The Blood Angels are a Space Marine Chapter defined by tragic beauty and doomed heroism. Descended from the angel-winged Primarch Sanguinius, they inherit his noble spirit and flaw-ridden gene-seed in equal measure. From their earliest days on the irradiated moons of Baal to the darkest era of the Imperium Nihilus, the saga of the Blood Angels is one of soaring triumph and harrowing tragedy. They are artist-warriors, dreamers of perfection who bring death from above in blood-red armor, forever torn between nobility and the curse that haunts their blood.
In this grimdark chronicle, we explore the legacy of Sanguinius, the twin curses of the Red Thirst and Black Rage, the Chapter’s structure and rites, their legendary battles, bitter rivals, unending war against the Tyranids, and the burden carried by their Chapter Master Dante in a dying galaxy. The tale of the Blood Angels is one of valiant souls on the brink of damnation, fighting eternally against the dying of the light.
Origins and Sanguinius: The Angelic Primarch’s Legacy
Sanguinius, the Great Angel, was one of the Emperor’s 20 gene-forged sons, and the chosen Primarch of the IX Legion that would become the Blood Angels. As an infant, he was spirited away by Chaos to the nuclear-blasted moon of Baal Secundus, where he was found and raised by tribes of scavengers. Mutated by the planet’s radioactive sands, Sanguinius grew into a being of otherworldly beauty with great angelic wings sprouting from his back.
Despite the savage environment, the golden-haired Primarch united the warring tribes of Baal beneath his benevolent rule, protecting them from mutant predators. When the Emperor of Mankind finally came to Baal, Sanguinius immediately knelt and pledged his service, one of the few Primarchs to recognize the Emperor without a duel. In reward, the Emperor gave Sanguinius command of the beleaguered IX Legion. The Primarch renamed them the Blood Angels, a tribute to both the blood-soaked sands of Baal and the angelic wings of their lord.
From the moment he took command, Sanguinius’s noble ideals and radiant spirit uplifted his Legion. The Blood Angels had earned a reputation for brutality in the early Great Crusade, fighting with a bloody fervor that troubled their peers. Sanguinius sought to temper this savagery with higher purpose. In a legendary scene upon meeting his warriors, he learned each of their names and swore an oath to serve them as much as they served him. This humility and love deeply moved the Legion.
Sanguinius then embarked on reforging the Blood Angels’ culture – emphasizing art, honor, and fraternity to channel their rage. He even had companies fight alongside his brother Horus’s Luna Wolves for a time, hoping the example of those more disciplined warriors would instill nobility in the sons of Baal and replace their desire for carnage. Under Sanguinius’s guidance, the Blood Angels evolved into warrior-artists, renowned for their aesthetic craftsmanship and chivalric valor as much as their ferocity.
Yet Sanguinius always sensed a darkness coiled in his gene-sons. Unbeknownst to all but a trusted few, the Primarch carried a genetic flaw – a mutation in his blood that sometimes drove his warriors into uncontrollable rages. Sanguinius kept this secret even from the Emperor, fearing what it might mean.
He desperately sought a cure, bearing this burden alone so that the Imperium would not mistrust or condemn his beloved Legion. This sacrifice typified Sanguinius’s character: noble and selfless, burdened by the knowledge of a doom he could not fully prevent.
During the Horus Heresy – the great galactic civil war – Sanguinius and his Blood Angels remained loyal to the Emperor. The Primarch had foreboding visions of his own death, yet marched undaunted to meet fate. On the daemon-infested world of Signus Prime, Sanguinius confronted the Greater Daemon Ka’Bandha, suffering terrible wounds but ultimately banishing the beast. However, the entire Legion succumbed to their hidden curse on Signus, overcome by a battle-madness and thirst for blood like never before. It was a grim omen of what lay ahead.
In the final battle of the Horus Heresy on Terra, Sanguinius’s destiny reached its tragic crescendo. He and his Blood Angels heroically defended the Imperial Palace against the Traitor Legions. At the Eternity Gate, Sanguinius personally held back the forces of Chaos, even casting down the daemon-Primarch Angron in single combat.
At the height of the Siege of Terra, Sanguinius followed the Emperor in a last desperate strike at Horus’s flagship. There, aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the Great Angel met the Arch-Traitor Horus in a duel of titans. Sanguinius fought fiercely but was ultimately slain by Horus’s hand, his noble blood spilled in defense of his father.
Imperial legend holds that in dying, the angel Primarch cracked Horus’s Chaos-imbued armor, creating the opening the Emperor needed to finally put down his rebellious son. Sanguinius’s death was a martyrdom that saved humanity, but it cursed the Blood Angels forever. In that moment, a psychic shockwave rippled through the gene-seed of every Blood Angel.
All the Chapter’s nobility and higher ideals would forever be shadowed by the painful echo of their Primarch’s death – a legacy of grief, rage, and an insatiable hunger written into their very souls. The angel was gone, but his sons would live on to fight in his name, bearing both his glorious spirit and his terrible curse into the endless wars of the far future.
The Red Thirst and Black Rage: Curses in the Blood
To be a Blood Angel is to live eternally on the brink of damnation. The gene-seed of Sanguinius grants them long life, peerless beauty, and noble bearing – but it is fatally flawed. The Chapter and all its successors suffer two intertwined genetic curses known as the Red Thirst and the Black Rage, inherited directly from Sanguinius’s death and the corruption of his blood. These afflictions lurk in every battle-brother’s veins, threatening to transform even the proudest Angel into a frenzied killer or raving madman. The constant struggle against these urges defines the Blood Angels’ tragic existence.
The Red Thirst is a blood-hunger – a vampiric craving for the life essence of enemies in the heat of battle. In combat, a Blood Angel feels a mounting frenzy, a berserker rage that pushes him to shed blood and tear apart foes in close combat. If this urge grows too strong, the warrior loses all self-control, consumed by a desire to kill and drink deep of his victims.
When the Red Thirst takes hold, the noble son of Baal is reduced to a feral state, his higher reason drowned in bloodlust. Some describe the afflicted as acting like vampires or rabid predators on the battlefield, utterly forgetting their oaths and tactics. Entire squads have been known to abandon strategic positions and charge howling into melee when the Red Thirst overwhelms them.
For most Blood Angels, the Red Thirst is a constant simmering temptation – a whisper at the edges of their mind. They fight it with ritual fasting, meditation, and the inspiration of Sanguinius’s memory. Many can keep the thirst at bay for long years, channeling its fierce strength without succumbing. But for some, especially in the most violent engagements, the dam breaks.
Those battle-brothers who fall too deep into the Red Thirst become liabilities to their Chapter and awful dangers to any nearby. If they cannot regain control, there are only two fates: a swift death in battle, or confinement in the Blood Angels’ fortress-monastery – imprisoned in the so-called Tower of the Lost on Baal until the curse transforms them completely into mindless, blood-crazed beasts. It is a fate the Chapter would not wish on their worst enemies, let alone their beloved brothers.
Even more dreaded is the Black Rage, also called “the Flaw of Sanguinius.” Where the Red Thirst is a bestial fury of the body, the Black Rage is a madness of the mind and soul – a genetic memory of Sanguinius’s final moments that can suddenly consume a Blood Angel’s consciousness.
