Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Dark Angels (section)

===Fast Attack===
*'''Assault Squad:''' An Assault Squad is an assault unit in a shooty army. Although they are theoretically good as a cheap, fast-moving tarpit, they take up a valuable Fast Attack slot that would be much better filled with Ravenwing. If you want jump pack power, pick up Codex: Blood Angels and field them as allied Troops.
**'''Alternative Opinion:''' DA Assault Marines are a decent unit, although they don't see much use for players that run Ravenwing/a hybrid with other Wings, or finds other units to be more useful. Generally Greenwing armies can find use for them, giving that our flyers are overpriced (They have easy access to alot of Flakk Missles anyway), and most of the other units in the FA slot is RW based. Their main use, in case you don't know, is to mop up objective campers/shooty units that are either weak, suck in melee, come in low numbers, or any combination. The major fatal blow that our Assault Marines suffer is that Allies, at least with Blood Angels, can do the same job AND be scoring units. Still, these guys aren't bad if you have plenty of scoring units and want to be fluffy with them wearing robes, in a Greenwing list of course, so these two builds is what I would recommend running them if taken:
**1). 10 man squad with Meltabombs: Can take on units like Kroots, Cultists, Pink Horrors, and the like, and can go after vehicles after they have done their job. I also wouldn't advise droping their Jump Packs at all, since they can't take a Razorback instead, and Rhinos just makes them worse, having to waste a turn in order to assault the said unit.
**2). 5 man squad with a Flamer, inside a Land Raider Redeemer: A costly build, but works well against Horde armies, at least Orks and Tyranids. Since the Redeemer is an Assault vehicle, this makes it easy for the Marines to charge in after the Flamestorm Cannon and Flamer wreck havoc on your targeted xenos scum. This can also work with a Drop Pod, just add another Flamer and give those heretics a big surprise.

*'''Ravenwing Attack Squadron''' - Your Troops choice if you picked Sammael ''(or Azrael)''. You start with 3 Bikes, with the option of buying 3 more. Unlike most other space marine bikers (except white scars) these guys all have hit & run, but they also have the scout USR meaning either extra movement at the start of the game or the ability to outflank them and ruin your opponents shit, especially if you want to deep strike deathwing close to a board edge using your teleport homers, which each guy comes with as standard. You can also buy an Attack Bike; since bracketed Toughness values are now actual, the Attack Bike can't be Instant Death'd by a Krak Sniper. Attach Meltaguns for tank hunting fun. Combine with Assault Cannon-wielding Deathwing for extra fun. Also if the unit has 6 Bikes in it, a Land Speeder as well. Unfortunately, the Land Speeder isn't scoring if the unit gets made into troops, but it does save you from spending Fast Attack slots on land speeders if you'd prefer to use other options. 

*'''Ravenwing Black Knights''' - You saw those Deathwing Knights, right? These are their RW equivalent: not much different from a standard biker stat-wise (+1A, +1Ld), but these bros do each come with Corvus Hammers (+1S, rending melee weapons) + Pistols and Plasma Talons, which makes them a threat to pretty much everything. Equipping these fellas with ravenwing grenade launchers gives access to rad-shells (temporary -1T), and stasis shells (temporary -1 WS and -1 I). Have fun insta-killing carnifexes, tervigons and <s>Gundams</s> Riptides with S10 weaponry or wiping out marines before they strike. GL combines nastily with Deathwing Knights - Smite mode can make use of -1 T, while AP3 versus CSM combined with WS/I debuff means your DW Knights will strike before CSM, hit on 3+, wound on 2+ and won't allow armour saves. Also note that against Imperial Guard/Eldar you can -1 toughness and turn them into a delicious insta-gib meal for S 4 Bolters. (Add Standard of Devastation for 4x the lulz.)
**'''Other Notes:''' When taking a Deathwing Army, you're more often than not better off with these guys instead. Not only do these guys say "Fuck you" to the whole "Difficult = Dangerous thing" that comes with Skilled Rider USR (actually, ignoring Dangerous Terrain altogether!) but they have an improved Jink (extra fuck you), and they're basically Ymgarl Genestealers that always have the Toughness and Strength boost, -2 Initiative, -1 Weapon Skill, moving around like an asshole, and twin plasma guns. We even have the same number of attacks as a Genestealer (on the charge, thanks to our two weapons), and rending! Even better, they also keep their Teleport homers, so you can deepstrike Terminators easily, and in stranger spots.
** Taking an Interrogator chaplain on a bike makes these guys even deadlier. Along with the obvious benefit of Fearless, he combos surprisingly well with Hit & Run. Instead of charging in for a single turn of re-rolls then being stuck and unable to get out of combat thanks to Fearless, the Black Knights charge in with re-rolls and can then Hit & Run using the chaplains imitative 5,  letting them break out of combat, since they're not choosing to fail a morale check. They then proceed to turn around and assault them, getting the re-rolls all over again. Rinse and repeat.

*'''Ravenwing Support Squadron''' - Land Speeders, NOT just like what the other chapters get, for two reasons. First, you can take up to five of these instead of everyone else who only gets three. This makes speeders a very versatile if somewhat expensive choice. Equip them with a Typhoon and a Multi-Melta in order to handle hordes and tanks. Equip them with double flamers to make nids and other weedy skirmishers cry. Equip them with assault cannons and heavy bolters so you can force multiply with Sammael when he decides to leave his jetbike at home. Squadron them up if you wish. Take 2.
**It's the cheapest way to field Heavy Bolters en-masse. 250 points nets you 10 heavy bolters, all that are arguably more difficult to deal with than they would be mounted on mere power armour marines. 30 S5AP4 shots at 36 inches on highly mobile with BS4 for only 250 points is massively underrated
***Except that a second Heavy Bolter is 10pts per model, increasing the cost to 300 points.

*'''Ravenwing Dark Talon''' - THIS THING TROLLS ALL OTHER ARMIES. GET IT. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GOING TERMINATOR, JUST GET IT. It just wouldn't be 6th edition without flyers, and DA managed to get two. Not the best armour to be had at 11 all around, but it does pack a lot of dakka, as in double hurricane bolters and a S5 AP- heavy 1, blinding, blast rift cannon. The stasis bomb drops a can of [[Derp]] on your enemy, debuffing them for a whopping -3 to WS and I. Couple one of these with a Black knight unit for extra rage and hilarity. A Stormtalon WOULD be better, but this bad boy is meant to ''SUPPORT'' your army rather than dealing all the damage by itself.
**With the new Vanilla Marines codex, taking Stormtalons as allies is incredibly streamlined, and you don't even need to change the color of your minis (swap out "Grim Resolve" and "Inner Circle" for a Chapter Tactic of your choice, ''([[Astral Claws]] is the best fit)'' and point costs will be identical or near-identical). Suddenly Stormtalon all up in this bitch.
**In addition: the Astartes Stormwing dataslate which allows you to take a formation of 2 stormtalons and a strafing storm raven without committing to a whole allies detachment.

*'''Nephilim Jetfighter:''' Largely considered one of the biggest pieces of shit in the game... which is surprising, given this Codex was written by [[Jeremy Vetock]], not [[Robin Cruddace]]. In any case, it's not ''quite'' as bad as the Internet sometimes makes it out to be, but it is very close. The main issue is that it's 180 points for a flyer with a single twin-linked lascannon, a twin-linked heavy bolter, 6 (pointless?) Strength 6 missiles, and AV 11 on all sides. Yep, that's all you're getting, at nearly the same cost as a [[Heldrake]]. It also has something of a schizophrenic loadout. See, it has a special rule called Unrelenting Hunter, so that, when firing at enemy vehicles, you can make the enemy swap out Weapon Destroyed for Immobilized. Really good for destroying flyers, right? Well, no. You still only have a single lascannon. More importantly, it ''also'' has Strafing Run, a (rare) USR that does two things when firing at ground targets. First off, you get +1 BS, which means it'll be chewing away at BS 5. Secondly, it causes Pinning. But you only have a lascannon, right? Nope, you can switch out for an Avenger mega bolter for free. You'll get 5 S6, AP 4, Pinning shots at BS 5. Suddenly, it became a fairly decent ground attack craft... except it's still not as good as a Heldrake, ''and'' you're giving up 180 points of anti-aircraft. ''Fuck.'' One option, if you're feeling like having fun, is to get two, one with las, one with avenger mega bolter, next to a Darkshroud and destroy all enemy flyers while enjoying a 3+ cover save.
**'''alternate opinion''': take this with some salt since I don't play Dark Angels, but I can see no reason WHY you can't use the Avenger bolt cannon on other flyers, no other flyer has armour higher then 12 so worst case, you can try to glance enemy flyers with weight of shots and still have the option to strafe ground targets lending it a higher degree of flexibility then the single shot weapons. I know where the previous author is coming from, but sadly you aren't a Necron Annihalation barge, you can't simply glance flyers to death with an abundance of shots. With only five shots, you will be lucky to get one glance on a flyer; stick to strafing infantry with this one. 
**Get yourself a Fire Raptor gunship from forgeworld, it does exactly the same job, but better.

*'''Ravenwing Darkshroud''' - Fuckin' A the Ravenwing got a lot of new shit! Anyway, you know how shooty armies have to scurry around finding cover so they don't get set up for an assault or blasted for being out in the open? Well, the Dark Angels Techmarines thought "why not bring our own cover?" Let's be serious for a second: it's a big landspeeder. Yes, you can deepstrike it like a landspeeder, but you're gonna miss out on providing cover for things in rhinos. Second, it has the HUEG GUTS problem, as every Blood Angels player is familiar with. Just keep this thing behind some rhinos, giving your guys <s>shrouded</s> <s>ONLY GIVES STEALTHED NOW!! WAS NERFED INTO NEAR UNFAIR USEFULLNESS!</s> since when did ever give shrouded to other units? Codex says stealth-and doing mean things to whatever thought it was a good idea to charge that tac squad. Also watch <s>Turbo-boosting</s> Ravenwing get 3+ Jink, and Black Knights/Command Squad get 2+ due to Skilled Rider. Obviously, this thing NEEDS to be Turbo-boosted EVERY turn for 2+ Jink or it WILL die easily.

*'''Land Speeder Tempest Squadron (Forgeworld)''' - Feels like a good fluffy choice for Dark Angels armies as an alternative to Ravenwing support squad though with slightly improved front armour and the ability to shrug off crew shaken/stunned with armoured cockpits. IA2:2nd made this cooler, with the addition of twin-linked flakk missiles, a squadron of these can perform any role asked of it. Anti-Infantry & Anti-Tank using rending assault cannons and frag or krak missiles depending on your situation. Even without skyfire on the assault cannon, the amount of shots are bound to hit something in the air if you have several of them. While not true flyers, if you wanted to you can reposition on the battlefield them as if they were flyers. 

*'''Relic Javelin Attack Speeder (Forge World)''' - An upgunned and uparmoured Land Speeder that flies solo. AV11 means it is now invulnerable to bolter fire, but still melts under anti-tank (though jink saves help a bit). Costs less than a Tempest speeder, but it is more customisable, packs a cyclone missile launcher (for shots instead of twin-linked) OR a twin linked lascannon for tank hunting and as a nice bonus it looks absolutely '''fabulous'''. The main downside is a real money price - almost THREE TIMES MORE than regular speeder - like it's silver-plated or something. Also as a relic requires an Interrogator Chaplain if you want to take more than one.

*'''Caestus Assault Ram (Forge World)''' - Craziest vehicle in the game, designed to ram things (hence the name), and accomplishes this by having a 5+ inv. save against attacks on the front (inc. rams, either from the enemy ramming you or you ramming them), re-rolls the armour penetration dice when ramming, and +1 to the vehicle damage roll, and godlike-impenetrable for a flyer armour of 13 13 11. Contains a twin-linked MAGNA-MELTA (WTF?), which is: range:18" str:8 AP:1 type:Heavy 1, large blast, melta. Sound fun, eh? Holds ten men, ideal for punching a hole in the enemy battle lines and disgorging troops, AND it's an assault vehicle, so straight into close combat ''(and no restriction against terminators, in fact, they only count as one man inside this, not two! *even BETTER in Dark Angels armies*)''. Now this means that the Caestus has to be fast, and it is! Its type is: Flyer (hover mode), and it STILL can ram/tankshock while zooming. Comes stock with extra armour, and Ceramite shielding (immunity to 'melta' rule). Options are: Firefury missile battery (range: 36" str:6 AP:4 type:Heavy 4, blast, twin-linked, one-use), Teleport homer, and Frag assault launchers. One should use the Caestus to ram straight through the strongest point in your enemies force, in most battles you'll be there on turn one, thanks to the 36" afterburner. Ram a tank with this (Generally given the colossal afterburner you'll give them a S10 hit) and then deploy the men inside (preferably dedicated H2H troops), and charge straight in against the nearest infantry, or if you feel like it, shove a grenade up a nearby tank's tailpipe. The latest rules for the Caestus are in Imperial Armour: Volume 2, 2nd Edition which explicitly gives it an exception to the supersonic rule where it can choose to enter hover mode and the passengers can disembark.