Dark Angels (Warhammer 40,000)

The Dark Angels are one 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.

The Dark Angels have the honour of being the first Legion created by the Emperor. Like the others, their Primarch was lost while he was still in his infancy. He later turned up on the distant planet of Caliban, which bore some resemblance to early medieval Earth. The Primarch, named Lion El'Jonson (a reference to the real writer Lionel Johnson, who wrote a poem entitled "The Dark Angel"), became the leader of an order of knights. The knight who discovered the young primarch, Luther, saved him from death at the hands of his fellow knights, due to the young Primarch's wild appearance, and the two become close friends.

When the Emperor finally discovered El'Jonson, many of the knights became Space Marines in the Dark Angels Legion, including Luther. The Legion was thusly named due to the fact that they were the only Legion at the time who wore jet black armor. They performed well during the Great Crusade, although during a particular battle, Lion El'Jonson and Leman Russ, the Primarch of the Space Wolves got into a fist fight, which began a feud which still continues. Although the rivalry typically takes the form of a ritulistic duel between champions elected from the ranks of both chapters, it can manifest in other ways. It can become very violent, but it is typically set aside when more pressing matters, such as common enemies.

During the Horus Heresy, both the Dark Angels and Space Wolves Legions were far from Terra (Earth), and were unable to participate directly in the events taking place on Terra. However, their imminent arrival forced the traitor leader Horus to take his last gamble, knowing that if they arrived before he took control of the planet, they would tip the balance in favor of the loyalists. Luckily for the Imperium, he was defeated by the Emperor and shortly thereafter both Legions arrived to mop up the remaining Chaos forces.

After the Heresy, the Dark Angels helped restore order to the Imperium. However, during this time, the Dark Angels left behind on Caliban became agitated at being forced to essentially babysit a backwater planet. This led to the leader of the garrison, Luther, turning to the dark gods of Chaos, who had just been defeated with the death of their champion Horus during the Heresy.

When the Dark Angels returned to Caliban after the war, they were met by a fierce attack from the planetary defenses. They were forced to assault their own homeworld, where they found their corrupt brethren had betrayed them. In a last stand which mirrored that of the Emperor and Horus, Luther and Lion El'Jonson fought, which resulted in Luther mortally wounding his friend. Luther went insane upon realizing he had struck down his close friend and was captured; and in a fit of rage at being defeated once again, the Chaos Gods opened a warp rift in the planet which scattered the traitorous "Fallen Angels" throughout the galaxy. One of the "Fallen Angels" who escaped is Cypher, who reportedly took with him the Lion Blade, the sword of El'Jonson, when he was sent through the warp.

The Dark Angel space fleet also bombarded the planet mercilessly, and this caused the structure of the planet to collapse. The bombarment, combined with the newly formed warp rift, broke the planet up and it is now an asteroid field. The largest piece, which survied due to the massive void shields in operation around the largest fortress-monastary, called the Tower of Angels, was hollowed out and became a gigantic spaceship/monastery which is now the home of the Dark Angels. This ship is known simply as The Rock. The Legion, like all others, was forced to break into smaller Chapters. Among these are the Angels of Absolution, Angels of Vengeance, and the Angels of Redemption.

This betrayal has tainted their Legion's honour, in the eyes of the Dark Angels themselves. Given that the event was purely within the Legion itself, and was on a world far from Terra, nobody outside of the Legion knows it occurred. Within the chapters themselves, only the elite veterans are permitted this knowledge- In the modern Dark Angels chapter, only the Deathwing know this secret. The chapter leadership will go to great lengths to ensure that this knowledge does not reach the Imperium at large, even at times going so far as to disobey direct orders from Inquisitors and cause overly curious individuals to "disappear".

Only the most senior members, known as the inner circle, know the greatest secret- that Luther, the great traitor, is still alive and insane, living in a cell deep within The Rock. Lion El'Jonson's body was never found; rumor has it that an enigmatic race known only as the Watchers in the Dark have taken him away to a secret place, where he is slowly healing. Luther claims, in his near-senseless mutterings, that the Lion will return and forgive him.

