David Ely - Dark Angels 4th Company, "The Feared"

Issue 195 of White Dwarf magazine came out in early 1996. I had recently started playing Warhammer 40,000, and this issue was a big deal in two ways. First, it had a cool cover featuring Asmodai, and I had recently started playing Dark Angels. Second, on page 81 there was a feature showing the entire chapter of the Ultramarines. This seemed absolutely mad to me—over 1000 Space Marines!

Well, I’m not there yet, but I’m excited to now be able to show off an entire battle company that I’ve painted. Allow me to present the Dark Angels’ 4th company, “The Feared.”

(Click images to enlarge)

The Feared are entirely codex-compliant: six battleline squads (40 Intercessors, 10 Heavy Intercessors, 10 Infiltrators); two close support squads (10 Inceptors, 10 Assault Intercessors); two fire support squads (20 Hellblasters)

They are led by Company Master Larathiel Adellum and his two Lieutenants, Astrovel Soriel and Yofiel Seraphus, made from the Dark Angels Captain kit, the Dark Angels Lt kit, and the Warhammer Day Primaris Lt (kitbashed with the shield from the Forgeworld Dark Angles Praetor and a few other bits).

The command squad consists of a Company Ancient, chaplain, champion, apothecary, and five Veteran Intercessors.

The Company Champion is last year’s limited edition Primaris Champion kit. The wings on his helmet were carefully shaved off the piece from the firstborn upgrade sprue. The sword comes from that kit, too.

The Ancient has a laurel on his shoulder, which comes from the Dark Angels veterans box, and has a Dark Angels sword, too. The traditional heraldic device for a marine fourth company is the chief (half and half top/bottom). The Dark Angels bling theirs up with some checkers. You can see it on his banner. The gem at the top is green, a nod to the traditional color of the 4th company. Purity seals throughout are transfers from Forgotten Chapters.

Yes, this did mean hand painting over 100 knee checkerboards. Some look better than others. (Ska may have faded with the 90s, but the two-tone army is still here on my table! Though Dark Angels would hate ska—they only listen to emotional hardcore.)

Every model has a crusade badge—the red sword with a skull—on the right greave.

Sergeants have bare heads and flowers on their base. Everything is organized around 10-man squads. When I field them in a game, squads are usually broken up and grouped as five, so each set of ten has a battle brother with a sword on his helmet who leads the second squad. This let me use all the sergeant poses. The bare heads are also (nearly) all from Dark Angels-specific kits.

Dark Angels don’t recruit from any one particular world, so I worked to vary their skin tones across the army. Most everything is done with Contrast paint, from armor to robes to faces.

Excepting the dreadnoughts and tanks, the whole company fits in one full-size Table War case.

Using current point values, the company comes to 3855 points.

Not pictured are several thousand more points of Ravenwing, Deathwing, the entire Phobos army I took to NOVA last year, Aeronautica Imperialist Dark Angels, and some Heresy models I’ve started. My “pile of shame” is shrinking but I still have a bit more to finish. Up next is the new Azrael model.

More Dark Angels stuff I’ve written: