Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Dark Angels (section)

==Warlord Traits==
Solid choices overall with Brilliant Strategist and Master of Maneuver being the stand outs.
#'''Fury of the Lion:''' Any time your Warlord charges, was charged, or performed a heroic intervention this turn, friendly Dark Angels within 6" add 1 to their strength for that fight phase. Not bad. Asmodai has this trait if he's your warlord.
#* Stacks with Chappy Dread's existing +1 strength aura, which is cool if the dread is your warlord. Good if you want a 'Smash-Master' with Jump Pack & TH/SS on par with a Blood Angel's smash-captain vs toughness up to 5, and 8 though 10.
#'''Courage of the First Legion:''' All friendly Dark Angels within 12" of the Warlord automatically pass Morale tests. Considering Morale isn't an issue at all for Dark Angels, you may give this one a pass. Ezekiel has this if he's your warlord. 
#*Unless you are ThatGuy doing Azrael, Lieutenant, Darkshroud, Ancient and spamming Sniper/Heavy weapon Scout all the way to spam Mortal Wounds, Hellfire Shell and Flakk Missile...
#'''Brilliant Strategist:''' Once per game, you can re-roll a single failed hit, wound, or saving throw roll, if your warlord is alive. In addition, if your army is battleforged, roll a d6 each time you use a stratagem. On a 5+, you gain a command point. You can never go wrong with more CP. Azrael starts with this one, naturally.
#'''Huntsman:''' Your Warlord can fire Pistols, Assault, Rapid Fire, and Grenades (but not Heavy) at enemy characters even if they aren't the closest model. In addition, when he piles in or performs a Heroic Intervention, he can move towards the closest enemy Character instead of the closest enemy model. No hiding behind meatshields for your foes' characters now! Belial starts with this one. 
#*This is almost useless, as the chances of taking out a character with the guns available is very slim. Characters have 4 or more wounds generally, and your only real options are a combi-melta or plasma talons/lion's roar relic. With needing to hit, to wound and get past invulnerable saves your chances are very slim of actually killing a character with this. Has some merit against support characters, such as apothecaries or tau ethereals.
#*Techmarines with Servo harness (for the plasma cutter) and combi-plasma (or lion's roar) can pump out 3x overcharging plasma shots at 12", and with the Relics of the Dark Age, up to 9 damage. Put him on a bike for 4 more bolter rounds. Chappy Dread can also take 2x storm bolters for 8x BS2+ shots in double tap range, up to 8 damage. Could also pair well with the Bolts of Judgement special issue wargear.
#'''Master of Maneuver:''' Re-roll the dice to determine how far a Dark Angels unit advances and CHARGES when they're within 6" of the Warlord. As with last edition, Sammael starts with this one. Kind of pointless on him since biker units automatically advance 6", and you're not using Sammy correctly if he's not next to Bikes and/or Land Speeders. 
#*That second bonus is top notch though, as it basically turns your Dangles into Ork Boyz. Give this to a Deathwing Ancient and deepstrike in with your Deathwing Knights. Your DW Knights now have +1 Attacks and make that 9" charge roughly 47% of the time now. Since it says "reroll the dice to determine Advance/Charge distance", You can reroll 1 or both dice when Charging/Advancing, your Deathwing Terminators or even your melee Veterans can go with Sammael or your warlord with this trait to do the nasty things in close-quarter combat.
#'''Stubborn Tenacity:''' Roll a die each time your warlord loses a wound. Add 1 to the result if the Warlord did not move during his last movement phase. On a 6, that wound is ignored. Never take the BBB one, as this does exactly the same with a flat upgrade.


Available with the new Ritual of the Damned book, Warlords can draw from one of two new trait tables. Lay Low the Mighty and Impeccable Mobility are the standouts.
====Deathwing====
#'''Lay Low the Mighty:''' {{W40kKeyword|Deathwing}} units within 6" of the warlord can re-roll wound rolls for attacks made with melee weapons against {{W40kKeyword|CHARACTERS}} or units with a wound characteristic of 8 or more.  Great for a Deathwing Deathstar as this can buff multiple units
#'''Inexorable:''' When resolving attacks against the warlord, wound rolls of 1-3 fail irrespective of any abilities the weapon has. I mean, if your warlord's gonna be in the thick of it this could help. If Chaplain Dreadnoughts can make use of it, they'll love this.
#'''Watched:''' Once per battle in the psychic phase, the warlord can automatically deny a single enemy power regardless of whether or not he's in 24" denial range. Pretty good overall WT when facing psychic heavy armies like Chaos, Grey Knights and Tyranids. The unlimited range allows you to deny crucial powers like miasma of pestilence on Mortarion.

