Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: ‘Codex Dark Angels’ 10th Edition Review – Good, Bad, and Ugly
Goatboy here with a nice little peek inside the pages of the new Dark Angels codex. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.
Is the new book a Codex, or is it a Dark Angels Supplement? All I know is it is more rules that are getting added to 40K with an actual decent amount of new models added to the environment. Heck, come to think of it is a lot of models. Which, of course, is an interesting thing for such a smallish Codex when compared to the other ones we have had.
This isn’t a bad thing, as the Marine Codexes are a rather large part of this game. If we added a ton more Marine stuff – well, it would start to get even more bloated. Thankfully this Codex is very streamlined, simplified, and really emphasizes the basic nature of Dark Angels. Or Dank Angles if you are a cool kid. This Codex is all about the secretive chapter of secret holders who want to keep silent about a bunch of secrets while wearing secretive robes in the service of their Secretive Boomer Lion Daddy.
As usual, the review goes into the good, the bad, and the ugly from the new 10th Edition Codex Dark Angels while not digging too deeply into each part of the codex. The unanswered question here is really: is this going to be a book that makes me build a bunch of Terminators or not?
Before diving in, I did build the new Deathwing Knights and Belial from the new Dark Angels Set. Both of the kits are pretty nice, with a decent amount of parts. They weren’t too hard to put together, which is a good thing after helping build some AoS nonsense. I like the new Deathwing Knights as they felt chunky like the new Terminator kits and still had this threatening feel to them. I really like the updated design on the latest kits that feel like a true threat to whoever they are walking up on.
Codex Dark Angels: The Good
First of all it is a new Codex and we have a ton of future codexes to get through. That is a good thing, too, as it is a “Marine” supplement as well, which gives us a lot of info on what to expect when we see Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and most likely Deathwatch in the future. This Codex is streamlined, emphasizing three ways to play this army, and overall feels pretty good. There isn’t anything back breaking in the rules which I think is a good thing. Heck, we are reaching a really nice balance point right now, so with this book, not wrecking their biggest army for new players to play with is a good thing.
Overall we got three detachments that range from regular Green Dark Angels, Big Fat Boy White Dark Angels, and those that like to go vroom vroom Black Dark Angels. This is very simple, and I expect we will see something similar in all the other Marine Codexes with things like Death Obsessed Blood Angels and Wolf Daddy Space Wolves in the future. All three Dark Angels flavors are interesting. While they won’t be breaking the hold that regular Marine Vanguard detachment currently has on the Marine meta, it at least gives you something to build a themed force around.
Unit wise, we do have some Deathwing Knights to play with, Deathwing Terminators, and we could always look at regular Terminators as well. This is all pretty cool when building out a Deathwing force if you wanted too. Especially with that new box set giving you 15 Terminators and Belial to work with. I kinda wish Belial had more options to create a Terminator Captain out of. That way you could buy more than one box to really set up your army.
Dark Angel Detachments
You have 3 Detachments – Unforgiven Task Force from the Index, Inner Circle Task Force (aka Fat Boi Detachment), and Company of Hunters (Vroom Vroom). They each have rules that emphasize their unit type, and we see one that actually changes something to have Battleline that didn’t have it before. It isn’t the Terminator one it is the Company of Hunters that lets your Outriders gain the Battleline Keyword. I like this as, again, it was a space within the rules development that could be interesting and maybe one of the ways to make things unique in the future. We’ll just have to see if that continues.
Each Detachment has its own updated Rules as usual. The Unforgiven keep their weird even Battleshocked they have OC and a lot of things that chain off of being Battleshocked. The Inner Circle Task force has a pick an objectives to be Vowed and if you target things that control it you can get some sweet bonuses as needed. The Company of Hunters allows you to always shoot if you advance/fallback but not charge. Again lots of rules that activate off of being Ravenwing etc.
A lot of things get new Keywords too if they are from Dark Angels. Anything mounted or a vehicle that can fly gains Ravenwing. Deathwing goes to any Terminator units, Veteran units, Land Raiders, Repulsors, and Dreadnoughts. This is all pretty simple and matches up with what we had before and thus helps show you what activates in the other detachments.
Each of the Detachments has Armour of Contempt to use and then a set of five others that match up to their army and unit type that is chosen for them. The Company of Hunters has a ton of movement tricks within their Strats and enhancements. The Scout move enhancement and advance and charge seems good. The Inner circle has strats and enhancements that help out your Terminators by making them tougher, teleport closer, and just be a bit more pain in the butt. The Unforgiven is the default one with a lot of weird Battleshocked options and just a mixture of damage to protection.
Codex Dark Angels: The Bad
Now there is some bad in all of this. I think they are really missing a Ravenwing-like “build-your-own-Master” in this codex. I still think we will see a Bike Captain at some point but it really feels like a major miss in this book. The Talonmaster is now gone as well. I had hopes we would see the new speeder updated with some of the Dark Angel bits you get from their upgrade sprue. I also feel like it is kind of a shame the Deathwing Knights are only a five-man squad as well. Because you could do some work with a fat unit of ten teleporting close to your zone and sitting there daring you to charge/deal with them.
It is always weird to see a supplement-like release with this much support showing up when we have so many books we would love to see fixed. I know CSM is coming soon, and I expect a lot of things to get updated there. But wouldn’t a nice Aeldari release be cool to clean up that mess quickly? I also wonder if we could have had other Marine releases too with bits that fill out the missing “big-ified” units like Assault Terminators and maybe specialized Vanguard-like vets for the BA and other cool Space Wolf stuff? I am just thinking from the standpoint of getting everyone a Codex it would be nice to see some of the smaller armies pushed out and updated quickly.
Codex Dark Angels: The Ugly
I can’t believe they didn’t do an updated Sammeal model, as tthe current one is just – just sooo old. The same with the Ezekiel model. I was wondering if some more would get cut but it looks like the Talonmaster was the big one due to the old Land Speeder models getting sunsetting into the Legends universe.
Also, why are the Inner Circle Companions saddled with an AP -1 sword? Those things look badass, and they should be at least AP-2. Having something that can be negated easily by a strat just doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. It feels like GW is just threatened by Marine close combat so much they have to hit so many of their attacks with the Dreaded AP -1. The Lion is still a beast too. But he lost his -1 to wound which is another head scratcher. This guy looks awesome, but he isn’t a focal point of the DA army like some of the other Primarchs are. I would almost wish they amped him up more to make his cost relevant.
Gone but not forgotten…
The other thing missing is where are the old “Terminator” helper characters? Do I dare say we need another Lt. model for this army? Would that be helpful. They lost the Talonmaster, Strikemaster, and even the dude that makes the best coffee. What will the Dark Angels do to cover some of these missing pieces? Sheesh I guess we do need more Primaris Terminator Lt leaders of the dance.
Speaking of points, are the ones listed in this book changing like all the others? This book is going to come out right when a balance update/point change is coming. So at this point why even have the points? Just have a QR code listed in the book that any player can go to and find instead of printing points that are invalidated quickly after the release. It makes it hard to plan stuff as things can shift and change so quickly, from a points standpoint.
Overall I think Codex: Dark Angels is alright which a really strong model release mixed with some ok rules. We’ll see if it shifts that game a bit but I feel these detachments do better for the people wanting to play “Deathwing”.
