Choosing Your Army

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

 

 

World Eaters: Space Wolves weren't punchy enough in CC and I loved the HH blue and white colors. I also like how the fluff described that sheer horror that would fall upon a world at the mention of their Legion.

 

Word Bearers: The box art for Calth and First Heretic.

 

Death Guard: I was really drawn to the Papa Nurgles Character, the Lord of Death and decay in one light and the Lord of Rebirth and Resilience in the other.

I've always been an insane Khorne berserker, but I'm reading Betrayer at the moment and it's opened up a bit of curiosity about the Word Bearers.

There's something quite unsettling about them.

At least the WE will just kill you. Probably quite quickly.

Word Bearers are zealots worshipping dark gods. Of course that'll be scary as :cuss. Not as scary as my Night Lords but mad props for trying Lorgar.

[Panzer]

Could be worse ... they could be Emperor's Children. Slaaneshi worshipper will do things to you, man. Things you don't even want to imagine. :D

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I love the differences in the Chaos gods. Each is horrifying, but in different ways.

 

Khorne: my servants will kill you. It'll be quick and it'll be bloody, but at least it will be fast.

 

Nurgle: my servants won't kill you, at least not deliberately. You'll be in tremendous pain as your body breaks down without ever actually failing.

 

Slaanesh: my servants will kill you. It will be exceedingly slow, exceedingly painful, and the more you scream the longer we'll make it last.

 

Tzeentch: my servants will kill you. In doing so, however, they are slowly damning themselves to a fate worse than death.

[Panzer]

I love the differences in the Chaos gods. Each is horrifying, but in different ways.

 

Khorne: my servants will kill you. It'll be quick and it'll be bloody, but at least it will be fast.

 

Nurgle: my servants won't kill you, at least not deliberately. You'll be in tremendous pain as your body breaks down without ever actually failing.

 

Slaanesh: my servants will kill you. It will be exceedingly slow, exceedingly painful, and the more you scream the longer we'll make it last.

 

Tzeentch: my servants will kill you. In doing so, however, they are slowly damning themselves to a fate worse than death.

 

If I have those options ... please let me be killed by Khorne or Tzeentch guys. :D

[stonecrowe]

I started playing in 2ed and Abaddon was an absolute badass back then, so I chose Black Legion. Came back after a looong break when 8ed dropped and picked up where I left off.

 

I also got some Death Guard when 8ed dropped because Mortarion is awesome and the models arent embarrassingly outdated.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I came to my army a bit backwards.

 

Back in 3rd or 4th edition, I bought the models for a 1700 point raptor heavy night lords army - until I found I didn't enjoy painting them.  They were too close in colour to my previous army (sister's of battle done in dark blue armour and light blue robes) and the blue metallic scheme I had for the raptors, while attractive, was far too much effort to achieve.  So I set them aside and built an imperial guard army instead.

 

Many years later (the end of 7th ed.) I decided to return to building my chaos army.  I already had the colour I wanted them to be - my favourite colour is purple, and other than a brief attempt at nids I've never done a purple army.  I then tried different trim colours, and decided gold looked nicest.  I then did a search for what existing chaos legions or renegade chapters used those colours and found only 2: Soul Drinkers and Emperor's Chosen.  Given that Soul Drinkers are some of the dumbest space marines around (they think their leader growing giant spider legs is because the Emperor loves them), I went with Emperor's Chosen in pre-heresy colours.

 

The way I justify them being in pre-heresy colours is that, for the most part, they weren't originally Emperor's Chosen.  Rather, a bunch of renegades from a variety of chapters freed a Emperor's Chosen demon prince who was bound during the scouring - the demon prince then took over and had his warband done the colours he had fought under.

 

Links to the various armies I talk about (except Night Lords - they never progressed to a state where I was ready to show them off) can be found in my signature below.

[antique_nova]

Because they are the best and I was a fool to have not seen that earlier! The power that the corpse ridden emperor kept me from experiencing!

 

Chaos wield the strongest force in 40k this edition. Regardless of what changes have occurred in the FAQs. Eldar are next, followed by the Imperials.

 

Blood for the blood god! Khorne for the khorneflakes! 

