Marine "Count As" Army

[Paralyz3dxD]

So I've been into Warhammer quite a few times, every time except my latest outing being Space Marines. I hold a special place in my heart for them, but I've become bored with their back story. I am currently playing Tau, and would like to start up a second army here in the future.

 

My ideas are to create some sort of "Count As" army using other 40k races. I was thinking some sort of back story where a Techmarine and an Apothecary find an unknown warehouse of marine gear, go rogue and decide to make their own genetically mutated army.

 

I figured I'd need to stick with the more humanoid races, Orks and Kroot being the two I could see fitting in well. (Orks for Space Marines and Terminators and Kroot for Scouts.)

 

Anyone have any ideas they could lend? I would appreciate it.

 

My other idea was a Space Marine Chapter being converted towards the Greater Good.

[Warsmith Aznable]

There's a thread in the WIP subforum based on the idea of a chapter getting stuck behind enemy lines in Tau space, maintained by forum member Det I think. All kinds of heretical Tau equipment used to replace or augment fast depleting Imperial materiel. Some very interesting conversions. You could go with an idea similar to that, adding in a "human resistance" for extra options when modeling. Maybe instead of being lost behind enemy lines they were purposefully sent their in a rangers style mission. Perhaps they're renegades who disagreed with the withdrawal and stayed behind to carry out the mission without official Imperial support. Or maybe they're led by a radical Inquisitor who's into acquiring xenos technology (Grey Knight counts-as opening).

 

Also you might consider looking at tooling up Fantasy Battles races for alternate xenos or mutants, like Ogres for Dreadnoughts for example.

[Paralyz3dxD]

I have looked into fantasy races a little bit but haven't decided on anything yet. One of the thoughts I have is a rogue chapter isn't going to have access to all of the Marine tech a normal one would. A battle suit could be used in place of a Dreadnought, outfitted with Marine weapons. Also, Sternguard Veterans could be just normal marines with Markerlight technology giving them much better aim then their fellow Marines. I know they aren't perfect ideas yet, but it is a starting point.

[Kierdale]

Quite a few of the lost branches of humanity that are rediscovered during the Great Crusade are noted as having weapons and armour similar in design to those of the Astartes (though often smaller in scale). You could always make your army as one of these (and one that was not found before the HH if you're playing in the 40k era).

 

The idea of other races, for example Fantasy ones, is also intriguing as there are loses of minor Xenos races encountered whose armed forces could be represented by marine rules if you wanted.

[Doghouse]

I think that Orks would work but think that you'd be better off using something else. If you wanted experimental mutants then your best bet would be to use something like the WFB ghoul heads on marine bodies. The trick is going to be to convince your opponent that what you are making isn't just an Ork army with marine bits stuck on.

Kroot would work well for scouts, I'd be tempted to keep the marine scout torso and the groin region replacing the legs and the rest of the model with Kroot bits.

[Paralyz3dxD]

I've actually discovered an army I'd really like to try out so, if this thread can be closed by a mod it wouldn't bother me at all. :lol: