Dark angels 30k Organisation (Angels of Caliban Spoilers)

[Robbienw]

Hi chaps,

You may have seen my thread in the black library section on Angels of Caliban. It contains a wealth of fluff on the 30k Dark Angels, so i thought i'd do a thread on that fluff here.

Gav Thorpe confirms in his author afterword that the organisational information on the first legion was all created by Mr Alan Bligh of Forgeworld.

The genesis of the Order and Aldurukh:

At the end of the Age of Technology/start of the Age of Strife, the human galactic empire at the time collapsed as we all know. On Caliban, these events lead to the fall of arcane force field technologies that kept the Great Beasts contained, and the world safe.

A warrior survived these events. He was the last of his division, with his divisions last suit of armour and weapons. He took up refuge in a cave on a mountain vantage point. From there he sallied out into the land to kill the beasts, saving many refugees coming his way.

As time went on an encampment grew around his cave. This would go on to be massively built up around over the next centuries, becoming Aldurukh.

He trained others and they joined him in his fight against the beasts. Over the following centuries, the warriors that followed on from them became the Knights of the Order.

Later in the novel it transpires that the original warrior was fighting on behalf of the watchers to contain the ourbouros demon trapped at the heart of caliban, by killing the beasts. The watchers brought him to the cave. The Order ultimately exists to contain the Ourbouros. The Lord Cypher knows this.


First Legion origins:


- The first Legion was the prototype legion, ready before any other legions were created, and fought extensively in the unification wars.

- At the start they were not referred to as a legion, or even as space marines. The Emperor called them his Angels of Death and that was it, until other legions started being produced. He lead them personally.

- They were organised in six hosts, collectively known as the hexagrammatron. Each host was a specific type of force for specific combat situations. they were made this way so they could fight in any conceivable situation, unlike some of the more specialised legion that came later.

- A battle force would be formed from parts of each host. It would be commanded by an officer from the host that had the largest percentage of the force.

- The original Angels of Death marines all had a form of psychic protection that was put into their minds by the Emperor himself, so they were able to face the dangerous psykers on Terra during the unification wars. The emperor did not do this for later batches of marine for the first and subsequent legions, because the effort to do so was too taxing on him with such numbers.


Dark Angels 30K organisation:

- By the late Crusade, start of the heresy, the Dark Angels have a relatively standard organisation. The Legion breaks down into Orders, which break down into Chapters, which break down into Companies. Not sure how many Chapters to an Order (the highest numbered Order in the book is the 31st). Presumably a chapter is 1000 full strength, and a company around 100.

- They do, however, also have the 6 wings, which run through the standard organisation. Each dark angel belongs to one of the wings, as well as their normal Order/Chapter/Company. They are the Deathwing, Dreadwing, Ravewing, Ironwing, Stormwing and Firewing. Each one is a specific warfare specialisation, which conforms to the original Six Host formation of the first legion. The names of the Wings are Calibanite in origin however, the names of the original hosts are unknown.

- Each wing is commanded by an officer known as a Voted-Lieutenant. They are outside of the normal legion command structure. He has several Voted-Successors.

- In battle, if a situation is encountered which would benefit from the specialised skills of one of the wings is, the Dark Angel officer in command may request the activation of the the specific wing, and pass over command to the voted-lieutenant.

- The voted lieutenant will then call to him all of the members of his company in the warzone. The will detach form their Orders/Chapters/Companies and join together and do their thing. When the situation is resolved, the voted-lieutenant will relinquish command and the units will return to their formations.

- The Deathwing are terminator veterans. The are led by Holguin.

- The Dreadwing are an annihilation/scorched earth force, which uses copious amounts of phosphex, rad weapons, defoliation weapons and void/warp rift weapons, alongside conventional weapons. Its not confirmed in the book, but i suspect all Dark Angels Destroyers are Dreading. They really do not mess about, marching into battle chanting We have come, We are Death. They are led by Farith Redloss, who takes out a World Eaters Leviathan Dreadnaugth with his axe.

- Nothing really on the Ravenwing and Ironwing in the book, but we can easily guess what they specialise in!

- No further info on the Stormwing.

- The Firewing were, until recently, led by a marine named Griffayn 'The Spear-Cast'. For some reason, at the point in the story, his rank has been suspended and he has been demoted to Sergeant-at-Arms rank. No further info on the fire wing.


Unique Dark Angels Equipment:

- Holguin of the Deathwing has a personal Land Raider that has no tracks. It is held aloft by a grav field and can move very fast.

- The Dark Angels have the Stormstrike Interceptor aircraft, described as shaped like a dagger.

- They have a unique type of Superheavy vehicle, the Portcullis mono-track. It bears large energy shield generators.

- A Glaive superheavy variant, that is Dreadwing specific. It replaces the Volkite cannon with a warp rift cannon

- Dreadwing Vindicators that can fire Void-tipped shells.

- A superheavy tank called a Dreadhammer, which fires void shells

- Spaceships with warp rift cannons! There is one in the novel, the Intolerant, supporting the Dreadwing attack from orbit. It deploys vanes which spark with lightning, that fire a massive warp rift sphere. No info is give on what type or class of ship the Intolerant is.


Merir Astelan:

- Events in this novel add further confirmation to the fact he is lying to Boreas in Angels of Darkness.

- He is one of the original Angels of Death first marines. He has the special psyhic protection put in his head by the Emperor. This explains why in the 40k stories he is in, the Dark Angel Librarians are unable to read him.

- One of the lion loyalist Dark Angels imprisoned in the aldurkh jail, Chaper Master Tukon, is also and original Angels of Death marine.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Thats alot of info and I love it... 

 

Again Corswain "swoon" :) oh Redloss too :)

 

Well the 1st are without a doubt my HH army of choice now :)

[ronin_cse]

Thats alot of info and I love it...

Again Corswain "swoon" oh Redloss too

Well the 1st are without a doubt my HH army of choice now

Wow I have to agree...warp/void weaponry everywhere! Freaking sweet!

[Skalpynock]

Well, if I ever start painting my B@C force I know what it'll be: I^st Dreadwing and IV^th Brethren of Thunder combined eradication force.

[ronin_cse]

Well, if I ever start painting my B@C force I know what it'll be: I^st Dreadwing and IV^th Brethren of Thunder combined eradication force.

 

Yeah I think I may need to place an order for some destroyers now ;)

[Spaced Hulk]

@ Robbienw: I'm currently working on my own 30k Dark Angels army, and your spoilers have been a great source of information and inspiration, especially as Angels of Caliban isn't scheduled for release for quite a while. Many thanks for taking the time to write it all up, it's been much appreciated!

[Robbienw]

@ Robbienw: I'm currently working on my own 30k Dark Angels army, and your spoilers have been a great source of information and inspiration, especially as Angels of Caliban isn't scheduled for release for quite a while. Many thanks for taking the time to write it all up, it's been much appreciated!

No problems mate

Couple of details I forgot:

There is a special Deathwing unit called the Secta Mortis. There are 30 of them with Holguin when he goes into Macragge Civitas. No specific details are given on them other than that. Presumably they are terminators like the rest of the Deathwing.

The Dark Angels have less Mechanicum personnel than other Legions. This is because they were fully formed as a fighting force before the Emperors alliance with Mars, and their support structure was made up of the emperors terran technicians, and this has continued through the centuries of the crusade. They do have some mechanism personnel, but noticeably fewer then the other legions.

The warp weapon technology the Dark Angels possess is specifically stated to be of Terran design, not martian.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

It's great I always envisioned my 27th Order to be bits of all wings and very capable to wage war on their own... All this info confirms a lot of what I thought the DA were like as a Legion.

 

It really seems like Gav has finally gave the Dark Angels a book we fans can be proud of.

[Robbienw]

One more thing:

 

 

I was just having a quick re-read of The Lion novella from The Primarchs Anthology.

