The Lure of Midnight Clad

[Sanctimonius]

Yeppers, Curze was more than a little on the cray-cray side, but I would suggest that few of the Primarchs could really be called particularly balanced, for one reason or another. Curze was just farther along the curve than the others. What interests me about him above and beyond any of the other Primarchs is that he can legitimately claim to have been betrayed by the Emperor. Many legions claim he turned away from them, he insulted them and slighted them, but the Night Lords were the only ones that, fo me, this was true - the only other ones I could see claiming this as well is the Word Bearers. 

 

Still, beyond the self-loathing and the madness, the hatred of his flesh and children, he alone was willing to die for his beliefs. The others were willing to kill, to tear apart the galaxy and remould it in their image, faced death stoically, but he alone allowed himself to die for vindication. Curze was the only Primarch to have ever beaten the Imperium in this respect.

[derpasaurus]

Yeppers, Curze was more than a little on the cray-cray side, but I would suggest that few of the Primarchs could really be called particularly balanced, for one reason or another. Curze was just farther along the curve than the others. What interests me about him above and beyond any of the other Primarchs is that he can legitimately claim to have been betrayed by the Emperor. Many legions claim he turned away from them, he insulted them and slighted them, but the Night Lords were the only ones that, fo me, this was true - the only other ones I could see claiming this as well is the Word Bearers.

I thought Lorgar just had Daddy Issues. Well, OK, maybe they all had Daddy Issues. But Kurze actually knew The Emperor would kill him, so he has a better excuse.

 

"Bro, Papa made fun of me in front of my friends D:" 

"Shut up, Lorgar. He's gonna have me assassinated. I don't wanna hear it."

[Spaz431]

In my personal opinion there are a few reasons that bring players to night lords whilst on this thread we have discussed why members of other legions join up. The reasons I'd like to state are teen angst, saturation of the market, fluff, and aesthetics.

 

I think what draws players to night lords first is the idea of teen angst. Think about it for a sec. For most of us who grow up in "functional" homes, our fathers are a generally over-bearing figure of authority, whom we try to prove that we are able to stand on our own without. When he disapproves of the method and chastises us, we rebel using that method to prove we are right. Thus Kurze. Though he was willing to die to prove his point, most of us just grow up to realize we became our fathers. Ok, enough psychology. [farts].

 

Another reason most of us may find night lords as a fun army to play is the saturation. You go into a GW or a FLGS and see chaos marines on the wall, what do you see? Black Legion, Khorne Berserkers, and Plague Marines. Basically, we as new players will subliminally see these first and think is there not more to them than this? You open the codex, and all we see is black legion propaganda glued onto every page minus tiny squares talking about others. Most people want the dark horse to win. It's the long shot odds that entice us. We are gamblers. We are tired of seeing bland red, basic black, and pale greens on the table and on the shelves.

 

The next reason is the fluff that draws us in. Great writers help give us nerds something to always talk about. The fluff when well presented will always draw players to new armies. ADB has given us a vision of a night lords warband that was at the edge of extinction and fighting for their hate, their failing loyalty to each other, and mostly fighting to survive. The early codex writers gave us those same seeds with the Chapter Approved articles.

 

the final reason, aesthetics. We as hobbyists want something that will challenge us without making us give up too early. Thus the reason I have not attempted nonmetallic metals. When we flip through our codex the visual cue given to us by the night lords is a simple design but the putting into practice of painting lightning onto models is a challenge, especially to do it in a manner that is eye catching and makes us proud to show off our work. No matter who you are or how long you've been in the hobby, we all want praise for our hard work. We want others to see the amount of work we put into our models and we want them to see that if they are new they can get to this point also if not farther.

 

I just to say once more that this is all just speculation and my opinion.

[Kol Saresk]

You missed one: Anger Management.

[Brother Ambroz]

I don't really think you can look at Night Lord players psychologically. That may work for some legions but they're just radically different from others and while the father resentment thing might work for some players others.....not so much. If anything, I think most (serious) players try to associate with the legion or warband that represents their own ideals and thoughts best on the tabletop.

 

Saturation eh maybe. I have only ever seen one Black Legion player in person and I've never seen another Night Lord player, even in the days of 3.5. Still though the codex is almost always overflowing with images of Black Legion and Red Corsairs.

 

I do agree with the rest. They're good to start, asthetically the painting isn't too difficult and if you can't do the lightning right away you can always hold off until you're better at it.

[derpasaurus]

Bang on, Spaz.

