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Hello everyone.

This is my first post here and indeed on any Warhammer related forums, so please excuse any seemingly newby questions that come from me.

Anyway, I'm going to start painting again, after a good... eight years or so. I never really played in my younger days and recently i've felt a burning to paint and play again. Having thrown out all my old gear/paints ect years ago, i've bought myself a new set-up and i'm ready to paint, My army and chapter that i've set myself on is the Space Marines - Dark Angels.

Ive always read black library books and have quite a collection and love the diversity of Space Marine chapters, the Chapter that's always stuck with me are Lion El Jonson's, Dark Angels. Which to me at-least, have always given off a "holier than thou" attitude with a crippling secret, going by the books and background fluff i've read from the WIKI / DA Codex ect. Now as i say, i dabbled as a teenager but now I'm making an attempt to paint and play as a hobby, so please understand i don't know the rules to an exact science and pretty much everything is new to me again so i understand some of you might not wish to help a newby with limited info but any help i can get will build up my own knowledge base.

Right, down to business, I'm looking to start my army, start small but build. As i imagine everyone does. I have afew questions however, i have an idea of what i want my army to look and feel like but i've no idea if i'll actually be able to field it or bits of it as a force.

Questions:

1: As my first purchase i've bough two boxes of Dark Angels Veterans. I want to use the "Robed" style of marines as my basic trooper. As i say, the dark angels to me have always given off a "holier than thou" feeling and i think robing all my marines will help convey that. But one of my questions is: is this legit, can it be done? I'm looking for around two to three tactical squads for my army, each ten man squad will be made in all "robed" marines. i want to know if that's at all possible to field. just because i have all my tac squads in robes i don't want to be stopped from entering a tournament game or anything because the robes class them as a higher-cost infantry unit. does that make sense to anyone?

2: I also want to know the fluff on special weapons. If there is any, I know certain chapters prefer certain heavy weapons, for example the Salamanders prefer flamers and multi-melta's. Are there any "trait" weapons that the Dark Angels prefer over others? or can i just equip them with any weapon. For example have one squad with a rockit-launcher and another tac squad with a plasma cannon.

3: As i understand it. A tactical squad can have one "heavy" weapon (heavy bolter/multi-melter/rockit launcher/ect) and one "light weapon" (flamer/plasma gun/ect) and the rest of the squad has to be outfitted with standard bolters to class as a standard tac squad, correct?

4: What are the options for Dread-naughts? are there any limits to them within the Dark angels chapter? I'm looking to start my army with: Two tac squads, two dreadnaughts and a commander. (this is for the time being, obviously it'll grow when time and money permits) I'm looking to eventually add two venerable dreadnaughts to my army but i don't even know if i can field two dreads?

5: Finally i would like to know peoples opinions on commanders, As i understand it, field commanders can be either: generic commanders, names characters, librarians or chaplains. is this true? to go along with my holy feeling SM's i would like them to be lead by a chaplain but i dont want to get one and find out he doesn't qualify for a commander.

I know i've probably gone about this long windedly but any help anyone could give me would be brilliant, i want to start properly but i've no idea where to go. I've borrowed a copy of the Dark Angels codex but as i say, not knowing the rules, most of it doesn't make that much sense.

+3BBQ with a D6 roll of -1BMW. Two wounds, no bandages and a +5 R&R/ect

Anyway, yes. any help anyone can give me would be fantastic. thank you.
- Chris

Sure I can help you out! I started out with the 2nd editions Angels of Death codex. Stopped and played back towards the end of 5th. I now own an 6th edtion DA army. Let me answer your questions first...

1.You can certainly play all your tactical marines using robbed figures. No on will complain, only you need to somehow seperate the squad leader and vertarns from the normal robbed marines. Also be aware you will be paying more money to get 30 robbed marines than the standard marines.

2. DA doesn't have a special perferred weapon. Other people say plasma but its really becuase most models from the starter sets are filled with plasma weapons. Again, its not fluff related. But DA have unique access to a deathwing terminator with plasma cannon and a special landspeeder with plasma 'battery' weapon.

3. Tactical squad can have up to 1 heavy weapon and 1 special weapon per 10 man squad. Its a choice you use only if you want to.

4. Dreadnought is a elite option, meaning you can have up to 3 per army. Venerable D is an option to dreadnought so meaning you can only have up of 3 between the 2. (cannot have 6).

5.field commanders are now call HQ choice, it consists of named characters, Chaplins, Librarian, company master. you need at least 1 and up to 2 per army. So yes you can get a Chaplin as your HQ choice.

Now to advice, if you are really really new. Start with the 6th edition starter set. It is a great way to explore the benefits of a Dark Angels army because it gives you a taste of marines, Deathwing (Terminators) and Ravenwing (bikes). As well as a company master and a librarian (2 types of HQ). Once you have a feel of how the current DA army plays you can build up from there, say buy 2 dreadnought and another tact squad.

Thanks very much for your reply Wufai, Its very helpful.

Obviously heavy weapons are easy to identify but what counts as a special? i assume wargear such as: Powerfists/chain swords/ect.

Would plasma rifles/flamers count as specials or heavy? (for example, could i have one plasma cannon and one plasma rifle in a squad?)

thank you very much again.
- Chris

Plasmaguns, flamers, meltaguns are special weapons

plasma cannon, multi-melta, heavy bolter, missile launcher, lascannon are heavy weapons.

So yes you can have a plasmagun and a plasmacannon in the same squad.

I'll echo the starter set as an obvious (but excellent!) place to start. Dark Vengeance won't quite give you a legal army (unless you run the Master as Azrael, which is viable since he's equipped the same) but will give you a really solid building block for an army. If you just get a second tactical squad on eBay (or better yet, just get two boxes and trade the Chaos stuff/sell it off to someone) then you've got a really solid DA army for very cheap. It's how I built up mine.

Although you can field all your dudes in robes it doesn´t neccessarily go with the fluff. The DA with robes are the ones that have certain knowdlege about the chapters past that the "boots on the ground" don´t know (yet) and don´t need to know. So you could use the veteran kit to mark your squad leaders since sergeants are higher up in the hierarchy and you don´t have to pay almost the same for 5 dudes in robes as for 10 regular ones.

And on the other hand DA use a lot of plasma weapons because this is the oldest, most valued special weapon available to the common Space Marine and since the DA are the first legion they got a lot of those relics left until today.

You need the starter set. It gives you a rule book, templates and a few other things you'll need. It also comes with some great models and the three "wings" so you can decide which one you want to go deeper in or stay with all of them equal. Also Tommse was close but no quite correct. The Veterans don't know about the fallen yet, for they are one step off from it. Welcome to the Dark Angels.