As the first and most favoured Legion at that time, the I st Legion was also equipped with large number of advanced archaeotech and plasma weaponry.
During the Wars of Unification the Six Hosts had each been created by the Emperor for a specific task, or from a particular type of warrior. As such, they were prone to experimental methods of combat, such as the creation of the "Six Hosts of the Angels of Death", with each of these Hosts having its own specialisation and purpose. In the early years of the I st Legion's existence, they became the test and standard by which all future Legions would be judged and based.
Horus heresy drop assault wiki full#
It is apparent from numerous extant sources that during their creation, each nascent proto-Legion after the Primus (later called the ' Angelis Tenebrium' or Dark Angels), was raised first to active service in a staged process of testing and trials before the full active force was created through mass recruitment from amongst Terran populations loyal to the Emperor's cause. The origins of the Dark Angels began upon Terra - founded amidst the bloodshed of the Unification Wars that swept the Emperor of Mankind to dominion over the cradle of humanity - the Primus, or I st Legion, were created as the first Proto-Legion of the Legiones Astartes. With their homeworld destroyed, Luther and his Dark Angels wield the power of the Warp as a weapon in their search for the Unforgiven, that they might finally convince them of their error in supporting the Lion during the schism. Though they were able to defeat the Lion on his vengeful return to Caliban, the Emperor's psychic intervention to save those Unforgiven Dark Angels who had remained loyal to Jonson reduced the planet to an uninhabitable ruin. With the advent of the Dornian Heresy, Luther took the Astartes under his command to Istvaan V, and publically allied the legion with the rebellion, assuring that the Dark Angels would forever be seen as traitors by the Imperium. Unable to stand by and allow the Imperium to destroy their homeworld of Caliban, the Dark Angels were forced to rebel against the Emperor, and even their own uncaring Primarch, Lion El'Jonson. The scars of the latter battles of the Great Crusade would change them, as would their reunification with their Primarch Lion El'Jonson and the introduction of fresh blood from his adopted world of Caliban. Unyielding, technologically capable, ruthless and insular, the Dark Angels at the time of the Dornian Heresy were a powerful and highly independent Legion, used to operating on its own to conduct large scale campaigns and Compliance actions. They 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. The Dark Angels are a formerly Loyalist First Founding Space Marine Legion. " And the angels of darkness descended upon pinions of fire and light.the great and terrible dark angels." - Ancient Calibanite Fable