Dark Angels (Warhammer 40,000)

{{ infobox Warhammer 40,000 Chapters | title = Dark Angels | image = DAsymbol.jpg | Primarch = Lion El'Jonson | chapter master = Azrael | battlecry = Repent! For tomorrow you die! | colourscheme = Dark Green
White (Deathwing)
Black (original colours, Ravenwing) }}

The Dark Angels are a fictional military unit in the Science Fantasy game Warhammer 40,000.

They were the first of the original twenty First Founding Legions of the Space Marines serving the Imperium of Man in the fictional future of the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000.

Organization

The organization of the Dark Angels differs from the Codex Astartes in the higher ranks, along with the layout of the First and Second Companies.

The First Company is known as the Deathwing, veterans who only take to the field of battle in bone-white Terminator Armour. This armour was originally black, but was repainted white to honour the valour of a group of 30 Terminators, who single-handedly halted a Genestealer invasion of Plain's World, one of the Dark Angels main recruiting worlds. The Deathwing is unique in that it has enough of the rare and precious Terminator suits to equip the entire company, in excess of 100 complete sets of armour; other Chapters have often requested the transfer, sale or loan of these suits, but The Deathwing will not part with them.

The second company is the Ravenwing. The members of the Ravenwing are chosen not only for their skill at fast assaults on bike and landspeeder but also for their resilience to the heretical rantings of members of the fallen. The Ravenwing wear jet-black armour and specialise in lightning fast assaults. All but highest members of the inner circle are oblivious to the true purpose of the Ravenwing, to hunt down and capture every last member of the fallen as only with the blood of the fallen can the dark angels' sins be washed away.

Headquarters

The ruins of Caliban are located in the Cadian sector, to the galactic north of the Eye of Terror. Prior to the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, the planet of Caliban was covered with lush forests, inhabited by creatures warped by Chaos. The humans of the planet were a proud, martial people, forced to live in great stone monasteries.

The Dark Angels rebuilt their fortress monastery on the asteroid that had borne the original fortress, drilling deep into the bedrock and rebuilding the ruins. The New fortress is known officially as The Tower of Angels, but is more commonly referred to as The Rock. The Rock has been equipped with warp engines, enabling faster-than-light transit through the Immaterium.

The warrens beneath The Rock are where the Dark Angels bring their fallen brethren to be redeemed by their Interrogator-Chaplains. It is believed by the Inquisition to hold many other secrets. One secret is known only to the Inner Circle: Luther is not only still alive, but imprisoned within the deepest cavern of The Rock. He is incurably insane, and to date has frustrated the attempts of every Supreme Grand Master to make him repent. Luther simply rants and raves that he has no need of confession or repentance, for one day Lion El'Jonson will return and forgive him for his sins. Only when a Dark Angel reaches the rank of Company Master does he truly learn all the secrets of the Dark Angels. There is one more secret known only to the God-Emperor himself. Lion El' Jonson during the siege of Caliban was carried away by the Watchers in the dark and lies entombed, unconscious but still alive in a sealed, unreachable chamber directly in the centre of the rock, until the final battle.

Recruitment

As the Dark Angels have no home world to speak of (since the destruction of Caliban), they draw their recruits from a variety of planets, mainly with a pre-industrial level of technology. Representatives of the Dark Angels visit each recruiting world once within a normal human's lifetime, and take the strongest juveniles from the population. Each recruit is thoroughly screened, and from the moment he is accepted into the Chapter as a Space Marine, his past becomes irrelevant. Once the recruit is accepted he will undergo the normal rites to become a Space Marine. However, should he fail, his mind will be wiped clean and his body converted into that of a servitor, mindless automations that carry out the labourous tasks of the Chapter.

After the Heresy, the Dark Angels recruited from a single planet (known as Plains World). Sometime before the 41st Millennium a group of returning Deathwing found that their planet had been overrun fifty years earlier by Genestealers, with only a few un-tainted humans remaining. The Terminators, whose duty and honor required the extermination of the genestealers, prepared themselves for battle. The odds of their success was nearly non-existent. And so, the Terminators engaged in their native death ritual. Instead of anointing their skin with white ash, they anointed their armor. The Terminators cleansed the world and rescued the enslaved populace, and in honor of those few Terminators, their armor was ever after white. The Dark Angels leadership, the inner circle, recognised the folly of relying upon one planet for manpower and so diversified their recruiting grounds (these events were chronicled in the short story Deathwing, which first appeared in the Space Hulk supplement of the same name).

(Note: there is no proof the Space Hulk Deathwing events happened before or after the heresy, as no reference to the Primarchs are made at all in the text.)

Combat Doctrine

The Dark Angels follow the standard doctrine of the Codex Astartes, but their dogged resistance against overwhelming odds is legendary. The Dark Angels will stubbornly stand their ground in combat, refusing to give ground to the enemy, even if tactically beneficial to do so.

