Sucessor Chapter: The Angles of Death

[Grizwald23]

Hey I'm new to Dark Angles but not to 40k I've been playing since I was 10 so for 13 years now. But I haven't played a game in over a year. I am getting back into the hobby and decided to create a new army since 6th edition is out now. I've come up with a idea for a sucessor chapter that was created in secret that is kind of like the Deathwatch except instead of hunting xenos they hunt the fallen. I was wondering what you guys think and if it fits with the fluff at all. I'm trying to decide should I make this chapter or do a standard Dark Angles Army. I'm still working on the fluff for these guys but this is what I have so far and sory for any misspelling I'm typing on my iPad cause my computers down and the program I'm using doesn't have spell check. And if you guys have any ideas let me know

 

 

Name: Angles of Death

Founding Chapter: Dark Angels

Founding: 2nd Created in Secret

Homeworld: Fleet Based

Fortress-Monastery: Ark of Judgment (Built on an Astroid)

Colours: Black, Red and Bone

Specialty: Lightning Strikes, Plasma Weapons , Elite warriors, Bikes and Terminators

Strength: Unknown

 

 

Founding

 

The Angles of Death were created during the 2nd founding. They were created in secret by the leading members of the Inner Circle. Their has never been any Imperial record of them or even a mention of their name in any Dark Angles records. They were created with one goal to seek out and capture or kill the Fallen and to keep anyone from finding out the truth no matter what it takes. The reason they were created in secret by the Inner Circle is so they have the means to do what is needed to complete their mission no matter what horrible deeds it might take.

 

The Dark Angles like every other legion after the Horus Heresy were under suspicion and constantly watched for any signs of betrayal. During this time the Dark Angles found it hard to hunt down their traitor brothers because every move they made was being watched. When came the decision to split the great legions up into smaller chapters the Inner Circle saw this as an opportunity to create an chapter that no one know about so they could accomplish their mission without a chance of anyone finding out their terrible secret. So they created the Angles of Death. The Angles of Death would answear to no one except the highest members of the Inner circle and were to do what ever it took to complete their mission.

 

Chapter History

 

From the moment they were founded the Angles of Death began to hunt the fallen. The Hunt was the whole reason for their existance and it was clear that they would do what ever is nessary to achieve their goals. They quickly adopted ruthless and orthodox tactics in their hunt. They consider not only the fallen but anyone who as come in contact or seen them as enemies.

 

The first hunt the Angles of Death went on is story taught to all new members, so they realize the lengths they must go to too complete their mission. It all started on the planet Dacos which is located near the Malestorm. 7 of the fallen had come to this planet and had managed to take over the the goverment and the planet. The Angles of Death had recieved information of the situation on Dacos and immediatly dispached Strike Force Vengance. However before they arrived an Inquistor named Jeramiah with a force of Blood Angles who were passing through the area had discovered that the planet was under the control of Chaos Marines.

 

Jeramiah immediatly order the Blood Angles to attack. The battle took several weeks but they managed to capture the Fallen and eliminate all the taint on the planet. Just as the battle was ending Strike Force Vengance Arrived under the command of Brother Mason. Brother Mason contacted Jeramiah and claimed they were answearing a distress call and offered to help with the the situation. Jeramiah wanted to to take his prisionersd back at Terra to be interigated as soon as possible so he decided to accept their assistance. After talking to Jerimah Brother Mason had agreed to meet on Jeramiah ship and to send his forces bellow to take over operations form the Blood Angles. So Mason along with 2 terminator squads and a squad of deathwing knights flew over to Jeramiahs ship and the rest of the Strike Force Vengance went to the surface of Dacos. Jeramiah had gone down to the landing dock to greet Mason however as soon as the transports door opened Mason and his force of terminators opened fire and managed to quickly kill Jeramiah and everyone on the ship. On the surface of Dacos the Blood Angles waited to greet the Angles of Death but instead of being greeted by friends as they expected they were attacked as well. The battle on the ground lasted 6 hours and even though the Blood Angles were ambushed they still managed to put up a good fight but were adventually killed to the last man. The fight would have lasted a lot longer if it wasn't for the skill and battle tactics of the Angles of Death.

