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So, with the new CSM codex coming out soon I've been thinking about picking them up as a showcase army. I began to plan out a paint scheme, first thought was Emporer's Children for the laughs, I then realized that I really didn't know that much about the legions/chapters and their subtle differences. So with current fluff which legion/chapter has the most interesting story, tactics, and rituals?

 l0k1 wrote:
So, with the new CSM codex coming out soon I've been thinking about picking them up as a showcase army. I began to plan out a paint scheme, first thought was Emporer's Children for the laughs, I then realized that I really didn't know that much about the legions/chapters and their subtle differences. So with current fluff which legion/chapter has the most interesting story, tactics, and rituals?

\

I like Thousand Sons the best, but really you are going to have to take some time to read the lore yourself to determine this properly.

 l0k1 wrote:
So, with the new CSM codex coming out soon I've been thinking about picking them up as a showcase army. I began to plan out a paint scheme, first thought was Emporer's Children for the laughs, I then realized that I really didn't know that much about the legions/chapters and their subtle differences. So with current fluff which legion/chapter has the most interesting story, tactics, and rituals?

Why not EC?Besides read the18 backgrounds and pick one- easy, right?

I planned on reading up on them all, I was just looking for a general consensus on where would be good to start.

The Thousand Sons view the Imperials as the "Traitor Legions". They tried to help the Emperor against Horus and the Emperor betrayed them.

 Nitros14 wrote:
The Thousand Sons view the Imperials as the "Traitor Legions". They tried to help the Emperor against Horus and the Emperor betrayed them.

What's left of the Thousand Sons are the dregs with middling talent who have become complete degenerates. They don't care about Loyalist or Traitor.

My personal favorite has always been the Word Bearers, true children of Chaos and the original Chaos Space Marines.

I really do like the Black Legion. They're corrupted shells of their former selves, fighting only out of bitterness and hatred. All the people they've wanted to get revenge against are dead. Sanguinius was slaughtered mercilessly, the Emperor is just a rotted corpse used to power the Astronomicon, Rogal Dorn was vanquished by the 1st Black Crusade, Malcador was turned to dust when he overestimated his psychic prowess and Reboute is a dead man kept in a shrine on a dead world. Yet the Black Legion keeps fighting against the Imperium, because their hatred for it is all they have left. Once they finally destroy it, they have no clue what to do next. They'll lose the favor of the Chaos Gods, as they're no longer useful (Abaddon's purpose was the Black Crusades and he'll have fulfilled it). Any that survive will spend their days desecrating old Imperial worlds, trying to relive the 'glory days'.

Go Night Lords! They have beautiful novels... nice army theme except from batwing helms...
They have raptors! They had the most awesome primarch.. The Batman...

Death Guard and Black legion for the sheer grimness and well fitting style the two traitor legions have

Word Bearers have the distinction of being the first legion to turn to Chaos. The whole 'dark preachers' thing is a nice angle, they have a good colour scheme and visual aesthetic, and Aaron Dembski-Bowden is slowly turning Lorgar from laughing stock to one of the most badass Primarchs out there.

The Night Lords and Iron Warriors also get plus points in my book. They look good on the table top, and both have interesting and quite different slants on the whole Chaos/renegade thing.

 Omegus wrote:

 Nitros14 wrote:
The Thousand Sons view the Imperials as the "Traitor Legions". They tried to help the Emperor against Horus and the Emperor betrayed them.

What's left of the Thousand Sons are the dregs with middling talent who have become complete degenerates. They don't care about Loyalist or Traitor.

The fluff around the Rubric specifically says that the surviving sorcerers in the Sons are the more powerful ones. And they're not degenerates, so much as they've become more decadent. Not that that's something to put on your resume or anything. The Battle for the Fang has some good fluff about a sorcerer who is looking around at the legion and wondering at just how far they've fallen, and he's not talking about the Rubric marines or having to hang out in the Eye.

Fluffwise, the Sons and Night Lords have some good solid post-Heresy fluff. Plus, they manage to have some halfway OK motivation for fighting Imperium. Ditto for the Word Bearers, though personally I find their desire to worship something (anything!) to be distasteful. Iron Warriors have some stuff, but I tend to find their motivation for fighting the Imperium to be something along the lines of 'because shut up, that's why'. The Black Legion doesn't have that much that talks specifically about them, and they really don't have that much character relative to the other traitors. Alpha Legion is, of course, out there in crazy Alpha Legion land when it comes down to what their goals are. The other three cult legions are pretty neat, but they're also one dimensional since their goals are tied directly into their patron powers, and unlike Tzeentzch, the other powers tend to have very focused goals (and there's very little difference between their short term and long term goals).

Iron Warriors. I love the fact that they're a bunch of eternally pissed-off siege experts.

I love the Night Lords. There's nothing heroic about them, they're a collection of murderers, thieves, rapists, and possibly worst that should never have been made into Space Marines. They were never the warriors their cousin Legions were and this was most evident in their tactics; there is no honor or nobility amongst the Night Lords. Where the Ultramarines would overwhelm a world with their numbers or where the World Eaters would grind a world's military under their boots, the Night Lords would flay the skin of a world's ruling body of government and crucify it for all to see as a warning. Worlds that still refused to comply were answered with more gruesome displays.

Recently it's come up that Raptors are the Night Lords' "thing." This has never really been the case. While they are reported to be the first Legion to utilize "Raptor squads," there's no indication that they used them anymore than any other Legion. If anything, jump troops have always been the Blood Angels' "thing." Night Lords were expert terrorists in the purest sense. Now they are fragmented bands of pirates that raid for their own goals and ends.

Okay so you are never going to get your answer. Everyone is just going to say what there favorite is.

You need to ask yourself a few things.
1st What timeline of fluff are you interested in? Pre, during, or post heresy.

I LOVE Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children, easily my favorite of all the legions. Yet I hate Post Heresy EC being both a loyalist and I just dont like Slannesh and what they became.

2nd Fighting Style
I hate the Night Lords and Alpha Legion fighting style, I hate stealth and cowardly tactics like that. I prefer a standup fight.

3rd Chaos Gods, are there any that stand out for you.
Khorne is the only God I enjoy. Undivided makes sense to me


In the end, my favorite is the Black Legion, especially with Abaddon in charge. In the rare occasion I do dable with the Dark Powers, they are my go to Legion. Followed by World Eaters. (which is odd because I USUALLY hate melee)






To give my best guess. (My opinion or what ive seen a good population number say)

EC has good fluff pre and during Heresy. Post is whatever.
World Eaters are Blood for the Blood God
Word Bearers have okay fluff.
Death Guard Fluff seems kind of crappy to me. Post is okay
Black Legion has good all around Fluff
1000 Sons has good during Heresy fluff.
Night Lords is very popular fluff
Alpha Legion is also moderatly popular.
Iron Warriors fluff seems crappy.

 Galdos wrote:

Iron Warriors fluff seems crappy.

That's just because there just isn't much in the way of it.

 Galdos wrote:
Okay so you are never going to get your answer. Everyone is just going to say what there favorite is.

You need to ask yourself a few things.
1st What timeline of fluff are you interested in? Pre, during, or post heresy.

I LOVE Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children, easily my favorite of all the legions. Yet I hate Post Heresy EC being both a loyalist and I just dont like Slannesh and what they became.

2nd Fighting Style
I hate the Night Lords and Alpha Legion fighting style, I hate stealth and cowardly tactics like that. I prefer a standup fight.

3rd Chaos Gods, are there any that stand out for you.
Khorne is the only God I enjoy. Undivided makes sense to me


In the end, my favorite is the Black Legion, especially with Abaddon in charge. In the rare occasion I do dable with the Dark Powers, they are my go to Legion. Followed by World Eaters. (which is odd because I USUALLY hate melee)






To give my best guess. (My opinion or what ive seen a good population number say)

EC has good fluff pre and during Heresy. Post is whatever.
World Eaters are Blood for the Blood God
Word Bearers have okay fluff.
Death Guard Fluff seems kind of crappy to me. Post is okay
Black Legion has good all around Fluff
1000 Sons has good during Heresy fluff.
Night Lords is very popular fluff
Alpha Legion is also moderatly popular.
Iron Warriors fluff seems crappy.

People will give you the answer of their favorite Legion, you just have to decide what you value in terms of motivations.

I don't view most fluff as canon. It's information that has been out there for thousands of years and changes depending on who is telling the story. That way I pick the fluff that I like as the truth and the stuff that I don't like I view as crappy rumors.

If you can, I recommend that you track down the old Index Astartes and thumb through that. I think it gives a good base layer of information that you can decide to mold into your own image.

Personally, I am a big fan of the Iron Warriors. If I was going to start a second army, it would probably be Night Lords or Thousand Sons. It's easier for me to relate to armies that have motivations beyond "I need to punch stuff in the face!" or "I think I will enjoy fighting with nipple clamps with the stereo cranked to 11" or "Sure, I'll take some space herpes as long as it doesn't hurt".

I like the Iron Warriors because I think they were one of the few winners of the Heresy. Their big beef was that they fought for the Emperor and died without acknowledgment or reward. By fighting in the Heresy they got freedom to do whatever they want. Now they can pursue whatever technology exists out there. Build crazy castles. Shoot whoever they want with a big gun. The fact that there is not a ton of information on them also gives you a lot more room to create your own Grand Company with whatever motivations you want.

Night Lords and Alpha Legion are probably my favourite legions...

