Saved here for a future reference, if somebody will desire to make DA 30K faction (Horus Heresy times)
--------------------------
It said: Thorpe was at this time greatly helped Alan Bligh. The book - is a warming up before the HH-FW-8.
--------------------------
First Legion origins:
- The first Legion was the prototype legion, ready before any other legions were created, and fought extensively in the unification wars.
- At the start they were not referred to as a legion, or even as space marines. The Emperor called them his Angels of Death and that was it, until other legions started being produced. He lead them personally.
- They were organised in six hosts, collectively known as the hexagrammatron. Each host was a specific type of force for specific combat situations. they were made this way so they could fight in any conceivable situation, unlike some of the more specialised legion that came later.
- A battle force would be formed from parts of each host. It would be commanded by an officer from the host that had the largest percentage of the force.
- The original Angels of Death marines all had a form of psychic protection that was put into their minds by the Emperor himself, so they were able to face the dangerous psykers on Terra during the unification wars. The emperor did not do this for later batches of marine for the first and subsequent legions, because the effort to do so was too taxing on him with such numbers.
Dark Angels 30K organisation:
- By the late Crusade, start of the heresy, the Dark Angels have a relatively standard organisation. The Legion breaks down into Orders, which break down into Chapters, which break down into Companies. Not sure how many Chapters to an Order (the highest numbered Order in the book is the 31st). Presumably a chapter is 1000 full strength, and a company around 100.
- They do, however, also have the 6 wings, which run through the standard organisation. Each dark angel belongs to one of the wings, as well as their normal Order/Chapter/Company. They are the Deathwing, Dreadwing, Ravewing, Ironwing, Stormwing and Firewing. Each one is a specific warfare specialisation, which conforms to the original Six Host formation of the first legion. The names of the Wings are Calibanite in origin however, the names of the original hosts are unknown.
- Each wing is commanded by an officer known as a Voted-Lieutenant. They are outside of the normal legion command structure. He has several Voted-Successors.
- In battle, if a situation is encountered which would benefit from the specialised skills of one of the wings is, the Dark Angel officer in command may request the activation of the the specific wing, and pass over command to the voted-lieutenant.
- The voted lieutenant will then call to him all of the members of his company in the warzone. The will detach form their Orders/Chapters/Companies and join together and do their thing. When the situation is resolved, the voted-lieutenant will relinquish command and the units will return to their formations.
- The Deathwing are terminator veterans. The are led by Holguin.
- The Dreadwing are an annihilation/scorched earth force, which uses copious amounts of phosphex, rad weapons, defoliation weapons and void/warp rift weapons, alongside conventional weapons. Its not confirmed in the book, but i suspect all Dark Angels Destroyers are Dreading. They really do not mess about, marching into battle chanting We have come, We are Death. They are led by Farith Redloss, who takes out a World Eaters Leviathan Dreadnaugth with his axe.
- Nothing really on the Ravenwing and Ironwing in the book, but we can easily guess what they specialise in!
- No further info on the Stormwing.
- The Firewing were, until recently, led by a marine named Griffayn 'The Spear-Cast'. For some reason, at the point in the story, his rank has been suspended and he has been demoted to Sergeant-at-Arms rank. No further info on the fire wing.
Unique Dark Angels Equipment:
- Holguin of the Deathwing has a personal Land Raider that has no tracks. It is held aloft by a grav field and can move very fast.
- The Dark Angels have the Stormstrike Interceptor aircraft, described as shaped like a dagger.
- They have a unique type of Superheavy vehicle, the Portcullis mono-track. It bears large energy shield generators.
- A Glaive superheavy variant, that is Dreadwing specific. It replaces the Volkite cannon with a warp rift cannon eek.gif
- Dreadwing Vindicators that can fire Void-tipped shells.
- A superheavy tank called a Dreadhammer, which fires void shells
- Spaceships with warp rift cannons! There is one in the novel, the Intolerant, supporting the Dreadwing attack from orbit. It deploys vanes which spark with lightning, that fire a massive warp rift sphere. No info is give on what type or class of ship the Intolerant is.
Merir Astelan:
- Events in this novel add further confirmation to the fact he is lying to Boreas in Angels of Darkness.
- He is one of the original Angels of Death first marines. He has the special psyhic protection put in his head by the Emperor. This explains why in the 40k stories he is in, the Dark Angel Librarians are unable to read him.
- One of the lion loyalist Dark Angels imprisoned in the aldurkh jail, Chaper Master Tukon, is also and original Angels of Death marine.
Edited by jONES1979, 03 June 2016 - 10:55 AM.
