UPDATED Post-Legacies PDF
Well, the book is in my hands (well almost, I’m typing this while it’s on route), so let’s put fingers to the keyboard and talk about the best Legion. The 1st Legion. The Dark Angels. And what they can do in the new edition.

Legion Trait (Or 6)

Unlike the other, lesser, Legions we’ll talk about the Dark Angels don’t really have a singular trait. No, we have 6. Why? We’re the best that’s why?
Okay that’s probably not the answer you want. See the Dark Angels operate as the 6 ‘Wings’ during the Heresy, with each one specialising in a certain form of war. Being the 1st Legion quite literally meant we wrote the book on tactics that the later Legions would end up focussing on, which is why you’ll see a little similarity here between certain Wings and other Legions traits. But enough about that let’s get into the traits themselves.

• STORMWING: +1 to hit with bolters, bolt pistols and combi-bolters. This is a really good bonus that will see a lot of use from common infantry like Tactical marines, but also works great on Terminators and Veteran squads. The Imperial Fists like this so much they built almost their entire trait around it.
• DEATHWING: Do you remember the core trait from 1st edition? Here it is, +1 to hit with a list of swords ¹. Since it’s not a common trait across everyone now this is going to be most effective on those melee units likes Despoilers and Assault squads. Also, Inner Circle Knights become scary dangerous at WS 5 with a flat +1 to hit.
• DREADWING: -1 str if you shoot me with volkite, plasma and flamer weapons. This is going to be surprisingly good on vehicles ²
• FIREWING: +1 to wound against Independent Characters and units they’ve joined. Why yes, I would like a lot of snipers aiming at your Primarch and wounding on 4’s instead of 5’s³. Or better if I have to go against majority toughness. Want to know where this is really silly? Read on.
• IRONWING: re-roll 1’s to hit vehicles. This is incredible, find some way of giving that Lascannon Heavy weapon squad BS5 and they’re hitting on 2’s, effectively re-rolling misses. Point, click, vaporise.
• RAVENWING: It’s a movement bonus when running for non-infantry and a re-roll to the Shrouded bonius cavalry units can get by advancing. Honestly this one I’ve glossed over as it could be good but it’s even more restrictive than the others. That re-roll to advancing Cavalry is good though, can’t go wrong with a 5+ re-rollable save.

So, with that out of the way what are my thoughts? Well, I don’t like that we don’t have an overarching trait that applies to literally everyone anymore but I do like that the cost of specialising in a Wing isn’t a pts cost nor is it lost if the Sgt in the unit has their head exploded. I also miss giving my opponent VP’s if they have more units left at the end of the game than I do and one day I’ll get over that loss ⁴. Dread, Iron and Fire-wings all seem extremely good to focus on army wide. Especially if you’re using any of the 6 Rites, we get access to. Storm and Death-wings seem solid if you’re not going for one of the aforementioned Rites and want a generic Legion good stuff, though I feel a little disconnect in that all my future Assault squads are going to be Deathwing even though the narrative choice is majority Stormwing because that’s what the majority of our line infantry were. Guess I have to live with a little forced optimisation here.
Ravenwing I just can’t get my head around. I don’t think it’s bad it just hasn’t ever fit into what I play or collect ⁵ but I can see way they’ll be useful in a mixed Wing style of list.

Legion Equipment

One of the best things about 2nd edition is that all the Legions have a list of equipment that can be selected. The Dark Angels are no exception:

• Calabin Warblades (power swords with +1 Str),
• Terranic Greatswords (+2 Str, AP 3, Rending (5) and Murderous Strike (5)). I liked these in 1st edition but getting Rending on them really bumps them up in my mind.
• Plasma Repeater (quite frankly a 12" range 3 shot plasma gun is nuts good in the right units)
• Plasma Burners (because flame templates and Plasma should be more common, especially if they don’t Get Hot)
• Stasis missiles (to slap concussive on units at our leisure).

