Appeal of the Dark angels

[Pavement Artist]

Hi all.

 

Newish Black templar here. Curious about the proliferation of certain chapters and mainly what draws you guys to play them. I've noticed around Nottingham where im from and also Colchester where i attend university, Dark angels are a very popular chapter. I've posed this question to the Ultramarines and now i would like to know what makes you followers of the Lion?

 

It seems more obvious to me why Dark angels would be a compelling chapter to play as opposed to Ultramarines. Unlike the Ultras, theres something very chadowy about the DA. Nobodies accusing you of being traitors but theres no getting away from the fact that half of you did go wiggy :D You've got a bit of a habit of dissappearing people that find out aswell and i love that. The fact that you're staunch warriors of the emperor and yet forced into desperate action sometime because you know what would happen if anyone found out.

 

Anyway guys, you let me know what drew you to the DA.

 

Happy hunting Brothers

[Firenze]

They were my first chapter you know...

 

The name, models and fluff drew me. Dark space marines with cloaks and a sinister side? Gotta have it.

[Darkangeldentist]

I like my Dark angels for their background and the versatility of their armies. (Believe it or not.)

 

We've got great background that plunders from various sources and is very distinct. Plus we were the first legion. The dark shadowy edge that comes from the secret is good too but we're loyal to the end. (Well...nearly all of us are.)

 

I also like the fact that we're one of the only chapters to have more than one colour scheme associated with it.

[Brother-Librarian Hesperos]

I chose the Dark Angels purely and entirely for the fluff. I read through their history and was convinced almost on the spot. Then I started playing them, asmodai was my next bargain sealer, he felt like the DA incarnate. Being the first and greatest chapter finally came third.

[Octavulg]

Terminators. So many of them...

 

Aside from that...I like the fact that the DA are so many different things. They're warrior monks, but that's only a thin veneer over the tribesmen most of them were when they were young. They spend a large portion of their existence making up for a past error in which the actual right side is shrouded in mystery. Spiritually and practically, there are more demands on them than they can really meet. They are exemplars of what it is to be a Space Marine in the 41st millenium - fighting for a system your own people have no part of for reasons that predate your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather - and are probably lies anyway. History weighs on them, and they are pulled in many different directions by their personal histories, their loyalties to the Imperium and their Chapter, and by the massive demands placed on an organization that needs to be everywhere at once.

 

They're compromised as hell, and are not quite what they seem - or what they think they are. They're very human superhumans, and their humanity makes them interesting. Almost every other marine chapter stops being human - the Dark Angels don't, no matter how hard they try.

[IanSturrock]

I like that, when playing the Dark Angels, like Mitchell & Webb's Nazis, I can never be quite sure if we're the baddies or not:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5WoLnOOlU...player_embedded

[Ronin_eX]

They were the first army I picked up when I started playing during 2nd Edition. Their colour scheme(s) is what got me. The dark green, the stark bone and the black just played so well together. Next I got into the themes they had and the background elements.

 

They were the first legion, ex-bodyguards to the Emperor himself, led by a tactical genius who grew up in the wilds of the most dangerous world in the Imperium. Their traditions grew out of the knightly orders of their dead homeworld. They had a past rife with history, rivalry and betrayal. Most of all they exemplify the quality of loyalty to the Emperor. Not because they are perfect but because of how they take responsibility for their own mistakes.

 

Many chapters have fallen in the past and they have been goaded to atone for it by the Inquisition or High Lords by going on crusades in order to wipe the stain from their honour. The Dark Angels have too much pride for such a simple punishment and they will except forgiveness from no one but the Emperor himself, no proxy in the form of the High Lords will do. And so they see the only way to absolve their past weakness is to set themselves an impossible task which they could never conceivably succeed in. Their hunt for the fallen is their quest for the holy grail, it is their white whale and nothing short of it or direct absolution by the Emperor himself will allow them to rest. And so, despite this impossible task they have set themselves they still go out and do it and they even succeed at it in bits and pieces.

 

So mix in interesting units in the form of the Deathwing (I love terminators) and the Ravenwing, at the Arthurian theme and sprinkle some great fluff and a killer look and that is why I play Dark Angels.

