Gabriel Angelos
Gabriel Angelos is a commander of the Blood Ravens Space Marines. He first appears in Dawn of War 1 as third company Captain, and as of DoW 2: Retribution he has succeded that scheming heretic Azariah Kyras as Chapter Master.
Contrary to other stubborn, hot-headed captains of other Spess Mehreen chapters, Gabe is cool and calm in most situations - like Vance Motherfucking Stubbs. Instead of first killing the enemies and then helping the population, Gabriel manages just as planned tactics that let him do both things at the same time. Apparently Gabriel had to call the Inquisition after a recruiting excursion to his home planet, Cyrene, when he discovered some heretical (no one really knows) shit going on. The Inquisition launched an Exterminatus to fix it, which resulted in Gabe turning into a mournful bastard and also the only mournful bastard left alive from Cyrene.
He also plays the grand piano, making him one of, if not the only non-Noise Marines known to play a musical instrument. He's not the only one...
Angelos is nearly universally liked by /tg/ and indeed the Warhammer community as a whole. He's strong, heroic, and noble, while compassionate, intelligent, and perhaps one of the few objectively good people in all of Warhammer while still being grimdark. And unlike some others he manages to pull this off in a believable manner, is realistically flawed and generally was dragged through hell to accomplish his deeds. While not everyone thinks that Relic did the best job with Warhammer, few will say that Gabriel is a poorly done character. Problem, Ward?
Gabe's role in Dawn of War I
Gabe along with the Blood Ravens 3rd Company was originally sent to Tartarus to stop an Ork invasion there, led by a Warboss named Orkamungus. After wading through the Orks and assorted Eldar, it's eventually revealed that Chaos was on the planet orchestrating everything, and was planning to recover an artifact called the "Maledictium", which imprisoned a great daemon of Khorne (It wasn't a Bloodthirster, but probably a daemon prince).
Gabriel's friend and one of the only other survivors from Cyrene was Isador Akios, a Librarian that served in Gabriel's company. Isador got lured to Chaos by SIINDRIIII!! and his Chaos Bongo, however, which obviously led the man to treachery and betrayal. Later on Gabe fought one on one against Isador. Isador blamed Gabe for the Exterminatus of Cyrene, but Gabe claimed that he did it for the good of humanity. Isador may have further argued the point, but Gabriel instead decided to cut the bullshit and to perform a time-honored Space Marine cleansing ritual to free Isador from the taint of the dark gods; the ritual itself closely resembled discharging a bolter round directly into Isador's head at point-blank range.
After dealing with the death of Isador, Gabe got his shit together and faced off against Sindri, now a daemon prince of Khorne (Much to Khorne's dismay, a psyker even offering tribute to him). He eventually succeeded in bashing Sindri's head into his spine and saving Tartarus from being a daemon world but not before shattering the Maledictium with his daemon hammer that caused the daemon bound there to be free, even after the warnings of Macha that he'll doom everyone by doing it (And in Just as Planned fashion, it did). Based on the daemon's endgame gloating monologue, smashing the Maledictum earlier might have worked, but all the "blood sacrifice" of wartime death (mostly Angelos' personal handiwork, including Orkamungus, Bale, and finally Sindri) had strengthened the daemon enough for it to escape the shattering intact. Gabriel then had to live with the fact that he was responsible for it's release and will face it if it should ever appear again.
Gabe's role in DOWII
In Dawn of War II Gabe is back, now a full-fledged hair-etic, with a bitchin' cape, his old Daemonhammer and several drop-pods of fuck you to share with the Tyranids. He's so awesome that his battle-cry makes everyone around him almost as awesome as he is, and so becomes invulnerable for a few seconds, and he can hit someone so hard that their motherfucking armor shatters. You only get to play him during the final mission in the original DoWII though.
Gabe's role in Chaos Rising
In the many battles that transpired during the Campaign of Chaos Rising, Gabriel Angelos stayed on the Litany of Fury and did very little apart from kill stealing in the final battle. His phoning it in this time made even more egregious since he wasn't stuck in the warp, lazy old codger that he is. This may be a clever ploy however to 'dispose' of a certain HAIRITIC, by sending him on suicide missions while he watches Eldar porn *BLAM!* HERESY!. He was also branded a traitorous heretic by Kyras (The Blood Raven' Schmuck Master and Chief Dick) through the Honor Guard leader Diomedes. However, depending on the Force Commander's actions, Diomedes can be persuaded to see that Kyras is a heretic or can simply be slain.
At the end of the game, Angelos made this speech;
"Brothers, we are victorious! You have driven the Black Legion from the sector, and defeated the vile daemon who sought to consume us. But a more terrible battle yet remains, our chapter is in the hands of a madmen and a heretic, Kyras, he who should be the greatest of us, has bargained away his soul to the Powers of Chaos! While we, are branded as renegades and traitors, my brothers, this CANNOT, THIS -WILL NOT- STAND. (Insert Force Commander's fate here) LET NONE FIND US WANTING, BY CHAPTER AND EMPEROR."
The rest of the speech regarding the Force Commander and his men depends on how well you take care or nor going to Chaos. Maintaining a high purity level leads you to becoming the Force of Retribution within the Chapter, partial Purity leads both you and Angelos to be declared Renegades by Kyras. Maintaining a neutral purity or slightly corrupted level means you are exiled to the Eye of Terror for at least a 100 years until you die or kill everyone. At half+ but not at full corruption, Angelos brutally kills you on the spot with his Thunder Hammer. At full corruption, Angelos swears to kill you for becoming a Chaos Lord. He can't do it there because you took your ship for a spin in the Eye of Terror.
Gabe's role in DOWII Retribution
In Dawn of War II Retribution, Gabe gets his ass pwnd by Kyrus the previous chapter master who turned to the dark gods during Chaos Rising. After getting said ass pwnd (literally) he got smashed by Kyras's demon fists of fisting). He gets saved by Diomedes (you) via spamming orbital bombardments on Kyrus's face.
And lastly Gabriel comes back at the end of the game as the Chapter Master of the motherfucking BLAHD REHVENS. So, let me make this perfectly clear to you: Thule gets cut up by a Warrior beast and has to be interred in a Dreadnaught. Angelos is crushed by the flaming fists of a Daemon Prince of Khorne and just needs several bionic implants.. actually Chapter Master Angelos is now mostly bionics, which when combined with his profound dedication to the Emperor and Imperium as a whole makes him a kind of foil for Lugft Huron. Anyway, this maybe explained by the fact that the aforementioned flaming fists were just flaming fists (in other worlds sterile) while the aforementioned Warrior Beast had all sorts of shit on it's claws THAT COULD MELT POWER ARMOR AND FLESH LIKE SOME REALLY STRONG ACID OR SOMETHING, either that or his fucking AWSOMENESS or raw Plot armor allowed him to live
(Which begs the question how the fuck was he able to kill SIIINNDRIII the Daemon Prince back in DoWI and come back one piece.. wut) (Sindri merely tapped a small portion of the Daemon of the Maledictum's power, which while making him significantly more powerful than an ordinary daemon prince, does not hold a candle to Kyras becoming ONE with the Daemon of the Maledictum AND gaining enough favour through mass slaughter to ascend normally, making him quite likely the most powerful new daemon prince since the Daemon Primarchs)
It is said that the retribution 'Epic end' is a combination of the Eldar, Imperial Guard and space marine endings, as well as parts of the Chaos Space Marine ending. Taldeer's soul stone is rescued, the Blood Ravens purify their chapter, Castor gets the head of Kyrus mounted in his already impressive trophy gallery, and Eliphas will regain his badassness and become a Daemon Prince.
He also has a sexy old man voice and several of the most broken (and awesome) abilities in the game. Though he is second to Eliphas in this regard, who with a fully upgraded Sweeping Doom can ROFLstomp an entire army with a single sweep.
In books
The Midget Goto wrote a series of DOW books (this pleased him) which were about Gabriel's adventures, but since this only provoked Nerd Rage from both fans and Redshirts alike, his stuff is not CANON. Speaking of Novels, one apparently claims that Gabriel was an Imperial Guardsmen before becoming a Space Marine. This is bullshit of the highest order, as the biological implants of a Space Marine can only transplanted into candidates at a young age and many only join the ranks as full fledged battle brothers at something close to 18 (the only exception is the Angry Marines; their writefaggotry implies they can recruit from adults too, as well as, presumably, the Space Wolves because they only recruit from people who have already fought gloriously in battle and children don't really do very well with fighting). That means that Gabe must have been something between 8 - 13 when he became an infantryman in the Guard, which is impossible because the conscription age of the guard is usually 13 (Cadia notwithstanding), and they usually don't conscript unless they're under constant attack and are running out of trained guardsmen to throw at the enemy. Additionally, according to the Midget Goto, he's a 'symbol of hope to the Biel-Tan Eldar', despite the Biel-Tan being the most racist and xenocidal craftworld of all. He also had a thing with Macha which ended when she had to turn herself into some kind of green warpfire to stop the Necrons at Lorn V and disappeared from the story afterwards.
Dammit Goto! Just stick to putting multilazers on the multilazers on the multilazers. So that you can shoot multilazers while you shoot multilazers while you shoot multilazers. It might be retarded but it can be written off as an in-universe quirk of some idiot with a few spare multilazers lying around. Completely fucking up the fluff by re-writing the fundamental motivations and character of entire races can not be overlooked in the same way!
A more recent short story reveals what exactly happened on Cyrene- while there were no explicit signs of corruption presint there at first glance, the planet was just about ready to launch a full rebellion against the Imperium; in light of the discovery that psykers were no longer being taken to the Black Ships and that trade with xenos was the norm, the Inquisition declared the situation to be grounds for Exterminatus. The one week of orbital bombardment was actually preceded by an all-out assault on the ground by the Blood Ravens and the Grey Knights, because apparently the Inquisition wanted to be absolutely sure nothing could possibly survive (that, or they were afraid killing too many psykers at once would cause bad things to happen). Gabe had hope he could save his father from the purge, but to his horror he learned that his father was one of the rebellion's leaders and had despised the Imperium ever since Gabriel had been chosen to become a Space Marine. With a heavy heart, Gabriel had no choice but to execute his own father(Doesn't this mean that Gabe is pretty young for a Space Marine? I mean, his father is still alive). No wonder he refused to talk about what happened on Cyrene.
Codex: Gabriel Angelos
If you ever wanted to play a cheesy CaptainChapter Master for fun, here's your reasonable statline.
| Pts | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | Sv | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gabriel Angelos: | 250 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 2+/4++ |
Chapter Master: Gabriel Angelos possesses the rank of Chapter master, and as such, may be accompanied by an Honour Guard squad, in addition, he may call down a single orbital bombardment per game (see Codex: Space Marines).
Wargear:
- Godsplitter: This sanctified Daemonhammer is a Master-Crafted Thunder Hammer (see Warhammer 40,000 rulebook) that was gifted to Gabriel during the Tartarus Campaign, this weapon was made as an anathema to anything daemonic. This weapon ignores a Daemon's invulnerable save.
- Plasma Pistol: See Codex: Space Marines. Can be swapped for a Master-Crafted Bolt Pistol for free or with an inferno pistol for +5 points.
- Reclamation of the Chapter: This suit of power armour was specially crafted for Angelos by the Chapter's Techmarines to honour his ascension to Chapter Master and is designed around his extensive bionics. It has also been inscribed and blessed by the Chapter's Chaplains to signify his victory over the forces of heresy. This is Artificer Armour that infers the 'My Faith is my Shield' special rule.
- Iron Halo: This holy icon projects a powerful shield around the bearer. Gabriel receives a 4+ invulnerable save, this is shown in his profile above.
- Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades.
Special Rules
Independent Character, And They Shall Know No Fear, Eternal Warrior.
My Foe Shall Fall!
Gabriel has squared off in combat against some of the most terrifying and powerful foes the Blood Ravens have faced in recent centuries, including colossal Daemons and Tyranid Bio-terrors. Gabriel's close-combat attacks against Monstrous Creatures are resolved at Strength 10 and do not suffer the Initiative penalty for using a Thunder Hammer, therefore striking at Initiative 5 before any other modifiers.
My Faith is My Shield!
Despite the heresy and treachery that has plagued the Blood Ravens in recent years, Gabriel has never wavered from his faith and maintained absolute loyalty to the Emperor. In combat Gabriel channels his purity through the hallowed wards inscribed into his blessed armour. Once per game, Gabriel may give himself a 2+ Invulnerable save for the duration of a single combat phase, regardless of whether it is yours or your opponents.
Redemption RETRIBUTION
Gabriel fights to redeem his chapter, the Blood Ravens, from the sins of their former Chapter Master in the eyes of the Emperor and the Imperium, and will never rest until this is fulfilled. This ability gives Gabriel the 'Eternal Warrior' special rule.
Cybernetic Enhancements
After his battle with Kyras much of Gabriel's body had to be rebuilt with cybernetics. As a result he is more resilient than before. This grants him +1 Toughness (already included in profile).