We don’t have Molecular Acid Shells anymore and for that I am thankful. They were just too fiddly in either variation so not having them is something I can live with. We also don’t have stasis grenades anymore, which is a minor problem for that Cataphractii unit I’d modelled with a couple. Oh well, plans change.

The Rites (Yes, We Get 6 of These Too)

Each Rite focuses on a specific Wing and how they work when deployed. Some are clear winners, some not so much but all of them are very thematic to the theme of each Wing.

• STORMWING: Take a full size Tactical, Despoiler or Assault squad and you can give that unit a Centurion (no Consul choice) in addition. It’s like getting a Super-Sergeant in every squad. Add in effectively Stubborn army wide and that you can take these units in Elite and Fast Attack slots for the ‘Oops, all infantry’ decision and it’s a horde Rite. Your downside’s are you can’t take transports, your compulsory units have to be maximum size and you’re not allowed to go use Flanking, Deep Strike or Subterranean assaults. But for the ‘Oops, all infantry’ player that for some reason has 260 Tactical/Despoiler/Assault marines + characters then go for it.
• DEATHWING: Ah, the one people hate. It’s not over-powered, it’s not even ‘strong’. So why the hatred for this Rite? We get Veterans and Terminators as Troops (not the Inner Circle Knights though), our Independent Characters get a bonus attack near objective markers and the aforementioned units get a Feel No Pain save near them as well. So, what gives, it’s just an alternate Pride of the Legion list. Let’s have a look in the limitations… ah here it is. After deployment you add an extra objective to the centre of the table that gives your opponent +1/+D3 VP’s if you don’t control it. You get no bonus VP if you control it. That’s the problem right here, and I’m a fan of both the Dread and Firewing rites that give free VP’s to my opponent. If I don’t control a single objective my opponent gets a flat bonus. Now I’ve not looked at the objectives and missions in the rule book properly yet, but this seems to be a definite problem especially when you need Line units to hold objectives and the above listed Veterans and Terminators don’t become Line units… Feels like a swing and a miss on this one.
• DREADWING: Do you like Destroyers? Do you want to turn every inch of No Man’s Land into difficult terrain that you ignore? How about blanketing 2x 12" circular area’s as Dangerous terrain (that you also ignore) and have a bonus to wound anyone silly enough to be in that area of death? Welcome to the Eskaton Imperative, where your focus here is quite literally to make life difficult (and short) for the enemy. I cannot stress how utterly silly this Rite is, the +1 to wound enemy units within that 12" area turns even your Dreadwing bolters into wounding other T4 units on 3’s, and the T5 units back down to 4’s. Did I mention that bonus specifies units in Dangerous terrain, so not just inside the area’s you dictate? If there’s an area of Dangerous or counts as Dangerous terrain for an enemy, then you get this bonus too. And since the entirety of No Man’s Land is Difficult that could be upgraded to Dangerous for things like… jump pack units. Welcome to the Danger Zone ⁶. I like this Rite so much I’ve just done 20 Interemptors for the July event in Nottingham. It even gives my opponent VP’s if they have units left in their deployment zone.
• IRONWING: Oops, All Tanks. Kratos in Elites, Predators in Troops and Tactical squads in Spartans. Double Spartan, Double Kratos, 40 tactical marines and then grab some Dreadnoughts or Sicarans to fill up the rest of the space. And you’re probably going to win the Tank battle since you re-roll 1’s against enemy vehicles since you’re all going to be Ironwing anyway. This is certainly a solid alternative to the generic ‘Oops, All Tanks’ rite that’s available if you want to run around with 14 Kratos ⁷. The downside to this Rite is your infantry have to start inside transports. Oops, All Tanks it is.
  One thing I should add for this one is that if you compare it to Armoured Spearhead it’s doing almost the same thing. The major difference is in what you have to have as your HQ unit and that with Ironwing you can take Spartans as dedicated transports. Considering those are 350+ pts each on top of the 20-body unit you’re going to be piling into them I’m unsure which one does the job of being the best choice for a DA ‘all tanks’ Rite.
• FIREWING: My favourite Rite. You might think it would be the Dread or Ironwing Rites and you’d not be far off, my original project that started this was an Ironwing list. But this is something I’ve wanted to build into as soon as I saw the option in Book 9. Seekers in troops is a good start, but the bonus is that at the beginning of the game you select 3 units (HQ/Elites/Lord of War or Primarch) and anything Firewing gets a +1 to-hit bonus against those units. You have to select 3 so if the enemy doesn’t have 3 of these you can start picking Troops until you get to 3. Characters gain a bonus +1 Attack in melee against these Priority Targets and yes that will include squad Sergeants. And to top this all off you can select up to 3 Troops units to gain infiltrate. This is all good, what’s the catch? The catch is your opponent gains +3 VP for each Target that is not destroyed, pinned or falling back. You might be wondering why I like this one but was so negative to the Deathwing Rite and it’s simple. I have control over this one, I have 3 targets that I have to take out and bonuses to hit (and possibly to wound) against them. Pick the enemy Warlord and bodyguard unit and you’re already most of the way there.
• RAVENWING: Jetbikes and Outriders in troops, units of cavalry all gain Outflank, and characters get Rampage(2). Downside is that you can’t include vehicles that aren’t fast, skimmer or flyers. Not bad if this is your thing but I honestly can’t say it impresses me or makes me want to go into that side of the Legion.

