Re-Fluffing "Cult" Troops for an Undivided Army

[Wade Garrett]

My problem is simple:

I like Beserkers, Rubrics, Noise, and Plague Marines...but my favorite Legions are the "Unaligned" Word Bearers, Night Lords, and Iron Warriors. Now, a sane person might tell me that I don't need to re fluff anything, that the Iron Warriors might bring along some World Eaters to serve as a vanguard into the enemy trenches, Word Bearers could become exceptionally devoted to Nurgle and get all bloated and smelly, etc...and I would then hurl a spittle flecked "SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!" into that person's face.

 

Here's what I have come up with so far:

 

Chastiser: (Counts as Noise Marine)

Word Bearers who have modified their bodies so that they may strike down their enemies with nothing but the Holy Word of Lorgar itself. Sorcerously altered vox amplifieres have been implanted into their upper torso, so that hymns of praise to the Ruinous Powers emerge as devastating sonic attacks.

(There is a bit of precedent for this in Word Bearer fluff, consider the drone/loudspeaker things the Word Bearers utilized in Dark Disciple, bombarding their slaves with the glories of Chaos 24/7)

 

Anyone else have ideas?

[Sception]

I'm just... not sure why you'd bother. First of all, as you mention, there's nothing stopping undivided legions from picking up cult legion support, and in the case of word bearers it even seems fluffy to do so. Second, the cult units aren't... very... good. Even the better of them aren't really better than basic chaos marines in terms of general utility. Well, maybe plagues are, but even then not by much.

 

All that said, If you want to do it, go for it, so long as it's reasonably clear from the models what they're supposed to be. I like your chastiser idea, reminds me of one of the inquisitor trilogies, either Eisenhorn or Ravener, I forget, where the renegade heretics were trying to work out the secret language of creation to use it as a weapon. Choirs of chaos devotees chanting words of unmaking seem like the kind of thing Word Bearers would be all about.

 

Other word bearers cult counts-as are a little bit harder to envision. Iron warriors is easier - Plagues could work well as marines with heavy cybernetic augmentation, & thousand sons could be represented by some sort of tech acolyte with laser armed servitors.

[Wade Garrett]

Honestly, Plague Marines can be slotted into an Iron Warriors force pretty much as is, considering the IV Legions's schtick of World War 1 IN THE GRIMDARK FUTURE. And the thing about World War 1 is that in addition to bloody, muddy trench warfare, it was also the debut of posion gas as a large scale weapon of war. And there were some nasty plagues bouncing around before, after, and during. Having an Iron Warriors unit that specializes in chemical and biological attacks seems like a no brainer. But of course they need Pickelhaube style Helmets...but then, the typical Plague Marine has a single horn sprouting from his helm, so a few alterations (maybe using some Armegeddon Steel Legion heads) and I think I'm good to go.

[HJL]

well the word bearers omnibus has berzerkers among the ranks of the Word Bearers. The Word Bearers do not like that some of their members are aligned with Khorne but they put up with it because they make such excellent shock troops. As far as other cults go, i cant see word bearers allowing themselves to become bloated corpses like nurgle warriors and slaanesh seems a bit too interested in pleasure to appeal to their typical piety.

[Verythrax Draconis]

One thing that I think is funny is the God-related units:

 

- Berzerkers - get their rage from Khorne, usually are WE, but aren't limited to it;

- Plague Marines - get their rotten/endurance from Nurgle, can be DG, but aren't limited to it;

- Thousand Sons - in fact are Rubric Marines, are in fact protected from Tzeentch, and can ONLY be Thousand Sons;

- Noise Marines - are usually related to Slaanesh and EC, but in fact their power have nothing to do with it, it's just a sonic weapon.

 

Considering this, in fact it would be THAT absurd to model Noise Marines as Nurgle, Thousand Sons or Khorne, to keep the theme of the army? Couldn't they simply had chosen those weapons for a variety of factors, like, usefulness, strategy, etc? THEY ARE JUST WEAPONS.

[Seahawk]

I just go by the allies in the Apocalypse book for my Word Bearers.

 

Warmaster Davroth = Abaddon

Festardius = Typhus

etc...

[KingDeath]

The easiest explanation is that your Chaoslord has become so powerful, that he simply managed to successfuly absorb other ( perhaps defeated?) warbands into his own.

This way you can easily include anything you like into any chaosarmy you like without violating the fluff.

[minigun762]

I wanted to add Noise Marines to my IW so it was easy to justify them as mercenaries who are being well compensated for their abilitiea.

[Killax]

Festardius

 

Best name for any Chaos character :).

 

As mentioned,don't mind it to much.

