Dark Angels and their possible allies

[Jaminos]

First off, I apologize if this has been asked before.

 

Who would the Dark Angels ally themselves with? They are arguably one of the most closed chapters in the Imperium. They usually end up having a duel every time they come in contact with the Space Wolves. I also doubt they would have anything to do with any form of Xenos. So what chapter would they trust enough to ally with and not try and find a way to back out of the battle as soon as they could.

 

While I refuse to call us cowardly. You can put on our file as not playing well with others. We have been known to drop a fight at the first mention that a fallen may be in the area. Leaving our allies to fight whatever it is they are fighting, alone.

 

Who can we trust outside our chapter? I mean outside our gene seed entirely. So no successor chapters. This will decide who I plan on allying my troops with and the future purchase of miniatures.

[Deus de Mortalis]

Nobody.

[Sigvard]

Agreed. Personally the allies matrix for Dark Angels should like Tyranids. Except in its place it should have in bold gothic print. "YOU!! BURN HERETIC!"

[Jaminos]

Well I still feel there must be somebody whom they at least respect enough to work with when Chaos is not involved.

 

It is my personal opinion that the DA while my favorite army and sturdy, We lack the firepower to deal with some of the armies out there. Competitively it is very difficult to go straight DA. While possible to do it. I rather ally with another space marine chapter. I rather do it with someone who would work with the DA and not want to slot them after the battle. I'm looking at you Space Wolves.

 

( In all reality it would be more more likely that the DA would slot them first if they thought they had found out their secret.)

[Cod]

In the 'Betrayal' FW book (30k), the Allies chart has the DA and the Salamanders as 'Sworn Brothers', the closest of Allies.

If you are only after firepower for your allies, have you considered IG?

Good luck researching

[Master Sheol]

Seriously... Space Wolves... Fluff wise they are the closest Imperial organisation to DA... Logan and ragnar know a little about the Hunt for the fallen too...

However DA cooperate with any other Imperial organisation except the inquisition... And they refuse to ally with Aliens or subhuman unless in great danger...

So the DA allies table should be...

Battle Brothers: SW, SM, BA, IG

Alliance: GK, SoB

Desperate alliance: Eldar, Tau, Orks

No alliance: CSM, Tyr, CD, DE

this is IMHO

[Jaminos]

When I said firepower I meant more in general. But I will look into SW and maybe Salamanders. We just so happen to have both a salamander player and a SW player. So I could take a peak at what they have got going under the hood.

 

It might be fun to have an alliance with this SW just because they hate each other. Once I had dueled the SW company champion with mine at the start of a 2V2 match in 5th edition, before we went up against Necron allied with Chaos.

[Jehoel]

The Dark Angels and the Space Wolves don't hate each other. The duels between them are honor duels performed in memory of the primarchs. Long tradition and all that.

[FarFromSam]

None

 

my list would have the following pairing

Battle Brothers: Salamanders (in light of the new fluff.)

 

Alliance: SW, SM, BA, IG

 

Desperate alliance: GK, SoB

No alliance: CSM, Tyr, CD, DE, Eldar, Tau, Orks

Just what I would deem fluffy.

[Sigvard]

Space Wolves offer a really nice dynamic to Dark Angels. I play Space Wolves and my friend plays Dark Angels. (Space Puppies and Dank Angels as we joke to each other.) There may be history between the 2 chapters but both respect each other's strength and conviction at ridding the traitor legions from the Galaxy. Grey Hunters and Long Fangs add a great punch to ranged combat, especially when combined with either divination or the ability to make them Relentless supplied by a Rune Priest. If you are after a more CC approach Drop Pod Wolf Guard accompanied by a Biomancy Rune Priest in TDA can offer a serious threat in the enemies backfield. Throw Arjac Rockfist into that unit in bigger games and you have a Tank Killing machine with a S10/AP1 throwing hammer!!

[JeffJedi]

How about some surviving Caliban Jaegers? Using IG and they even wear Dark Green.

[cypherthefallenangel]

IG would be the most common fluff wise. There are trillions of guard stationed on imperial planets all over the galaxy. When ever the DA show up to save a planet from xeno and heretics. IG defence forces would there and could be commandeered into service. Barring a hunt, I would think DA would work with any imperial force. Well maybe not the inquisition, at least not willingly. Xenos never.

[Phoebus]

Whether it ultimately ends up being mythology or not, the old fluff qualified that El'Jonson's relationship with Russ went from a violent rivalry to a true friendship between brothers who respected one another (even if they were likely to draw blades on each other here and there). I don't think the Dark Angels would relax their guard around the Space Wolves by any means, but I do think they would offer them solemn respect and treat the ritual of the honour duels seriously. I think it goes without saying that the Hunt for the Fallen would always come first (Hyades, anyone?), though, and that it might even strain the relationship between the Chapters in the relative short-term.

