturing Fallen Angels SHOWING THEIR UNDENIABLE DEVOTION TO THE EMPEROR WHICH TAKES MANY FORMS.
19:00-Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the Chapter serfs.
20:00-Maintenance Rituals: The Dark Angels will tend to the maintenance of their wargear, while also washing their robes. Members of the Ravenwing will perform maintenance of their attack bikes and land speeders.
00:00-The Dark Angels will retire to their cells for CO-ED sleep with their non-human retainers, because that's what the Dark Angels do to ensure their silence about the Fallen BECAUSE THEY ARE PLAYERS.

Why is there a 3 hour break in the schedule? Would they be torturing the Fallen in that time? WHAT FALLEN? THERE IS NO 3 HOUR BREAK, THAT'S HOW NUMBERS WORK ON CALIBAN THE ROCK

Gallery

• 

  Here's some badassery right there.

• 

  Happens quite often.

• 

  Sometime between the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy

• 

  Always recognizable with their beautiful artworks and amazing aesthetics. FUKKEN DUALWIELDING FLINTLOCKS.

• 

  Their chaplains tend to be the most badass

• 

  The Dark Angels and most of their confirmed successors

• 

  On the left: Dark Angel trooper in the glory days of the Legiones Astartes.

See Also

• Tactics/Dark Angels
• Azrael
• Cypher
• Deathwing
• Ravenwing
• Dark Angel Shoulder Pad