 

Cheers,

[Kol Saresk]

Another view on Noise Marine count-as Word Bearers:

 

Word Bearers - They'd be deeply spiritual sybarites, trying to recreate the sound of the Warp itself, doing all they could to weaponise and manifest the music of unreality into the material realm. In Warp travel, they'd hear the screams and deaths and liquid agonies of the Sea of Souls, and while they'd worship all the gods, they'd find themselves tainted by Slaanesh more than the others (whether they willed it or not) in their quest to make their sick vision a reality. They'd be respected by their XVII brethren, but perhaps not considered entirely stable.

 

 

This is my stuff that I am making up off the top of my head.

Plague Marines:

Warriors so committed to spreading the Word of Lorgar, they spend every minute of rest in self-flagellation under the biting pain of a whip imbued with the sacred poisons distilled from the very stuff of the warp. This has resulted in their skin harding to such thickness that they are immune to pain. Although some have also had more severe side effects of their armor bonding to their bodies and begin to replace their skin, both in texture and nerve endings. In battle, they march towards the enemy in an orderly march while spouting the Epistles of Lorgar in the hopes that they would fall upon willing ears, regardless of the fire heading their way and they have a habit of throwing vials of distilled warp matter into the enemy ranks.

 

Khorne Berzerkers:

All Word Bearers are by nature, fervent in their worship to the Ruinious Powers. But some are considered extreme in their zeal, even by their brothers-in-arms. These specific Word Bearers seek to punish the faithless by Imperials through Bolter and Chainblade and are unable to rest when outside of battle, uncomfortable that those who refuse to worship the Dark Gods are not paying for their sins with their blood.

 

Thousand Sons:

In the more...extreme covens of Word Bearer daemomancers, it is common practice for new adepts to trust their bodies to the control of one of the coven masters while they spend several years with their spirits walking the astral planes of the warp. All return to find that their bodies were used by the daemomancers as unthinking soldiers and have returned to sometimes fatally wounded bodies, if they returned to a body at all.

 

 

Some of it is shaky, specifically the Thousand Sons count-as, but at the very least it can give an idea of where to go.

[darknightdrako]

Berserkers = specialized close combat units

Plague Marines = bionic implants

Thousand Sons = warp smith with heavy armored and special ammo servitors

Noise Marines = marines with special issue bolters

 

Yup good ol count-as

[Lexington]

One cruel idea I've had for my Word Bearers is that they capture loyalist Marines, who are then given berzeker surgery, drugged to the gills and let loose upon their former brethren. Feel free to loot it!

[darknightdrako]

One cruel idea I've had for my Word Bearers is that they capture loyalist Marines, who are then given berzeker surgery, drugged to the gills and let loose upon their former brethren. Feel free to loot it!

 

Haha I did a similar idea. Yes loyalists marines that were lobotomized and were exposed to a bit of warp exposure and given a small dosage of the obliterator virus. I use them as plague marines.

[the jeske]

I'm just... not sure why you'd bother. First of all, as you mention, there's nothing stopping undivided legions from picking up cult legion support, and in the case of word bearers it even seems fluffy to do so. Second, the cult units aren't... very... good. Even the better of them aren't really better than basic chaos marines in terms of general utility. Well, maybe plagues are, but even then not by much.

this.

 

 

One cruel idea I've had for my Word Bearers is that they capture loyalist Marines, who are then given berzeker surgery, drugged to the gills and let loose upon their former brethren. Feel free to loot it!

only right now there are two legions who have the know how how to do the WE lobotomisation . Its the WE and the BL under abadon who took ex WE members in to their ranks.

[Kallistus]

only right now there are two legions who have the know how how to do the WE lobotomisation . Its the WE and the BL under abadon who took ex WE members in to their ranks.

 

The fluff for Berzerkers in new codex suggests that the practice bled over to other Chaos marine forces, but only the Black Legion is even close to the World Eaters.

[Jofus]

When I added some cult marines to my Iron Warriors army it was rather simple. I left berserkers as is since some of the IW fluff shows them using berserkers. For plague marines I made some Gothic style marines with shields from chaos warriors and firing there bolters true-grit style. Thousand Sons became a unit with regular CSM parts and lots of bionics and converted techmarine and techy weapon on his backpack to represent the sorcerer leading the squad and his psychic power. Also I gave the squad some of Forgeworld's heresy bolters to represent the AP3. I haven't taken the time to do a noise marine squad but all that really need is to take your basic CSM and give them some exotic looking weapons.

[Cptn. Palladorus]

For the Thousand Sons, what if a Word Bearers sorcerer is practicing necromancy and raising the corpses of dead marines - loyalists, rival traitor warbands, or even allied dead to get them back in the fight?

