How is a Blackshield army built?

[Kastor Krieg]

I get that Blackshields are a very fluff-related thing, however I intend to make a small project, using the Prospero / Calth infantry and TDAs and then sell them painted on eBay. Because of that assumption, I'd like to get a good feel for how Blackshield armies are built - am I looking at dudes from different Legions that have struck their colors and are playing "3rd force mercenaries"? Or maybe squads or even larger forces coherently hailing from same Legion, as in "a Word Bearer force that said <<:cuss that :cuss, Lorgar, these are daemons and Calth was an atrocity!>> and went away? Or a Thousand Son force that ran from Prospero before Wolves attacked (we know ships were sent away)?

Are these forces intended to be standalone or played alongside other Legions? Smaller forces or larger ones, on par with other 30k lists? 

All in all, should I kitbash and paint "a squad of this, a squad of that" or mixed squads of "allies of inconvenience", to paraphrase? 

[Brother Pheidias]

I think the very nature of the Blackshields is that they can be anything really. The only thing set in stone is that they've turned so completely from the ways of their parent Legion that they've stricken the colours. Sizewise, they are usually on the smaller side, with fewer vehicles, sticking to the basics as it were, and make up for it in unconventional warfare and raiding. Just make them look ragtag, un-uniformed and grizzled and hard, and I think you'll be fine.

[Kastor Krieg]

Thanks! :)

Would a squad of five weird TDAs fly? Or other "rare" stuff?

[Sol_Invictus]

Yes, yes, and yes. Fluff wise they could be any of those things. Typically they forsake therir legions heraldry and colors and do their own thing whether that is fighting against their former brothers on the opposite side of the war or just doing their own thing carving out their own empires. There's even some that are the genetic monstrosities created through gene-seed experimentation. They are very open fluff wise.

When taken as allies to legions they are counted as By the Emperor's of Warmaster's command and are battle brothers to Mechanicum or SA and depending on their Wrought by War selection could not be eligible to take allies at all.

As Brother Pheidas mentioned they have fewer vehicles so they can't have more vehicles than they have infantry units and they can't take several legion units such as Praetors, command squads, tactical squads, or drop pods.

[Nusquam]

S P A C E P I R A T ES

 

Cough. I echo the above. They are build your own marine marauder/pirate/corsair/mercenary/raider in space. The don't have the 'funding' of a parent legion, but they have the gall and skills.

 

I wish FW would do more Build-Your-Own-X. Like Freeblades and such.

[Plaguecaster]

Heavily infantry based with a few vehicles, even better when mixed with mechanicus Automata what's even better you are not always limited by the wrought by war traits. You can change them quite easily with different matches as they arnt limiting in your force selection like legion rites.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Wow they sound like a lot of fun ! I will definitely look into their rules.

[Paradigm]

They can also be "Near-Legions," such as the XIXth Legion 18th Chapter (Ashen Claws) who are Corax's bastard sons, albeit the generally unfriendly ones who care nothing for either side in the Heresy.

The Dark Brotherhood are loyalist leaning reavers that have elements of the Dark Angels, the White Scars and many others. I'd class these guys as near legions for example as well. 

The coolest thing to me is the Marauder squads have so much customizability. A whole squad of Lascutters, or Dual Bolt Pistol but with options, or Chainaxe armed marines with rad grenades, or even marines with Autoguns. 

[N1SB]

These are all great, great ideas.  Thanks for sharing them.

 

We discussed this topic a lot with my close friends in this meta and I nearly became Blackshields myself, here are our best concepts:

 

 

Last Remnants of a Lost Legion - so the big mystery of 30k is, whatever happened to the 2 missing Legions?  It's strongly hinted at least 1 of them was wiped out by the Space Wolves before Prospero.  However, as we found in Book VI, it's hard to wipe out Space Marines entirely, as even the Traitor Legions had trouble destroying all loyalist elements in them, thus Shattered Legions, etc.  What if the last survivors of the Lost Legions remained in some corner in space, knowing they're hunted, hiding.  Lots of potential there, with Apocalypse Now-/Fallout-style looks.  Personally, I wanted to do something like a Hills Have Eyes the 13th Chainsaw Massacre, with Chymeriae mutated Marines due to some flaw in their geneseed, wearing rags and burlap sacks to hide their mishapen features.

 

Space Pirates - as mentioned above, it's like the film "Three Kings in 30k" was how a friend put it.

 

1st ed Rogue Trader early Space Marine aesthetics - not an idea in itself, but this was a huge underlying theme for us.  Space Marines, as we know them now, are like Space Knights.  The earliest artwork, though, show them in Space 'Nam, duct-taping screwdrivers to their pauldrons in case they need to fix their multi-melta, really gritty '80s RPG artwork, writing things like "THE ONE BIG ONE" on their other shoulder pad.  The 30th anniversary Space Marine model that came out a little after Book VI was very much of that era.  That's like the ragtag, hardened look mentioned above, but whatever we did, we wanted that feel.

 

 

But I really love everyone's ideas, still wanting to do a Zone Mortalis force or something as a project of these.  However, I think this one's the humdinger:

 

 

 

Or a Thousand Son force that ran from Prospero before Wolves attacked (we know ships were sent away)?

Are these forces intended to be standalone or played alongside other Legions? Smaller forces or larger ones, on par with other 30k lists? 

All in all, should I kitbash and paint "a squad of this, a squad of that" or mixed squads of "allies of inconvenience", to paraphrase? 

