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This is something that recently came up at my local gaming club, so I thought I'd post it here: how important do you find fluff is for an army? I know some people who have pages and pages of it and some people who have none at all. Thoughts?

preference really. If you're conversion-centric Fluff is important, as it will dictate the visual style of your army (such as, why does Deathwing always have white as their primary color, or why Nightlords should have lightning arcs painted on their armor). My own army has strong religious overtones, so they have a proportionally higher number of chaplains (one list is comprised entirely of Death Company marines with Power weapons, which represents headstrong chaplain neophytes my army has).

You can also create your own fluff as well!

As long as your army is played within the rules of the codex you choose I could care less about your army's background. I'm here to play a game of soldiers with you not hear you prattle on about your view of an imaginary history. And no, I will not accept it as a reason for your fandex or for why you should have something other than what your codex allows. If you want to play with your own rules give me notice and then I'll make up some of my own.

For me, fluff is pretty damn important in most games. For tournament/competitive games I don't think it really matters, but I'd still always try to have an army that sticks to the fluff, whether in competitive play or not just because I really enjoy the background of 40K and the feel it can give an army.

Atm I'm personally having real trouble finding a Space Wolf army list that I'm happy with due to my constraints to certain fluff and themes.

While all my armies have a fluff story behind them (White cloned skaven slaves in rebellion against the council, heretical Brettoinans), it isn't the major motivation I have for building my armies. It does have some influence on how they are built and painted, though.

It helps keep me focused on making the army coherent in appearance, mainly. But the idea of coming up with an army theme that no one else has is also kinda neat.

A lot of the time, my armies somehow create their own fluff. Even the individual minis make their own character.

E.g. I made an Ork warboss out of an Ogre, and he looked like he just ate everything. So we decided that his name would be Grotgut, and he viewed Grots as a delicacy >_>

Funny how that works.

Background (not "fluff") is important. But for me background isn't the reason I'm here. When I see pages and pages of text telling me the entire history of a chapter of barely converted marines with a sloppy paint job, to be honest I tune out.

OTOH, Migsula's TWAR Systems is a great example of the way I'd like to see more fans approach background. I think he has written some background for them, but to be honest I don't think I even need to read it. The models themselves are so excellently built and painted that they tell their story just by existing.

Maybe that's why I like scenery that has details showing it was used by people. Because a page of text on a computer screen is alright, but when I can read the background just by looking at the battlefield it's so much more engaging.

I did try my hand at writing some background for the inaugural battle of my Tau vs. my friend's Necrons. It was awful.

To me, fluff is important in terms of giving you an idea to build an army around, especially if you're not into competitive gaming. For instance, the main idea behind my Ork army when I was making it was a splinter faction of the Arch-Arsonist, a group of flame-spewing Freebooters. Fluff is important because it decided the direction that my army went in, and what models I wanted to collect.

However, that might not be true for everyone, and I know that plenty of people get along fine without coming up with a backstory for their units, which is cool. I just think it's more fun to come up with an idea that fleshes out the army that you chose. After all, I think it's more interesting to fight against a unique Dark Eldar kabal, for example, rather than Helions-centered army #12 or some such.

Thanks for all the answers guys! I'm going to try and come up with some for my armies. I like the idea of basing an army's fluff on some of the biggest achievements of some of the models.