Many unanswered questions Many secrets Many ouchies Follow me on my only real social media!! / arthurbones1 The fine lad who did my Profile pic! / scrumptiousbean
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.
Merir Astellan, one of the leaders of the Fallen, is also one of the oldest space marines in existence. He fought side by side with the Emperor while they were still known simply as "The Angels of Death". This service under the command of the Emperor comes with a psychic mark too, as all Angels of Death that fought with the Emperor had a permanent fortification against psychic intrusion from the Emperor basically taking a cheese grater to his soul and merging the tiny flecks that fell off with the souls of the Angels of Death. If a psyker tries to look inside Astellan's mind, they are viscerally and painfully repelled by something so powerful that it's described as: "Beside its power, Zahariel was a candle next to the sun." So yeah, some of the older Terran Dark Angels and walking around with anti-psyker weapons inside their brains.
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.
yeahyeahyeah! It is mentioned in the literature that every primarch inherited something from the Emperor. from what I have read the Lion inherited his presence. The sheer weight of his personality. To the point where the most intimidating figures and even other primarchs were intimidated by him. I remember that towards the siege of terra the Traitors didn't lure the Dark Angels into a trap the way they did the others. If my memory serves me correctly (which it often does not) they lured them as far away from terra as possible, knowing that it was out of their control that they would inevitably show up and they had to bide their time. Because if the Dark Angels showed up it was game fucking over.
@@TheBoneZone40k Horus sent The Dark Angels far away from Terra out of fear of the capability of not only The Lion himself but his Legion as well. The Dark Angels were also one of the largest Legions. Horus also sent Konrad Kurze and the Night Lords after The Dark Angels in what became known as the Thramas Crusade. Horus knew Konrad would only be able to slow The Lion down, not stop him. But the crusade went even worse than expected for the traitors. Despite Konrad and the Night Lords being masters of ambush The Lion consistently out maneuvered and ambushed them. He inflicted devastating casualties on the Night Lords. The Lion did seem to inherit some of his father's presence. Its been stated numerous times throughout the lore that people feel a sense of dread hanging over them when he's near by. There is also an awesome part where all the Primarchs are on Terra sitting around a table and Malcador makes a description about The Lion: "Of all the Primarchs, save perhaps Mortarion, Lion El'Jonson stands apart. Partially this is due to his taciturn nature - a brooding silence hangs over him at all times. Yet there is something more... something buried beneath his noble exterior. Perhaps this is a result of his upbringing, growing to maturity alone in the monster-ridden forests of Caliban. Even at a council of war, the Lion moves like an apex predator. He is always watching, always planning, always hunting. He unnerves even his brothers."
@@thedude5449probably why Lion eventually respects the Wolf the most. Leman let the Lion stab him in the chest while grieving for the emperor, they finally buried the animosity and understand each other better. Lion and the Wolf unleashed on the galaxy… that would be exciting in current setting were chaos always seem to be winning.
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.
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.
The tradition is older, and was part of an elite group called “the companions”, they had a tradition that if they suffered a mortal wound for the primarch. They would paint the corresponding wounded part of the armor bone white. Thus the death wing painted the entire armor as a symbol of them preparing for death.
@@adachi8902 its retconned since waaaay back when they had indian(native american) style heritage. Doesn't really fit the medieval knight style of the dark angels.
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.
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.
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
Nah you right, That is on me, I miss read the info when I was researching the primarchs and assumed they were numbered based on discovery rather than like, the legions that were already pre-numbered. I've seen this correction a few times, but it is indeed on me for that!
He mixed it up because the Dark Angels are the first legion to be founded. They are so old that they have veterans who fought alongside thunder warriors. So in terms of *creation*•. The Lion is the oldest son. Also, the Hexagramaton was used as a basis for the space marine legions different functions.
I would have loved to see Sapphon become the 'primaris' model for the interrogator chaplains in 10th while Asmodai gets discontinued. Sapphon is one of the best Dark Angels characters overall. Asmodai is too much of a meme.
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
And then Guilliman will slap him back for hiding and leaving him to clean up Father's mess. And then the adepts will record it as the Great Slapping Schism of the 42nd millenium as the two screech and slap each other over and over.
I think your 2nd first for messing up the imperium (and a good talking to when Guilleman regains consciousness) then your first re the escape of Luther.....
@karlwikman3874 he was the pov character in Descent of Angels. He was a child of Caliban that eventually became a Librarian. Apparently he's one of the fallen. I haven't read that Dark Angels book yet though.