 

Mason had got the Fallen prisioners out of Jeriamahs ship and Transfered them back to his own. The rest of the Strike Force Vengance joined Mason back in space as soon as they had finished with the last of the Blood Angles. With their mission complete Mason knew their was only one last thing to do. He had to destroy the Planet and everyone on it for no one who was seen or come into contact with the fallen may live. After destroying Dacos Strike Force Vengance returned to their asteriod fortress The Ark of Judgment. What the Angles of Death did after ariving they did out of nessesity so noone would find out the truth about the Dark Angles.

 

That story is told to new members so they know they will not be heroes in fact many would consider them tratiors if they knew the truth of their existance and the deeds of the Angles of Death. The events that tooks place on Dacos are not uncommon. The Angles of Death find themselves frequentlfiddling things that many would consider unhonorable. But this is why they were created in secret so they can do what is nessacery to Hunt the Fallen and keep the secret of the Dark Angles

 

Recruitment

 

The Angles of Death is in a way like the Deathwatch they draw their members from other chapters of the Unforgiven. Their are three requirements for a marine to become a member of the Angles of Death. The first is he must be a brother of unquestionable loyalty and faith because as a member he will learn what their true mission is. The second requirement is he must be a great warrior because only the best of the best are accepted. The last requirement is to be dead because to be an Angle of Death no one may know of your existence.

 

Every Chapter of the Unforgiven has a secret envoy among them who is a warrior of the Angles of Death. No one in the chapter knows their true identy except the chapter master. These envoy's serve several purposes. One is gain information the chapter might have on any Fallen and report it back to their chapter. The other reason is to spot potential new members to join the Angles of Death. When the Envoy spots a battle brother who he thinks has potential he will watch them and learn about them until their is nothing about that him he does not know. Next he will inform the chapter master of his choice. The chapter master will then decide if the Angles of Death may have that battle brother or not and usally he says yes.

 

After a new recuit is chosen and been aproved by his chapter master he will begin his journey to becoming a member of the the Angles of Death. The first step is for the recruit to die for only the dead may join. So his death must be faked for no one may know that he is still alive. This may be achieved in several different ways. For example he may be convicted of a false crime and sent to death. However the most common method is for him to die on the battle field. What ever method is chosen the result is always the same. After the recruit is dead is is put through several test both physical and psychological that will push him to near death. If he can pass all his tests then he will become a member of the Angles of Death.

 

 

Organization

 

The Angles of Death do not follow the Codex Astartes. Instead of companies they have Strike Forces. The majority of each Strike Force is manily made up of bikers and terminaors.

[Bryan Blaire]

First off, welcome to the Rock and well done for taking the steps to write up a Successor Chapter.

 

Now, I don't want to be obtuse, but upon reading the write up, one becomes acutely aware of all the angular build up within the story.

 

So with that pun out of the way, here's what I see:

- All Space Marines are already called the "Angels of Death" so the Chapter's name would be a bit confusing.

- Why the Second Founding? What specific details about who the Chapter members are necessitates them being original members of the 1st Legion? If there is no specific reason, then they don't have to be a Second Founding.

- Space Marine Chapters really aren't created in secret, someone in the High Lords of Terra had to have known about them at one point. Chapters don't create themselves, and the Dark Angels certainly aren't spinning off Chapters right and left considering their insular nature. Records could have been completely lost or intentionally destroyed at some point (heck, the Apocraphos of Davos only lists some of the Successor Chapter names, not all of them, and that's considered - at least in GW writing - as the most complete list of Second Founding Chapters), but chances are that the Chapter was not created in secret

- The "black, red and bone" color scheme sounds exactly like the Angels of Vengeance.