Those who succumb to the Black Rage are lost in a waking dream: reality falls away as the Space Marine is mentally transported to the cataclysmic Battle of Terra, reliving Sanguinius’s last stand against Horus. He believes he is Sanguinius, and all he perceives are the enemies of the Primarch. Friend and foe blur together in the haze of ancient betrayal and bloodshed. The afflicted warrior is overcome with absolute fury and despair, lashing out at anything around him with the strength of the truly insane.
The onset of the Black Rage can be sudden and unpredictable. Often it strikes on the eve of a particularly desperate battle, as if the psychic trauma encoded in the Blood Angels’ souls resonates with an upcoming conflict. A trigger – the sight of a fortress reminiscent of the Imperial Palace, perhaps, or the presence of a powerful Champion of Chaos – can send a shock through the Blood Angel’s mind.
His eyes turn red, his lips pull back in a feral snarl, and with a final howl of loss, the warrior’s sanity is eclipsed by the Primarch’s death-agony. Once the Black Rage claims a son of Sanguinius, it is irreversible – there is no cure, no recovery (save for a miraculous few like Chaplain Lemartes, who maintains a tenuous control over it).
The Blood Angels know a brother lost to the Rage is effectively already dead. Mercy, however, is not to simply execute them outright, but to give these doomed souls one final chance to die gloriously in battle. Thus was born the grim tradition of the Death Company.
Those in the grip of the Black Rage are gathered by the Chapter’s Chaplains and formed into the Death Company – a suicidal unit of the damned. Clad in midnight-black armor with red crosses marking the symbolic wounds of Sanguinius, the Death Company marches to war as a host of berserkers who feel neither pain nor fear.
They are typically led by a Death Company Chaplain, a spiritual guardian who can still reach the flickers of lucidity in these mad warriors and direct their wrath toward the enemy. Before battle, the Chaplains recite the tragedies of Sanguinius and invoke the Emperor’s forgiveness for the “damned angels” they now unleash.
For when the Death Company charges, it is a sight both awe-inspiring and terrifying: Space Marines utterly insensate to injury, roaring the Primarch’s name, as likely to tear apart enemy champions with their bare hands as they are to fall upon the corpses and drink hot blood from the gore. These warriors seek only a good death – and mercifully, few Death Company members survive a battle.
Those that do are invariably too far gone to be of further use or salvation; they are granted the Emperor’s peace by the Chapter’s high priests after the fight, or locked away until their madness claims them in a final spasm of violence.
The Blood Angels treat their fallen curse-brothers with reverence – each is a reminder of Sanguinius’s sacrifice and a memento mori for the entire Chapter’s future. In the Death Company, one can glimpse the ultimate fate awaiting all Blood Angels should their curse go unchecked: a brotherhood of angels devolved into frenzied killers, their nobility drowned in blood.
Together, the Red Thirst and Black Rage form a dual damnation that shapes every aspect of Blood Angels life. Every battle is a test of control. Every victory is bittersweet, for the Blood Angels celebrate with the knowledge that some of their brethren paid the price by sliding into insanity.
The Chapter’s apothecaries and librarians endlessly search for some gene-therapy, psychic wards, or alchemical cure that could excise the Flaw of Sanguinius, but to no avail. Not even the introduction of the Primaris Space Marines offered true relief – at first it was hoped these new brethren were free of the curse, but soon they too began to succumb to the Black Rage and Red Thirst.
It seems the Blood Angels cannot escape their Primarch’s wyrd. And yet, there is a grim valor in how the Chapter bears this burden. Rather than succumb to despair, the Angels of Baal use their curse as a weapon. They channel the Red Thirst’s fury to become ferocious close-combat fighters feared across the galaxy. They anoint their weapons and chalices with blood in symbolic rituals, turning the stigma into a sacrament.
And the Black Rage, horrible as it is, provides the Chapter with its most shockingly effective assault troops in the Death Company. By embracing their darkest impulses under guidance, the Blood Angels turn curse into strength, selling their lives dearly in the Emperor’s name. It is this ability to find beauty in tragedy that makes the Blood Angels at once deeply inspiring and utterly heartbreaking to behold.
Chapter Structure and Traditions: Brotherhood of the Angel
Despite (or perhaps because of) their genetic curse, the Blood Angels maintain a proud and ritually rich Chapter culture. In organization, they broadly follow the standard template of the Codex Astartes – yet with unique flourishes and institutions born of their special needs and heritage.
The Chapter is divided into the traditional ten Companies of roughly one hundred Space Marines each, led by veteran Captains. Most companies correspond to the Codex roles (Battle Companies, Reserve Companies, Scout Company, etc.), and each Captain is attended by an Honour Guard of hardened veterans. However, the Codex structure is notably bent (if not broken) in two key places: the Sanguinary Guard and the Death Company, both of which exist outside the normal company hierarchy.
The Sanguinary Guard are an elite cadre of golden-armored warriors, the sacred honor guard originally formed by Sanguinius himself. Clad in artificer suits adorned with angelic motifs and equipped with masterworked blades, these warriors exemplify the artistic and noble side of the Chapter. They serve as champions and inspiration to their brethren – a constant reminder of the Primarch’s glory.
To don the winged jump pack and haloed helm of a Sanguinary Guard is one of the highest honors a Blood Angel can achieve, short of becoming Chapter Master. They fight as a shining host that strikes at the enemy’s strongest or most accursed, often led by the Chapter’s High Chaplain or even Commander Dante in person. Their presence on the battlefield has turned the tide of many wars, as if the spirit of Sanguinius watches over his sons directly.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Death Company, that woeful fellowship of the damned created to harness the Black Rage. The Death Company does not have a fixed size – its numbers swell before major battles as brothers give in to madness.
They are not organized by conventional ranks but by necessity: Chaplains like the grim Astorath manage their induction and final rites, and Death Company marines are doled out to strike forces as suicidal shock troops. They fight in loose packs, black-armored comets flung at the foe.
Notably, the Death Company’s existence is a strictly-kept secret from outsiders; only the Blood Angels and their successor Chapters truly understand why some of their number go to war in different livery. To onlookers, the Death Company marines are simply thought to be a type of specialized assault unit. In truth, they are the beating, tormented heart of the Chapter’s curse.
To govern both Chapter and curse, the Blood Angels rely on two ruling councils. The first is the Red Council, composed of the Chapter’s highest officers – the Chapter Master, Chief Librarian, Sanguinary High Priest (chief apothecary), High Chaplain, Company Captains, and other key leaders. The Red Council handles all strategic decisions and Chapter-wide administration, and it convenes to nominate a new Chapter Master when the position becomes vacant.
Alongside it is the Council of Blood (sometimes called the Council of Bone and Blood), which consists of senior Chaplains and Sanguinary Priests. This body is responsible for the spiritual well-being of the Chapter and the oversight of all rituals to restrain the Red Thirst and Black Rage. It is effectively the Chapter’s medical and religious board of inquiry. For example, if a battle-brother shows signs of the Flaw overtaking him, the Council of Blood will determine how he is to atone or be utilized (perhaps marking him for the Death Company).
The existence of this dual council system underlines how central the curse is to Chapter life: military affairs can never be separated from the spiritual battle for each brother’s soul. A Blood Angels Chapter Master must be as much a compassionate patriarch as a ruthless general, caring for warriors who might at any time fall into darkness.
