Library?

[Darkn3ssF4lls]

Do we have a list of all the books that talk about us, good or bad. I know everyone has feelings on the quality. Just looking for he running list of books to build my battles etc history up. I found one but it was a couple years old. Thanks in advance for the help, sorry I’m sure this is asked often.

[Gabriel Santar]

You're not wrong when you say that Dark Angel books have a bit of a reputation. A lot of that comes down to being done solely by one author after a point, both for Heresy and 40k - Gav Thorpe is, to put it gently, a bit 'divisive'. That said, being First Founding there's quite a lot of material on them.

 

In terms of Horus Heresy, the reading order for in-universe events (not necessarily order of publication) is as follows:

 

-Descent of Angels

-Call of the Lion (in Tales of Heresy)

-Leman Russ: The Great Wolf (featuring the scrap on Dulan, and what I at least think is the best depiction of the Lion thus far)

-Fallen Angels

-Savage Weapons (in Age of Darkness)

-The Lion (in The Primarchs)

-Prince of Crows (in Shadows of Treachery)

-The Unremembered Empire

-The Long Night (in Eye of Terra)

-SPOILERS Wolf King (in The Burden of Loyalty) SPOILERS

-Grey Angel (in The Silent War)

-Master of the First (in Eye of Terra)

-By the Lion’s Command (in War Without End)

-Guardian of Order (in Legacies of Betrayal)

-Angels of Caliban

-Exocytosis (currently only available as an e-short, as far as I know)

-Ruinstorm

 

The Lion or his Legion also have minor appearances in Deathfire, Pharos, The Heart of the Pharos, and The Herald of Sanguinius, but they are very minor. The Dark Angel plot line in the Heresy has received a lot of criticism on par with Wolves and the Salamanders, its worth mentioning - I don't think it's as nonsensical in terms of events as the former or as poorly-written as the latter, and in fact I quite like it from Savage Weapons onwards, but that may just be me.

 

For 40k, the main offering is the 'Legacy of Caliban' series that ran throughout the early 2010s (with one exception). It's a 'trilogy', but a trilogy technically of four-and-a-bit parts:

 

-Angels of Darkness (one of the original and arguably seminal Dark Angel books – this was written much earlier than the other three main entries in the series, but its events are directly relevant to them so I’d recommend reading it first)

-Ravenwing

-Master of Sanctity

-The Unforgiven

-Lords of Caliban (a short story collection by the same author as the trilogy/AoD, some of them are directly related to Legacy of Caliban but others seem to stand alone)

 

Again, discussion on these seems to be 'mixed', tending towards the negative for some 'interesting' decisions it makes with the Lore. Having read all of them, I can tell you I enjoyed Angels and Master, have only finished Ravenwing once despite trying a few times, (moreso for simply not being grabbed narratively than anything majorly offensive) had fun with Unforgiven until the last few chapters, and Lords is just...sort of there. It's probably the main Dark Angel-centric work in 40k at present however, and the last they'll get for a while.

 

Alongside that, there's the Space Marine Battles/Conquest series. This I really have no experience with or knowledge of aside from the most recent, War of Secrets, which is...it's...it's certainly a novel in which events take place, put it that way :

 

-The Purging of Kadilus

-Eye of Ezekiel

-Pandorax

-War of Secrets

 

Finally, there's the 'Space Marine Legends' series, as well as those that don't really fit in anywhere else or where the Dark Angels only have minor roles. Again, don't have any experience with any of these;

 

-Space Marine Legends: Azrael

-Trials of Azrael (Audio Drama featuring That Great Guy, Khârn)

-Space Marine Legends: Ragnar Blackmane

-Dark Vengeance

-The Ascension of Balthasar (Audio Drama)

-War-Zone Fenris: Legacy of Russ

-Vox Tenebris (Audio Drama)

-Easy Prey (E-Short)

-The Rage of Asmodai (Audio Drama)

-The Black Pearl (E-Short)

-The Flesh of the Angel (E-Short)

-Malediction (E-Short/Audio Drama)

-Reparation (E-Short)

 

Aside from older works such as the Deathwing anthology, which apparently is from the late 80s and thus, I assume, is of dubious modern canonicity, that's all I'm really aware of for the First from BL. I'm sure some of the lore masters in this forum will be able to point out works I missed. One place to look might also be the '...of the Space Marines', which is an older series of Short Story collections that focused a lot on maybe lesser-known chapters. That said, perhaps there was some Dark Angel stuff in them, too - it may even be where The Black Pearl was first published, though I'm not certain on that.