I started looking at armies with the 4th ed. codex. Almost built a bunch of em... Death Guard because Typhus' model is sick-awesome, but a billion people play them. Wasn't really interested in Black Legion because it's... well... the one everything is painted as, they're everywhere, I didn't want to play something that "everyone" already was. Red Corsairs are cool because deep reds and black look awesome together, and Huron sounded awesome. Nearly did Emperor's Children because pink on black looks surprisingly badass, and Noise Marines. Then i found Night Lords. Relatively nobody plays them, they have such strong wills that Chaos can't even talk to them so they stay mostly untainted, Space Batman/Punisher/Conan, they hate The Emperor so hard they make Oedipus look like an amateur, basically Blitzkrieg tactics, and they're painted my favorite color, but with lightning. SOLD. Even bought the bat wing helms because WHO ELSE HAS STUFF LIKE THAT.
Then ADB graces us with his epicness and the NL fluff that was already so excellent gets even more so, and a year after I finally started fielding them, my FLGS gets a 2nd Night Lords player. We're a rare breed.

[Spaz431]

In the defense of my saturation stance, I am a player in Memphis, Tennessee where the America GW HQ is, so I get to see players from all walks come in. I personally inherited a former black legion players csm's. But most of the players in the mid south are all very competitive math-hammer players. The biggest build here is plague/epidemius. BORING! One of the other night lords players here, myself being the forth, actually has been painting a Nurgle tainted warband. Green with lightning. Actually unique twist. Mine is a more pure gene seed. I like to think of my warband as an original terran night lords company. So Zero Tainted Models. Minus the helldrake. Sorry, even I'm a hypocrite when it comes to a effective awesome looking model.

[Kol Saresk]

Well pure, untainted Night Lords doesn't mean they can't "tame" daemons. Even 3.5 conceded that fact.

[Spaz431]

Kol, true. I cannot deny that.

 

New avenue of approach in this thread: what styles of units have you recruited into midnight for you armies and how have they fared for you thus far.

 

Oh, and additionally, I recently realized I am more than half way toward the battle company apoc formation with all the models I own for the sons of the haunter.

[Brother Nihm]

The reasons I'd like to state are teen angst, saturation of the market, fluff, and aesthetics.

Yeah, no.

I don't see it.

Saturation of the market, good novels, fluff, and to be psych-specific; then Anarchists, maybe, or other creatures (i.e. me).

What fascinated me was that:

1. Psychological warfare is their forte.

2. They are the super-terrorists of the 41 Millennia.

3. Their deeds are beyond vile, but ultimately serve their purpose.

5. Their father is a vigilante that operates outside of the established system.

6. They are a band of murdering psychopaths who will do anything to get the job done.

7. They do not concern themselves with politics or religion.

8. They use overwhelming force.

9. That kick-ass colour scheme; which I was painting up (minus the lightning and skulls) before Night Lords even existed in the form that they do now.

It was a perfect match.

[Kol Saresk]

So in other words Nihm, great minds think alike?

[hummus]

I think its the batman vibe and also they are badass guys riddick is for me almost the quinitisential night lord badass in a fight sees in the dark cunning ruthless and his world seems similar to nostromo too

wikipedia: Physical abilities

 

Aside from his more supernatural skills, Riddick is in superlative

physical condition and is an exceptional fighter with or without the use

of his eyes. Whether as a result of his Furyan heritage or simply

training, Riddick is stronger, faster, more agile, tougher, more

resistant to damage and injury, possessing more acute senses, immense

stamina, and superior healing when compared to most humans; he is shown

on more than one occasion dislocating his limbs for brief moments with

only slight signs of discomfort. In general, Riddick possesses an

abnormally high threshold of pain and psychologically channels what pain he does feel into anger.

 

Riddick's abilities at hand-to-hand combat are particularly advanced, formidable, confronting one of the night-creatures of Pitch Black with only his bare hands and a shiv

he had made, killing it with relative ease, as well as defeating one of

the Lord Marshall's best Necromonger warriors in a matter of seconds in

Chronicles. Also, he was able to hold off the Lord Marshall and

even injure him which the Lord Marshall admitted hadn't happened in a

long time. While Riddick was no match for him in speed, he was able to

hold off the Lord Marshall for several minutes.

Intelligence

 

Despite his harsh upbringing and violent attitude, Riddick has been

shown to have a certain knack for deduction, rapidly deducing what had

happened to the original inhabitants of the mining base where he and the

other crash survivors had been staying, as well as finding the

creature's blind spot in Pitch Black and swiftly deducing what had caused the firefight between the Warden's and Toombs' men in Chronicles.

