Where would Chaos go...

[Loesh]

Unlike normal marines, the Black Legion is inclusive. So it makes sense they get things from all the legions.

 

But then why have specialized legions at all if the Black Legion just covers EVERYTHING and is so much bigger?

 

It gives the impression that, in order to have an impact on the Long War you have to be a black legionnaire.

[Wade Garrett]

Because the official line that is getting hammered into our foreheads whether we will it or no is that everybody that isn't Black Legion or the Crimson Laughter is basically the equivalent of some bearded yahoo out in the sticks of Alabama who occasionally yells "Whoooo-eeee! South gone rise again one day, whoooo-eeee!"

 

You either suck up to Calgar Abaddon or you learn to enjoy "forging a narrative" about how your starving used-to-be-Word Bearer Marines in their barely functional scrap armor managed to steal enough Spam and Mountain Dew from Random Imperial Planet Nobody Cares About #3478912-4 that they can run away from the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves for at least another month before they have to resort to eating their Books of Lorgar.

[Loesh]

Not...quite...how i'd phrase it, but that's how the situation appears, yes.

[Lay]

You're exaggerating. I haven't come across any fluff that marginalizes the other legions like that.

[Loesh]

You're exaggerating. I haven't come across any fluff that marginalizes the other legions like that.

 

I'd say the mere fact that the Black Legion is ten times bigger then the Word Bearers is a good start, but the Black Legions always been big.

 

The Word Bearers at least have Dark Apostles that are unique, but what do Emperors Children have? or World Eaters? or the mono-legions in general? The Black Legion seems to just flat out be better then those legions.

[Wade Garrett]

Actually, the Word Bearers have Dark Apostles (and Possessed) who are weaker than those that can be fielded by a bunch of Johnny Come Latelies who fell to Chaos because they were trolled by the Dark Angels.

 

Why yes, I AM still bitter about the Crimson Slaughter supplement! What gave it away?

 

:p

[Loesh]

Oh yeah, that is right they do have a dark apostle.

 

Carry on then.

[Lay]

The BL has always been the most versatile Legion. That's nothing new. The Cult Marines they could field have been described as "specialists" within their ranks in several codices. I don't see what's changed or how they outmatch the other legions in their respective fields.

[Vesper]

Actually, the Word Bearers have Dark Apostles (and Possessed) who are weaker than those that can be fielded by a bunch of Johnny Come Latelies who fell to Chaos because they were trolled by the Dark Angels.

Why yes, I AM still bitter about the Crimson Slaughter supplement! What gave it away?

Rulewise ?

Who cares about rules ? We play Chaos.

[incinerator950]

I like Pyramids too, but to paraquote kol on my phone, the WE and DG specialist recruitment was granfathered from the previous dex, and is open to interpretation on quality and capacity. Which I won't open the BL quote to further an interpretation, and I need my nap before going to my second job.

 

Lay: The problem is the BL are remniscent of the Ultra Marines. Not only just always winning, but because there is no Warband/Chaos Legion differentiation outside of supplements and an arbitrary modifier, they're Ultra Marines with Black Templars, White Scars, and a bunch of things cobbled together.

 

They were the most diverse force Chaos Marines had, but the new rewriting is just shoveling it deeper. Not having traits and a tabletop presence for being different hurts all of us.

[Marshal Rohr]

The other legions don't have special things because the studio has made it clear they don't really exist anymore outside of small pockets of leftovers.

 

It's cooler, to me, when people use the cult units and just convert them into units of different specialties. Berserkers count as dedicated assault units, plague marines are breachers, rubric marines could be something that I haven't come up with yet, and noise marines are havocs with anti-medium infantry weapons.

[incinerator950]

Which is a total smack in the face.

[Lay]

Lay: The problem is the BL are remniscent of the Ultra Marines. Not only just always winning, but because there is no Warband/Chaos Legion differentiation outside of supplements and an arbitrary modifier, they're Ultra Marines with Black Templars, White Scars, and a bunch of things cobbled together.

 

They were the most diverse force Chaos Marines had, but the new rewriting is just shoveling it deeper. Not having traits and a tabletop presence for being different hurts all of us.

 

There's bad rules and then there's bad fluff. Fluffwise, the Legions still excel in their particular styles of warfare - even the current codex says so. And as far as the rules are concerned, well, we've been empty-handed since the 4th edition Codex, so what's changed?

 

I mean, until recently people thought the Black Legion was bland and had nothing going for it (not even victories), but now that they get some much needed exposure, they're suddenly making the other Legions look bad?

 

The other legions don't have special things because the studio has made it clear they don't really exist anymore outside of small pockets of leftovers.

It's not that bad. For example, it's not like the World Eaters have started kowtowing to psykers all of a sudden.

[Marshal Rohr]

I'm not saying I like it. I'm saying the author of the latest book on black legion has elaborated on this consistently for a while now.

 

 

Everyone gets bent over by the studio. They don't discriminate.

[Tenebris]

Consider the following; in the Eye either you adapt or you die. Point. There is no support from a central administration, no guaranteed supplies, no laws that provide an organization with soldiers, ships and weapons... there is only a constant war. First for the meagre supplies and second for the glory of the Dark Gods. The Black Legion adapted better than most and somehow enforced an iron rule on their domains but still it is locked in a battle for survival. 

 

Legions are no more, we have warbands. Each warband does whatever it can do in order to assure its survival. If this means accepting those of other geneseeds in your ranks so be it, if it means preying on your own kin so be it, if it means waging war unending so be it. Some decry that the legions have lost their soul and spirit and this is true, what is left are countless upon countless of warbands who all struggle for mere survival. I quite see an Emperor's Children marine securing a cadre of berezker surgeons if this gives his warband the edge in this battle for survival, or a Death Guard squad being paid in blood money by the Thousand Sons if there is need for such specialists. In the end all that matters is that you live to see tomorrow, when tomorrow is another day in hell itself, and "tomorrow" is subject to interpretation.

 

What makes the Black Legion diverse from other Undivided legions out there?

 

- The Word Bearers fight to bring the faith of Chaos to humanity;

- The Night Lords fight for themselves... faith or allegiance are seldom of import;

- The Iron Warriors fight to break the Imperium piece by bloody piece, to effectively dismantle all they have built;

- The Alpha Legion has its own, mysterious objectives which sometimes align with those of the other traitor legions;

 

- The Black Legion fights to see the astartes installed as the rightful demigods of humanity and to usher a new era of mankind's dominion.

 

Unlike other legions the Black Legion has a goal that goes beyond Chaos or vengeance. Perhaps the only other legion which has a similar goal is the Alpha Legion, at least in one of their myriad of doctrines.

 

Are they the powersmurfs of Chaos? No they are not. They are far, far from conventional, in fact they appear quite the outsiders compared to the driving motives of the other traitor legions. The cult troops they use and the armies they field are simply the result of survival in the Eye where you have to pool together every resource available to you. Every single chaos warband is guilty of the same sin for none would care an iota when comes to simple survival. 

 

Fluff will indeed advance but as it stays now, the Eye is the literal hell in the Warhammer 40k universe. Life is incredibly dangerous and tough even for demigods like the traitor legionnaires so it is only natural that all ancient codes of honour, allegiance and faith have slowly eroded to leave only a minuscule core of those beliefs often enough overridden by daily choices about survival.

 

I repeat, I quite see some Berzerkers in the employ of the Emperor's Children as a case. It is survival, they hate each other but if such tenuous alliance allows each other to survive one day more in the Eye... then to hell with the gods and ancient hatreds. All goes... so effectively a "normal" warband would be Undivided with either a strong (original) core of some legionnaires from one of the legions. 

[Wade Garrett]

The fact that fans of the Iron Hands, Black Templars, and Imperial Fists are likewise shrieking in agony doesn't exactly do much for my own misery.

 

After all, does it hurt less to get whacked in the shins with a cricket bat if everyone standing beside you gets walloped too?

 

;)

[Loesh]

 

 

I repeat, I quite see some Berzerkers in the employ of the Emperor's Children as a case. It is survival, they hate each other but if such tenuous alliance allows each other to survive one day more in the Eye... then to hell with the gods and ancient hatreds. All goes... so effectively a "normal" warband would be Undivided with either a strong (original) core of some legionnaires from one of the legions. 

 

I think Perfection went over this actually, it's not quite THAT extreme. They still hate each others guts, it's more "I stand on this side, you stand on that side, when this is over we go our separate ways." so no, the Emperors Children aren't really guilty of this as the black legion.

 

I appreciate what you're saying, but there IS a point of 'I'd rather die'.

[Goreshed]

Consider the following; in the Eye either you adapt or you die. Point. There is no support from a central administration, no guaranteed supplies, no laws that provide an organization with soldiers, ships and weapons... there is only a constant war. First for the meagre supplies and second for the glory of the Dark Gods. The Black Legion adapted better than most and somehow enforced an iron rule on their domains but still it is locked in a battle for survival. 

 

Legions are no more, we have warbands. Each warband does whatever it can do in order to assure its survival. If this means accepting those of other geneseeds in your ranks so be it, if it means preying on your own kin so be it, if it means waging war unending so be it. Some decry that the legions have lost their soul and spirit and this is true, what is left are countless upon countless of warbands who all struggle for mere survival. I quite see an Emperor's Children marine securing a cadre of berezker surgeons if this gives his warband the edge in this battle for survival, or a Death Guard squad being paid in blood money by the Thousand Sons if there is need for such specialists. In the end all that matters is that you live to see tomorrow, when tomorrow is another day in hell itself, and "tomorrow" is subject to interpretation.

 

 

So where does it state that they did everything better then everyone else?

 

 

The other legions don't have special things because the studio has made it clear they don't really exist anymore outside of small pockets of leftovers.

It's not that bad. For example, it's not like the World Eaters have started kowtowing to psykers all of a sudden.

 

 

When 4th came out and ever since then they have gotten rid of the rules which forbid those who worship one god to use units from its opposite. Khorne could NEVER have units of Tzeentch, similarly Slaanesh and Nurgle couldn't do that as well. It is that bad.

[daboarder]

Sure but they dont specialise so they arent as die hard as thendeathgurad. Rqbid as the world eaters extreme as the emperors children or enigmatic as the thousand sons

[Goreshed]

Well lets be fair...

 

There's World Eaters then there is Khorne Beserkers.

 

There is Death Guard and then there is Plague Marines.

 

Any marine can shed his colors, get implanted or infected and then become either of those two. Slaanesh, I don't want to think what they do but the follow the same lines. Thousand Sons however, there are Thousand Sons and those who survived the Rubric (or didn't...) and then there are those who worship Tzeentch but they aren't Thousand Sons.

 

Lets be even more fair. They are all touched by Chaos and mechanically speaking it doesn't matter if they were raised that way from the start or they were there at the start of the Heresy. The factor is fluff. How you want them to be portrayed in your army and what we are talking about, coming down to the established fluff. Does the Black Legion have those originals in their mix? Sure but they are most likely a warband that operates under them but aren't apart of them and wear the black. Then you have those who have gone over to good old Abby and started to share their secrets but the kicker is that they still aren't the same as the originals and they will never be. A prime example that we have already scene is with the Gol Vabrak of the Word Bearers. Here you have a solid unit that suffered and for better description 'earned' what they got. Then you have those who came later that Argental was order to create from Lorgar. Are they the same? In some respects, since they both became possessed but how they did is vastly different and makes all the difference in the world.

[Kol Saresk]

I like Pyramids too, but to paraquote kol on my phone, the WE and DG specialist recruitment was granfathered from the previous dex, and is open to interpretation on quality and capacity. Which I won't open the BL quote to further an interpretation, and I need my nap before going to my second job.

 

Lay: The problem is the BL are remniscent of the Ultra Marines. Not only just always winning, but because there is no Warband/Chaos Legion differentiation outside of supplements and an arbitrary modifier, they're Ultra Marines with Black Templars, White Scars, and a bunch of things cobbled together.

 

They were the most diverse force Chaos Marines had, but the new rewriting is just shoveling it deeper. Not having traits and a tabletop presence for being different hurts all of us.

Actually the wording was a little different, but the same thing on the World Eaters and Death Guard can also be found in the Fourth Edition Dex. In the 3.5 Edition Dex, it made a point of saying the Cult Troops could be found anywhere, even outside the mono-Legions. The mono-Legions would just be where you find the oldest and more powerful(fluffwise) of the cult units. Ruleswise, this translated as the mono-Lists being the respective Cult Legions while the Renegades and "lesser" Warbands were supposed to use the "All Comers" List, which was coincidentally the Black Legion List. So we've actually been told that everything can be found in the Black Legion for.... twelve years now I think? Longer than I've been involved with 40K, I know that much.

[Emperors Immortals]

I know back when I were a youngin' the BL had access to and pratonage of many Legion cult troops, even when 2nd ed let you pick and mix.

[Kol Saresk]

I know back when I were a youngin' the BL had access to and pratonage of many Legion cult troops, even when 2nd ed let you pick and mix.

So pretty much since the beginning of Chaos then. Which makes sense. Abaddon is supposed to be the "Antichrist" so its only fitting that his Legion be the "Harbingers of the Apocalypse". After all, these are the guys who began the Long War. These are the guys the Black Crusades were named after. Everyone else might have their own vision of the Long War, but these are the guys who have a purpose beyond what their fathers wanted. A purpose that is unique and wholly theirs.

 

Oh and Jeske, the Rubric cannot be duplicated. Pure and simple. Khayon does not create Rubricae. He merely controls them. He just happens to have ~100 of the buggers around to do his bidding.

[Wade Garrett]

Are people being serious?

 

The Heresy era Traitors were fighting to put Horus on the Throne of Terra and establish a new Imperium ruled by the Legio Astartes.

 

The Black Legion fights to put ABADDON on the throne of Terra and create a new empire ruled by the Astartes who belong to the Black Legion.

 

Boy. I bet the Ezekarion spent MONTHS coming up with this completely original vision and purpose that none of the original Traitor Legions could have ever imagined.

[Kol Saresk]

Really? I seem to remember Lorgar fighting to bring Chaos into the galaxy, Mortarion and Angron fighting because they had Daddy issues, Fulgrim fighting because it was fun, Curze fighting because he believes in everything dying and it all ending with Horus fighting just to rule. Not shape Humanity's destiny, just rule. Sort of like MacBeth. All that effort to become king only to not have a clue what to do with it when it happened.

 

Oh, and this is a very telling detail. The daemons refer to Horus as the "Sacrificed King".