Fun Fact The Dark Angels are unique in that before The Lion lead them, They were lead by the Emperor. Which probably explains why they have the best toys out of the original legions.

Don't forget about the "modern" Successor Chapters effectively serving as Companies under Supreme Grand Master Azrael, effectively keeping a fully coordinated Legion beneath Guilliman and the High Lords' noses.

One of my favorite details I read about is when Azrael leveraged the High Lords of Terra to make a couple new Dark Angels successors. They were new fleet-based chapters, but they seemed to do whatever Azrael told them to do, and their fleets always followed the Rock around, and they might just be based within the Rock... Yeah Azrael, those are DEFINITELY their own chapters. Legion building? What's that? The last person to accuse the Dark Angels of legion building died in that mysterious warp drive implosion, wouldn't want that kind of "bad luck" following you now would you?

The Emperor seemed to hold The Lion in higher regard than most all the other Primarchs. I'm not sure if this due to his unwavering loyalty or due to his unmatched competence for warfare, maybe both. I remember The Emperor telling The Lion that the Triumph at Ullanor was nothing but an ego stroking for the other Primarchs who lived for such things. The Lion was focused solely on duty and loyalty. He was disappointed about not being named Warmaster not because of the title, or adoration, he simply believed he was best qualified for the job.

Dark Angels: flips hair, sure I follow your codex rules (smirking as they cross their fingers behind their back) Black Templars: oh codex compliance... ahahahahahahahahaha... we are meant to keep our numbers to what? Hell no.

The Lion's flaw was that he was too much like the Emperor. You would think that at the time of Luther being sent to Caliban that he'd know Lion well enough to understand what was really going on and that he had actually earned Lion's trust and proven his loyalty. Especially after being let in on the super secret thing happening there, if I remember correctly. Basically, from the Loin's point of view, Luther was tempted to let the nuke go off (that wouldn't have really done anything anyway, let's face it) but instead overcame his temptation out of love and loyalty for his surrogate son. This fact absolute cemented Luther's completely trustworthiness in the Lion's eyes. Which is why he was sent to Caliban to observe and protect the study of the Old One tech/machine/thing there. Because Lion trusted him utterly and from his perspective this was a sign of that trust.

Another correction: The Deathwing had black armour during the Horus Heresy. It wasn't painted white until much later and was to honour the battle when they freed one of their recruiting worlds from a genestealer infestation.

Sapphon is a breath of fresh air in the Dark Angels chapter. He's the polar opposite of Asmodai.

Corrections: The Lion wasn't the first Primarck to be found he was the tenth, depending if you trust Alpharius ether he or Horus where the first found. Second The Fallen during the time of the heresy did rebel against Tera & the Imperium but the didn't join up with Horus for the Heresy they only attacked the returning forces of the Lion after the Emperor had been instaled on the golden Throne

"....Me? I'm the First baby. I'm perfect!" -Lion 'El Johnson

I need Zahariel to return as either a loyal son of The Lion or revealed as Cypher. My boy needs a redemption arc

When the Lion comes back he is gonna spank his sons soo hard for obsessing over the fallen. Then he is gonna slap Guilliman for taking over the imperium

There was stuff revealed for the new Lion book that some members of the fallen were actually loyalists that were fighting on Caliban with Lion El'Johnson.

His Legion is the first to be founded under the Emperor during the Reunification Wars, however Lion El' Johnson is the 10th Primarch to be found. His Legion has ties directly to the end of the Thunder Warriors, and is known for being the Astartes that helped the Custodians wipe them out.

I love the laid back narration style, 3 minutes in you earned my subscription! Please never change this is wonderfully refreshing.

Friendly reminder that these lads were running around using mindbroken Men of Iron back in the great crusade days.

The original Space Wolves were also half space marines too and that Word Bearers bastard.

I always call the DA the "Wealthiest" chapter and Legion. Emps gave us all the cool toys during the Great Crusade, and even in modern times we have the most terminator armor, not to mention the unbelievable weapons locked within the Rock. It also helps that the DA are STUPID disciplined and and are more than capable of using it. Unfortunately, we happen to bend every single advantage towards the goal of capturing all the Fallen, and we don't really care about much else. We don't even have a main planet the Imperium can point a gun at and tell us to stop messing around and solve this damn war in this specific sector. Also, Interrogator-Chaplains are specialists in breaking the minds and wills of SPACE MARINES. Even the Dark Eldar can't do that.

0:40 first to be officially discovered was Horus, and Alpharius never left. The Lion was found later but his legion predates everyone else and were in on a bunch of Big Es unification wars drama, thats why they carry the title of First so strongly

The best legion of them all

Good breakdown, but I want to mention something. It wasn't half, it was 20,000 minus however many died when the legion attacked Caliban. Remember that those 20,000 were also almost uniformally raw recruits from Caliban who had never served with the legion.

The noble sons of the lion are indeed formidable. Their quest for vengeance drives them on. But they know nothing of rage. By the Angels grace my brothers of the blood would teach them the true meaning if it ever came to blows.

As a Night Lord player, I loathe fighting them as their moral is nigh unbreakable on certain models. The recent point changes to wargear has also made it so that people can spec further into either Deathwing or Ravenwing meaning I'm either fighting multiple contingents of Caci colored Terminators, or being torn to shreds by waves of bike-bound combi-melta/plasma fire and thunder hammers. It almost makes me want to kitbash Fallen into my ranks to antagonize them further.

Love the vibe of your breakdowns. Elucidating and entertaining with a nice dash of euphony from the backing tracks

I enjoyed this immensely. One of the best 40K lore videos I've heard as someone who comes from AoS and has a little bit of a harder time getting into 40K! Subbed

"Dedicated war crimes division. " 🤣 and I like the background music.

Luther only had around 500 actual dark angels with him on caliban with most of the other marines being brought up luther loyalist created purely to serve him. The rest were deceived and in the new book its even seen that many of them were still loyalists but utterly confused as to what was happening. Definitely wasnt half the legion, with how quickly the dark angels, after all that fighting and losses, overrun the defenses and won the battle I personally doubt it was a tenth Also, the deathwing didnt keep their crusade/heresy era armor. It was originally black and red like the rest of the dark angels and even stayed that way after the change into green. It was changed to the cream and green significantly later on after a fight with some genestealers and them saving the planet

I'm reminded of how Rolls Royce cars were renowned for never breaking down. They accomplished this by giving free and very secretive repairs so nobody would hear of them breaking down.

Oooh… I knew Lionel Johnson…. Good guy… gooood guy. Played racketball together a few times at the club.

I Love the fact that the dark angels were so deadly and reliable, Big E gave the Ironwing *enslaved Men of Iron* to field. Anyone who knows what men of iron are and just how fucking destructible they can be will know how huge of a deal that is. Oh also Phosphex being used liberally…

I got to admit, I always pictured the Lion back on Caliban as looking like 1999 Triple H.

okay i like this style, jumping on Mr.Bones wild 40k ride

Was hoping you'd bring up the old DS meme from before the HH books came out. That the loyalists DA's are really the traitors. Lion was hanging back and waiting to see who won hence why they were absent for he final battle. Meanwhile the Fallen was loyalists trying to ressurect the Emperor

Got to love the fact that they have the name of Lion ell is fucked up on pourpose . Our lovely paranoid ass primarch

Very cool video! Learning about stuff like the hexagrammaton is one of the things I enjoy most about 40k. I would love to see you do more videos about the specializations, subcultures, tactics, and strengths/weaknesses of the various legions and chapters. You earned my subscription!

Thank you for making relive my experience of listening to everywhere at the end of time

I found your videos this morning. Im currently binge watching your catalog. I greatly enjoy your delivery of the lore. Looking forward to more of your content.