He has also been described as having "a knack for escape", surviving

not only the Lord Marshall's purge of the Furyans when he was an infant

but subsequently escaping from various prisons over the course of his

life. He is also able to quickly judge the quality of, and find even

seemingly minor flaws in most weaponry, down to very specific details.

In one case, Riddick concluded that the prized dagger of a Necromonger

was "a half gram too heavy on the back end" after an inspection lasting

all of a couple of seconds. His only weakness (other than light sensitivity, leaving him in pain when in daylight without his goggles), as stated in the Pitch Black DVD,

is his soft spot for children and anyone who really grows on him (those

people become his friends), which resulted in his capture by the bounty hunter Johns (Cole Hauser).

While he may be a ruthless killer when necessary, Riddick has been

known to help people in need only if they don't slow him down or make

him vulnerable. The only exception to this was when, in Pitch Black,

he returned with Carolyn to help the others, after she pleaded with

him. He also mentions on board the Dark Athena that people he helps

often end up dead.

 

In addition to raw analytical power, Riddick is generally an astute

judge of character, especially in the dark side of human nature. A

killer himself and resident of several maximum security facilities, he

is often able to predict an individual's negative impulses before they

act on them. He has been known to be surprised on occasion, such as when

Carolyn Fry in Pitch Black altruistically gave up a fast escape

to save Jack and Imam from the alien creatures. Riddick was also

surprised when he underestimated Jack's (Kyra's) affection toward him

between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, only

learning of it after she had become a mercenary and resident of a

maximum security prison in order to see him once again. Otherwise, he

correctly predicted which of the group in Pitch Black would turn

on each other (in particular that Johns would try to double-cross Fry),

and that the mercs and guards on Crematoria would turn on each other

prior to his escape attempt.

Willpower

 

One major characteristic of Riddick is his indomitable will. Despite

finding himself in situations where the odds of survival and/or escape

would seem insurmountable, Riddick always pushes forward and never gives

up. Faced with several creatures far more powerful than himself, or any

human for that matter, he has shown himself to be capable of evading,

killing, or even taming them. He has escaped out of prisons when most

prisoners would resign themselves to captivity. When Riddick was

mentally probed by the Quasi-Dead of the Necromongers, he not only

resisted them, but also retaliated, the Quasi-Dead's containers actually

exploding from the strain of trying to process Riddick. Given the

Necromongers' apparent faith in and respect for the power of the

Quasi-Dead, this is a very impressive feat. Perhaps even greater was his

ability to resist the Lord Marshall's attempt to steal his soul. The

one time his will seemed to waver was when Kyra was killed, sacrificing

herself to save him and help him defeat the Lord Marshal, and even then

he channeled his loss into new strength.

Weapons

 

Riddick is well trained with any kind of weapon that he can get his

hands on, but his weapon of choice is undoubtedly a knife. Silent,

quick, and deadly. However, Riddick's most famous weapons are surely a

pair of Ulak blades that he is seen using during his escape from

Crematoria and in The Chronicles of Riddick.

 

He has also been known to use anything from necromonger gravity

rifles to teacups, and anything in between. Riddick can also kill

efficiently without using a weapon. In the second film, he used the

knife he took from Irgun as his weapon during his fight with Irgun and

the Lord Marshall, killing both with it.

[Kol Saresk]

Hmm, can't say I have ever seen anyone try to connect them to Riddick before, but I suppose that' part of the charm. Find someone you like who inspires fear and you can relate them to the Night Lords. Bane, Batman, Conan, Punisher, Riddick, the High Marshal(come on, blowimg up planets and the survivors after draining the resources does sound very Night Lordish), Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger. There are so many ways to show and express them from the staunch Puritan who refuses warp taint to the one who has been tainted and decides to make the best of it to he who demands that the Hods serve him to the one who has given himself wholly to the warp.

[derpasaurus]

 

 

 

New avenue of approach in this thread: what styles of units have you recruited into midnight for you armies and how have they fared for you thus far.

 

Probably my biggest deviation from Teh Internetz Wisdumb is that I use Chosen, and I don't give them plasma.

I have run Terminators, and they vary rarely perform to the level of my Chosen, and as such I think I'm "promoting" my Termies to honor guard, setting them aside. The Chosen have meltas, flamers, and power swords, and hunt whatever needs killing. Lately I've been trying to find ways to get Huron into combat easier and infiltrating him with my Chosen has worked much better than anything with Termies. Plus with my Chosen setup I have 2 flamers, a heavy flamer, 2 melta guns and 2 power swords, a power axe and a s6 armourbane claw all in one unit. HI KIDS. The Chosen also have Mark of Slaanesh so everyone goes on the same initiative and i the whole unit gets into combat it's something like 46 attacks on I5, 12 of which are ap3.

