Pre-Heresy armies

[Jarl Bloodwolf]

The title pretty much says it all. for those of you who have created your own Pre-Heresy legions is it better to use the SM codex to represent the legions or is it better to use the CSM codex? For models i know that mixing chaos and SM bits is a good way to represent the older armor of the legions themselves and if a player is going for numbers than apocalypse is a good way to go. Does it depend on which legion you want to do? Im sure the independant codexs like the SW, DA and BA work well to represent their own legions but what about legions like the Night Lords, the Alpha Legion, the Luna Wolves and the Thousand Sons. And also would it be viable to use the BT codex to represent the IF 1st great company?

 

Any ideas and suggestions are welcome.

[Brother Aiwass]

I was in doubt too, but at the end tried the CSM codex (to represent a WE PH army) mainly because the wargear options fits better (reaper AC, more plasma, less melta) also the big sized squads. And the berzerkers of course.

 

For those legions you allude I think that CSM also fits very well.

 

Night Lords: 3 raptor squads, lord with JP and claws/daemon weapon, dirge casters.

 

Alpha Legion: 3 chosen squad, cultists (count as lesser daemons), Heavy Weapons Teams (count as obliterators click for awesomeness!).

 

Luna Wolves: Abbadon, Terminator Lord, Justaerin Terminators (all of the squad are champions), Robot Maniples (Defilers), Tactical Squads (normal CSM), Havocs, Land Raiders.

 

Thousand Sons: Well, Thousand Sons squads, sorcerers, Ahriman. Also for a TS amazing inspiration check the Magos Explorator's blog.

 

BT codex really fits well with the Word Bearers as rightly Vredesbyrd. Not sure about IF but I think that you can't go very wrong with this.

 

Other thoughts in the Iron Warrior Legion may be the use of plague marines as "count as" marines with ciber implants, heavy weapons teams like in AL and vindicators (there are very few or none in the PH era but if some legion have it, this is the IW legion).

 

Just try to mantain the demonic stuff at bare minimum and you're right.

[Jarl Bloodwolf]

I never even thought to use BT as Word Bearers, it really does fit with all their ritchousness.

 

What about using the new BA codex to represent World Eaters? They are both assault based and in the fluff it says that the World Eaters and Blood Angels developed a rivalry do to their close combat orientation.

 

Couldent you use the SM codex with Inquisition allies to make the Alpha Legion? The way i see it is take Korsarro as a Alpha commander and use his outflank ability, the other HQ would be an Inquisitor Lord to represent the lead opperative. Elites would be Legion of The Damned, Troops would be tacticals and Inquisitorial storm troopers (as more operatives). Fast attack would be Land Speeders as it works with the whole "hit them from every side" thing and then take something as heavy support?

 

I like your suggestions though

[Artein]

Night Lords: 3 raptor squads, lord with JP and claws/daemon weapon, dirge casters.

Where is ADB saying that NL are not about Raptors?

Aaron, we need you! :(

[Jarl Bloodwolf]

Night Lords: 3 raptor squads, lord with JP and claws/daemon weapon, dirge casters.

Where is ADB saying that NL are not about Raptors?

Aaron, we need you! ;)

 

Is this like an inside joke?

[Brother Aiwass]

What about using the new BA codex to represent World Eaters? They are both assault based and in the fluff it says that the World Eaters and Blood Angels developed a rivalry do to their close combat orientation.

 

Yes, I was wondering about that, but fast vehicles, no PH weapons... Just I made a choice, but is tempting too...

 

Couldent you use the SM codex with Inquisition allies to make the Alpha Legion? The way i see it is take Korsarro as a Alpha commander and use his outflank ability, the other HQ would be an Inquisitor Lord to represent the lead opperative. Elites would be Legion of The Damned, Troops would be tacticals and Inquisitorial storm troopers (as more operatives). Fast attack would be Land Speeders as it works with the whole "hit them from every side" thing and then take something as heavy support?

 

WH would be a great and inspired choice for AL allowing you to use SM squads, preachers, and IG/ST as cultists. There are many ways to make a PH Alpha Legion :)

 

Night Lords: 3 raptor squads, lord with JP and claws/daemon weapon, dirge casters.

Where is ADB saying that NL are not about Raptors?

Aaron, we need you! :rolleyes:

 

Of course, everyone knows that Night Lords are about Land Raiders :rolleyes:

 

Seriuosly, I guess that is more on the gamer preference. If you don't want to run raptors with NL don't do it.

[Legatus]

Using as many Raptors in a Night Lords army would be as appropriate as using as much Obliterators as possible in an Iron Warriors army or infiltrating every single unit in an Alpha Legion army. Just because certain limits were dropped for these respective forces does not mean that one has to include as much of these units as possible to make a fluffy force. The Night Lords employ "more" Raptors than other Legions, but they are still a rare and specialised unit even for them.

 

Raptors were first being associated with Night Lords in the 3rd Edition Index Astartes article, back when Raptors still had the "Daemonic Visage" rules and thus were excellent terror units. Now that they are basically just Chaos Assault Squads the Night Lords MO is more exemplified by the Chosen, actually.

