A Chaos Army with no Hippies? Do I have to like Daemons?

[Prot]

After selling a massive piece of my Chaos collection on ebay I've been trying to get back into Chaos for 7th edition.

 

I actually think for Malestrom Chaos offers some great flexibility... it's such a different playstyle (Malestrom); I really enjoy it.

 

But to make Chaos more potent I've leaned heavily on the Daemon side of things including the Crimson Slaughter Voices Sorc. What I've come to realize is....

 

I don't like Daemons. I don't like the way they look, or act, nor their attitudes. I look at them like some sort of... space hippy. So the Chaos Marines I want to play, really don't like working with Space Hippies.

 

I think I cat still make the army work without those hippies, and I was thinking of a legion that really doesn't subscribe to them but still embodies the kind of hatred for what the Emperor has done to the Imperium.

 

So what Legions are best described like that? I know you can say 'any of them'. But I mean at their core, which Chaos Legion is deep in Space Marine values (military wise), but doesn't subscribe to Space Hippies?

 

First off the top of my head is Iron Warriors, but I just sold about 5K of painted IW. It's not horrible to restart them, but something fresh might help me on the hobby side.

 

Second was Alpha Legion but I gotta be honest, after reading the old HH novel by Dan Abnett, I truly am not convinced they are chaos-y. Hatred for Space Hippies? Check. But I think they have a hidden agenda to toss Abe down an airlock.

 

Any suggestions?

[Trevak Dal]

"Any suggestions" don't do chaos.  You're out of it, just stay out of it, or pick loyalists because they have better rules and less restrictive options.

 

Or use your Chaos marines as a basis for a conversion heavy (Mk 5 armor) Heresy Legion army.

[Shuggnuggath]

What about Night Lords?

[TheDevourer]

There are warbands that decided not to fight for chaos gods or utilize chaos powers ie. Nightlords also you could use some fresher traitor chapters i suppose.

[Sception]

My suggestion would be to see if your local meta would be ok with you running a 30k army in games of 40k, and if they're cool with that, then consider running 30k night lords or alpha legion or sons of horus out of the FW horus heresy books.

 

Then again, if you do do that, then you're running a marinish army with marinish units and vehicles, and not a lot of overtly chaos stuff - no princes, no daemon engines - so a similar result could be obtained by just running counts as out of the loyalist book.

 

If you do insist on daemon engines and the like, then you're stuck with CSMs, but I don't think you're really stuck with daemons. Not because CSMs are better than people say, but because Daemons aren't as good in 7th edition as some of us (myself included) thought they'd be. The psychic phase is just too unreliable to make summon spam that big a deal, and the other main gimmick of daemons - melee leaning flying circus - was nerfed pretty heavily by the requirement to glide for a turn before charging.

 

If you do run CSMs, well, run the units you like, and paint them the colors you want? There are no legion rules in 40k, and the CSM book is not so strong or so diverse that you can really afford to be stripping out options to try and follow an outdated legion theme.

[Lucien Eilam]

The Night Lords are supposed to be the most Chaos-ambivalent of the Legions, but why are you only considering Legions? You could create a renegade warband of your own who believe whatever you want them to believe, using whichever codex best represents what you want to put on the table.

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

After selling a massive piece of my Chaos collection on ebay I've been trying to get back into Chaos for 7th edition.

I actually think for Malestrom Chaos offers some great flexibility... it's such a different playstyle (Malestrom); I really enjoy it.

But to make Chaos more potent I've leaned heavily on the Daemon side of things including the Crimson Slaughter Voices Sorc. What I've come to realize is....

I don't like Daemons. I don't like the way they look, or act, nor their attitudes. I look at them like some sort of... space hippy. So the Chaos Marines I want to play, really don't like working with Space Hippies.

I think I cat still make the army work without those hippies, and I was thinking of a legion that really doesn't subscribe to them but still embodies the kind of hatred for what the Emperor has done to the Imperium.

So what Legions are best described like that? I know you can say 'any of them'. But I mean at their core, which Chaos Legion is deep in Space Marine values (military wise), but doesn't subscribe to Space Hippies?

First off the top of my head is Iron Warriors, but I just sold about 5K of painted IW. It's not horrible to restart them, but something fresh might help me on the hobby side.

Second was Alpha Legion but I gotta be honest, after reading the old HH novel by Dan Abnett, I truly am not convinced they are chaos-y. Hatred for Space Hippies? Check. But I think they have a hidden agenda to toss Abe down an airlock.

Any suggestions?

End of the day I find it is always best to go with the models you enjoy.

I will be avoiding using the Daemon Power. Part of this is down to I just got fed up of gaming against the two main build during 6th ed with Screamer & flying Daemon Prince. Nothing bad toward any oppents I did game against those Daemon armies, just it been the only list I've not enjoy gaming against & before that when it was flamer unit heavy.

I'll be taken my Iron Warriors force to a tournament on the 19th July? I want to try out my Warpsmith & Helbrute, I've really enjoy using them in games over the past few months, I've never felt let down by ether. Also just that way last year I did use two Heldrake for a bit, but I don't want to rely to heavy on them. So been move away, I'll keep a Heldrake as I like the model, I aim them to take out say Devastators or baby sitting object units & army wise add that high when people are looking that the army.

Beyound that it just waiting for the rule pack & find out how many points the event will be. I think this year I'm going to be trying out something a bit different each event, to let me use those units & just to add some great models as always to my Chaos collection

If your looking for a army - What about Night Lords? I see them as a very undivided army. Or if you do go Alpha Legion you could always make up your own theme/background? Or theme the Chaos army around a Fallen Chapter. A while back I though about converting up a Iron Hands army that turn to Chaos or a Black Templar army that had fallen to Khorne, same went with Blood Angels when they got updated in 2009 & after reading dear to tread novel.

Or it would be worth checking out the Black Library web site for some great novels to get some idea. While never read Blood Gorgons, it is something I plan to do in the future as I would not mind find out a bit more about there warband.

IP

[Warsmith Aznable]

 

Second was Alpha Legion but I gotta be honest, after reading the old HH novel by Dan Abnett, I truly am not convinced they are chaos-y. Hatred for Space Hippies? Check. But I think they have a hidden agenda to toss Abe down an airlock.

 

Alpha Legion are Chaos Marines, despite the tomfoolery of the Cabal and the vision quest of Alpharius. If you buy that they were actually sent undercover to benefit the Imperium in the long run (and not just corrupted by misguided xenos scum) then it wasn't long before they were so deep in they were as hopelessly lost to the Long War as anybody else.

[Xenith]

Go with the marine book. 

 

The CSM codex is going 'the lost and the damned' route, where you need combined arms to do stuff.

 

That said, the AL have been rogue for 10,000 years, some will have gone to chaos, and daemons are not subtle.

 

Any warband/legion can have the fluff wrangled to avoid daemons. Some is harder than others.

[Urauloth]

Night lords are pretty snooty about the neverborn (in general, by m41 there are some warbands summoning daemons all over) so if you're not going with iron warriors (who honestly fit your description best) then look into those, but as a couple of people have said, seriously consider making your own warband. That way you can give them a fluff reason for not working with daemons, plus you get to work on a theme from the ground up.

[Prot]

I honestly don't think I

 

 

 

Second was Alpha Legion but I gotta be honest, after reading the old HH novel by Dan Abnett, I truly am not convinced they are chaos-y. Hatred for Space Hippies? Check. But I think they have a hidden agenda to toss Abe down an airlock.

 

Alpha Legion are Chaos Marines, despite the tomfoolery of the Cabal and the vision quest of Alpharius. If you buy that they were actually sent undercover to benefit the Imperium in the long run (and not just corrupted by misguided xenos scum) then it wasn't long before they were so deep in they were as hopelessly lost to the Long War as anybody else.

 

 

But is this truth? Or speculation? Later on down the road, I have a gut feeling we may find out differently? Just wondering your source for this because I wanted to start these guys about a year ago and at the time I was lead to believe they had no real ties to Chaos..... just curious.

 

 

Go with the marine book. 

 

The CSM codex is going 'the lost and the damned' route, where you need combined arms to do stuff.

 

That said, the AL have been rogue for 10,000 years, some will have gone to chaos, and daemons are not subtle.

 

Any warband/legion can have the fluff wrangled to avoid daemons. Some is harder than others.

 

I agree but I still have a fair amount of unused stuff, and I'd like to think I could enjoy the army without allies.

 

 

 

End of the day I find it is always best to go with the models you enjoy.

 

  I want to try out my Warpsmith & Helbrute, I've really enjoy using them in games over the past few months, I've never felt let down by ether.  Also just that way last year I did use two Heldrake for a bit, but I don't want to rely to heavy on them. 

 

If your looking for a army - What about Night Lords?  I see them as a very undivided army.  Or if you do go Alpha Legion you could always make up your own theme/background?  Or theme the Chaos army around a Fallen Chapter.  A while back I though about converting up a Iron Hands army that turn to Chaos or a Black Templar army that had fallen to Khorne, same went with Blood Angels when they got updated in 2009 & after reading dear to tread novel.

 

Or it would be worth checking out the Black Library web site for some great novels to get some idea.  While never read Blood Gorgons, it is something I plan to do in the future as I would not mind find out a bit more about there warband.

 

IP

 

 

I used the Warpsmith quite a bit with my IW. I think he's pretty underrated personally.

 

Another Night Lords suggestion.... I have to be honest out of all the Chaos Legions I probably know the least of them.

 

I completely agree and subscribe to the idea of enjoying the models. I'm big on painting and enjoy the hobby side. There's nothing worse than forcing yourself to sit down and paint something you simply don't like.

 

 

What about Night Lords?

 

Hmm... I guess I should look more into these guys.... all I knew is that they were a bunch of psycho's? I thought it was basically a legion of criminals?

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

 

 

I completely agree and subscribe to the idea of enjoying the models. I'm big on painting and enjoy the hobby side. There's nothing worse than forcing yourself to sit down and paint something you simply don't like.

 

 

 

One of my long term goals is to collect each Chaos Legion + other chaos force.  Wanting each army to look different conversion wise & gaming wise (apart from tank heavy as I like mech warfare).  Just with the release of Forge World Khorne or Death Guard model for exsample & a lot of the kits we see today for conversion work.

 

I'm looking that starting a Fallen Angels army in the next few weeks, using the Black Legion supplement for the bulk of the army & Cypher though the dateslate.  Night Lords is another army I though about collecting after painting up a few models during last year from my First Claw kill team or the Night lord I'd model for a painting comp that my local GW store.  See Brother Heinrich & Dan the Daemon army log for some great conversion work.

 

IP

[Prot]

I just found this old picture of a test mini I did for an old school raptor (Night Lordish):

I'm trying to find something else here....

stumbled on my old Deathguard:

Okay here's what I was looking for:

VERY Old attempt at Night Lords (I thought I had another, better pic of this guy but guess not):

I still like the ol' bat heads for nostalgic reasons I guess. Are they still common? Or totally ignored in modern lore? (Kind of like Klingons in star trek)

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

You can still get the Night Lord conversion pack on the Games Workshop web site. It also worth checking out the Heresy era Night Lord part over on Forgeworld as the terror squad helmet been pretty cool, I've been using them on my Iron Warriors biker unit & aim to use them on a few other models in my army in the near future like HQ's & Champions & possible a Khorne Bezerker squad.
I've also use the FW Night Lord (Chaos version) doors for my Rhino transport, while I use the Night Lord (Heresy era) Shoulder pads on my First Claw kill team unit. Just really nice to paint.

You could also convert up the Night Lord wing helmets by using the Vampire Count grave guards kit. I seen a lot of nice conversion using them.

Also - on the PC right now so not able to copy & paste on these forums But as said check out both Brother Heinrich & Dan the Daemon army logs to name but a few. Also Steve from the Games Workshop army painter had a great Night lord army shown in White Dwarf 391 (UK, not sure on other part world) & they also show Steve Night Lord army over on the Games Workshop youtube channel when they where talking about the now current paint range.

I rememeber your Death Guards, they where a really good army when you posted up photos off them year & years ago.

[Yogi]

I don't think it is possible to get what you are after, while being fanatical about the fluff.

 

The 3 best choices are Night lords, Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion. 

 

In 2nd ed Night Lords are exactly what you want. 

 

http://i.imgur.com/F75kgoS.png

 

But they have since been portrayed as cowards and bullies in some cases. As well as the largest Night lord warband are now supposedly chaos worshipers. I think this isn't what you want.

 

There's no way to know what GW will end up doing with the AL. I largely ignore the Legion book personally. 2nd fluff is the best fluff despite or perhaps because of how little there is, just a hint, to give you the idea.

 

But no chaos legion has wholly been portrayed consistently as a faction with no regard for daemons and the gods. Because as we are told endlessly they aren't legion anymore but broken up into various warbands. Which in truth means you could choose any legion and make them what you want. You just have to let go of the fluff. 

 

Good luck, I think Night Lords are your best bet. 

[Sception]

If you're considering a 40k era legion, why not Zoidberg the Black Legion?  They're the largest, the most dangerous, and the most committed to tearing down the Imperium.  They're also the most diverse - Abaddon doesn't care what his lieutenants believe or how they fight, so long as they get the job done, so if you want a Black Legion warlord who eschews daemonic forces and looks down on his peers who resort to such tools as weaklings who can't stand on their own two legs, doomed to eventually fall on their own poorly-chosen swords when the neverborn inevitably turn on them as is their fundamentally fickle nature - well, that's just as fitting with Black Legion fluff as anything else.

 

Black Legion lets you do whatever you want with your personal army, while still being part of a larger established part of the fluff.  Best of both worlds.  The only drawback is an awesome color scheme.

[Emperors Immortals]

I see what you did there!

 

Seriosuly, BL is where its at. Im not playing CSM anymore but I am still writing CSM stories, BL have the best potential by far.

[Clone]

If you're considering a 40k era legion, why not Zoidberg the Black Legion?  They're the largest, the most dangerous, and the most committed to tearing down the Imperium.  They're also the most diverse - Abaddon doesn't care what his lieutenants believe or how they fight, so long as they get the job done, so if you want a Black Legion warlord who eschews daemonic forces and looks down on his peers who resort to such tools as weaklings who can't stand on their own two legs, doomed to eventually fall on their own poorly-chosen swords when the neverborn inevitably turn on them as is their fundamentally fickle nature - well, that's just as fitting with Black Legion fluff as anything else.

 

Black Legion lets you do whatever you want with your personal army, while still being part of a larger established part of the fluff.  Best of both worlds.  The only drawback is an awesome color scheme.

Here here!

[Sception]

The only real drawback of the black legion is there's no HH version of it from FW to play, since the Sons of Horus is really not the same thing.

[Warsmith Aznable]

 

 

 

 

 

Second was Alpha Legion but I gotta be honest, after reading the old HH novel by Dan Abnett, I truly am not convinced they are chaos-y. Hatred for Space Hippies? Check. But I think they have a hidden agenda to toss Abe down an airlock.

Alpha Legion are Chaos Marines, despite the tomfoolery of the Cabal and the vision quest of Alpharius. If you buy that they were actually sent undercover to benefit the Imperium in the long run (and not just corrupted by misguided xenos scum) then it wasn't long before they were so deep in they were as hopelessly lost to the Long War as anybody else.

But is this truth? Or speculation? Later on down the road, I have a gut feeling we may find out differently? Just wondering your source for this because I wanted to start these guys about a year ago and at the time I was lead to believe they had no real ties to Chaos..... just curious.

Source would be everything ever written about Alpha Legion except that one HH book, as far as I know.

[Yogi]

If you're considering a 40k era legion, why not Zoidberg the Black Legion?  They're the largest, the most dangerous, and the most committed to tearing down the Imperium.  They're also the most diverse - Abaddon doesn't care what his lieutenants believe or how they fight, so long as they get the job done, so if you want a Black Legion warlord who eschews daemonic forces and looks down on his peers who resort to such tools as weaklings who can't stand on their own two legs, doomed to eventually fall on their own poorly-chosen swords when the neverborn inevitably turn on them as is their fundamentally fickle nature - well, that's just as fitting with Black Legion fluff as anything else.

 

Black Legion lets you do whatever you want with your personal army, while still being part of a larger established part of the fluff.  Best of both worlds.  The only drawback is an awesome color scheme.

 

Has there ever been a black legionnaire not in the thrall of chaos worship that you can point to? This is the same legion that had huge numbers give themselves over to possession. Black legion in general are fond of daemons. It would be personal fluff that OPs warband refused to do that. That's not what OP asked for. That would be the major drawback. 

[Prot]

What would be the best Sorc set up for Black Legion (I have the supplement, but don't know if changes to that nova power are good or bad) and how would you support it?

 

I'm considering Black Legion... I tried to get into them before the supplement came out and didn't get far enough to say if it was going to fun or not. I do know that to play Abaddon looks pretty hard considering his points, also I think I'd have to get the forgeworld version instead of the midget guy.

 

Night Lords look cool too. I don't know about the idea of them being cowards though?

 

All I know is the only 'chapter' I could get into that wasn't a Legion was Red Corsairs simply because of Huron (I still think he's cool). I've always been a sucker for founding Legions... sorry.

 

++edit++

Not to muddy the waters but the only other non-legion consideration for me.... is Crimson Slaughter. Some reason I didn't really see many people take them up and king of lost my gas but I did buy some stuff.

 

Not sure how effective Crimson Slaughter would be without Maleific powers..... I did propose Cursed earth with Warp talons and a sorc with jetpack. Would it have been a cool looking army? Perhaps but it probably wouldn't work very well. lol

[Sith’ari]

Honestly mate I wouldn't get to hung up over the official background as, with the way that all of the legions have split into factions/warbands, most of the current background just highlights their very basic traits.

 

In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's entirely plausible to have a large word bearer warband that absolutely refuses to use daemons. Maybe they believe that to summon in such a manner is blasphemy and that a true show of faith is to overthrow Terra's false god with their own strength of arms.

 

That's the beauty of playing chaos. Our background is so open, there are literally endless possibilities! B)

[Warsmith Aznable]

What I did was come up with a "successor chapter" warband that refuses to bow to daemons or worship the chaos gods, but uses the basic characteristics and traditions of their parent legion. If there is something daemonic in a unit I make a machine or robot to counts-as, and I have a few actual daemon squads modeled using WHFB figures.

[MrBear]

 

Night Lords look cool too. I don't know about the idea of them being cowards though?

 

 

 

Most of them aren't exactly cowards, it's more a case of them enjoying using their terror tactics for killing weak and helpless 'prey' more than fighting proper military forces. Other marines aren't exactly likely to be as affected by their brand of psychological warfare so they are no 'fun' that way. They won't exactly run away screaming if they face serious resistance but they will try to use every thinkable and unthinkable dirty trick there is to tilt the odds in their way. Not the most courageous guys in the galaxy but it's a bit to simplistic to just call them 'cowards'

 

If you're interested in them I recommend ADB's Night Lords series, stellar books that gives a nice insight in how they CAN think and operate (they are after all splintered into a multitude of warbands that differ from each other) or check out any of the 40k wikis that have articles about them.