40k NL poster boy who would you pick?

[Bulwyf]

I’m totally good with Decimus or Sevatar. Sevatar wasn’t the first chapter master of the space sharks, they also do not have mixed geneseed.

 

The first chapter master of the Charcharodons was Shade Lord Arkhas Fal, legion master of the 19th legion that Corax had beef with. There is fanon (that won’t seem to go away) out there that the space sharks were mixed geneseed, but that is purely fanon, with no actual fluff that backs it, and lots of fluff that says they are pre-corax Raven Guard.

 

The only way they might have some mixed geneseed, is if the much larger Ashen Claws warband used the captured Night Lord geneseed during the purging of the Nostramo Sector, back when they established their pocket empire in the ghoul stars. They do trade recruits with the space sharks on occasion as they both descended from nomad predation fleets of Terran 19th legionaries. But there was a ton of ashen claws and relatively few night lord defenders that could have defected or had their geneseed stolen.

 

Decimus or a new character with a relic chain glaive and Volkite Serpenta or Charger in a pose similar to Sevatar would be rad. Spiritual embodiment/successor as “the” NL character 10k years later. Double cool if there is an optional jump pack similar to how they handled Ahriman’s disk for ksons.

 

It might be best if they use a new character entirely really. Few if any Night Lord book protagonists really embody the legion, they are always a little delusional about what the Night Lords were and are. Sevatar would probably be disgusted with the state of the legion. Decimus, while really cool has only a little more fluff than a new character would and I’d like to hear ADB’s take on him more than the studio’s in general.

 

You are completely wrong about Space Sharks. It is stated flat out in the Space Sharks novels that they have mixed chimeric gene seed of Night Lords and Raven Guard. The ONLY reason they have RG gene seed is from trading with the Ashen Claws a renegade RG chapter from the HH days. Sevatar and Curze both had visions of Sevatar leading grey clad Marines loyal to the Imperium in the deep dark fighting against xenos, mutants and heretics. The last story with Sevatar in it explicitly states he was leaving the heresy to go fight the true enemies of mankind in the deep void. 

 

The fluff for Space Sharks said they appeared before or at the 2nd founding. They use heresy equipment. They have chimeric geneseed of Night Lords and RG. They literally fight like Night Lords with terror tactics and brutal melee assaults. Their Forgotten One (their first Chapter Master) is clearly Sevatar. This is in their fluff. This isn't random speculation.

 

I also had a talk with a certain author about all of this so I know what I am speaking about. 

[Paradigm]

Look I’m not about to turn this into a huge back and forth. So I’ll say one more post on it and be done. It’s been done to death.

 

But both Robbie, and Aaron have posts in these forums, archived, available and contradicting your assessment.

 

Robbie when talking about his Charcharadons book, flat out agrees with several posters including myself when we talk about how he fixed the weird fanon chimeric geneseed, Night Lord thing. It’s archived on this forum. He also confirms Corax is the forgotten one.

 

Aaron has made it incredibly clear that Sevatar absolutely hates the Emperor and that he had further plans for him. He isn’t going to go track down Arkhas Fal, who canonically leads the Nomad Predation fleet that became the Space Sharks, to usurp him, and the Space Sharks wouldn’t have accepted a random cousin as a leader anyway especially one who hates the emperor they were still fighting for. If ADB wants to do this I’d be surprised as it isn’t his style at all. But if anyone could pull it off it’s probably ADB.

 

It makes even less sense that Sevatar would lead the Space Sharks when you realize it would have been hundreds or thousands of years after the heresy when the Space Sharks and Ashen Claws would have run out of recruits and had to trade. And it’s also suggested they used to fight quite a bit since the sharks took the actual Ashen Claws weapons as war booty. Point being, there wouldn’t have been any possibility of Night Lords geneseed until years and years later. It’s also important to note, the Ashen Claws were the size of a small legion, they didn’t need to use Night Lord geneseed, the fluff describes them as having thousands of warriors when they were sent on their Nomad Predation fleet that came under the Praetor (and former XIXth legion Headhunter/Seeker) Nerat Kirine’s control, deployed years after Arkhas Fal left with his much smaller fleet.

