The Dark Angels Chapter of Space Marines is a Chapter characterized by honor, fearlessness and a closely guarded secret that is their biggest shame. The Dark Angels seek to capture the Fallen – fully half their Legion had fallen to Chaos during the Horus Heresy. They present as knightly monks who wear robes over their power armour.
Hello there! Zak Ludick here with another Warhammer 40,000 lore post! If you wanted to ask: “Zak, how many lore posts are you going to make?” Then I would need to answer you with a… “The lore of Warhammer 40,000 has been developed over a course of 30+ years by dozens of people. If has a LOT of lore!”
And to be honest. I have been scratching the surface of things. I COULD get more in depth on things but without having done an introduction… this does not seem practical or thorough.
I try give my own spin on things of course but before I can give too much humour, people do need to somewhat understand the setting of 40k.
In any case, let’s talk about them Dangles!
Dark Angel History
The Dark Angels were the First Legion. Legion I. Their combat experience and military record started before the other Legions.
Chaos scattered the Primarchs across the Galaxy and the Emperor set out in his Great Crusade to find and reclaim his lost sons. He used the genetic data to raise the Space Marines Legions, each in the image of their Primarch gene-fathers.
Legion I (One) was the Dark Angels and the Emperor used them first. He added to their number the other Legions as he went along.
I am not certain when he found the Dark Angel Primarch... but let's considet what the Primarch did before the Big Daddy E came to the planet.
Lion El'Johnson crashed down onto the Death World of Caliban. This was a world of monstrous horrors lurking in the forests. There were knights on Caliban who wore heavy armor and rode horses and fought and killed these monsters. Many of couse also died fighting these horrors.
A young warrior came to them, quickly outgrew them in both stature and skill and led the Knights on many successful hunts of the monsters of the world.
Lion was a expert swordsman but was also remarked for having a brilliant tactical mind. Generally, this is always remarked of nearly every Primarch story. Bigger and stronger than the average man and a natural leader.
However, during the Horus Heresy one of Lion's strongest Captains led nearly half the Legion in the name of Chaos and Horus the Warmaster. The chaos Dark Angels, called the Fallen, lost and the Dark Angels and their Successor Chapters - Such as the Angels of Redemption and Angels of Absolution, have been hunting the Fallen for the last 10,000 years!
The Dark Angles now
Even though this chapter split up into 1000 man Chapters as the Codex Astartes (the Ultramarine playbook written by Rowboat Gellerman), each Chapter has a Grand Master as a Chapter Master but the Supreme Grand Master is the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels... the current one is Azreal, Supreme Grand Master, Keeper of Truth.
Each of these Chapters has an Inner Circle that constitutes the Captains, Chaplains, Librarians, often Apothacaries and often members of the 1st Company Veterans and 2nd Company too. Basically if you get promoted high enough, you get into the Inner Circle and all the Inner Circles are connected to the Supreme Grand Master and their overall hunt for the Fallen.
The Dark Angels also have a special HQ choice in the form of an Interrogator Chaplain. Chaplains are already religious fanatics, now add to that the training of how to extract information by torture and the shame of knowing that your Chapter's honor is soiled by the treachery of half your number. They are very mean.
The Chief Librarian is Ezekeil is the one who keeps the Book of the Fallen.
Heraldry Matters
Before the Heresy, the Dark Angels wore Black armor, after the Heresy they changed their armor to Dark Green. All save for the Ravenwing - who is now the 2nd Company in the Dark Angels Chapter and for Successors. Not one of the Ravenwing fell to Chaos, thus they were allowed to keep wearing their black armor.
The Ravenwing are all on Bikes and Land Speeders!
They are led by Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing.
The other part of their army that has different colours is the Deathwing - The 1st Company.
While many Space Marine Chapters have a Vertan 1st company and SOME Terminators, the Deathwing only have terminators. The Dark Angels' Death Company is led by Master Belial.
More about the Dark Angels another time! Thank you for reading!
