Creating your warband fluff - how do YOU do it?

[Dosjetka]

As I am struggling to write down the history of a warband of mine, I have come to these dark halls seeking knowledge. Please provide me with information about your very own Chaos warbands.

What inspired you? Where did you find that inspiration?

What did you believe with absolute certainty needed to be written down and what did you think could be omitted?

Feel free to provide examples of your own work for us all to see!

To your keyboards, oh dark brethren of mine!

[Teetengee]

I generally find inspiration in models, and since my tastes are eclectic to say the least, that meant I needed a warband that could pull on all sorts of different resources. Additionally, I have never been a huge fan of Abbadon (mainly because I don't like the model, and special characters in total as a general rule), and the Black Legion by extension. Therefore I had to create my own lord who could pull from and attract a diverse group of followers that would not upset the Black Legion to the point that it got wiped out. As a result, my lord has fairly openly decried Abbadon's method of running the long war, but also has said that when the Warmaster heads finally for Terra, he will commit everything to the battle for no cost other than to be left alone until then. Considering that my lord has a talent for dealing with the machines of war and has a heavily defended home base of little tactical value (far from any major theatres) Abbadon/ the Black Legion have decided bringing him in line probably isn't worth the trouble, particularly since the lord in question doesn't work against the Black Legion's efforts (generally).

Thus, I get to make whatever models I want and paint them however I like without creating a force that would seem like it didn't belong in the 40k universe (at least to me).

[Dam13n]

I find that the fluff tends to evolve with the army as it grows.

My Iron Warriors started as a small infantry patrol during the Medusa Campaign. Consisting of a Sorcerer and 3 units of CSM. They were all unknowns, nameless and with no back-story. This was mainly because they were an unknown at that time, their personalities hadn't had a chance to show themselves on the gaming table yet.

The army grew, but didn't get much in the way of fluff as they were just a painting project. The intent was for them to reach a useful size then hit the table. However this didn't happen until nearly 3 years later, when I moved to Poole and gained easy access to a GW store that luckily had a Battle Bunker (which is now condemned to history )

I came back to actual playing during 5th edition. During this time we had a store mini-campaign set on a Space Hulk, with a load of funky extra rules and scenarios. It was during this that my force began to develop a personality. We only had 500pts to play with so I decided to go with something that suited me and that I thought would be good fun. This resulted in the first appearances of the Character that would eventually become known as Kvasir the Twisted, my Slaanesh marked former Moritat. It also saw the debut of my two main Chosen squads, who have since gone on to outperform expectations on enough occasions to warrant inclusion whenever I can fit them into a list.

However, most of this didn't get fleshed out until 6th edition hit. Many of my characters previously had interchanged with each other, especially Apophus who had been a Lord, a Sorcerer and a Daemon Prince at various times during 5th edition. He'd also been the main character whenever I used him, in fact the warband was known as "The Scions of Apophus" at that time.

So, when 6th edition hit, I created a summary list of all my units, including their fluff names. Back-stories then followed that were loosely based on their actions to date and the battlefield role that I tended to use them in. In short, their fluff was based on games I'd played with them.

The army became simply "The Scions", a conglomeration of the members of an Iron Warriors great company combined with various subsumed smaller warbands of varying parentage.

Assuming full command at this time was Plaguesmith Damien, with his 3 Lieutenants - Black Cardinal Apophus, Kvasir the Twisted and Centurion Schevchenko. Each of which got a back-story that explained their role in the Scions.

The units below them were banded into small groups and these groups gained names, although individual back stories elude them still. Examples include:

- The Twisted Brethren (Chaos Marines aligned with Kvasir, but not devoted to Slaanesh)

- The Dark Brotherhood (Chaos Marines aligned with Apophus, but not devoted to Tzeentch)

- The Epidemic and the Pandemic (Plague Marines who regularly compete for Damien's patronage)

- The Prophets, the Ascended and the Ravagers (Chosen)

- The Praetorians (Obliterator Cult, strongly aligned with Damien)

- The Vengeful Host (Chaos Bikers, linked to both Damien and Schevchenko)

- The Bloodbringers and the Children of Gore (Schevchenko's Forlorn Hope, Berserkers and Cultists)

- The Cacophony and the Atrocity (Noise Marines aligned with Kvasir)

As the force gained more notoriety during 6th edition, this in turn led me to write "Darkness Falls" and then "The Dripping Blade" which introduces the future main protagonist of, what will become, my next Iron Warrior army (which will likely burst onto the scene when GW get around to updating some of our core plastic kits). He's as yet unnamed, known simply as "The Voice" or "The Warrior". He's also a rather 'charming' yet disturbing individual, with a penchant for torture, manipulation and intimidation. I've also prepared him as a character strongly associated with the Scions Chosen, as I know what I'm like... I'll be having at least 2 units of them in any Chaos Marine army I ever collect.

No doubt he'll gain a suitable name when the time is right... most likely right before he creates some sort of schism within the Scions that results in him breaking away and forming his own warband. But we'll see...

[Beachymike123]

The following post is purely from my own perspective, I cannot speak for other fraters and sororitas in the Chaos realms.

For me, with my current warband the Siege Makers, they are mostly Iron Warriors. This theme carries over into their colour scheme (Iron Warriors colours, with a set of 'bellows' as the army symbol, as these tie in with the idea of casters, makers, smiths etc) and fluff. Now with the fluff more of the elite elements and champions are veterans from the Long War, whereas as there are elements from renegade marines. I'll give you some examples within my warband:

Warsmith Helslash is an IV Legion veteran, and has commanded the warband with an iron fist since the destruction of his previous master's warband the Siege Crafters. He has the best wargear and weapons available and isn't afraid to get is hands dirty.

Lieutenant Rualteth is a veteran from the Great Scouring, one of the first of non-Olympians to join since the Horus Heresy. He is a follower of the Blood God, but has a tactically brilliant mind. He enforces Helslash's word where necessary.

Robersium is a renegade from the Crusaders of Guilliman chapter. He is responsible for the daemonic elements of the warband (possessed, mutilators, Barkesh etc) due to his relationship with the Warp.

Vithian is also a Sorceror but rides on a bike. Vithian, the Bikers and Raptors were all from the Star Scythes chapter but had to adapt to life in the Warp when they were cut off in a Warp-storm. Eventually they ended up in the Siege Makers and serve as the vanguard for Helslash's forces in a major incursion.

All are tied to service to Helslash, who himself resides on a Dark Mechanicus Forge World run by the Arch-Magos Chaapoza.

Basically the theme for my warband is they are trying to survive through whatever means necessary while feeding the demands of the Forge World. While the majority are Iron Warriors, there are those from renegades who will pledge their allegiance so they too can eek out a living.

I'd say the nest way is to pick a theme you like and expand on it - Word Bearers, Iron Warriors and Black Legion have an organisation of sorts, whereas the Alpha Legion and World Eaters are scattered to their fates ultimately. The great thing about Chaos is that you have the freedom to do what you want - if you want renegade Khorne followng marines or even World Eaters on a crusade to liberate a world from the taint of a rival or the Imperium, or even if you want a Guard army secretly run by the Alpha Legion or Word Bearers, you are free to do so. The choice is yours, whether you want it or not.

[Xenith]

My Warband is a host of Iron Warriors enthralled to my Thousand Sons Lord Ahrabeth.

 

He seeks knowledge trapped within reclusums and librariums, and the Iron Warriors are the perfect tool  to crack them open. My Iron Warriors are led by Torsch'lag who loves nothing more than to tear down the edifices of the Imperium and Xenos, not really caring for the contents. He knows he is being somewhat used, but as long as the Thousand Sons provide him with safe warp transit and their psychic might, he cares little of their agenda.

[Kol Saresk]

I bounced ideas off of Flint and Bal on creating a trio of three warbands joining together to overthrow Abaddon's empire in the Eye and as they gain small momentum here and there, numbers from other factions within the Eye begin to flock to their banner.

[Lord Pariah]

oh?

Well the Pariah wolves started life as the sons of malice... yeah, but I made the stupid(brilliant) idea of changing the colors around.. and so I started my own warband.

 

The idea then came to be a servant of a lesser god of fear and anarchy, a fragment of the dead malal. and this is where the outcast nature of my warband formed... but I thought it wasn't really that great in terms of Stories and fluff.. so I changed it, kinda...

So I kept the covenant theme in the sense that the Wolves joined up, but weren't really feeling the same coherency as they did in the legion. I thought it interesting if the commander would be nostalgic to a degree and missed the legions... and this was picked up by the lesser god.

 

But not long after, the covenant drew the attention of a Daemon prince of the word bearers, and after a battle, defeated the lesser god..and the covenant was shattered, leading the Wolves to pick up the remaining pieces and run like a bat out of hell to.. some where... and here Lord alyxander came up with the bright idea to join the black legion, after all they were what was left of the sons of horus... not particularly pleased but the devil himself was biting at their heels and he was kind of sick of running...

 

So when he joined the black, he kept the white of the wolf and the blue of the void but keeping the legion colors on the other shoulder, to show allegiance... He took up a vanguard role in the arse end of the (5th?) black crusade, and raiding actions in the intervening time, with warbands that most of the legion doesn't wan to have anything to do with... and some of these formed even more of the covenant within the wolves, causing them to grow stronger and more bold.. in the final moments of the M41, the Wolves are in a campaign against an imperial bastion/armory world on the path between the eye of terror and terra herself... lighting the way for the legion.

 

but that's me....

 

 

 

I usually ask these...

 

1. What is the theme of the war band? (seige, hit and run, battling one on one) Why is that?
2. How strong is the war band? who can it take on? how is it not collapsing in on it self? why is that?
3. Who have they descended from? generally of the legions is a tad easier as you don't need to find a reason for a fall, but hey... how have they deviated or have they kept to the tenants of the legions? why is that?
4. How many slaves do they have, just serfs or fodder troopers? logistics plays a factor.
5. where are they based? a home world is just a sitting duck but fleet based don't have that many resources..  why is that?
6. Who do they worship? why is that?
7. What is their name? gotta mean something... proud astartes are not going to fall behind the kittens of friendship... well, some will be we don't count the emperor's children.

 

I've found it best to remember the following..

1. They are exposed to the warp, and thus, hear the whispers to generally sow chaos (lol) jealousy, doubt, ect...
2. they don't have an Imperium's worth of resources and manpower at their disposal... this seems easy but remember logistics.. a strike cruiser can accommodate a company (give ot take) and a battle barge can hold three companies...( more of less) although different patterns will mean differences, and while their could be room for them in a strike cruiser... its going to be packed... and any resources will be begged, borrowed or stolen... 
3. You have no friends... other war bands would rather kill you and take your stuff, it helps if your in the black legion, but not by much.
4. Daemons lie... in their nature and all; only the desperate, powerful and stupid make them... and few of those live that long...
5. A little more open to use whatever is at hand... including mutants..

[tikhunt]

Which Legion/Chapter did they come from?

Do they have any quirks which set them apart from others with their geneseed?

Do you have a friend who plays a certain army that you want as allies/enemies?

 

Those are three basic ways to start a warband, the rest of the ideas should keep coming after those (Hopefully).

[hushrong]

I always like to try and use the army's background with information and ideas I've seen or read elsewhere. I even think about what I will be bringing to the table and couple that with the fluff too. Then I just sit around trying to come up with characters.

 

I'm not going to lie, I think I could go on and on with random ideas about all the warbands and armies I have, had, or want. From Alpha Legionnaires wanting to sneak into the Imperial Palace using restored Webways to an insane Emperor's Children freshly released from a sensory deprivation chamber. However I would like to hear what you are building up and want to do then perhaps offer suggestions or ideas. 

[chaplain belisarius]

I find its best to find something you like or interests you. I have several ideas for armies in my head that I gradually work on.

 

Decide on how they feel about chaos. Undivided? Mono god?

 

Decide on your leader. Who is he? Where's he from? Motivation?

 

Numbers? How powerful is your warband?

 

Specifics. What tactics or troops do they favour? Any enemies? Why?

 

Hope this rambling post helped!

[Carrack]

I think its important to start with a goal for your warband in mind from the onset. Not just a grand goal of overthrowing the Imperium, but a goal that they are currently working to achieve. This can vary in scale from surviving and keeping the one remaining ship running, to carving out a small empire from the territories of your enemies. But once you get that goal set you will be able to start filling out the background on a as needed basis. For example if you are the one ship band of reavers trying to hang on in a hostile universe, you probably should write about that ship a little. If your warband conquers worlds, what happens to those worlds when you have brought it under control?

 

 

For me I started coming up with little blurbs of backstory as I painstakingly slowly assembled and painted my first models. If I was going to spend that much time on a model, I wanted to know a little about who he was. More background got fleshed out by participating in the Inspirational Friday challenges pinned to the top of this board.

 

If all else fails just steal it from books, movies, history, etc...

[Lucio]

I write about individual units as a starting point, forming their histories and slowly relating them one to another. Building up their individual units allows me to have a more natural group of people, who "live" within the group.

Start with the ones which matter most to your warband, the leader and his immediate followers, those give you the core of who your warband is, then look at the various followers, who groups together, who has rivalries and outright hatred for the other members. Then look at the outside, who would fight your group, who have they fought against.

The trick to it all, IMO, is to avoid trying to write everything immediately, build up the picture little by little and don't be afraid to turn down a few blind alleyways.

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

As I am struggling to write down the history of a warband of mine, I have come to these dark halls seeking knowledge. Please provide me with information about your very own Chaos warbands.

What inspired you? Where did you find that inspiration?

What did you believe with absolute certainty needed to be written down and what did you think could be omitted?

Feel free to provide examples of your own work for us all to see!

To your keyboards, oh dark brethren of mine!

For my Iron Warriors. I find the models & gaming really help with the theme & background of my force to grow.

For exsample my Warsmith Abhorred Riddick was granted Daemonhood. This happen after a really great game against Blood Angels where he slaughter somthing like 500pts worth of models in combat. Then a few week later, Games Day, a friend had pick up a pre-release metal Daemon Prince with codex 3.5 due for release around then. It was a really cool model & one of my favrout models in the Games Workshop hobby. Also just before the 13th Black Crusade world wide campaign.

Pretty much ever single unit in my force has a theme. Again, lot this has to do with the games I've fought over the years has help shape those units & even now still added onto there history. With epic deeds & glory under there names.

Lord Narach who I use as my main HQ right now started out as a Champion who was part of Warsmith Abhorred Riddick bodyguards. Brought up in the ranks as he done really well in games. Soon became my lieutenant & took part in the medusa v campaign.

Even now, two week ago I fought a really great game against my friend Orks. Just Lord Narach & my recently added Sorcerer in Terminator armour held off in a last stand again four diffrent Orks units & Mega Armour Orks. Winning each combat. While I loss the game, that moment of the game was really great for me. Just seen them hold off wave after wave of Orks.

This is why adding trophies is great. I like adding them to my models to rememeber great games. Each one base on a game I've fought & that been really enjoyible fought. Some are mark out from Farseer to Chaplain because of a epic moment in those games.

Model wise - When I add a model I'll think of a really cool idea why there being added to the army. I've been adding in Knights to my army because I think the models are really cool to build, convert & paint. For them, I'm making them part of a Knight house that have been part of my Grand Company since the Great Cursade. Over those long year, there now machine, man, daemon, Obliterator virus.