 

All this is rumored/alluded to, in the Badab War books, stated pretty clearly in Horus Hersey Book3, and Book 6 and confirmed fully in the Robbie McNiven series. All legions ended up with some defectors no legions decided to put a defector from another legion in charge of them. The XIXth lived on with the Space Sharks and Ashen Claws, but they had very different goals, and would have been enemies during the Heresy if they ever crossed paths.

 

Which book is the grey warriors vision in? I’d like to read it so I get why you believe they are alluding to space sharks.Unpainted Ceramite is grey too, and lots of warbands, chapters, blackshields use it.

 

So in summary we know and have canon written about who and where the space sharks come from, who the forgotten one is (it’s been explicitly stated to be Corax by Robbie who invented the concept), who lead the space sharks first. Where the term Pale Nomad comes from, where the space shark markings come from, and where they acquired the relic weapons Hunger and Slake, (aka the actual Ashen Claws the Blackshields are named for.) We even know why the like axes so much.

 

To summarize the Ashen Claws, we have clear canon documentation that they left after Gate 42 with thousands of Terran Raven Guard and conquered a sizable chunk of the Ghoul Stars from Xenos. Raiding the Nostamo Sector, and destroying pillaging much of the Night Lords supplies, some Night Lords may have defected, their geneseed may or may not have been used. We don’t know this for certain either way. We do know that after the Ashen Claws stopped feuding they traded recruits on occasion and some of them could have the odd Night Lord geneseed. (Keep in mind just having geneseed from different legions doesn’t make them chimaeric. You’d need to merge geneseed for this to be the case)

 

I don’t know which author you spoke to, but you are mistaken if you think the space sharks are a mixed group of loyalist Night Lords and Raven Guard who were originally lead by Sevatar. That is 100% Fanon.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Paradigm

[BitsHammer]

If we could pick dead people I'd go with Talos.

 

Otherwise Decimus would indeed be fun--it would be interesting to see if he could unite at least some of the NL warbands.

Definitely Talos (I mean being dead hasn't stopped other characters before), but if they want someone to unite the NL around the Decimus would be good on the table.

 

Though It's GW so they'll probably do something like have Bile clone Curze just so they can do a Primarch.

[Bulwyf]

Look I’m not about to turn this into a huge back and forth. So I’ll say one more post on it and be done. It’s been done to death.

 

But both Robbie, and Aaron have posts in these forums, archived, available and contradicting your assessment.

 

Robbie when talking about his Charcharadons book, flat out agrees with several posters including myself when we talk about how he fixed the weird fanon chimeric geneseed, Night Lord thing. It’s archived on this forum. He also confirms Corax is the forgotten one.

 

Aaron has made it incredibly clear that Sevatar absolutely hates the Emperor and that he had further plans for him. He isn’t going to go track down Arkhas Fal, who canonically leads the Nomad Predation fleet that became the Space Sharks, to usurp him, and the Space Sharks wouldn’t have accepted a random cousin as a leader anyway especially one who hates the emperor they were still fighting for. If ADB wants to do this I’d be surprised as it isn’t his style at all. But if anyone could pull it off it’s probably ADB.

 

It makes even less sense that Sevatar would lead the Space Sharks when you realize it would have been hundreds or thousands of years after the heresy when the Space Sharks and Ashen Claws would have run out of recruits and had to trade. And it’s also suggested they used to fight quite a bit since the sharks took the actual Ashen Claws weapons as war booty. Point being, there wouldn’t have been any possibility of Night Lords geneseed until years and years later. It’s also important to note, the Ashen Claws were the size of a small legion, they didn’t need to use Night Lord geneseed, the fluff describes them as having thousands of warriors when they were sent on their Nomad Predation fleet that came under the Praetor (and former XIXth legion Headhunter/Seeker) Nerat Kirine’s control, deployed years after Arkhas Fal left with his much smaller fleet.

 

All this is rumored/alluded to, in the Badab War books, stated pretty clearly in Horus Hersey Book3, and Book 6 and confirmed fully in the Robbie McNiven series. All legions ended up with some defectors no legions decided to put a defector from another legion in charge of them. The XIXth lived on with the Space Sharks and Ashen Claws, but they had very different goals, and would have been enemies during the Heresy if they ever crossed paths.

 

Which book is the grey warriors vision in? I’d like to read it so I get why you believe they are alluding to space sharks.Unpainted Ceramite is grey too, and lots of warbands, chapters, blackshields use it.

 

So in summary we know and have canon written about who and where the space sharks come from, who the forgotten one is (it’s been explicitly stated to be Corax by Robbie who invented the concept), who lead the space sharks first. Where the term Pale Nomad comes from, where the space shark markings come from, and where they acquired the relic weapons Hunger and Slake, (aka the actual Ashen Claws the Blackshields are named for.) We even know why the like axes so much.

 

To summarize the Ashen Claws, we have clear canon documentation that they left after Gate 42 with thousands of Terran Raven Guard and conquered a sizable chunk of the Ghoul Stars from Xenos. Raiding the Nostamo Sector, and destroying pillaging much of the Night Lords supplies, some Night Lords may have defected, their geneseed may or may not have been used. We don’t know this for certain either way. We do know that after the Ashen Claws stopped feuding they traded recruits on occasion and some of them could have the odd Night Lord geneseed. (Keep in mind just having geneseed from different legions doesn’t make them chimaeric. You’d need to merge geneseed for this to be the case)

 

I don’t know which author you spoke to, but you are mistaken if you think the space sharks are a mixed group of loyalist Night Lords and Raven Guard who were originally lead by Sevatar. That is 100% Fanon.

 

I don't want to derail this but you are wrong on so much in this post. 

 

I know I am right about everything I wrote and had a BL author literally confirm it to me. Not to sound rude to you but I don't need anyone else's opinion on it to be perfectly honest since it was confirmed to me by someone on a higher pay grade when it comes to this than either you OR me. 

[Paradigm]

Look, if you are going to claim to have super secret squirrel information that nobody else has, maybe don’t get so defensive when people doubt it. Especially when it runs entirely counter to established fluff. This isn’t meant to be a personal attack, we are talking about plastic soldiers in an ever changing/growing universe. Care to share which author told you this information, if you can, especially since ADB and Alan Bligh fleshed out Sevatar’s arc years ago and he is planning on finishing it. Hopefully, he pops back up after the siege of Terra series. He spoke about this during his AMA on Reddit.

 

Also, I provided you with the books you can find the very clear info about the Space Sharks history in. You could do me the same favor if you have real evidence of the 8th having contributed in any meaningful way to the space sharks or that Sevatar is their first chapter master.

 

If I recall correctly the visions you are referencing, that Curze had of grey clad troops, is a reference to Fel Zharost AKA Grand Master Khyron leading the Grey Knights as one of their founders. It spawned a ton of theory about Sevatar being a grey knight, though now we know that it was Zharost.

 

Again I’m not interested in a back and forth, but I do really want to review the fluff you are referencing. If there has been a major retcon I’d like to read about it. If ADB’s plans are derailed that sucks, as the stuff him and Alan Bligh worked out has been truly brilliant and I was looking forward to the storyline.

 

A relevant quote from the AMA: ADB - From his Reddit AMA

 

"I think it'd be a reach if he [sevatar] made it to M41, and if he did, he's certainly not important. Legion First Captains are serious business, and I know some of them are still kicking at that point, but I'll be 100% honest, no, Sevatar doesn't survive into the Dark Millennium.

 

He has an arc. I worked it out with Alan Bligh a while back. He has a future, and I'm pretty sure we'll see it in some form within a few years. But his role in the Horus Heresy is pretty much just his prologue. His real story is in the years after the Horus Heresy. And it's probably not a spoiler to say he's never going to be a great hero on either side of the Traitor/Loyalist divide, with his name echoing gloriously into eternity.

 

Sevatar is seeking righteousness, in a way. He has a line at some point (I think it's to Altani or the Sin-Eater) where he says "I'm not on anyone's side." And that sums him up, not because he's some badass space loner, but because the structures within which he's matured and fought for have, by and large, failed. Not failed him. Just failed. At least from his perspective.

 

And his arc is a response to that. Can't really be too much more specific, sorry!

 

Hope that helps a little!"

 

-ADB

 

Anyway please post your references if you want people to consider your opinion. Either way this is really the last post on it from me, unless you show me something that retcons the established fluff.

 

Back to the topic: Also, sadly based on the notes from ADB I don’t think we will see a 40k version of Sevatar.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Paradigm

[MegaVolt87]

Sev could have been adopted into the space sharks and be referred to as the forgotten one without needing to kill Arkhas Fal. If Sev comes back I don't see why he would desire any form of command, he cares more about himself and his ideals at that point. He could very well even die way before the dark millennium current timeline. It could work. 

[Paradigm]

Maybe. I really don’t see that being a good direction for someone who truly hates the imperium.

 

I think it is possible the Charcharodons have some Night Lord and whatever else Geneseed mixed in there. I don’t think it’s “chimeric” in nature, it’s just that some marines may have different geneseed than the next, but I find it a huge stretch that Sevatar is destined to lead the Charcharadons after Arkhas Fal.

 

I was actually about to delete the previous post, I just don’t think arguing is really worth it, and I have no Ill will towards anyone over a fluff interpretation.

 

Frankly, I find the idea that they have mixed geneseed kind of dumb, there is no reason for it from a storytelling standpoint. The pre-corax XIXth in 30k behave just like the Charcharodons do in 40k. They even have Red Brethren/Deliverers that wear the same colors. That said, it is certainly possible based on the fluff from Red Tithe, Outer Dark and HH:Book 6. If Sevatar abandons the 8th to fight for the Imperium it basically nukes his characterization. I don’t see the point of building his character up as it was only to throw it away.

 

The Forgotten One is Corax. He exiled them. They “Forgot” him.

 

But this is definitely derailing the thread.

 

I think I want to double down on the best thing to do is to just create a new character for the Night Lords when the time comes. Would love to have a chainglaive jump pack dude, with Volkite weaponry, bonus for an optional pack, with a story that the Heresy is only century or so ago to him.

[Bulwyf]

I have been accused of derailing threads too much to respond to this.  I have no ill will towards anyone and we are as rightly said by Paradigm basically arguing about toy soldiers so I will leave it at that.

[techsoldaten]

I would be okay with Decimus or Sevitar, both of them are good characters.

 

One point: Night Lords always seemed more interesting without a named character. Same with Iron Warriors. The fact you can't pin a specific army down to a personality gives them a mystique through all the variation.

 

Compare that with Abaddon. Always feels like I have to have him in my army, it's not always a good deal, he's the same Abaddon everyone else takes. I purposefully skew my Black Legion lists so they don't look like anyone elses.

[BitsHammer]

Eh, I almost see Sev saying "sod this" if he really thinks everything has failed completely then sulking off to haunt a Death World somewhere for fun.

[Paradigm]

@ Fulkes that would be awesome.

[Balthamal]

Sevatar would 100% be disgusted at what the VIII Legion devolved into. But that's based heavily on our last chronological glimpse we've had of him in The Long Night. Some of the bits and pieces that have emerged post that being done are a little bit more ambiguous but that's a tad beside the point. The point being, Sevatar is absolutely the one Night Lord who would could make the Legion his own if he were still alive. He was in the top bracket of warriors from 18 Legions never mind one. 

 

Decimus is interesting, not necessarily because of what he is, but what the perception of him is, and also what he could become if that perception gained a little more gravity. At the end of Void Stalker it's heavily implied that some of the Night Lords present view him a little like Talos' spiritual successor but that also shares the burden of the way they regarded Talos himself and his relationship to the Night Haunter. The fact he's beginning to lean into the same prognostication and foresight carries more resonance because of who else did it rather than his own talent in and of itself. So other Night Lords are starting to associate him with symbols of what they considered strength previously, which offers a lot of character growth opportunities if someone jumps on it from BL (rather it comes from there first, GW's form on dropping the ball is too obvious)

[Sception]

I'd also lean towards Krieg, as the canonical leader of the largest coherent force of Night Lords in the 40k era, and the best represents the monsters they've degenerated into during the long years in the Eye of Terror.

 

Unfortunately, to give Krieg official stats, GW would either need to 1) retcon him to not be a daemon prince after all, at which point he no longer works as well to represent his monstrous legion, or 2) retcon away the idea that Be'Lakor is the only unaligned daemon prince ever - which is dumb fluff that needlessly restricts options, but every chance GW's had over the last decade or so to rescind that bit of self defeating lore they've doubled down instead so I don't see them changing it now, or 3) they'll have to canonically give Krieg a chaos alignment, which would make him a poor representation of the Night Lords as an unaligned legion.  Altogether, even though I think Krieg Acerbus as an unaligned Daemon Prince would imo be the best choice for a named Night Lord character, I just don't think it can happen.

 

Failing that, I'd go with Decimus as a sort of Night Lords spiritual leader or prophet, traveling from warband to warband rather than leading a military force of his own, serving what remains of the Legion as a whole rather than any singular commander.  Not a very good representation of the legion as they are, but works as an aspirational figure representing them as they could be, as well as justifiably fitting into any night lord army.

[Lord Abaia]

Unfortunately, to give Krieg official stats, GW would either need to 1) retcon him to not be a daemon prince after all, at which point he no longer works as well to represent his monstrous legion, or 2) retcon away the idea that Be'Lakor is the only unaligned daemon prince ever - which is dumb fluff that needlessly restricts options, but every chance GW's had over the last decade or so to rescind that bit of self defeating lore they've doubled down instead so I don't see them changing it now, or 3) they'll have to canonically give Krieg a chaos alignment, which would make him a poor representation of the Night Lords as an unaligned legion.

This seems to be a corner GW has painted themselves into with Lorgar and Perturabo as well. Eventually some poor BL writer is probably going to have to address this in 2039 when the inevitable 50+ book series The Scouring reaches that point. Maybe GW will have retconned this piece of lore by then.

[Sception]

 

Unfortunately, to give Krieg official stats, GW would either need to 1) retcon him to not be a daemon prince after all, at which point he no longer works as well to represent his monstrous legion, or 2) retcon away the idea that Be'Lakor is the only unaligned daemon prince ever - which is dumb fluff that needlessly restricts options, but every chance GW's had over the last decade or so to rescind that bit of self defeating lore they've doubled down instead so I don't see them changing it now, or 3) they'll have to canonically give Krieg a chaos alignment, which would make him a poor representation of the Night Lords as an unaligned legion.

This seems to be a corner GW has painted themselves into with Lorgar and Perturabo as well. Eventually some poor BL writer is probably going to have to address this in 2039 when the inevitable 50+ book series The Scouring reaches that point. Maybe GW will have retconned this piece of lore by then.

 

 

Either 40k retcons that lore, or the 4 'unaligned' legions instead become 4 'semi-aligned' legions - ie, thematically aligned, but not cult, and probably not to the exclusion of other marks.  As a vague general principle thing that almost makes sense since they're spinning out the cult legions and that leaves the generic CSM book without specific aligned representation.  But in practice it really doesn't work with the entire lore and personality of these legions.  You could kind of do Night Lords as Khorne (go fast, rend with claws, Krieg as a poster boy with a Big Axe) and Iron Warriors as Nurgle (slow, tough, rust, entropy), but even these are pretty iffy.  Alpha Legion is about equally divided between Tzeentch (exactly as planned) and Slaanesh (fatal flaw = pride) such that neither on their own even kind of fits, and nailing Lorgar & his lot to /any/ one individual chaos god over the others is just utterly antithetical to their whole deal.

 

Sort of an ugly corner GW's painted themselves into.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

There is some historical precedent to attaching the unaligned legions to chaos gods, my recollection is back in 2nd ed. in the big book of chaos put out (don't remember the name, but it as a big hardcover fluff book with lots of Blanch art for chaos in both 40K and fantasy) aligned each of them with one of the 4 gods - for example, the Nightlords were aligned with Khorne.

