Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Dark Angels (section)

==Formations and Unique Detachments==

===Lion's Blade Strike Force===
In line with the recent 7th Edition releases, Dark Angels get a unique Detachment comprised of Formations. Mostly, it's the same as our Vanilla brothers but with The Unforgiven's unique twists added on top. Special rules are: Everything with Grim Resolve fires Overwatch at full Ballistic Skill. Also, two Battle Demi-companies may combine into a single formation that may purchase Rhino/Razorbacks/Drop Pods for FREE (Same as Vanilla marines). Well harlequins/Swarm Armies aren't winning against these guys anytime soon. 

====Core Choices (1+)====

*'''Battle Demi-Company (1+):''' 1 Company Master or Chaplain, 0-1 Command Squads, 0-1 Company Veteran Squads, 3 Tactical Marine Squads, 1 Assault Squad, 1 Devastator Squad, and 0-1 units of Dreadnoughts. Everyone in the Demi-Company gets Objective Secured, just like the Vanilla Demi-company, and gets to fire overwatch at BS3 instead of BS2. The Chaplain is a good choice as he comes fully equipped at 90pts and can join the assault squad whether they choose to use jump packs or a drop pod. Give them two flamers and meltabombs, and you've got a deep-striking Jump Infantry squad that has Zealot, Objective Secured, and the ability to put a dent in almost any enemy unit. 

====Command (0-1 per Core Choice)====

*'''Inner Circle (1 per Battle Demi-Company):''' Azrael, Belial, Sammael (Who can take Sableclaw instead of Corvex as always), 1 Company Master, 1 Interrogator-Chaplain (who can be traded for Asmodai), or 1 Librarian (who can be swapped for Ezekiel).  Pretty much your HQ slot sans Techie.

====Auxiliary Choices (1+)====
*'''Ravenwing Attack Squadron:''' 1 Ravenwing Bike squad, or Attack Bike Squad, and 1 Landspeeder Vengeance or lone normal Landspeeder. They all gain ''Scout'' (including the Land Speeder) and if the Land Speeder shoots an enemy and causes a hit, then the Ravenwing Bike/Attack Bike squad gains +1 BS when firing at that target and finally, the whole formation counts as a 12" Teleport Homer for deep striking Deathwing units. Pretty nifty bonuses as it helps Deathwing and the Bikes hit more often. Recommended a heavy bolter or assault cannon to get almost certain hit for that +1 BS. 
**'''Alternate View:''' Attack Bikes with Multi Meltas (1 or 2) and a Double Multi Melta Landspeeder will scare the hell out of anything with an AV. With that Scout move it isn't too hard to get into melta range quick.
*'''Third Take:''' Heavy Bolter Attack Bikers or Grav Bikers with a Typhoon Missile Launcher and Heavy Bolter Landspeeder is a fairly effective way to deal damage from a distance and clear units that have taken cover in ruins and buildings.
*'''Ravenwing Support Squadron:''' 1 Ravenwing Land Speeder Squadron, plus one Darkshroud '''or''' Vengeance. Holy shit... they all get Grim Resolve ''(wait for it...)'', Interceptor and Strafing Run. So they're pretty good at shooting. In addition, they have the Ravenshield rule; whenever a friendly Ravenwing unit [[Awesome|within 24"]] is charged, the Support squadron may fire Overwatch ''(at BS2 because of Grim Resolve)'' at the offending assaulter, or [[Rape|FULL ballistic skill]] if taken as part of a Lion's Blade detachment. Granted it only protects your Ravenwing units, who themselves will mostly have twin-linked and/or improved BS overwatch, so any opponent would be stupid to charge you with this around. Tau players may now retrieve their jaws from the floor.
**Wait! There's more: If you take a Darkshroud, normal Land Speeders gain Shrouded from it because they all form a single vehicle squadron; so the unit would have Stealth ''and'' Shrouded for a 4+ cover save in the open, 2+ in cover and rerollable if jinking. Awesome resistance in a unit that also have Deep Strike and Scout (also from the Darkshroud) for silencing ignore cover weapons before they can fire. Forget the bikes, take as many of these formations as you can. You only have to think which weapons your speeders will have. 
*'''Ravenwing Silence Squadron:''' 1 Dark Talon and 2 Nephilim Jetfighters. The Stasis bomb of the Dark Talon always hits on-target (forcing a target hit bythem to test Initiative on 2d6, picking the highest), and Slay the Warlord is worth D3 VP when using this formation to aid in eliminating the enemy's Warlord.
*'''10th Company Support:''' 1-5 Units of Scout Squads. They get Supreme Fire Discipline and... nothing else. In other words, this is just a cheap way to upgrade a Demi Company to a full Lion's Blade Force. 
**If you really want to take Scouts and a Lion's Blade force, consider taking a secondary CAD as well, since Scouts don't get any additional rules beyond ''Supreme Fire Discipline'' when taken here, but Scouts are one of those units you'd prefer didn't get charged anyway. You can have them with ObSec instead, plus free slots for those units that you can't really squeeze into the Lion's Blade in the first place ''(like Black Knights, spare flyers, tanks or FW units)''
*'''The Hammer of Caliban:''' One Landraider (Your choice of regular, Crusader or Redeemer), a Techmarine which must start inside said Land Raider, and a full squadron of three Predators, Vindicators, or Whirlwinds. The entire Formation gains Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter, the Techmarine grants the Land Raider BS 5 while inside the Land Raider (due to the **Hammer of Heretics** bonus), but the wonkiest part is the rule **Might of the Lion:** Basically, the Land Raider and the other vehicle squadron must form a super-squadron. However, the bonuses for doing so are questionable at best, if not outright pointless: The Whirlwinds gain little from Tank Hunters, while being able to Shred anyway at full Squadron size, the Predators already get Tank Hunter and Monster Hunter when fully Squadroned, but the most hilarious is the Vindicator/Land Raider team-up; RAW, [[Fail|Linebreaker Bombardment prevents the Land Raider from firing.]] Needless to say, the only theoretical use for such a formation would be if you have a weird sense of humor and like the idea of using throwaway tanks to allocate hits to prevent the Land Raider from being killed off, find a safe way to immobilize and detach the entire squadron, or have some other extreme whacky usage for this mess. Or you could spend the points on Grav Ravenwing and Black Knights.
*'''Deathwing Redemption Force:''' Led by Belial, or a Termie Interrogator Chaplain/Company Master/Librarian, 2-5 Deathwing Terminator Squads, and an option for DW Command Squads, Deathwing Knights, and Venerable Dreadnoughts. They get Preferred Enemy (CSM) and also gain ''Take the fight to the Enemy'', which should seem familiar if you play Grey Knights (it's basically Battle Focus on the turn they arrive from Deep Strike), as well as choosing in advance which turn they arrive on. Furthermore, the First Draft FAQ says that they can either be placed in Reserve ''or'' Deep Strike Reserve. This change is to allow Terminators to hide in Land Raiders kept in Reserve.
**Now there are a couple of comparisons to make with the Deathwing '''Strike''' Force FOC that you get access to, despite having the same initial prerequisites, especially since the DSF simply allows you to decide whether they pass/fail reserve rolls on a squad by squad basis, as well as being more customisable so you can squeeze in more Knights or Dreadnought rather than more regular squads. However the DSF will '''NOT''' be part of your larger Lion Strike Force formation and will therefore not get the ''Supreme Fire Discipline'' rule, nor do they get Preferred Enemy. So choose carefully.

Now, as awesome as Supreme Fire Discipline is, Lion's Blade does have limitations you need to consider. First off, there's absolutely zero way to take Black Knights, be it the regular flavor or the Ravenwing Command kind. Second, your options for tanks are very very restrained. You want a Predator? All you have to do is buy an entire Land Raider and Techmarine, plus two more Preds, and park the fucking Raider four inches away at all times. If you actually wanted 5 twin-linked Lascannons, this is great, but otherwise you have a vehicle squadron of things that were never meant to be squadded together. Similarly, if you want ANY Termies at all, you must take a bare minimum of 495 points. Want Deathwing Knights? 730 points up front. Another one is to use that awesome overwatch you shouldn't take any weapons with a blast type since you can't overwatch with blast weapons. While not a huge downsides it is something to consider. 
*Against Khorne Daemonkin and other assault armies, Lion's Blade is awesome. But if your opponent is going shooty too then stick to your CAD, since it'll let you customize WAY better.  
*'''Alternate Opinion:''' The thing is with this bonus overwatch it can be used as a powerful psychological tool. No one would want to charge your dug in stubborn marines unless they don't want to get shot to shit and taken out. Using terrain is a major factor in this as if they lack some type of assault grenades they'll have to attack at I1 AND get shot at BS3-4. Lions Blade overwatch needs some clever thought to be truly used to full potential.
*'''Alternative Alternate Opinion:''' The psychological problem with the Lion's Blade is that as soon as someone sees Dark Angels they auto-assume BS4 Overwatch, so they stay away and won't come near you for you to benefit from your special rules much. Of course some armies can't afford '''NOT''' to get into combat with you ''(Tyranids, Daemons etc)'' other more balanced armies might prefer to deny your plasma/grav overwatch and keep you at arms length.
*'''Another Alternate Opinion:''' When taken in the Lion's Blade Strike Force, Dark Angels are actually one of the most flexible close combat armies in the game, with '''COMPLETE''' control over which units fight the Assault phase. Even Terminators will think twice before facing your overwatch, especially if it's augmented by some plasma and/or grav. This means that your shooty units won't be tied in combat, where they can't do shit, and your assault units will have much greater freedom of picking the enemy units they actually want to fight. The only two armies that are completely exempt from this are Tau and Eldar, because [[Games Workshop|GW]]. Also, when playing against Genestealer Cults, you will '''NEVER''' lose. Seriously, this is probably the only army that makes GSC shit themselves with fear.

===Deathwing Strike Force=== 
So, remember how Shield of Baal has a detachment for Blood Angels that essentially allowed for an all-Vet & Termie army?  Well, this happened again. But is far more specialised.

1-3 HQ slots, 2-12 Elites, all units in this detachment must have the Deathwing rule or be a dedicated transport ''(also no dreadnought squadrons, but you can take individual venerable dreadnoughts with a drop pod)''. The FAQ changed this up, and only forces you to Deep Strike where units have the option to do so. This therefore allows you to take Land Raiders as dedicated transports and characters without Terminator Armour, they just set up in regular reserve instead.

If taken with some Ravenwing Attack Squad/Strike Force, you can then choose when you can Deep Strike, and then when you do, they can run and shoot in any order.  Oh, and a mandatory WT re-roll. The problem with this detachment is that unlike the BA Archangels detachment, ALL units ''(no exceptions)'' within the DSF must begin the game in Reserve, whether deep striking or otherwise. Which means there is no way to play solo Deathwing without any kind of support, because you'd have nothing on the table on turn one, and automatically lose the game.

*You could still use this as a solo army though, since half of your Drop Pods still have the ability to arrive on turn one, so getting your Dreadnoughts on the table with locator beacons not only becomes a necessity, but also a viable tactic. Just bring more than two dreadnoughts, otherwise your opponent will think it's cute when you drop a lone model onto the table in the first turn.
**This is oddly contradicted by the recent codex FAQ by GW.  Although no rule explicitly states that ''Drop Pod Assault'' no longer applies, simply the condition that units in the DSF begin in Reserve or Deep Strike Reserve ''(with no other caveats as to when they must arrive as with the Redemption Force)'' The FAQ itself explains that a Deathwing <u>Strike</u> Force ''(and any other Deathwing or Ravenwing detachment)'' will '''still lose''' at the end of turn one because there will be no models on the table, and suggests taking allies or discussing rules "tweaks" with your opponent beforehand. Obviously they forgot that Drop Pods were a thing.

