Blood Angels detachments and Dark Angels detachments both return at 2DP, leaving room to bolt on another set of Space Marine rules for each.
If Dante is on the table, his unit gets Assault and Tactical every turn without spending a stratagem or rolling for it, as both doctrines are simply on now. Blood Angels still want to get stuck in, but now they’ve got more options once they get there.
GW started its three-day Chapter update ahead of Codex: Space Marines with Blood Angels and Dark Angels detachment and rules previews for the non-compliant Chapters that probably needed the most cleanup. Both flagship detachments now cost 2DP, leaving one point open for one of the 15 new Codex detachments to sit alongside them.
Dark Angels also got a proper Lion update as well. We saw Guilliman’s new datasheet yesterday, and now the First Legion Primarch has caught up in a big way. These are app changes rather than another book, so they go live with the codex according to the 11th Edition release schedule.
- Angelic Inheritors: returns at 2DP with its detachment rule trimmed down to re-rolling 1s to Hit and Wound, while keeping four enhancements and six stratagems.
- Wrath of the Rock: also returns at 2DP, with Armor of Contempt and Leonine Aggression replaced by In Sacrifice, Victory, and Knights of Iron.
- Lion El’Jonson: moves up to Toughness 10 and 16 Wounds to match Guilliman, and now has a permanent Feel No Pain against psychic attacks.
Blood Angels Gave Up Options Nobody Was Choosing Anyways
GW basically trimmed Angelic Inheritors down to the part players were already using. The detachment rule is now re-rolling 1s for Hit and Wound rolls, and WarCom flat-out says that was the option everybody kept picking anyway. Losing choices technically means less flexibility, but if nobody was choosing them, there isn’t much to miss honestly.
The rest of the detachment is mostly familiar:
- Four enhancements and six stratagems, most of them faces you’ll recognize.
- Measured Strategist, a brand new stratagem that lets a unit slip into whichever Combat Doctrine it fancies.
- Encarmine Speartip and Wrath of the Doomed, both back with light tweaks.
- Every current specialist unit updated where it needed it, Baal Predator included.
Measured Strategist gets around one of the awkward parts of picking a doctrine for the whole army. If most of your guns want Assault, you don’t have to drag Dante and his Sanguinary Guard along with them.
Now, they can take Tactical instead while everyone else stays in Assault.
Best of all, the characters are getting touched up too. Angelic Inheritors only works on CHARACTER units, either alone or leading a squad, so Dante having both doctrines switched on all the time fits right into what the detachment is doing now.
Mephiston is also stronger, tougher, and faster now, which feels about right for the guy who’s made a career out of refusing to let the Black Rage win.
Dark Angels Swapped a Safety Blanket for Objective Grabbing
Wrath of the Rock also comes back at 2DP, but Dark Angels didn’t get the same kind of trim. Most of the detachment is still there, and GW is clearly expecting players to stick a 1DP Codex detachment next to it now too.
Armor of Contempt is the one people will miss, but most of the new enhancements and stratagems are familiar to the Unforgiven.
These two, however, aren’t:
- In Sacrifice, Victory takes Armor of Contempt’s slot, letting a Deathwing or Ravenwing unit secure an objective with its dying breath.
- Knights of Iron takes Leonine Aggression’s slot, handing Ravenwing pilots and riders the MOBILE keyword so they ride straight through terrain that looks solid.
In Sacrifice, Victory doesn’t make anything tougher, but it does let a Deathwing or Ravenwing unit go down and still leave you holding the objective, which is huge.
Knights of Iron works the other way, letting Ravenwing move through terrain that used to dictate where those units could go. Neither one replaces Armor of Contempt, but holding an objective on the way out or ignoring a wall at the right time can still swing a turn.
Besides that, the Inner Circle Task Force and Darkflight Pursuit both stay at 1DP. Darkflight Pursuit also gives Outrider Squads the BATTLELINE keyword, which makes those bikes a lot more useful for scoring.
GW even pointed players toward Wrath of the Rock paired with the new Terminator Storm Force detachment if Deathwing Knights are what you’re building around.
The Lion’s New Changes
The Lion just got better pretty much across the board. He’s now Toughness 10 with 16 Wounds, matching the bump Guilliman just received. The Watchers also gives him a permanent Feel No Pain 4+ against psychic attacks and mortal wounds, even when he hasn’t picked his No Hiding From the Watchers aura.
Now, if he does pick that aura, units within 6″ get Feel No Pain 5+ against the same damage. Master Strategist also lets him use a Combat Doctrine every turn on top of the one you’d normally choose.
Outside of that, the Dark Angels Bodyguard, Emperor’s Shield, and Primarch of the First Legion are all still there, so none of his old abilities disappeared to make room for the new ones.
Final Thoughts on Blood Angels Detachments & Dark Angels Rules
Both flagship detachments cost 2DP, which leaves exactly one point open now. So if Space Wolves, Black Templars, and Deathwatch come in at the same price tomorrow, it’ll be hard to call that a coincidence. Right now, the first-founding rules setup looks to be a lot like one big Chapter detachment plus one smaller Codex detachment.
GW has already name-dropped a 1DP detachment for tomorrow that lets you add Deathwatch troops to other Space Marine armies, so they’re clearly building around that kind of pairing in general too.
So if the Codex-compliant Chapters follow the same pattern the day after, the big story from the new Space Marine codex may end up being all the different combinations players can build rather than one detachment everybody piles into.
If that happens, the current faction rankings probably won’t stay current for long once people start putting these combinations on the table.
🔗 Related Reads:
- New 11th Edition Space Marines Detachments Drop Big Buffs For Every Major Chapter
- Space Marines Datasheets Turn Guilliman Into a Full-Time Threat
- New Space Marine Codex Buffs Marines but Cuts Model Counts
- 40k Blood Angels Guide: Warhammer’s Noble Vampiric Legion
- Lion El’Jonson Guide: How 40k’s Darkest Hero Returned
- Space Marine Chapters Explained: Top Chapters, Tactics, Key Units & Lore
- New 40k Codex Release Schedule: 2026 Roadmap for 11th Edition
What do you think of both flagship detachments landing at 2DP?
