The Ravenwing Black Knights are the finest riders of the Dark Angels' Second Company, warriors who have proven themselves so completely in the mobile war that they are entrusted with the deeper truths of the Chapter and brought closer to the Inner Circle. They range ahead of the battle line as an armoured vanguard, tracking their quarry across shattered worlds and running it to ground before it can slip once more into the shadows.
Each Black Knight rides a Mark IV Raven-pattern assault bike, its forward guns replaced with twin plasma talons that scour the enemy with searing bolts of superheated matter. In the press of close combat they wield corvus hammers, brutal weapons patterned after the ancient arms with which the knights of old Caliban once hunted the Great Beasts of their homeworld. So armed, the Black Knights strike with the speed of a stooping raptor and the weight of a battering ram.
A squad is customarily led into the hunt by a Ravenwing Huntmaster, a veteran of long service who bears an ancient power weapon drawn from the armouries of the Rock. Under his guidance the Black Knights perform the lightning manoeuvres for which the Ravenwing is renowned, harrying and encircling the foe, herding the Fallen toward the waiting guns of the Deathwing. Theirs is a war of speed and surprise, and few enemies escape once the black-armoured riders take up the chase.