Custom Chaos Warband: The Outcasts Among the Stars

[Redboot Giddyman]

I figure that among 40K hobbyists, it's practically a rite of passage to do a homebrew at some point, and especially a Space Marine homebrew. Well, I've now done several. But with the miniatures for my main custom Chaos Warband still unpainted and probably going to stay that way for a while, I decided I could at least show off some other material I have for them, specifically templates I printed out and colored in myself. The links to said templates can be found here: ShawnPleil's Gallery on DeviantArt

 

Really, really useful. Been using them a lot for my own homebrew stuff. Anyway, the lore stuff:

 

The Outcasts Among the Stars (OATS¹), are a Chaos Warband descended from the Night Lords who differ from their parent legion in several key ways. To begin with, they are far, far more honorable than the Night Lords proper, and in fact are motivated more by a desire to protect other followers of Chaos and the societies they've built rather than engage in simple nihilistic slaughter. While still experts in fear and stealth, the Outcasts are of the view that such things are best used with a clear purpose rather than purely for their own sake, and this ideological divide is precisely why they broke away from the main Night Lords and set off on their own path. The second major difference, is that the Outcasts Among the Stars do not possess the general secularism of the Night Lords, freely worshipping and paying homage to the Chaos Gods in general and Tzeentch in particular. Indeed, the warband was co-founded by a Sorcerer Lord of the Thousand Sons, and while the warband is officially Chaos Undivided, they do not revere the Four Powers equally, favoring Tzeentch the most and, by extension, Nurgle the least. 

 

In motivations, the goals of the Outcasts Among the Stars are threefold: to protect other followers of Chaos and the societies they've built, find worthy foes to fight, and to strike back against the Imperium. For even the followers of Chaos have created societies of their own scattered through the Galaxy, and the OATS act as protectors of these societies, arguing it is no different than their Loyalist brothers protecting citizens of the Imperium even as they perform bloody slaughter against everyone else. Among the OATS exists similar feelings of brotherhood as can often be found among Loyalist Astartes, and likewise they regard their worship of the Chaos Gods as little different morally from the Imperial zealot's blind devotion to the tyrannical Corpse-Emperor. Citing the positive aspects of the Chaos Gods (hope for Tzeentch, courage and honor for Khorne, passion and the desire for new experiences for Slaanesh, etc.), they argue that to worship the Chaos Gods in this way is no worse than giving reverence to the often-brutal, cruel, and hypocritical Emperor of Man, and that the Imperium is in a rather poor position to judge given the countless terrible things they have done over the millennia. The loyalist Astartes have their own dark god that they countless people for, and the Outcasts Among the Stars have theirs. The difference is that their dark gods actually want to be worshipped. 

 

 

Chapter Information:

Warcry: “Defend the Faithful from the Corpse-Emperor!” (will also use the standard Night Lords and Thousand Sons warcries)

Founding: Unknown

Successors of: Night Lords and Thousand Sons

Successor Chapters: None

Number: Unknown

Primarch: Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red

Chapter Master: Voramell Darkshard and Kahotep Uthizzar

Homeworld: Osiris (though individual members come from other planets in the system)

Allegiance: Chaos Undivided, Tzeentch

Colors: Midnight Blue, Black, and Red (different colors for certain specialists)

Helmet Code:

·         Legionnaires: Midnight Blue

·         Aspiring Champion: Red

·         Chaos Chosen: Black

·         Chosen Champion: Red with Black Stripe

·         Chaos Terminators: Black

·         Chaos Sorcerers: Gold

·         Apothecary: White

·         Dark Apostle: Purple

·         Warpsmith: Iron

 

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...the designs!

 

Legionnaire / Legionary

 

Mostly the standard Night Lords look, but with a bit more black thrown in because 1) I like black, and 2) it absolutely suits them. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised the Night Lords don't have way more black than they do. 

 

Aspiring Champion:

I confess I got the idea for doing a helmet color-code system from the Ultramarines, and went with a similar approach with things like squad leaders having red helmets. Obviously the OATS are not descended from the Smurfs, but even so, I still liked the idea of a similar structure to them. And as these guys are meant to be more honorable and well-intentioned than your average CSMs, I figured that echoing the approach of the (usually) honorable Ultramarines made some level of sense. 

 

Note that, while his eye-lenses are shown as blue there, they're supposed to be purple. I unfortunately got that idea only AFTER I colored this guy in. D'oh! 

 

Chosen

 

To further the whole "like a Codex-compliant Space Marine chapter" in structure, I sort of see the Chaos Chosen as being roughly equivalent / analogous to, Veterans in a loyalist Space Marine company. As in, if a Legionary is roughly on par with a standard Intercessor, and an Aspiring Champion on par with a Sergeant, then in turn the Chaos Chosen are about equal to Veterans. 

 

Chosen Champion:

 

Some of the best in the Warband! And this time I gave him the correct eye-lens color. 

 

Apothecary

 

You can trust him. He's a doctor! XD

 

Warpsmith

 

In hindsight, I should have made this guy's bat wings red same as everyone else's. Officially they are, though I guess some individual Warpsmiths might go "screw uniformity, I want to stand out!" and make them black.

 

His color scheme is indeed a nod to the Iron Warriors, as I felt this made sense for the Warpsmiths. In-universe reason would be an admiration for the Iron Warrior's mastery of Warpsmith practices and just general engineering feats. Also, a long-time ally of the OATS is an Iron Warrior, so it could also be a reference to that friendship. 

 

I really love how I colored his waistcloth in the hazard-stripe pattern the Iron Warriors are known for, and at the risk of patting myself on the back too much, I think they turned out pretty good. 

 

Dark Apostle

 

Kind of giving off "Magneto" vibes, isn't he? XD

 

With this one, I went with red and purple because aside from liking purple (third favorite color after red and black actually), I felt that the color scheme called back to classic Hammer Horror depictions of Satanic cults and the like. If you look at a lot of movies from around the 60s/70s period (The Devil Rides Out, Vampire Circus, etc.), Satanic cult types are usually shown dressed in a mix of red and purple. Given that Dark Apostles are basically dark ministers and preachers for Daemon Gods, I figured such an allusion made sense (even if, again, the OATS are actually less evil and more sympathetic than most Chaos Space Marines are). The red also I think provides a good color contrast to the black of Chaplains, who I view as basically the Loyalist equivalent to Dark Apostles, and vice-versa. 

 

Also, I just really, really wanted to have Night Lord helmets in fabulous purple XD

 

Chaos Sorcerer

 

And finally, the Chaos Sorcerers. It is here that the Warband's partially Thousand Sons origin and preference for Tzeentch are most evident. While the wings on the helmet and insignia are still red, most everything else here is in the color scheme of the Thousand Sons, though with a bit of black also. The members of the warband of Thousand Sons background thus dress pretty similarly to the 15th Legion proper, though their capes and other cloth parts are black and their helmets are mostly/entirely gold, so there are still some subtle differences.

 

And that's all of the ranks and their color schemes. Hope you all liked it, and the lore that goes with it.

 

Now if I could just get around to painting the minis I've done for this faction...

 

¹And yes, that was indeed an intentional joke on my part. XD

Edited 12 hours ago by Redboot Giddyman