 

Similarly, an Alpha Legion army should probably include some infiltrating units, but not neccessarily as much as possible. The Alpha Legion is about working multiple angles at the same time, so a good representation would be an army with long range heavy support units, mobile assault units, deep strikers and infiltrators all in one force. Employing as many different types of attack as possible, and not simply "sneaking the whole army up on the enemy".

[Doghouse]

Just a few thoughts based on my own experience.

 

Blood Angels codex would be fine for representing the World Eaters. The Raptors feature as a massive force in one of the first three books as Angron leads an assault on a base that uses STC technology so there is evidence there of using lots of jump pack troops.

The Death Company would also be great for representing members of the Legion that have undergone the cybernetic implant process, also at a pinch if you don't use the psychic powers Mephiston would make a nice Angron with the Seth rules for Khârn.

I'd leave out the Razorbacks, Predator Annihilators, Crusaders and Redeemers though. It might also be worth leaving out the Librarian Dreadnought as well. Not too sure on the Storm Raven but it could be used to proxy a transport that might have been at use at the time I guess and Vindicators came about during the Heresy as far as I know. And of course regardless of the army you use this list for the Baal predator was only used by the blood angels.

 

Other Imperial codexes are great for representing the legions. I'm personally using the space wolves codex for my Iron Warriors because it suits an assault force rather than a close combat force. Access to lots of special weapons is great for an assault force needing to get across no mans land without having to stop to fire heavy weapons. The Long Fangs are also great for representing experienced heavy weapons teams and the idea of leading the force with a dreadnought greatly appeals to me.

Downside is that the sky claws aren't really accurate representations of Raptors because they were elite warrior units.

The Wolf Guard are great for terminators though as you can give them power weapons instead of power fists.

 

 

For Night Lords I'd say that they are more about excessive force than a reliance on raptor units. Raptors would suit their purposes from a shock and awe perspective but they would probably be as equally at home using an excessive amount of land raiders to suppress a civil revolt.

I think the Blood Angels codex would suit them as you can really go over the top with tanks or lots of dreadnoughts, sort of using a sledge hammer to crack an egg kind of thing. The red thirst would also suit them as their primarch is prone to out bursts of rage which could be transferred to the troops and and again you've got Mephiston...

 

Dark Angels are probably fine with their codex but obviously the death wing wasn't around back then as it is now. Again you'd need to lose stuff like the razorbacks, etc.

 

Space Wolves would be fine with their own codex unless you were fielding them before they found Russ.

 

Blood Angels could use their own codex but you're not going to have the red thirst or black rage at this time so you'd also need to leave out the death company. You could probably explain away the red thirst rules with a bit of imagination though.

 

Raven Guard have their own codex now in the form of the latest forge world Imperial Armour book which allows them to take assault squads as troops and has about nine pages dedicated to them with some history in the book.

Alternatively you have the Blood Angels codex with death company making excellent mutated clone soldiers.

 

White Scars could be fielded using the dark angels codex if you want to go bike heavy but other than that the regular marine codex would probably do because bikes are just one aspect of their forces.

 

Thousand Sons I'd probably be inclined to use the grey knights rules but the down side is that all of the troops come with storm bolters.

 

Alpha Legion were about attacking as many different ways as possible so not just about infiltration so most codexs could be used to represent them.

 

Ultramarines are probably best used with the regular codex unless you wanted to field just the first company then you could use the wolves codex.

 

For most Legions like the Emperor's Children or Imperial Fists you could get away with the regular space marine codex to be fair.

 

To recap:

 

Space Wolves: Great for use with assault/siege forces, great for terminator heavy forces, great for troops that can receive assaults.

 

Blood Angels: Great for close combat armies, great for tank/dreadnought heavy forces such as dedicated armoured companies such as the Iron Wing, great for inclusion of Raptor heavy forces, comes with it's own proxy primarch. Fast vehicles could be explained away with the fact that at the time the Imperium was technologically more advanced.

 

Dark Angels: Great for bike/speeder heavy forces, can be used for terminator forces but space wolves codex is probably better for this.

 

 

Over all the main advantage of the Imperial codexes is that you not only get access to whirlwinds and land speeders but if you use the witch hunters or daemon hunters codexs you also can include other Imperial forces.

 

Inquisitional Storm Troopers are great for including aspects of the Imperial Army, Death Cult Assassins or Sisters of Battle are great for Sisters of Silence and then you have Grey Knights for Thousand Sons Scarab Occult troops or even Custodes at a pinch. Inquisitors and their retinues can also be included in the force representing an Imperial Commander with his retinue representing Remembrancers and his personal aids. You could also use this option to include an Imperial Army Land Raider as his personal transport.

 

There are a lot of options really at the end of the day and it's pretty much down to the individual as long as their opponent knows what is what.

[Jarl Bloodwolf]

I am planning on making an Alpha Legion army. They are one of my favorite legions, even more so with Aerion-The-Faithfulls release of Alpharius Omegon. So an all around force would work best to represent them?