 

Needless to say, that unit works pretty well.  I also have Raptors, Havocs (with LC and ML), a Vindicator,  and am looking at bikes and cultists. Oh and a little old Dreadnought I spiked up. 

 

Outside of what you might consider "traditionalist" Night Lords, I have a Forgefiend and a Heldrake, both of which are almost always beyond incredible on the tabletop.

 

When you consider that a great deal of my local meta is Grey Knights, Dark Angels, and Guard, my list does alright. lol

[Sanctimonius]

Am I missing something? I like the sound of your chosen and was pricing them out, couldn't find the entry for the heavy flamer. There are two entries for flamers but no heavy flamer that I see...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm dumb. Ignore my failing to realise you were talking about Huron. I'll just slink back...

[Wade Garrett]

To say that Curze was the only Primarch willing to die for his beliefs is patently untrue.

 

One of the reasons I'm a fan of Lorgar and the XVII is because of his fight with Corax on Isstvan. Kor Phereon and Erebus are screaming at him to avoid the Raven, that his brother will kill him, and how does Aurelian respond?

 

"We have found gods to worship, but we are not enslaved to them. My life is my own. My death...is my own as well." And he goes to face the Lord of Deliverance. He doesn't beg, he doesn't grovel..

when it comes to the crunch Lorgar Aurelian puts his boots on and dies like a man. I respect that.

[Kol Saresk]

To say that Curze was the only Primarch willing to die for his beliefs is patently untrue.

 

One of the reasons I'm a fan of Lorgar and the XVII is because of his fight with Corax on Isstvan. Kor Phereon and Erebus are screaming at him to avoid the Raven, that his brother will kill him, and how does Aurelian respond?

 

"We have found gods to worship, but we are not enslaved to them. My life is my own. My death...is my own as well." And he goes to face the Lord of Deliverance. He doesn't beg, he doesn't grovel..

when it comes to the crunch Lorgar Aurelian puts his boots on and dies like a man. I respect that.

Did someone actually say that Curze was the only Primarch willing to die for his beliefs? Not saying someone didn't but it kind of surprises me that someone would say that. Maybe that he always knew what he was going to die for and he went ahead and believed in it anyway, yeah. But then again, he is the only Primarch that we have record of foreseeing his death that far in advance.

 

Either way, you do have a point. Pretty much all of the Primarchs were willing to die for what they believed in, although what they put their belief into may not have always been clear.

[Sanctimonius]

*holds up hand* I was the one who said he would die for his beliefs. And I stand by it, albeit with a bit of rephrasing and explaining.

 

Course the Primarchs were willing to die for their beliefs. They went to war and fought and killed, risking death on every world the fought, to first prosecute the Great Crusade, and later to defend or tear down the nascent Imperium. What sets Curze apart was the fact he was willing to sacrifice himself for his beliefs, without fighting back or trying to defend himself, because he knew his death would exonerate his actions and damn the Imperium in the same motion. With his death he proved that his way was the way of the Imperium, that the Emperor, despite his high-minded ideals, relied on fear of retribution, of death, of horrible punishment in order to maintain his rule. Mankind was given two options, the Imperium or destruction, and those who rebelled were punished in the most severe ways imaginable - keep in mind that the virus bomb Horus used wasn't invented for that one instance.

 

Curze saw his sanction as the ultimate betrayal - he was simply carrying out the role he had been created for, he was the fear of the Emperor and the promise of death incarnate. After the Heresy he could have survived. He could have killed M'Shen and become one of the Daemon-Primarchs, but instead he chose vindication. He chose death and ultimately defeated the Imperium and his father in doing so, in his own eyes. I can't think of another Primarch who would have simply accepted death, or seen it as the ultimate victory. Others marched to 'certain' doom - Lorgar, Sanguinius, Magnus at the hands of Russ - but they all planned to go out fighting, falling in the name of their beliefs. Only one had the strength to accept vindication in martyrdom.

[Kol Saresk]

Ah, okay. Yeah, that is a difference.

 

And good point on the virus bomb. IIRC, it was mentioned as having been used before, but only in the most extreme of circumstances.

[spafe]

 

And good point on the virus bomb. IIRC, it was mentioned as having been used before, but only in the most extreme of circumstances.

The chaos in me wants to argue, extreme judged by whom? for those who it was used on? by those using it? by the records clerk who wants to clock of that day so signs the 'quick method of compliance'?

