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Can someone please make a summary of the dark angels background for me? What the armies specialises in? Maybe a little background history of the characters??

I'm stuck between starting a DA army and grey knights. And seen as though I'm not bothered about competitiveness and I love both armies models I'm interested in their background

Any help would be great

DA background -
During the heresy almost the entire chapter fell to chaos, however they kept this secret and imprisoned their own primarch inside their battle fortress.
Now only a hand full of loyal dark angels remain, led by Cypher.
The Dark Angels persue the loyalists accross the universe, so as to protect themselves and bide their time before they launch the biggest black crusade the imperium has ever seen, the second heresy.


....or something like that. Depending on what you want to believe

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Angels

[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dark_Angels

You can find a pretty good summary of the Dangels as a whole on sites like lexicanum, so I'll just focus on a few bulletpoints of why IMO the Dark Angels are cool.

1. They were the very first Space Marines, an honour that Girlyman's Guillimites only wish they had.

2. Their structure and aesthetics are influenced by Medieval-era knightly orders - courageous and devout monastic warriors, qualities most would agree are very "classic" Space Marine.

3. Their headquarters is a super awesome floating space rock turned into a fortress.

4. Dark Angels special characters (which they have a lot of too, compared to some other chapters) have a lot of personality and politics built into their fluff, which makes for interesting reading and good inspiration.

That's all I can think of for now. Other than that, I'd say crunch-wise, they might be a bottom-of-the-heap codex in terms of the powerhouses of today, but that they can still have some interesting and unique options to use on the tabletop and be effective.

This topic belongs in 40K Background so I am moving it there.

All Dark Angels have sold their souls to the god of Plasma and will take Plasma Pistols/Guns/Cannons wherever possible.

Urg, seriously guise...

1. DA is the first founding Chapter of the very First Legion Astartes. They wore Omniscient black as Legionaires but for some unspecified reason they now wear Dark Green.

2. Lion El'Jonson is the Primarch of the Chapter. He was scattered on Caliban, a planet once covered by dense, dark forests where mutated, helspawn beasts roamed. Jonson grew up Tarzan-style till he was found by a Knight of The Order, Luther. Some time after being Inducted into the Order, Jonson, with the help of Luther, conducted a global campaign against the Caliban native beasts and wiped them out. The Lion was given the place of master of the Order, also MASTER TO ALL OF CALIBAN.

3. After the Emperor found Jonson, he gave The Lion the First Legion. The whole of the Order was inducted into the legion. Knights not young enough to be made an Astartes underwent implants and other stuffs to make them not-quite-there-but-still-pretty-darn-tough semi-astartes. Luther was one of those semi-Astartes.

4. BY THE THRONE! CALIBAN WAS SWALLOWED BY A WARP STORM AND BLEW UP! WE LOST ALMOST HALF OUR NUMBER AND ALL THE RECRUITS! OUR PRIMARCH WENT MISSING TOO! HONESTLY! MOVE ALONG NOW, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

5. The DA made the last remaining piece of their former homeworld, a giant asteroid housing the DA fortress Monastery, their new home. Protected from the vacuum by the ancient void shield generator within the Monastery, The asteroid is now called The Rock, and is fitting with guns, lasers, missile silos, hangers, fighter jet launch bays and a Warp Engine.

6. The DA broke up into chapters as per Codex Astartes, and all are adamant in the hunting of the Fallen Dark Angels who was sucked away by a warp rift during Caliban's calamity partially caused by the warp and another by the DA furiously bombarding the planet hunting down Luther DESTROYING THE EMPEROR'S ENEMIES. As the Lion was presumed missing, the DA formed an inner-circle made up of the Masters of each companies and senior staffs to manage the Chapter's affairs. This is followed by all of the DA successor chapters, as they are led by their own inner-circles. Despite being separate chapters, all DA successors are known to coordinate with each other in the hunting of the Fallens FIGHTING MANKIND'S FOES. The Grand Masters (Chapter Master equivelent) of the successor Chapters frequently meet with the Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angles Chapter.

7. The Dark Angels and the Successor Chapters foster a culture of distrust. Each member must prove himself worthy of promotion via displaying strong loyalty to the Chapter and the Emperor. Each Promotion accompanies a tale of The Truth™ reveal to them. And normally only when one makes it to the 1st Company, the Deathwing, can one be considered ready for the whole truth, and candidate for the Inner circle. (Exception being Sammael, Interrogator-Chaplains, Grand Master of the Forge, and Grand Master of Librarians). All (but one of) the Masters of the Companies is a member of the Inner Circle and had been in the 1st Company.

8. The Dark Angels 1st Company consists of entirely Bone-white armoured terminator veterans. They do not deploy in power armours, ever. Even within the 1st Company there are many levels of enlightment. And even the Inner Circle members do not known the Full Truth™

9. The 2nd Company is known as the Ravenwing. They are clad in Omniscient black armours and all ride on Space Marine Bikes. They ride ahead of the DA forces and hunt the Fallens strike at vital enemy positions.

10. The rest of the Chapter organization follows the Codex Astartes.

11. The Dark Angels don't bother themselves with humanitarian affairs. They swoop in, they achieve the objective (and their agenda), and they leave. Almost all who fought alongside or "saved by" them feel an eerie feeling due to how taciturn and grim they are. They also do not share battle records, one of the few things they have in common with their rival Chapter, *cough*, the Space Wolves. But whereas the SW just doesn't like others meddling with their affairs because of traditions and temper, the DA do so for their own secret agenda.

It sounds fantastic to me! It was between Dark angels, Space wolves and grey knights. It's just a shame dark angels never get the same amount of love as the other two :(

It seems there will be new DA codex at the end of this month, so we'll see if they got this "love" you talking about)

Good rules or bad nevertheless we got some of the sexiest models out there.

 Reinokarite wrote:
It seems there will be new DA codex at the end of this month, so we'll see if they got this "love" you talking about)

Good rules or bad nevertheless we got some of the sexiest models out there.

Yes, when painted up their models look really nice. I think in terms of background/fluff they are one of the most interesting loyalist/traitor chapters. I use both them and Grey Knights. DA's for anti-CSM and Grey Knights for anti-Daemon. Pandorax is a great campaign for combining the two. The other comments have summarised them pretty well, so I will just say get some Dark Angels, paint them up and enjoy. They should be getting a new codex this month at some point.

It should also be noted that the Dark Angels seem to be the only party in 40K having their plot marching forward. The Horus Heresy revealed a lot about their past, while the Legacy of Caliban series seems to be pushing forward dramatically. Cypher appears in the second book, and may play a very significant part in the next book.