The Future of the 3rd Company - One Gamer's View

[ChaosRising]

Like many of us here on the forum (Dark Angel fans and otherwise), I am in the process of building a number of armies that are, to one degree or other, based on some shred of GW fluff. I do not read as much as I used to, and (sadly) I do not read much in the way of 40k. To be exact, I have read 2 Dark Angels novels (Descent of Angels, and Angels of Darkness), as well as bits and pieces of existing fluff online and in older army books, rule books, etc.

 

So, now that you know how much (or little) I read, that brings me to introducing my main point. I recently got the Dark Vengeance kit and thought "Oh goody. I can now make a Dark Angels 3rd Company army" (because 3rd Co is awesome). Originally I wanted to make a DA Chaplain (Boreas), Techmarine (Hephaestus) and a small command squad of every character from AoD. Then I remembered, "Oh yes...they're all dead." So that got me thinking about where the Company's future lay.

 

My army list (and my paint scheme - which will be visible when I get to taking pictures) is based primarily on AoD descriptions. So here is some of what I had in mind

 

Robes/surplices - Deathwing/Inner Circle only - I intend to have robes only on figures such as Interrogator-Chaplains, Librarians, Company Masters, and others who are known to be part of the Deathwing at some level (or who become Deathwing by extenuating circumstance).

 

Supporting claims: "[boreas]....was clad only in his white robe, a mark of his position within the elite warriors of the Chapter - the Deathwing. What others did not realise was that it was also a mark of his membership within the secretive Inner Circle of the Chapter."

 

And then, there is the matter of what I have dubbed the Borean Enlightenment (yea...Dark Angels being Enlightened? Suree...).

 

This is how I see things working out after AoD ends, and how it leads into my army.

 

AoD ends with Boreas and his squad committing suicide rather than waiting inside the keep while they die slowly, trying to outlast the virus weapon.

 

Sometime after AoD ends, the Orks on Piscina IV start out on new raids and inevitably break the seals on the Dark Angels keep, thereby triggering the virus. By the time the Tower of Angels arrives (70+ days later) the virus has ended and nearly everyone on the planet is dead (maybe one or two got lucky).

 

The Tower knew nothing about the incident, as Boreas's coded message was never received (as far as we know), so a 3rd Company combat team, led by Interrogator-Chaplain Micah (me), is sent down to investigate why the keep has apparently gone silent (even for an outpost it's been quiet). Upon arriving, the Chaplain finds the audio records left by Boreas.

 

Of personal interest to the Chaplain, is a message about the future of the Chapter and how the Masters must not allow the Chapter to define itself by the Fallen, for if the Fallen were removed from the equation the Chapter would have no future. The message ends with a plea from Boreas to see that the deaths of him and his squad mates were not in vain. Micah, something of a thinker amongst his brother Chaplains, feels a personal connection to Boreas's plea, and silently promises that he will do what he can to slowly re-direct the views of those around and beneath him.

 

Arriving back at the orbiting battle barge, Micah reports his findings to a fairly traditional Company Master. The Master is not nearly as self-critiquing as Belial is, but he is still rather traditional in his views. Nonetheless, Micah knows the Master will sometimes try a new idea if if the Master feels that an accepted way of doing things can be improved on, or that the new idea is truly superior to the old.

 

So it is that Brother Micah, after reporting his findings, began to explain very carefully to the Master why he believes that Brother Boreas may be right about his view on the Fallen. The Company Master does not answer right away, instead going to the ship's chapel to seek answers from The Lion and Emperor. After nearly three days of prayer and meditation, the Master emerges and in a dry, tentative voice, tells the Chaplain that he is willing to try this new approach. The voices of both the Primarch and Emperor came to him, he said, telling him that his Company must continue to hunt the Fallen, to be sure, but that the brothers under his command should rekindle in their fellow brothers the true sense of purpose - to be shining knights in battle, not skulking shadows.

 

This is the brief version of what I have in mind. I may (or may not) write an actual mini story at some point, to accompany the background of the Enlightened 3rd. For now, however, this is kind of what was going through my mind.

[Emperors Immortals]

It sounds good. But you must come with me, my friends in the Legion have much to discuss with you and I hear the footsteps approach already....

[facmanpob]

Unfortunately, Gav Thorpe's Ravenwing kyboshes any alternative future the DA might have, but this shouldn't stop you from inventing your own :)

[Primacy]

I'm doing the same thing with my own DA force in terms of the robes/garments. Only characters and models to be recognized as members of the Deathwing will wear the bone robes. Cool to see that this is a shared idea.

[march10k]

Hmm.  I don't think of robes as being tied to the deathwing, although certain colors or markings might set the deathwing apart.  I think of the robes as being something that makes DA unique among astartes, not deathwing unique among DA.  As such, I have a mix of robed and unrobed squads, where robed squads have unrobed sergeants, and vice versa (to make the sergeants stand out).  And I have a mix of robed and unrobed HQ characters...although among my deathwing, only knights and belial have robes, the knights wearing green and Belial white.  My power-armored marines of all sorts wear bone-colored robes.

[ChaosRising]

I have officially decided that the DV vet sgt will be bumped up to an alternate variant of Company Master, due to his tabard, and the inexplicable fact that he is the only model from his squad wearing one. Now I just need to green stuff a purity scroll to hide the tac markings on his right shoulder. After that I just need to replace him with a bolter armed, non-robed model, and then I'll be set.

 

Haven't quite decided yet, but I think I'm going to make my DW either a skull-white or a light grey. The traditional bone white never really did much for me on armor (works for robes).

[Interrogator Stobz]

_{Skulls are bones, therefore Skull White is bone coloured. That's all the justification I ever needed ;)}

 

_{Go for it...and supply pics to the brothers here once you do.}

 

_stobz

[ChaosRising]

I like the logic, Stobz. You made my life a whole lot easier. I think I'll work on D.W. after 2nd Squad/3rd Co is finished. Having 10 brothers with which to purge the unclean is a challenge to be sure, but a hard one even for the sons of the Lion.

 

Updated on 10/27/13:

 

Stobz, thanks again for the painting suggestion. I finished the D.W. sgt from D.V. and I like the look so far...now let's see what a full 5-man squad looks like.

 

march10k...I have no doubt that a LR-heavy list would - and should - be scary, but I do not intend to sink that much money into GW, especially since I have to transport and store all of this (on top of storing all of my other 40k and Fantasy projects).

 

Sooner or later I will have pictures up. In the meantime, the Brothers of 3rd Company performed well in their first engagement last week (500 pts). Led by a Librarian they absolutely roasted a hoard of demons that had them outnumbered 2:1 (there were literally 4x 10-strong demon units against 1st Tac Squad (10), and 2nd Tac Squad (fielded in 2 combat squads) ). I will write up a more detailed after action report at some time.