When did Death Company first appear?

[Indefragable]

2 questions:

 

1A.When did Death Company first appear in the lore? 

1B.When was the first  meaningful appearance for them? (This is if the answer to 1A is a single sentence somewhere that counts as a technicality, but didn't really describe them or give them any meaningful flavor in any way). 

 

2. When did Death Company first appear in the crunch/playable form for the game system?

 

 

Note: when I ask "first appear" I mean from a real world, customer/consumer perspective, not the in-universe experience of the setting. 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Indefragable

[Closet Skeleton]

Codex Angels of Death, 1996 for full rules and fluff.

 

The colour scheme appears as being related to a 'famed Blood Oath' in a late first edition white dwarf article collected in the 1991 White Dwarf Complilation. They're described as being led by Chaplains like Death Company originally had to be but there's no Black Rage and the term 'Death Company' isn't used.

[Pathstrider]

I seem to recall death company turning up in epic before angels of death but I might be miss remembering