While my Chaos Guard element, there meant to be base on a Forge World planet that went into civil war. My Iron Warriors helping out & taken over the world. Now these Guard forum up a new era of the Selucid Thorakite (bit like the Guard for the Thasound Sons in Battle for the Fang novel fourm up the old guard - Spire guard)

I've been adding in Khorne element. As a friend & oppent said from a local tournament

QUOTE (Monk Fish @ Sep 23 2008, 01:26 PM)

Insane Psychopath is quite an aggressive player btw (the way he plays not his attatude). He did not mention this but when I had 2 transports full of c-marines and a unit of c-terminators arrive 4-12" from my D-cannons almost ontop of both the centre and left objectives.... I was not a happy chappy. I have played his Marine bike army a couple of times too, and he shows the same tendancy. Which is good because there is nothing more boaring than a player that hides at the back and never comits to a do or die stratagy!.

-MF

I'm possible looking to get a Black Legion force started, my first Chaos force when I started the hobby 18 year ago. I'll add a cool reason why there ally with my Iron Warriors when I start them.

I let my conversion tell the story & history of my units for me. It help make them unique & stand out on the gaming table.

When chosen a army I like the think

- What are they doing there?

- Who are they fighting?

Right now I've started to add bits of Eldar ruin to my base. My Iron Warriors are battle it out on a Imperial World, a forge world against Black Templars.

But recently I've added part of Eldar ruin, mainly left from the Eldar Farseer (single plastic spure). This is to tie in with my friend Eldar as he been making base like my own which is really cool & though be really cool to tie this in.

It think like this that make me keep with my favrout armies for a long time. My Iron Warriors, my Wolves & Ravenwing & why I will go all out to convert the models I need for these armies.

[Warsmith Aznable]

My CSM warband was my first 40k army, and I didn't really know what I was doing at first. This is the meandering process that I took:

 

I started off with the vague idea that I wanted a Khornate warband, and there wasn't much beyond that.

 

Without much investigation into the established background I came up with the name "4th Waelheim Free Company".

 

I knew I wanted my CSM to be orange coloured and I liked a "Halloween theme."

 

10,000 iterations later with lots of good feedback and advice from the Liber I had come up with something I liked and fit in better with the established fluff.

 

I had briefly flirted with being a Black Legion derived warband with some Iron Warriors elements, and I picked up the name "Iron Hounds" to replace the Free Company idea since it could represent a combination of Luna Wolves and Iron Warriors themes.

 

I came around to liking the Iron Warriors a lot more and the Black Legion a lot less, so the IV numerals I had put on my minis for "4th Free Company" easily transitioned into IV Legion markings.

 

I chose the number 49 for various mystic/numerology reasons and "Iron Hounds" became a nickname for the 49th Grand Company.

 

I had made up a lot of weird stuff initially and I ditched a lot of it, but I kept a couple ideas that I still liked:

 

The culture of my warband is a synthesis of Anglo-Saxon and Norse heroic age warrior culture and a mixture of Zen and Pure Land Buddhist ideas (with pieces of Vedic Hinduism here and there.)

 

The religion of my warband is a human-centric appropriation of Eldar mythology, most prominently the story of the Laughing God.

 

In a mixture of old IV Legion fluff and my DIY fluff, the Chaos Gods are reviled, daemons are fit only to be crammed into machines and used until burnt out, and mutations are seen as impure temptations to be excised and replaced with bionics.

 

To keep it grimdark, long lived veterans are monstrous piles of hate-fueled cybernetics in constant terror of becoming a spawn who will have to be put down by his own friends, and the Warsmith himself spends about half of his waking moments as a Rev. Jim Jones level charismatic cult leader, and the other half in various degrees of a dissociative fugue. Also, the spacehulk they live on may be inhabited by an avatar of Malal.

[Sheesh Mode]

I draw my inspiration directly from my games, particularly small narrative games like Kill Team. However, as the story progresses I put effort into researching details of the 'cultural activities' I imagine my marines engaging in. For example the following scene took several days of interneting to find a suitable guide to preparing a human corpse:

 

He stops before the cleaved corpse, its blood dripping on to the dirt. He beheads the carcass and pushes the object aside, then plants his axe into the ground and draws a small knife from a collection in his pouch and makes a handful of cuts to divide the skin. Once finished, he cleans the knife and returns it to the pouch. He discards the skin, feeding it to the awaiting Spawn. He now busy's himself with gutting the body and placing the contents alongside the head, save the intestines which are aggressively sought after by the Spawn. Most of the others perform similar actions with varied success.

 

Note that the 'corpse' is a dead Sister of Battle. I wanted to turn the horrifying scenario of butchering a human body into a task as mundane as preparing a pig. By doing this, I feel it creates a surreal and visceral example of the dirtier aspects of 40k while also highlighting the Chaos Marine's total remove from our definition of humanity. In my opinion it is important not to limit yourself to concepts such as 'believe' or 'must have' for a given story. Stories are natural events flowing from the mind and in my experience typically turn out better when left to their own devices. For example, the following scene was a matter of pure insperation:

 

A pan, 3 feet in diameter, centers the abandoned bastion hall. It is surrounded by eight heads, each topped by a burning candle which is the only source of light.  The group sits in a circle around the ritual while Yom and two cultists delicately release the suspended carcass which is then thrown to the spawn.  