 

Well, technically Thousand Sons and Alpha legion for me. Funnily enough, I have no khorne followers. lol.

[Fhanados]

I've flip-flopped horribly on what Legion/Warband I choose.

 

At first I made Word Bearers to compliment my friend's Daemon army. When he left the hobby I stuck with them for a while then started dabbling in World Eaters. When Cypher got updated rules in 7th I changed again to Fallen but only got through one unit of them before going to Red Corsairs.

 

I started Black Legion during the Fall of Cadia campaign but didn't really get past assembly and priming. I'm strongly considering coming back to it though.

 

I'm thoroughly sick of painting red and was considering Iron Warriors, so with the release of 8th edition I picked up a Death Guard army and painted them in Iron Warriors colours, killing 2 legions with one force.

 

Despite all my legion-hopping I still haven't got a single model for my favourite - Thousand Sons.

 

Ultimately I aim to have one army from each Heretic Astartes codex, but my wallet tells me that's not going to happen anytime soon.

[The Yncarne]

I have played Thousand Sons for the first year of this edition. I never got around to a full army of them in Rogue Trader when I played World Eaters and Death Guard. I’ve never liked Slaanesh.

 

I played plenty of xenos since beginning the game and moved to marines in 5th.

 

Blood Ravens and Thousand Sons are 40k’s peanut butter and chocolate.

[TheHaplessHeretic]

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

[Panzer]

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

 

To be fair the EC weren't that much in focus in the Bile novels considering Bile isn't really part of the Legion anymore. They were there but mostly as problem Bile has to deal with. If anything the Bile novels made me want to start a renegade army centered around Bile instead of EC. :D

[TheHaplessHeretic]

 

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

 

To be fair the EC weren't that much in focus in the Bile novels considering Bile isn't really part of the Legion anymore. They were there but mostly as problem Bile has to deal with. If anything the Bile novels made me want to start a renegade army centered around Bile instead of EC.

 

 

Yeah but I still loved seeing them again after the Heresy, there's enough EC in those novels to inspire someone to paint up an army of them. A Consortium warband full of gland hounds in place of marines would be fun to build.

[Canadian_F_H]

Yeah I've never been a huge fan of the god aligned legions.

 

More specifically, it has always been down to the Word Bearers, the Iron Warriors and the Black legion for me.

[Trevak Dal]

 

 

World Eaters: Space Wolves weren't punchy enough in CC and I loved the HH blue and white colors. I also like how the fluff described that sheer horror that would fall upon a world at the mention of their Legion.

 

Word Bearers: The box art for Calth and First Heretic.

 

Death Guard: I was really drawn to the Papa Nurgles Character, the Lord of Death and decay in one light and the Lord of Rebirth and Resilience in the other.

I've always been an insane Khorne berserker, but I'm reading Betrayer at the moment and it's opened up a bit of curiosity about the Word Bearers.

There's something quite unsettling about them.

At least the WE will just kill you. Probably quite quickly.

Yeah World Eaters are almost decent. With Night Lords of Emperor's Children, you are in for a snuff film ending. They are like the Reavers from Firefly "They will beat us to death, eat our flesh and stitch our skin into clothing and if we are very, very lucky in that order"

 

The Word Bearers will try and convert you to their religion and/or sacrifice you.

 

World Eaters just gonna kill you.

[Slan Drakkos]

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

Fun fact: I was originally going to go with Black Legion back when I first started getting into 40k, but ended up choosing the Emperor's Children instead. I found all of their accolades to be both hilarious and awesome. I mean, they had the first Primarch to kill one of his brothers during the Horus Heresy, the first primarch to become a daemons prince, no less than three characters (Lucius, Eidolon, and Fabius) that came back to life (suck it Nurgle), the first primarch to try and betray one of his brothers, the only person (outside of the Emperor) to clone a primarch, and they're the only legion to be shattered three times and come back from it. The fact that their rules are awesome was just icing on the cake.

 

I'd suggest going with EC, but then again, I may be biased.