 

From GW proper, the best resource is obviously the Dark Angel codexes. Space Wolf codexes and the War-Zone Fenris/Pandorax Campaign series also feature the Dark Angels, to varying extents. Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch had the Fallen and Cypher play a substantial role, while the Dark Angels also feature in a lore entry from the 4th edition Black Templars codex. Another place that may be worth researching is the 6th and 7th edition Crimson Slaughter supplements for the Chaos Marine codex - since they were the 'baddies' in Dark Vengeance, I imagine there's at least something regarding their loyalist nemesis in there. Finally, the Pre-heresy First Legion has some lore and basic rules in The Horus Heresy VI: Retribution black book from Forge World fighting against the proto-Dark Mechanicum at Xana. The Legion'll get a full write-up, both in terms of background and rules, in IX: Angelus, which hopefully is coming in the next two years (right, Forge World? Right?!)

Hope this helped a bit.

 

(Edited to try and fix the weird font, with dubious results, and because I completely forgot Ruinstorm in the Heresy section. Or, more accurately, I try and forget Ruinstorm for the most part.)

[Darkn3ssF4lls]

You're not wrong when you say that Dark Angel books have a bit of a reputation. A lot of that comes down to being done solely by one author after a point, both for Heresy and 40k - Gav Thorpe is, to put it gently, a bit 'divisive'. That said, being First Founding there's quite a lot of material on them.

 

In terms of Horus Heresy, the reading order for in-universe events (not necessarily order of publication) is as follows:

 

-Descent of Angels

-Call of the Lion (in Tales of Heresy)

-Leman Russ: The Great Wolf (featuring the scrap on Dulan, and what I at least think is the best depiction of the Lion thus far)

-Fallen Angels

-Savage Weapons (in Age of Darkness)

-The Lion (in The Primarchs)

-Prince of Crows (in Shadows of Treachery)

-The Unremembered Empire

-The Long Night (in Eye of Terra)

-SPOILERS Wolf King (in The Burden of Loyalty) SPOILERS

-Grey Angel (in The Silent War)

-Master of the First (in Eye of Terra)

-By the Lion’s Command (in War Without End)

-Guardian of Order (in Legacies of Betrayal)

-Angels of Caliban

-Exocytosis (currently only available as an e-short, as far as I know)

-Ruinstorm

 

The Lion or his Legion also have minor appearances in Deathfire, Pharos, The Heart of the Pharos, and The Herald of Sanguinius, but they are very minor. The Dark Angel plot line in the Heresy has received a lot of criticism on par with Wolves and the Salamanders, its worth mentioning - I don't think it's as nonsensical in terms of events as the former or as poorly-written as the latter, and in fact I quite like it from Savage Weapons onwards, but that may just be me.

 

For 40k, the main offering is the 'Legacy of Caliban' series that ran throughout the early 2010s (with one exception). It's a 'trilogy', but a trilogy technically of four-and-a-bit parts:

 

-Angels of Darkness (one of the original and arguably seminal Dark Angel books – this was written much earlier than the other three main entries in the series, but its events are directly relevant to them so I’d recommend reading it first)

-Ravenwing

-Master of Sanctity

-The Unforgiven

-Lords of Caliban (a short story collection by the same author as the trilogy/AoD, some of them are directly related to Legacy of Caliban but others seem to stand alone)

 

Again, discussion on these seems to be 'mixed', tending towards the negative for some 'interesting' decisions it makes with the Lore. Having read all of them, I can tell you I enjoyed Angels and Master, have only finished Ravenwing once despite trying a few times, (moreso for simply not being grabbed narratively than anything majorly offensive) had fun with Unforgiven until the last few chapters, and Lords is just...sort of there. It's probably the main Dark Angel-centric work in 40k at present however, and the last they'll get for a while.

 

Alongside that, there's the Space Marine Battles/Conquest series. This I really have no experience with or knowledge of aside from the most recent, War of Secrets, which is...it's...it's certainly a novel in which events take place, put it that way :

 

-The Purging of Kadilus

-Eye of Ezekiel

-Pandorax

-War of Secrets

 

Finally, there's the 'Space Marine Legends' series, as well as those that don't really fit in anywhere else or where the Dark Angels only have minor roles. Again, don't have any experience with any of these;

 

-Space Marine Legends: Azrael

-Trials of Azrael (Audio Drama featuring That Great Guy, Khârn)

-Space Marine Legends: Ragnar Blackmane

-Dark Vengeance

-The Ascension of Balthasar (Audio Drama)

