Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Dark Angels (section)

===Apocalypse Only Units===
* '''[[Fellblade]]''' - This is your THIRTEEN BARRELS OF HELL, + 1BS.The Fellblade mounts a turret mounted twin 'accelerator cannon' which can fire either high explosive rounds (100" range, S8 AP3 ord1 7" blast) or armour piercing shells (100" range, heavy 1, S9 AP2, Armourbane, 3" blast). Add to that 2 quad lascannons, a twin heavy bolter and a hull demolisher cannon and you have an absolutely rapetastic monster.

*'''[[Thunderhawk|Thunderhawk Gunship]]''' - There is only one reason why you don't already have one, it costs a shitload of cash(£399), apart from this... small price... the Thunderhawk has virtually no downsides, at 700 points it's certainly expensive, and it doesn't have much armour (12,12,10) but it does have 3 structure points and is immune to the 'melta' special rule. It's title of gunship is well deserved, it has a turbo laser (yes a fucking strength D weapon with a 5" blast!!!), four twin-linked heavy Bolters, two Lascannons and 6 weapon pylons, which can contain bombs or Hellstrike missiles. It also has a "modest" transport capacity of 30, so you can hold an entire 10 man squad of Terminators in this thing AND a techmarine and servitors to keep the thing running (they ARE allowed to repair vehicles they're embarked on, awesome). You will almost never field more than one of these, fortunately, you only need one. The best way to use this vehicle is to get close combat Terminators right into the middle of the enemy's most dangerous shooting formation, then use the fearsome weapons on the gunship to destroy enemy vehicles that can insta-kill your guys, allowing your Terminators to destroy the shooty infantry and keep your grunts alive. Used properly this vehicle WILL make your opponent shit bricks, used improperly, it will do nothing but die uselessly as it gets pummeled by 700 points worth of enemy lascannons, rockets, missiles, battle cannon and lances, then it will explode and take the most of the rest of your army with it, because of this NEVER EVER keep it static, it's tempting to just hang back and pummel the enemies vehicles with the turbo laser, but don't.

*'''[[Thunderhawk|Thunderhawk Transporter]]''' - Get this if you if you have a burning desire to kneel down and sacrifice your money to the [[Chaos|gods of Games Workshop]]. It costs the same amount of cash as the regular thunderhawk, and you'll probably end up wishing you had one of those instead. It's not that the transporter is awful, the ability to fly in a [[Blood Angels|loaded up land raider and place it where you want]] is [[Awesome|cool]], you can even scoop up other vehicles while in hover mode without having to cease your movement. But unless you are playing on REALLY big gaming tables ''(we're talking the same size of games where Earthshaker guns run out of range.)'', there's no real need to do this and your Thunderhawk itself doesn't have much else to do with only a few heavybolters for its defense. Just get the regular Thunderhawk and for now and you'll feel less guilty.

*'''[[Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer]]''' - An odd superheavy tank. Its weapon is S10 AP1, but has no blast, so if you miss there's no consolation prize by accidentally wiping out a nearby unit ''(it is twin linked, so you're unlikely to miss)''. However, whatever it hits is [[rape|raped]]. It fires D3 shots every time it fires and anything that somehow survives a penetrating hit from it can only snap-fire next turn (including other superheavies... neutering that poor [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|emperor class titan]].) but if it fails a penetrate ROLL ''(glances are fine)'' or to-wound its target ''(remember it's a primary weapon, so already gets re-rolls)'', it instead damages itself by an automatic hull point on a further roll of 1. It can be given the standard predator sponsons or pintle mounted heavy weapons, but you're probably going to want to load up on anti-tank and leave anti infantry to your other units.

*'''[[Typhon Heavy Siege Tank]]''' - It's a giant vindicator. Cheaper and better armoured than the Fellblade and more reliable than the Cerberus. It fires off a 7" Blast S10 AP1 weapon, which ignores cover, and so will erase entire units on 2s unless they have invulnerable saves. Can also be equipped with sponsons like a predator and pintlemounted options including heavy bolters, or a multi-melta. And unlike the Cerberus, since your main gun doesn't fill an uber specialised role you can choose what you want and split your fire to shoot in all directions and pick your targets by relevance. Also give it armoured ceramite so it can never be killed by melta & lances.

*'''Masters of the Chapter''' - Azrael + 4-10 Captains + ''"Honour Guard"''. From the outset, this doesn't look like theres a lot going for it. Azrael's Lion Helm is made redundant since all the captains have Iron Halos, and unlike Codex Carines you don't get uber wargear to beef up your captains. However, since you don't have Honour Guard the same way as Codex Marines or Blood Angels do, you can improvise with the next best thing ("Forging the Narrative" in Apocalypse suggests taking the closest relevant unit)... ie: [[Deathwing|a Deathwing Command Squad]]. This is actually considerably harder now, since they all get 4++ saves from Azrael ''(saving some expense if you don't want Storm Shields)'', Feel No Pain from an Apothecary and use of good Standards and Champions.  Just don't add Sammael to the formation since it will screw him over.

*'''[[Deathwing|Deathwing Redemption Force]]''' - Belial and 6 Squads of regular Deathwing & 4 Squads of Deathwing Knights. This is one of the most badass formations available. You don't need "full" squads, so can get away with having a formation of around 50 men ''(which is therefore smaller than the 1st company formation)''. EVERYONE in the formation gets Rending USR on ALL attacks, shooting and melee, making them horrifying. Also, no-one can take look-out-sir rolls against this formation, so there is literally no-where to hide from these guys.

*'''[[Ravenwing|Ravenwing Huntmasters]]''' - 5 FULL Ravenqing Attack squadrons + 1 squad of Black Knights + as many Darkshrouds as you like. Both of the shrouds effect ranges are doubled for the game and also you may turbo-boost and still shoot once per game. It's an okay formation if you have enough Ravenwing, which is the problem. Thats a lot of bikes.

*'''Talon of Vengeance (Pandorax)''' - Even a dedicated apocalypse formation can't save Dark Angels from how poor their flyers are... You get 1 Nephilim and 2-4 Dark Talons. The Nephilim does nothing here, and the Dark Talons can combo their stasis bombs to lock enemy units out of the game temporarily. The length of time depending on how many bombs hit the unit. This formation isn't really worth it unless you're dropping all those bombs on a Reaver Titan or better to freeze it out of the game for a turn. The problem is that you only get one bomb per talon and the pay-off really doesn't change the game in any meaningful sense. ''Should have had greater effect like freezing units out permanently like Lukas the Trickster''

*'''Thunderhead Squadron (Pandorax)''' - 3 Darkshrouds, 1+ Vengeance & 1+ Support Squadron. Whenever 2 Shrouds are within 6" of each other your opponent will not be allowed to draw line of sight through the space between them. This is also close enough to grant stealth to each other for 2+ cover saves just by moving. In addition the whole formation gets shrouded and scout regardless of their position, so can be pretty cool.

*'''Suppression Force (Damnos)''' - Worth a good mention since you get 2+ Whirlwinds and a Land Speeder of your choice. Considering you get some pretty cool Land Speeder options, you could go with a Darkshroud for some survivability along with your unlimited range / twin-linked / double-shot Whirlwinds. Or you could go one better and take the Ravenwing Grand-Master's Land Speeder for AV14 & 4++ and its own twin-linked weapons.