Don't laugh, How do you play Chaos?

[Smurfalypse]

I play them because we are right and they are wrong...Fairly easy in the mind of a Word Bearer, kill the false god and institute real gods in his place.

[Chaos Lord Shamrockius]

I know what you mean by this, I've kept an eye on this thread since it first showed up and reading through the Horus Heresy books currently has helped me see this point but still makes me want to paint/collect/be a part of the chaos world within the gaming (while still realising it's real - ref the anti-daemon house thread too!). Yesterday I think I finally came across my real reasons for collecting Chaos.

I am currently on flight of the Eisenstein and yet all of my favorite characters at present are either dead or you can tell (given the nature of the tale) will die. The acts of Horus at Istavaan III were horid (won't go into detail for spoilers sake although i'm sure the rest of you read quicker than myself, who reads at the rate of a preschooler!). Yet I still want to collect Chaos.

I loathe beaurocracy, I don't like the "rank and file" look of loyalist chapters and could not bring myself to paint model after model in the same scheme, albeit differing shoulder pad markings in the same way a loyalist painter would.

There just seems, for me anyway, to be more character to the army than the loyalists. They made a choice, be it the right ot wrong one, they made one. They weren't blindly loyal for the sake of it due to being told to be. Their choice has given them more gifts, more powers and opened a door to more knowledge and reward than they would have ever seen from the Emperor, (semi) dead or alive.

I don't doubt that those who collect Blood Angels, Dark Angels or Space Wolves feel the same about their armies for similar reasons. They all have specific back stories to their Primarchs, and I choose those 3 Primarchs as I find them to have the more interesting back stories but obviously you have to "enjoy" the back story of your army, as a reason for their collection. Otherwise you may as well go and collect stamps. nothing against stamp collectors, but what's the point in collecting something if you don't have any interest in it. This is why I don't collect Orks, Tau, Tyranids or Eldar either... process of elimination as to which you find interesting.