Fallen Armies?

[caladancid]

So I am beginning my CSM army and would like it to be Fallen themed.  I have no clue how to do this, outside of buying Cypher and getting some boxes of  the new CSMs.  Any thoughts or tips would be much appreciated.

 

I do plan to include a detachment of 2-3 Chaos Knights once they are released so if that impacts suggestions plz let me know. Thanks!

[Gederas]

I'd recommend getting the Dark Angels Company Veterans/Fallen kit, it's full of useful bits for this. I'd also recommend the Forge World Dark Angels heads and shoulders, as those fit the Fallen's Heresy-Era aesthetic better than the Chaos Marine and normal Dark Angels kits.

 

There's also this Warhammer Community Article for inspiration:

 

 

 

A roving band of renegades, traitors, freedom fighters, tragic heroes, secessionists, idealists or all or none of the above

[MegaVolt87]

Wait for the rest of the HH DA kits to be shown before you get started. 

[Doom Herald]

If you plan on doing full CHAOS themed fallen, you're going to want the FALLEN ANGELS specialist detachment from Vigilus Ablaze. That's the only way to get transports for them, and it also gets you sorcerers. Especially with the Battle Brothers rule, you're going to want to put all your FALLEN into that dettachment to maximize the number of Rhinos available, potentially use the Without a Trace strat, and to help out with the Agent of Discord rule you get from the FALLEN ANGELS specialist detachment. This means you pretty much need any other dettachments to be a different <LEGION>, which one depends on what you're going for.

 

On FALLEN themselves, here's some things to consider. Fallen are good at holding objectives. They re-roll 1s to hit when shooting if they haven't moved (At 3BS, that puts them at about 81% to hit), benefit from Bolter discipline now, 4 (+ the Champion to make 5) can take combi-bolters, and the Without a Trace strat can give them -1 to be hit in terrain. Before adding extra models to divert wounds to or for extra bolt guns, you can be looking at 6 models, 5 combi-bolters and 1 heavy weapon, maybe a lascannon or missile launcher for tougher targets, you have 20 bolted shots at 24" when holding position.

 

Alternatively, you can give them (4+champion) combi-meltas or combi-flamers and a flamer or melta on the special/heavy weapon model to follow Cypher advancing on the enemy. Since Cypher can advance and fire, assault weapons best compliment him. Load up on power weapons, or Thunderhammers to make them an advance and smash unit.

 

FALLEN Sorcerers are weird. First, then are the only FALLEN unit that can summon daemons. Second, their buff powers, don't affec FALLEN since those spells all say they affect HERETIC ASTARTES. This means, you are either going to want them to be attack units, or keep them with your second dettachment. Prescience on top of the FLAWLESS HOST trait could be good, or with a strong shooting unit.

 

If you plan on using Knights, they could be good threat and attack units complimenting the FALLEN as defenders or stationary/semistationary units. I definitely wouldn't use Cypher as the warlord though, that would be a waste. Knights will probably have some good traits anyway.

[Closet Skeleton]

Fallen armies can be cool but remain kind of a grey area in the fluff in that the old background specifically stated that they don't exist outside of Cypher's small bodyguard. My fallen army is based around a guard army with Cypher and three units of fallen as allies because that's what the rules let you do when I started with them so it was a plan I had for a long time. Vigilus Ablaze features a non-Cypher related fallen warband that may be closer to what people have made in the past using non-fallen rules.

 

The more fluff accurate way to get around the 'fallen don't gather in armies' thing is to have fallen warlord whose gathered an army of renegades of diverse origins. They can still be fallen themed from the imprint of their leader and the odd lieutenant while having access to the full range of chaos stuff.

 

If you want a full army of fallen you should just ignore the fallen unit and play either loyalist dark angels modeled as fallen or probably use the Alpha legion rules if you want a more chaos army.

 

But if you want a Chaos Knight army with fallen allies then that might work (it will probably be worse than a loyalist knights + guard army but that's a good way to lose friends) with the fallen rules. If you mostly want to field 3 odd knights and a marine detachment then you don't want a big marine army to start with.

[caladancid]

 

I'd recommend getting the Dark Angels Company Veterans/Fallen kit, it's full of useful bits for this. I'd also recommend the Forge World Dark Angels heads and shoulders, as those fit the Fallen's Heresy-Era aesthetic better than the Chaos Marine and normal Dark Angels kits.

 

There's also this Warhammer Community Article for inspiration:

 

 

 

A roving band of renegades, traitors, freedom fighters, tragic heroes, secessionists, idealists or all or none of the above – their true motivations have ever been in shadow, and even in a universe of mysteries, there are few whose goals are as inde-cypher-able as theirs – and that’s why I love ‘em. Then there’s Cypher himself: even amongst his peers, the pistol-toting Lord of the Fallen stands out. He is the iconic Fallen, sitting in the near-mythical venn diagram overlap of gunslinger, questing warrior-knight, and redemption-seeking angel, and is my favourite hero* in the 41st Millennium.