===Ravenwing Strike Force===
On the other side of the spectrum, you have the Ravenwing detachment.  This is almost like the [[Dark Eldar]] Realspace Raiders, except on Astartes-grade hax considering how good Ravenwing got.
1-3 HQ, 2-12 Fast Attack, with an optional Elites slot and 3 optional HS slots, all for Ravenwing units.  Aside from the mandatory WT re-roll, you can also opt to deploy either normally or in reserves, where you automatically arrive Turn 2.  Whenever your bikes arrive, they'll be able to go Flat-Out/Turbo-Boost and count as Jinking.  And to drive that further, they DON'T have to fire snap-shots, making Sammael's boys even better than normally. As per the new December 2015 FAQ, this detachment now allows any Dark Angels character mounted on a bike as well, but does not give them the Ravenwing rule. This means you can now finally use those HQ slots for units other than Sammael. Interrogator Chaplains or Librarians on bikes make for fantastic force multipliers especially when combined with Black Knights.

Also, the ENTIRE detachment must start either deploy as normal, or all be in reserves. The FAQ confirms this by saying that if you take a Flyer in the detachment ''(which must start the game in reserves)'', then the whole detachment has to start in reserves along with it.

Potentially the only way around this would be to take a landing pad and park your flyer on it at the start of the game, but that <u>still</u> requires a second detachment to unlock the Fortification slot. So you still can't solo with Ravenwing and have Flyers.  One way around this is to take 2 detachments, one coming on turn one and another one with flyers coming in auto turn 2.

===Others===
*'''Ravenwing Abductor Squadron (Death from the Skies):''' a mixed Flyer Wing of 2 Nephilim Fighters + 1 Dark Talon which must be the wing leader and gains the free upgrade. The Talon but also always benefits from the "Vigilance" attack pattern in addition to whatever pattern the flyers are flying in. Meaning as an attack flyer it gains +1 BS & Jink, for a potential BS6 due to ''Strafing Run'' Though it's weapons are Twin-Linked or scatter, so high BS values are not really necessary generally. But 3+ rerollable jink is nice. 
**The problem is that the Nephilim; rather than a Talon, might have benefitted from the bonuses more. Plus the Vigilance attack pattern was the easiest one to qualify for anyway, and if you lose just one flyer from the formation or one decides to break away and do its own thing then the Vigilance pattern is all you'll ever be flying, making any bonus this formation offered entirely redundant.

*'''Unrelenting Hunt (Dataslate)''' - Company Master, Librarian, Tac Squad, Deathwing Terminators, Deathwing Knights, Ravenwing squad, Black Knights, and a Dark Talon.  How convenient of [[Games Workshop]] to put together a formation which [[just as planned|just so happens]] to include the contents of Dark Vengeance and the Dark Vengeance Expansion....its not all good news, as this formation is pretty useless. The ability to re-roll charge ranges are great, but it's only when you face Chaos Space Marines, and the auto pass on leadership is nice but with Ld 8/9 and Stubborn, morale is hardly the Dark Angels' weak spot. Altogether not terrible, as you get relentless on your tacs & characters, but just another scam from Geedubs to push Dark Vengeance sales.

*'''Librarius Conclave (Dataslate)''' - You need Ezekiel + 2-4 Librarians. Though they don't need to be deployed as a single unit and can be spread around your force. When it comes round to your Psychic Phase, you choose one model in the formation who sucks up all the collective power and automatically knows all the psychic powers of each other member within 12" of himself and in addition can harness warp charges on 3+. The downside to this is the other librarians under his area of effect cannot cast powers at all, so can cause problems with respect to power ranges and actually being able to cast things. As a final added bonus, ''Mind Worm'' doubles its range so long as there are librarians within 12" of Ezekiel, with the retooled Mind Worm, this is extremely deadly. This is a very good formation because it not only allows you to take multiple Librarians, but with good positioning, avoiding repeating disciplines ''(and accounting for Daemonology & Psychic Focus)'' you can have one psyker with knowledge of [[AWESOME|sixteen different psychic powers]] from FIVE disciplines and a pool of up to 17 warp charges available ''(not counting non-formation psykers)'' who can let rip an absolute torrent of psychic abuse to rival that of any other psyker in the game... Eldrad/Ahriman/Fateweaver can bite it.

*'''Masters of the Chapter (Apocalypse)''' - Azrael + 4-10 Captains + ''"Honour Guard"''. From the outset, this doesn't look like theres a lot going for it. Azrael's Lion Helm is made redundant since all the captains have Iron Halos, and unlike Codex Marines you don't get uber wargear to beef up your captains. However, since you don't have Honour Guard the same way as Codex Marines or Blood Angels do, you can improvise with the next best thing ("Forging the Narrative" in Apocalypse suggests taking the closest relevant unit)... ie: [[Deathwing|a Deathwing Command Squad]]. This is actually considerably harder now, since they all get 4++ saves from Azrael ''(saving some expense if you don't want Storm Shields)'', Feel No Pain from an Apothecary and use of good Standards and Champions.  Just don't add Sammael to the formation since it will screw him over.

*''' [[Deathwing|Deathwing Redemption Force]] (Apocalypse)''' - Belial and 6 Squads of regular Deathwing & 4 Squads of Deathwing Knights. This is one of the most badass formations available. You don't need "full" squads, so can get away with having a formation of around 50 men ''(which is therefore smaller than the 1st company formation)''. EVERYONE in the formation gets Rending USR on ALL attacks, shooting and melee, making them horrifying. Also, no-one can take look-out-sir rolls against this formation, so there is literally no-where to hide from these guys. Most likely replaced by the Lion's Blade DRF which instead grants them "Battle Focus" and gives them back Preferred Enemy: Chaos Space Marines.

*'''[[Ravenwing|Ravenwing Huntmasters]] (Apocalypse)''' - 5 FULL Ravenwing Attack squadrons + 1 squad of Black Knights + as many Darkshrouds as you like. Both of the shrouds effect ranges are doubled for the game and also you may turbo-boost and still shoot once per game. It's an okay formation if you have enough Ravenwing, which is the problem. That's a lot of bikes.

===Warzone Damnos===

*'''Suppression Force (Apocalypse)''' - Worth a good mention since you get 2+ Whirlwinds and a Land Speeder of your choice. Considering you get some pretty cool Land Speeder options, you could go with a Darkshroud for some survivability along with your unlimited range / twin-linked / double-shot Whirlwinds. Or you could go one better and take the Ravenwing Grand-Master's Land Speeder for AV14 & 4++ and its own twin-linked weapons.

===Warzone Pandorax===

*'''Talon of Vengeance (Apocalypse)''' - You get 1 Nephilim and 2-4 Dark Talons. The Nephilim does nothing here, and the Dark Talons can combo their stasis bombs to lock enemy units out of the game temporarily. The length of time depending on how many bombs hit the unit. This formation isn't really worth it unless you're dropping all those bombs on a Reaver Titan or better to freeze it out of the game for a turn. The problem is that you only get one bomb per talon and the pay-off really doesn't change the game in any meaningful sense. ''Should have had greater effect like freezing units out permanently like Lukas the Trickster''

*'''Thunderhead Squadron (Apocalypse)''' - 3 Darkshrouds, 1+ Vengeance & 1+ Support Squadron. Whenever 2 Shrouds are within 6" of each other your opponent will not be allowed to draw line of sight through the space between them. This is also close enough to grant 2+ jink (feel free to just perma-jink; they're Speeders in Apocalypse). In addition the whole formation gets shrouded (for the aforementioned 2+ jink) and scout regardless of their position, so can be pretty cool. Imagine stopping a shooty army from even targeting the entire rest of your army on turn 1? Yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds.