Warhammer 40,000

The Dark Angels' arch-enemies are Other Dark Angels. They've built their entire combat doctrine around it, especially the "sorry to leave you to die but someone who screwed us ten millennia ago is on the planet and we need to hurt them" part.

Several, including Shadow Archetype, Evil Counterpart, Not So Different, and some variants of Foil.

Each of the original legions has a mirror and archenemy on the other side-not a perfect fit, but something that has been played up in recent books. Not a perfect 1-1 ratio, but accurate enough. Mirrored Traits are internal, based on Legion psychology; Archenemies are more based on actions During the Great Crusade and Heresy.

Blood Angels: Mirror-World Eaters, Archenemy-World Eaters, Black Legion

Dark Angels: Mirror-Thousand Sons, Archenemy-Night Lords/The Fallen/Themselves/Everyone

Imperial Fists: Mirror-Word Bearers, Archenemy-Iron Warriors

Iron Hands: Mirror-Emperor's Children, Archenemy-Emperor's Children

Raven Guard: Mirror-Alpha Legion, Archenemy-Death Guard

Salamanders: Mirror-Death Guard, Archenemy-Death Guard

Space Wolves: Mirror-Night Lords, Archenemy-Thousand Sons

Ultramarines: Mirror-Black Legion, Archenemy-Word Bearers

White Scars: Mirror-Iron Warriors, Archenemy-Alpha Legion

edited 26th Sep '16 2:28:31 PM by ViperMagnum357

Dark Angels are forever loyal to the Emperor and in no way shape or form are against themselves, the Imperium or their faith in the Emperor. Only hate & righteous vengeance for the other legions' treasonous battle brothers.

The Lion and his chapter are loyal to the Emperor, but the Dark Angels are one of the foremost leaders of friendly fire in the Imperium. Their numerous spats with other imperials are largely the result of the chapter unable to get out of its own way, picking fights and coming dangerously close to be declared Excommunicate Traitoris for their actions; and this is just what the Inquisition knows about. They have killed not just witnesses and bystanders but allied Astartes and Inquisition forces whenever a Fallen rumor surfaces, and have left numerous allied fleets, armies and entire Imperial planets to burn. It has been flat out stated they would have been declared Perdita had they not been a first founding chapter, and the Ordo Malleus apparently has enough on them to kill them all at the drop of a hat; choosing to blackmail them for assistance instead. The majority of chapters outside their descendants have no interest in working with them, most everyone else who does work with them lodges legitimate complaints; and they have an ongoing cold war with the Imperial Navy due to the composition of their fleets and extensive use of Nova Frigates. They keep in the good graces of everyone by the bare minimum and often not even then, and fill the gaps playing off their reputation and pedigree as the first Legion.

If that is not being your own worst enemy and reflecting that outwards, I don't know what is.

The Dark Angels' priorities don't really support the idea that they're faultlessly loyal to the Imperium. Those priorities are, based on their tactical doctrines, arranged as follows:

1. Kill the Fallen.
2. Defend the Imperium.

Their first loyalty is to the Dark Angels. They are loyal to the Imperium only when it does not prevent them from executing their Legion's pet objective, and go against Imperial interests without a trace of hesitation whenever doing so serves that objective.

The Angels of Darkness novel is very interesting on this subject. Which makes me all the angrier for losing my copy.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Actually, their first priority is not "Kill the Fallen", but rather "Earn forgiveness from the Emperor". The "Kill the Fallen" part is simply what they believe is the only way of earning the Emperor's forgiveness.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Its not the best image, but this◊ likely cost someone their job. This is November's White Dwarf, after all.

So, 30K Custodes/SoS/Space Wolves vs Thousand Sons

edited 27th Sep '16 5:24:45 AM by Zeromaeus

we have to remenber a lot of rivarly was introduce in heresy novles rather than old canon, for example word bearars-ultramarine,white scar-death guard,etc

tactic wise, Night lord are counter of Raven guard, displaying themselve openly and using fear to strike their enemy while guard try to avoid unecesary casualties, story wise their rival are Dark angels

with Aplha legion is hard to said, old fluff have Alpharius having quarrel with Corax, oth for being last primarch and him being control freak and overal a WH 40 K lex luthor, consider the whole cabal buissness

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Sorry, when was Sisters of Silence confirmed? Because they're not in that picture (it's been around a while).

@Marq: But the fact that they consider earning their personal absolution more important than saving countless lives and possibly entire planets kinda brings us right back to "the Dark Angels consider their Chapter more important than the Imperium as a whole".

because if someone find out, all that mean shit to the imperium

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Whereas apparently having a reputation going back nearly ten thousand years for abandoning critical battlefields for no reason, leaving strategic linchpins undefended without explanation, and occasionally murdering a whole bunch of allies on shaky grounds, leading to massive avoidable casualties and the occasional loss of entire planets is just peachy fine.

Is dickish but not uncomon, if they find they did because his force where THIS close to side with warmaster(or so they think) them....yeah

the dark angel are case of burning the evidence up to eleven(because of course it is)

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

But, again, we come back to the Dark Angels putting what's good for them (burned evidence) over what's good for the Imperium (the Dark Angels actually doing their damn job).

because if the imperium find the evidence, they will fucking die, every,single,one,of,them for a crime they didnt comit

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Of course some of the more recent fluff indicates the Grey Knights know about the fallen but don't care as long as the remaining Dark Angels remain loyal.

No they wouldn't.

Let's take an example here: the Badab War. Lufgt Huron's Astral Claws seized control of Badab, fired on Imperial ships, and declared themselves independent. Several Space Marine chapters openly declared themselves for him, and fought for his independence. After surrendering, these Space Marine chapters were not, in fact, slaughtered to the last man: they were told to shape up and sent on lengthy penitent crusades, with only the Astral Claws actively hunted down (they're known as the Red Corsairs today).

Additionally, the "evidence" in this case has something like an 80% chance of being dismissed as the ravings of a heretical agitator. It's word of mouth from someone who's too young to be a witness and/or is actively leading a band of Chaos Space Marines against the Imperium - not the most reliable of sources.

Essentially, a Space Marine Chapter is a valuable thing, and most of the time the Imperium doesn't slaughter them for virtually no reason (yes, there are very occasional exceptions). This goes double for First Founding. If the Dark Angels need to be afraid of being slaughtered en masse for something, it should probably be their ten thousand year history of open and unapologetic dereliction of duty.

Seriously. The Space Wolves were able to get away with defying the Inquisition because of their status as a First Founding chapter.

Well, there's also the fact that Bjorn the Fell-handed literally fought alongside the Emperor as well.

He knew the Imperium's god, maybe not personally, but saw him with his own eyes while he was still in his prime.

edited 27th Sep '16 1:40:06 PM by BlackSunNocturne

The Space Wolves probably get more slack because of their consistent loyalty to the Imperium as a whole (though not its institutions) both during the Horus Heresy and over the following 10 millennia. The whole Armageddon fiasco happened after all that.

They're still loyal to the Emperor, though. And AFAIK they hate the idea of letting Chaos actually destroying/crippling the Imperium for good even more than letting the Fallen get away; it's just that there's little that happened that falls into the former category.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

To be fair, being loyal to emperor but not imperium is fairly recuent theme with space marines, that is why they dont care about state of things right now

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

For the Dark Angels, it's largely about their ego, yeah. They're not treacherous, no, but they sure do think clearing their name is so much more fucking important than anything else.

To be fair, they probably operate under the belief that had the Fall never happened (which, according to some Fallen, happened because they believed Lion had betrayed the Emperor by waiting for a clear victor between him and Horus to become apparent before joining forces with said winner), they would've been able to arrive to Terra earlier than they had and with more fighting power, thus the Imperial victory over Horus and co. wouldn't have been so nigh-pyrrhic. Horus enacted his gambit because he was rightly afraid the imminently arriving Ultramarines, Dark Angels (post-Fall), and Space Wolves would deny him victory; what would've happened had the Dark Angels began moving towards Terra even earlier?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Speaking of the Fallen, has anyone read the old novel Eye of Terror by Barrington J. Bayley? It is quite an interesting story that has one plot threat involving a Dark Angel from the outbreak of the Heresy getting lost in the Warp and going into a sas-an coma. He wakes up to find himself in the 41st millennium and the first person he meets is one of the Fallen who attempts to turn him to Chaos.