Success and Sensation: The Emerging Gift of the Dark Angels Legion

Many factions, aesthetics, motifs and points of view litter the Warhammer 40K franchise. And over time, the undergrowth and first fresh soil of the 80s has been accompanies by Descent of Angels at the start of the Horus Heresy, and a series of newer ideas and literary inventions following the story foundation of Gav Thorpe’s novels.

Amusingly, despite the highly testosteronous atmosphere and high-octane nature of the setting, within the lore as every faction and many characters are ludicrously skilled at hand-to-hand combat, favoured factions like the Ultramarines are so effective because of performative displays of strategic flexibility, Greco-Roman heraldry and their ability to plan. The Dark Angels were a faction derided for the constant story hook of The Fallen causing them to make an appearance as aloof or unhelpful allies. Giving them a new focus, showing different narrative capabilities broadens the setting and makes a more intriguing faction.

Where ADB, arguably either the second most famous or the most famous Black Library author within their consortium took the dark romance of Night Lords respecting battling the ‘Angels in Black’, and greatly enjoyed writing Savage Weapons, oft considered the Dark Angels seminal short story characterising The Lion and Corswain so efficiency, the later literary evolution of the Dark Angels faction can move forward with an actual picture of what their Primarch looks like in official art, their 30K Legion model range and Black Book lore filling the critical visual flair, leitmotifs and symbols new blood such as David Guymer and Mike Brooks take forward in the modern day.

In one of the fair Legion on Legion wars, the First being the decisive victor is arguably not down to the creeping favouritism or straight superiority of the First Legion, but their awareness of environment. It is perhaps the largest possible multiplying factor against foes who count upon terror of all things, of stalking the environment to be faced with others who sense them, who understand the nature of predator and prey. Rather than wolfish hunters, templars, or legionnaires, the Calibanite familiar with how to hide and the malignancy of their homeworld’s creatures would have little issue seeing other Astartes as a similar beast, indeed their very name, Dark Angels coined by a man who instinctively saw them as a great and terrible thing, a possible monster of light much as the Lion appeared to fear he himself might be.

The new focus of the First is not amplifying them, not removing their secrets or the fractious and hidden need for redemption and atonement for spiritual failures. It is an alteration in perspective. The Fall is one thing, almost the entirety of their story in the past. Now it is the question of flaws held by the Legion in the growing Imperium, in the fractious near-peace of their ascendency, and the Age of Darkness where the Heresy setting begins and defines most of the modern 40 and 41^st Millenium.

Hunting in the dark, fatherly distance and disappointment resemble their heresy enemies, night lord, who possess some of the most numerous and skilled coverage in BL literature. It is majestic to see a new Primarch return, or the revelation of new weapons. But to a fan of the faction, the idea that the sticking point of creative sterility is as exciting to the Dark Angels, as -with all due respect- a change to the stayed and lukewarm portrayal of the Salamanders would benefit greatly from a unique fresh literary direction.

I enjoy in recent fare the term “preysight” actually mentioned and the Dark Angels being a fitting enemy for Night Lords.  Hunter and “preysight” are terms used from the beginning of the incredibly well written and popular Night Lords omnibus by Aaron Demski-Bowden, and the association of intelligent, venerable hunters in control of combat and informed gives a sense of mystique to the First as warriors, no fanatical chasers of The Fallen alone.

What Farith Redloss hears and Duriel listens to, identifying either the “music” of weapons or the multiple human languages on a starship mark them as military elites. It is awareness and useful knowledge, rather than bladesmanship. This is a small texture, but in a series where dozens of types of the same kind of warrior make up factions like the Space Marines, something marking apart the talents of a series with so many praised and lauded (or despised) warlords and monastic butchers gives the reader in particular something to consider. Being a prodigy, being augmented to fight in a superior manner gives an enjoyable sense of power fantasy, but showing the history of a character, and their connection to their environment gives a reason for their ability under pressure, and this affinity drags readers a little deeper into the immersion.

A curious linguistic touch and differing emphasis comes from the older 40K works such as the Night Lords omnibus. To the Chaos Space Marines, preysight is a trick, a means to dangle above enemies they terrify for sustenance as much as enjoyment. The angels of Caliban are the prey, it being stressed often that no matter how impressive they seem, every knight or transhuman warrior can be killed and they face nothing less than terrifying enemies. Lord of the First illustrates this very well, the pride of the First Legion must constantly be assuaged and dampened before it ruins the warriors prone to arrogance and folly, they are fantastically impressive and unique soldiers but ones that face enemies horrifying and unfathomable in their Lovecraftian malice. Primal knowledge, intuiting what to do and developing technology informed by survival is as much a secret as the Lion being one of the few demigods to know and internalised a mindset as ‘prey’.

In knowing vulnerability, in being described as tasting the air or contemplating his environment, the sense of threat and immediacy is conveyed on a visceral level. Genius is entertaining to describe, but unfathomable for most of mankind. But a warrior raised in a terrible forest, used to evil creatures in the trees? It triggers the same thing we feel watching a horror movie. Not the fear I find, but that often the formula for a killer villain is to be defeated in tandem with the protagonist acquiring courage and reserves of tenacity (seminal examples in film being Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, and in gaming James Sunderland and Heather Mason.

In relatively recent literary fare, Lord of the First, and Dreadwing bring this element into greater focus and one I enjoy. It is not about being the best, the oldest, having weapons or warpcraft but understanding, the wisdom of being able to listen. To smell and see and visualise the plight of a seagull, much like the spirit behind the ciphers make them strong. In 40K the Dark Angel’s secrecy and esoteric knowledge is a mire of spiritual corruption, a gaudy, ugly, and unconvincing mask for the penance they drag with hem at the expense of their efficiency (and also at the expense of original or very good novels, even fans can agree the Fallen focus has become something stale and limiting for the faction). There is an intriguing irony and aesthetic for secretive and directly stated to be ‘dark’ angels, numinous servants of destruction, but perhaps not spiritually pure in action. However, this fall, as with the case of their number who fell becomes more resonant when stories show what was before this fall. After all, before factionalism, people who drifted apart were at a time allies and friends.

There is a great market for the prequel, the idea of non-flagellating, but proud warriors, those who possessed martial glory and purpose akin to The Round Table. Knights bearing the fall of their home and decline of their dignity, but were full of promise, possessed of great deeds, beloved of others and linked to the fey and beautiful natural world far before our time.

A wider meta arc seems to be emerging also, from the absurdist and embittered search to expunge a Sisyphean shame, to awareness of greater power from realisation of both the environment, and more importantly the self. Vanity and pride being expressly the literal cause of a loss of prestige and life,

With the advent of Arks of Omen and Luther: First of the Fallen, rich opportunity has emerged within 40K to bring out Graalic imagery and a change of artistic direction. And as well as inventing a great many science fiction and fantastical cultures, the new direction for the Dark Angels highlights Black Library’s drawing of archetypical imagery, primal urges and most of all glorifying the compartmentalisation of emotional drives in the pursuit of duty, the merit of focus to show a defiant and often victorious faction rise further in popularity and prominence by virtue of their mental and physical awareness.