- The specialities that you picked are ones common to all Unforgiven chapters, so they really aren't that special. All Marines specialize in lightning strikes, and all Unforgiven are known for their use of plasma, bikes, Terminators and elite warriors (in reality, all Marines, even the least recognized one, is an elite warrior of a caliber we don't really even have in this world anywhere other than in comics or movies).

- The Hunt for the Fallen is relentless among the Unforgiven, it's a constant that defines them, and the Chapters are already willing to take any action concerning the Fallen, so what is specifically special about your Chapter?

- All Unforgiven Chapters answer only to the Inner Circle, because their own commanders are members of the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle has secret conclaves at times that given guidance and direction to all Unforgiven Chapters. Again, is there something more specific or special about this Chapter's interactions with the Inner Circle?

- All Unforgiven (except maybe the Angels of Absolution) already consider the Fallen the worst of the worst and anyone that has dealings with them as enemies to be destroyed, or at the kindest, mind-wiped or Servitor-ized.

- Regarding recruitment: what this sounds like is the Deathwing, but across multiple Chapters. Chapters are unlikely to turn over members of its personnel that are suitable for the Deathwing or Ravenwing to other Chapters, because they need those members themselves. There would be no incentive to turn them over to the Angles of Death because what the Angles of Death do is already done throughout the galaxy by the 1st and 2nd Companies of all Unforgiven Chapters.

- There are already a couple of Successor Chapters here in this very forum that already do the "Deathwatch" style recruiting from other Unforgiven Chapters, so I would suggest finding those and then seeing how you want to be unique from them.

- Don't forget that the Unforgiven are already the most tightly knit group of Chapters of a single Legion gene-line in the 40K-verse. They are still somewhat a Legion in secret. They already share information and possibly even members between Chapters and they all follow a single head of the Inner Circle, the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels. There is no need for a Chapter to fill in for this purpose, as it is already being done.

- All Space Marine Chapters fight using Strike Forces and Task Forces and the like, especially the Unforgiven/Dark Angels, this isn't a deviation from the Codex Astartes. It is stated in the new DA Codex on page 20 that "most Dark Angels forces include elements from both the Deathwing and Ravenwing." Combined arms combat is what Space Marines do (in a way that is only realistic when you consider each Marine as a platoon of real world soldiers, making a Marine Company the equivalent of an entire real world "combined arms" brigade).

 

Now that I have ripped apart your write up, please don't get mad or dicouraged, writing a unique Chapter is extremely hard. My own is no work of brilliance, I ripped off more liberally from several books series than most probably have and honestly I think it shows. Re-writing and re-posting (as well as getting more opinions than just mine) will only help improve your unique quality. There are some really great resources for Do-it-yourself Chapters right here at the Bolter and Chainsword and there are folks here that are significantly better at critiquing and helping with new write ups than I am. Here's a link to the Octaguide by Octavulg, which I think is a great resource for writing DIY chapters.

 

I will give you massive points for being brave enough to post a Chapter write up here (especially as your first post), because it takes a lot of guts to step into writing for this game and more to actually want people to give you feedback. Please take it in a "want to help improve the story" fashion, a lot of good can come from it. Good luck and hope to see some more from you. No remorse, no respite!

[Grizwald23]

Thanks for the feed back. Your points make sense and I didn't think about a lot of that stuff. This is the first time I have ever tried to write up my own sucessor chapter and it was a lot harder then I thought. I have easier times writing 20 page research papers for school then I did trying to come up with this. The point of this chapter is I wanted a chapter that doesn't play by the Imperiums rules and do what ever it would take to get the job done and do it ruthlessly.