 

That said, I can't say I'm in favour of resurrecting that fluff, as I think the setting is more interesting without it.  However, I do think there is room for an unaligned legion to have characters within it who are favoured by one god or the other - to me, anyway, just because the legion as a whole doesn't favour one god or the other doesn't mean individuals within it don't.  This would even be for legions that have a reputation for avoiding binding themselves to the gods, as this tension is really only interesting if the temptation is real and the draw of committing is similar in strength to the desire to avoid it.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Balthamal]

There is some historical precedent to attaching the unaligned legions to chaos gods, my recollection is back in 2nd ed. in the big book of chaos put out (don't remember the name, but it as a big hardcover fluff book with lots of Blanch art for chaos in both 40K and fantasy) aligned each of them with one of the 4 gods - for example, the Nightlords were aligned with Khorne.

 

That said, I can't say I'm in favour of resurrecting that fluff, as I think the setting is more interesting without it.  That said, I do think there is room for an unaligned legion to have characters within it who are favoured by one god or the other - to me, anyway, just because the legion as a whole doesn't favour one god or the other doesn't mean individuals within it don't.  This would even be for legions that have a reputation for avoiding binding themselves to the gods, as this tension is really only interesting if the temptation is real and the draw of committing is similar in strength to the desire to avoid it.

 

It's sort of mirrored in the Fantasy Flight Black Crusade books. Night Lords for Khorne, Alpha Legion for Tzeentch, Iron Warriors for Nurgle, Word Bearers for Slaanesh. 

 

Agreed though, outliers within a Legion is fine and everything but having something more to dip into than marks etc would be quite nice, even if the early looks we've had make marks/icons tasty indeed

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Balthemal, that's interesting to know and it's likely the Fantasy Flight material is based on the same source as I referred to above - that book really was the go to source for fluff before the excellent Chaos codex in 3rd edition.

 

I just realized that I failed to make explicit what is probably implicit in my post above (and which makes the post actually on topic) - I don't think having a khorne marked demon prince special character necessarily detracts either from the night lords eschewing the support of specific gods or from the more gribbly side of chaos generally, as he could be set forward as an exception to both.  That said, even if it is explicitly stated that he is an exception, there are likely hobbyists who would interpret his existence as a character with rules as support that whatever the character represents forms broader support within the legion than would otherwise be supportable within the broader night lords canon.  And certainly he could form a starting point for GW moving the night lords background away from this (arguably false) distinction from other chaos legions.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Paradigm]

I could’ve sworn the Iron Warriors were Tzeench aligned in 2nd? I’ve got the old books laying around somewhere… Assuming we are thinking the same book, the one with the concept art that has the bits they recommend using to convert space marines to match their legion?

 

That said, modern IW have a much more “Nurgle Lite” feel, and I could be totally misremembering it.

 

I had a theory that each legion that isn’t dedicated to a cult is anathema instead to a cult. (Excepting Word Bearers of course.) In other words. Each legion is either dedicated directly to a singular god, or is working to support all but one indirectly.

 

So for Night Lords the have aspects of Khorne, Tzeench, and Slaanesh. Bloodlust, Paranoia, Excess. Nurgle doesn’t offer much to them.

 

The Iron Warriors having Nurgle, Tzeench, Khorne, but not really Slaanesh. They are tough as hell, plan obsessively, and “Hate like Khorne” in a fist fight, they have little need of pride and frippery.

 

Alpha Legion, fits with Tzeentchian schemes, Nurgle’s inevitability, and Slaaneshi Pride, but they aren’t into losing their heads to bloodlust.

 

We are still waiting on the anti-Tzeentchians. And I kind of think Sons of Horus could’ve fit this. Albeit not the Black Legion that largely has replaced them.

 

It’s a flawed theory.

 

I had a thought today about characters while I was working on my warband update. How cool would it be if we got two characters, single box representing the duality of the Night Lords?

 

One could be a champion with little ostentation carrying a relic boltgun of some kind, and a chain glaive, think a very choice chosen elevated to a Chaos Lord.

 

The other could be a jump-packed warp-touched monstrosity with twin lightning claws and daemonic mojo.

 

Double points if they make the tactical rocks on the base line up, and pose appropriately, so that if they face each other it could look like they are fighting each other, too.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Paradigm

[Isengrin]

It looks like the infinitesimal chance of having Krieg Acerbus as the NL character took a hit with the upcoming new daemon prince.  On a positive note, I can already see myself swapping out the prince's sword with an axe and expanding my possessed/daemonic contingent.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Isengrin