The Chapter’s rituals and traditions also reflect this balance of tragic spirituality and martial pride. Blood is sacred to them – all Blood Angels drink small amounts of blood as part of their induction (a practice called Insanguination, wherein gene-seed organs and the blood of the Chapter are introduced to the neophyte).
They hold chapel-barracks adorned with stained-glass depictions of Sanguinius and tapestries of past glories, where brothers engage in meditation, scripture reading, and artistic pursuits when not at war. Many Blood Angels become painters, sculptors, or poets, striving to emulate Sanguinius’s perfection in creative endeavors.
This artistic inclination is said to help keep the Black Rage at bay, by giving the warriors an outlet for the dark visions that plague them. The Chapter’s home, the Arx Angelicum on Baal, houses vast galleries of artwork created by Blood Angels over millennia – a silent testimony to their longing for beauty in a brutal galaxy.
But the most somber chamber of all is the Red Crypt deep beneath the fortress: here lie the death masks of all Blood Angels who have fallen to the Black Rage, each face frozen in the snarl of the Primarch’s final wrath. Chaplain Astorath the Grim, known as the Redeemer of the Lost, visits these crypts to pray for the souls of the damned and steels himself for the duty of executing those whose curse overtakes them completely.
The Blood Angels maintain unusually close ties with their Successor Chapters, collectively known as the Sanguinary Brotherhood. Founded in the Second Founding and beyond, Chapters like the Flesh Tearers, Angels Encarmine, Blood Drinkers, Angels Sanguine, Lamenters, and many more all carry Sanguinius’s blood in their veins – and thus carry the same genetic curse.
Over the centuries, these Chapters have developed their own cultures and reputations, but they remain almost like an extended family. They convene in great gatherings (such as the Conclave of the Sanguinary Brotherhood) to discuss matters of mutual importance.
For instance, after the recent cataclysm on Baal, the Blood Angels called a grand conclave with all their successors to decide on joint strategy for survival. It was through such ties that Commander Dante was able to summon aid from his kindred Chapters when Hive Fleet Leviathan descended – nearly every Blood Angels Successor Chapter, even those on the verge of heresy or ruin, answered the call to defend their shared homeworld.
Such loyalty is born from shared hardship. All Sanguinius’s sons know that no one else can truly understand their curse. They often lend aid to one another in times of crisis, and informal exchanges of warriors or war material are not uncommon. This fraternal bond is a double-edged sword: while it breeds great solidarity, it also means that if one successor Chapter ever fell to Chaos or the Flaw fully, it could tarnish the reputation of all.
Indeed, in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, the Blood Angels were extremely careful to hide their genetic problems from the Inquisition and other outsiders, for fear of being declared Excommunicate like two lost Legions before them. To this day, the Blood Angels and their successors keep the truth of the Red Thirst and Black Rage within their brotherhood, guarded by oaths and rites of secrecy.
Outsiders might notice something “odd” about these Chapters – their fatalistic streak, their blood rituals – but few know the extent of the curse. This secrecy has sometimes caused tension with Imperial authorities (the Inquisition is ever suspicious of any hint of mutation or deviation in the Adeptus Astartes).
But the Blood Angels’ long record of loyal service and priceless victories for the Imperium have thus far kept outright persecution at bay. Still, a shadow of mistrust lingers in some corners of the Imperium regarding the sons of Sanguinius, especially among those who have witnessed a Death Company’s frenzied attack and lived to tell of it.
One of the most infamous Successor Chapters, the Flesh Tearers, illustrates the fine line the Blood Angels’ lineage walks. The Flesh Tearers (created in the Second Founding from the Blood Angels’ Legion) have a gene-seed even more unstable than their progenitors. Their Chapter culture leans fully into savagery – the Flesh Tearers are assault specialists with a fearsome reputation for bloodletting and merciless fury.
Records tell of Flesh Tearers companies descending into such blood-hunger that they slaughtered not only the enemy but also allied Imperial Guardsmen and civilians in their path. These incidents became so frequent in the Flesh Tearers’ history that Chapter Master Gabriel Seth has since largely isolated his Chapter; they fight alone to minimize the chances of fratricide.
The Flesh Tearers also suffered horrendous attrition due to the Flaw – by the dawn of the 41st Millennium they teetered on the brink of extinction, with only four companies’ worth of Marines remaining. The recent influx of Primaris reinforcements has somewhat stabilized the Flesh Tearers’ numbers and gene-seed, reducing the occurrences of the curse.
Yet even this “cure” is bittersweet: Seth is said to resent that the Primaris Marines lack the same edge of madness, wondering if warriors who do not constantly wrestle with the Red Thirst can truly be called Flesh Tearers. Such is the strange pride of Sanguinius’s sons – their very curse has become a badge of identity, a source of cultish tradition that they paradoxically cherish even as it threatens to destroy them.
In all these ways, the Blood Angels Chapter is a study in contrasts. Hierarchical yet flexible, refined in taste yet ferocious in battle, upstanding in valor yet harboring a deadly secret – they strive to uphold the dream of Sanguinius even as his nightmare gnaws at their souls. Their Chapter organization and traditions have evolved over ten thousand years to preserve a delicate balance between honor and horror.
Every feast in the Great Hall of the Arx Angelicum, with its red chalices and angelic statues, is a reminder to the Blood Angels to celebrate brotherhood today – for tomorrow any one of them might fall to the Black Rage. Bound by ritual, driven by visions, they march onward as tragic paladins of the Imperium.
Notable Battles and Campaigns: Blood-Soaked Glory
The Blood Angels’ long history is studded with heroic victories and desperate last stands. Time and again, this Chapter has been drawn to the bloodiest and most forlorn battlefields, as if by fate, to play a decisive role – often at great cost to themselves. Their obsession with proving their loyalty (perhaps to atone for the darkness they carry) and their preference for fighting up close means the Blood Angels are often found where the fighting is fiercest. Below are some of the most legendary battles and campaigns that have defined their legacy:
The Horus Heresy (30th Millennium)
The Blood Angels fought with distinction throughout the galaxy-spanning civil war. Notably, they were deceived and ambushed at the Signus Cluster by Chaos forces. On Signus Prime, Sanguinius and his Legion battled hordes of daemons in one of the first full-scale encounters between the Imperium and the Warp. It was during this campaign that the Blood Angels’ hidden flaw fully manifested; the daemonic curse upon the world triggered the Red Thirst in nearly every Blood Angel, unleashing a savage fury that helped them survive the ordeal but at terrible spiritual cost.
The climax came at the Siege of Terra (War Within the Webway & Battle for the Eternity Gate) – Sanguinius and Blood Angels were a bulwark on the Palace walls, holding back the Traitor Legions and even banishing two Great Daemons (Ka’Bandha and Angron) in the defense of the Eternity Gate. Their last battle aboard Horus’s battle barge, where Sanguinius fell, marked the end of the Heresy.
In that moment of the Primarch’s death, the surviving Blood Angels on Terra were overcome by a berserk madness (the proto-Black Rage), slaying friend and foe alike in an orgy of grief until the psychic wave passed. The Heresy cost the Blood Angels their Primarch and a huge portion of their strength, but their valour was forever immortalized. After the Heresy, First Captain Raldoron became Chapter Master and oversaw the Legion’s reorganization into Chapters, ensuring the Blood Angels’ legacy would continue despite their losses.
