Donatos Aphael

Gaze upon space Abhorash and rejoice bretheren!

Also known as Doritos Aphael.

Donatos Aphael is basically space Abhorash. In a company of Space Blood Dragons. No jokes--and it is glorious. It says something about the Blood Angels that he's their version of Cato Sicarius, and is still a fucking badass.

A proud keeper of 2nd company traditions of the Blood Angels, he is a member of a group known as The Blooded, a brotherhood within a brotherhood whose traditions go back all the way back to just after the Scouring. Now the Blood Dragon bit. Each brother is encouraged to lose himself completely to the Red Thirst and defeat a worthy foes, preferably a Traitor. Sound familiar yet?

After doing so the Bretheren who successfully complete this task must claw their way back from the blood frenzy. In doing so, granting them near complete control over the blood rage inside them. Whereas when others give themselves to the rage they are merely a frenzied berzerker a member of the Blooded however gains the wherewithal to focus his rage, and while his body gains all the benefits of the Red Thirst, his mind remains his own. With this new control it is natural that the 2nd company has the least instances of the Black Rage within the chapter. Which definitely has Corbulo's attention.

So that's it about the company, now how about their commander?

An exceptional battlefield commander and exemplar to his Battle-Brothers, Aphael's perfect features hide a tormented soul. All Blood Angels wrestle with the Red Thirst, their skill in battle and tempered aggression rightly interwoven with the genetic flaw that slumbers in their flesh. Before his Blooding, Aphael was on a path often dictated by the Red Thirst. In almost every battle the blood rage robbed him of his senses, sending him howling into his foes. Each time the Captain had been able to claw himself back from the edge of madness, but each time the recovery grew harder. Perhaps this was why Aphael was placed in command of the 2nd Company, as Lord Commander Dante recognized a great leader in Donatos and was loath to lose him to the ravages of the Red Thirst. Fortunately, the Chapter Master's faith was well founded, and in time Donatos would rise to the Captaincy of the 2nd Company, with the responsibility of leadership and the sacrosanct traditions of the Blooded to guide him. However, it remains a fine line between control and madness, one Aphael must face whenever he leads his brothers to battle.

Under his leadership the Blooded have known many great victories over the enemies of the Emperor, and in recent years Dante has come to favour the 2nd Company for those war zones of greatest importance to the Chapter.

It was Aphael and the Blooded that were dispatched when the mineral-rich Grimmok Sector was invaded by the Space Commies. On worlds of ash and sand, the Blood Angels 2nd Company fought a war of attack and counter-attack, striking the xenos in swift and bloody ambushes and withdrawing before the Tau could muster their full might. The Blue idiots came to believe Aphael's force was much larger than the hundred Space Marines present in actuality, the smoking fields of dead Fire Warriors (who probably tried to cqc the Blood Angels) and gutted Devilfish (who...hmm...damn that's just impressive) left in their wake seemingly the work of a massive army of the Imperium. For five long months the Blooded blunted the advance of the Tau armies into the Grimmok Sector, ripping apart the xenos piece by piece until their leaders acknowledged that their losses were unsustainable and their counter-measures ineffective, and ultimately retreated before the might of the Blood Angels. So lets get this straight. 100 dudes in BRIGHT RED ARMOUR managed to out-think, out-maneuver, and altogether out-fight an armed force easily 100 times their fighting strength or more. And not only managed to survive, Rip and Tear but beat them so hard at their own game that the enemy retreated.

Despite his strong, youthful appearance, Captain Aphael is a veteran of countless bloody campaigns and bitter wars. When Aphael and the Blooded fought alongside the Astral Knights against the Necron World Engine, the Captain gained a new hatred for the ancient aliens. Victory came only when the Astral Knights sacrificed themselves to destroy the xenos space station, and Aphael was among those that would call for the creation of a monument to the fallen Chapter and their sacrifice, cementing his status as a complete and total bro, even amongst a chapter of bro's. The battle-brothers present that day recall the cold rage in their Captain's eyes as the shattered remains of the Astral Knights' Battle Barge were driven into the ash wastes of Safehold as a towering tombstone to the vanquished Chapter.

On the Tabletop

As Captain Aphael doesn't have any true rules yet you can try to make some fluffy assertions when making a Company Captain HQ:

• He has Artificer Armour as any captain worth his salt should (nipple armour no less)
• His sword, the Blade of the Blooded is supposedly master crafted relic--so stick him with a +2 str -3 ap D3 Damage relic sword and a plasma pistol that can overcharge and re-roll due to his aura and rock and roll with that.
• For his standard Warlord trait you can infer two things from his backstory: A.) he used to have rage issues before his Blooding, so that could justify spending a CP on giving him the Death Visions of Sanguinius just for a fluffy way to make him more killy along with the Red Thirst OR B.) supported by his fluff from fighting the Tau he probably has Speed of the Primarch, judging by how quickly he devastated their forces before forcing the xenos to withdraw.

A proper fluffy choice for a relic would be the Veritas Vitae, since he's a Captain and one of the most active of the bunch.