[Trevak Dal]

Thousand Sons could be represented as a Aspiring Sorcerer/Technomancer creating possessed suits of armor/ai constructs with shielding and armor penetrating bolts that set guys on fire.

 

Plague Marines are the apothecaries who collect new geneseed for the chapter. Because they are burdened by extra equipment (and all that SEED) they aren't as fast in close combat. Alternatively, they are "Heavies" who are slower, but whos armor systems have better treatment systems built in, and both have poisoned close combat weapons that they should have to pay for like Beserkers have to pay for their axes (*shakes fist at Phaillip*)

 

Beserkers are the guys who want the greatest glory, and glorify the gods in close combat, where the blood they all desire (but khorne most of all) is spilt. Also can be those more expert at fighting in close quarters-they're the Best at Whatever it is that Wolverine does.

 

Noise Marines: I like your (OP) idea for Word Bearers, for Iron Warriors they are the special weapons guys who run around with akimbo bolters who go all Gun Kata/bullet curving in that they can ignore cover.

[Caffeineated Chaos]

My Word Bearer host solved the berzerker problem by allying/all but absorbing an extremely religious WE splinter warband known as the Brotherhood of Slaughter(also explains why so many of my berzerkers have WE bunny ears, I happen to like them myself, and what happened to my original warband...), my Plagues exist for a similar reason, Nurgle Sorc formerly of the Death Guard allied w/ my Host, in addition to fighting alongside me in most conflicts, they get to dock and make use of my Cathedral Hulk. My Noise Marines if I ever make them will be some sort of dark choir equipped w/ noise guns either traded from the EC, or the secrets of their construction traded from them. If I ever feel like fielding rubricae I'll just have a mercenary thousand sons sorc ally with my host and do him and his rubrics in their pre-heresy colors.

[AmCjkh]

I'm re-fluffing cult troops for my army too because I'm looking to integrate xenos renegade elements, I think they add a really cool aesthetic dimension. So I've made my plague marines as Space Marine/Necron hybrids, with Necron skull faces and chest pieces. Necrons are both tough and slow, so in my mind they fit perfectly as a substitute Nurgle influence. I haven't gotten to other cult units yet, but I have Dark Eldar combat drugs and overall vile-ness as another influence bouncing around in my head. Perhaps Dark Eldar combat drugged berzerkers?

[Wade Garrett]

I certainly understand where everyone going "Why not just say your warband has allied with some of the many, many fragments of the Emperor's Children, Death Guard, World Eaters, and Thousand Sons who are meandering around the galaxy", is coming from,

I prefer coming up with a unique and Legion fluff compliant backstory for these specialty units vs "And then Salagrod the Vile offered to let the sons of Fulgrim have half the slaves captured in the upcoming raid if they would pledge their awesome guitars to his cause."

 

Currently I'm mulling over an option for Night Lords Berzerkers, sort of based on something I read about how Nostroman gang rituals and beliefs were transplanted into the Legion with its new recruits.

 

Basically, you know those mob enforcers who take great pride in removing the target and only the target with almost surgical precision? That's not these guys. Back on Nostromo, these guys would show up, loudly announce who the target was and who wanted them dead, and then kill the target, target's bodyguards, and a goodly selection of everyone else in the neighborhood to encourage the survivors to be more careful about who they associated with in the future, making certain that the entire planet knew it was them who had done this thing.

 

 

On the battlefields of 40K, they show up, proclaim who they're targeting over an all channels voxcast, and then they head straight for that unfortunate individual, regardless of what sort of defenses and guardians get in their way. They then kill the target (usually an enemy champion or commander) in as messy and public a manner as possible. The only trouble I'm having is coming up with a specific name....Executioners? Condemnitors? Justicars?

[Kol Saresk]

Pale Riders. Vendettas. Heartseekers. Scalptakers. Crocotta.

[Nineswords]

One cruel idea I've had for my Word Bearers is that they capture loyalist Marines, who are then given berzeker surgery, drugged to the gills and let loose upon their former brethren. Feel free to loot it!

 

I like several others have reached this conclusion independently. For my Alpha Legion cell, they are indeed Loyalist (or even other Alpha Legion) Astartes who have undergone psycho-surgery not unlike the World Eaters Butchers Nails. The idea is they are kitted out in high visibility armour (think white or even high-vis orange), you can see the sheer number of drug induced implants. They're like Astartes Eversor assassins. For shock factor, one of their original shoulder plates remain in a grim parody of the Death Watch. Of course, first one to be completely drenched in gore to make their armour red wins...

[Wade Garrett]

Pale Riders. Vendettas. Heartseekers. Scalptakers. Crocotta.

 

Now this I like. Thanks KS!

[Kol Saresk]

Anytime.