Choosing Your Army

[Celtic_cauldron]

Started with a World Eaters' army 25 years ago while playing EPIC. 40K came with 2nd ed. First it was supposed a conglomerate of squads and vehicles from eight Legions.

 

Time going by it became 8 different armies:

 

- Wordbearers: because they embody the religious excess of extremist worshippers. My army is full of flamers and was originally designed to fight against hordes like Tyranids or Orks;

 

- Emperor's Children: concept of Noise Marines and swordsmen;

 

- Death Guard: Infantry (80 Plague Marines), infantry, infantry;

 

- Thousand Sons: small force centered around Ahriman and 6 Exalted Sorcerors;

 

- Black Legion: because Abaddon and Chosen and Bringers of Despair;

 

- World Eaters led by Khârn but based on old fluff so featuring Legionaries and Havocs;

 

- Iron Warriors: Siege army with a lot of guns (23 lascans on average for 2000 points...);

 

- Night Lords: my favourite since... almost forever but ADB played a role in that with his books.

 

In total: more than 31000 points and I am still adding new units each month to fight the Long War.

 

Celtic_Cauldron

[Yossarion]

I've always liked playing melee in games. So naturally Khorne just slotted in there for Warhammer, it also helps that painting red marine armor is fun and the technique I've got down makes a nice Crimson that gets complimented a lot. Finally, Berzerkers getting to fight twice really just pushed me to pulling the trigger (I've been having army schizo all of 8th.) Also aesthetically Khorne Daemons look a lot better than the other Gods imo. 

 

As an aside I really like when Chapters go renegade and start acting like...humans. I like that renegade chapters will carve out pirate empires and I'm incorporating that into my army as they descend into that Khornate madness. Although I am using a psyker because it's not fun to skip any stage of the game and psykers do a lot for melee armies, (Renegade chapters getting to advance + charge makes warptime really funny on them)

[Vykes]

For me, I always liked the Sons of Horus, the Thrice-Cursed Betrayers.  Others have caught my eye, and I do love the Emperor's Children, Word Bearers, and World Eaters, but in the end it all comes back to Milton. 

 

 

...Yet not for those,

Nor what the potent victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind.
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed,
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne.

 

What though the field be lost,
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome . . .
That glory never shall his wrath or might⁠
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire...

 

http://www.paradiselost.org/img/05d-z.jpg

 

Plus, they are fun to paint, fun to convert, and play pretty comfortably for me.  They aren't restricted much and are a fun aggressive advancing force that can go for the throat and never let go.  

[El_Dicko]

I’m going with Steel Bretheren for the bulk of my army, because the Iron Warriors are awesome, I don’t want to paint hazard stripes and I need an easy way to get back into the hobby after a long time!

[Ghorgul]

Nice reading your stories, Fraters!

First stuff I ever got was box of Khorne Berserkers in year 2000 or so. Funnily enough Khorne Berserker models are still the same so. Painted in no special legion color. Later I gravitated towards Iron Warriors, I think it was mostly for the relatively simple color scheme. Although the Index Astartes articles/books for legions were nice and I really enjoyed the Iron Warriors conceptually. Some time later I took several year break and recently came back, thanks to Traitor Legions supplement, which was some sort of throwback 3.5 codex. Didn't want to get back to my Iron Warriors so ended up starting Night Lords, the exact reason I can't remember at all! I think I had always liked their look/color scheme, but wasn't a fan of the Night Lords kit (the one with huge bat wings on helmet) they had earlier.

[Papewaio]

Initially I started with World Eaters based on an old thread on here, called 'Today Khârn Killed...' and they were some great times, to the point I still get chainaxe and 'CHARGE ME' jokes. Sadly, I had to sell them all off (bar 3 models for nostaglia) a few years ago due to financial issues. I've been getting back into 8th with Harlequins (and very recently a pure wraith host Eldar army) and have felt the strong itch to get back to my real love.

 

Blood for the Blood God!

[Cryptix]

I structured the dusk raiders as they are because I wanted the ability to both use multiple marks as a single army (renegades) and also as separate god specific armies. For those that don't know, the dusk raiders are structured into a series of courts, 7 in total. There are the 4 marked courts, Brass (Khorne), Sand (Tzeentch), Flesh (Slaanesh), and Sinew (Nurgle), the Dark Mechanicus in the Court of Steel (Helforged) the Possessed and other Daemonic entities in the Court of Abyss(Daemonkin), and lastly the newest court, the modified astartes in the Court of Seeds (Primaris models, chosen count as), led by the rogue Genetor Aescutor (Fabius Bile count as).

[NullPoint]

Past

Nightlords - from 2nd/3rd edition, I just like the color scheme, afterward i like the fear aspect of the legion and raptors... lot of raptors ( i sold the army when it hit 4000 pts)

 

Current

Iron Warriors - heavy weapons galore! Obliterators! What's not to love? I am building mine with a minimum of Chaos influence trying to figure out how to build some breachers without another order to FW...

Black Legion - for all my conversion work and other fun stuff, and for special kits like the t-sons and death guard in black and gold.  This is on hold until GW releases some new noise marines

Fallen - because I was stupid and bought some Deathwing knight terminators to ally in my IW and really liked the way they looked so I built a 2500 point army of the true sons of Caliban, 15 Termies and plenty of DA vets.

[Carrack]

I chose Black Legion for painting because the color scheme is cool, and doesn’t have anything obviously intimidating for a novice painter, like terror markings or hazard stripes. I didn’t know how hard painting black can be, but I have no regrets.

 

For the lore, I wanted two things, The first was I wanted the ability to include the entire range of units for my army and have it supported by the background. I didn’t want to be limited by what mark I could take, or by the expectations for the composition of the army, like Night Lords are expected to have lots of fast attack to an extent. I certainly could have justified any army choice into any warband, I just didn’t want to have to reach very far to fo it.

 

The second lore related factor in me choosing the Black Legion was I wanted an army that was going to be a player in major events in the galaxy. The chaos space marine lore can at times describe warbands as small, struggling to survive, bands of a few handfuls of legionaries who exist by raiding. Other times chaos space marines are described as the arch-enemy of mankind, and the likely instrument of the Imperium’s destruction. Both of these aspects of the chaos lore have their appeal, that of the underdog and that of the final antagonist, but I much prefer the latter. I want my warband to burn hives to the ground, to engage entire chapters of loyalists in a single battle, and to bring entire sectors to their knees. Black Legion most closely matches this vision of my warband.