Successor chapter flavor/fluff help

[JSlade]

http://imageshack.com/a/img913/271/baPfM0.jpg

Howdy gang. (I know its been done ad nauseam) 

 

Could I get some of your wisdom on a fluff question?

 

A little background. I've been seriously out of the hobby for a long time. I had a brief adventure into it a few years back, but it never went very far. I've jumped in full strength as of last week, since I've moved back to my home town, near my old group, and actually have a decent job and can afford it. 

I played a renegade Black Templars force in ol 4th edition. I loved CC. My leader was a chaplain dual wielding lightning claws. I had a chaptermaster force commander... but we'll get to that.

 

With the new blood angels book coming out, I've decided to go full space vampires and would appreciate your collective input. I want to harvest the story of my old BT renegades, who went something akin to Huron. A crusading fleet gets stranded on a distant world, decide to stay and "start a fortress" out of the world, but the lure of the world, and the many attacks of Orks (old buddies Matt and Jason played Orks), kept them there, where they decided to abandon Imperial edicts and orders. 

 

X years or millennia later, the remnants have become a space vampire chapter. 

 

Black Templar Renegades 
+

??????

= Space Vampires.  

 

Now, I've seen some space vampire stuff, and I've seen it go full retard. Some good tasteful stuff, and some Vampire counts holding a bolter. I don't want to do that. Hell, I almost did that. *looks over at the Coven throne box I bought for excessive bits*. What I'd like to do, is emulate that Flesh Eaters/Charnal Guard thing, and sort of have it just be a fluff deal. Also, paint vampire faces. 

 

So, do you have any good ideas, on how/why this could work? I'd love to say the Charnal Vampires showed up, but successors of successors doesn't work. Maybe the planet itself, (named Vhalpurgis) had vampires, that seduced the BT renegades. I don't friggin know. I thought maybe to go as far as, taking an allied BT force, and have the old heads, that old Chaplain and Force commander be an HQ, and an Elite choice. Maybe not. But, what I do know, is you guys are a great community, I've been reading for years, and I thought I'd ask your opinions. 

 

Also: I went with the name Blood Dragons. yah. You've seen it before, so have I. But, Dracula means dragon. There was an Order of the Dragons. I think the chapter symbol I cobbled together looks cool, so I'm sticking with it. (with reservations). 

 

And now, some dumb pictures.

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/280x200q90/673/Y7xxhB.jpghttp://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/907/GY4lS8.jpg

 

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/673/RqiDbC.jpg

An assault squad I painted horribly last night. I haven't painted anything in a few years, and have obviously lost all skill. I'm entirely dissatisfied with them, but they're my old guys, I scrubbed up, and have about 15 guys to "re-learn" how to paint with. I want the armor to be much "purpler". And I bought an airbrush, so I'm learning to use that. I posted in the painting thread, to ask on a highlight choice. I'm going to try the "Zenithal" method, but my top highlight, tuskagor looks too pink. Or a true red, looks... well, too Blood Angels. If you have any ideas in this regard, they're very welcome.

 

 

 

And lastly, here is the first guy I painted. Just to relearn the very basics. you can see the mess of dudes i have strewn about back there, in various phases of failure. 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/901/j0yJqF.jpg

[Toomanyprojects]

It looks okay, but you might want to ground them a bit more firmly in BA lore. It sounds like in this case we have serious problems with the red thirst and or black rage.

 

There is a BA successor chapter (blood drinkers?) who have gained 'an unprecedented level of control over the flaw' because of their habit of drinking the stuff like Dr Pepper. Maybe yours has a similar situation?

 

I think that saying that the world already harboured vampires is perhaps too much of a stretch though. In this case I think that good old fashioned gene seed corruption will work.

 

The way I build my new chapters is to decide upon one or two unique ideas about them and then to build up from there. Don't overdo it and you can have yourself a nice bit of fluff.

 

Also don't assume that just because the chapter has given into vampirism that this means try are not loyal to the imperium. Successors like the fleshtearers walk the line and others like the lamenters and blood Knights have crossed over it and become renegades (lamenters did come back tho) so there is plenty of choice in fluff.

 

Don't worry about being a little rusty with painting stuff. Just keep plugging away and all will be fine :)

 

Hope I've helped

[JSlade]

Toomanyprojects: thank you for the recommendations. I think you're absolutely right. Its a little overboard. Vampires on the world already, and the BT part... its just too much. I feel the same urge, when customizing the models... I have to reel it back. I've got a coven throne and some other fantasy stuff, but i find myself removing parts cause, fundamentally, they're still space marines first. And its a fine line, before it becomes a novelty army. So I appreciate the advice. 

 

 

For a Vanguard Vet section, I bought 10x Nightlord Raptors. I need to green stuff on some blood drops. But, I think it will work.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/537/ZHiZjF.jpg

 

 

I'm going to make a battle damaged RAS squad. Its a mkIV armor, old school jump pack, grey knights helmet, with bat wings. The whole squad will have various grey knight helmets, and bat wings. I don't think its "toooooo" much. But, i like it. Trying to go for a "knights" aspect, in this squad.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/674/ZQHIXV.jpg

 

 

My overall modeling theme, is that each veteran sgt, is a "count", as it were, and the squad is his retinue. So all the squads would be themed appropriately to that flavor of vampire. but again, I got to keep in mind that they're Marines first, thematically vampires second.

 

Thank you.

[JSlade]

Making a Reclusiarch out of Glenn Danzig. Still a lot to do. Danzig Skull Belt Buckle. Crimson Ghost on shoulder pad. Just learning Green Stuff. 

 

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/910/V4eP0F.jpg

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

The conversion possibilities can be really cool, I would warn to try and not make them look like Night Lords, what with the bat icons and all.

 

If anything I would recommend checking out the Legacy of Kain video game series and there take on the Angelic Vampire in Janos Audron.

 

Fluff wise, these are still space marines, if they get swayed into some kind of renegade-ism or corruption, Daemon's did it. So you could go the Vampiric Daemon angle and the first thing that comes to mind is "Sanguinius reborn in the warp!"

 

Other fluffy considerations: these could be an anti-thesis to BA, so have them be blood drinkers who hate any kind of art or mortal beauty.

 

ish my 0.02$

[InquisitorBlack]

I like them. I like the fact that you're doing an overt vampire theme rather than the very subtextual theme that occurs within the BA and successors.

However, don't feel compelled to adhere to BA fluff or even their rules. These seem more like "Blood Dragons" in space rather than anything currently existing in the 40k universe, so create your fluff appropriately and use whatever rules suit the army.

BA is a good fit rules wise, but so might other CC chapters like Space Wolves, Black Templars, Chaos Space Marines. If you took Space Wolves, you could model Vampires riding big skeletal steeds to use as Thunderwolf cav! That would be cool ;)

[Toomanyprojects]

Don't forget that if you field an unbound army you can do whatever you want force wise. If you wanted to include a beserker squad then you CAN include Khorne Marines etc

 

Let your imagination run wild :)