Full Dark Angel reveal

[Matrindur]

Article here

 

Belial

 

 

Inner Circle Companions

 

Upgrade sprue

 

 

Army Set

 

 

Codex

 

[Matcap86]

Well damn just when I thought I was out of 40k they pull me back in.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Looks like Guardians of the Covenant and Angels of Redemption at least on the decal sheet. Very nice touch there to include some successor chapters.

[Marshal Reinhard]

So the companions do have green armor. painted in the same vein as the Lions. Overall a very handsome upgrade.

 

Also the content of this range upgrade gives a lot of clues to other chapters going forward. One of things I find most interesting is the new upgrade sprue. Covers a lot of bases, with terminator bits, gravis pads, blade guard helmets....will the old one be discontinued i wonder? Regardless I think the rest of the big 3 can expect new upgrade sprues with terminator bits on them. Not so sure BT or any non big 3 first founding will get a second upgrade sprue

[Matrindur]

Love that upgrade sprue and hope we'll get those for every chapter (or at least for BA/SW)

 

Also if we estimate the price for Belial/Deathwing Knights/Upgrade sprue based on existing kits and add the codex and datacard prices, the army set would have about 312€ inside which at the last army set prices of 170€ would be a 46% discount. The last few army sets had about 43% discount so seems believable.
The assumed prices are: 35€ for Belial as he should be a bit more expensive than the pushfit Terminator Librarian, 55€ for the Deathwing Knights (same as the Terminators), 27€ for the upgrade sprue (same as the Cadian and BT ones) and the same prices for the Codex and Datacards as the current stuff so 46€ and 12€

 

Also the datacards will be interesting in future army sets. This one seems to include every card since Azrael is on them in the image which isn't strange as there aren't that many DA units (the current one has 18x unit cards) but will be interesting if future army sets for bigger factions would also inlcude the full datacard sets? Would be quite nice if thats the case.

Edited December 25, 2023 by Matrindur

[Sir Clausel]

This is awesome! So happy for the Dark Angels players!

But it does not look like ravenwing will get something. So bikelovers seems to be stuck with the old stuff. But this is already a massive update so understandably some things must wait.

[OrkPlayer137]

Even Phobos shoulder pads on the new upgrade sprue - I think that's the first time they have done that?

Edited December 25, 2023 by OrkPlayer137

[Orange Knight]

Belial is pretty good, no real complaints. He is significantly nicer than the old Finecast model.

 

The companions are interesting. They look like a Dark Angels take on the Bladeguard Veterans. I imagine they'll be more offensive but less durable.

 

The upgrade sprue is a big winner. I really hope they create one for every chapter. So many unique flourishes and even models can be represented by a sprue like this.

 

I imagine that the Dark Angels will get to keep at least some of their Ravenwing options in this update, but I also have a feeling that some of the units might be moved on to Legends.

[jimbo1701]

Merry Xmas indeed. Companions look to be squads of 3 with multi build potential. Nothing not to love about this release. I make it out to be:

belial

asmodai

Deathwing knights 

companions

upgrade sprue. 

[Nephaston]

That Upgrade sprue is absolutely premium. and a smart way to do a chapter variant of an existing unit without making a whole sparate box.

 

ANd of course the Risen now form a newer, more inner circle, that is even more secreter so the usual suspects of death and ravenwing get to know how it feels. Lmao.

[CL_Mission]

The companions look even better here and Belial too, I love the deisgn of the vents on his back. Obviously we all want the most stuff for our guys and a dedicated Deathwing Terminator set like the old one would have been great but I'm happy enough with the upgrade set, would have like five of the little sheathed daggers though. Inclusion f another watcher in the dark is a bonus, love those little dudes. I might skip the box set in favour of buying two sets of Deathwing Knights later down the line but who can say how I'll feel when it goes up for pre-order.

[mecanojavi99]

A lot to unpack here.

 

Belial is a big chungus of a lad, he's being feasting this Christmas, my only complain is the lack of a helmet head, which could be an option and they simply didn't showed it, but until proven otherwise it seems you'll have to snatch one from the new knights.

 

The Companions are not using traditional Fallen black, instead using the same dark green the Lion uses, they are also confirmed in GWs usual tong in cheek way that they are Risen, but funnily enough until proven otherwise no one has told the DA where they come from, although I imagine the higher echelons like Azrael and Asmodai are fully aware of their origins.

 

Also, as I managed to discover with the potato pics, they looked smaller because of the weird perspective of the photos and they are wearing a modified version of the MK X used by Bladeguard Veterans, which funnily enough means that Asmodai is probably breathing on a bag because of the stress of having not only former Fallen but more powerful Primaris Fallen within their ranks.

 

The upgrade sprue looks absolutely packed, the Plasma Canon seems to have been updated by Cawl, looking like a supped up version of the ones used by Hellblasters, my only complain being that unless I'm mistaken there is only a single Ravenwing wing in the entire sprue, which means you would need to buy 6 of these sprues to equip a full 6 model Outrider unit, extremely disappointing if that's the case.

 

The Box looks good in paper, but the lack of updates generic Deathwing characters takes some of the woah factor for me.

 

Finally, as we already knew from the roadmap, DA and presumably the other non compliant Chapters are getting supplements and not full codexes.

 

Overall a good chunky Christmas reveal, but I would have also liked to get updated generic Deathwing characters, although I think the Ravenwing should be the focus next time DA are in the spotlight.

[Tokugawa]

7 minutes ago, jimbo1701 said:

Merry Xmas indeed. Companions look to be squads of 3 with multi build potential. Nothing not to love about this release. I make it out to be:

belial

asmodai

Deathwing knights 

companions

upgrade sprue. 

Box of 3 models, but the probability of max unit size 6 hasn't been ruled out 

[Matcap86]

3 minutes ago, Tokugawa said:

Box of 3 models, but the probability of max unit size 6 hasn't been ruled out 

 

The promo movie has them in a unit of 5

 

[MoriyaSchism]

Some really interesting stuff on that upgrade sprue like the Terminator chestplate. It's surprising they can't do that for intercessors or any of the other Primaris units to give us a bit of variety. The only let down with this release is the Cawlification of the plasma cannon, I don't like how it looks from the front with the two hydrogen fuel cells sticking out on each side.

[Xirix]

The only thing I don't like about this is the lack of Deathwing Command squad stuff, ie the banner and the apothecary bits are now just gone.

[Nephaston]

9 minutes ago, mecanojavi99 said:

unless I'm mistaken there is only a single Ravenwing wing in the entire sprue, which means you would need to buy 6 of these sprues to equip a full 6 model Outrider unit, extremely disappointing if that's the case.

My guess is the wing is for the Sergeant, since there are enough flat ravenwing icons for a 3-bike squad. Gotta get the wings for the Risen Companion banner somewhere.

[ZeroWolf]

My youngest son is going to be pleased with this...and so am I as I get to paint it! 

[MoriyaSchism]

19 minutes ago, Xirix said:

The only thing I don't like about this is the lack of Deathwing Command squad stuff, ie the banner and the apothecary bits are now just gone.

That didn't cross my mind, I was too focused on the plasma cannon and the robed bodies of the Companions. That makes this release feel a bit hollow. An entire special kit is getting replaced by a single Cawl pattern plasma cannon and a chestplate.

Edited December 25, 2023 by MoriyaSchism

[Nephaston]

14 minutes ago, Xirix said:

The only thing I don't like about this is the lack of Deathwing Command squad stuff, ie the banner and the apothecary bits are now just gone.

Ideally that means standalone chapter non-specific Terminator Ancients and Apothecaries on their way.

I can already see Guilliman blowing an artery; "What do you mean only the Dark Angels remembered that they can equip their Apothecaries with Tactical Dreadnought Armour? You mean to tell me 8 out of 9 chapters and their succesors had just forgot about it?"

[Robbienw]

The companions are quite nice, I suspected they would do a 40k variation of 30k companions.

 

I have several problems with this release though.

 

1)Belial is cool, his face is very ugly though, and his sword is inferior to the previous version.

 

2)What happened to the leaf blade ended swords???  These were a major part of the Dark Angels look (hello, look at the chapter symbol!) and aside from Belial kind of sort of having one, they seem to have disappeared in this current release.  Disappointing.

 

3)They used the chapter symbol again from the previous Primaris sprue on the molded shoulder pads. Very lazy re-use. It’s a bit rounded and cartoony, they should have gone back to the previous design as it looks a lot better.

 

4)Lack of variation in Deathwing terminator parts.  There are only a few parts on the sprue for

Deathwing.  They loose many unique looking features from the previous Deathwing kit, such as the greave icons, arch back vents, powerfist icons, chest plate icon variation etc.  There should have been a whole sprue just for them.  Very lame.  I’ll get a single squad, but there is no way I’d replace my existing deathwing with loads of these due to the loss of uniqueness.  

5)Deathwing again, the lack of the command squad parts, the Deathwing banner, apothecary and Champion parts is incredibly lame.

 

6)The hooded heads on the accessory sprue are a bit rubbish.

 

Overall an underwhelming release.  Could have been so much better with a few additional bits and details.  Feels a bit lazy compared to the past Dark Angel kit releases.  Disappointing.

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Robbienw

[Matcap86]

Does anyone know if the old Deathwing command squad bits kind of scale with the new terminators?

[Subtleknife]

They look great. Love the terminators and new characters.

 

My complaint now is the upgrade sprue situation is getting rather unfair on other first founding chapters. Compare this and the BT one to what others have got and it's a complete joke. They need to be ensuring parity in that department pronto.

[Matrindur]

1 minute ago, Subtleknife said:

They look great. Love the terminators and new characters.

 

My complaint now is the upgrade sprue situation is getting rather unfair on other first founding chapters. Compare this and the BT one to what others have got and it's a complete joke. They need to be ensuring parity in that department pronto.

DA also had the same small upgrade sprue before this one as the rest of the chapters still have so I have no doubt BA/SW will also get a big one whenever they get a refresh.

The rest on the other hand aren't as likely as I wouldn't expect bigger waves like this for them.

[MoriyaSchism]

2 minutes ago, matcap86 said:

Does anyone know if the old Deathwing command squad bits kind of scale with the new terminators?

The hands and heads are about the same. The pauldrons are just a tiny bit bigger than the old ones, the chests are wider and the arms are about the same size in some situations (powerfists are a bit better proportioned and better detailed).