[TheHaplessHeretic]

 

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

Fun fact: I was originally going to go with Black Legion back when I first started getting into 40k, but ended up choosing the Emperor's Children instead. I found all of their accolades to be both hilarious and awesome. I mean, they had the first Primarch to kill one of his brothers during the Horus Heresy, the first primarch to become a daemons prince, no less than three characters (Lucius, Eidolon, and Fabius) that came back to life (suck it Nurgle), the first primarch to try and betray one of his brothers, the only person (outside of the Emperor) to clone a primarch, and they're the only legion to be shattered three times and come back from it. The fact that their rules are awesome was just icing on the cake.

 

I'd suggest going with EC, but then again, I may be biased.

 

 

The biggest drawback to EC for me is not knowing what paint scheme to use.

[Doom Herald]

I played Necrons and then Grey Knights previously but never got deep into 40k.

I saw the 6e (maybe 5e?) Crimson Slaughter supplement sitting in clearance at my local game store one day after I got a good job finally and decided to give them a try, since I did like the Dark Vengeance models. Something about Crimson Slaughter stuck with me. When 8th came out, I hated that they were now just generic Renegades and so I started using Night Lord rules with them. Terror tactics was a good stand in for the Fear special rule Crimson Slaughter previously had, In Midnight Clad was a good stand in for the Helguard rule that gave BS penalty, and Curse of The Night Haunter was a good stand in for the Prescience rules.

 

Night Lords started interesting me more and I loved the bat motif, do I decided I would combine the 2 into a warband. Heavily mutated Night Lords, with the haunted Crimson Slaughter, stranded planetside until they became a new warband. Still working on what to call them. Slaughter Lords, Night Slaughter, Crimson Lords, or more recently I was thinking of calling them The Gheist Lords after the spectres that haunt them.

[Beachymike123]

I've had many armies in my time playing 40k, but Chaos was my first purchase, first love and still my current army. I started with Khorne and renegades, then did Black Legion but now Iron Warriors. 

I've always had IW in the odd unit or two, but they have amazing fluff, great rules and an easy enough to do scheme (which was handy coming back into the hobby back then). Now my force is IW heavy and I have the odd Renegade or alternative legion unit to break up the scheme a bit. Great thing is it works for Chaos :D 

Iron Within, Iron Without

[Panzer]

 

 

I've got a lot of grey plastic and I'm struggling to chose between Emperors Children and Black Legion, I've read ADB's Black Legion novels and the recent Fabius Bile novels and love both legions for their own reasons.

 

The Black Legion opens the door for a really fluffy marine army backed up by traitor guardsmen, mutants, knights and so on while the Emperors Children have an insane amount of variety that would be fun to represent on the tabletop, also ever since reading Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus I've grown to love Eidolon, Julius and even Fabius while the Black Legion also has some really awesome characters (Falkus, Ceraxia, Lheor).

Fun fact: I was originally going to go with Black Legion back when I first started getting into 40k, but ended up choosing the Emperor's Children instead. I found all of their accolades to be both hilarious and awesome. I mean, they had the first Primarch to kill one of his brothers during the Horus Heresy, the first primarch to become a daemons prince, no less than three characters (Lucius, Eidolon, and Fabius) that came back to life (suck it Nurgle), the first primarch to try and betray one of his brothers, the only person (outside of the Emperor) to clone a primarch, and they're the only legion to be shattered three times and come back from it. The fact that their rules are awesome was just icing on the cake.

 

I'd suggest going with EC, but then again, I may be biased.

 

 

The biggest drawback to EC for me is not knowing what paint scheme to use.

 

 

If you want to be fluffy ... all of the paint schemes as long as they aren't boring to look at! :D

[CMDR_Welles]

As to EC, if you havent already started, I would recommend waiting till their codex comes out (still next year sometime?). You dont want to start an arny now, only to find out later that what you already have isnt going to work anymore...

 

Black Legion is a safer bet. Though, I would wait to see what happens with their new rumored releases next year as well.

 

Just my 2 cents

[betrayer41]

World Eaters: Khârn has always been my favorite character. Even back when I collected DA and BL i still had a Khârn models.  Then ADB's masterpiece Betrayer happened and It got my on a never ending journey to build everything I hear in that novel.  I am listening to it now for the 20th time. If they made a Lotara Sarrin Model with a Conqueror interior base id easily pay 100 bucks for her.