All of the Rites have to have a Warlord that is of the same Wing or be the Lion, which is nice that he’s not completely restricted even if slotting him in the Ravenwing means you’re bringing a Storm Eagle at every least.

A Rant

Not a single Rite here that allows you to swap units into the Troops slot gives that unit the Line keyword. None of them. My Dreadwing list has to have Tactical marines to score objectives. As does the Ironwing with their Predators. Thematic as these lists are this is a problem as you’re having to bring units that might not make sense in the context of the Rite (see: tactical marines in the Destroyer focussed Rite) in addition to being restricted with your choice of Wing overall. Game breaking? Can’t say until I’ve got to play but it bothers me that this is the case.
I’ve had a couple of comments on this so I’m going to expand here. Let’s say I take the Dreadwing Rite in a 3k game. None of the Destroyer or Interemptor units I take as ‘Troops’ gain line, and if I want to be scoring in a game of that size I’ll want to take at least 3 ‘Line’ units. So now I’m taking 30-60 tactical marines (or 3 sets of 5 recon marines which don’t fit the theme here). If I wasn’t running a Rite I’d be taking… 30-60 tactical marines. I’d still have to take 3 ‘Line’ troops units and all I’ve done is free up my Elites slots but, and this is the kicker for me, I’m not now filling those Elites slots with enough units to justify the need to be taking these special units in Troops. Considering the only benefit you’re getting is extra slots for units, but you’re still restricted because 3 of your 6 Troops slots have to be ‘Line’ units I’m struggling to see the real benefit to these Rites that allow units to swap slot. Especially when Fury of the Ancients gives your Compulsary Contemptor units Line. You can have 6 ‘Line’ units walking around in different directions (that only takes up 2 slots mind you) but my Interemptors can’t hold an objective. My Deathwing Veteran’s inside the Deathwing Rite can’t hold the objective the Rite is based around holding. WHY?!?
Okay that rant is done. Again. I’m sure I’ll come back to it in due course (looking at you Raven Guard).

The Warlord Traits

I forgot about these first time around and honestly it wasn’t noticed. But we should talk about them.

