Dark Angels in 6th Edition Part 4: Brothers in Arms

Old School here, if you plan to take the Dark Angels as your main detachment or as an ally, there are some great options now and we are Brothers in Arms with some that offer us a good boost. I will be covering Brothers in Arms in this post and will follow this up with a very brief post later concerning other allied options, but that post may not come for some time. As always with these early 6th edition posts, I am not an expert and I think there is much to be learned from discussion as this is a new game for all of us at this point. I don't want to waste your time building it up any more, so here we go ...

Guard

Guard Platoons backed by Ezekiel's Fearless bubble can add numbers and small arms fire to a Deathwing Force and with divination, they can really lay the hurt down on anything that gets near your objectives. The Guard also give us the option to take a Vendetta and/or a Hydra for air defense, Manticores, which are now really scary for tanks as well as infantry, a Hell hound platform and all of it's options to help us deal with hordes better. They also offer other specialised units that otherwise would be hard for the Dark Angels to replicate within our codex.

If you took Guard as your main detachment, a squad or two of Deathwing Termies with Belial would be a good CC support choice, while bikes may add mobile melta or plasma to the list with the resiliencey of wounds vice hull..

A hobbyist could even model these units as Steel Legion and have an Armageddon themed army - or with Krieg to have a Siege of Vraks theme! The Deathwing and guard appear in a number of stories throughout the fluff, so there is plenty to draw from.

Codex Marines

The Codex Space Marines gives us the option for cheap (scoring) scouts and access to Null Zone, which is a real boost for Deathwing units on the front lines as well as any of our units trying to shoot down tough invul save units. We can also pull cheaper versions of our own gear from these books, like any of the tanks (looking at the predator here). We would also gain access the the Storm Talon for anti-flier/ anti-infantry fire, in which case either can be useful. Codex Marines can also take the mighty biker captain, his biker command squad of doom and bikes as troops if we wanted to do a Deathwing/ Ravenwing list with Codex bikers replacing our own Ravenwing.

For people who take Codex Marines as their main detachment, we don't really bring a lot to the table as allies. They have better bikers, better psykers, better general tanks ect. What we can give them is scoring terminators through Belial and a cheap typhoon speeder from the FA slot. That is really all I can see, please let me know if there is more.

A hobbyist could even theme the allied detachement as a Dark Angel Successor Chapter looking to help their brothers and could really add to the overall theme of the army! The Angels of Absolution are a great chapter to use for this purpose as they fall under the Dark Angels successor organization, but also adhere closely to the Codex Astartes and beleive they are forgiven.

Blood Angels
Blood Angels are another great Brother in Arms. A couple units of Assault Marines can add mobility and added killing power to our units (think about what I said about using Ravenwing to support Deathwing, the same hammer and anvil idea applies). The Storm Raven adds some air defense/ superiority to our force (though at a premium). I have found that is something our forces could really use right now. The tanks again are something for us to examine here with the Baal Predator, though much of the BA inventory comes with premiums on it. The Librarians can also be very useful as well since they are better than ours (in terms of LD, price and number of/ quality of powers) and can join our squads. If you are already playing Deathwing, I wouldn't go too crazy on killy units like Death Company since we have scoring, fearless terminators afterall, but I could see Ravenwing messing around with some of the more violent options in the BA codex.

I could really see a Deathwing load out with ravenwing speeders, two BA assault squads, a BA libby in terminator armor and maybe a unit of BA attack bikes or a BA command squad. Mephiston is also a half way decent fellow to take as he can be a huge distraction for the enemy.

Players who take BA as the primary detachment are in much the same situation as Codex Marine players. BA has great mobility built into their army, so they really don't need Ravenwing. Our greenwing options are really overpriced or not efficient, so we find ourselves back at scoring Deathwing and maybe a cheap speeder ... this is pretty much going to get whored out, especially in ally netlists.

This is a chance for old school hobbyists to revisit the Angels of Death codex! BA and Dark ANgels on the field together offers up so many nice color pallettes on the field. You could also go the successor chapter route, but I really would love to see some true Blood Angels standing shoulder to shoulder with their Dark Angel brothers.

Black Templar

Black Templars are much like us in the fact that they are an older codex and have many of the same shortcomings we do, along with some that are unique to them. The Emperor's Champion tax is a little bit of a drag when taking them as allies. They can give you access to small units of tac marines with heavy and special weapons, but I am not sure how beneficial that may be to us. I honestly don't know enough about Templars as I haven't played with them at all and have only played against them a handful of times outside of 4th edition. If somebody would like to provide their own analysis in the comments, that would be great.

That is all for today. Allies offer us a chance to fill gaps in our forces, add to others and field some really great looking armies. I would love to hear what you all think of our possible Brothers in Arms allies. The next DA in 6th Ed article will cover the rest of our allies. I would love to hear what you all think, so fire away.