Want to start a SM force, what has the Dark Angels to offer?

[Dexo]

Hi

 

I been planing to start a Space Marine bases force for some time now, but i still not sure what codex to use.

I have almost alle the models i need to du any chapter, so can you try to "sell" the dark angels and there codex to me ?

 

 

[Gillyfish]

Welcome to The Rock.

 

It's less a matter of selling and more a matter of you deciding what fits for you. The Dark Angels are quite dark and gothic with a medieval feel to them. There are also multiple 'flavours' to the army roster, as you can field an army solely composed of bikes and light vehicles (Ravenwing) or terminators if you so choose. You can go for a combination of the two or mix in some standard marines too, if you like. You also get most of the options that space marines get, with the exception of centurions and some of the fliers. So there's potentially a lot of longevity there for you.

 

Personally though, it's the background and colour schemes that I like most. So it come sback to what you like the most - what aspects of the hobby appeal to you?

[elmo]

I will not welcome you to the Rock just yet......

For me what "sold" the Dark Angels was the background. When I started, the codex was fairly meh, most of the models where ok but nothing special or just modified UM.

That has now improved and we have some of the best looking models and a good codex but it is still the fluff that is important.

If you like your marines dark, gothic, brooding with a secret they must protect then the DA are the way to go.

Also as you may have noticed by now the support you get on this forum is the best that I have ever had the pleasure to have been involved in.

So pick up your dress wearing armoured monks and join your friendly smiling Chaplain for tea and chocolate biscuits in the Chamber 42 lounge and bar.

You know it makes sense

[CovertToaster]

You should play dark angels because we have better (almost) everything than C:SM.

 

Our terminators are much better because we have one entry for terminators which you can use with any mix of tactical and/or assault weapons, they are still fearless, and they have PE:CSM. Belial also gives some level of accurate deepstrike and we don't have to roll to deep strike terminators we just pick turn 1 or turn 2 and in they come.

 

Our bikes are better than white scars because they don't use your allied slot and we can have twin-linked plasma guns instead of bolters.

 

Our librarians are probably the most common unit that C:SM allies in as they look better with green shoulder pads, have access to divination, and a power field generator.

 

We can take any mix of scoring bikes, terminators, or tactical marines and we have better access to plasma which is a big annoyance for many people. In fact you can mimic Tau cheese by using prescience on a plasma cannon dev squad and not only do you avoid the Gets Hot! rule but you have a 2/3 chance to get a direct hit. That means you can accurately pop transports or melt everybodies elite units!  

 

Also we can take command squads on bikes, in terminator armour, or in power armour.

[Brother dean]

We are in the Dark Vengeance box.  Lots of specific modelling kits.  

 

102 terminators in one force org chart.

[Millicant]

If you are looking for a competitive and flexible tabletop army, vanilla marines are for you.

 

If you like the background and story of the Dark Angels, then our legion may be for you.

[Biggabertha]

102 EXPENSIVE Terminators in one force organisation chart!

4765 points at minimum..!!

 

Then again, you look at 102 Terminators, you're probably going to wet yourself, lol

That's a LOT of hard to kill things coming your way!

 

Sheesh, now I want to make a 5000 point army with only Deathwing in there...

 

 

errr... on-topic: You can have a near unstoppable wave of bone white Terminators (as shown above), a super mobile force of black bikes and fast vehicles or a sea of green marines with an incredibly intimidating swathe of Bolter fire thanks to the Standard of Devastation.

 

A stationary Librarian, base Command Squad with Standard of Devastation and two full Tactical Squads comes in at just 510 points and that's 104 Bolter shots at 24"giving you a pretty good amount of points left to spend on whatever upgrades you'd like!

[Brother dean]

Well, they are also $1124.50 USD if you are buying them all new in termie boxes...   but you can pick up DV termie squads much cheaper...   So yeah...  Not that cost effective but termies are cool.

[Pyro X]

we get to hunt cypher, we get the best banners (great force multipliers) in the game. 2/4 salvo, counter attack, and area FNP. we have field 3 land raiders that can pump out 72 shots from 3 models while the banner is inside a 14 av tank. One of the biggest things we have over C:SM is they don't have Divination. DA doesn't have great fliers like SM nor the anti air. Our fliers are more ground support that is in the air and Divination helps with our lack of AA. The units that people go crazy about (with good reason) from DA is mostly black knights (also ravenwing command squad) and deathwing knights. These two units are crazy good if used correctly. They will either rip a hole in the #@$% of whatever unit they are pointed at or draw so much fire because they know what they will do to them if they don't. On that note, Running RW or DW is ran a little differently from normal marines. You will always (80% of the time) have less models on the board than the other side so you need to know what your units do and what you want to do in the game. If you don't think you can out shoot/melee the other side, play the objectives. Just remember that each army you build has its pro's and con's. DA is still a space marine army. Our down sides are very close to the same of C:SM its just a few small toys that are different. I will give C:SM 1 thing is that the special upgrades for characters are way better than ours.

[Cactus]

It was the Deathwing that sucked me in. The 1st company of the 1st chapter formed from the 1st legion. The best of the best, the elite of the elite. Then I learned of our primarch who was killing chaos monsters before he ever met another person, a strategist so brilliant that Horus dared not face him. Then I learned of our homeworld, Caliban, lost to treachery from within our own ranks. A 10,000 year hunt to make those responsible repent - by force if necessary - that must be hidden from everybody, even most of our battle brothers. Forget your JFK, your Roswell, your Illuminati, this is a cover-up on a galactic scale but beyond that the Dark Angels are still heroes. Still the indefatigable champions of humanity they were made to be, still the unrelenting retribution of the Emperor falling upon his foes. Never forget. Never forgive.

But the very best thing about playing Dark Angels is hearing your opponent say "I don't know how to kill that many terminators!"

[Aradiel]

as seems aparent by now, most of us go for the background, look, diversity. also by what i have seen so far, this is also the best comunity around.

if however you are looking for a mega-winning army full of "i win" buttons, you better look somewere else, nothing to see here.

move along

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Like many here say, what makes DA special is background, being able to field an army of bikes or terminators or just bikes and terminators. But if you're looking for highly competitive army than DA is not the best one for that.

[Dexo]

First of all thanks for all you reply's it seam like DA cold be an interesting army to play.

 

Me approach to 40K is the models and the painting aspect, I like to play but winning is secondary to storytelling for my part.

The DA models has always fascinated me but mostly the "Green wing" part of them, the black color of the Ravenwing is a concern to me because it hard to paint to a high level and even if you do people will still think you just have undercoated them black.

 

I have a couple of FW models I will like to include in the army  (Contemptor Dreadnoght, Deimos patten Infernus Predator, and a Fire Raptor Gunship) the Dreadnoght and Predator color is no problem, but will the Fire Raptor has to be black to follow the fluff ?

[Gillyfish]

I haven't got to the Fire Raptor's background yet, so can't say for certain, but I would point out that it is your army, so you can decide.

 

Don't be too daunted by black though - the important thing with it is to keep highlights subtle and use other colours to provide the contrast and depth. So with Ravenwing, a bright white (highlighted up from a bluish grey) and metallics (bare metal and gold for warmth) plus odd bits of bone and green to tie it into the rest of the army should work well. 

[Cactus]

Also remember that many (all?) of the Dark Angels' successors use their standard livery for their first and second companies. They're organised in the same way as the Dark Angels but don't necessarily share their colours.

[Garath]

Apart from the Fluff that is both detailed, awesome and plentiful, what brought me ot DA is the fact that you can play 4 army concepts in a single codex.

 

 You get your first Company- Terminators, second  -Bikes and land speeders, 3rd , 4th, 5th etc - Tactical marines, and 10th company - a scout company.

[The Shadow Guard]

Welcome to the Rock Dexo, you have received much information, advice and encouragement all of which are very pertinent. Going by your posts you emphasis the modelling and background more than simply winning games. If that's the case then the Unforgiven legion is right for you. Other, smaller details that may help you decide include:

 

1. Rich history: The Dark Angels legion was the first Space Marine legion to be created and the only one to be led personally by the Emperor until the Lion was found. They acyed as the emperor's personal bodyguard for a while. We are the First of the best!

 

2. B+C Dark Angels Community:  You will find a community of DA players who are passionate, dedicated, competitive and very supportive here, as you can see by the profusion of answers you have received for your question. This community has a cross section of brilliant painters, converters, fluff gurus, gamers and web masters. It supports the most numerous and longest lived chapter specific websites and runs the most numerous of painting, modelling and background history competitions and events.