 

Even extreme by a more measured view, it would be a group who wont comply, wont negioate, and simply have the will to be free enough, along with the tech to deny their world to the imperium while costing them. Our current day tech level could fall into this, as we could draw vast quantities of legion troops down, then nuc planet in act of defiance (not saying cohesivly, but it only takes one or two governments to trigger it). If we didnt negiotate then we would be virused quick plausibly.

 

But of course, the imperium would view it as 'rare and extreme' in their records...

 

(Slinks back into the underhive muttering)

[Sanctimonius]

'Rare' and 'extreme' has to apply to the nature of the enemy they fight on that planet. If the legions aren't enough, if the enemy is too tough, if the fight will endanger the planet, a legion, a primarch himself beyond all reasonable measure, then a virus bomb would have to be employed.

 

I'm thinking a world that is sentient, or a race with intergalactic weaponry, or something that could damage the very fabric of reality simply by its very existence would warrant an exterminatus, which is apparently a hella rare occurrence considering the worlds that they fight on and conquer.

[Death Spectre]

If we're going to talk about psychology, I'd like to introduce the concept of cognitive dissonance. This can be summarised as the internal conflict experienced when an individual has two opposing, incompatible  or conflicting beliefs or ideals, including when a belief clearly does not meet with reality.  This internal conflict, and the way people try to resolve or reduce this dissonance, makes for really interesting characters and storylines. Sometimes people maintain their inconsistency because it serves their interests, and they act in a hypocritical manner.

 

The Night Lords are interesting because their nature as described in the fluff is inherently conflicted. They have a Primarch who is clearly damaged and unstable, but still is inspiring of loyalty and devotion, even when he is open about his loathing of them. Despite a lack of trust between them, they still band together in the face of adversity. Talos struggles to believe that their legion served humanity by providing control through fear, despite the fact that many of his brothers are clearly motivated purely for their own gratification, and he himself also enjoys inflicting pain and terror. 

 

Despite these conflicts, there is little hypocrisy. Many of the other Legions derived from warrior cultures, with attendant codes and systems fo honour. We can see these codes as helping to set some limits on warfare, but they also serve a useful function in allowing the individual to resolve the conflict between being a warrior and the fact that most cultures see war as a bad thing. Having a code of honour allows the individual to say "I may do bad things, but I am still a good person". Likewise many of the Horus Heresy novels indicate that the Astartes could wage war on noncompliant human societies under the justification that the Imperium would bring a better future. Despite psychoindoctrination, some vestiges of humanity remained.

 

Likewise it is interesting that the traitors cling to the self-serving belief that the Emperor had or would "betray" and abandon them, making their rebellion justified if not right. Lorgar would rather abandon one god and find others, than admit that the need for gods and spirituality had been wrong. But in abandoning one oath, it makes all subsequent oaths hollow. Honour becomes void of meaning. Having betrayed one master, subsequent betrayals come more easily. If one fails to put a leader on the throne, and the leader dies, where then is the point in existance? Nihillism is one way out of this quandry: it doesn't matter if one's destructive acts fail to acheive any purpose if the destruction itself is the goal.

 

Many of the traitor legions have abandoned the honour codes they once used to salve their consciences, and in so doing have shown these codes to be empty and meaningless, exposing their hypocrisy. The Night Lords never deluded themselves about their nature, or the nature of the inhumane acts they performed. Cowardly, cruel, vindictive bullies, but they never pretended they were otherwise. There is something to be admired in the honest embrace of one's own evil. That's what I beleive makes them attractive to players, because such brutal honesty and avoidance of comfortable self deception is hard to maintain.  

[derpasaurus]

That's one thing I like about them, personally. They are completely evil and embrace it completely. They have no illusions that what they're doing is making the world a better place, they all know they're primarily thieves, rapists, murderers, and worse, and now they have super powers. All they want to do is destroy and sew terror, and they're pretty good at it. 
My particular warband has it out for Dark Angels and Blood Angels in particular.. 2 of my friends play them, and I have a few Blood Angel helms hanging from various units. My warband starts out tactical and does its best to win, but if things go south, they just go balls out and try to do as much damage as possible with what they have left. (Mostly because retreating off the game board is boring) Anything they can do to bleed the Imperium. Damage is the goal, no matter how little or how much. Carnage by any means, for it's own sake. Etc.

It's too bad 40k has at least an illusion of game balance, I can never fight like a true Night Lord because of it. lol

[Spaz431]

Just finished a Heldrake dedicated to and maintained by the VIIIth legion.

[Sanctimonius]

Can we have some pictures? :)