 

Light the candles.

 

4 cultists move to obey Volios's order. 

 

The dull orange light casts distorted shadows across the assemblage, even the Spawn falls silent. 

 

Sixteen dead eyes open in unison.

 

Speak, member of the Pact.

 

Master. The Sisters have retreated, the generators are destroyed. What task do you have for us? 

 

Task Master Volios, what happened to the shields?

 

My Lord? 

 

You did not disable them at the ordained time. 

 

Volios clenches his fists. 

 

What of the band? 

 

It thrives, there is good feeding here. 

 

One of the eight heads begins to mimic the sounds of chewing. 

 

Task Master what were you doing during our assault? The hive shields were not down as had been promised, how did you fail to disable them? The location had already been cleared from orbit.

 

My lord. The attack was delayed, Sisters of Battle ambushed the team. 

 

There is a long pause, filled with more chewing noises. Volios shifts his feet and glances at Goriel. 

 

And what of my adviser Jogun? Did you not heed his words, champion?

 

No, lord, the Blind supported my plan. 

 

Then where is he now? 

 

Dead. Lord. 

 

What? 

 

Jogun the Blind has fallen. 

 

Indeed, who was his better?

 

Not a who master, gravity and carelessness took him. He slipped and fell off the fort parapet. 

 

The eight heads burst out into cacophonous laughter, a bizarre mix of light female vocals offset by the deep bass of marine acoustics. The heads spoke as they did in life, even with the rituals power. Volios gritted his teeth. 

 

Master are you not concerned? 

 

No. He knew his fate. I appreciate the irony. 

 

My lord, what is your next task? 

 

Go west Champion. A Thunder Hawk of the Angels of Ecstasy has crashed there, its great age and power is such that the surroundings are infected with the power of the Young God. Reconsecrate it in Kharneth's name and retrieve or sabotage its weaponry, ensure this new infection festers that the Corpse-Worshippers must answer it. 

 

Volios smiled

 

At once Lord Butcher. 

 

To my understanding chaos is utterly beyond our academic comprehension of reality. Largely, the current cultural method of observation is reliant on observation and experimentation with much less worth placed on belief than ever before. The regular dealings of Chaos Marines would likely be completely foreign to the 'average' citizen of a first world nation. We don't exactly talk much about sorcery here in the states. Thus, what amounts to an elaborate phone call is utterly alien to us by design, and further is deeply disturbing thanks to the nature and source of the device's material.

[Tenebris]

Personally I have found out that it is always better to begin as the lowliest of the low. It is all good and all to have a powerful, mighty and numerous warband but that is simply a rare occurrence and I think that the majority of the chaos warbands range at around 200 astartes max. 

 

In the past I have dabbled with so many ideas that in 2015 I have decided to void everything and start from scratch. My warband is no longer a mighty host but it is a ragged, malnourished, struggling band of chaos astartes which in general still bear the hallmarks of the Horus genome and the outlook so common to the Sons of Horus but in truth is a bastardized clash of bloodlines, creeds, ideologies and hundreds of other idiosyncrasies which functions only due to the need to stay alive, fight and try to survive. 

 

The warband is concentrated around a mighty chaos battleship which while tremendously powerful is more of a burden than a boon. To maintain, crew and use such a battleship results in a massive drain of resources and manpower and this results in the warband struggling to keep it aloft and functional all the while they try to figure how will the next nutrient paste taste.

 

This resulted in my warband being often forced into a vassal servitude to other powerful warbands, to strive for even the glimmer of a citation from the Warmaster himself and to scavenge anything and everything they can put on a looted orbit transporter after their many unsuccessful raids.  

 

They were the underdog in the epic days of the Horus Heresy, being simply a reserve company, away from the glory of the battlefield, away from the gaze, the praise and the shadow of Lupercal and often readily expended as part of the reserve for line companies. This does not mean that the company did not gather some meager renown or citation or accolade but it meas that they never were "someone" and even now after thousands of years they still are not "someone". 

 

I find this concept very pleasing, it is a warband striving for an identity, striving to carve a legend of its own but which also struggles with simple things as bolt shells, nutrient paste and cogs for the cogboys. I simply heed the ancient terran proverb, "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows" which I find cardinal in understanding the workings of a Chaos warband. My warband fought in countless wars, petty skirmishes, vendettas, raids etc. and in time gathered members here and there. Some are defeated enemies, some are prisoners, some are newly geneforged aspirants, some are allies of convenience and so on. 

 

The question often is how do so different groups collaborate? Well my understanding is that everything is finite, namely the material things, and in order to survive as an underdog you have to run with a pack. You get scraps but at least you eat. So, many decimated units in time came to be part of the warband. 

 

On the other hand we speak of a chaos battleship, a leviathan of the void and which has at the helm a seasoned captain, a marine in the truest sense, and one who can actually lead because nothing was ever given to him so he and his company had to earn everything, even a simple thing such as a resupply or the right to bear a new mark of armor or weapons in war. They came always among the last in the picking order of the XVI legion so as a result this marines are resourceful and relatively a close knit brotherhood.