-War-Zone Fenris: Legacy of Russ

-Vox Tenebris (Audio Drama)

-Easy Prey (E-Short)

-The Rage of Asmodai (Audio Drama)

-The Black Pearl (E-Short)

-The Flesh of the Angel (E-Short)

-Malediction (E-Short/Audio Drama)

-Reparation (E-Short)

 

Aside from older works such as the Deathwing anthology, which apparently is from the late 80s and thus, I assume, is of dubious modern canonicity, that's all I'm really aware of for the First from BL. I'm sure some of the lore masters in this forum will be able to point out works I missed. One place to look might also be the '...of the Space Marines', which is an older series of Short Story collections that focused a lot on maybe lesser-known chapters. That said, perhaps there was some Dark Angel stuff in them, too - it may even be where The Black Pearl was first published, though I'm not certain on that.

 

From GW proper, the best resource is obviously the Dark Angel codexes. Space Wolf codexes and the War-Zone Fenris/Pandorax Campaign series also feature the Dark Angels, to varying extents. Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch had the Fallen and Cypher play a substantial role, while the Dark Angels also feature in a lore entry from the 4th edition Black Templars codex. Another place that may be worth researching is the 6th and 7th edition Crimson Slaughter supplements for the Chaos Marine codex - since they were the 'baddies' in Dark Vengeance, I imagine there's at least something regarding their loyalist nemesis in there. Finally, the Pre-heresy First Legion has some lore and basic rules in The Horus Heresy VI: Retribution black book from Forge World fighting against the proto-Dark Mechanicum at Xana. The Legion'll get a full write-up, both in terms of background and rules, in IX: Angelus, which hopefully is coming in the next two years (right, Forge World? Right?!)

 

Hope this helped a bit.

 

(Edited to try and fix the weird font, with dubious results, and because I completely forgot Ruinstorm in the Heresy section. Or, more accurately, I try and forget Ruinstorm for the most part.)

 

Thank you so much, this looks like I have quite the library to collect, also to read haha. I have some of these but definitely not much of them. I just got my hands on Angels of Death (Codex) and the next one so that completes my Codex library so I can start reading them from start to finish to see the changes in lore etc. 

 

I am tempted to get all of these black books, I hear they are quite extraordinary in terms of lore and imagery. 

[G8Keeper]

I'll add that I quite enjoyed the revelations in Eye of Ezekiel and Legends: Azrael.  Whilst, as my friends will attest, I inevitably drool over any DA book, I do find some parts of some books to either be poorly written or just include events that have little bearing on the story as a whole.  Currently reading War of Secrets, took a while to get going.

[rendingon1+]

There's also rather cool audio Deathwatch: The Last Guardian.

[Kasper_Hawser]

 

1) -SPOILERS Wolf King (in The Burden of Loyalty) SPOILERS

 

 

2) The Lion or his Legion also have minor appearances in Deathfire, Pharos, The Heart of the Pharos, and The Herald of Sanguinius, but they are very minor. The Dark Angel plot line in the Heresy has received a lot of criticism on par with Wolves and the Salamanders, its worth mentioning - I don't think it's as nonsensical in terms of events as the former or as poorly-written as the latter, and in fact I quite like it from Savage Weapons onwards, but that may just be me.

 

3) From GW proper, the best resource is obviously the Dark Angel codexes. Space Wolf codexes and the War-Zone Fenris/Pandorax Campaign series also feature the Dark Angels, to varying extents. Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch had the Fallen and Cypher play a substantial role, while the Dark Angels also feature in a lore entry from the 4th edition Black Templars codex. Another place that may be worth researching is the 6th and 7th edition Crimson Slaughter supplements for the Chaos Marine codex - since they were the 'baddies' in Dark Vengeance, I imagine there's at least something regarding their loyalist nemesis in there. Finally, the Pre-heresy First Legion has some lore and basic rules in The Horus Heresy VI: Retribution black book from Forge World fighting against the proto-Dark Mechanicum at Xana. The Legion'll get a full write-up, both in terms of background and rules, in IX: Angelus, which hopefully is coming in the next two years (right, Forge World? Right?!)

Hope this helped a bit.

 

(Edited to try and fix the weird font, with dubious results, and because I completely forgot Ruinstorm in the Heresy section. Or, more accurately, I try and forget Ruinstorm for the most part.)

 

@ Gabriel - replying to parts of your comments.

 

1) Were the Dark Angels involved in Wolf King? Oh wait, yes. OK, won't say anything. Nothing involving the Lion though I'll say that much. More like a cameo appearance though an important one. Actually if you follow old lore, you'll know what happened.