• Marshal of the Crown. Hands down what I consider the worst Warlord trait in the entire game. If you can draw line of sight to the warlord ⁸ then you gain +1 Ld if you’re the same ‘Wing’. Want to play a mixed Wing, half or more of your units that have a different Wing won’t get a leadership bonus even if they can draw line of sight to that model. Also depending on which Wing you decides which phase you get an extra reaction in. It’s just too situational to matter and I might only take this if I really want to choose which extra reaction I want and I don’t decide to take any of the 3 core traits that do something.
• Seneschal of the Keys. Right. This one is a little like Marduk’s ability in that you select a Faction and once per game for a player turn you can have the Warlord and unit he joins gain +1 WS/BS against units of that contains at least one model of that faction. Also an extra Assault reaction here. The bit that makes me wince about this is do I select the faction when I choose the trait? So in friendly games do I always just choose what my opponent is playing or do I select something thematic for a character I’ve written, in which case the trait does nothing? What about when travelling to events, am I locked in with this all weekend? It seems good on paper, bumping Knights Cenobium or Deathing Companions up to WS 6+ for a turn sounds dangerous, and the thought of getting an Assault squad with WS 5 and +1 to hit from being Deathwing pushes this into the likely choice of the two traits… but that could all change based on when I select a faction to apply this benefit against.

Our Units

The Lion

There’s a lot to unpack here with the Lion. mostly because Primarch is a whole new barrel of plasma, but every Primarch has those benefits. No, let’s talk about him in broad strokes.

Statline

Above average melee Primarch. High WS, Str, Init & Attacks whilst everything else is pretty standard (so 6’s unless it’s higher). His Attacks get even better after he’s down to 4 wounds by gaining an extra +1, and an extra +2 if at 2 wounds or less. That’s 9 attacks he’ll be dishing out as standard at that point.

His ‘Wing’

He gets access to every Wing and selects which will apply to him at the beginning of your turn. Both of his swords and the Fusil Actinaeus have notes allowing them to benefit from the Deathwing and Stormwing keywords respectively. There’s something else to note on the Wings and this is the best place to bring it up, because of how the Lion gets to select each turn. If you have a unit that has a mix of Wings, then during your turn you select 1 of them and it applies to the whole unit. Bring some Deathwing Companions along and the turn you want to charge the enemy Warlord why not switch the whole unit to Firewing to get that sweet +1 to wound? For dangerous than you think

Sire of the Dark Angels

Crusader (roll 2 dice and take the highest when sweeping) army wide, +1Ld if you can see him and an extra reaction in the shooting phase. Honestly this isn’t all that great, but it’s made up for in what else the Lion is bringing to the table.

His Swords

In 1st Ed there was a problem with these two. Mainly, because of the way the core rules were written, the Wolf Blade was flat out always better than the Lion Sword. Now though it’s good to see they’re different enough that you have to make a choice since neither is flat out ‘better’;

Lion Sword

No Str bonus, AP 1 and a list of keywords. Armourbane (melee), Fleshbane to wound almost everything on 2’s ⁹, master-crafted and instant-death. This is the ‘I want it dead’ sword. Glancing AV 14 on average rolls while also being good for mowing through high toughness monsters and other Primarchs. Deathwing means you can nearly always be hitting on 2’s with this as well.

Wolf Blade

+2 Str, AP3. But we get Shred, Breaching (4+), Reaping Blow (2), Fearsome Ruin and master-crafted. This is the infantry shredding choice and even though you get to Str 9 with this sword (glancing AV 14 on 5’s on 1 dice) it’s not as good as the Lion Sword for taking out armour. Anything with a toughness value though? Ho boy. Assuming you get him into base-2-base with 2 enemy models on the turn he charges he’ll be sitting on 10 attacks, probably hitting on 2’s, wounding on 2’s with re-rolls at AP 3. And half of those wounds on average should be at AP2. And if anything is left alive after this when they take a leadership test, they have to roll an additional dice and discard the lowest. Yeah, he shreds.

His Armour

2+, 4++ and re-rolling the first failed invulnerable save each player turn. It’s going to take effort to put him down.