 

 

Thank you! I have in fact had several dozen Horus Heresy Dark Angel heads and MkII pauldrons for years now, waiting for the right opportunity!

[caladancid]

If you plan on doing full CHAOS themed fallen, you're going to want the FALLEN ANGELS specialist detachment from Vigilus Ablaze. That's the only way to get transports for them, and it also gets you sorcerers. Especially with the Battle Brothers rule, you're going to want to put all your FALLEN into that dettachment to maximize the number of Rhinos available, potentially use the Without a Trace strat, and to help out with the Agent of Discord rule you get from the FALLEN ANGELS specialist detachment. This means you pretty much need any other dettachments to be a different <LEGION>, which one depends on what you're going for.

 

On FALLEN themselves, here's some things to consider. Fallen are good at holding objectives. They re-roll 1s to hit when shooting if they haven't moved (At 3BS, that puts them at about 81% to hit), benefit from Bolter discipline now, 4 (+ the Champion to make 5) can take combi-bolters, and the Without a Trace strat can give them -1 to be hit in terrain. Before adding extra models to divert wounds to or for extra bolt guns, you can be looking at 6 models, 5 combi-bolters and 1 heavy weapon, maybe a lascannon or missile launcher for tougher targets, you have 20 bolted shots at 24" when holding position.

 

Alternatively, you can give them (4+champion) combi-meltas or combi-flamers and a flamer or melta on the special/heavy weapon model to follow Cypher advancing on the enemy. Since Cypher can advance and fire, assault weapons best compliment him. Load up on power weapons, or Thunderhammers to make them an advance and smash unit.

 

FALLEN Sorcerers are weird. First, then are the only FALLEN unit that can summon daemons. Second, their buff powers, don't affec FALLEN since those spells all say they affect HERETIC ASTARTES. This means, you are either going to want them to be attack units, or keep them with your second dettachment. Prescience on top of the FLAWLESS HOST trait could be good, or with a strong shooting unit.

 

If you plan on using Knights, they could be good threat and attack units complimenting the FALLEN as defenders or stationary/semistationary units. I definitely wouldn't use Cypher as the warlord though, that would be a waste. Knights will probably have some good traits anyway.

 

 

Fallen armies can be cool but remain kind of a grey area in the fluff in that the old background specifically stated that they don't exist outside of Cypher's small bodyguard. My fallen army is based around a guard army with Cypher and three units of fallen as allies because that's what the rules let you do when I started with them so it was a plan I had for a long time. Vigilus Ablaze features a non-Cypher related fallen warband that may be closer to what people have made in the past using non-fallen rules.

 

The more fluff accurate way to get around the 'fallen don't gather in armies' thing is to have fallen warlord whose gathered an army of renegades of diverse origins. They can still be fallen themed from the imprint of their leader and the odd lieutenant while having access to the full range of chaos stuff.

 

If you want a full army of fallen you should just ignore the fallen unit and play either loyalist dark angels modeled as fallen or probably use the Alpha legion rules if you want a more chaos army.

 

But if you want a Chaos Knight army with fallen allies then that might work (it will probably be worse than a loyalist knights + guard army but that's a good way to lose friends) with the fallen rules. If you mostly want to field 3 odd knights and a marine detachment then you don't want a big marine army to start with.

 

Thank you both, great points.

 

Generally I don't prefer to do 'counts as' armies, but I may go that way here.  My initial thoughts are to do a three knight detachment (with warlord), then a fallen detachment, then a small Battalion of 'retainers' i.e. Blackstone Fortress guardsmen with a couple exalted champion HQs.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

There is actually an entire army of Fallen (technically Heresy-era Renegade Dark Angels-not sure how many were actually scattered through space and time). They're called the Black Lions, they've taken the Black and are the warband of Vortigern, one of Abaddon's inner circle. I actually have a Black Legion army based on them. They appear in the novel "Black Legion."

 

So you could run one Fallen Detachment and some Black Legion detachments. You could also run Fallen + Knights, Fallen + Renegades and Heretics/Servants of the Abyss, Fallen + Daemons or just Fallen with two Sorcerers instead of one + Cypher and then summon Daemons with the rest of your points.

 

Visually, you probably want to buy the Mk III and IV Heresy kits with a mixture of Dark Angel FW bits (as more come out), DA Veteran bits, and modern CSM.

[Trevak Dal]

The New Cypher is how I think Dark Angels should be redesigned as (hooded cloaks like hunters from Destiny instead of monk robes).