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

==Special Rules==
*'''And They Shall Know No Fear''': Reroll failed morale tests. Not going to come into play that much given your generally good Ld scores as well as Grim Resolve and Inner Circle, but it can be helpful.The best part is you don't have to think. There are only two results from your morale tests: you lose a model or you don't lose any model. If you have the first result reroll, if you have the second one, don't do it.
*'''Bolter Discipline:''' We 2nd Edition now. Astartes and Heretic Astartes models aside from non-dreadnought vehicles using a Rapid Fire bolt weapon can take double the normal attacks (2 for bolters, 4 for storm bolters, etc) if at least one of the following is true:
** Target is in half range
** If the model didn't move during the previous Movement Phase
** If the firing model is a {{WH40Kkeyword|Terminator}}, {{WH40Kkeyword|Biker}}, {{WH40Kkeyword|Centurion}}, {{WH40Kkeyword|Dreadnought}} or {{WH40Kkeyword|Helbrute}}.
**Out of all the space marine armies, The Dark Angels probably benefit from this most (closely followed by the Imperial Fists). Having Deathwing Terminators and Ravenwing Bikers fire off at full auto the second they are in range definitely makes them a lot scarier to face off against as well as Grim resolve making this rule even more effective. Park a 5 man squad of Intercessors on an objective and watch them fire off 10 shots while re-rolling one's to hit. Ouch. 
*'''Shock Assault:''' We 6th and 7th Edition now. If a unit with this rule makes a charge move, is charged or performs a Heroic Intervention, add 1 to its attack characteristic for all models in the unit until the end of the turn. Your Deathwing and Assault squads will thank you. Also, Ravenwing squads with Chainswords and Black Knights combined with an ancient will be pure murder.
*'''Combat Squads''': 10-man squads can be split into 2x 5-man squads pre-game. Agressors and Inceptor units of 6, can split into units 3. Ravenwing bikers in units of 9 can split into units of 3+attack bike and 5. (The Tactical Flexibility stratagem (below) can be used to split the units during the game in the same manner, however it can't be used on Aggressor/Inceptor/Bikers etc like the Deathwatch version, as their's is specifically worded to include them, so this rule is your only chance to split them unless it gets FAQ/Erata'd)
**Notable that combat squads doesn't normally restrict how weaponry in the squad is divided (RW bikers' attack bike is the exception). So DW terminators, for example, can use combat squads to make a unit 5 with 2x heavy weapons and a second unit of 5 with no heavy weapons.
*'''Grim Resolve''': Re-roll ones to hit when a model shoots ''(including Overwatch)'' so long as it did not move this turn, and units with this rule can never lose more than one model as a result of a failed morale test. No more Company Master babysitting needed, add Lieutenants + plasma overcharge for more [[Awesome|Fluffy purging]]. Not bad, just don't compare it with regular marines chapter tactics. The rewording to THIS TURN as of Psychic Awakening, is a big difference, previously if you moved on your turn, you wouldn't re-roll 1s' in overwatch or from ancient banners going off, now, even if you moved your turn, you're still re-rolling 1s'. Unless you moved in your enemies movement phase... which you didn't...
**Using pistols while locked in melee got a little bit more vicious; so long as you remain engaged you'll always re-roll ones on successive turns when shooting your opponent point blank in the face. Don't forget this - Cypher didn't.
**Naturally, the profusion of Plasma weaponry available to the Dark Angels just adores the free rerolls to 1s. Overcharging has never been more reliable.
**Per an FAQ if you get 2nd turn and get charged or do something else to shoot that turn (Company Banner going off) you count as not having moved and will get to re-roll ones
*'''Inner Circle:''' Given to all {{W40Kkeyword|[[Deathwing]]}} units, Ravenwing Black Knights, and several high-ranking characters, they automatically pass morale checks and may reroll fails to-hit against anything with the {{W40Kkeyword|FALLEN}} keyword. This is why the latter effect of Grim Resolve doesn't apply to Deathwing. Only Primaris unit that gets this is the Librarian because what's the use of keeping secrets from a mind reader?.
*'''Jink:''' Your {{W40Kkeyword|[[Ravenwing]]}} units (bikers, speeders, and aircraft) all gain a 4+ invulnerable save against shooting, as long as they advance in the movement phase. Remember, you can still fire assault weapons after advancing at a -1 BS penalty. Good for meltaguns, flamers and all bikes with plasma talons. Just don't overcharge after advancing.
*'''Defenders of Humanity:''' Objective Secured on all Troop Choices in a detachment comprised entirely of {{W40kKeyword|Dark Angels}} . If a unit with this rule is within 3" of an objective, they count as holding it regardless of how many enemy models are within 3" unless the enemy models have a similar rule.
*'''Combat Doctrine''': Feel like it's 7th edition all over again. Each of the three Combat Doctrines gives an AP-1 buff to different weapon types in your armies (non-cumulative with buffs from other sources). You have to use each Doctrine in order, starting with the '''Devastator Doctrine''', and once you switch there's no going back, so pay attention to the rhythm of the game. Your ''army'' gains this if ''all units in it'' have this rule, meaning taking a Guardsman Battalion or even a single Assassin CP'd in right before the battle would prevent the SM detachment from getting this rule, but allied SM detachments are ok even from a different chapter.