The Secoris Tragedy (996.M40)
A sobering episode in late M40 when the Blood Angels nearly met an unthinkable end. Responding to distress signals, the Chapter boarded a Space Hulk (a conglomeration of wrecked ships) translated from the Warp, not realizing it was infested with Genestealers – vicious Tyranid xenomorphs. In the claustrophobic darkness of the hulk, company after company of Blood Angels was ambushed and torn apart by the alien horrors.
By the time the survivors fought free or escaped the Space Hulk’s destruction, only 50 Blood Angels out of the entire Chapter remained alive. The Chapter had been nearly exterminated in a single disastrous action. This traumatizing event, known as the Secoris Tragedy, is rarely spoken of outside the Chapter. But it spurred the Blood Angels to take genocidal vengeance on the Tyranids in later years, perhaps foreshadowing their fateful collision with Hive Fleet Leviathan.
The War of the Beast (544.M32)
When a massive Ork empire led by the gargantuan warlord known as “The Beast” assaulted the Imperium, the Blood Angels were among the Chapters that rose to meet the threat. Fighting alongside forces like the Imperial Fists and Novamarines, the Blood Angels earned glory by destroying an Ork Attack Moon weapon and later bringing relief to beleaguered Terra itself.
This early post-Heresy campaign showed that despite their curse, the Blood Angels remained one of the Imperium’s most celebrated Chapters, trusted with the defense of the throneworld. Blood Angels Captain Valefor even led a strike force to the Ork homeworld of Ullanor in the counter-offensive, proving the sons of Sanguinius were still a force to be reckoned with.
The Third War for Armageddon (998.M41)
The industrial world of Armageddon was invaded by the Ork warlord Ghazghkull Thraka in a war of titanic scale. Though the majority of the Blood Angels Chapter was tied up fighting Tyranids at that time (see the Cryptus and Baal campaigns below), Chapter Master Dante still honored an ancient pact to defend Armageddon.
He dispatched the 3rd Company under Captain Erasmus Tycho to the war, knowing it was essentially a death mission for those Space Marines. On Armageddon’s ash wastes, the Blood Angels 3rd Company fought with trademark fury. Captain Tycho, a storied hero of the Chapter, tragically succumbed to the Black Rage during the fighting – the psychic trauma of a prior wound by an Ork warboss finally pushed him over the edge.
Raving and convinced he was Sanguinius facing Horus, Tycho nonetheless led his company in a suicidal charge that punched through Ork lines and ensured a critical victory. Tycho was found dead atop a mound of greenskin corpses, his golden death mask forever frozen in a howl of rage.
His sacrifice at Armageddon is now legend, and the Blood Angels remember him as The Fallen Angel, both mourned and honored for illustrating the fine line between duty and damnation. Tycho’s face in his final moments, contorted by the Black Rage, has even been preserved by the Chapter as a death mask relic – a cautionary icon of the Flaw’s price.
The Blood Angels 3rd Company was virtually wiped out, but Armageddon was saved from total conquest. The Chapter later rebuilt the company and venerated Tycho’s memory, swearing never to forget that even the noblest hero can be broken by the curse.
The Cryptus Campaign (998.M41)
In the late 41st Millennium, the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan — the largest Tyranid invasion to date — was devouring its way into the galaxy’s southern reaches. A tendril of Leviathan threatened the worlds of the Cryptus System, which stood as the last buffer before Baal itself. Commander Dante, foreseeing the storm to come, led a huge Blood Angels task force (with elements from several companies and even Successor Chapter detachments) to Cryptus to delay and thin the Tyranids.
In a gruelling series of battles on planets like Phodia and Aeros, the Blood Angels and their allies (including regiments of the Astra Militarum and even a cohort of Adepta Sororitas) fought the xenos swarm. One of the most extraordinary events of this campaign was the Alliance of convenience with the Necrons.
In the face of annihilation by the Tyranids, the Blood Angels found unlikely allies in the ancient Necron dynasties lurking in the Cryptus System. Led by the Necron lord Anrakyr the Traveller and the Silent King himself, the Necrons awakened and struck a pact with Dante’s forces – a temporary truce to eradicate the Great Devourer.
Side by side, Blood Angels and Necron legions battled the Tyranids in the Shield of Baal offensive. Though anathema to each other, both understood the Tyranid threat left no other choice. The alliance succeeded in decimating the Tyranid forces in Cryptus. In the climactic showdown, the Blood Angels even fought alongside Necron constructs to slay a Gargantuan Tyranid bioform, an unimaginable scene for any other era.
Once victory was achieved, the Necrons, of course, turned on their heel and left – any camaraderie vanished as quickly as it came. Dante allowed them to depart unchallenged; he too had no desire to prolong contact with xenos once the mutual enemy was defeated. The Cryptus Campaign bought Baal precious time, but Dante knew Leviathan was still coming – and in numbers too great to stop in the void. The final battle would be at the Chapter’s home.
The Devastation of Baal (999.M41)
Perhaps the most defining battle in the Chapter’s recent history, the Devastation of Baal was a cataclysmic war fought on the Blood Angels’ very doorstep. Hive Fleet Leviathan’s main tendril ultimately reached the Baal System with a bio-fleet numbering in the billions – the largest Tyranid swarm ever encountered.
Facing utter annihilation, Commander Dante issued a call to all scions of Sanguinius for aid. The response was nothing short of legendary: every available Blood Angels Successor Chapter – the Flesh Tearers, Angels Encarmine, Blood Drinkers, Angels Sanguine, Knights of Blood (renegades desperate for redemption), and more – rushed to Baal’s defense, save the beleaguered Lamenters who were too few to muster.
Even so, the Blood Angels and their brethren could field only a few thousand Astartes against the oncoming Tyranid ocean. The Chapter emptied the Baal orbital defenses and mustered all its relic vehicles, from ancient Dreadnoughts awakened from slumber to the Chapter’s two venerable Battle Barges in orbit.
What came was a battle of apocalyptic proportions. The skies over Baal swarmed with living bio-ships raining spores. The moons of Baal Prime and Baal Secundus were overrun and completely consumed by the Tyranids in the initial onslaught – in fact, the entire Chapter’s 1st Company of Terminators perished to a man holding Baal Prime for as long as possible.
On Baal itself, Dante orchestrated a masterful defense, concentrating forces at the Fortress-monastery and key strongpoints. For weeks, the Blood Angels and successors sold their lives dearly, the planet becoming a charnel house. Amidst the battles, the Greater Daemon Ka’Bandha (old nemesis of Sanguinius) suddenly appeared leading a host of Khorne’s daemons – the rupture of the Great Rift (a galaxy-wide Warp storm) had begun, and with it reality tore open on Baal.
In a bizarre twist of fate, this incursion of Chaos proved ruinous for the Tyranids. As Dante and his warriors cowered within shielded bunkers, the daemons of Khorne fell upon the Tyranid swarm with indiscriminate fury, slaughtering an uncountable number of the xenos. The Blood Angels emerged to find mountains of Tyranid corpses and Ka’Bandha gone – the Bloodthirster had oddly saved his hated foes only to deny the Great Devourer its prize.
Even so, the remaining Tyranids were enough to overwhelm the last surviving Blood Angels. Dante himself was on the brink of death, making a final stand amidst the ruins of the monastery, when salvation arrived. Roboute Guilliman, the resurrected Primarch of the Ultramarines, cut his way through the Warp storm leading the Indomitus Crusade directly to Baal.