The Lion takes 6 Orders with him to Perditus. It is mention by Captain Trajan that that is more than 30,000 warriors.

Based on this i think its safe to say each Order must be made up of 5 Chapters, just over 5000 marines in total.

 

[Phoebus]

Robbienw,

 

Great information - thanks!

[Lostrael]

Does any body know the release date? I remember reading something about a web release this month. Will there be an audio book too? I need something to listen while painting.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Awesome info! Thank you very much!

[Gillyfish]

Agreed, that's really interesting information.

[JeffJedi]

I wonder what those two newly named wings do.

[Major_Gilbear]

I wonder what those two newly named wings do.

 

- The Dreadwing are an annihilation/scorched earth force, which uses copious amounts of phosphex, rad weapons, defoliation weapons and void/warp rift weapons, alongside conventional weapons. Its not confirmed in the book, but I suspect all Dark Angels Destroyers are Dreadwing. They really do not mess about, marching into battle chanting We have come, We are Death

 

Stormwing and Firewing we don't know yet, but I suspect that Stormwing will be droppod/aircraft/rapid insertion specialists. I would also guess that Firewing are probably specialists in fire support and heavy weaponry, and would therefore have access to a lot of the Legion's biggest and most esoteric equipment for this purpose.

[Skalpynock]

From Retribution, the DA color plates show a "Squad Adjutant of the 52^nd Chapter of the First Host, Ordination of the Fire Wing", and a terminator of the "13th Chapter of the Third Host, Ordination of the Deathwing". Whether these Hosts are the same as the original proto-wings, I don't know, and there is no more about what the Firewing is, but I see no reason why they would recycle the word "Host" post-primarch to mean something else than before.

 

Also of note: the Firewing symbol is a red, winged flame, not unlike that of the Consecrators or Angels of Vigilance, with a superimposed unicursal hexagram .

[lhavoc]

In "Unremembered Empire" the Stormwing was shown as assaulting Cruze using Jump Packs and Breacher Shields moving across the outside of the Invincible Reason. Seems to indicate some sort of "Assault" specialty.

[Olis]

Lots of intriguing details. Certainly many that sound like fun to read up about.

- They have a unique type of Superheavy vehicle, the Portcullis mono-track. It bears large energy shield generators.

Mono-track, eh? That's... interesting.

- A Glaive superheavy variant, that is Dreadwing specific. It replaces the Volkite cannon with a warp rift cannon

While that does sound cool, the MDRC will have to consider this heresy for now. :lol:

[lhavoc]

If the Firewing is Heavy Weapons/Artillery specific. Why did The Lion give those big siege cannons to Pertuabo? I know it was a plot device and foreshadowing, but I still would have kept them and hid them from the rest of the Legions. The Lion trusts NOBODY!

[Phoebus]

From Retribution, the DA color plates show a "Squad Adjutant of the 52^nd Chapter of the First Host, Ordination of the Fire Wing", and a terminator of the "13th Chapter of the Third Host, Ordination of the Deathwing". Whether these Hosts are the same as the original proto-wings, I don't know, and there is no more about what the Firewing is, but I see no reason why they would recycle the word "Host" post-primarch to mean something else than before.

 

Also of note: the Firewing symbol is a red, winged flame, not unlike that of the Consecrators or Angels of Vigilance, with a superimposed unicursal hexagram .

Apologies, but allow me to make a correction:

 

The Firewing's symbol is the same as was shown in the earlier promotional artwork that preceded Horus Heresy: Retribution. It is a red, winged flame, as you say, with a "burst" effect like that of the Consecrators or Angels of Vigilance at its top.

 

The unicursal hexagram, however, is part of the Terminator's heraldry in the page that follows. The hexagram is at the center of his breastplate, as part of a set of wings, with the crossed (red) swords of the Deathwing over it.

 

In "Unremembered Empire" the Stormwing was shown as assaulting Cruze using Jump Packs and Breacher Shields moving across the outside of the Invincible Reason. Seems to indicate some sort of "Assault" specialty.

It was just Breacher Shields, though I agree with you in principle.