 

2) I wouldn't call the storylines about the Wolves nonsensical, but it is very controversial no matter what topic of Wolves you discuss (Executioner, Nikae, Prospero, Psykers, etc.) I blame it mostly on lack of consistency between the writers for Wolves (Mcneil, Chris Wrights, Dan Abnett), and a lot of TELL but don't SHOW. But at least it's not horrendously written like the poor Salamanders who are all stuck on the same writer.

 

Actually without going into author bashing, I think Dark Angels suffer the same problem of being saddled most with the same guy writing stuff. Thankfully other authors have touched the Lion and the Dark Angels and their portrayal of them has been outstanding, especially the whole Lion and the Wolf incident by Chris Wright in the Leman Russ novella. (it's a separate novella as well as part of the bigger anthology "Burden of Loyalty") I absolutely loved the Lion in it.

 

I know not many like Unremembered Empire, but personally I liked the portrayal of all parties involved in it.

 

3) Bleargh, the 40K warzones will give you even more headaches and inconsistencies if you ask me. But if you want to read about the Wolves getting bashed up on their own homeworld and the Dark Angels (and other Imperium factions) NEARLY duped into destroying Fenris, be my guest. To be fair, the portrayal of Azrael has been consistently, well, rational although he still bound by the whole "backstab if you know about Fallen" protocol. 

 

Generally I feel the only authors you can trust are Dan Abnett, ADB, Graham Mcneil, and Chris Wright. In their own novels or series which they write, at least they're consistent, even if it is consistently bad.

 

Gav Thorpe is literally a roller coaster in quality, some good but mostly bad in my opinion. No offence to those who like him. My personal favorite of his is the short story where Lion punched a chaplain's head off for trying to prohibit psychic powers and then regretted it later. can't remember if it was "The Lion" or "Savage Weapons". 

[rendingon1+]

If you're starting your adventure with DA and like their aestethics or what you read in the codex, I'd recommend TOTALLY skipping Gav Thorpe's books. They are terrible in every way. Unfortunaly most of the DA books are bad, no matter the author (ironically the best you get is Leman Russ from primarchs series, it's really great).

For example, some days ago I forced myself to reread Ravenwing. First chapter and you what you get: non ic/rw Dark Angels don't know about horus heresy.

Make of that what you will but it show IMHO how bad Thorpe is.

+ he irrecoverably ruined HH DA Caliban arc.

[Gillyfish]

You can also add 'Eye of Terror' by Barrington J Bayley (spelling?) which was an early BL book and features a heresy era DA character who wakes up in the 40K era.

 

It's not a bad book by any means and has a flashback to the heresy that predates the modern heresy books, so probably of dubious canonicity nowadays.

[Gabriel Santar]

 

@ Gabriel - replying to parts of your comments.

 

1) Were the Dark Angels involved in Wolf King? Oh wait, yes. OK, won't say anything. Nothing involving the Lion though I'll say that much. More like a cameo appearance though an important one. Actually if you follow old lore, you'll know what happened.

 

2) I wouldn't call the storylines about the Wolves nonsensical, but it is very controversial no matter what topic of Wolves you discuss (Executioner, Nikae, Prospero, Psykers, etc.) I blame it mostly on lack of consistency between the writers for Wolves (Mcneil, Chris Wrights, Dan Abnett), and a lot of TELL but don't SHOW. But at least it's not horrendously written like the poor Salamanders who are all stuck on the same writer.

 

Actually without going into author bashing, I think Dark Angels suffer the same problem of being saddled most with the same guy writing stuff. Thankfully other authors have touched the Lion and the Dark Angels and their portrayal of them has been outstanding, especially the whole Lion and the Wolf incident by Chris Wright in the Leman Russ novella. (it's a separate novella as well as part of the bigger anthology "Burden of Loyalty") I absolutely loved the Lion in it.

 

I know not many like Unremembered Empire, but personally I liked the portrayal of all parties involved in it.

 

3) Bleargh, the 40K warzones will give you even more headaches and inconsistencies if you ask me. But if you want to read about the Wolves getting bashed up on their own homeworld and the Dark Angels (and other Imperium factions) NEARLY duped into destroying Fenris, be my guest. To be fair, the portrayal of Azrael has been consistently, well, rational although he still bound by the whole "backstab if you know about Fallen" protocol. 

 

Generally I feel the only authors you can trust are Dan Abnett, ADB, Graham Mcneil, and Chris Wright. In their own novels or series which they write, at least they're consistent, even if it is consistently bad.

