++ The Murderers' Call - A Night Lords Community ++

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

Damn, I was going to step up to the challenge, but I just saw it AND saw Flints model. Nice!! I am still going to make one as well, seems fitting since I play both armies!! ;)

 

End of Line

[Dark Bjoern]

 

The Freighter

 

The cockpit was nearly dark. Only a few LEDs and a single monitor illuminated the cockpit in a soft, ghostly light. It was silent. Like a statue a lone figures stared at the display. Nothing! It was cold inside the cabine. Ice starts to build up on the instruments already. But the lone figure was staring motionless at the display. Nothing! Sixteen hours had past and still nothing had happend. The figure sat still motionless there and stared at the display with the passion of a hunter.

Without a warning a single ping appeared at the edge of the sensor range. "Contact." Nine runes blinked up in conformation at the internal helmet display of the lone figure in the cockpit.

 

Captain Wolf sat at his command throne on the bridge of the Star Dagger. In twenty hours the Star Dagger would reach the jump point for the last leg of it's journey to Fortitude. The Star Dagger was an old Optimus-class freighter. A slow but reliable work horse. She lacked the heavy armament of a rogue trader cruiser but she was far from being defenseless. It was enought to discourage most small raiders and corsairs. Her advantage was her massive cargo capacity. And once again her capacity was at 87.2% efficiency. A circumstance that, Captain Wolf thought by himself, was credited by his honesty and reliability. And this time he had been able to get a really profitable contract with the Adeptus Mechanicum. He was trusted with the duty to deliver some special supplyment to Fortitude. Weapons and ammunition for the legendary Angels of Death, the Space Marines. Of course he would not meet them personally. It was only his duty to deliver them to Fortitude. Fortitude had become an importent brigde head and supply point for the war against the rebels in the Andosia-sector. Space Marines! It must be worse if warriors like that are needed. Space Marines. The stuff legends are born from. He was not keen to met them. The mean trouble. And trouble is bad for the buiseness. Although he could not deny that the conflict in the Andosia-sector meant a lot of profit. But Fortitude was behind the front line and the trade route was save. He worried more about the asteroid field adead of him. He had to bypass it very close. He would have prefered it to bypass it with more distance but the tight schedule and the low speed of his freighter impede this.

Such an asteriod could bugger the whole day....

The figure watched at the display how the freighter came closer. "Hunting time!" A short impuls of the thrusters impelled the small ship forward. The impuls was to short for the sensors of the freighter to be noticed by them. But it was all that was necessary to close the last gap between them. "Impact in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

A thunk echoed through the ship, and a moment later a shipwide alarm. "What was that?" barked Captain Wolf "Was it an asteroid?!" The crew started to panic as the emergency bulkheads automatically closed. "We have a hull breach near cargo 13!" came it from the 1st officer. "Engine room?!...........engine room?!" No response, the vox stayed silent. "Captain, we lose speed!" "What?! Why?! I need contact to the engine room?!" A moment later the bridge went dark. After a few seconds the emergency lights bathed the bridge into a frightening red light.

 

The figure moved, regardless of his heavy armour, with grace of a hunter. "Engine room secured. Power shut off." "Good. Call the Black Devourer. We will finish the bridge!" The Hunter advance to the bulkhead that blocked the bridge. "Marton! Melta!" The addressed moved for and raised his weapon. A moment later the molten remainings of the bulkhead dripped onto the floor. With a speed that belied the size and weight of the armoured figure the hunter moved through the still red hot glowingopening. In less then a heart beat he fired five shots who all found their mark. Slowly the midnight blue armoured figure moved toward the command throne. Captain Wolf was too frighten to move. His gaze wandered from one dead crew member to the next and on to the giant that came at him. His midnight blue and gold armour was decorated with skulls hanging from chains at his hip. His bat winged helmet showed the grim face plate in form of a skull. "I'm Theskul of the Night Lords Legion. And now you die!"

Captain Wolf neither recognized the proximity alarm that announced the arrival of the Night Lords battleship nor the sword stroke, that severes his head from his shoulders. All he saw was the abhorrently grinning skull mask of his murder.

[Forté]

Was it Forte who called me "Baroness Speedypaint von Paintsfast?" ^_^

Not in those exact words ;)

[Bruegel]

Brothers of the VIII - I have a few random questions about the NL's which I was hoping your collective minds could possibly answer. If these have already been asked/answered on another forum I apologize for the repeat - I'm kinda new on here!

1. At the point in time corresponding with the end of ADB's Void Stalker, approximately how many Night Lords are left strewn across the galaxy? Talos refers to multiple tens of thousands when he talks about not being the true prophet destined to reunite the Legion, so I wonder if he knows or is simply making an educated guess based on his knowledge of the Legion's strength prior to the Heresy?

2. Is the lightning on their power armor actual lightning or simply painted on. I've read both theories as being true.

3. On a scale of 1 to 10, (10 being the most likeliest), what chance is there of ADB writing another book, or series of books, about the NL's? We know that Decimus is now the Prophet, Lucoryphus is still alive, Variel and Malcharion too. I know - wishful thinking right?!

[Forté]

1. That's unknown to anyone.

 

2. Would depend on the condition of the armour.

 

3. He often has short stories with Talos and co. So who knows really. And he's not saying.

[Koriel]

1: Impossible to say since the legion hasn't been gathered in one place after the purging of Tsagualsa. Most likely guesswork from Talos.

 

2: Both are true. Some legionaries/ warbands paint their armour with lightning markings, some corrupted by chaos are wreathed in actual lightning (like the exalted). In the massacre book from forge world they use small generators in their armour to produce lightning arcs.

 

3: Unless I'm misstaken, A D-B wrote on his blog that the first claw chapter is closed and he's occupied with other projects. I'm guessing/ hoping that he'll write a full lenght NL novel for the horus heresy series before doing anything conected to Talos.

[Kol Saresk]

1.) Guess work. This is a warband that hasn't really connected much with its Legion except for chance encounters with warbands. And since some of the warbands will have been recruiting since leaving Tsalgualsa, not to mention we don't know the "starting number" of the Legion at that point, the number could be anywhere from tens of thousands to well over one hundred thousand.

 

2.) Both theories are technically true. In the Chaos Codex, Night Lords are described as having "warp lightning" streaking across their armor. In most books(Lord of the Night, Night Lords trilogy) the lightning is paint. Massacre presents a third option with arc projectors, meaning there would only be lightning if the projectors were functional. So depending on which one you wan to go with, there's your army.

 

3.) Not likely. Not in 40K anyways. Talos and Co are dead and I don't even think there has been a whisper of him doing so. Any future NL material will most likely be in the Heresy setting.

[Bruegel]

Thanks gents - I appreciate the fast replies.

 

For some reason I like the idea that the NL's are still strong in numbers even if they exist in fractured warbands spread across the galaxy.

 

I don't own the FW book but like the idea that they could create the lightning on-demand for full terror effect.

 

And finally - I'm not surprised by the opinions that ADB won't be doing any more NLs novels related to Talos etc - I'm just glad that he left such an indelible mark with the trilogy.

[Chronotonic]

if it is one thing NL players are good at...

 

One...

 

Quick and sudden ...

 

and

 

two

 

know what we talk about when we talk about it...

[Forté]

if it is one thing NL players are good at...

 

One...

 

Quick and sudden ...

 

and

 

two

 

know what we talk about when we talk about it...

And accessorising. Don't forget that.

[Flint13]

Thanks gents - I appreciate the fast replies.

 

For some reason I like the idea that the NL's are still strong in numbers even if they exist in fractured warbands spread across the galaxy.

 

I don't own the FW book but like the idea that they could create the lightning on-demand for full terror effect.

 

And finally - I'm not surprised by the opinions that ADB won't be doing any more NLs novels related to Talos etc - I'm just glad that he left such an indelible mark with the trilogy.

The Nightlords seem to share that first characteristic with the World Eaters. We're made out to be a pretty large legion, but we're so fractured and broken into tiny warring splinter groups, that there is rarely hope of any combined effort. 

[Corsovitt]

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters in Midnight Clad

 

Firstly I loved the Wolf in Midnight Clad challenge as I do have several unpainted/partially/badly painted  Space Wolf/Chaos Marine models which were going to be painted as fallen Wolf Brothers who had turned to Khorne, one of the models if I recall correctly (these boxes are currently in storage due to house move of about 200 miles) is a original metal long fang sergeant from the 90's . I also want to say I'm impressed by the four hour space wolf which Sister Flint has painted , I spend four hours undercoating and then pontificating about colour schemes (needless to say its nicer than most of my painted models too)

 

To Brother Bruegels questions;

 

1. In order to write the fluff to my own 106th company I have spent long hours of time whilst on hold at work reading up on numerous websites/fansites about our legion and the fact is that all the information is contrary to the extreme , estimates have the legion at about 110,000 pre heresy and after the Thramas Crusade/Terra and the Scouring about 10,000, I think like most things it is deliberately vague in order to allow the individual to make whatever decision that he/she wants for their legion/company/warband.

Personally speaking my own company is a lot more numerous than most of the warbands previously mentioned although I'm trying to reflect in my 'fluff' that this is part to the accumulation of splinters of other companies being absorbed after campaigns and also the 106th grand company having a higher than average number of legionnaires prior to the heresy.

 

There is no wrong and no right, some of our brothers have allowed their companies to become overrun with impure geneseed, allowing the weaker blood of the False Emperor's subsequent foundings to make up the numbers whereas my company remains almost pure Nostraman with renegades and non Night Lord legionnaires being few. Its your hobby, your money and your time.

 

2. I have no idea I've read a lot of the fluff and seen some of the pointless arguments on other sites and see my earlier comment about no wrong and no right.

 

3. I think AD-B is pretty much done with our Legion at least for the forseeable future there is a great blog for AD-B  I cannot recall the link but I have read it and its very insightful. 

 

Finally back to an earlier post where I had an idea for writing a piece of fluff from the point of view of a remembrancer , I've moved forwards a little with that - I visualise the VIII legion not quite being media hungry but Kurze seems to crave justification and vindication and after watching Apocalypse Now again, I have a feeling that a Dennis Hopper type Imagist/Documentist wouldn't be entirely unwelcome in the Night Lords.

 

Fracta Est Silentium

[Kol Saresk]

Here's the link to A D-B's blog that Corsovitt mentioned:

 

LINKY

 

Going back to the numbers, the closest thing we have to a general number is Massacre, which is still very general in that it gives a range from 90,000 to 120,000. However, Massacre even tells us that because there were still portions of the Legion rampaging through the Eastern Fringe, that number only refers to those that were present at Istvaan V. What this means is that the VIII was a very large Legion. And with its MO of kidnapping recruits and accelerating the implantation process(probably why so many were off-the-wall bonkers) this translates to the numbers being rather astronomical.

 

Why do I feel the need to point this out, you ask?

 

Well, some of the more veteran members of the hobby may recall that around the time Lord of the Night was released, there was the belief that the Night Lords Legion "moved as one". That the Legion was still "legion". The reason being was that Lord of the Night had Zso Sahaal setting himself up as the successor to Curze. So obviously since Krieg Acerbus was the only challenger to the title, then his warband must have been the Legion(or at least most of it) and therefore all other warbands were either individual sorties or "renegades". It was one of many beliefs that popped up around that time, but was a rather strong one. At least from what I observed in my rather narrow view of the entire 40K community.

 

But when A D-B's Night Lord trilogy popped up, it made waves. Some good, some bad. All of a sudden, the entire Legion was considered to be destitute and fighting for scraps, despite the fact that even as early as Soul Hunter, A D-B was putting extreme amounts of effort into showing that the Legion did not move as one. That it was Shattered. It was also used to justify the belief that a Night Lords army, and by extension, any warband written in the fluff, had to be a Raptor army. Ironically.

 

Again, why am I bringing this up? Because in Soul Hunter, Talos makes an interesting statement to Abaddon: "Captain Acerbus leads the largest coalition of companies."(page 163) Why is this significant? Because it states very plainly that Krieg Acerbus leads only a portion of the Legion. It is the largest portion in terms of how companies belong to it, but it is also populated enough that a Craftworld fears it.

 

Yet there is still need to point out significance. Basically, when we put everything together, the numbers do not matter. What matters is that there is enough justification all around that we can go from being a warband that is a part of another warband(just like a coalition) with our part numbering 100, 200 maybe even more with the whole being greater than that, to a warband that is broken, tattered and undersupplied and only numbers in the dozens.

 

There is plenty of range to do as we wish where numbers are concerned. And by extension, with resources as well. If you want an armored company, there is literally nothing stopping you. Within reason of course.

[Flint13]

That is a very good point. I remember reading that a while back now. Thanks Kol!

 

If there were around 100k or more of us *just* at Istvaan V, I think that pretty firmly puts us in at least the top five largest legions. We know that the Ultramarines were right around 250 thousand before the Heresy started (and Calth trimmed a few ^_^ ) in No Know Fear. Then in Aurelian the legion of the Word Bearers is defined as being at least 150k before Calth. World Eaters were pegged at 120k (I'm 90% sure in Betrayer, but don't quote me on it) so we'd be right up there. 

[Deadman Wade]

IIRC after Thramas Crusade 1/4 of a legion was destroyed, some were killed at Terra, plus casualties at the hands of ultramarines and their successor chapters. That leaves something like 60-70 thousands NLs after escaping Tsagualsa, I think.

[Kol Saresk]

1/5 of the force that was at Sheol was confirned destroyed with up to 1/4 being estimated, plus some dozens of warships that may or may not have had who knows how many Night Lords on board. And then, 100 years of number fluctuations later, we get Tsalgualsa, which again would only affect those present. Then of course, 300-10,000 years later(depending on your point of view), the numbers again face serious flux. Actually, even more so this time due to how the Legions "recruit" in 40K. So the reality is, we don't know and we don't have enough information to make accurate guesses.