====Ravenwing====
#'''Impeccable Mobility:''' {{W40kKeyword|Ravenwing}} units within 6" of the warlord ignore the penalty for moving and firing Heavy weapons, and do not suffer the penalty for advancing and firing Assault weapons. Now ''that'' is awesome. <s>It got changed up in the most recent FAQ with 9th edition in the pipeline. It's now even better since you can fire off those Heavy weapons without penalty after advancing as far as you can.</s> The FAQ only affects 9th Edition to update now redundant abilities and stratagems ect. In 8th Edition you still have to use the rule as worded for heavy weapons only ignoring the -1 penalty. Otherwise you'd also have to also follow the rest of the FAQ such as deleting the power of the machine spirit ability on landraiders ect while not getting the heavy weapon penalty only applying to infantry rule, but when there's a 9th Edition tactics page, you'll be correct to add this because it'll mostly be a copy paste.
#*By far and away ''the'' best warlord trait for a Ravenwing army as you can give it to a Talonmaster and he's never the getting a -1 for moving with his heavy weapons (Something he's criticised for in his section), your landspeeders don't get the -1, the attack bikes don't get the -1, your planes are now hitting on a 2+ with the strafing run rule. And it gets better, your Blackknights are now jinking and shooting as if they hadn't. Add this altogether with Sammael and an Apothecary and you're going to be scary.
#'''Tactically Flexible:''' Once per battle, at the start of the Battle Round you can select a Combat Doctrine that isn't active. All {{W40kKeyword|Ravenwing}} units within 6" treat that Doctrine as the active one until the end of that Battle Round.
#'''Outrider:''' Warlord and one {{W40kKeyword|Ravenwing}} unit get a free 12" move after the Battle begins but before the first turn starts. You cannot come within 9" of any enemy units, naturally.

===Vanguard Space Marines===
Available only to {{W40kKeyword|Phobos characters}}, aka the tacticool Captain, Lieutenant and Librarian found in the Shadowspear box. Chaplains can suck it because yelling catechisms isn't stealthy.

#'''Shoot and Fade:''' Immediately after doing a shooting attack (except Overwatch), this warlord can move. If he does, he also has to advance.
#*Imperial stealthy Jump-Shoot-Jump baby! There are better things to do than to play with ONE model's positioning, but this trait does enable your buff characters to be at many places at once, repositioning at max speed: be near one unit, those guys shoot, your captain shoots, then he dashes over to buff another unit's shooting. Can also enable him to get back behind his troops/break LoS and avoid retaliation. By the 2019 Spring FAQ you can also use this in conjunction with the Auspex Scan strategem, potentially allowing your warlord to move 3 times during a round, or bait your enemy deep striking his forces near your warlord, and scurry away without fear of getting charged. Note that this only triggers on the Librarian or Lieutenant, the Phobos Master can never use the auspex scan stratagem due to his omni-scrambler.
#'''Princeps of deceit:''' At the start of the first round but before the first turn begins, you can remove and redeploy up to 3 {{W40kKeyword|<Chapter>}} {{W40kKeyword|phobos}} {{W40kKeyword|Infantry}} units present on the battlefield. Results depend on the mental games you can play on your enemy - it's not going to be a surprise to your opponent, but being able to make corrections after your enemy's cemented his choice instead of being part of the simultaneous deployment process can be an amazing benefit, and one that Eldar pay 2CP for.
#*It happens after the Seize the initiative rolls, so it is perfect to be prepared to either getting or losing the first turn because of a lucky 6.  
#'''Master of the Vanguard:''' Friendly {{W40kKeyword|chapter}} units within 6" of the warlord gain +1" to both their move, advance AND ''charge'' rolls.
#*Again, this works on non-{{W40kKeyword|Phobos}} units, though Master of Maneuver works better if you just want a better charge success rate.
#'''Stealth Adept:''' -1 from hit rolls that target the warlord. Not just at range so he can prove he's the better sniper around, but it also works in melee; useful since the warlord lacks an invuln save.
#*Combine with Shroud of Heroes for -2 to hit.
#'''Target Priority''': The Warlord can skip shooting in the shooting phase to select a friendly Dark Angels PHOBOS unit within 3" and a visible enemy. The selected friendly unit gets +1 to hit against the enemy in question until the end of the phase.
#'''Marksman Honours:''' +1D to ''all'' of the warlord's guns, and he can reroll all failed hit and wound rolls for ranged attacks. Explicitly does not apply to relics nor grenades.