[Pavement Artist]

I like that, when playing the Dark Angels, like Mitchell & Webb's Nazis, I can never be quite sure if we're the baddies or not:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5WoLnOOlU...player_embedded

 

 

+10 internets for you sir :P

 

I've only recently, really come to appreciate the background of the dark angels and as octavulg mentioned, they're extremely compromised in their beliefs whcih makes a refreshing narrative change to other chapters such as the Ultramarines and Imperial fists who have a sort of blind comfort in what they're foing

[CDR Grendelwulf]

I burned myself out during the Eye of Terror campaign playing Chaos and needed a change. It was hard for me to pick a Chapter, especially after playing against so many of them. Then, I started delving into the fluff of the Dark Angels and ran across The Shadow Guard's terrific Fortress of the Unforgiven website and I was hooked. Here was a chapter that really had a dark side (no pun intended) to it.

 

The character of Cypher intrigued me, although I did not wish to play Chaos again. So, using the Codex: Dark Angels, I built a Fallen Angels army of marines who realized they had been betrayed by Luther & Chaos and decided to fight against them. Sure, there could be no redemption, they would still be hunted by the Dark Angels as traitors, but that is the fun of being the 'Anti-Hero'!

 

Ciao,

CDR Grendelwulf

[Castlerook]

Quite simply.....I like green.

[mughi3]

Originally i played DA simply for our old rules.

i wanted a shooty army-an intractable army that didn't run away-

i wanted the versatility of differant stand alone armies in one dex-ravenwing and deathwing gave us that.

 

The fluff grew on me over time, now mostly i miss the old fluff based rules and the uniquesness of the chapter that made us different than other chapters.

 

Dammit if somebody in your army who knows something about the fallen(old "hunt the fallen" special rule), to hell with the objectives, we are going after that poor sod, because thats what the dark angels would do.

[VetSgtNamaan]

Who can resist playing the First legion? The fluff is the main reason I play and still play the Dark Angels. The most amazing backstory of any chapter in the 40k universe if you ask me. The rules can come and go but a Dark Angel play I will remain.

[CommissarStone]

When I started 40K in 1989, I picked up the RT rulebook, a box of Beakies, a box of TWO Land Raiders, and headed home for a read. In the RT book there was a small fluff box on pages 138 - 139 describing the celebration of the Feast of Malediction by the Dark Angels. It mentioned this annual event celebrating the founding of the Chapter by Lyyn Elgonsen at the beginning of the Imperial Crusades, the status of the Dark Angels as the first chapter, founded by the Emperor Himself. It mentioned the title of the Dark Angel Chapter Master - "Custodian" - acknowledging the Emperor as the true leader of the chapter.

 

I was sold.

 

And the color scheme - black armor, red details - was easy for my minimal skills to replicate.

 

I still grit my teeth when I have to paint my beloved I Legion in *shudder* forest green...

[russyhead]

For me it was only because I was 9 years old back then in second edition and my cousin had Blood Angels. Then the two codexs were in the same book called Angels of Death. So i just picked the other army in there, DARK ANGELS!

And I have kept with them ever since, so 13 years. Didn't take me long to get to know them through and through, still love them. Best Chapter.

 

And only just started to show interest in collecting another chapter (black templars) very recently. Also enjoy Tyranids and Tau. But Dark Angels will always be my favourite.

[Grandmaster damion]

Has to be the fluff

 

Knight on an imposible quest to absolve a sin that they cannot admit and no one can know about and will only accept forgivenes from the Emperor himself

sold to the blond kid in glases oh and as a bonus there dark green nice and easy to paint brill!!

 

Then you have the fact that the Dark Angels are the first legion and the epitome of the dedicated Space Marine warrior: serious minded, slow to anger, but tenacious and all but unstoppable in their zeal once aroused to fury!!

 

Add in that they will do anything absolutly anything to keep there secrets and complete there quest and you have some of then best anti hero's ever created

[Castlerook]

I'd like to expand on my earlier comment.

 

I like green, simple as that. Back in 2nd Edition, there weren't a huge amount of Chapters, either as colour schemes or other minis. You just had the Big Five and that was it (Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Ultramarines being the Big Five), and I picked the Dark Angels. It was when I read the Codex Angels of Death book I was hooked on the Unforgiven.

[whiteraven17708]

I woke up one morning with a bad hangover and these on my arms.....

still not sure how they got there but I would look funny playing anything else ;)

seriously though it had to be the fluff, best fluff in the game IMO maybe not 'dex wise, but Im not that good of a player anyway lol

[Altered_Soul]

Back in 3rd edition, when I started playing in my friend's basement, I hated his Chaos Space Marines. I wanted to kill them. So when I went about getting my own army (I actually started in Fantasy) for 40k, I was flipping through the Space Marines fluff stuff (no one in my group played Space Marines if you can believe it), I saw the Dark Angels, and everything about their fluff mentioned killing Chaos Marines. The fact that their symbol is badass and their colors were too, I was determined to pick an army that killed the heretical Berzerkers.

