Category:Team: Dark Angels

The Dark Angels is a professional championship Squad Mates team. The team is unique in that it's a tandem duo composed of only 2 players while most teams in the championship circuit have 8 at the minimum. The members of the Dark Angels, Ace and Queen, are extremely highly trained individuals that bring military level experience, tactics and gadgets onto the field. As most teams are composed of rookie players or civilians just having fun in Squad Mates, the Dark Angels do not participate in Unofficial, non-league and even preliminary league games. They almost exclusively appear in championship level league games as it is generally considered unfair for them to show up in games with anything other than the best or biggest teams. The Dark Angels do not turn down challenges from league registered teams however and they will answer them almost all the time. These are the only times they will play non-championship games and they never play for a record in these matches, only bragging rights. They have only been beaten a small number of times outside of league games, being able to be counted on one hand.

League Performance
The Dark Angels perform extraordinarily well in League games; scoring high points in every game they play. Most of their victories come from killing the enemy teams as opposed to capturing objectives however in objective based games with respawn waves they will do both. They are always seeded within the top 3 except for when they ask not to be and they want to mix it up. Though uncommon, there are occasions where they lose in League games.

Team Tactics
The Dark Angels, due to their size, employ almost exclusive diversion tactics. Ace typically wears extremely heavy armor and takes the enemy teams attention while Queen uses her cloaking device to sneak around enemy fortifications and behind pockets of troops and then eliminates them quickly. They use their gadgets to sow confusion among enemy ranks and sap their morale and numbers.

In most games, Ace and Queen are within yelling distance of one another unless they're performing a diversionary strategy. In objective based games, the two of them stay together and fight as an army of two, playing off each others strengths and weaknesses.

They work so well together and combined with the effectiveness of their equipment it isn't uncommon for lesser teams to claim that playing against the Dark Angels is unfair. They're not wrong and the Dark Angels know it. Playing the Dark Angels is no joke and any team that goes against them expecting anything other than the toughest fight of their careers is going to learn in very short order why the Dark Angels are the #1 seeded team in all of Squad Mates.

Team Strengths
The Dark Angels' main strength is their unbreakable cohesion. As both members are married, they know each other both on and off the Field. This allows them to basically read each other's minds when it comes to tactics and movements. They developed a strategy that works for them. Due to Ace's military experience and Queens spec-ops training, they possess very high morale and are not easily intimidated, making them much more capable of weathering heavy assaults and defenses without breaking and running.

The team also has very advanced technology in their possession which allows them to further cause confusion and control the flow of battle.

Team Weaknesses
The Dark Angels' main weakness is their numbers. Being only a 2 man team means they are extremely limited on firepower and suppressive capability. This also limits their ability to scatter and lay ambushes, capture objectives and overwhelm teams with numbers. Any losses suffered by the team are catastrophic although the individual members' training allows them to fight well above their weight class.

Another, less subtle weakness but a big one nonetheless is the fact that Ace and Queen are married. They care about each other and will abandon objectives to back one another up if one of them gets into trouble. Skilled teams can use this to their advantage to draw one of the members out in the open, into an ambush or to break off an attack or defense.

Their kit setups are also a weakness. The kits are set up for a very specific task; Ace assaults and holds the line while Queen sneaks around and assassinates players. Their gadgets also play into this role. If one of the members is eliminated, it will completely ruin the Dark Angels' battle plan. They have individual plans if the other can't support however they're nowhere near as effective.

Strategies against the Dark Angels

 * 1) Separate Ace and Queen
 * 2) Put pressure on Ace and/or Queen to draw the other member out
 * 3) Find ways to nullify their technology, which confounds or completely destroys their tactics
 * 4) Aim for the head; the armor they wear is incredibly durable.  For Ace this is almost a necessity
 * 5) Keep good lines of communication up; Ace's Targeted RF Jammer will make radios unusable
 * 6) If all else fails, overwhelm them with sheer numbers.  Their 2 man team can't fight a wave of squaddies