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.
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.
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
Thanks! I appreciate it, my mission statement is just to make talking about 40k lore feel like a conversation rather than a lecture. becuase I find most lore channels tend to get a little too in depth about the nitty gritty
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.
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!
That's actually my plan! I plan to hit every legion in order, once every week till I do all 20. Then I'm probably gonna make a pseudo season two where I cover descendent chapters for each one in the same way
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.
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
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.
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 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.
Dark Angels all the way, they definitely feel the most "professional" of all the Legions and later Chapters, to me it's always felt like whilst everyone else was busy being unique and developing character or working from the Ego, the DA were just busy getting on with the job and in turn being characterised by said professional, clean approach
@@thehypest6118 The Horus Heresy book about the Tarmas campaign from Forgeworld have some interesting lore where you see how they actually became posh idiots in the years before El'Jonson was found by the Emperor. I love the complex lore they have in HH and its perfectly displayed when the Lion meets the first Fallen in the 'Son of the Forest' book. We get the proud and deep heritage explained from the view of a Terran Dark Angel.
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 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…
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
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.
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 RUclips 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.
Wow That is Genuinely one of the nicest things I've ever had someone say to me. Thanks! I am actually getting primed to record two videos today, one about chaos, and one about the second legion So look forward to those I suppose
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
Best legion by far. You want a message sent, send the space wolves. You want to play nice and diplomatically, ultramarines. You want something wiped off the face of the galaxy, you call in my boys the Dark Angels.
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.
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.
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.
Yyyyyeah, I actually found this out after the video was made. that is kinda my B. I got my primarch discovery dates mixed up! perhaps I shall make an addendum to address this, who knows
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).
This was actually super informative! I'm pretty new to doing lore videos for the 40k/30k universe so I am likely gonna get a few wires crossed. I see where I got my numbers mixed up though when it comes to the Fallen being a thing. It was because I was doing research on the pre-heresy numbers for their legion, especially during that period where they essentially solo carried against the Rangan, followed by fighting a buncha other xeno races. I remember them being described as losing like 50k marines, followed by losing another third or so their numbers and were considered small (though not like, Emperor's Children small) by legion standards for a little while after. I do like that even in lore, there is only a vague level of consistency between the dark angels, so they were hard to pin down for anything. I remember reading about what I think was a xeno race that specialized in reading minds and stealing information trying to crack into the coconut of a Dark Angel and being incredibly confused and upset that the marine knew literally nothing about his fellow battle brothers. None the less, I appreciate the info! The Dark Angels were the one of the like 3 legions I knew almost nothing about going into this. So it's a bit of a steep learning curve lol
@@TheBoneZone40k My pleasure. Though, reguarding the numbers pre-heresy, the Lexicanum has a section you might have found where it mentions the numbers of each Legion rouphly at the start of the Heresy. Its a good baseline you can work back or forward from based on what your trying to predict. The 1st were involved in quite a few devestating conflicts, the 3rd Xenocide being the one the Lion lead, and pretty early in his career mind you, in fact, it's one of his first, possibly the first Campaign he's involved with besides his first Compliance covered in Descent of Angels. Considering his First campaigns were wrapping up one of the biggest Xenos threats to the Imperium seen during the Great Crusade and a Campaign into one of the most hazerdous regions of the Galaxy with Dorn, Fulgrim and Horus, the Emperor clearly didnt need any time making sure the Lion was capable. As for losses, we could really guess anywhere up to 300K as there were 3 Rangdan Xenocides, the 1st Xenocide lost them 10K and a Gloriana Class Battleship called the "Paradigm of Hate". the Second we dont know exactly how many they lost but we know 9 Legions were involved and at least 300K marines were involved, in the 3rd Xenocide the 1st Legion looses 50K which is what brings them below the Ultramarines. Now, the Ultramarines at the start of the Heresy were at 250K while the 1st were at 200K, the 1st were by far the bigges Legion before the catastrophic losses, and the 1st took 10K and with some give or take, given the time between each xenocide and the heresy, its safe to say they probably had around 260K-300K, possibly more for all we know, as they would have taken part in numerous secret Campaigns where their purpose was to purge the memory of their oponent as much as anything else, like with the Rangdan or the Khrave. (while they didnt whipe out the Khrave completely, they did in effect, only minor, weak Khrave would ever be seen again and in very small numbers) Numbers can always be iffy with 30K as it was actually a few books into the Heresy that they decided the Legions should jump from like, 10K at most for a legion to hundreads of thousands. But yea, the Lore is filled with wonderful and nonsensical decisions and a hell of a lot of reading can be required to get a full picture of anything.
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).
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.
I remember there was one time that Asmodai heard someone laughing in his companies barracks so he banned speaking for like a year or something. Love that guy
@@TheBoneZone40k ,It was the entire 5th company. He centured them for a while fuckin year just because he heard two, TWO brother quietly giggling. He said something to the effect that they needed to "REFLECT" on the seriousness of their Order. What a Dick...... ASMODIA!!! Lol 😂😅
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.
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.
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.
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.
Considering not even a mind reading xenos was able to get anything from high ranking members I doubt Alpha logion could actually get anything from them.
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.
The Fallen were 75% Loyalist. 25% were loyal to the Lion and not the Emperor, 25% were loyal to the Emperor and not the Lion, 25% were loyal to both, and the rest were chaos-worshipping pansies or simple deserters. The Fallen are probably one of the most confused traitors out there, even more than the Alpha Legion.
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.
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.
Yes indeedy. I kinda want to cover stuff in a way that makes it easily digested for people whom want to learn about the universe. Though I am gonna do more indepth stuff as I go
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?
@@yamomel7452 Except that isn't true at all. He was in the thick of it and was the sole reason Sanguinius even made it to Terra and the reason the Traitors no longer have homeworlds to go back to.
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!
I play Dark Angels for both 30k and 40k so they’re number one for me. However I do agree that the writing around them hunting thw Fallen is way too overdone. I personally prefer how they simply are one of the best jack of all trades legions, especially due to the Hexagrammaton. Not to mention all of the Dark Age tech they were given.
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
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
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.
I completely agree. Love the knightly look of their armor, and the Lion is widely agreed to be in the top 5 among Primarchs when it comes to duels. But man…too many secrets kept from their loyalist allies…reduced combat efficiency due to their need to hunt the fallen at all costs. If I remember correctly, they’ve either lost or abandoned certain campaigns to chase the fallen. Resulting in the deaths of not only their own soldiery(which I suppose is acceptable considering they’re dark angels by choice) but other chapters marines.
oh they are still one of, possibly the most effective Chapter around, the shit where they drop everything is meant to be a massive rarity, it has to be a big enough issue, a sure enough lead and they have to have a reason to go in numbers. Its just Gav Thorpe is the main DA writer and he's a Fallen fan more than a Dark Angel Fan, its why the Luther book is his best Dark Angel writing ever. Even when they abbandon a battle, it kinda needs to be worth it as it needs to be a situation where they actually need the numbers, which is extremely rare. Much like the story where Asmodai hunts down and tortures a single marine, Asmodai went on that mission alone and enlisted the help of a squad from another Chapter. In Pandorax, a "Fallen" appears and is captured by like one Dark Angel, and they werent even there looking for the Fallen, they were there helping out Kaldor Drago and maybe hoping to come across an ancient Grey Knight. Even when they drop things as well, they still have the ability to send other Dark Angel forces if necessery, like the Siege of Vraks, the Dark Angels chased away a whole Chaos Warband and when they heard shit was still going bad, they sent an Unforgiven Chapter to help.
@@LCliffhanger alright so I guess the big question is if you were a planetary governor and the Dark Angels approached you and said “we want to build a fortress monastery and set up a successor chapter here in your planet. They will be in every way just like us. They will think the same, fight the same, armed and equipped the same, and in fact much of the officers will be current Dark Angels brothers. Will you accept? There shall be no reprisals if you refuse” Would you? Because I really don’t think I would permit them to do that, myself. I just don’t trust them, knowing what I know about them and all things considered.
@@CousinJesse1 Oh i would absolutely accept if it was just a recruitement world, let alone the homeworld of an Unforgiven Chapter. I mean, your talking about a Chapter, that can, if the worst comes to worst, contact its entire family of Chapters to help it out with a higher reliability of responce than any other chapter would have. Also, the Dark Angels do care about people, Asmodai might not, but Azrael, Sapphon (the actual Grand Master of Chaplains aka Asmodai's boss), Belial, we get some written in who are dicks for the sake of being dicks cause that just all some writers can think of. A recruiting world would have to be ruined beyond any real hope of repair to be abandoned, a home-world, probably wouldnt be at all, or would be so doomed, nobody could fckin save it. Like, the Tau once showed up to a Dark Angel recruitement world, the Entire Dark Angels Chapter, along with the rock, showed up in response and wiped out the Tau expeditionary force in like 24 hours. Belial hates Ghaz because when he got into a fight with Ghaz, his armour gave out and he lost the chance to kill Ghaz, he regrets it because of how many lives could have been saved if he'd killed Ghaz. Azrael goes out of his way to save a stranded menial on a ship that was wrecked during a void battle. Sapphon encourages his men to show sympathy to humans whenever he feels he needs too. Unfortunately, Asmodai has a negative affect on the DA in lore as Sapphon finds himself having to undo some of the dogma that Asmodai spreads, but peoples and even the writers perspectives of the Dark Angels personalities in 40K can also be shaped far too much by the stereotypical Callous Asmodai personality.
@@LCliffhanger well you make a compelling case but I don’t think I would change my mind if presented with that same situation. Having said that though there are only a handful of chapters that I would feel comfortable with setting up in any way whatsoever on my planet. So, what Dark Angels (and successors) audiobooks would you recommend? I’m not really interested in The Fallen type stuff.
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
@@TheBoneZone40k I don't think Cypher is a Primarch but he sure does operate like an Alpha Legion operative. I'm surprised that the Dark Angels and the Alpha Legion did not cooperate more.
Love the 1st, great designs, love the look, but can’t help but think “Shot trap” Way too many extra bits on the armour, just asking for a penetrating ricochet 😢
nah you right tho, Where I think in terms of like accomplishing goals The Dark Angels are probably the best pre-heresy era legion. the individual Iron warrior is just built different. Perty basically solo carried the heresy during the siege.
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.
Merir Astellan, one of the leaders of the Fallen, is also one of the oldest space marines in existence. He fought side by side with the Emperor while they were still known simply as "The Angels of Death". This service under the command of the Emperor comes with a psychic mark too, as all Angels of Death that fought with the Emperor had a permanent fortification against psychic intrusion from the Emperor basically taking a cheese grater to his soul and merging the tiny flecks that fell off with the souls of the Angels of Death. If a psyker tries to look inside Astellan's mind, they are viscerally and painfully repelled by something so powerful that it's described as:
"Beside its power, Zahariel was a candle next to the sun."
So yeah, some of the older Terran Dark Angels and walking around with anti-psyker weapons inside their brains.
@@sugarcombfilms3467 Is Merir Astellan still alive?
@@justsomedude2020 Yep.
They also have the 5 uncrowned princes, basically the very first astartes made from the lions geneseed.
They have the best toys because the Emperor completely trusts them and because they were intended to conquer the galaxy on their own.
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?
“Those are just our groupies. Nothing to see here!”
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.
yeahyeahyeah!
It is mentioned in the literature that every primarch inherited something from the Emperor. from what I have read the Lion inherited his presence. The sheer weight of his personality. To the point where the most intimidating figures and even other primarchs were intimidated by him.
I remember that towards the siege of terra the Traitors didn't lure the Dark Angels into a trap the way they did the others. If my memory serves me correctly (which it often does not) they lured them as far away from terra as possible, knowing that it was out of their control that they would inevitably show up and they had to bide their time.
Because if the Dark Angels showed up it was game fucking over.
@@TheBoneZone40k Horus sent The Dark Angels far away from Terra out of fear of the capability of not only The Lion himself but his Legion as well. The Dark Angels were also one of the largest Legions.
Horus also sent Konrad Kurze and the Night Lords after The Dark Angels in what became known as the Thramas Crusade.
Horus knew Konrad would only be able to slow The Lion down, not stop him. But the crusade went even worse than expected for the traitors. Despite Konrad and the Night Lords being masters of ambush The Lion consistently out maneuvered and ambushed them. He inflicted devastating casualties on the Night Lords.
The Lion did seem to inherit some of his father's presence. Its been stated numerous times throughout the lore that people feel a sense of dread hanging over them when he's near by.
There is also an awesome part where all the Primarchs are on Terra sitting around a table and Malcador makes a description about The Lion: "Of all the Primarchs, save perhaps Mortarion, Lion El'Jonson stands apart. Partially this is due to his taciturn nature - a brooding silence hangs over him at all times. Yet there is something more... something buried beneath his noble exterior. Perhaps this is a result of his upbringing, growing to maturity alone in the monster-ridden forests of Caliban. Even at a council of war, the Lion moves like an apex predator. He is always watching, always planning, always hunting. He unnerves even his brothers."