The Primary driving force of the Chapter is the hunt and capture of "The Fallen". Only by forcing every single one to repent do the Dark Angels believe they can restore their honour. If a member of "The Fallen", or someone who may know of the location of one, is present on the battlefield, the Dark Angels will ignore their objective and do all in their power to capture this individual. Everything else is second to the capture of a Fallen Angel, including any human life. It is not unknown for Dark Angels to fire upon friendly targets in order to prevent them from discovering the secret of the Fallen. Those friendly units that survive are often taken to The Rock to be turned into Servitors, to silence them forever.

The Dark Angels are also notoriously intolerant of non-humans and mutants, even those considered benevolent by the Imperium of Man. They are also highly mistrustful of the Imperial Inquisition, and will refuse to fight alongside any force that incorporates members of the Inquisition, or non-human soldiers except in the most dire of circumstances. This is due to the fact that they do not want the Inquisition investigating the Chapter.

Battlecry

"Repent! For tomorrow you die!"

Appearance

The symbol of the Chapter is a winged sword. Variants of this symbol exist for the Deathwing and Ravenwing, the former depicting the winged sword as broken, the latter a sword held by a single wing and raven's claw. The tenth Company, the Scouts, uses the Dark Angel Sword but without the wing device, to symbolise the fact that the Scout Company comprises Chapter recruits and trainees, who have yet to "earn their wings".

Prior to the Horus Heresy, the power armour of the Dark Angels Legion was jet-black. After the Heresy, the bulk of the Chapter began to appear in dark green armour, while the First and Second Companies' armour remained black. The Deathwing later changed their armour to bone-white.

Notable Members

Supreme Grand Master Azrael - The Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels Chapter and the unofficial commander of all the Unforgiven Chapters during the 41st millennium.

Cypher - The most feared member of the Fallen whose true name is unknown. Wherever this phantasm of a man goes, other Fallen are not far behind. This name comes from ancient Caliban, where is was commonly known as Lord Cypher, a man who would renounce his name and become the keeper of the Order's traditions and ceremonies.
Master Belial - Master of the Deathwing
Master Sammael - Master of the Ravenwing

Master Gideon - Ex master of the Ravenwing, crushed to death by a titan.
Master Ezekiel - Grand Master of Librarians - Keeper of the Book of Salvation. This ancient tome contains the names of the Fallen that the Dark Angels have captured.
Master Sapphon - Present Grand Master of Chaplains. He received the post neither due to age or ability as an interrogator (Asmodai is his superior in both these things), but for his vast leadership skills.
Interrogator-Chaplain Asmodai - Oldest and most successful living Interrogator-Chaplain within the chapter today. Bearer of the fabled Blades of Reason. His rules were removed from the new Dark Angel Codex.

Interrogator-Chaplain Molochia - Greatest of the Dark Angels' Interrogator-Chaplains. Died after over 300 years' service to the Chapter, with 12 Black Pearls on his rosarius. To this day, no other Interrogator-Chaplain has emulated this achievement.
Brother Bethor - Bearer of the Sacred Standard. (The Dark Angels have three Sacred Standards, namely the Standards of Fortitude, Retribution and Devastation.)
Scout Sergeant Namaan - Legendary Sergeant who died, halting the Ork advance during the Piscina IV campaign.
Anaziel - Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels in the 37th Millennium. Requested the creation of the Disciples of Caliban chapter
Chaplain Boreas - Chaplain of the 3rd Company during the Battle of Piscina IV
Captain Ezekiel - leader of the Deathwing recruiting party which discovered the Genestealer infection of their homeworld. Realizing that they faced a potential [...] mission, the Marines reverted to their tribal names, and painted their armour death-white. Ezekiel became the warrior Cloudrunner once again, and fought along side Weasel-Fierce, Bloody Moon, and the Librarian Lucius, known as Two Heads Talking.
Master Gabriel - Ex Master of the Deathwing. Was sent to find Captain Ezekiel and his men as they did not return from Totem. On finding Ezekiel the lone survivor, Gabriel discovered the fate of his brothers. Gabriel returned to his chapter and started the new Deathwing using his own badge, a broken sword mixed with the wings of the chapter badge, and kept the white in respect of his brothers. He was killed on the Space Hulk Charnel Shrine.
Chapter commander Merir Astelan - Ordered planetary defenses on Caliban to fire on Lion El'Jonsons fleet after they returned from the Horus Heresy.

Successor Chapters

After the Horus Heresy, the Dark Angels founded at least three chapters to track the Fallen, the known ones being the Angels of Absolution, the Angels of Redemption and the Angels of Vengeance. These successor chapters share in the secret of the Fallen, and collectively the Dark Angels and their successors refer to themselves as "The Unforgiven".

In addition several other chapters have since been created using the Dark Angels Gene-seed. These successor chapters were introduced in the fourth EDition Dark Angels codex released in 2007. The new chapters introduced were Guardians of the Covenant, the Consecrators and the Disciples of Caliban. The Disciples of Caliban are unusual in that Chapter Master Anaziel specifically requested their creation, the only known instance of a Chapter Master to make such a request, much less have it granted. The Consecrators are notorious for using lovingly preserved technology from the time of Lion El'Jonson himself, as such they bear a striking resemblance to the Dark Angels of pre-heresy days.

Curiously, although Dark Angel gene-seed is every bit as pure and fully functional as that of the Ultramarines chapter, The Seed of the Lion has rarely been used since the Horus Heresy.