Characteristics

The Dark Angels are characterized by their unusually stubborn warriors, who often refuse to not only flee from a foe, but sometimes to not advance on them either, preferring to blast them from a distance with their guns. Their leaders and veteran troops, the Deathwing, are nearly fearless. Curiously, the Dark Angels also feature a special sub-unit which specializes in utilizing motorcycles and hovercraft known as landspeeders; this unit is known as the Ravenwing.

A notable feature of the Dark Angels is that they constantly hunt for the Fallen Angels, those who betrayed the Legion just after the Heresy. These Fallen are nominally led by an enigmatic character known simply as Cypher, however, no real organization is seen among the Fallen. Some have maintained their dedication to the Chaos Gods, becoming Chaos Space Marines; many have not and have instead become pirates, mercenaries, or have otherwise attempted to create a new life for themselves. Either path makes little difference to the Dark Angels' leadership, however, and Fallen who are captured are brutally tortured, eventually being executed for their crimes- a Fallen who confesses to his crimes and repents is generally executed sooner.

The Dark Angels paint their armor a deep dark green; some also wear off-white monkish robes over their armor. The elite Deathwing units wear bone white armor with special heraldry. The Ravenwing wear jet black armor, very similar to that worn by the Dark Angels before the Horus Heresy. Successor chapters typically wear a variation on the Green-Bone White-Black scheme.

The Chapter symbol is a vertically standing sword, blade down, with a stylized wing on either side. The Deathwing wear the same symbol, however the blade of the sword bears a jagged crack towards the end, a symbol of their broken honour. The Ravenwing changes the motif to be a single wing with an eagle's claw extending from the bottom, bearing a sword.

Gameplay

Currently, in Warhammer 40,000, the Dark Angels require the original Space Marine Codex as well as a smaller supplemental codex of their own to properly play. The most recent Dark Angel supplemental codex is the "2nd edition" codex. Also, there is a .pdf file availible on Games Workshop's webpage with updates for the most recent edition of 40k. Rumor has it that the Dark Angel codex will receive a new edition after Black Templars, Tau, Eldar, Ork, and Blood Angels revised editions have come out, which places the likely release date sometime in 2007-2008.

Dark Angels are generally seen as more of a "shooty" as opposed to "assaulty" or "choppy" army, meaning that they generally excell at standing back and destroying an enemy at range, rather than closing with them and engaging hand-to hand combat. Their special, Codex-specific rules allow them to sustain shooting losses without retreating or otherwise loosing their ability to lay down long-range fire, they have easy and plentiful access to high powered plasma weapons, and several of the other chapter-specific rules make them into a hard force of marines who frequently prevail through superior firepower.

This does not mean that they have no close combat ability: They are still marines, and indeed, the Deathwing are Stubborn (similar to Fearless), making them excellent warriors at close range. However, they lack dedicated veteran squads and except for a few HQ units they receive no special bonuses to hand-to-hand combat. They are generally a well rounded force with a predileciton for ranged combat. The fact that they are still Space Marines makes them highly adaptable to changing situations.

The all-Ravenwing and all-Deathwing armies, on the other hand, are much more difficult to use owing to the high ratio of points/model. Deathwing and Ravenwing commanders must take special care to avoid excessive casualties, and to only engage a foe when the outcome is likely to be favorable. Each of these armies' greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness.

For Ravenwing, the fact that no-one in the army has a movement range of less than 12 inches allows a commander to quickly close with objectives and unleash devastating close-range firepower, but Ravenwing bikers generally do not excell at close combat and the limited size of bike-mounted weapons makes them vulnerable to assault troops and heavy armor.

With Deathwing, a commander has an entire army composed of men suited in the best personal armor in the galaxy and driving around in the best tanks the Imperium has to offer. However, the power of these units is balanced by their high points costs, severely limiting the size of the army one can bring to bear.