Guilliman’s fleets smashed into the surprised Tyranid swarms, and the Primarch joined Dante on the surface to finish off the Tyranid Hive Tyrant leading the invasion. Thus, Baal was saved – by a confluence of freak occurrences and heroic timely intervention. The cost was staggering: Baal’s surface was utterly ravaged and poisoned with Tyranid spore, and fully half of the Blood Angels and their successors lay dead in heaps.
Chapter Master Dante was found barely alive atop a mound of Tyranid dead, having fought without rest for days. In the aftermath, Guilliman named Dante the “Regent of Imperium Nihilus” making him the effective commander of all Imperial forces in the half of the galaxy cut off by the Great Rift. Furthermore, Tech-priest Belisarius Cawl arrived with thousands of Primaris Space Marine reinforcements to rebuild the devastated Blood Angels Chapter.
The Devastation of Baal stands as a Pyrrhic victory – the Blood Angels survived by the skin of their teeth and emerged honored but greatly weakened. To this day, the sands of Baal glow with alien bio-contagion, and the Chapter fights on with a larger proportion of Primaris brothers in their ranks, all while haunted by how close they came to extinction.
Dante himself, upon recovering, crossed the Rubicon Primaris to strengthen himself for the trials ahead. The Devastation is a singular saga of doomed heroism: a Chapter willing to die to the last man for its home, defying the great devourer of worlds and fate itself. It also marks the dawn of a new, dark era for the Blood Angels as they take on new roles in a sundered Imperium.
These are but a few of the tales in Blood Angels lore. They have also campaigned against the forces of Chaos countless times (from the 13th Black Crusade at Cadia, where four Blood Angels companies fought Abaddon’s Black Legion, to actions in the current Indomitus era such as the Angel’s Halo campaign hunting Leviathan’s remnants).
They have warred with Necron dynasties beyond just Cryptus, crushed heretical rebellions, and purged xenos infestations on hundreds of worlds. In each war, the Blood Angels’ strategy often follows a pattern: a sudden, surgical application of overwhelming force – teleport assaults, jump pack strikes, and armored spearheads – to decapitate the enemy leadership or achieve a swift breakthrough.
They prefer lightning war, for protracted meatgrinder conflicts risk stoking the Flaw too much among their brethren. When a quick victory is not possible, the Blood Angels concentrate on noble last stands and glorious charges, seeking to achieve through audacity what lesser warriors could not. It is often observed that Blood Angels would rather die in a blaze of glory than live in slow defeat, an attitude that sometimes leads to high casualties but also to truly epic feats that enter Imperial legend.
Rivalries and Enemies: The Burden of Suspicion
In the merciless universe of Warhammer 40K, every Chapter accumulates its share of rivals and hated foes. For the Blood Angels, many enemies know them as the “Host of Wrath” – a Chapter to be feared and respected. Some of their greatest foes over the millennia include the legions of Chaos (especially the Traitor Marines of the Black Legion), the soulless Necrons, and of course the Tyranids.
Each enemy tests a different aspect of the Blood Angels’ character: against Chaos they battle the very reflection of their own inner darkness, against Necrons they face an utterly un-human, deathless force that cannot feel fear or inspiration, and against Tyranids they fight an embodiment of all-consuming hunger – perhaps a dark mirror to the hunger in their souls.
Furthermore, the Blood Angels must grapple not only with external enemies but also with the mistrust of their fellow Imperials who see only the Chapter’s curse and potential for corruption, not their valor. This interplay of perception and reality has led to a complex web of rivalries.
Chaos Space Marines (Black Legion and beyond)
The Blood Angels harbor a particular hatred for the forces of Chaos, for it was Chaos that stole their beloved Primarch from them. Horus, once the brother who praised Sanguinius’s nobility, became the arch-traitor who murdered him. The psychic scar of that betrayal lives on in every Blood Angel via the Black Rage.
Thus, when facing Chaos Marines – especially those of the Black Legion (the direct successors of Horus’s Sons of Horus/Luna Wolves) – the Blood Angels fight with an extra measure of righteous fury. The Black Legion, led by Abaddon the Despoiler, has launched multiple Black Crusades against the Imperium. In the 13th Black Crusade (999.M41), Blood Angels forces fought fiercely to stem the tide of Chaos spilling from the Eye of Terror.
They deployed four companies to critical warzones like Cadia and Agripinaa, battling traitor legions and demons alike. The Blood Angels earned battle honors in these fights, but also suffered agonizing losses – every Chaos Champion they cut down was bittersweet, as the angels of Baal remembered their own Primarch who fell to Chaos’s champion long ago.
Among Chaos warbands, the World Eaters (Khorne Berzerkers) are another dire rival. These berserkers mirror the Blood Angels’ bloodthirsty side, but without nobility or restraint – they are what the Blood Angels fear becoming. It’s said that when Blood Angels and World Eaters clash, the violence is unmatched, each side goading the other into greater acts of butchery.
Chaplains must be especially vigilant that such fights do not trigger the Flaw in their brothers. The Black Legion, as the most infamous traitor force, remains a constant thorn. Abaddon’s champions love to test the Blood Angels, taunting them as “failed lapdogs of a dead angel”. Yet time and again, the sons of Sanguinius have answered these jeers with bolter and chainsword, eager to avenge the affront to their Primarch’s memory.
Necrons
The Necrontyr are an ancient enemy, one the Blood Angels have only relatively recently encountered. Initially, the Blood Angels approached Necrons as they would any xenos threat: with bolters blazing. There have been clashes – for instance, against Necron awakenings in the Ultima Segmentum where Blood Angels forces destroyed Necron tomb complexes at great cost.
However, the strangest chapter in their enmity was the temporary alliance during the Shield of Baal campaign. Fighting alongside beings they would normally seek to destroy was anathema to the Blood Angels’ honor, but Dante’s pragmatism won out – survival came first. After Baal, there are rumors that the Silent King, leader of the Necrons, took a peculiar interest in the Blood Angels.
Some Imperial savants speculate that the Silent King saw in the Blood Angels a potential tool or even kindred situation (since the Necrons too suffer from cursed immortal bodies and madness in the form of the Flayer curse). There are unconfirmed reports that Necron envoys have attempted to contact Blood Angels forces on crusades in Imperium Nihilus – offers of information or alliance against Chaos or Tyranids, which Dante has thus far rebuffed.
To most Blood Angels, the Necrons remain soulless abominations, to be destroyed when feasible. The alliance at Cryptus is viewed as a necessary dishonor that perhaps saved the Chapter, but not something they would ever repeat willingly. If anything, the Blood Angels feel a grudging respect for the Necrons’ martial prowess, but they loathe that the Necrons witnessed them at their most desperate. In the end, the Imperial and Xenos divide is too great; should the Blood Angels meet Necrons again, they will likely cross blades – unless an even greater threat looms to force cooperation once more.
The Tyranids
While not a “rivalry” in the traditional sense (since Tyranids feel no emotion), the Tyranids are arguably the ultimate nemesis of the Blood Angels. The Great Devourer threatens the entire galaxy, but it seems fate has singled out the sons of Sanguinius for especially cruel tests against this foe.
From the Secoris incident where Genestealers nearly wiped them out, to later brutal fights against Hive Fleet Kraken splinters, and finally the grand drama of Hive Fleet Leviathan’s assault on Baal, the Blood Angels have bled more against the Tyranids than almost any Chapter. The Tyranids represent a foe that cannot be intimidated or inspired – creatures that know only hunger, without honor that Blood Angels could appeal to.
