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Been playing Dark Angels for a while now and I thought about giving Azrael and/or Ezekiel a whirl. Thing is, I never see them in battle reports. I think I've seen Ezekiel once, maybe twice, while I have never seen Azrael in action. Based on the codex, they seem pretty solid. Azrael seems a tad on the expensive side and doesn't fulfill the HQ requirement, but for what he does he seems quite good. Ezekiel seems to bring enough to the table to warrant the higher cost compared to a regular librarian. So my question is this: do they just seem better on paper and don't play as well people hope or is there more to it? I have full intention on trying for myself proxying the Company Master and Librarian from Dark Vengeance as Azrael and Ezekiel, respectively. It just might be a little while until I get a game in and my curiosity is currently outweighing my patience.

I don't play DA but my brother does.

My guess would be that ravenwing is the most popular and powerful build right now and that neither of those characters would fit in with that theme.

It's probably because they only really work outside Deathwing and Ravenwing and there's not much point playing Greenwing as Space Marines are better.

a lot is because greenwing centric armies are still rare (which is sad because they look far better than the others imho).

Azrael specifically has only one standout ability, which is to give a 4++ to a unit, this obviously get's better the bigger the unit is which is exactly the opposite of what marines are good at, so he's mostly used for allied guard blobs or ogryns, he also costs the earth and isn't EW. if you do take him try sticking him in with company veterans or something similar

Ezekiel is fantastic but again he is more of a greenwing guy, he lacks an invuln save and that's a worry when you're likely the warlord

I don't use Azrael but I do use Ezekiel. I throw him in a squad of Deathwing Knights in a LRC along with either a Interrogator-Chaplain or Yarrick+Priest if I ally with IG and throw them at anything that looks scary or is the WL. I typically use the Interromancy powers in this setup.

We have to remember what Azrael brings to the table:
1. He has Chapter Master stats, which is a good start.
2. He comes with Artificer Armor, FNP, and a 4++ that's conferred to the unit. Excellent.
3. He gets to pick his Warlord Trait out of the DA book. That's not bad.
Those are his pros. Now his cons:
1. His weapon is only S6 AP3. Master-Crafted and all, but now he cannot compete with most monsters that would directly want to attack him in terms of inflicting wounds.
2. He's lacks EW.

Mostly I'd say to send him off in a group of allied Centurions, as they gain the most out of the 4++.

Azrael is good when you bring AM ally with him and give 4++ to blob. I think Azrael was used in 6th edition when he made Ravenwing and Deathwing troops.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We have to remember what Azrael brings to the table:
1. He has Chapter Master stats, which is a good start.
2. He comes with Artificer Armor, FNP, and a 4++ that's conferred to the unit. Excellent.
3. He gets to pick his Warlord Trait out of the DA book. That's not bad.
Those are his pros. Now his cons:
1. His weapon is only S6 AP3. Master-Crafted and all, but now he cannot compete with most monsters that would directly want to attack him in terms of inflicting wounds.
2. He's lacks EW.

Mostly I'd say to send him off in a group of allied Centurions, as they gain the most out of the 4++.

There's also giving all DA Ld10.

Azrael as a LoW is pretty damn underwhelming, he's in a weird spot of being a mix of a support character and a semi-beatstick without being too great of either. In a game like 40K, it's typically the characters that can do one or the other best (or in some very peculiar cases, like Draigo, both) that work out, hence why you see the prevalency of the Buffmander for Tau over guys like Shadowsun/Farsight. It doesn't help that he's not cheap and lacks EW.

His 4+ invuln. granting to a unit is about the only good gimmick he has, and about only useful in a DA Veteran squad. Other than that he doesn't confer anything useful to Deathwing or Ravenwing armies.

I think the issue with Ezekiel is that you can't take him on a bike. If you could, you'd see him a lot more for Ravenwing lists.