Chaos Space Marines: The Traitor Legions
Thinking about my future plans for my own Chaos Space Marine Army got me thinking about the faction and one or two things that have puzzled me over the years.
The Horus Heresy was the single most important event in the lore. It divided the Space Marine Legions into two. Two equal halves. Nine loyal and nine traitor legions. There were twenty legions and two are totally absent from the lore. They are unlikely to have been written out of history because they were 'too loyal to mention' so, we could guess they were guilty of crimes even worse than those of the Sons of Horus. That means that more than half of the legions belong on the dark side.
Yet, the traitor legions have always been treated less equally by Games Workshop when it comes to supporting the faction.
I understand that in very simple terms, GW might consider the 40K universe to be: The Imperium versus The Others. And in 'the others' there is Chaos plus the Xenos factions. And as a company they need to try to support all factions as best they can. But I still believe that they should have played the Good versus Evil card better by giving the Chaos Legions and the Renegade Chapters an almost equal amount of support.
Now is the perfect opportunity. The Space Marines have been boosted with the concept of a main Codex plus Codex Supplements for the Loyal Legions, now chapters. And no doubt there will be new books for the non-codex Loyal Legions: I Dark Angels; VI Space Wolves; IX Blood Angels.
This is a good point in my ramblings to say that I have since Second Edition been totally puzzled and more recently annoyed that in every single Space Marine Codex the table of the twenty legions appears. Usually quite early on in the background and the story of the first founding. Yet, never once has this table appeared in a Codex Chaos. This makes zero sense. It's inclusion would have put the traitor legions into context straight away. I must caveat by saying I have every Chaos Codex up to the 2017 edition. I did not purchase the later tweaked version but I very much doubt the table is in there.
So, if Chaos were to be treated to the same amount of attention I would hope to see a main Codex: Chaos Space Marines, followed by four supplements for: IV Iron Warriors; VIII Night Lords; XVII Word Bearers; XX Alpha Legion. The five Codex to cover the four god-specific Legions: III Emperors Children (Slaanesh); XII World Eaters (Khorne); XIV Death Guard (Nurgle); XV Thousand Sons (Tzeentch); plus XVI Black Legion.
This approach would enable the main Codex Chaos to expend on options for Renegade Chapters. There are many mentioned but they only get a mention in passing. For example: The Crimson Slaughter; The Cleaved; The Company of Misery. The Red Corsairs do get more attention than others.
The god-specific Renegade Chapters could either get some attention in the main Codex Chaos Pace Marines, or be included in the Codex books for the appropriate god. The Flawless Host (Slaanesh); The Blood Disciples (Khorne); The Purge (Nurgle); The Scourged (Tzeentch)
This brings me on to Codex: Chaos Daemons. Whilst I think there might be a small demand for a dedicated |Daemon Codex, I would hazzard a guess that most Deamons are taken as allies in detachments as a part of a main Chaos Space Marine force.
The opportunity is there to treat Daemons like Genestealers. By that I mean they can appear in more than one Codex but with perhaps slightly different rules?
So, for example, let us consider Khorne. It could be that a Bloodthirster and other HQ choices are kept solely in Codex: Chaos Daemons but Bloodletters, Flesh Hounds, maybe Bloodcruhers could appear in Codex: Worldeaters. Perhaps with an ability or two less or a points change? This would be both fluffy and give greater flavour to god-specific Chaos Space Marine army.
Anyhow. As always, it will be interesting to see what the next twelve months brings.........
Friday 1 November 2019
Sunday 27 October 2019
Chaos Space Marines: Heretic Astartes
Chaos Space Marines: Heretic Astartes
Looming on my hobby horizon is my Chaos Space Marine Army. At present it is a small force of World Eaters:
The models are a mixture of second, third and fourth editions. Some metal, some early plastics. This goes against my wish to keep my armies to a particular period but I cannot see myself wanting to divide them into viable armies. The best I can achieve will be to create a number of detachments that comprise of models from an period in time.
New models will be added. These are mainly the Chaos Marines from the Dark Imperium Box and Shadowspear Box Sets.
This is of course a problem because the Death Guard and the Daemonkin are not Word Eaters.
It has bothered me for a while that my World Eaters was very restricted in terms of units I could add. No sorcerers of havocs in particular.
However, I now have a plan to re-visit Chaos as the Black Legion. A bit of an obvious choice but one I guess that many decide upon as very few models would not feel at home in a Black Legion Army.
Luckily, the fluff is very accommodating. The World Eaters will now be: Hounds of Abaddon. The Death Guard models will become: Bringers of Decay. And any other new additions will be Black Legion. With scope to add Sons of Cyclops and Children of Torment units too.
All of this has reminded me of my thoughts on Chaos Space Marines and why, despite being the 'old enemy' and number one nemesis of loyal Space Marines they are never treated equally.
I will put down my thoughts in a follow up post.........
Looming on my hobby horizon is my Chaos Space Marine Army. At present it is a small force of World Eaters:
The models are a mixture of second, third and fourth editions. Some metal, some early plastics. This goes against my wish to keep my armies to a particular period but I cannot see myself wanting to divide them into viable armies. The best I can achieve will be to create a number of detachments that comprise of models from an period in time.
New models will be added. These are mainly the Chaos Marines from the Dark Imperium Box and Shadowspear Box Sets.
This is of course a problem because the Death Guard and the Daemonkin are not Word Eaters.
It has bothered me for a while that my World Eaters was very restricted in terms of units I could add. No sorcerers of havocs in particular.
However, I now have a plan to re-visit Chaos as the Black Legion. A bit of an obvious choice but one I guess that many decide upon as very few models would not feel at home in a Black Legion Army.
Luckily, the fluff is very accommodating. The World Eaters will now be: Hounds of Abaddon. The Death Guard models will become: Bringers of Decay. And any other new additions will be Black Legion. With scope to add Sons of Cyclops and Children of Torment units too.
All of this has reminded me of my thoughts on Chaos Space Marines and why, despite being the 'old enemy' and number one nemesis of loyal Space Marines they are never treated equally.
I will put down my thoughts in a follow up post.........
Saturday 26 October 2019
Nick's News! Blog Update
General Update
It has again been a good while since my last update. I have continued to try to keep track of my hobby by taking photos of models as they progress from being unboxed to being battle-ready.
The main additions have been to my Eagle Marines, and in particular the new Primaris Companies. The introduction of Vanguard Primaris Marines has caused me to remove the Reiver models from the Company X rosta and add them along with the contents of the Shadowspear Box to a new Company V.
New Genestealer Cult models were purchased but they remain unboxed right now. I am still not certain how they will fit in my existing Genestealer/Chaos Cult collection. There is still a lot of work to do on adding the eBay bits and bobs to create a 'Space Marines who have really gone off track and now worship the Four-Armed Emperor' army.......
I have bought and built some 'Big bugs' though so however the army turms out it will have some io-tanks as support.
The other Wharhammer 40,000 armies have not seen much attention. Although my Grey Knights received some additions off eBay and they all got 32mm bases and a KR Carrycase too.
It was the 75th Anniversary of D-Day back in June and both Flames of War and Bolt Action came out with new books and models. I need to re-visit both of these collections. Particularly Flames of War as it is now in Fourth Edition......
It has again been a good while since my last update. I have continued to try to keep track of my hobby by taking photos of models as they progress from being unboxed to being battle-ready.
The main additions have been to my Eagle Marines, and in particular the new Primaris Companies. The introduction of Vanguard Primaris Marines has caused me to remove the Reiver models from the Company X rosta and add them along with the contents of the Shadowspear Box to a new Company V.
New Genestealer Cult models were purchased but they remain unboxed right now. I am still not certain how they will fit in my existing Genestealer/Chaos Cult collection. There is still a lot of work to do on adding the eBay bits and bobs to create a 'Space Marines who have really gone off track and now worship the Four-Armed Emperor' army.......
I have bought and built some 'Big bugs' though so however the army turms out it will have some io-tanks as support.
The other Wharhammer 40,000 armies have not seen much attention. Although my Grey Knights received some additions off eBay and they all got 32mm bases and a KR Carrycase too.
It was the 75th Anniversary of D-Day back in June and both Flames of War and Bolt Action came out with new books and models. I need to re-visit both of these collections. Particularly Flames of War as it is now in Fourth Edition......
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