Trivia

 * 1) The Dark Angels, unlike every other team in Squad Mates, does not have a command element in the same way they do.  Normally, a team would have a dedicated team that would give objective information and help guide the team during games however given the experience of both members, they rely on each other to determine where to go and what to do.  They do have a tactical coordinator who they use to call in support if needed and they have a command liaison that will give them recommendations based on changing battlefield conditions if requested.  They also have a radio operator that will monitor the radio and relay messages from other teams they are working with in the field.
 * 2) The quickest the Dark Angels have eliminated an opposing team during a championship game from the time the first shot was fired, starting combat, was 13 seconds.  It was an eight player team that the Dark Angels accidentally ran into.  During the opening shots, the Dark Angels eliminated 4 members of the team in the first 5 seconds.  The other 4 were eliminated over the next 8 seconds only getting off a total of around 20 shots.  The team was so embarrassed by the loss that they stopped competing in championships for over a year.
 * 3) That same game, the Dark Angels won the entire championship match in less than 10 minutes.  This actually angered a number of sponsors as they weren't able to collect ad revenue on the match.  It did however do wonders for the Dark Angels' image and their merchandise sales skyrocketed.  This is the match that propelled them into legend.  They were good before but this was indescribable.
 * 4) The Dark Angels will defend their honor as a team. While they don't accept every challenge because if they did they would never leave the field, they will accept challenges where teams attempt to smear their image.  These matches are heavily publicized and bring huge sums of credits.  The matches are only televised on the paid networks.
 * 5) The Bonded Fates member Rania Chandra made the mistake of insulting the honor of the Dark Angels when she claimed the team was old school and that the younger, newer teams were going to be the ones sitting on the top of the leaderboards soon enough. During an interview, Angie made the quote that she accepted the challenge because she was "sick of her running her mouth like she don't know what happens".
 * 6) Off the field, Kasara and Angie can be found spending their time together. They are almost always doing something with one another from simply relaxing and having drinks or training on their own private field.
 * 7) Kasara and Angie run combat drills on their private range at least three times a week; health permitting. The drills and scenarios are drawn up from Angela's own experience and some of the experiences Kasara had during her training with special forces.
 * 8) During a championship game, Angie had a PTSD episode and while the enemy team recognized what was happening and stopped fighting, someone made the critical mistake of shooting at her before Kasara could get to her. Once secured, Kasara went on a rampage and went specifically after that player.  After trapping the player in a room she threw two eclipse grenades in the room and caused permanent hearing damage to the player.  Kasara was reprimanded for this and while what she did wasn't technically against the rules, she was warned that if it happened again she would be banned from Squad Mates for a year.  The only reason she wasn't banned was because the players hearing protection, which not build to handle an eclipse grenade worked well enough to keep the player from going permanently deaf.
 * 9) Kasara and Angie once made a bet during a game that they could get more player kills than the other. The stakes were that the winner would get to choose where they went on vacation that year.  Being a Grand Operations game, they both cut their comms from every other team, their command element and from each other and went their separate ways to go hunting players.  At the end of the game, they both tied each other at 16 kills.  Since neither won, they went for a romantic date instead and just flipped a coin for their vacation destination.
 * 10) The last time the Dark Angels lost a game was during a championship match against the 113th Tactical Group. The 113th got a tip off from another team that they noticed the Dark Angels liked to frequent a certain portion of the battlefield as it made ambushes easier.  They got there first and laid an ambush for the Dark Angels.  When the Dark Angels showed up as they predicted, the 113th jumped into action.  Despite being 24 to 2, the Dark Angels eliminated 7 of the attacking members before breaking off.  Predicting this, the 113th had a blocking element get behind the Dark Angels and cut off their escape.  Both members of the Dark Angels fell to the blocking element, both by headshots.  It was a clean, well executed ambush and the Dark Angels have respected that since.
 * 11) The 113th Tactical Group has the distinct honor of having the most wins against the Dark Angels with 4. They are one of the few teams that are capable of matching the Dark Angels in battlefield skill but they also, being one of the biggest teams that can field the maximum of 24 players, have been able to best them with numbers.  Whenever possible however, the 113th would prefer to work with the Dark Angels as it's basically a guaranteed win.  Angie, Kasara and Gary Redstone (113th leader) are on a first name basis with one another.
 * 12) The Grudge match with the Bonded Fates highlighted just how much Angie relies on Kasara on the field. It also opened their eyes to a number of weaknesses they haven't considered before.