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How do!

Now more or less in a position to field various army builds, only I’m missing out on Characters. I’ve got the basic plastic ones from Calth and AoD models wise. But the correct and proper selection of HQ and that remains a mystery.

And so I come to pick your brains.

Suffice to say that when I want to lose friends and irritate people, my Fury of the Ancients is sorted. But for combined arms or infantry heavy forces? Not a clue.

I’ll be playing Dark Angels, and am open to various Rites of Battle.

Master of signals is a good pick for a lot of things.

Delegatus for when you wanna play lower points with your collection is basically a must have.

Since you also got a load of tanks, maybee prepare a predator for a tank commander.

HQ's are quite a individual thing I think. You can tailor them to your own playstyles and needs and I don't think anyone can tell you which ones are "the best" as you'll undoubtably find some that work better for you then others.

Start with Praetors. Great statline, good weapon options and gives access to both Rites of War and Command Squads.
Praetors are not a sit back and watch character, they are a get stuck in and get messy character. You'll most often see them quipped with either Paragon Blades or Thunder hammers (or both occasionally for the extra 1+ Attack). They want to be attached to either a command squad or a unit of vets, but despoilers will do as well. Depending on the rest of your list, a jump pack or bike can serve them really well. A 20 man blob of World Eaters assault marines with a jump pack praetor is scary.
Master-crafting a weapon is also really useful and well worth the 10 points.

Standard Centurions are just Praetor-lite. Pretty much all the same weapon options, just with a slightly lesser stat line and no RoW/Command Squads. Good for low points level games or if you've got a spare HQ slot and points to burn. Otherwise nearly always better to give them a Consul upgrade.

Speaking of Consuls, they are many and varied and each have their uses. Some are readily more effective then others, some take a bit of learning to use efficiently. I'll go through the ones I use myself as they're the ones I feel I can give honest, non-theoretical advice on.

I will start with my favourite Consul, the Dark Angels Paladin. This is one of the best beatstick characters in the game and you will rarely be sorry you bought one along. I use both power armoured and cataphractii versions regularly, and can't speak their praises enough. And in most cases, unless I'm running a Rite of War, I normally take a Paladin in favour of a Praetor.
At 30pts they are a really cheap upgrade for the amount of bonuses it brings. WS6 allows him to outfight most other consuls and puts him on even footing with praetors (and most named characters). The Terranic Greatsword gives him some proper killing power while Ld10 (and stubborn) means less chance of him and his squad running away if taking losses. Finally the choice of Order of the Hekatonystika gives you a lovely bonus that allows you tailor him to suit your needs.
All this combined gives you a HQ who can murder his way through both chaff and elite units and can go toe to toe with just about every (non-named) HQ in a challenge. If you're playing games of 1500pts or less, I believe the Paladin is the ideal HQ.
He is basically just a better (and cheaper) Champion.

Vigilator. They get a Master-crafted Nemesis bolter and meltabombs, plus Marked for Death and Master Sniper as well as either Infiltrate or Scout for 35pts. On paper, they read as if they should be a HQ killing demon, but the lack of Instant Death means they'll only ever deal 1 wound a turn which ironically makes them crap at eliminating praetors and cents. Their prime use is actually sniping squad sergeants and apothecaries/techmarines or marines with special wargear (vexillas, augury scanners, etc.).
Given he's a long range sniper the addition of melta bombs over something like a camo cloak or shroud bombs seems odd (and personally i'm inclined to believe they were actually meant for the pathfinder but got put on the wrong profile), but there's something of an unconventional use for the Vigilator that makes the melta bombs a bit more relevent. Now I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my Vigi. Can't snipe HQ's for gak and often gets picked off when all on his lonesome in the backfield. Where I have had success with him is by giving him a Terranic Greatsword and attaching him to a despoiler squad. The despoilers give him some protection from being taken out and he in turns adds some extra hitting power in melee, with the added bonus of being able to pick off Sgts. and Apoths from the squad they're about to get tangled up in. The melta bombs gives him a chance of duffing over transports so he can get to the squishy goodies inside and should the opportunity arise, lets you deal with the likes of predators or isolated scopius' that might typically be out of line of sight of conventionally anti-armour.
In my opinion another good low points game HQ, but probably loses effectiveness in larger games where you want more/tougher beatstick HQs.

Chaplains. An excellent force-multiplier consul that comes in at 35pts. You get Ld10 as well as Stubborn and Hatred (Everything) which he confers to any squad he joins. And if you give him a power weapon, he can master craft it for free. He's a no nonsense character great for sticking with vets, or a large blob of despoilers/assault marines where you can maximise Hatred. I quite like a chaplain in a squad of lightning claw termies. You'll have re-rolls coming out your wazoo.


I'll leave it there for now as it's have 12 in the morning and I should go to bed. I have more to say but that can wait for tomorrow.

For Dark Angels I went the totally 100% original idea of a Paladin with a jump pack accompanying an assault squad.

I don't play HH 2.0 so this might be a silly suggestion...

How about a nod to the recent 40k fluff about captive Men Of Iron you take a Praevian and some automata?

For a Dark Angels Infantry heavy force, max out your squads and take The Storm of War RoW. You get to add a Centurion (not a Consul) to every Tactical/Despoiler/Assault unit and your Characters that take the Stormwing specialisation get Stubborn.
So those 20 strong Tacticals get +1 to hit from Stormwing and Stubborn if you take the Centurion.

In terms of the Consuls see below for use:

Dark Angels also get their own Consul type, the Paladin of the Hekatonystika. Essentially this is a Character version of one of the Inner Circle Knights.