I'd love more videos on dark angels (and Cypher in particular!) Love your narration and background music!

Your delivery is perfect, your timing, your choice of words, and sometimes just noises, great. It sounds like just one long stream of consciousness (even if it turns out you heavily edit your stuff, I can't tell), which is great for the flow of the video. I don't have any real complaints about your videos. Keep it up and you'll have Luetin numbers in no time. Thanks.

First started playing Dark Angels when I was 16, absolutely my favourite Legion/chapter/faction in all of 40k, First amongst many, second to none

The First Legion, the best Legion

hi Arthur, I kind of like your style of story telling for the 40k lore. I'm eager to see how you go with the tyranids lore and Necrons. Tyranids are my favorite

"Asmodai, make them repent!"

Great video dude it’d be cool if you covered the corsair eldar

Brilliant video. Subscribed :)

You're video and commentary is glorious! Please do the salamanders!

That's why he's called Captain Genocide

The Stormwing was changed in recent retcons to be the basic infantry, but in most lore it was actually their assault force and I think boarding actions. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Hexagrammaton didn't have any mundane infantry and instead took maximum advantage of the technologies and superhuman abilities of the Space Marines. Which makes infinitely more sense than just giving a dude a knife and a boltgun. So, no, the Stormwing was not the boots on the ground, gun in the hand type and were not generalists. I don't care that it was retconned because that retcon thoughtlessly ignores the entire reason the Wings existed. No one is going to specialize in being a mundane infantryman, _every_ Space Marine is already fully capable of doing that with absolute mastery.

The Emperor created the Dark Angels to conquer the galaxy on their own. As in literally on their own. No further space assets than their battle barges, no further ground support than their Marines. By the time the Emperor made the other Legions and the Imperial Army, the Dark Angels had almost succeeded and were simply slowed down kicking the shit out of the Rangdan. After finishing that job, they were ordered to train the new Legions in their assigned specialties and then get back to kicking some more ass. I'm not sure if the Emperor actually realized until after the fact that he didn't need the other legions or the army after all or if he wanted them for some other reason.

Cypher is actually Alpharius, and his "Head of the Hydra" book is actually a canonical release he made in universe to troll the 'loyalists'. No, Asmodai won't make him repent, for he is protected behind seven proxies (Ahriman's rubricks chained together like a faraday cage).

Man I gotta say…I just discovered your channel and I’m an absolute 40k fluff nut. Been reading the lore for over 20 years, watching KZfaq videos and the like. Never commented on a single video ever. Love the informative style mixed with humor…delivery and all that. I subscribed almost immediately. Keep it up man! I really enjoyed this vid and will watch others. I honestly think you’re up there with the lore greats (Baldermort and Luetin come to mind) in my book. Edit: Also if you ever wanna discuss some vid ideas or bs about the lore, dm me and I’d be happy to oblige.

the dark angels legion is still alive but not on paper

There's one problem: The Lion El'Jonson was not the first primarch found. He was the second. Horus is canonically the first primarch found, and the primarch that had been with the Emperor for the longest. The canonical known order is: Horus Leman [DEAD PRIMARCH] Ferrus Magnus Fulgrim Vulkan Rogal Dorn Roboute Guilliman Magnus the Red Sanguinius Lion El'Jonson Perturabo Mortarian Lorgar Aurelian Jaghatai Khan Konrad Curse Angron Corvus Corax [DEAD PRIMARCH] Alpharius or Omegon. Or they were discovered first. Or they were discovered at some point elsewhere in the line.

aight, some big points, for one, nowhere near half of the Legion turned traitor. The 1st Legion started the Heresy with 200K marines, the 1st Legionaries that turned numbered a little over a hundread, the bulk of the Fallen are the 30K raw recruits that were never sent out to reinforce the Legion. So of the actual Legion forces that turned, it's like 0.5% of the Legion that turns, and a generation of recruits that would have come up to like 15% of the Legions strength, the 1st Legion would have had to have lost like 70% of the Legion at least, for the Fallen to have been equal to half of the Legion. Theres also a 3rd Ranking structure within the 1st Legion called the Heketonystika. So the 1st Legion has 3 seemlessly integrated ranking structure that can work indipendantly of eachother and in unison at the same time and very limited information flow, which is why the Alpha Legion could never infiltrate them and even a psykic parasite couldnt cause any issues with the 1st Legion. So you have the Principia Belicossa, which was basically the Codex Astartes but made by the Emperor for the Legions, then the Heketonystika, which was the emperors experimental ranking structure that he used to come up with all the Legions and major fields of military expertice, and the Heketonystika, origonally the "hundread esoteric orders" though probably more than a hundred of them, were basically everything in-between, all the specific specialisations across the other ranking structures. So you could have a Knight Paladin of the 3rd Company of the 5th Chapter of the 9th Order, Proctor of the Dreadwing and Seneschal of the Order of Broken Claws and an Eskaton. Whats even more portnetially confusing is an Order can be used to describe a Chapter, Collection of Chapters or a secret and specialized group within the Legion, so an Order could literally range from an Order that has less than a single company in members or a force containing multiple chapters. A Master could be a Captain or a senior member in an Order Militant, you could be a Knight Captain of a wing or a Captain of a Company. So there are similar names across alll the orders, equivilent ranks and each one has unique ranks and honourifics as well. Theres honourifics that appear across all ranking structures and some that are specific to certain ranking structures, its really all over the place. The upside of this being that the 1st Legion is the single most customizable Legion for anyone to enjoy. There is one chapter of the 1st Legion who's iconography is cobalt blue and gold. You can also wear a robe and hood or choose not too. As its just a knightly tradition. You can also have a specific shoulder pad colour to indicate a Marines homeworld, usually the right one, sometimes both, the shoulder pads and knees can be used to display homeworld, chapter, personal heraldry, order, rank, specialism, the list rly goes on. Red Shoulder generally means the Marine is from Graymire, Green is Calibanite standard black is common for Terrans. The 1st Legion/Dark Angels are basically meant to be the ultimate Pragmatists and Absolute destroyers. The Emperors "First Sanction and Final Solution" - The Emperor (Lion's Primarch Book).

Claims to have read loads of lore. Instantly makes a major mistake on a basic point

As a representative of the Dark Angels, I agree with the closing statement. Do not ask about, or witness the Watchers in the Dark. They’re an optical illusion, they’re not there, and you’re clearly seeing things. Don’t worry though, Asmodai is a spectacular psychologist, he’ll help you stop seeing them.

The Dark Angels are still a legion truly

The Dark angels are the FIRST Legion. The oldest most experienced legion, The best of the Astartes. And the PR campaign to conceal their secret shame of the Fallen. It's hard not to like them. I love that 40k books exist and so far well written, I'll never be able to read all the Horus Heresy books. Watching the insecurities and petty grudges and jealousies fester and smolder, wedging their minds open to the corruptions of the warp turning them against themselves has been rather unpleasant, Flight of the Eisenstein I really enjoyed reading though.

All this cool shit about the Dark Angel being the most competent. Ultramarine bookwankery. Goddamnit.

So, I've been into 40k for like a year or two now. I'm into everything apart from the table top. Orks are by far my favourite faction. However, I could never settle on Primarch or Legion. Of all of the Primarchs I'd probably say that my favourite is Konrad. The more I hear about the DA, the more I like them. My favourite chapter is an easy one - Carcharadon Astra. I even made a point of learning the spelling. I know that there isn't a lot of info about them but I like the mystery and freedom that comes with that. I love that they just out in deep space, just waiting for a whiff of blood to set off a violent, brutal, bloody, and silent frenzy. I love that their colour is just steel and their gear is patched up but still effective. I love that they almost never talk. They are space sharks and that is just the most awesome thing. In my head, the Space Sharks are one of the missing legions. Why? The daddy shark is Tyberus, the biggest marine around who is apparently Primarch size. It would also explain why they have all their old gear. And why their security codes are all super old but still valid. And finally, it would explain why nobody is sure about their gene seed. Obviously nobody would be able to figure it out if it's from an unknown Primarch. I wish there was fan animation of the Carcharadons and Tyberus going up against the World Eaters and Kharn.

Part of the War of the Beast (the Vigilus stuff) I dislike is that it had the Dark Angels abandon friendly forces in the middle of a critical battle to go after a rumor about a Fallen among the enemy. Sure, the Imperials probably thought it was to destroy some weapon or whatever that thing was, can't remember exactly, and likely were like "Oh, hey, we thought you ran off but you actually were doing superhero stuff!" But, it bothers me because the Dark Angels explicitly are stated to successfully balance their hunt for the Fallen with their duties as Space Marines. One of the Successor Chapters is even specifically notable for _not_ balancing that and being mistrusted as a result. The Dark Angels would _never_ abandon friendly forces, especially at a time like that, to go after a mere rumor. Heck, even if they knew for a fact that a Fallen was there they would have at least finished the battle first. The whole point of them retaining their honor was that they put their duty as Astartes above the hunt and everything else below the hunt.

Do a video on Worldeaters

OOOOOOOOHHHH FIRST LEGION BEST LEGION WOOOOOOOOOW but seriously very nice video man

I like the Dark Angels, but they are corrupt as hell.

Busting makes me feel good. Dark Angels dont.

Assuming it hasnt been retconned, its worth noting that the seperation of the chapters is also technically a dark angels innovation, the first standalone chapter created was the angels of redemption and were comprised of one half of the entire deathwing at the time, which if you follow logic means that the angels of redemption have more suits of terminator armour than any chapter in existence. These are known as the red wing owing to their crimson crests from original legion colours. They were created immediately following the destruction of caliban before the codex was written.

The Audiodrama was called the rage of azmodai

The Dark Angels are best exemplified by two things: They are specifically named The Angels of Death by everyone else and the explicit reason Horus attacked Terra was because they thought they could take the planet, fortify it, and hide from the Lion. I'm not joking, that is literally why they attacked Terra. _They were running from the Dark Angels._ When Horus was slain and they fled, the traitors discovered the Dark Angels had already wiped out the traitors throughout the Imperium and destroyed the traitor legions' homeworlds. And they had just arrived to finish the job.

Brah you forgot the Deathwing in the Hex

All legions had to purge the side they werent pledging to, the loyalist numbers vary a lot but the renegades mostly had to purge half.

The Emperor entrusted them with weapons that the lore says could create a new Age of Strife and basically reset the galaxy. Just in case the Imperium loses and needs to wipe the slate clean for humanity to rise up again with a nice, big head-start. Honestly they probably should have broken that shit out by now... Maybe they're waiting to make sure all the Tyranid fleets have shown up and for all the Necrons to wake up so they can get all the bastards at once.

I personally am a dark angels fan. Mostly because space knights are cool, the look is cool, and I do love the look. Not to mention they are legit badass. Even as a fan, the fallen absolutely piss me off and I just wish they would f-ing die so the dark angels would stop being dumb and leaving important battles on the POSSIBILITY, even as minor as you can imagine, that someone might have heard the word "fallen" in their life time? They literally leave other legions to die to chase fallen down. But they're still pretty well my favorite and the lion is coming back! BTW love the channel make. Keep it up and stay regular on making the videos

When will you cover sub/splinter factions like the black templars or the farsight enclave

finally someone american who can explain 40k i first went to majorkill because hes funny and aussie. but this simplifies shit even more for my stupid brain.

Hexagrammaton reminds me of the clerics of the tetra grammaton from the movie Equilibrium.

We're not that mean........ Ok, yeah. You're right,...NOW REPENT!!!!

Dark Angels heavily infiltrated by Alpha Legion

You didn't talk about the Dark Angels before the Lion arrived one upmanship culture of fighting the strongest foes that nearly destroyed the legion

Never entirely sure how the fallen are still around - as far as I know they're not chaos space marines who've been sustained by warp energy or just chilling in the eye of terror's time shenanigans, they don't have access to shit like Cawl's life extending tech, and they're not the basically immortal primarchs so....why aren't they dead? Astartes average 3-400 years and Dante's well outside the norm and oldest at 2K. Edit: NVM I forgot about the warp storm scattering .... Of course this does mean the Dark Angel's will never be finished because they will NEVER know if the list is incomplete because they haven't found them, because they haven't shown up yet, or because they showed up in the past and died peacefully of old age. Also this does give my the hilarious image of Fallen just occasionally popping into existence throughout history at important events ....okay new headcanon. Big E knew all along that the Dark Angels would split because he met a Fallen before he ever made space marines

When I first got into 40k I really didn't like the DA, and reading "War of Secrets" when I was doing research into Primaris Marines made me like them less. This video made me respect them, though I'm really more into the tinfoil hat stuff about them: the Cypher psy-op theory, and the "the fallen are actually the loyalists" theories are super interesting to me. Also the 30k color scheme was a billion times cooler than the all green, and I don't like the way death-wing looks at all. I'm really interested to see where things go now that the Lion is returning.

Prais the Lion

Ive always like to think of him has a brother on his mother's side of Lion El Ritchie

Honestly the dark angels would have been my most favorite legion if it wasn't for the fact that their obsession with the fallen sorta sorta ruin it for me but still love thier appearance, style, lore, versatility, culture, and even personality as these legions are essentially the emperor's exterminators as in one of the warhammer 40k novel mentions this If the leman russ and his legion are the emperor's executioners bringing judgements (like police) to the emperor's enemies from within Then Lion and his legions are the emperor's exterminator! Completely destroying everything with no trace! That to me is very badass 😎 But like I said thier obsession with the fallen kinda ruin for me so they're kinda my second favorite 🙃 my first favorite is the ultramarine!

Caliban=Space Bretonia.

DON'T TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE FALLEN!

i recomend angels of darkness for a better understanding of the dark angels divide. why was the legion not fighting for either side? it wasnt a simple envy act, it was a "is he coming home or invading?

This video is missing from "Meet the Legions" reproduction list, it should be there in the first place. 😘

Space Marines have to be created from a young age because Games Workshop didn't know medically induced second puberties exist.

For the Lion

I would be interested in hearing more about this Alpha Legion psyop...

Please do the black birds next.

I think Asmodai is pretty wholesome. uwu

Feel like the dark angels essentially are like the us army with its many different elite branches.

Did they retcon the fact that Luther was his best friend and NOT a surrogate father?

Are you going to become a dedicated 40K lore channel?

Custodes, when?

Lion l Johnson more like lion my Johnson hahahah. O God I hear the interrogator Chaplin coming for me now

The Dark Angels in 40K to me seem entirely unreliable due to their obsession with The Fallen. If they could stay on track with their campaigns and not persue personal objectives, they would easily still be as effective as they were during the Unification Wars, Great Crusade, and Horus Heresy.

The First / "Veteran Company" had BLACK armor up to about M35 as Captain "Cloud Runner" and his squad escorted "Talking with Two Heads" to his home planet where he wished to spend his final days in peace. You know how the story goes, When Talking with Two Heads was burned after his death in the tradition of the Forefathers, the remaining veterans covered their armor with the ashes as a sign of their failure to protect their people Source: ?! a no longer available short story from the time before Black-Library (1989 ), unfortunately GW changed the story several times and the "finale" version came out in 2001

Hey! Don't talk about the fallen