 

Gav Thorpe is literally a roller coaster in quality, some good but mostly bad in my opinion. No offence to those who like him. My personal favorite of his is the short story where Lion punched a chaplain's head off for trying to prohibit psychic powers and then regretted it later. can't remember if it was "The Lion" or "Savage Weapons". 

 

 

Some good points here! I'll try and address them in part myself;

 

1). Without venturing too much into Spoiler territory, I would argue the DA's appearance in Wolf King is a bit more than a cameo - certainly the book isn't about them, and it isn't essential to following the DA's story thread throughout the Heresy, but it does provide important context on what the different factions of the First are up to and has a few scenes with Russ. If you've read it you'll likely remember better than me whether Great Wolf still sticks to the old canon, especially since they're written by the same chap.

 

2). 'Nonsensical' wasn't a crack at the Wolves as a faction, their themes, or their player base - apologies if it came off that way. Rather it was, as you imply, a quite literal opinion that the Wolves' chronological plot-line throughout the Heresy seems to feel very much decided by committee 'after the fact', and focused on 'what makes a marketable book' rather than 'what makes sense for them to do. Still trying to avoid spoilers, but I'd say the period of time between leaving the Alaxxes Nebula and Wolfsbane is a general oddity that didn't need to happen and cheapens the Legion a little. To be honest I think a lot of us can argue that most legions have suffered from the Heresy novel series, except maybe the Scars, the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, and the Fists.

 

3). To be fair, it's been a while since I've read War-Zone Fenris, which probably implies that it did give me a headache like you suggest!  The OP seemed to be requesting breadth rather than a review of quality, so I tried to hit up everything I could recall that has DA in a major role - but certainly, Pandorax in particular raises a few eyebrows, and not always in a good way.

 

 

For example, some days ago I forced myself to reread Ravenwing. First chapter and you what you get: non ic/rw Dark Angels don't know about horus heresy.

 

 

This is actually a very good point however, and one I'd completely forgotten about - I remember it most vividly from Master of Sanctity, but it's present throughout all three books and while Thorpe is treated as the First's 'loremaster' (particularly since BL seemed to take its whole 'shared universe' thing more seriously, probably chasing MCU pennies) it's a change that I and clearly others as well didn't like. Approach with caution unless you're a completionist.

[Morovir]

I think an important thing to mention is that most of CZ Dunn's works follow the story of Balthasar, and so I think that the best order to read his works chronologically would be:

 

Eye of Ezekiel

Deathwatch: The Last Guardian

Pandorax

(Trials of Azrael)

The Ascension of Balthasar

Dark Vengeance

(Malediction)

(The Rage of Asmodai)

 

Bracketed works do not follow the tale of Balthasar, but still tie in with other characters in his other works.

 

The Purging of Kadillus comes before Angels of Darkness chronologically.

[Indefragable]

The Lion features rather prominently in the Leman Russ Primarchs novel. Dare I say it’s one of his best-if not the best-showings to date, made all the more impressive since it’s coming from a SW narrator’s perspective.

[Kasper_Hawser]

@ Gabriel- Thanks. Don't worry, there are few cracks against Space Wolves that I haven't heard, and yours is hardly unreasonable. the Wolves have been "cheapened" ever since Prospero, they can't seem to do anything without being helped by another Legion. Prospero had the bloody golden bananas (custodes) and sisters of silence helping them, and I heard in Wolfsbane, they had to be saved by a certain emo ninja legion in the end.

 

A question: there was a famous encounter between Azrael and Khârn which took place during the Pandorax Campaign. Which novel, novella or Audio story bests describes that encounter?

[Morovir]

Trials of Azrael is the audiodrama that you're looking for.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Trials of Azrael is the audiodrama that you're looking for.

 

Thanks.

 

And yes, the Lion's portrayal in the Primarch Novel Leman Russ is absolutely superb. Beyond the famous duel, we see just how great the First Legion is in terms of strategic and tactical operations. Sad to say they almost make the Sixth Legion look incompetent, although I personally thought that the First Legion just happened to be operationally better suited for the Dulan Campaign. Poor Russ was trying to run an operation that got supplanted by his superior brother (never mind the seniority of being found earlier). And for once, no nonsensical DA plots about Luther and the Fallen, apart from a passing remark from Russ...

 

 

The Great Wolf novel is mostly told from Russ to a blood claw (neophyte Space wolf), who basically admitted that apart from the Emperor, only the Lion ever beat him in a fight. Story ends with the Great Wolf continuing his mourning rites as he had just heard in somewhat uncertain terms that the Lion was dead.