This is a nightmare for a Chapter that prides itself on shock and awe tactics and heroic symbolism. The xenos simply come on relentlessly. However, in a twisted way, the Tyranids have also been a catalyst for the Blood Angels to reach new heights of courage and unity (as seen at Baal). The Chapter’s rivalry with the Tyranids is one of resolve: the will of Sanguinius’s heirs versus the unyielding instinct of the Hive Mind.
They have become specialists in fighting Tyranids out of sheer necessity. The Chapter’s librarians have developed tactics to counter the Shadow in the Warp (the psychic static Tyranids produce). The Sanguinary Priests have refined methods to use Tyranid bio-samples to invigorate Blood Angels (for example, there are stories that consuming small doses of Tyranid blood in rituals can actually heighten a Blood Angel’s resistance to poison and pain – playing with fire given the Red Thirst, but desperate times call for desperate measures).
The Blood Angels hate the Tyranids with a burning passion, viewing them as a foe that stands antithetical to everything they value – the Tyranids destroy beauty, art, history, leaving nothing but barren rock. No enemy could be further from the angelic ideal of Sanguinius. Thus, the Chapter and its successors have sworn to oppose the Tyranids wherever they appear. Some whispers in the halls of Baal even suggest the curse of the Blood Angels was unknowingly engineered for this very purpose: a predisposition for blood and carnage to better combat a foe made of blood and carnage. If so, it’s a grim trade-off. Regardless, the Blood Angels prosecute wars against Tyranid Hive Fleets with almost fanatical zeal, cognizant that if they fail, everything they cherish will be consumed.
The Imperium’s Mistrust
Perhaps one of the subtler “enemies” the Blood Angels face is the suspicion of their fellow Imperial servants. While Space Marines are autonomous, they are not entirely above scrutiny. The Inquisition, in particular, has long kept an eye on Chapters with unusual behaviors. The Blood Angels’ secrecy and the peculiar savagery displayed by some of their number has raised eyebrows more than once.
After the Horus Heresy, it’s recorded that Sanguinius’s closest friends within the Imperium (such as Roboute Guilliman and Rogal Dorn) agreed to cover up the Blood Angels’ genetic flaw to preserve their honor and avoid any Witch Hunt. But as millennia passed, hints leaked out.
There have been incidents – for example, during the Abyssal Crusade in M36, one Blood Angels Successor (the Knights of Blood) was declared renegade due to excessive brutality, forcing the Blood Angels to quietly distance themselves. In M41, the Inquisitorial representative on Armageddon was shocked at Captain Tycho’s final berserk fury and demanded answers, which the Blood Angels refused to give.
These tensions create an uneasy rivalry of sorts with institutions like the Inquisition or Ecclesiarchy officials who might label the Blood Angels as “tainted” if they knew the full truth. The Chapter walks a tightrope, maintaining a proud public image (heroic angelic warriors) while concealing the darkness within. They tend to avoid prolonged joint operations with those who might pry too much.
And any Imperial commander who openly slanders the Blood Angels with accusations of corruption is likely to face a duel or at least a fierce rebuke; the sons of Sanguinius do not suffer insult to their honor lightly. Still, there are some in the Imperium who know or suspect the truth – notably the Grey Knights and some Inquisitors.
These individuals keep the secret, but also keep contingency plans. In the back of certain classified Ordo Hereticus vaults lie dossiers on “Project Redlisted” – protocols should the Blood Angels or a significant number of their successors ever fall to uncontrolled Black Rage en masse. Such an event (for instance, if the psychic shock of Sanguinius’s echo somehow amplified) could result in a literal army of insane Angels rampaging across the stars – a prospect that terrifies Imperial high command.
Thus, shadowy eyes watch Baal. It is a cruel irony that after ten thousand years of loyal service, the Blood Angels must still prove their purity over and over. But this is their penance and their burden, and perhaps it only heightens the heroic tragedy of their existence: beloved as angelic saviors by the common folk, yet distrusted as potential demons by the masters they serve.
Battling the Tyranids: The Long War Against the Great Devourer
No recounting of Blood Angels history is complete without delving deeper into their epic struggle against the Tyranids. Indeed, in the late 41st Millennium and into the current 42nd, the destiny of the Chapter has become inextricably linked with the war against these alien horrors. In many ways, the Tyranids are the perfect foil for the Blood Angels.
Where the Blood Angels seek aesthetic perfection and noble purpose, the Tyranids are the embodiment of relentless, senseless consumption. Where the Blood Angels wrestle with an inner hunger for blood, the Tyranids are an outer hunger that will devour all life. It is as though some dark comedy of fate set the predator against the predator, to see whose hunger wins out.
The first major clash came with that Secoris Tragedy in M40 mentioned earlier – an ominous prelude. Though the Chapter recovered (with help from successor chapters donating veterans to rebuild the Blood Angels’ ranks), the Genestealer incident left a permanent mark. It instilled in the Chapter a healthy respect for Tyranid cunning and lethality.
In the 41st Millennium, full Tyranid Hive Fleets began invading the galaxy en masse. The Blood Angels fought splinter forces of Hive Fleet Kraken on the Eastern Fringe, including battles in the Cryptus System prior to Leviathan’s arrival. But it was Hive Fleet Leviathan, the greatest swarm yet, that would truly test them.
During Leviathan’s onslaught, the Blood Angels had two main theaters of engagement: the Cryptus Campaign and the Devastation of Baal, effectively two phases of the same war of survival. In Cryptus, as discussed, they allied with the Necrons and threw everything at slowing Leviathan’s vanguard.
That war was a brutal war of attrition – Tyranid biological nightmares versus the elite but dwindling Blood Angels. One famous episode from Cryptus is the fall of High Chaplain Astorath (temporarily) in battle against a Swarmlord. Astorath was impaled and left for dead, only to be dragged to safety by his brothers. It’s said that even comatose, Astorath murmured the Rites of Redemption, as if determined to return and reap a toll on the xenos. Return he did at Baal, axe in hand.
The Devastation of Baal was a pitched battle on an apocalyptic scale. Imagine Baal before the invasion: red sands, citadels, the skies patrolled by Stormravens. Then the Hive Fleet arrives – blotting out stars with mycetic spores, an atmosphere turned toxic with Tyranid bio-organisms.
The Blood Angels man massive void shields and laser batteries, but the sheer volume of the swarm results in breaches everywhere. Soon the defense becomes ground fighting: entire companies of Blood Angels and their successor allies forming shield walls and firing lines against a tide of chitin and claw.
It’s said the Sanguinary Guard took to the air in glorious golden squadrons, slaying giant winged Tyranid beasts (Harpy and Hive Crone bioforms) in furious dogfights, only to be torn apart one by one until their blood rained down on Baal like red tears.
On the ground, the Flesh Tearers successor Chapter embraced their namesake – chainswords revving ceaselessly as they hewed through wave after wave, even as many Flesh Tearers lost themselves to the Red Thirst amid the butchery. Gabriel Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers, was seen standing atop a mound of dead bugs, swinging his massive chainsword in wild arcs, his armor black with ichor – a hint that he too was on the edge of the Flaw.