 

Something about how misunderstood they are really spoke to me....and also chainxes.....i mean come on.....chainaxes.

[RobWrath]

Just finished Betrayer. Yes, very good.

 

You are rooting for the bad guys all the way through. In fact, I'm not sure they are the bad guys anymore!

[Malios]

I've been a strange follower in the minority of chaos in that I have always preferred the "warbands on the path to glory" approach from 2nd edition opposed to the "3.5 dex era traitor legions" approach.

 

For this reason I suppose, I've always been a great fan of Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs. He always stole the show in every narrative he starred in and the Badab War supplements allowed you to empathise with why even good intentions can be corrupted. For similar reasons, I was also a fan of the Crimson Slaughter and Sevastus Kranon.

 

I don't own my chaos army anymore, but if new kits come out it would be a hard choice between the above two. If I could find a Sevastus Kranon model and Draznicht, I'd lean on the latter.

[CMDR_Welles]

I've been a strange follower in the minority of chaos in that I have always preferred the "warbands on the path to glory" approach from 2nd edition opposed to the "3.5 dex era traitor legions" approach.

 

For this reason I suppose, I've always been a great fan of Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs. He always stole the show in every narrative he starred in and the Badab War supplements allowed you to empathise with why even good intentions can be corrupted. For similar reasons, I was also a fan of the Crimson Slaughter and Sevastus Kranon.

 

I don't own my chaos army anymore, but if new kits come out it would be a hard choice between the above two. If I could find a Sevastus Kranon model and Draznicht, I'd lean on the latter.

 

Are you in the US? I have several extra Draznichts, and I might have a spare Kranon left somewhere. 

[ChazSexington]

The Alpha Legion: I loved how little was actually known, which gave me the space to really do something creative with my homebrew fluff - a combined arms chapter specialising in overwhelming assault by drop pod in 30k, but they've changed over 10,000 years on a company by company basis. One Line Company has been fully corrupted by Chaos (Daemon Princes, Possessed, raving Cultists, Daemon allies etc), while the Assault Company is still somewhat clean along with the 1st Company, with each group favouring separate styles of combat, but true to the Hydra's doctrines, they will split and merge with each other to better suit the task at hand.

 

I also loved the stuff in the Index Astartes article - the hubris and the relish at fighting a worthy foe combined with a little brother complex. The iconography is awesome, and the later HH colours from FW as well.

 

The Red Corsairs: I hadn't read Black Legion and Talon of Horus when I started them, otherwise I probably would have had them recast in black and gold. I wanted a sort of unified Chaos front to be a mix of the newer non-Heresy-esque sculpts, like Warp Talons and the Helbrute, to be a more Warp-tainted newer recruit kind of look. The Black Legion would've been ideal, but I really couldn't shake the feel of Abaddon being a bit of failure and Huron getting things done. I also wanted to have outcasts from other Chapters and Legions mixed in. Currently, I have Black Dragons and Space Wolves who've hoisted the Jolly Roger, but I want to add some Iron Hands as well. The idea behind both the Black Dragons and Space Wolves were Astartes that couldn't stomach the arrival of Cawl's mutant hordes, the Black Dragons seeing them as trouble (ref their gene-seed issues) and the Space Wolves going "YOU HAD THE CURE FOR THE CANIS HELIX ALL ALONG AND WE WEREN'T DOOMED?!"

 

That being said, I'd love to collect the following CSM Legions:
Word Bearers: First Heretic, Betrayer, and Aurelian. Both were cracking! Beautiful paint scheme too.
World Eaters: ADB, but use the HH paintjob.

Emperor's Children: 'Cause they look dashing and I love Fulgrim (though I thought his character was butchered and lost its magic in the novel Fulgrim).

Night Lords: ADB's Night Lords stuff. 

Sons of Horus: 'Cause Reavers look awesome and would be great in 40k with either World Eater or Night Lord's tactics.

Thousand Sons: In the old school metallic red. Beautiful.

 

CSM Warbands:
Black Legion: Specifically because of ADB's Black Legion and Talon of Horus giving them that coolness factor.

Skyrar's Dark Wolves: Also awesome.

Dragon Warriors: Also awesome.