 

 

If the Firewing is Heavy Weapons/Artillery specific.

I think the Retribution book gives us a clue as to what the Firewing is about. The Dark Angel's name and rank is Pelagor Marner, Squad Adjutant, Eloi-7 Despoiler Squad.

 

The rank itself would imply Pelagor is an assistant to the Sergeant of the squad. I can't remember which Horus Heresy book Despoiler Squads are in, but Forgeworld's website states that...

 

 

If fighting is expected to be at close quarters, such as in boarding actions or trench clearance, Tactical squads can sometimes forgo the standard bolter in favour of the combination of a bolt pistol and chainsword, allowing the Astartes more manoeuvrability in whatever tight confines they may find themselves in. These more assault orientated units are referred to as Despoiler Squads within the Legiones Astartes.

Perhaps this doesn't mean anything. Maybe it's just a case of a Firewing-ordinated Space Marine who happens to be in a Despoiler Squad, in which case we have no clue as to what the Firewing itself actually does.

 

Or... perhaps the Firewing is the various Tactical units all rolled into one. That would make some sense, since Deathwing equals Terminators, Dreadwing is Destroyers, Stormwing is (probably) Breachers and Assault Squads, and Ravenwing is bikers. If we can accept that Ironwing includes artillery as well as armour, then it all fits.

 

Why did The Lion give those big siege cannons to Pertuabo? I know it was a plot device and foreshadowing, but I still would have kept them and hid them from the rest of the Legions. The Lion trusts NOBODY!

It's explained quite clearly, I thought. The Lion feels he should be Horus's replacement as Warmaster once his betrayal is taken care of. The Primarchs having been embroiled in various rivalries even before the Heresy, even one vote in his favor could make a huge difference for the Lion. Beyond that, there's the practical application of giving those weapons to Perturabo to use them against Horus... as the Iron Warriors were enroute to Isstvan V and the Dark Angels hadn't yet assembled in Diamat.

[JeffJedi]

I really love the look of that unicursal hexagram. I'm going to add it to a mini today.

[Kelborn]

If every wing is reminiscing a special troop type and way of warfare, where are the seeker squads and the like?

 

Or does the Lion dislike this type? Idea of potential abanoned troops becoming blackshields.... :D

[Spaced Hulk]

I don't think it'll be as simple as a particular Wing equates to a specific unit type. Instead, I reckon each wing or original host specialises in a particular type of warfare, and will therefore include all the elements necessary to perform this function. The reasoning for this is that they were the First Legion, operating alone before the other legions were ready for combat, and therefore had to include all these elements to be able to take on any foe they encountered. For example, if the First were tasked with destroying a heavily fortified city, they had the tools and specialists required to besiege it. Later on in the Great Crusade, such a target might have drawn the attention of the Imperial Fists or Iron Warriors, but in the early days, the First Legion alone had to deal with the problem.

Three of the wings have been quite well described already (either by HH book six or Angels of Caliban), so lets look at them first.

Dreadwing. I think these are basically the 'final sanction', unleashed whenever an enemy needed to be utterly destroyed, regardless of collateral damage. Foes which were too dangerous to be allowed to survive, or perhaps human colonists too belligerent or tainted to ever accept compliance. The Dreadwing don't just defeat their enemies, they destroy all evidence they ever existed. In terms of troop types, Destroyers are the obvious one but I suspect the Dreadwing would also include support squads (maybe armed with flamers or volkites) and heavy armour (like the OP mentioned Glaives and Vindicators with phospex weapons).

Ironwing. I think these were the armoured assault specialists, designed to 'blitzkrieg' their way through opposing armies and civilisations. So basically tanks....lots of tanks. But armour also functions best with infantry support, so the Ironwing would also include mechanised troops, eg: Tactical squads in Rhinos or Land Raiders.

Ravenwing. Fast and highly mobile, designed to outrun and out maneuver enemy forces, performing duties such as reconnaissance, hit&run style warfare (the forerunner of the White Scars) and to run fleeing enemies to ground. Bikes and landspeeders are obvious, but it probably also included (if the Ravenwing protocols in book 6 are anything to go by) airbourne infantry and gunships as well.