 

(* To use Hyades as an example again, I'm sure the two Chapters were butting heads for quite some time afterwards. And yeah, I still think Lee Lightner handled that story too bluntly. There was very little of the subtlety I expected from the Dark Angels, and the conflict between them and the Space Wolves felt too forced.)

 

That having been said, I second the notion that the Dark Angels would identify with a First Founding Chapter taking a stand against the Inquisition, even if their own motives are not as benevolent as those of the Wolves.

 

I'm sure many Dark Angels dismiss Space Wolves as rude barbarians, just as I'm sure many Space Wolves believe the Dark Angels can't be trusted. At the end of the day, though, I don't think the two Chapters are defined by anything approaching enmity.

 

Where the Imperial Guard are concerned, I group them in two categories:

1. There will be those commanders who have heard rumors of the questionable decisions made by the Dark Angels and their Successors. Their relationships will likely be strained.

2. For the rest, though, I imagine the Dark Angels being treated as the darker, scarier version of the Ultramarines. They are the descendants of the First Legion, with an unquestioned pedigree going back to the Great Crusade itself. I imagine 99.9% of the Imperial Guard treat them as they would scary royalty. Imagine being in a peasant army from the Balkans and facing an invasion from the feared Ottomans. Rescue comes... and it's Vlad Tepes. On the one hand, deliverance might be on hand. On the other, though, he's grim, merciless, and shrouded in mystery and terrifying rumors.

[Jaminos]

Thanks a bunch everyone. Especially Phoebus for your well thought out and extensive post. I have also done some research into the Dark Angels history that is not in the last two current manuals.

 

I will be purchasing a small force of space Wolves to supplement my Dark Angels.

 

Thanks everybody!

[march10k]

The Dark Angels and the Space Wolves don't hate each other. The duels between them are honor duels performed in memory of the primarchs. Long tradition and all that.

 

I would say that the DA are perfectly fine with the SW...The SW don't exactly hate the DA, but they do bear a grudge....

 

The most appropriate ally would be IG...representing the PDFs of their recruiting worlds.  But really, any imperial force can be made to work, under the heading of "everyone act normal, don't give them any reason to suspect us"

 

 

Imagine being in a peasant army from the Balkans and facing an invasion from the feared Ottomans. Rescue comes... and it's Vlad Tepes. On the one hand, deliverance might be on hand. On the other, though, he's grim, merciless, and shrouded in mystery and terrifying rumors.

 

I'd be surprised if more than 5% of your audience really "gets" that.  Prolly 2/3 know who Vlad Tepes is...but Balkan history and the role of the Ottomans (or the Habsburgs, for that matter) in it...well, not exactly as well understood as is "who's hooked up with who in Hollywood this week"

[Jaminos]

One would think that would be more along the Blood Angels idea considering their are the Marine equivalent to vampires. Though Vlad Tapes himself was just a man. But I digress and this is sort of going off topic on my end.

[facmanpob]

I'd be surprised if more than 5% of your audience really "gets" that. Prolly 2/3 know who Vlad Tepes is...but Balkan history and the role of the Ottomans (or the Habsburgs, for that matter) in it...well, not exactly as well understood as is "who's hooked up with who in Hollywood this week"

Well, spill the beans....who is hooked up with who this week?

The DA, and successors are notorious for being "bad" allies....even with our "Battle Brothers". In The Purging of Kadillus, 3rd Company fights tooth and nail alongside the PDF to defend against the greenskins. In Ravenwing, which is set a relatively short time after PoK, the same PDF is completely ignored by the Dark Angels despite the fact that they need help.....the one thing the DA are not, when it comes to allies, is consistent!

[Jaminos]

Well if you were busy hunting down those who are a guaranteed chapter purge if the Inquisition finds them first.. Wouldn't you want to focus on them first if you can? No offense to the other chapters, but they have to fens for themselves. You can be noble and save your allies and have the Inquisition purge you as heretics or irritate your battle brothers for not stopping to save them from a mess the very likely got themselves into.

[shabbadoo]

Outside of the Dark Angels Chapter, only the other Unforgiven are trustworthy.  In game terms, either ally Dark Angels with Space Marines or play multiple detachments using Codex: Dark Angels, and paint up the allied force/second detachment as another Unforgiven Chapter.  I may actually do this some day.

[Jaminos]

I like the other successor chapters but that is not the goal of my army. Eventually the DA have to work with another Space Marine chapter. The closest allies they have besides the IG who will work with any Space Marine chapter who stops by. The Space Wolves are my best bet. Which I will be working on here when I can afford it.

[Phoebus]

Honestly, I don't think Gav handled that part of 'Ravenwing' well. Meaning, he didn't paint the tactical picture in a way where it made sense for Fifth Company to let the orks rampage.

 

Ironically, in 'Angels of Darkness', the same author offers a neat little detail at the very beginning of the novel: he subtly implies that the arrival of a Fallen on the Rock is hardly a common occurence. And that makes sense, when you think about. Sure, the Hunt is the key theme for the Dark Angels, but if they were abandoning allies on a regular basis, there's no way they would have gotten away with it for so long. Their "difficult decisions" (if you will) have to occur often enough for rumors and a short-term bad reputation to exist - such as that of the Angels of Redemption - but not so often as to be something that affects ongoing, long-term relationships with the rest of the Imperium.

 

To use the same example, if the Angels of Redemption were abandoning Gatlinghives every year it wouldn't even be a case of "maybe they'll be slapped with a penitent Crusade". It would be catastrophic for them. Every couple of decades or so, though? And in different parts of the Galaxy? And without concrete proof (or survivors to rat on them)? And to use an extreme, something on the scale of what Azrael pulled in the 13th Black Crusade (where he literally ignores the biggest threat the Imperium has faced in almost ten millennia and takes the Unforgiven away to pursue the Legion's agenda) could only happen once in a millennium - if that.

 

And I think that kind of also goes hand in hand with the plausible answer to how many Fallen there really are left. There couldn't have been many more than twenty-one or so thousand on Caliban by the time the Dark Angels returned. How many could have survived the bombardment and ensuing battles, which had pretty much destroyed the planet and every other fortress monastery before Chaos got involved? You start running into a thematic imbalance, wherein the number of Fallen needed to constantly maintain the dark reputation of the Unforgiven becomes unrealistic.

 

Far better, in my opinion, for the Unforgiven to be more often than not known for their aloofness and secrecy, with incomplete, unfounded legends known by only the most esoteric savants and scrutinizing Inquisitors. That way, events like Gatlinghive retain their shock value and we're not left wondering why the Dark Angels and their Successors never get in trouble. :)

[Magos Valkamar]

Honestly, I don't think Gav handled that part of 'Ravenwing' well. Meaning, he didn't paint the tactical picture in a way where it made sense for Fifth Company to let the orks rampage.

Ironically, in 'Angels of Darkness', the same author offers a neat little detail at the very beginning of the novel: he subtly implies that the arrival of a Fallen on the Rock is hardly a common occurence. And that makes sense, when you think about. Sure, the Hunt is the key theme for the Dark Angels, but if they were abandoning allies on a regular basis, there's no way they would have gotten away with it for so long. Their "difficult decisions" (if you will) have to occur often enough for rumors and a short-term bad reputation to exist - such as that of the Angels of Redemption - but not so often as to be something that affects ongoing, long-term relationships with the rest of the Imperium.

To use the same example, if the Angels of Redemption were abandoning Gatlinghives every year it wouldn't even be a case of "maybe they'll be slapped with a penitent Crusade". It would be catastrophic for them. Every couple of decades or so, though? And in different parts of the Galaxy? And without concrete proof (or survivors to rat on them)? And to use an extreme, something on the scale of what Azrael pulled in the 13th Black Crusade (where he literally ignores the biggest threat the Imperium has faced in almost ten millennia and takes the Unforgiven away to pursue the Legion's agenda) could only happen once in a millennium - if that.

And I think that kind of also goes hand in hand with the plausible answer to how many Fallen there really are left. There couldn't have been many more than twenty-one or so thousand on Caliban by the time the Dark Angels returned. How many could have survived the bombardment and ensuing battles, which had pretty much destroyed the planet and every other fortress monastery before Chaos got involved? You start running into a thematic imbalance, wherein the number of Fallen needed to constantly maintain the dark reputation of the Unforgiven becomes unrealistic.

Far better, in my opinion, for the Unforgiven to be more often than not known for their aloofness and secrecy, with incomplete, unfounded legends known by only the most esoteric savants and scrutinizing Inquisitors. That way, events like Gatlinghive retain their shock value and we're not left wondering why the Dark Angels and their Successors never get in trouble.

And yet despite people still believe us Unforgiven run away from every single conflict, usually based on some flimsy theory they read on this board once probably a few years ago - the modern DA being the actual traitors, and the Fallen the loyalists, for example - It's Flanderization at it's finest. Mind you, we're not the only chapter(s) to suffer from that.

[Master Avoghai]

It's funny to see that the xenophobic aspect of the DA has been totally erased... (Politically correct or because it would limit the opportunity for players to buy allies?)

 

I remember the time when fluff used to told story of inquisitor lost in the warp while studying the chapter.

I remember special rules forbidding DA to fight along side an IG army containing ogryns or ratings

I remember a short text showing how a DA sgt was disgusted to see that the operation which costed the life to a brother was to save a squad of Ogryns...

[Phoebus]

I remember that middle bit as well, Master Avoghai. Do you remember the name of the short story with the lost Inquisitor? I'd like to check that one out if it's available any longer.

[Master Avoghai]

Well I don't remember a text precisely. Just things that articles in WD like battle reports or design team interviews. I'm wondering if the 3rd Ed codex doesn't contain such assertion.