Background Information

The background of the Dark Angels, both in Games Workshop material and within the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe is shrouded in mystery. Aspects of the Chapter's fall to Chaos bear similarities to the legends of King Arthur, in particular Arthur's/El'Jonson's eventual defeat, and Gawain's/Luther's fall from grace.

Also, the name of their Primarch, Lion El'Jonson, is inspired by the English poet Lionel Johnson, the author of "The Dark Angel". Originally the name was spelt Lyyn Elgonsen (Rogue Trader p.138); presumably to obscure the reference.

Conspiracy Theories

Games Workshop has in recent years restricted the information about the Dark Angels to emphasize the mystery surrounding the chapter. The fate of Lion El'Jonson had been purposefully left out of all texts since the early 1990s, and only re-emerged in the 2001 "Index Astartes" article published in White Dwarf Magazine. While the Inner Circle know of Luther's stasis cell, there is another chamber at the very heart of the Rock that is unknown to all but the Watchers in the Dark and the Emperor himself. This secret chamber contains the sleeping form of Lion 'El Jonson. Similarly, information regarding the Chaos Space Marines character Cypher, rumoured to be foremost of the Fallen, is kept vague to further fuel players' imaginations.

The novel Angels of Darkness (Thorpe, 2003), written by Games Workshop staff member and codex writer Gav Thorpe, provides an alternative account of the events that split the Chapter, and the primarchs' influence over their space marines. Despite the layers of learning and civilisation 'El Jonson acquired in later life, the time he spent in the forest marked him permanently, and he remained a brooding, paranoid, and secretive man. Jonson's experience taught him that exposure invited predators, that darkness was as welcoming as it was dangerous. Intrigue, half-truths, and suspicion became second nature to each new Dark Angel. Jonson mistrusted the Terran Dark Angels above all others. While these men formed a minority within the chapter, Jonson spent by far more time leading them than the Caliban Dark Angels. Jonson also systematically removed control from each chapter commander and held his Legion's reigns tightly. Each chapter posted to a warzone was shadowed by a younger chapter in secret to report on its men to the primarch.

As the Heresy erupted, the Dark Angels were operating on the Eastern Fringe. In the interim, warp storms cut Caliban off from reliable astrotelepathy, so that only garbled accounts of current events reached the planet. Some were true, some were half-true, some were outright fabrications. In their desperation, the elder Dark Angels tried to leave Caliban and confront Horus. They were prevented by their younger brethren in a battle that grounded the marines' vessels and despoiled Caliban. When the Lion returned, his fleet was fired on for fear that he had sided with Horus, and that the victors' version of the uprising had already [...] them in in Jonson's eyes. Jonson immediately ordered a full-scale bombardment, and the destruction of Caliban soon followed.

The canonicity of the novel is hotly debated. Although the Fallen character (Astelan) is a first hand witness to events, it is unclear which of his claims are true, which are deliberate misinformation, and which are bias. The author, Gav Thorpe, has stated in an interview on Dysartes that the book is not an objective look at the events on Caliban, but a character study of one of the "Fallen".

Dark Angels as an Army

In early March 2007, the Dark Angels codex for the fourth edition of Warhammer 40,000 was released. Unlike the previous edition of the codex, this was a stand-alone sourcebook that did not require players to have a copy of Codex: Space Marines. This most recent 88-page codex contains extensive in-game history, new rules and special characters for the army. New additions (and re-additions) to this edition of the codex were the special characters Sammael and Belial, the Masters of the Ravenwing and Deathwing companies of the Dark Angels respectively.

Some changes in the codex included a throwback to the rules system during the second edition of Warhammer 40,000. In that edition, Space Marine squads were taken in fixed numbers of either five or ten marines. The fourth edition of the Dark Angels' codex applied this limitation to all of their infantry squads, with the exception of the Dark Angels Company Veterans, a new unit introduced in the codex. Another change from the previous edition and also the normal Space Marine codex is the inclusion of Scout Marines as an Elites choice instead of a Troops choice. This change was also added to the latest Blood Angels codex.

The Deathwing and Ravenwing also have been changed. No longer are Deathwing limited to Terminator-only armies. They now have more choices than just the Dreadnought and Land Raider. Ravenwing, likewise, also have more options than before. Sammael, the Master of Ravenwing, also has the ability to take to the skies in either a Land Speeder or a unique Jetbike (the former is as strong as a Land Raider in Armour while the latter is as strong as a Devastator in range combat). Deathwing armies also now have access to Terminator Apothecaries and Company Banners. However, due to restricted squad size, Deathwing Terminators are severely limited (even with Belial the total count of terminators can never go beyond 47, just below half of a full company of Space Marines).

An advantage from a wargamer's point of view is that Successor Chapters can be painted as liked. Some examples are given in the Codex but players can devise their own colour scheme. So there is no longer any need to paint terminators bone white. The Codex does suggest that these successor chapters would have dark, brooding colours. There are also Dark Angels specific box sets and characters (plus Librarians and Chapter Masters).

References

fr:Dark Angels it:Angeli Oscuri pl:Dark Angels