The last three wings haven't really been described yet, so we can only really guess.

Firewing. I suspect these might be the siege experts I mentioned earlier. Designed for both offensive and defensive static warfare. So lots of heavy weapons and artillery, but also close combat units like Despoilers or Breachers to deploy in forlorn hopes etc.

Stormwing. Pure speculation, but I suspect these are the void warfare & orbital assault specialists. The drop pods that rained down on Macragge in The Unremembered Empire might have been full of Stormwing units. So I presume lots of infantry: Tactical squads, Assault squads, Breachers etc.

Deathwing. Unlike their 40k descendents, I'm not sure it's as simple as saying the Deathwing are just Terminator veterans. For a start, when the original hosts were formed during the Unification Wars, would any of the First Legion have been fighting long enough to be classed as veterans? Secondly, if all six wings have a specific combat role, then presumably the Deathwing must have a specific modus operandi as well? Looking at it another way, if all the Deathwing are equipped with terminator armour (actually, I'm not sure this is the case, as there's a Deathwing veteran who attacks Curze in Unremembered Empire and there's no mention of him being a terminator), then there must be a reason why they would have that equipment. My guess is that the original Deathwing might be a heavy assault formation, designed to go toe to toe with the deadliest opponents in close quarters. Such a force might naturally consist of the Legion's most skilled and experienced Veterans, and equally it makes sense that they would be given the best armour and weapons available.

An interesting spoiler to come out of Angels of Caliban is that the Wings are actually a secondary organisation within the Dark Angels Legion. For example, while a Tactical Space Marine is a member of a squad, which is part of a company, which is part of a Chapter etc etc, that same Tactical marine will also be a member of a specific Wing, like the Firewing. Most of the time he'll fight as part of his company, under his normal Company Command, but if a situation requires it (for example, a siege that would benefit from the Firewing's expertise) he'll temporarily detach from his normal company structure to join the other Firewing elements in the force. So unlike the 40k Ravenwing/Deathwing Companies, the Legion Wings aren't a fixed military unit, they're more like a club that operates throughout the entire spectrum of the Dark Angels. The Lion's armour is described as featuring the insignia of all six hosts, so he (and perhaps he alone) is a member of every Wing in the First Legion.

What I think that means, is that there's actually quite wide scope for including different units even in a specialised 'Wing' force. For example, every 'Wing' might have a large percentage of Tactical Marines. In a Ravenwing force, the Tacs will be trained for airbourne deployment by Thunderhawk or Storm Eagle. In an Ironwing force, they'll be mounted in Rhinos or Land Raiders. In a Firewing force (assuming they are Siege specialists) they'll be specially trained for that sort of warfare. And so on. The same also applies for the more specialised units in the Legion army list, like Recon marines and Seekers. Each Wing will include a mixture of units all with different equipment and skills, but all specialising in a particular type of warfare or battlefield situation.

HH Book Six has already given us rules for Ironwing and Ravenwing protocols. I'll be most surprised if the complete HH DA rules don't include the other Wings as well. That's probably why the DA Legion Special rules (Mastery of the Blade, Covenant of Death) feel slightly lackluster compared to the other Legions. It's the Wing Protocols which will give the Dark Angels their punch on the table top.

Just my two cents

[shabbadoo]

I'll have to get this book.  The DA Legion was larger than most realize, but apparently it suffered massive casualties (reduced to 20,000 marines from who knows how many originally)  fighting the Night Lords (who the DA purged from as many as 120,000 down to an estimated 10,000) during the Thramas Crusade.

[Phoebus]

If The Unforgiven is to be used as the authority, then no more than twelve Chapters' worth of Dark Angels survived the Fall of Caliban. If Prince of Crows is to be used as the authority, somewhere around a third of the VIII Legion's fighting force was lost during the Thramas Crusade - the majority of their casualties coming in the last two battles.