[Balthamal]

Most of the element of doubt comes from the varying degrees of "time" that the various warbands/companies have experienced. 10th Company has had 300 or so years since fleeing Tsagualsa, there could be companies who've had 20,000 years. It's all fair game since there's nothing in print to decide it one way or the other

[Armond]

A little snippet from some more added stuff in my little fluff story.


The barrel moved back down to his torso, three shots rang out, kicking his body violently. The booted feet of his murderer passed by, moving away from the engaged forces. What was left of Selevon's body lay immobile, a crater now located where most of his torso once was, filling with the oxygen rich blood of an astartes. His body dumped blood, the vigorous beating of his genehanced heart trying to feed what his mind thought the body needed. He could not move, he could still see though, laying on his back he could took in the entirety of the sky above. He watched for many moments as a company's worth of assault marines vaulted from the highest battlements, attired in the bright arterial red of the Blood Angels, and assaulted his airborne brothers in midair. Darkness began to form at the edges of his vision.

"Headmaster? Are you still with us? Acknowledge..."

[Kol Saresk]

@Balthamal: Exactly. Not to mention splinter warbands taking on new identities or becoming part of other warbands.

 

For example, if Warband X becomes say, the Raptor Cult Black Talons. And they take in every kidnapped child, Renegade and Traitor that wants in. Well eventually, every single "original" member who was a Night Lord dies. And there are no other VIII Legionnaires. Do the Black Talons still count as Night Lords?

 

Inversely, if the Night Lords give up the VIII colors an say, take on the Black of Abaddon's Legion, do they still figure into the number of Night Lords?

 

And that time warp can even screw with the numbers. Say there are 60,000 Night Lords that can be physically accounted for in the time-instance of 40K. Do you still try counting the who-knows-how-many Night Lords that haven't caught up yet, or skipped ahead due to the flow of the warp tides?

[Balthamal]

And even broken down into separate warbands, eg the Brotherhood of Darkness, do those who still wear the winged skull consider themselves part of the Legion? Do they still think of the Legion as this overarching umbrella as it were that brings all of these warbands/companies together? Bear in mind these guys kill each other even more so compared to other renegade legions

[Bruegel]

Thanks folks - great input there and much to think about. The whole warp-bending-time issue really throws a wrench in the works too.

 

At times I have to remind myself that none of this is real...but I swear, it frequently feels like it is! Say what you want about GW and BL, they have done an amazing job in creating the 40K universe and the history within it.

[Deadman Wade]

A little off-topic, maybe. What do you guys think about Dreadnoughts in NL warbands? In "Soul Hunter" Malcharion was perfectly sane, but many novels show Chaos dreadnoughts as demented and insane. I want to include one of those new release Dreadnoughts (Helbrutes, yeah) in my warband as well as FW Night Lords dreadnought.

[Balthamal]

You could play it pretty much any way you choose really. Malcharion was sane but bitter since he desperately wanted to avoid being interred in the 1st place (his last words were a plea to that effect). You could have a completely deranged legionnaire trapped in a lightness coffin who slaughters indiscriminately once roused as it is a release from the dreams of suspended animation that dreadnoughts undergo or one who glories in it's power. There could be one who was carved apart during the Great Crusade and has fought from inside the sarcophagus for ten millennia embracing the terror of being a walking tank or one who has been in the shall a matter of days and has already been driven hopelessly insane from the experience. Or even have been interred as a punishment, their limbs cut off and torse cut apart to allow the augmetics that make interface with the systems on a dreadnought possible to be grafted on.

 

Lots of potential there  

[Augustus b'Raass]

A little off-topic, maybe. What do you guys think about Dreadnoughts in NL warbands? In "Soul Hunter" Malcharion was perfectly sane, but many novels show Chaos dreadnoughts as demented and insane. I want to include one of those new release Dreadnoughts (Helbrutes, yeah) in my warband as well as FW Night Lords dreadnought.

I think either way, dreadnoughts are fine. The 47th Company is led by a completely sane Contemptor Dreadnought (or at least his mental faculties have not been impaired - for all intents and purposes his and all of the Night Lords' morality is not quite *sane* from a M3 viewpoint...). Not all dreadnoughts become insane or dormant. I love the idea of this complete hulk of a machine lording it over his 'lesser' brothers.

[Spaz431]

20th Company - Joy in Darkness - Led by Vicount Kyll Eston. Terran Born. Lost in the warp during time of Great Crusade to resurface approximately M39. Saddened by loss of the Night Haunter and the Corona Nox.