 

I thought it would be cool to have a secretly created chapter whose only mission was to hunt the fallen and keep the secret that the fallen were Dark Angles turned Chaos. To accomplish these tasks they would do anything even killing off fellow space marines, Inquistors, or Goverment officals who might have uncovered any of this secret. That is why I thought many they could create a secret chapter to do these things. So while they are hunt the fallen they are also eliminate anyone who might have uncovered any part of the truth. This is where the secret chapter comes in. Say one of example a space wolf Space Wolves force might have discovered some of what happened during the heresy the Angles of Death would kill off these space wolves. Now as we all know Space Wolves and DA don't get along so if say a DA force would attack and kill these Space Wolves an all out war would probably break out between the 2 chapters. Now if the Angles of Death destroyed the Space Wolves if anyone ever found out they would have no idea who did it and a war wouldn't break out between the two chapters

 

I thought the 2nd founding was the best founding to create a secret chapter for several reasons. One they are dividing up their entire legion so it would be much easier to create a new chapter with marine they could say have already died. Now say it was the 3rd,4th, or even a later founding the legion would have already been divided into several other chapters and it would be very hard to come up with a couple hundred let lalone a thousand marines when their is only 1,000 marines in each chapter. The 2nd reason is their was still a lot of confusion and chaos at the time so it would be easier to secretly create a chapter. 3rd reason is the Da like all legions were being watched which would have made it hard to completely dedicate themselves to hunting the fallen because people would personally start asking questions.

 

As far as all space marines using Strike Forces the difference that their would be no companies the marines would be assigned to a different strike force and the composition would be tailored to the commanders preference.

 

This is the first time I have ever tried to write up my own sucessor chapter and it was a lot harder then I thought. I have easier times writing 20 page research papers for school then I did trying to come up with this.

 

The name. I known all Space Marines are refered to as Angles of Death. That is one of the reasons I chose the name because they are a chapter that doesn't exist they call themselves the Angles of Death because it would confuse anyone who may have say or heard of them. I also really like the name.

 

As far as what makes their inner actions with the Inner circle different is they have been given a lot more information about what happen them any other chapter. Their battle brother would also have much more information then the average battle brother of any other DA sucessor. Other then that I hadn't really given it a lot of thought.

[Eulfein]

Brother, regarding the part in which your chapter eliminates any witnesses concerning the Fallen? The Dark Anegls and all the other Successors are known to do this. An example would be The Ophidian Gulf incident and the disappearance of a certain Inquisitor who supposedly captured one of the Fallen. 

 

When creating a Successor chapter a lot of research concerning The Unforgiven's history and the Space Marines' in general is recommended.

 

Also, a lot of chapters doesnt play by the Imperium's rules. examples are the Black Templars (they do not follow the codex astartes and their number is over 2000 currently), The Space Wolves (hates the Ecclesiarchy, has their own Chapter organization, completely disregards the codex astartes, encourages gene seed mutation), and The Unforgiven in general does not follow codex lines to the letter. 

 

I do not wish to offend you and I commend your efforts in coming up with a Successor chapter. Perhaps a rewrite would help?

[MadMek83]

Only Ultra Smurrfs follow and perhaps Imperial Fists follow Codex Astartes to the letter. However I really liked what you have written so far. Little bit modification and it will improve significantly. Rarely writings are as they are first written complete. There's lots of re-writtings, changes and so forth before they finish. And while all Space Marines are called Angels of Death and thus making name chapter bit confusing, you can keep it or change it bit style Angelus Mortis, Angelic Reapers keep the idea while slightly using either latin or latin-like words or so forth. High gothic vs. Low Gothic. I'll be expecting more, great work so far!!

[Brother Immolator]

Brother, regarding the part in which your chapter eliminates any witnesses concerning the Fallen? The Dark Anegls and all the other Successors are known to do this. An example would be The Ophidian Gulf incident and the disappearance of a certain Inquisitor who supposedly captured one of the Fallen.

Not only that, but our new codex states that we came into a head with the templars again, and opened fire at them, formally this time.

 

Try to fall from the trap: I want my chapter to be unique. Try to create something fun, its not necessary to be unique.

I second most of Blairs remarks.