 

In the case of so many different ideologies, genelines and astartes on board a clash of will is inevitable, but on the other hand when you live aboard a 6km long ship there is no need to speak for decades if you live in one spire and your lord and his cronies all the way on the other side of the ship. By this segregation the need for friendship is not requested nor expected, what is expected is that when a rating comes to you with a scroll bearing the signet crest of the ship's lord you do better answer and obey lest you will be soon visited by the terminator bouncers so eagerly employed by the lord, that or you get your compartment depressurized before you get airlocked. In short you obey if you hold dear to your life. 

 

This obedience is as much a result of the ingrained astartes psychology as it is the result of your constant need for a vast stockpile of food, weapons and material to keep your advanced biology running. Even the most blood crazed berzerker would come with his tail between his legs to the ship's armourium if he wants his armor repaired, his favorite chainaxe fitted with new teeth and his power plant backpack restored to a working condition, all this without even considering the need to eat a massive ration of the dubious nutrient gruel they serve on deck 71.  

 

So my guidelines to recap:

 

- Bleak. A warband struggles, and life in the Eye is like an Odyssey, it kills you. 

 

- Humble beginnings. All wish to be part of the lauded elite but the true characters and heroes are those who are runts struggling with dire odds. Artillery squadrons, reserve companies, escort details... the myriad of roles and functions which made a legion of old run smoothly and whose contribution or glory was more often questioned then assumed.

 

- Tyranny. In war you can have allies but rarely you can have friends. As a CSM you have to play a dangerous game. You would try to become "someone" all the while you have to survive the attempts of everyone else to become "someone" and use you for their own ends. The Lord on the other hand is the pinnacle of the food chain in your sorry group of bastards. You misstep with him you end impaled, torn to pieces or fed to the Spawn at the least.

 

- Perspective. We have the Warp (read magic) which can explain everything but some things should be cardinal. Warriors need food, weapons, medical treatment, slaves and armorers to keep them running. A CSM understands this and knows full well that if you ruin your chainsword or damage severely your power armor who knows when you will get a suitable replacement. You almost wish for the sorry bastards in your squad to die so you can loot their corpses and in dire cases even gorge on their flesh. Sure, massive Forge Worlds exist in the Eye, raiding is fun too, but every CSM knows that this is a risky business and a single misstep and you end dead or your soul traded for something ephemeral. 

 

- Dark Gods and Abaddon. Like it or not sooner or later every warband has to deal with this shady figures. It can go bad or it can go really really bad. Have a deal with Abaddon and you will soon find yourself chained in some way to the Black Legion (perceived or real chains), have a deal with the Dark Gods and well... you know the deal. In both cases there is no good scenario, it simply does not work this way. Either you make yourself useful or you die expended for some futile objective or at a whim. Again, it is risky business but sometimes the reward is worth it (more often is not). 

 

- The Imperium. Another thing your warband has to deal with sooner or later. Here is where the really scary things are. A miscalculation, a misstep, a faulty tactic or a raid gone wrong and you get deleted. No quarter asked and none given. Only as part of a great host of warbands your sorry bastards can hope to survive a direct confrontation with the Imperium so you better play your cards well. In the real life of a CSM running away is the default mode of movement. Stop even for a brief moment, play a hero and you die. There is no game here unless you are a spineless, vicious, backstabbing, ruthless and cunning psychopath, and you really hope that your Chaos Lord is up to the task. 

[incinerator950]

Shoot myself in the foot and use the excessive language and disruption.

 

On a serious note, I randomly apply stimuli from video games and bits of fluff from the whirlwind of my brain process to fulfill these. I am a huge gamer, I do not have transportation or any hobby sites so I rely on Space Marine and the internet. Which is ironic, the Wartorn concept started off on Space Marine. The part to become Khornate was actually a fratter mistranslation with the Liber Cluster as I wanted dual Nurgle and Khornate worship, but stopped caring for simplicity.

 

I don't have the desire to be the archvillian such as Tenebris and his friends urging, so I made my Khornate Warband an unusual Mercenary makeup from a fluff side note of the 9th Crusade. I view them as anti-heroes, despite the generic astartes ruthlessness found in all warbands and chapters. It fits my own dillusional mindset despite not getting bogged down, using my own bloodborn pathogens, and having nukes stored in boarding pods as anti-ship weapons.

 

For instance I was thinking of having a bloody seeress of a Khaine/Khorne duology in the warband fluff. To show some representation of this, I am going to give my warlord a shuriken pistol.

[Gree]

I personally prefer to have access to the full range of the Chaos book. I tend to be the guy that prefers vanilla. I enjoy using cult troops and marks alongside daemon engines and suchlike. The real compensation the Chaos book has compared to the loyalist book is the Mark system and the various cult troops.

 

Most of the Chaos Legions are dedicated to a single god (The Cult Legions) or are otherwise restricted (Word Bearers don't use Cult Troops, Iron Warriors hate mutations, Night Lords scorn the use of Chaos, etc, etc), so this limits my options if I want to do an army from a single Legion and still have access to everything in the Chaos book.

 

Really, the Black Legion really fits my gaming style perfectly. I love the thought of Khorne Berzerkers marching side by side with sorcerer-warriors of Tzeentch and Plague Marines of Nurgle, all painted in a single unifying colour scheme to tie the force in all together. It is an idea I like both fluffwise and on the tabletop. Indeed, it was the army I played.

 

Unfortunately I have been disillusioned with the Black Legion and it's leader Abaddon. I do not wish to play an army that is associated with a failure. The army quite frankly, attracts too much derision and hate from the vocal part of the 40k fanbase for me to even get near.

 

So essentially was born the Blighted Cacophony, an Undivided warband with warriors from all four gods and united under the command of a powerful Chaos Lord, a splinter warband from the Night Lords that have fully embraced the worship of Chaos. A warband where I can freely paint my warriors in whatever color scheme I wish and play whatever units I wish. I paint my Noise Marines and Rubricae as allied Emperor's Children and Thousand Sons contingents, because I really like those Cult Legions. Everyone else is painted in a unifying colour scheme.

 

Lately though, I have been considering switching to the Red Corsairs, being essentially the Black Legion, but without the whole ''Failbaddon'' meme attached to them. That, and they have quite the gorgeous colour scheme that I find very pleasing visually, scarlet, black and gold just looks very delicious to me.

 

- Dark Gods and Abaddon. Like it or not sooner or later every warband has to deal with this shady figures. It can go bad or it can go really really bad. Have a deal with Abaddon and you will soon find yourself chained in some way to the Black Legion (perceived or real chains), have a deal with the Dark Gods and well... you know the deal. In both cases there is no good scenario, it simply does not work this way. Either you make yourself useful or you die expended for some futile objective or at a whim. Again, it is risky business but sometimes the reward is worth it (more often is not).

This is very much why I set my guys in the Maelstrom, on the other side of the galaxy from the Eye of Terror, precisely to avoid such association with Abaddon. My guys are aware enough of some guy from the Sons of Horus leading his crusades from the Eye, but they don't really have much regard for him and they pursue their own agenda.

 

The only person in the Maelstrom they have to be concerned with is Huron, and they are operating with a tenuous alliance with him currently. (Mostly a chance for me to paint up a squad of Red Corsairs for my army)

[Balthamal]

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/271640-misconceptions-about-csm/?p=3316051

 

I refer to the above post a lot when I'm bouncing ideas around, either in my head or off others here amongst the screaming gallery. It perfectly encapsulates what life is like for a chaos warband so feel free to use it for inspiration.

 

The only other thing I strive for is originality. I try to stay a mile away from anything that's been established elsewhere just because I'd see myself as lazy for going down that route although that's not to say others here haven't done an amazing job by picking up a well worn theme and breathing new life into it, I crave new. Which is where I went with my 14th Company.

 

The general consensus out there was that Night Lords were treacherous murderers from the first night they spat on the aquila and that all of them are just picking over the dregs of the Imperium struggling to survive. So I flipped it around - what if there were these Night Lords who were murderers rapists thieves, the utter scum of the galaxy and they know it, but what if they could get past that, what if something happened that forced themselves to drag them out of the proverbial :cuss hole they were in and not just survive, but prosper 

 

I liked the challenge with that, the things they'd need to go right, the things that could potentially go wrong so they're not full of Mary Sue bull:cuss like has been seen elsewhere. Although that being said, writing is my forte so I've found it relatively straight forward to think up a load of good ideas that I could use, the challenge is bringing those ideas out, which I've posted over in the Murderer's Call thread

[Malios]

To me, my method of creating a warband comes down to three fundamental points:

 

* Background,

* Character, and

* Purpose.

 

As far as background is concerned, there's effectively two simplistic approaches:

 

The first is to take a pre-existing entity, for example the Crimson Slaughter, to which you may or may not add your own unique spin: Is your army led by Kranon himself or is it a warband of the Crimson Slaughter led by one of his lieutenants? The strength of this method is that most of the background is already defined and as a result the purpose or driving force of the warband is already defined. The only large downside is that the ability to establish the character of your warband can be quite limited because the fluff has already done it for you, even more so if your warband is centered around an established character like Sevastus Kranon himself.

 

The second option is to start the background of your warband entirely from scratch. The sheer positive about this method is that you have the complete freedom to make the background as simplistic or as complex as you like: Player A may choose to record a comprehensive background including the founding legion / chapter which the warband originated from, their allies, their battle record, their size, their war capacity, their recruitment worlds and their base(s) of operation. Player B on the other hand might simply be satisfied by saying his warband first appeared in M.39 and has been pillaging ever since. Despite how good this method sounds, the only big downside is that making a warband from scratch is not always easy for everyone.

 

Of these two options, I chose the former for my most recent project: I've always been a huge fan of Huron Blackheart and thanks to Forge World I have a comprehensive background for both the Badab War and the Red Corsairs to draw inspiration from. Because the Red Corsairs are also a large organisation as far as warbands go, that also gave me the flexibility to add my own spin to things. Yes Huron and other named characters such as Valthex and Garreon will make cameos as the force grows, but they are not the focal point of my warband. Which leads me to my next step:

 

Character.