 

Didn't quite work out that way, but I did learn that killing Eldar was just as fun. And that Hunting the Fallen on an IG squad leader was hilarious as hell.

[Terrahawk]

Cool tattoos whiteraven. Respect. -_-

[Jeep]

I started 40K during the Armageddon campaign with Salamander space marines. I was very active through 3rd edition, then 4th edition 40K came out. It seemed to me that everything special of that army was either taken away or given to everyone else, What was left was a nerfed list of a already nerfed army with some spectacular crappy chapter traits, I was....................lost. Focus went to my 'Guard army, rooting around I came across three old Dark angles tactical squad boxes (unopened) three broken terminators, a chaplain on bike and master of the raven wing speeder that I bought used 10 years ago or so. Fixing up these models was a nice change so I bought more, The (then new) dark angles codex then came out, which I liked a lot more than the old forth edition marine codex, which coincided with a 750pt league and then a 1000pt escalation league in the local game store. There that how I got into Dark angles. Kind of Ironic that I am always playing armies with broken or ill conceived rules sets.

[Reynolds]

Back in the days of the 2nd edition, around 95-96 was when i came aboard as an Dark Angel player. First it was the color of the chapter and the iconography when i read the dreaded "Angels of Death" for the first time. It called to me in a totally different way than any of the other chapters. Once i read the pages dedicated to us i didn't think twice, i found myself as "one of them" and after that... "The Angels of Death" codex became my morning newspaper, my schoolbook and my bedtime reading.

 

My friends have throughout the years been trying to convert me to "try other armies", but never did, and never will. As the others have been shifting from marines to tyranids, to IG and TAU, i stayed loyal and wielded terminator armies(when the 3rd edition came) way before the 5+ inv came. So yeah, all i'm missing now is one huge tattoo of the Dark Angels main chapter icon on the center of my back and Deathwing on the right shoulder, and Ravenwing on the left.

 

To answer the question: DA Fanatic in every aspect, to hell or to the heavens, i'll go with the chapter. Iconography, color, fluff, "The Attitude" and in some aspect the way of thinking. It flows within my blood.

[Master Gabriel Macleod]

I have been playing Dark Angels for 20 years. I started when there was little fluff and when Dark Angel paint sceme was black. When 2nd ed Angels of Death Codex came out I read that for days. I loved the history of the chapter and the charactors. I was sad when they change the sceme from black to dark green, but begain to love the the green armor. The Dark Angels have changed very little in terms of fluff. My freinds too have try to get me to field other armies but always stuck with the Dark Angels. I can find no other chapter like it. the fluff, icongraphy , color sceme and fan base.

 

First Legion all the way babe!!!

[bevulf]

I remember when I first came to the store and was about to choose marine chapter (I already knew that I want marines). I looked at three codexes - wolves, blood angels and dark angels. I rejected wolves because I didn't like the idea of 'vikings in space'. I was however strongly influenced by the blood angels but it was monkish marines that i picked eventually.

 

Green warriors in robes with swords, bone terminators (!!!!), black ravenwing vehicles - that was it !!!

 

I also got some info from a friend in store who told me to read DA fluff that they have one of the best in 40k. I read it and agreed to that :)

 

Next I bought codex, two metal marines in blister and asmodai. Thus it began :P

 

BTW I also remember that when I was visiting the store wolves' players were everywhere. They talked how strong and proud they are. That their armies are the best etc.

 

I didn't like that and I think nothing has changed to this day ;)

[Isiah]

I remember when I first came to the store and was about to choose marine chapter (I already knew that I want marines). I looked at three codexes - wolves, blood angels and dark angels. I rejected wolves because I didn't like the idea of 'vikings in space'. I was however strongly influenced by the blood angels but it was monkish marines that i picked eventually.

 

Green worriors in robes with swords, bone terminators (!!!!), black ravenwing vehicles - that was it !!!

 

Me too. What a totally shallow person I must be – judging a book by it's cover so to speak :tu:.

 

Cheers

I

[bevulf]

I remember when I first came to the store and was about to choose marine chapter (I already knew that I want marines). I looked at three codexes - wolves, blood angels and dark angels. I rejected wolves because I didn't like the idea of 'vikings in space'. I was however strongly influenced by the blood angels but it was monkish marines that i picked eventually.

 

Green warriors in robes with swords, bone terminators (!!!!), black ravenwing vehicles - that was it !!!

 

Me too. What a totally shallow person I must be – judging a book by it's cover so to speak :P.

 

Cheers

I

 

:D I still love DA despite the 4th Ed Codex :)