In the crypts beneath the fortress-monastery, Brother Corbulo (the Sanguinary High Priest) guarded the precious blood relics of Sanguinius, preparing to destroy them should the Tyranids breach the inner sanctum – the Chapter was ready to deny the Tyranids even a drop of their Primarch’s gene if it came to that.
Dante, meanwhile, fought like a man possessed. Witnesses say Dante personally slew a Harridan bio-titan in the skies by flying straight into its maw with a melta-bomb and blowing the creature apart from within. He duelled a Tyranid Swarmlord (a creature engineered to kill Chapter Masters) and barely survived, saved only by the timely intervention of Sergeant Kartesh (who gave his life to distract the beast).
By the time the warp rift (Great Rift) opened and Chaos daemons spilled forth, the Blood Angels were making last stands in the blood-soaked ruins of their chapel. Many brothers had to be physically restrained from charging out to meet the daemons – Dante knew the Tyranids were the priority and ordered everyone to hold position.
The paradox of fate was not lost on the sons of Sanguinius: the servants of Khorne, blood-maddened, were now slaughtering the Tyranids that the Blood Angels could not stop, effectively doing the Blood Angels’ work for them. More than one Blood Angel wondered if Sanguinius or the Emperor had answered their prayers in the most bizarre way imaginable.
When Guilliman’s relief force arrived, what they found was a scene from hell: half a planet covered in Tyranid corpses, toxic spores, and the burning wreckage of bio-ships falling from orbit, with small pockets of surviving Blood Angels still fighting clusters of surviving Tyranids amidst the wasteland. It is no exaggeration that Dante’s last stand and Guilliman’s arrival saved the Blood Angels from extinction.
In the aftermath, the Blood Angels took stock. Roughly only two hundred Blood Angels remained fighting fit on Baal, with a few hundred more wounded or scattered. Successor Chapter survivors raised their banners around Dante, effectively integrating into the Chapter for the time being (for example, the Flesh Tearers survivors formed a cadre under Seth that swore to act as an independent company alongside the Blood Angels until their Chapter could be reconstituted).
The psychological toll was heavy too – so many had flirted with the Flaw during that battle. Some veterans voluntarily requested assignment to the Death Company after, feeling they had gone too far in tasting the blood of the xenos. Corbulo and the Sanguinary Priests performed countless blood-rituals of atonement for the Chapter in the months after, to spiritually cleanse them of the Tyranids’ shadow.
And of course, the Chapter grieved; the roll of honor recited by Dante reportedly took hours to read, listing all the brothers and successors who fell. It was during this solemn ceremony that Guilliman formally addressed the Blood Angels and praised their unparalleled courage, calling them the saviors of the Imperium Nihilus. This helped mend any lingering mistrust – after all, a Primarch of the Ultramarines was publicly acknowledging the Blood Angels’ value and purity.
From that point on, the Blood Angels have been spearheads in hunting down the remaining tendrils of Hive Fleet Leviathan. Dante led the Angel’s Halo campaign, chasing splinter fleets through the Darkness of Imperium Nihilus. The Blood Angels and their successors threw themselves at these remnants with vengeance in their hearts.
It was not merely duty; it was deeply personal. Every burned-out bioship was another phantom of Baal exorcised. Recently, in the ongoing 4th Tyrannic War in the 42nd Millennium, Dante (as Lord Regent) has coordinated with other Chapters like the Ultramarines to defend key systems. Though Baal is rebuilding, the Blood Angels deploy task forces abroad specifically to track and eliminate Tyranid swarm fragments, trying to ensure no other world suffers what Baal did.
Some among the Blood Angels wonder if their curse somehow draws the Tyranids – like sharks to blood in water. But this is dismissed as superstition; more likely, the Tyranids targeted Baal because it was a rich gene-seed source (they coveted the potent biomatter of Space Marines). Indeed, had Baal fallen, the Hive Fleet would have consumed the genetic legacy of Sanguinius, growing even stronger – a possibility that chills every Blood Angel. Thus, the Chapter will never relent in this fight. As one Blood Angel officer put it, “If the Great Devourer wants our blood, we shall give it to them – blade-first.”
In sum, the war against the Tyranids has tested the Blood Angels to their limits. It showcases their greatest virtues (self-sacrifice, unity, strategic brilliance under Dante) and plays upon their greatest vice (bloodlust). It is an ongoing saga, with the Blood Angels now standing as one of the foremost anti-Tyranid forces in the Imperium.
They have earned a measure of redemption by saving their sector from the xenos, but the fight is far from over. In the grim darkness of the far future, the Great Devourer still hungers, and the Blood Angels sharpen their blades, ready to spill their last drop of blood to stop it.
Dante, the Imperium Nihilus, and the Uncertain Future
At the forefront of the Blood Angels’ modern trials stands Commander Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels – a figure as storied as any hero of the Imperium. For over fifteen hundred years Dante has led the Chapter, making him one of the oldest living Space Marines (aside from those trapped in Dreadnought sarcophagi).
Dante is a legend: he has fought on countless worlds, defeated alien kings and Chaos warlords, and his tactical acumen is said to rival even Roboute Guilliman’s. Yet Dante is also a man wearied by the weight of centuries – a theme that underscores the current state of the Blood Angels. In Dante, the Chapter sees both a glorious past and a burdened future.
Dante took command of the Blood Angels in the 41st Millennium after the loss of his predecessor, and his tenure coincided with some of the Chapter’s hardest moments (Armageddon, Baal, etc.). He wears the Death Mask of Sanguinius, an ancient golden mask crafted in the likeness of the Primarch’s face, and the Axe Mortalis, a masterwork power axe.
On the battlefield, Dante is the very vision of a golden avenging angel, descending via jump pack into the thick of fighting, his mask instilling terror in foes (some say the Death Mask carries a fragment of Sanguinius’s wrath that radiates outward, unnerving any who face Dante in combat). His leadership has kept the Blood Angels on a noble path despite the Flaw – Dante himself notably has resisted the temptations of the Red Thirst for an extraordinarily long time, though not without cost.
He famously abstained from drinking blood for centuries, a feat of discipline nearly unheard of. However, this left him physically aged and weakened; by the time of the Devastation of Baal, Dante was described as feeling the weight of years acutely – his hair white, his face lined, his spirit heavy. In fact, on the eve of the battle, Dante privately felt so tired that he contemplated that it might be better to finally find rest in a last battle.
And yet, when the moment came, Dante did what was necessary: he partook of a chalice of blood from a Chapter serf (a desperate measure he had avoided for so long). The infusion rejuvenated him, restoring his vigor at the expense of the serf’s life. Dante viewed this as an almost sacrificial exchange – a final sin to allow him to save his Chapter. With renewed strength and grim resolve, he led the defense of Baal to the very end.
In the aftermath, as mentioned, Guilliman appointed Dante as the Lord Regent of the Imperium Nihilus – effectively placing him in charge of all Imperial forces in the dark half of the galaxy cut off by the Great Rift. Dante, initially reluctant, accepted this duty as a penitent knight accepts a crown of thorns.
He saw it as the Emperor’s will that he live when so many of his brothers died, so that he could serve a higher purpose. Now Dante governs not just a Chapter but an entire war-torn realm. From Baal, he coordinates fleets, musters successor chapters, and rallies the defense of isolated systems that would otherwise fall in the shadows.