**On top of that, Chapter supplements give First Founding Chapters (and their descendants) a Specialist doctrine that is a bonus active on top of the regular doctrine. Bringing chapters with different specialist doctrines prevents either from getting theirs.
**These nifty rules will make your marines more efficient killers, but their now forced rotation makes them predictable - devastator -> tactical -> assault. Savvy opponents may try to break LoS to force movement penalties on your heavy weapons, rush for melee while you're still under the ranged doctrines, then fall back when you're finally under the assault one, scale buildings, etc.  The predictability is no longer avoidable as while before you didn't need to switch doctrines on the same turn they became available now you have the forced system with only one optional choice during round 3. The doctrines and their order are as follows:
*#On Turn 1, your army will always start with the '''Devastator Doctrine''' turned on, giving all your Heavy and Grenade weapons the extra -1 AP so that you can soften entrenched infantry and cripple enemy vehicles from afar in preparation for your advance. Remember the first points of AP are the most important ones: AP-2 Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons are more noticeable than AP-4 Lascannons. Do keep in mind the plethora of sniper rifles and Heavy Flamers (Incendium/Inferno/Flamestorm cannons) are Heavy Weapons too though the flamers will almost definitely be out of range for the single round you'll get to use this doctrine. The boost to Grenades matters only to Intercessors for the most part.
*#On the 2nd turn you switch to '''Tactical Doctrine''', shifting the boost to your Rapid Fire and Assault weapons. Be it to close the distance to the enemy or because your vehicles are about to give their last, this mostly passes the ranged baton to your infantry. And a bolt rifle going from AP-1 to AP-2 is more noticeable than a lascannon going from AP-3 to AP-4. Storm bolters and plasma guns work wonders here.  
*#On the 3rd or 4th turn you shift to '''Assault Doctrine''' (with a choice between the tactical or assault on the 3rd turn, you MUST change to assault on the 4th turn) giving the extra AP to your Pistol and Melee attacks. Don't. Forget. Your. Pistol. The first point of AP is the most important one - chainsword/CCWs benefit the most, while AP-4 on a sword can become excessive. Being a shooting army, this is the least useful, but can still help the melee units we do have such as Deathwing Knights who become full fledged hammernators.
**As of the 02/27/20 FAQ, you MUST change from Devastator to Tactical on turn 2, and then change to Assault on turn 3 or 4. This will force you to keep at least a few units that are capable of fighting in CQC, as you can no longer just bum around in Devastator or Tactical doctrine and persist on blasting things from across the map.
*'''Relentless Hunt''': While the Devastator Doctrine is active, all Heavy and Rapid Fire weapons increase their range by 6", and Assault/Pistol weapons increase their range by 3". Establishes your niche as the shooty Chapter quite nicely, and it's active right away. While the range bonus to non-Heavy weapon may look strange, it's plenty useful on meltaguns, which care a lot more about +3" than -1AP.  As for Heavy weapons, you'll notice the +6" the most on your shortest range Heavy weapons, so Heavy Flamers (now 14"!), Incendium Cannons, Multimeltas, and so on, but since your chapter tactic has no synergy with weapons that automatically hit, and the Doctrine bonus is better on something with poor AP, perhaps the single most noticeable winner is the assault cannon (Kheres or not). Just be wary that with the 02/27/20 Errata, this will at most give you a strong alpha strike in the first turn's shooting phase for what little that's worth.
**Due to the recent doctrines nerf FAQ our chapter doctrine has questionable usefulness. It already wasn't very good compared to codex marines and more of a buff to our shooting theme. Now however we only get the one turn of it and this is bad for some of the reasons below:
***If you play to the extra range and assuming your opponent doesn't move (which is entirely likely as they'll know your army relies on generally not moving), you'll be out of range the next turn and forced to move into range. This completely invalidates our chapter tactic forcing us to lose our reroll of 1's. 
***Following on from above this is made worse for any unit you wanted to sit still in the first place, like snipers, devastators or objective camping intercessors/tacticals. With the nerf you probably won't bother placing them with the extra range in mind as they'll be out of range in the next turn. This means you'll just place them at their default range or not at all, especially if they're just going to cover camp. Overall the changes make you either play more aggressively, or completely ignore the rule (which would indicate it already needs an update/rework) which is ironically very conflicting with the Dark Angels over all stoic gun line/ highly strategic theme and so makes our doctrine exceptionally situational and mostly useless for the single round it's active.
***If you hadn't noticed this is less of a useful playing rule and more a thematic rule, and that would, and was, great for the 20 odd days we had it before the nerf which made it almost completely useless, it now really needs a revision or a rework of some kind. Such a revision could be being moved to a more useful doctrine like the tactical or even splitting up the ranges on weapons through all the doctrines. For example it affects heavy in the devastator doctrine, rapid fire and assault in the tactical, and pistols in the assault. This would still keep it thematic but also ''actually'' useful on par with the Ultrasmurfs not counting as moved chapter doctrine.