STARTING A DARK ANGELS ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: ROBES, RELICS AND UNFORGIVEN SECRETS
The Dark Angels are the Unforgiven: robed knights in bone and black beside dark green battle-lines, hunting the Fallen for ten thousand years. This page covers the first Combat Patrol, the Deathwing and Ravenwing boxes that follow, and when to buy the Lion.
Green over black, bone on the robes
Start with the current Dark Angels Combat Patrol. Starters for this chapter build around power-armoured infantry, Intercessors or their kin, with a character to lead them, and the chapter's upgrade parts (robed torsos, winged icons, censers) do the work of making them Unforgiven rather than generic. Paint that first squad before anything else arrives. Deep green over a black undercoat, a controlled highlight, bone on the robes and a red accent: a forgiving scheme that rewards patience without demanding brilliance, and the finished squad looks like it stepped out of a stained-glass window. Every squad hints at ten thousand years of unfinished business.
Deathwing, Ravenwing, Azrael
The chapter's structure of battle company, Deathwing and Ravenwing gives your purchases a shape most armies lack; you are recruiting wings of an order rather than buying boxes. Deathwing Knights are the iconic second box: Terminators in bone, maces raised, the most knightly models in the Space Marine range. Ravenwing Black Knights answer them in jet black on bikes, all speed and plasma. One box of each puts all three wings on the table, and painting bone, green and black side by side keeps the project fresh. When you want a leader, Azrael, Supreme Grand Master, looks like he owns every secret in the room, because he does.
Recommended: Deathwing Knights
Recommended: Ravenwing Black Knights
The Lion comes last
There is one honest answer: Lion El'Jonson. The returned primarch is a magnificent kit, a cloaked swordsman you will want on a shelf between games. He is also a serious painting project, so treat him as the reward you start once the first thousand points are finished, never the box you open first. If you would rather work up to him, a Redemptor-pattern Dreadnought in chapter colours makes a fine interim monument.
Recommended: Redemptor Dreadnought
Check the box before you commit
11th edition refreshed points and datasheets, and starter boxes rotate with it. Look at the current contents and current points before you settle on a list. Buy the models you love, since the numbers change under any list either way.
Not yet, Unforgiven
- A second Ravenwing squadron before the first has its wheels painted. Grey bikes win no races.
- Every named character at once. The Inner Circle admits one candidate at a time.
- Duplicate Deathwing units because a tournament list said so. Learn the army first, specialise later.
- Any transport bought before you own something worth transporting.
The archives of the Rock
The Unforgiven have hunted the Fallen for ten millennia because somebody kept immaculate records. Log each kit the day it reaches you and state its condition: boxed, built or finished. That ledger tells you what to paint next instead of what to buy next, and watching the finished column grow is the best motivation in the hobby. The full sweep of what the chapter fields, from Scouts to the Lion himself, is on the Dark Angels faction page under Data.