 

 

If I may make a bold recommendation, I think your Thousand Sons force is the winning concept if you're thinking of selling it, especially if you tie them in with the Blood Ravens with very subtle references, like the HQ sporting a raven bits on a shoulder or arm or something, I don't know, but anything like that.  You're totally leveraging the lore built up by the Dawn of War series, with the 3rd game about to come out, without infringing ("what?  They're space sorcerers, so they have like cyber-raven familiars, what's the big deal?")  This project would be like the missing link between the Horus Heresy and the Dawn of War series.

 

It's not just that you hit upon an awesome idea, but it happens that it reminded me of how my meta drew me in from 40k to 30k.  It's archaeology, a window into the past that explains why things are the way they are in 40k.  The stone that cast the ripples through time.

[Kastor Krieg]

If I may make a bold recommendation, I think your Thousand Sons force is the winning concept if you're thinking of selling it, especially if you tie them in with the Blood Ravens with very subtle references, like the HQ sporting a raven bits on a shoulder or arm or something, I don't know, but anything like that.  You're totally leveraging the lore built up by the Dawn of War series, with the 3rd game about to come out, without infringing ("what?  They're space sorcerers, so they have like cyber-raven familiars, what's the big deal?")  This project would be like the missing link between the Horus Heresy and the Dawn of War series.

 

It's not just that you hit upon an awesome idea, but it happens that it reminded me of how my meta drew me in from 40k to 30k.  It's archaeology, a window into the past that explains why things are the way they are in 40k.  The stone that cast the ripples through time.

Thanks! :)

 

The kSon Corvidae Cult - Blood Raven reference obviously as well - seems to be a great way to do this to me. It's always been something I wanted to do, a serious way to go against the Spehs Mahreen Thieving Magpie theme. You could adjust and repaint Raven Guard transfers. You can use the fact of Chimeridae, mixed Legion geneseed experiments, to explain the weird things that happened to them and why they aren't immediately recognizable as 15th Legion. It's fairly appropriate that in a yet another calamity unforseen by the Seers, just like Ahriman's Rubric, the Blood Angel geneseed stabilized their curse, only to exchange one curse for another - the Black Rage and Red Thirst. But is has retained most of the innage kSon shtick for sorcery, which explains the extensive Librarius of the Blood Ravens.

Boom. Early Blood Ravens as not-kSons skulking about the galaxy at large, trying to survive, stockpiling geneseed and relics and actually making it far enough to claim to be of Loyalist Founding.

 

Also, all of this, especially the last Ahriman's quote :)

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Blood_Ravens#Possible_Thousand_Sons_connections

[Caillum]

FYI, here's a couple of Blackshield characters of note that are mentioned in the FW books:

 

- Section Leader Crysos Morturg, called Black Shield, was one of the only Loyalist survivors of the Isstvan III cull. Formerly of the Death Guard, he was a psyker who teamed up with Calleb Decima, the Ordo Reductor Tech-Priest, to bring the fight to the Traitors. Last seen heading back to Terra. He has rules for use in the Death Guard (and Decima does for Mechanicum too), but you could easily use a Librarian to represent him in a Blackshields army.

 

- Endryd Haar, the Riven Hound, returned to the Imperium with his XIIth Legionnaires and found out his Primarch & Legion had betrayed them all. He lost it, stripped his insignia and led his "Fangs of the Emperor" into the hottest warzones right up to the Siege of Terra. Has a former Death Guard Forge Lord for a right-hand-man, named Erud Vahn. It also sound like Haar survives the Horus Heresy - maybe he becomes a Chapter Master? He has rules for use in Loyalist Blackshields or Space Marines, and has his own special version of "Legiones Astartes: World Eaters".

 

- The Nemean Reaver, First Lord of the Dark Brotherhood, is a scarred veteran who survived the Rangdan Xenocides. He wields a Calibanite flammbard, so he's presumed to be a former Dark Angel, and he brutally ruled over a region of space known as the Pale Stars. He eventually gets recruited by Tylos Rubio to join Malcador's Knights-Errant, and can be fielded in either a Blackshield force or as a Knight-Errant.

 

Good luck with the project! :)

[Jareddm]

Have a look at this thread for some great ideas.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/320463-liberalia-martiale-2016-blackshield-generator/

[bluntblade]

Thanks! :)

 

Would a squad of five weird TDAs fly? Or other "rare" stuff?

Certainly, especially if they're working with unorthodox Mechanicus elements. As Krysos Morturg and company show, this can apply to loyalists as well as traitors.

 

I really want a BL story about Vahn. Plus by Moturg's own admission, it's debatable as to whether he "survived" on Isstvan.

[N1SB]

Re: Blood Ravens, taking everyone's relics, there you go.  It's their Blackshield experiences where they had to scrounge up anything they could to survive after Prospero that lead to that habit.  That is hilarious and totally explains why they have everyone else's stuff in Dawn of War.  This is beautiful.

 

I didn't have much of a stake in Book VII Inferno.  Like, I was happy for my Space Wolves brethren or my friend who really likes Tzeentch, but now, wow, suddenly I feel like I have a stake in this.  I have not been this excited since B&C members started sharing Book VI details in real time from the FW Open Day.  Really happy.

 

Also, thanks for that link to the Blackshield Random Forge-A-Narrative Generator.  I rolled properly and actually got a Blood Angel Troubled by Deceit, presumably surrounding the Red Thirst, like he thought Sanguinius was his genetic salvation but turned out to be a vampiric damnation...so he went rogue.  This is so cool.