The rest of the Package

Instead of rolling he and his unit and declare a fixed 8" charge that ignores terrain penalties and movement bonuses. He will make combat if you do this right. The Lion also packs a Stasis grenade, 1 use that forces an Init test against the lowest Init in a unit. If they fail that’s a -1 Init penalty to that unit for that Assault phase. If you’ve got any other way of modifying this stat first, you can absolutely go in swinging.

Corswain

The Lion’s Champion and 1st Captain of the Dark Angels. He’s Deathwing, has the Deathwing associated warlord trait and a profile that puts him in the ‘challenge at your risk’ list along with Sigismund and Sevatar. WS 7, effectively Init 7 in a challenge, AP 1, instant death on 4+ and with an extra +1 to hit with The Blade he’s going to do a number on most anyone he duels except for the aforementioned Sigismund and Sevatar who have even more benefits to what they do.
I have some more thoughts on Corswain after I was reminded that Lucious now has rules. Corswain might be the 4th best named duelist in the game. Outside of interesting interactions with certain Warlord traits there are really only 4 named ‘duelists’: Sigismund, Sevatar, Lucius and Corswain. He’s not bad but… outside of him being a cool model (I hope) he’s not bringing anything to the table that an extra 20pts for Sedras, or saving 50+ and just bringing a Legion Champion or Paladin will bring for you. And I say this as an old fan of Corswain that’s been waiting for him for years. Heck his 1st edition rules do more and he’s not got anything new here in number or quality of rules and equipment.

Marduk Sedras

Your generic Cataphractii Terminator with a ridiculous sword, an average warlord trait and a rule that turns the Eskaton Imperative from ‘Cheddar’ to ‘Weapons-grade Stilton’. His trait gives you an extra reaction in the Assault phase, which is nice, as well as allowing him to take a bodyguard unit of Inner Circle Knights. Pretty average. His sword puts him to Str 9 and reduces the Invulnerable save of what he hits by 1 (3’s become 4’s, 4’s > 5’s, etc). Sedras may be striking last with this but dropping Primarchs to 4++ or even 5++ is a scary though since he’ll be wounding them on 2’s. With a re-roll. Yeah, let’s talk about how that works.
The reason you take Sedras, apart from the sweet model, is because of this rule. After deployment you get to select 1 faction. Remember that each Legion is counted as a separate faction in this. Every unit that has a model that starts the game withing 6" of Sedras or a transport he is riding in gets Preferred Enemy . Dedicated transports are bought as part of a unit. If he’s with a unit that is inside a DT then he will be affected by this ability, as will other units (like Interemptors inside Rhino’s). In 1st edition pre-deployment choices on Veteran squads and the entire Alpha Legion used to make for a very sad Casual, but I get to do this *post-*deployment? And all I have to do is get 1 model from a unit within 6" of his Spartan? Army wide Preferred Enemy is strong and utterly, utterly crazy.

Paladin of the Hekatonystika

A new Consul option unique to the Dark Angels. WS 6, Ld 10 a free Terranic Greatsword and your choice of Order trait from the Inner Circle Knights. Plus, Stubborn and Adamantium Will (3+) it’s like a Dark Angel alternative to the Legion Champion consul. Can’t really find anything bad about this guy really.

Interemptors

Do you like flame templates? Do you like plasma? How about a plasma flamer that doesn’t Get Hot, breaches on 4+ and uses said template? Then you’ve come to the right place. These are the Legion specific Destroyer unit you can take in squads of up to 15, packing a choice of heavy weapon between the rad/stasis missile launcher or the plasma incinerator that adds a 9" torrent into the mix. Usual transport options of Rhino or Land Raider, rad grenades, counter-attack and stubborn mean these guys will clear out what you point them at.

