Circles within circles and shadowy secrets that have shaken even the most faithful to their core, the mysteries of the Dark Angels are little known outside of this most secretive of chapters. But with the return of their Primarch Lion El’Johnson, the 1st Legion is once again in the galactic spotlight as Belial leads his Deathwing to assault their foes.

Today Deathwing Assault, the latest army set for Warhammer 40,000 is up for pre order containing a host of new models alongside the brand new 10th edition Dark Angels Codex. In this article we’re going to be digging into the box to see what is contained within, building and painting up some of the miniatures and seeing what they look like compared to some other models in the range. We’ll also be delving into the mysteries of the Dark Angels Codex and seeing if anything massive has changed compared to their index incarnation while also checking out the rules for the new units and seeing what other goodies are in the new book!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free early review copy of the book and box a little early to check out on the site! If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself a little money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of Deathwing Assault including a full deep dive into the new 2024 Codex which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So let’s head deep into the centre of The Rock to find the secrets of the Dark Angels.

Deathwing Assault Unboxing and Review

For the last couple of years now, Games Workshop have been doing some great army sets that give you access to both some new models and the new book a little ahead of the main release. Often at a considerable discount to the individual components, these sets are always popular and a decent way of starting a brand new army.

Deathwing Assault is no exception, costing £135 and containing 10 Terminators, 5 new Deathwing Knights, the new plastic Belial, Codex, cards and transfers alongside a pair of new Dark Angel upgrade frames. That’s a lot of stuff for your money considering 5 terminators costs £40 and any Deathwing players will find use in everything here.

From the points value side of things there’s around 800 points in this box, which is a great starting point for an army and easily expanded upon with other recent kits such as The Lion himself and the Terminators, characters and Dread from the Leviathan box (Which I’ve had put to one side in anticipation of the Dark Angel Codex)

As ever, everything is presented really nicely, with a full set of Datasheet cards here (containing every unit in the book, not just the box contents) and a nice new transfer sheet with some metallic detailing.

As ever, the big draw of the box are the miniatures, and there’s some really nice stuff here. Included are two sets of Terminators (The standard multi part ones released shortly after the Leviathan box), but these can be upgraded using the included Dark Angel upgrade frames to make them into Deathwing – there’s actually an extra weapon on the sprue in the form of a Plasma Cannon, which gives hopes for other Chapter Specific units getting unique weapons that only they have access to.

On the upgrade frame you actually get a load of stuff for standard Primaris Marines to give them a Dark Angel flavour such as alternate power swords, helmets and shoulder pads, along with some parts to make any of the Space Marine bikes and speeders feel more Ravenwing – my favouite being the the feathered banner to put on the back of Outrider bikes, which certainly helps them fit in more with the chapter specific Ravenwing units.

In addition to the Terminators we get a new take on the Deathwing Knights. Previously these shared a duel kit with Deathwing Terminators, but now they have their own kit that is in scale with the more recent Terminators. Again, weapon options have shifted on these with them now boasting two weapon options – Power Weapons or Maces of Absolution. There’s a good assortment of heads and optional parts such as tilting shields here, so if you wanted to have a unit of each weapon option they will look suitably different, which is always nice to see.

Finally we get Grand Master Belial himself, to lead the Deathwing with a plastic model for the first time. For this review I opted to get him painted up first, as I just fell in love with the model and wanted to get paint on him as soon as possible! The model looks great and is a dream to paint up having a nice mixture of the colour elements seen across the rest of the range while still being distinctively Deathwing.

From a models point of view the box is an absolute win for me, but what’s the new Codex like? Let’s dive inside.

Dark Angels Codex 2024 Review

Before we delve inside it’s pages, I just want to say how much I love the artwork of the limited edition Codex in the Deathwing Assault box – it’s absolutely gorgeous with spot metallic gold colours and beautiful artwork. Sometimes the limited edition covers can be a little hit or miss, but this one hits the mark for me and I love the look of it.

So we’ve had a few 10th Edition Codexes now, and the format has not changed at all here. We open up with the first half of the book containing lore detailing the history of the Dark Angels and who they are, followed by a showcase of the miniatures range, something that always gets my hobby juices flowing!

We also get the full Combat Patrol rules for the upcoming new Dark Angels Combat patrol box – and this one looks fun with a nice switch in models compared to the previous one. This time it includes a Captain in Gravis Armour, 10 Intercessors, 5 Hellblasters and 3 Bladeguard - I have to say I much rather this box compared to the old one and feel it has more of a “Dark Angels” vibe to it. From a rules point of view the Combat Patrol is all about killing characters for VP or striking deep into enemy territory to take their objective. They also have a nice rule that gives you a CP on a roll of 4+ every time you take out your oath of moment target. This book is a Codex Suppliment, so for standard games you need the Space Marine Codex too, but what’s nice here is that for Combat Patrol they have included the Oath of Moment rule so that those players have all they need in one place.

As ever, a full painting guide is included to help new players get their Combat Patrol ready for the tabletop.

The Rules

So what about the full army rules? As mentioned earlier, this is a Codex Suppliment – so you’ll still need a copy of the Space Marines Codex if you are taking any of the standard marine units, as all that is included here are the Dark Angel rules and their own unique units.

We get a couple of new rules that stack on top relating to if units are Ravenwing or Deathwing – all flying and mounted units get the Ravenwing keyword, while Terminators, Bladeguard, Veterans, Land Raiders, Repulsors and Dreadnoughts all get the Deathwing keyword.

We get 3 Detachments from which to pick for our Dark Angels – this is reduced from the larger number seen in order Codexes, but don’t forget that we have the option of using Space Marine ones too

The Unforgiven Task Force from the Index returns, with the same rule of OC dropping to 1 rather than 0 when battleshocked, outside of some name changes, all the existing strategems and enhancements are exactly the same as the index with no changes made.

Next up is the Inner Circle Task Force. This is our Deathwing detachment and probably what people building an army out of this box will gravitate towards.

Their main mechanic is a “vowed target” – this allows you to select an objective marker in the command phase and gives your Deathwing +1 to wound while they are within range of it to represent the priority targets that the Deathwing have been deployed to take – this is pretty good as it makes your Terminators wound most things on 2s depending on how you arm them, though you are going to have to be clever about selecting which objective to fight over.

We get 4 enhancements here – Champion of the Deathwing gives the bearer lethal hits that trigger on a 5+ near a vowed target, Eye of the Unseen gives you a refund on command points on a roll of 5+ (4+ near a vowed target), Singular Will allows the unit to pile in an extra 3″ and Deathwing Assault allows the unit to Deep Strike in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd turn regardless of any rules – this is probably my favourite of the 4 to get your key unit where you need it to be in the first turn.

For stratagems we see some variation on old ones plus a couple of new ones. Armour of Contempt is back, as is Duty Unto Death to allow models to fight upon death. Unmatched Fortitude has the enemy -1 from wound rolls against a unit, Martial Mastery let’s a unit reroll 1s to wound, or reroll all wounds if close to the vowed target, Wrath of the Lion allows a unit to do impact hits (up to 3 Mortal Wounds) when they charge a target, and finally Relic Teleportarium lets a unit deep strike outside of 3″ of a unit, but is not able to charge

The second new Detachment is the Company of Hunters – this is the Ravenwing one, and is really fun!

The army gets the ability to shoot when it advances or falls back, and in addition Outriders become Battleline, allowing you to put together the bike army of your dreams!

We get some fun enhancements that build on these – such as Mounted Strategist which allows a unit to charge after falling back or advancing, Master of Manoeuvre which ignore the points cost of the unit for the purposes of Strategic Reserves, and allows them to count the battle round as being one higher than it is, or Recon Hunter which gives the unit Scout 9″. I love all of these and can see myself putting together a Ravenwing army at some point. The final enhancement is fairly basic, and gives the bearer precision.

We as ever get 6 stratagems for the Ravenwing, Hunter’s Trail gives you “sticky objectives” on a unit, Talon Strike gives you +1 to wound against characters, Death on the Wind worsens battleshock for the enemy if a Ravenwing unit is within 6″, High Speed Focus makes it -1 to hit your unit and Rapid Reappraisal allows you to put a unit into strategic reserves. Armour of Contempt also returns here.

I like both of these Detachments, but I actually lean to the Ravenwing one more, which makes it a bit of a shame the focus for the new models is Deathwing – though the Deathwing Detachment is also fun too.