@@TheBoneZone40k Leman Russ is not intimidated. ✋
@@thedude5449probably why Lion eventually respects the Wolf the most. Leman let the Lion stab him in the chest while grieving for the emperor, they finally buried the animosity and understand each other better. Lion and the Wolf unleashed on the galaxy… that would be exciting in current setting were chaos always seem to be winning.
@@Steventrafford heil brother!
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.
"The Unforgiven."
Everyone in the Imperial High Command knows, they just aren't willing to do anything about it.
sure people outside the chapter knows, but just don't care
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.
The tradition is older, and was part of an elite group called “the companions”, they had a tradition that if they suffered a mortal wound for the primarch. They would paint the corresponding wounded part of the armor bone white. Thus the death wing painted the entire armor as a symbol of them preparing for death.
This was retconned.
@@JonathanFlexx Bro, I highly dislike retcons.
@@adachi8902 its retconned since waaaay back when they had indian(native american) style heritage. Doesn't really fit the medieval knight style of the dark angels.
Let the contradictions continue.
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.
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.
One thing both Black Templars and Dark Angels agree on is that the Inquisition and the Codex are stupid.
space wolves: well i can't read.
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
Nah you right, That is on me, I miss read the info when I was researching the primarchs and assumed they were numbered based on discovery rather than like, the legions that were already pre-numbered.
I've seen this correction a few times, but it is indeed on me for that!
He mixed it up because the Dark Angels are the first legion to be founded. They are so old that they have veterans who fought alongside thunder warriors. So in terms of *creation*•. The Lion is the oldest son. Also, the Hexagramaton was used as a basis for the space marine legions different functions.
"depending if you trust alpharius..."yeah...always.
Of course we trust Alpharius
"....Me? I'm the First baby. I'm perfect!"
-Lion 'El Johnson
Sapphon is a breath of fresh air in the Dark Angels chapter. He's the polar opposite of Asmodai.
I would have loved to see Sapphon become the 'primaris' model for the interrogator chaplains in 10th while Asmodai gets discontinued. Sapphon is one of the best Dark Angels characters overall. Asmodai is too much of a meme.
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
What??? They already talked about this!
And then Guilliman will slap him back for hiding and leaving him to clean up Father's mess. And then the adepts will record it as the Great Slapping Schism of the 42nd millenium as the two screech and slap each other over and over.
I think your 2nd first for messing up the imperium (and a good talking to when Guilleman regains consciousness) then your first re the escape of Luther.....
Speaking of . . .
Plot twist to everyone whos read legacy of caliban series , the fallen are the loyalists . The green marines are luthers and astelans lot .
I need Zahariel to return as either a loyal son of The Lion or revealed as Cypher. My boy needs a redemption arc
Who was he?
@karlwikman3874 he was the pov character in Descent of Angels. He was a child of Caliban that eventually became a Librarian. Apparently he's one of the fallen. I haven't read that Dark Angels book yet though.
I love the laid back narration style, 3 minutes in you earned my subscription! Please never change this is wonderfully refreshing.
Agreed.
You may like Majorkill's videos as well. His relaxed style is great, especially since he's an Aussie.
@@benmiles00 I watch a lot of Majorkill’s videos as well. I think he tries too hard to be edgy sometimes but for the most part I enjoy his videos.
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.
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.
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
Thanks!
I appreciate it, my mission statement is just to make talking about 40k lore feel like a conversation rather than a lecture.
becuase I find most lore channels tend to get a little too in depth about the nitty gritty
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.
Love the vibe of your breakdowns. Elucidating and entertaining with a nice dash of euphony from the backing tracks
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!
That's actually my plan!
I plan to hit every legion in order, once every week till I do all 20.
Then I'm probably gonna make a pseudo season two where I cover descendent chapters for each one in the same way
@@TheBoneZone40k sons of medusa ftw
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.
"It almost makes me want to kitbash Fallen into my ranks to antagonize them further." - Never underestimate the power of spite.
Username checks out
"Dedicated war crimes division. " 🤣 and I like the background music.
I mean, I'm not wrong
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
Thank you for making relive my experience of listening to everywhere at the end of time
What can I say, I'm here to please.
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.
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 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.
Dark Angels all the way, they definitely feel the most "professional" of all the Legions and later Chapters,
to me it's always felt like whilst everyone else was busy being unique and developing character or working from the Ego, the DA were just busy getting on with the job and in turn being characterised by said professional, clean approach
@@thehypest6118 The Horus Heresy book about the Tarmas campaign from Forgeworld have some interesting lore where you see how they actually became posh idiots in the years before El'Jonson was found by the Emperor. I love the complex lore they have in HH and its perfectly displayed when the Lion meets the first Fallen in the 'Son of the Forest' book. We get the proud and deep heritage explained from the view of a Terran Dark Angel.
@@erih2934 Not just any Terran Dark Angel, but one of the first Space Marines to be created. Zabriel was named by the Emperor.
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
The best legion of them all
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'd love more videos on dark angels (and Cypher in particular!)
Love your narration and background music!
okay i like this style, jumping on Mr.Bones wild 40k ride
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.
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
Do a video on Worldeaters
Blood for the Blood God!
Skulls for the Skull Throne!
Oooh…
I knew Lionel Johnson…. Good guy… gooood guy.
Played racketball together a few times at the club.
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
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.
You're video and commentary is glorious! Please do the salamanders!
oh don't you worry, they will happen
Great video dude it’d be cool if you covered the corsair eldar
Oh, don't you worry. I have an entire series dedicated to xenos races planned out.
Got to love the fact that they have the name of Lion ell is fucked up on pourpose . Our lovely paranoid ass primarch
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 RUclips 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.
Wow
That is
Genuinely one of the nicest things I've ever had someone say to me.
Thanks!
I am actually getting primed to record two videos today, one about chaos, and one about the second legion
So look forward to those I suppose
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
The First Legion, the best Legion
First amongst many, second to none
Best legion by far. You want a message sent, send the space wolves. You want to play nice and diplomatically, ultramarines. You want something wiped off the face of the galaxy, you call in my boys the Dark Angels.
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.
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.
I got to admit, I always pictured the Lion back on Caliban as looking like 1999 Triple H.
*The Lion is back, baby.*
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.
Yyyyyeah, I actually found this out after the video was made.
that is kinda my B.
I got my primarch discovery dates mixed up!
perhaps I shall make an addendum to address this, who knows
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).
This was actually super informative!
I'm pretty new to doing lore videos for the 40k/30k universe so I am likely gonna get a few wires crossed. I see where I got my numbers mixed up though when it comes to the Fallen being a thing. It was because I was doing research on the pre-heresy numbers for their legion, especially during that period where they essentially solo carried against the Rangan, followed by fighting a buncha other xeno races. I remember them being described as losing like 50k marines, followed by losing another third or so their numbers and were considered small (though not like, Emperor's Children small) by legion standards for a little while after.
I do like that even in lore, there is only a vague level of consistency between the dark angels, so they were hard to pin down for anything.
I remember reading about what I think was a xeno race that specialized in reading minds and stealing information trying to crack into the coconut of a Dark Angel and being incredibly confused and upset that the marine knew literally nothing about his fellow battle brothers.
None the less, I appreciate the info! The Dark Angels were the one of the like 3 legions I knew almost nothing about going into this.
So it's a bit of a steep learning curve lol
@@TheBoneZone40k My pleasure.
Though, reguarding the numbers pre-heresy, the Lexicanum has a section you might have found where it mentions the numbers of each Legion rouphly at the start of the Heresy.
Its a good baseline you can work back or forward from based on what your trying to predict.
The 1st were involved in quite a few devestating conflicts, the 3rd Xenocide being the one the Lion lead, and pretty early in his career mind you, in fact, it's one of his first, possibly the first Campaign he's involved with besides his first Compliance covered in Descent of Angels.
Considering his First campaigns were wrapping up one of the biggest Xenos threats to the Imperium seen during the Great Crusade and a Campaign into one of the most hazerdous regions of the Galaxy with Dorn, Fulgrim and Horus, the Emperor clearly didnt need any time making sure the Lion was capable.
As for losses, we could really guess anywhere up to 300K as there were 3 Rangdan Xenocides, the 1st Xenocide lost them 10K and a Gloriana Class Battleship called the "Paradigm of Hate". the Second we dont know exactly how many they lost but we know 9 Legions were involved and at least 300K marines were involved, in the 3rd Xenocide the 1st Legion looses 50K which is what brings them below the Ultramarines.
Now, the Ultramarines at the start of the Heresy were at 250K while the 1st were at 200K, the 1st were by far the bigges Legion before the catastrophic losses, and the 1st took 10K and with some give or take, given the time between each xenocide and the heresy, its safe to say they probably had around 260K-300K, possibly more for all we know, as they would have taken part in numerous secret Campaigns where their purpose was to purge the memory of their oponent as much as anything else, like with the Rangdan or the Khrave. (while they didnt whipe out the Khrave completely, they did in effect, only minor, weak Khrave would ever be seen again and in very small numbers)
Numbers can always be iffy with 30K as it was actually a few books into the Heresy that they decided the Legions should jump from like, 10K at most for a legion to hundreads of thousands.
But yea, the Lore is filled with wonderful and nonsensical decisions and a hell of a lot of reading can be required to get a full picture of anything.
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).
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.
I remember there was one time that Asmodai heard someone laughing in his companies barracks so he banned speaking for like a year or something.
Love that guy
@@TheBoneZone40k ,It was the entire 5th company. He centured them for a while fuckin year just because he heard two, TWO brother quietly giggling. He said something to the effect that they needed to "REFLECT" on the seriousness of their Order.
What a Dick...... ASMODIA!!!
Lol 😂😅
@@Knight-chaplainashriel Good thing Sapphon is the head Chaplain and not Asmodai.
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.
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.
"Asmodai, make them repent!"
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.
The War of the Beast was a fucking weird time.
All this cool shit about the Dark Angel being the most competent.
Ultramarine bookwankery. Goddamnit.
The Ultramarines are by doctrine what the Dark Angels are by nature.
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.
Brah you forgot the Deathwing in the Hex
Dark Angels heavily infiltrated by Alpha Legion
That would be an interesting Arks of omens twist.
@@USCGJAMESBENETEAU I mean, I'm of the head canon that Cypher is actually Omegon. So that would satisfy this one's old bones
Considering not even a mind reading xenos was able to get anything from high ranking members I doubt Alpha logion could actually get anything from them.
They have already tried. While they got people in, they got absolutely nothing worthwhile out of it.
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.
The Fallen were 75% Loyalist. 25% were loyal to the Lion and not the Emperor, 25% were loyal to the Emperor and not the Lion, 25% were loyal to both, and the rest were chaos-worshipping pansies or simple deserters. The Fallen are probably one of the most confused traitors out there, even more than the Alpha Legion.
The Dark Angels are still a legion truly
OOOOOOOOHHHH FIRST LEGION BEST LEGION WOOOOOOOOOW
but seriously very nice video man
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.
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.
Are you going to become a dedicated 40K lore channel?
Yes indeedy.
I kinda want to cover stuff in a way that makes it easily digested for people whom want to learn about the universe.
Though I am gonna do more indepth stuff as I go
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?
lion was waiting to see who won. the chaplains origin comes from the word bearers so those the eclesiarch. is obvious lion was a traitor.
@@yamomel7452 Except that isn't true at all. He was in the thick of it and was the sole reason Sanguinius even made it to Terra and the reason the Traitors no longer have homeworlds to go back to.
Brilliant video. Subscribed :)
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!
I play Dark Angels for both 30k and 40k so they’re number one for me. However I do agree that the writing around them hunting thw Fallen is way too overdone.
I personally prefer how they simply are one of the best jack of all trades legions, especially due to the Hexagrammaton. Not to mention all of the Dark Age tech they were given.
Well, that Fallen thing seems to be changing with the Lion's return. He's redeemed about ten of them so far.
the dark angels legion is still alive but not on paper
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.
We're not that mean........ Ok, yeah. You're right,...NOW REPENT!!!!
Busting makes me feel good.
Dark Angels dont.
Claims to have read loads of lore. Instantly makes a major mistake on a basic point
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
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.
A third was the average, and half was the World Eaters.
I like the Dark Angels, but they are corrupt as hell.
The Audiodrama was called the rage of azmodai
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
That very well could happen.
Prais the Lion
I think Asmodai is pretty wholesome. uwu
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
I am considering that, but that will be some day in the future I suppose
When will you cover sub/splinter factions like the black templars or the farsight enclave
Caliban=Space Bretonia.
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.
I completely agree. Love the knightly look of their armor, and the Lion is widely agreed to be in the top 5 among Primarchs when it comes to duels. But man…too many secrets kept from their loyalist allies…reduced combat efficiency due to their need to hunt the fallen at all costs. If I remember correctly, they’ve either lost or abandoned certain campaigns to chase the fallen. Resulting in the deaths of not only their own soldiery(which I suppose is acceptable considering they’re dark angels by choice) but other chapters marines.
oh they are still one of, possibly the most effective Chapter around, the shit where they drop everything is meant to be a massive rarity, it has to be a big enough issue, a sure enough lead and they have to have a reason to go in numbers.
Its just Gav Thorpe is the main DA writer and he's a Fallen fan more than a Dark Angel Fan, its why the Luther book is his best Dark Angel writing ever.
Even when they abbandon a battle, it kinda needs to be worth it as it needs to be a situation where they actually need the numbers, which is extremely rare.
Much like the story where Asmodai hunts down and tortures a single marine, Asmodai went on that mission alone and enlisted the help of a squad from another Chapter.
In Pandorax, a "Fallen" appears and is captured by like one Dark Angel, and they werent even there looking for the Fallen, they were there helping out Kaldor Drago and maybe hoping to come across an ancient Grey Knight.
Even when they drop things as well, they still have the ability to send other Dark Angel forces if necessery, like the Siege of Vraks, the Dark Angels chased away a whole Chaos Warband and when they heard shit was still going bad, they sent an Unforgiven Chapter to help.
@@LCliffhanger alright so I guess the big question is if you were a planetary governor and the Dark Angels approached you and said “we want to build a fortress monastery and set up a successor chapter here in your planet. They will be in every way just like us. They will think the same, fight the same, armed and equipped the same, and in fact much of the officers will be current Dark Angels brothers. Will you accept? There shall be no reprisals if you refuse”
Would you? Because I really don’t think I would permit them to do that, myself. I just don’t trust them, knowing what I know about them and all things considered.
@@CousinJesse1 Oh i would absolutely accept if it was just a recruitement world, let alone the homeworld of an Unforgiven Chapter.
I mean, your talking about a Chapter, that can, if the worst comes to worst, contact its entire family of Chapters to help it out with a higher reliability of responce than any other chapter would have.
Also, the Dark Angels do care about people, Asmodai might not, but Azrael, Sapphon (the actual Grand Master of Chaplains aka Asmodai's boss), Belial, we get some written in who are dicks for the sake of being dicks cause that just all some writers can think of.
A recruiting world would have to be ruined beyond any real hope of repair to be abandoned, a home-world, probably wouldnt be at all, or would be so doomed, nobody could fckin save it.
Like, the Tau once showed up to a Dark Angel recruitement world, the Entire Dark Angels Chapter, along with the rock, showed up in response and wiped out the Tau expeditionary force in like 24 hours.
Belial hates Ghaz because when he got into a fight with Ghaz, his armour gave out and he lost the chance to kill Ghaz, he regrets it because of how many lives could have been saved if he'd killed Ghaz.
Azrael goes out of his way to save a stranded menial on a ship that was wrecked during a void battle.
Sapphon encourages his men to show sympathy to humans whenever he feels he needs too.
Unfortunately, Asmodai has a negative affect on the DA in lore as Sapphon finds himself having to undo some of the dogma that Asmodai spreads, but peoples and even the writers perspectives of the Dark Angels personalities in 40K can also be shaped far too much by the stereotypical Callous Asmodai personality.
@@LCliffhanger well you make a compelling case but I don’t think I would change my mind if presented with that same situation. Having said that though there are only a handful of chapters that I would feel comfortable with setting up in any way whatsoever on my planet.
So, what Dark Angels (and successors) audiobooks would you recommend? I’m not really interested in The Fallen type stuff.
Hexagrammaton reminds me of the clerics of the tetra grammaton from the movie Equilibrium.
This video is missing from "Meet the Legions" reproduction list, it should be there in the first place. 😘
For the Lion
DON'T TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE FALLEN!
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
That's why he's called Captain Genocide
Ive always like to think of him has a brother on his mother's side of Lion El Ritchie
Feel like the dark angels essentially are like the us army with its many different elite branches.
I would be interested in hearing more about this Alpha Legion psyop...
I am convinced that Cypher is actually either Alpharius, Omegon, or either.
no I will not take my tin foil hat off.
@@TheBoneZone40k I don't think Cypher is a Primarch but he sure does operate like an Alpha Legion operative. I'm surprised that the Dark Angels and the Alpha Legion did not cooperate more.
Lion l Johnson more like lion my Johnson hahahah. O God I hear the interrogator Chaplin coming for me now
Did they retcon the fact that Luther was his best friend and NOT a surrogate father?
Space Marines have to be created from a young age because Games Workshop didn't know medically induced second puberties exist.
Love the 1st, great designs, love the look, but can’t help but think “Shot trap”
Way too many extra bits on the armour, just asking for a penetrating ricochet 😢
Not really they got body by iron warriors
nah you right tho, Where I think in terms of like accomplishing goals The Dark Angels are probably the best pre-heresy era legion.
the individual Iron warrior is just built different.
Perty basically solo carried the heresy during the siege.
Iron within Iron without