 

The real reason you want to choose the Dark Angels is staring you right in your face.... This Community!!  ... and everyting else everyone else said. :)

 

Hope that helps.

 

SG

[HsojVvad]

Do you need to win with plastic toy soldiers? If so, Dark Angles are not for you.

 

Do you want to play with and model and paint beautiful miniatures? DA could be for you. You can still buy them and not play as DA.

 

Do you want rich, great (in my opinion) fluff and history? DA are for you.

 

For most people I believe (I could be wrong), Dark Angel players, don't play to win. they play because it's in their blood. It's for the love of Dark Angles. Yes it sounds weird, I just really can't explain it. I guess the word Passionate is what I am looking for. 

 

If you look at a lot of 40K players or Space Marine players, they don't play DA because, they don't like the fluff. They don't the miniatures, or in most cases, they NEED to win with plastic toy soldiers, and the DA codex is not strong enough in their eyes. Nothing is wrong with that though.

 

So to be a Dark Angel player I guess it's a passion. You will see that we are passionate about our beloved Dark Angles, for good or ill. Espically during the 4th edition DA codex, we were still here. Maybe not as much now, but it goest to show you, no matter how bad the rules are, we are always still around because we love/passionate about Dark Angles. 

[[TA]Typher]

I don't know about these guys.. I just like the pretty dresses.

[SvenONE]

I don't think our codex is the best to play rules-wise, but it's probably one of the most rich in history with the coolest Space Marine models.  A hobbyists codex for sure.

 

This is the first legion we're talking here.

 

You also get the enjoyment of defending your honor when people call your legion traitorous, or stoically refusing to acknowledge heretical ramblings at your local game shop.

[Urael]

I believe your questions have been answered.... If you choose to join the ranks of The Unforgiven, We welcome you to The Rock.

If you choose to join the ranks of one the other Astartes, we wish you well in your duties.

:)

[IndigoJack]

I'm not going to sell you on DA, as others have done a better job than I could. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I enjoy about them. I almost exclusively play Deathwing. I play them over my Grey Knights and Tau. I love them because they are some of the finest, fiercest and most fearless warriors ever produced by the Imperium. The mere mention of them sends xenos packing and puts the fear of the Emperor back into the traitor legions. Emperor help you if you were on the wrong side at the fall of Caliban.

Truth be told, they're not the easiest army to play. You're almost always outnumbered, sometimes as high as 4 or 5 to 1. But an army of terminators has a certain "wow" factor to it, and it doesn't matter if you're fighting Tau, Necrons or Orks, no one like facing down 25+ terminators (and maybe a couple Land Raiders too ). They're frustrating at times. Sometimes you loose half of a squad to a handful of bolters. You'll grin and bear it though, because you'll remember that one time that lone terminator passed all 24 armor saves that he had to make so you could hold on to the objective and win the game. I'd like to see C:SM do something like that!

[Cpt_Reaper]

I like plasma...THERE I SAID IT!!!

Seriously though, the fact we can field gear that other Chapters won't let out of the display case is quite cool to me. Plasma Talons and Storm Batteries, Rift Cannons, Stasis Bombs, the original mortis dread, the only* Imperial Jetbike, Blades of Reason, the best** veteran squad around and some nice relics

*that isn't in a DiY Successor's armoury

** well maybe tied with the Sons of Russ. But we'll never admit that.

[shortysl]

"It is my sacred duty to save your soul from Chaos, and I will save your soul, even if you die in the process"

 

What more do you need than that little mission statement? We are heroes in the daylight, nightmares in the darkness, and we never take a backward step.

 

We are the First.

[Dexo]

Thanks you for all your great answers

All though I am not reached a decision jet I have got a lot of information to process

My gut feeling says me that Terminator/bike focus in the DA codex/army is not for me, and that i got better options in Codex BA og SM if I want to base my army on powerarmour.

But as mention earlier I have not make any decision yet but you have all been a great help, and the DA part of Bolter And Chainsword is indeed a great community

If I eventually decide not to join you on "The Rock" I am in no doubt what way I will point other people there show interest in DA.

\Dexo