Datasheets

So what’s changed with the Datasheets in the book compared to the index? Not a lot really, the majority of existing kits have the same rules, with just the units with new models getting tweaked which we’ll look at below – One thing to mention is that the Ravenwing Talonmaster and all of the various Deathwing Command models that could be built with the previous kit have all been removed from the book and are most likely now Legends only

Inner Circle Companions – the new kids on the block with some absolutely gorgeous models can be taken in units of 3 or 6 and operate as Character hunters and bodyguards, having an innate +1 to hit when targeting characters (Letting them hit on 2s) and being -1 to hit while they have a character attached. Interestingly they have the Deathwing keyword which let’s them get the benefits of that Detachment and have Strength 6 great-swords that can be swung in one of two profiles – one granting Lethal hits and 2 damage or Sustained Hits 2 and only 1 damage, giving them options against high and low wound models.

Asmodai has been upgraded to a Heavy Bolt Pistol and a new combined profile for his weapons – allowing him to strike for 5 attacks at S6 and 2 damage or sweep for 8 attacks at S5 and 1 damage. He also (Along with all the named characters other than Sammael) gets the Deathwing keyword

Belial gets a tweaked profile with something of a nerf, his strikes of Retribution now only trigger on a 4+ rather than a 2+

Deathwing Terminators have now been reworked to match the options on the new Terminator kit (Plus the Plasma Cannon on the upgrade frame) – they do get a new ability however with a Watcher in the Dark now giving the unit a 4+ Feel no pain once per battle.

Deathwing Knights have also had updated weapon profiles, with the Mace of Absolution dropping to damage 2 from its previous damage 3 and can now be replaced for Power Weapons with a similar profile to the old flail but only 1 damage and non of the special rules that the flails had (I like this though if you want some extra AP to punch through armour – plus the swords look really cool on the models). The leader gets a “Great Weapon of the Imperium” which does retain the same profile as the old flail, or he can swap it out for a Strength 7 Ap2, Dam 2 relic weapon with Lethal hits. They have however jumped up in price massively to 290 points for 5, though they do also get teleport homers for a free Rapid Ingress.

Crusade

As ever, the new Dark Angels Codex contains some awesome new Crusade content, and for this book we see our characters slowly move through the Inner Circle and learn the dark history of their Chapter. Essentially, this is a series of 3 different campaigns that your army works through as they acquire more knowledge. Basically as your army progresses through the available campaigns they get access to more new ones to follow until they are finally able to start hunting the Fallen. From a game mechanics point of view you basically have to do tasks from both the Secrets of the Unforgiven campaign which is in the book, and the For the Lion campaign and then you are able to do a special Hunt the Fallen mission, before having to do two “normal” campaigns again before you unlock the next “story” mission.

The Hunt for the Fallen missions are really fun – The first has you accruing points for killing characters, the warlord, winning the game and having your warlord in the enemy deployment zone as they hunt for secrets, Once you are able to do another Hunt the Fallen mission, you have to have your units cover multiple quarters of the table at the end of the game to try and track the fallen, until eventually you finally get to face the Fallen on the battlefield. You build and paint a Fallen miniature for your opponent to use with a Heretic Astartes Character profile which gets added to their army for free – with your sole objective being to slay that target. I love this and it’s a cool throw back to these kind of mechanics in older editions!

What’s really cool is that once you have accrued enough Honor you can actually promote your own homebrew characters to be master of the Deathwing, Ravenwing, Watchers (7th Company) or Unseen Ritual (5th Company), granting them some cool unique bonuses

I love Crusade, and this looks to be a really fun addition to the army absolutely dripping in flavour.

Summary

So what do I think of the new Dark Angels book and the Deathwing Assault box? The box is an amazing start point for a Dark Angels army with a big chunk of points contained within and some really excellent miniatures that are a joy to paint up. Equally, I think the Codex is a fun book and despite some big points increases for the Knights I think they will be much more fun to play with Deathwing or Ravenguard than a stock Dark Angels army – I’m really looking forward to getting all my terminators built up and start searching for the Fallen!

Deathwing Assault is up for pre order today and is released on Saturday 3rd February

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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