Inner Circle Knights Cenobium

Legion elite Terminators with high WS and Adamantium Will (3+) is nothing to sniff at. Especially when the unit is equipped with either Terranic Greatswords or Thunder Hammers for no points increase. A smaller variant of the Interemptors main weapon backs them up with a Str 4, breaching (6+) template weapon that is going to be more of a threat to units planning on charging you than anything else. What makes these guys stand out is the choice of Order they come from, letting you pick a bonus of re-rolling to-hit rolls against other high WS units or re-rolling to-wound against high toughness. We still have the choice of full re-rolls against Psyker, Daemon and Corrupted units if we wanted to go down that route. All in all, a really solid terminator unit that punches hard and sticks around. I like to run these guys in a 6 sword/4 hammer setup, and with the new Wings you can’t really go wrong making these Death, Dread or Firewing for the extra bonus that grants you.

Didn’t We Have More?

Yes. I’m waiting on the Legacies pdf as I expect them to be in that document. Speaking of let’s go through them now they’re out.

Farith Redloss, the Dreadbringer

For the same price as Marduk Sedras you get the Voted Lieutenant of the Dreadwing and boy oh boy he’s a worthwhile pick. We’re going to ignore his Warlord trait (it’s Marshal of the Crown (Dreadwing)) and focus on gear and rules. Three phosphex bombs, melta bombs, effectively T5 against Instant Death and the Dreadbringer’s Plate gives Farith a 2+/4++ save that becomes a 2++ vs anything with the (melta) and Crawling Fire rules and Poisoned weapons only affect him on 6’s.
But that’s not all, the Axe of Castigation has two profiles both at AP2 but allows him to either have 4x Str 7 unwieldy attacks or Str 4 attacks but with Reaping Blow (3) to go up to 7 attacks at Iniatitive. AP 2. Farith is brutal and we’ve not even glossed over that he can choose one ridiculous weapon from the armoury at the start of the battle. Oh yes, you can pick the anti-Daemon weapon if you’re playing into Daemons when the game starts, he’s not locked in before that. Farith is a Praetor profile with stuff and though most of it is equipment based again I look at him and look back at Corswain and ask ‘why would I not find the extra 20pts for Farith instead’.

Holguin, the Deathbringer

At 150 pts Holguin is a steal. Cheaper than the equivalent Cataphractii praetor in equipment (by 2 pts, but still) and he gets a Feel No Pain (5+) save and an AP 2 sword with Readping blow (2) that gains the Deathwing swords bonus. Yup he’s still got Marshal of the Crown but for 150pts he’s going to cleave through a lot at Init 5 with that thing.

Terminator Companions

Cataphractii and Tartaros equivalent bodyguard units that have the Deathwing Companions rules. Neat but nothing to really spend time over. Great if you had these units already.

Firewing Enigmatus Cabal

The character hunting trio is back and they’re interesting. All of them are infantry with the Chosen Warriors rule so can challenge individually. They’re WS 5, W 2 infantry with a Rending (6) +1 Str power sword which we’ll come back to in a moment and the first instance I can remember of a unit haveing Needle Pistols. Neat. The ‘Enigmatus’ is now a piece of warger that gives them Shrouded (4+) on the turn they arrive from reserves and like I’ve said they’re rocking Warhawk jump packs now so will follow the rules for those. But it’s the combination of Marked for Death (selecting 1 enemy unit at teh beginning of the game to gain re-roll 1’s to wound against) with the Firewing trait (+1 to wound independent characters or units that contain them) with a +1 Str power sword that pushes these into threatening bodyguards if not outright ganking a Praetor. Kind of. Let’s bring up those swords because for 1 of your own assault phases you can activate them and this grants the swords Rending (3+)… except it doesn’t improve or replace an existing version of Rending so it technically doesn’t give you Rending on 3’s even though it should. Like I said, fire these at a bodyguard unit and tear it apart since you’ll be Rending on 3’s with re-rolling 1’s for a good time.

Excindio Battle-Automata

Take a Contemptor stat-line but with higher WS and more attacks, Brutal (2) melee weapons an extra 2 AP 2 attacks with Lance (just so we’re counting that’s 7 AP 2 attacks at this point without charging) and the possiblitity that if it loses a single wound it’ll careen into your own units with murederous abandon and we’re not even getting to the list of options you have on this monster. Want a phosphex launcher, or maybe even a Breaching(4+)/Pinning/Poison(4+) nerve shredder to absolutely mess up infantry and you can have them. It has it’s own unit sub-type, the Shackled Artificia that gives it Hatred (Everything) and Rage (2) for even more attacks and it can make reactions ¹⁰. Oh and you can buy it a Dread-Pod to slam this into your opponent’s face turn 1… it can’t charge but it’ll be there, acting all scary. What’s the catch?
There’s two. The first is the base points cost is 350. Okay, fine. Rule of cool model conversion only. The other catch? It has no instant death defence. Leviathan, Contemptor and the Castra Ferrum pattern dreadnoughts all gain a rule mixed into the Invulnerable save they have that means they take D3 wounds if hit by something with Instand Death, like a Paragon blade. The Excindio though? Nope, one lucky roll and it’s just gone. For the pts cost of the unit I’d probably ask whoever I’m playing if they don’t mind adding that rule in since it still explodes like one of the mentioned Dreadnoughts.

Order of the Broken Claws (Examplary Battles)

Most of this unit is a side-grade to the Inner Circle Knights mentioned above. Most of what I said then is the same here, but we have 2 notable differences. The first is that you can take Advex-Mors Greatswords for 2pts a model and the second is the Order of the Broken Claws rule itself.

• The swords. +3 Str, Ap 3. Breaching (5+) and Brutal (2). At initiative Brutal is pretty good. These don’t count for the Deathwing bonus to hit with swords.
• The Order. You need one lower result to-wound the following sub-types: Dreadnoughts, Corrupted, Monstrous and Shackled Artificia. We use the Contemptor at T7 as a baseline comparison here. If we take the Advex-Mor swords they get you to Str 7 (wound on 4’s) which becomes wound on 3’s with this. Your standard Terranic greatsword needs 4’s against these Contemptors and Thunder Hammers need 2’s. This is only in melee.
  A couple of things to remember is that technically Marduk isn’t from the Order of the Broken Claws and they’re not technically an Inner Circle Knights unit (because they have a specific name) so you can’t take them as a bodyguard with him… though I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not. The other is that a lot of people I’ve seen are talking about Contemptor dreadnoughts and having a unit that can slap them around easier in melee is something to consider. They’re the same pts cost as a normal unit of Inner Circle Knights which doesn’t make this decision any easier.

Wrap it Up

That’s a very broad overview of what we have to work with. There’s a lot of good stuff here and the amount of different plasma weapons we can bring along really helps to push that ‘Weapons of the Dark Age’ theme intrinsic to the 1st Legion, especially with how relatively safe they are to use. Yes, there’s a couple of misses (Marshal of the Crown) and a couple of options that don’t really gel with my playstyle and collection (Ravenwing) but there’s nothing in the core of the Legion that stands out as a bad choice. There’s obviously the problem of the Wings where you are going to specialise units to do one thing and one thing only but in the grand scheme of things that may not be too bad unless you struggle with juggling 4 traits/keyword effects across your army. Then you might find it easier sticking to just one or two Wings and working from that.

And we’ve even covered all the extra units with this now, and made up for the missing Warlord Traits from the initial draft. The Dark Angels really have a lot of cool options, there is just a few little niggles I have that makes me pull a face and ask why?!?. Yes I expect GW are working on an FAQ for most of those and I hope to bring some to their attention this weekend in person. Speaking of, a few of us are going to the July event in Nottingham and we’ll happily chat with others in the community and see what your thoughts are on all of this and if we’ve missed anything. Until next time, Peace out y’all. ¹¹