Death Angels Background

   The Death Angels are a debasement of the Dark Angels gene-seed and have much of the same rituals, customs, and equipment that their parent legion owns. They do practice some unorthodox rituals, like training all their troops in the use of jump packs so they are more flexible in battle conditions.

    Their current Grand Master and Chapter Master is Brother Melchior, who rose to succession when the previous Chapter Master, Brother Zeruel, was slain by a Tau railgun. He was once Company Master of the Dark Angels' 5th company, and was being initiated into the higher levels of the Inner Circle when the Death Angels Chapter was founded. He requested that he be placed under Brother Zeruel's command, for they had once been battle-brothers in the 5th Company's Assault Squads. He was given the second-in-command post, and the entire chapter was given Space Hulk 159, recently captured after fighting off a Chaos incursion, as a space-faring base of operations.

   Space Hulk 159 is now en route back to the Caliban system after an extended engagement in the Cadian sector during the latest Black Crusade. The Death Angels are planning to indoctrinate new Neophytes gathered during their campaign on Cadia and Kasr Sonnen into their scout company. Some will fail and die, some will fail and live to be serfs or maintainers of the Hulk, and the select few who survive and pass the trials will be fully fledged Death Angels soon enough.