It is said that Dante wept unseen tears when Guilliman named him Regent – tears for the enormity of the task and for the knowledge that he would never get the warrior’s rest he privately yearned for. The Blood Angels as a whole have had to step up under Dante’s example; they have essentially become a foundational pillar of Imperial defense in Imperium Nihilus. With the Astronomican’s light faint or absent in that region, Dante’s leadership and the inspiration of the Blood Angels fill a void, giving hope to beleaguered human worlds that angels are watching over them even in the darkness.
Under Dante’s regency, Baal itself has transformed into a strategic nexus. Once it was a remote Chapter planet; now it’s host to the growing Fleet Nihilus, an armada Dante is assembling to push back against Chaos incursions and new Tyranid tendrils around the Nachmund Gauntlet route. The fortress-monastery is being rebuilt with the help of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Primaris technology, including orbital docks like Skyfall Station where Primaris strike cruisers are birthed.
The influx of Primaris Marines after Baal’s devastation has somewhat changed the Chapter’s composition – these taller, slightly different brethren are being integrated, bringing new wargear and tactics. Initially, some Blood Angels veterans were uneasy with the Primaris, fearing they lacked the Chapter’s traditions or, conversely, hoping they might be free of the Flaw.
It turned out the Primaris do eventually exhibit the Flaw as well, dashing hopes of an easy cure. But the Primaris Blood Angels have proven just as passionate and valorous as any, and Dante has embraced them as true sons of Sanguinius. There is a poignant note here: some of these Primaris are from the firstborn of successor chapters donated to help the Blood Angels recover.
In essence, the wider Blood Angels family came together to ensure the survival of the Blood Angels Chapter proper. The line between Chapter and successor has blurred under the needs of war. Dante’s command sometimes includes companies composed of mixed Blood Angels and successors, something unthinkable in earlier times except in temporary emergencies. Now it’s a way of life in Imperium Nihilus.
The future of the Blood Angels remains uncertain and precarious. They stand renewed yet diminished: reinforced by Primaris numbers, upheld by Dante’s leadership, but scarred by the near-apocalypse they survived. The Great Rift (Cicatrix Maledictum) continues to vomit forth daemons and warp storms across the galaxy.
Imperium Nihilus is cut off from Terra; worlds are beset by not only Tyranids but also new Chaos crusades and xenos raiders exploiting the darkness. Dante, in addition to marshalling military campaigns, must also play diplomat and statesman – coordinating with other “loyal” forces in the Nihilus half, such as the Dark Angels and Space Wolves who were also caught on the far side of the Rift.
Rumors even suggest Dante opened a dialogue with certain Necron dynasties that rule isolated pockets, negotiating non-aggression pacts so long as the Necrons also fight nearby Chaos forces. In this age of woe, survival can breed strange bedfellows.
For the Blood Angels Chapter itself, one looming question is: will the curse ever overcome them? The Primarch Guilliman is aware of the flaw, and some wonder if some cure might be found now that knowledge is out in the open. So far, none is forthcoming – the flaw is too entrenched.
Another Primarch, Sanguinius himself, is prophesied to return in some legends; the Blood Angels cling to that as their ultimate hope. A secret prophecy in the Chapter’s librarius speaks of a “Twice-Dead King” who will rise when the darkest hour is at hand, presumed to mean Sanguinius resurrected by divine means.
Dante privately muses on this – he suspects it may be metaphorical, that perhaps the spirit of Sanguinius will manifest in the Chapter at a final moment (for instance, all Blood Angels being consumed by the Black Rage at once to achieve some great victory, essentially the Chapter’s final death scream). If that came to pass, it would fulfill the notion of the Chapter going out in one last blaze of glory, a literal doom. But until such a dire scenario, Dante works tirelessly to avoid any needless death or losses that might hasten that end.
There is also the personal dimension: Dante is old. Even with the rejuvenation from drinking blood and the transformation into a Primaris Marine, Dante’s soul is tired. He has lived far past the span of a normal Astartes. He has even said that he has lived “a hundred lifetimes of war” and often wonders why the Emperor has stayed his hand from allowing Dante to rest.
And yet, the Blood Angels need him more than ever. Many in the Chapter see Dante as almost a messianic figure – the Angel’s savior. His very name is a rallying cry on the battlefield. Dante himself struggles with this weight of expectation. In private, he venerates a small portrait of the Emperor and Sanguinius, seeking guidance.
According to one account in the novel “Dante”, during the darkest moment on Baal, Dante had a vision of Sanguinius himself, who told him that his destiny was not to die there, that something greater awaited. This spurred Dante to rise and continue fighting when he might have yielded to the Black Rage. True or not, Dante behaves as a man who believes he is guided by Sanguinius’s hand. It gives him strength, but also a sorrowful resolve – as if he knows his own death has been postponed until some fateful purpose is achieved.
What might that purpose be? Some speculate Dante will be key in a forthcoming crisis in Imperium Nihilus – perhaps another Hive Fleet or a daemon incursion targeting an important world like Nihilus’s capital. If the Imperium is to ever reunite across the Great Rift, Dante’s role as Regent might be pivotal in preparing that half to rejoin with Guilliman’s crusade from the other side.
But such astronomical concerns aside, Dante’s presence means the Blood Angels have, for now, a steady hand at the helm. Under his leadership, the Chapter strives to rebuild to full strength. Primaris Marines fill the ranks; new Successor chapters might even be founded from the surplus, carrying the Flaw into new bloodlines.
The tech-adepts at Baal labor to cleanse the planet of Tyranid biotoxins, hoping to make it habitable for future aspirants again (one grim possibility: Baal’s ecosystem is so ruined that the Blood Angels may have to relocate recruiting efforts to new worlds or rely on successor chapter recruits).
In this current grimdark era, the Blood Angels stand as tragic heroes more than ever. They have literally weathered the apocalypse (Baal’s devastation) and emerged with both great honor and deep scars. Each new battle is fought as though it could be their last, because it very well might. And still they cling to the hope epitomized by Sanguinius’s memory – that even in the face of certain death, honor and courage matter. As Dante rallies the Imperium Nihilus, one can imagine the spirit of Sanguinius watching proudly. But perhaps also with pity – for he above all would wish peace for his sons, yet they know only war unending.
The legacy of the Blood Angels is thus one of tragic nobility. They are the bright, noble knights of the Imperium, admired by billions for their grace and heroism. Yet they are also tortured souls fighting an inner darkness that could consume them at any time. This duality gives them a depth of character unique among the Adeptus Astartes. Whether the Blood Angels will eventually conquer their inner demons or be consumed by them remains an open question. Every battle they fight is a race against their own damnation – can they achieve enough glory and do enough good before the curse takes its final toll?
As of the 42nd Millennium, with Dante on the throne (figuratively) of Imperium Nihilus, the Blood Angels march into an uncertain future. The Imperium is split asunder, the Emperor’s light dims, and enemies crowd in on all sides. But as they have always done, the Blood Angels face the darkness with wings spread and weapons drawn. They know no fear; they know only duty, sacrifice, and the bitter ecstasy of battle. In their dreams, they see a golden angel weeping tears of blood for them – but also smiling, because they have not given up. They will not give up until the final night falls.
In the grim darkness of the far future, the Blood Angels will fight on, forever caught between the heights of heaven and the depths of hell – true angelic warriors of a dying galaxy, for whom every drop of blood spilled is both a sacrament and a curse.