 

With the background mainly sorted by the comprehensive history of the Red Corsairs, the character of the warband for me comes from its leader: Valinix. Valinix is from Badab stock. As an Astral Claw he was nothing exceptional, a Centurion in the Tyrant's Legion by the end of the war, but became exceptional because he actually survived the Badab War. Thanks to some lucky victories in both Huron's conquest of the Maelstrom and later against the Imperium, he was eventually gifted his own ship which the Red Corsairs aboard are referred to as the Company of Crows. Why is he called the Storm Fox by his fellow corsairs? He is a cunning politician, having come from Babab Nobility and thrives on the backstabbing nature of politics among renegades. Likewise his warband consists of many untrustworthy and greedy individuals (one might sense Slaaneshi corruption here...), even to the standards of the Red Corsairs who are traitors and backstabbers to start off with.

 

With the character of Valinix and his warband established, I then had the final job of establishing the purpose of the warband. Again, because the Red Corsairs are an established entity, this was quite an easy task for me. Huron values geneseed and guns to fuel his war against the corrupt Imperium: when not under the direct command of Huron like in the Gildar Rift, Valinix and his warband are tasked with acquiring said geneseed and guns through any means necessary. For an exceptionally greedy and treacherous individual like Valinix, there couldn't be a better resource to be tasked to collect. Valinix also has a personal grudge against the Star Phantoms chapter due to their involvement in the final stages of the Badab War and his personal mission is to gift them a slow death.

 

 

...and that's how my warband came together.

[the jeske]

Thunder Barons were the ones I was most interested in. Inspirations was a long talk about them with Andy Chambers, well about them violators, game design etc. Best part of them is that they are all dead, unless GW decides to retcon it, but they are so minor I doubt they will ever do.

[incinerator950]

When they rewrote the Antecannis Massacre, it makes it difficult to worm my Warband from it. It's not a full retcon, but the interpretation room is cut by more than half for me.

 

Almost killed my Warband to the point I just primarily use the 5th writing and completely ignored the 6th. About the only way I can tolerate certain things.

[Conn Eremon]

Interesting reading how people use their armies and models to base their ideas on warband lore around. As someone who has none of those things, I am unable to utilize them for such inspiration. I do have my own method, which is actually the same regardless if a warband, a Chapter or a Craftworld.

 

I typically start with a name and randomized facts about the faction, pulled either from FFG's Rites of Battle or tables created at /tg/ in mimicry. 

 

I try and locate small collection of themes that I will want to apply to the faction.

 

I then proceed to smash whatever comes out of those two steps together in my head, and any time I come upon something I like, I jot it down in a simple .txt file.

 

This takes forever, as I've only "completed" perhaps three out of a couple dozen, years later. And by the end of it, the 'end-product' looks little like what came out of the first couple steps. The name changes to better fit the new faction's character. The randomized aspects are modified or scrapped accordingly. And after finally settling on how I will best like to apply a theme, I go about changing the surface of it to the point that I no longer 'see' the original inspiration.

 

As an example, the Eyes of Tivan:

The Mag Mell Seidhe, divided between the Summer Court and the Winter Court, were equal parts Khornate berzerkers and Slaaneshi noise marines.

 

Original theme was the Dresden Files' Summer and the Winter fae, and the Irish rival of Conn of a Hundred Battles, Eoghan Mor.

 

During the mishmash phase, they finally got split apart into separate Warbands. The Summer Court was rebranded the Aestivan, a Google latin translation. Eventually, by virtue of my mental pronunciation of their new name, I started calling them the Eyes of Tivan. I ended up mixing the Summer Court with the Red Court, of the same source. This opened up inspiration from the Conquistadores, vampirism and the indigenous S. American peoples, which I used to replace Eoghan Mor (who is still attached to the Winter/White Court warband that became the Hybernan, and finally the High-born).

 

Once I felt like I had come to a nice balance in how I was applying their inspiration, I set them aside as context and began thinking of the original faction as depicted, in this example the World Eaters. I then just imagined your basic, generic World Eater group going through that kind of context, and modifying the generic base where it seemed likely or appropriate.

 

I'm rather happy with how they ended up, though I'm not quite done with them. I have a whole history planned out for them, from their birth during the Unification Wars to their death in the Time of Ending. I have an Index Traitoris style article that can be found following the Twenty Articles Project link in my signature, which covers the majority of their existence. But I'm looking forward to trying my hand at a Forge World Legion article, focusing on a single part of a Legion rather than the whole Legion.

 

 

 

I really do end up with a pretty eclectic mixture of inspirations and themes to base my DIYs around, from conquistadore vampires to dragoon-tutelaries and seru-soulstones. I have a warband that combines apocryphal religious texts with the epic of Gilgamesh. A warband that's centered around literal hero cult-worship and ancient Mediterranean dictators. A warband whose inspiration is currently nothing more than one song's lyrics. A fractured warband based around some of the shadowy organizations of a few of my favorite modern-day fantasy series, and another based around a single historical warrior, but as depicted in a videogame that strays far from fact.

[incinerator950]

I'm about ready to facebutt the blunt end of my bowie to help jump my braincells.

 

Can't fathom where I'm going or what I'm doing, but it is bloody annoying.