LEGION I DARK ANGELS
Loyalist Legion
The Dark Angels were the first of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions, and in their earliest incarnation fought as the personal army of the Master of Humanity in the dawning years of the Great Crusade and in the shadowed campaigns that preceded it.
Primarch Lion El'Jonson
Lion El'Jonson, known also by the cognomen, "The First," and the honourific "Primaris Angelus Mortis," and often times referred to as The Lion during his lifetime, was the Primarch of the Ist Legion of Space Marines, the Dark Angels. Following the events of the Horus Heresy, Jonson and his Crusading fleet returned to his homeworld of Caliban. Inexplicably, they were fired upon by the Dark Angel forces garrisoned there under the command of his once-trusted mentor and surrogate father, Luther, who had been entrusted with the custodianship of Caliban in The Lion's absence. Luther would eventually betray the Lion after allowing himself to be seduced by the offers of Chaos, rallying a good portion of the Dark Angels who had been left behind by their fellows to garrison the Legion's homeworld to his cause and attacking the Lion's fleet as he returned to Caliban.
The titanic struggle between the two former friends resulted in the destruction of Caliban and the loss of the Dark Angels' Primarch, as well as the escape of Luther's allies who had sided with the Ruinous Powers. Known as the Fallen Angels amongst their former Battle-Brothers of the Ist Legion, it became the overriding goal of the Dark Angels and all of their Successor Chapters (collectively known as the Unforgiven) after the Second Founding to hunt down every one of the Fallen and get them to repent their betrayal of the Emperor and of The Lion. Perhaps one of the greatest secrets of the Imperium of Man, known only to the Emperor Himself, is that The Lion is still alive and resting in stasis, buried deep within the Dark Angels' mobile fortress-monastery, The Rock. There he waits, now fully healed from the wounds he received during the fall of Caliban, to be awakened to lead the Dark Angels in one final Crusade to save Mankind from all the enemies who threaten it with extinction.
The Legion
Warcry
"Repent! For tomorrow you die!", "A moment of Laxity spawns a lifetime of Heresy!" or "For the Lion!"
"Since the founding of their Legion at the birth of the Imperium, the Space Marines of the Dark Angels have been dreaded by their enemies and held in awe by those they protect. Stubborn and relentless in battle, ever vigilant and zealous in their pursuit of their duties, the Dark Angels are among the Emperor's most faithful servants. Yet, it was not always so. For ten millennia the Dark Angels have harboured a sinister secret, an act so terrible and shameful it threatens everything the Dark Angels hold most dear – and may yet bring them eternal damnation."
— Inquisitor Bastalek Grim
The Dark Angels are considered amongst the most powerful and secretive of the Loyalist Space Marine Chapters. They were the Ist Legion of the original 20 Space Marine Legions to be created during the First Founding of the 30th Millennium. Though they claim complete allegiance and service to the Emperor of Mankind, their actions and secret goals at times seem at odds with that professed loyalty, as the Dark Angels strive above all other things to atone for an ancient crime of betrayal committed over 10,000 standard years ago against the trust of the Emperor during the time of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.
The Dark Angels stand first amongst the Space Marine Chapters, as they have done since their very inception as the Ist Legion. They are a proud Chapter, with traditions and rituals that date back to the earliest days of the Imperium of Man. The origins of the Dark Angels Chapter remain shrouded in mystery. Few Imperial records of its beginnings still exist, nor are there many mentions of the part it played in the Emperor's Great Crusade during the early 31st Millennium. Most references in the histories of the Imperium to its deeds during the accursed times of the Horus Heresy have actually been expunged. Yet a legend persists that at one point the Dark Angels teetered on the very brink of heresy and that an act of the most terrible betrayal dishonoured all of the Ist Legion's feats of valour, leaving an enduring stain upon all of its Successor Chapters' honour. Such is their shame that from that time onwards, the Dark Angels and their Unforgiven Successors, of which there are more than 17 currently in Imperial service, strive for absolution from the sins of millennia past.