Hey all! long time lurker first time poster

Figured it was time to register and give my two cents

My own personal choices are Emperors Children or the Night Lords, The Night Lords are just awesome and were my first Chaos themed army
as for the Emperors Children I disagree with the fact that the EC's would be one dimensional, in fact I think both Slaanesh and Tzeentch are very multi-dimensional as the emotions of
love and hope (two of the emotions that are the base of these powers) are the most complex out of the spectrum and Slaanesh isn't just about love (or the darker flip side: Obsession and lust)
but also about desire and desire is different from one person to the next, One persons desire might be physical beauty, another persons desire would be to become wealthy while anothers would
be to have personal power etc...

If you want to read up on Slaanesh there are a few novels such as the obvious (fulgrim and HH short stories) but also Sigvald is a wonderful novel and explores what makes a Devotee of Slaanesh
tick and why they would make those decisions, also Valkria the bloody albeit mostly about Khorne has some interesting storyline about Slaanesh as well ...now those last two are fantasy novels but
would work just as well in the 40k setting and in fact I use the Sigvald model as my Slaanesh lord for my 40k army, the choice is yours and it's important that you pick the army for the right reasons
love the army and it's fluff is a golden rule to gaming I find

also on a different topic Chaos Raptors being the Night Lords thing isn't all that recent 4th (3rd?) I 'm pretty sure it's 4th edition chaos codex you have the option of dropping 2 heavies for an extra fast attack in a night lords army and the limitations on Chaos Raptors being 0-1 fast attack is dropped for the night lords giving you the option of having up to 4 squads of Raptors in a night lord army!

...I miss my night lords =(

oh and also I'm making my Slaanesh marines black with "neon" colours such as bright greens, blues, pinks, oranges and reds in their fluff they come out at you in a riot of colours and noise and they look like they're ready to hit a rave..the defiler itself is a pallette of 11 colours (blue, silver, gold, 2 pinks, 2 reds, flesh colour, 2 purples and black) I'm toying with the idea of The Luminescent Host as a warband name

daveNYC wrote:

 Omegus wrote:

 Nitros14 wrote:
The Thousand Sons view the Imperials as the "Traitor Legions". They tried to help the Emperor against Horus and the Emperor betrayed them.

What's left of the Thousand Sons are the dregs with middling talent who have become complete degenerates. They don't care about Loyalist or Traitor.

The fluff around the Rubric specifically says that the surviving sorcerers in the Sons are the more powerful ones. And they're not degenerates, so much as they've become more decadent. Not that that's something to put on your resume or anything. The Battle for the Fang has some good fluff about a sorcerer who is looking around at the legion and wondering at just how far they've fallen, and he's not talking about the Rubric marines or having to hang out in the Eye.

Fluffwise, the Sons and Night Lords have some good solid post-Heresy fluff. Plus, they manage to have some halfway OK motivation for fighting Imperium. Ditto for the Word Bearers, though personally I find their desire to worship something (anything!) to be distasteful. Iron Warriors have some stuff, but I tend to find their motivation for fighting the Imperium to be something along the lines of 'because shut up, that's why'. The Black Legion doesn't have that much that talks specifically about them, and they really don't have that much character relative to the other traitors. Alpha Legion is, of course, out there in crazy Alpha Legion land when it comes down to what their goals are. The other three cult legions are pretty neat, but they're also one dimensional since their goals are tied directly into their patron powers, and unlike Tzeentzch, the other powers tend to have very focused goals (and there's very little difference between their short term and long term goals).

The best and brightest were exiled along with Ahriman, and now pursue their own agenda. The ones that stuck around on the Planet of Sorcerers are the second- and third- rate sorcerers who barely passed muster to not be turned into Rubrics. The TS that initially led the force in Battle for the Fang grudgingly admits this, and reflects how the Legion is now a pale, degenerate shadow of what it was.

I knew everyone would post their personal favorites. I was simply using this as a poll of sorts. By getting enough "This legion is the best" posts I would start with the most popular answer, read up on them, move on to the next until I found one that really grabbed my interest.

I have to agree with points that Galdos has made. When I think chaos I think pants crapping insane guys that want want to crush everything. This would point me towards the World Eaters, though Black Legion does sound good as well.

 l0k1 wrote:
I knew everyone would post their personal favorites. I was simply using this as a poll of sorts. By getting enough "This legion is the best" posts I would start with the most popular answer, read up on them, move on to the next until I found one that really grabbed my interest.

I have to agree with points that Galdos has made. When I think chaos I think pants crapping insane guys that want want to crush everything. This would point me towards the World Eaters, though Black Legion does sound good as well.

They don't have to be insane. They can just be independent minded, amoral donkey-caves who use all the weapons at their disposal. Including the warp.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RogueMage wrote:

Hey all! long time lurker first time poster

Figured it was time to register and give my two cents

My own personal choices are Emperors Children or the Night Lords, The Night Lords are just awesome and were my first Chaos themed army
as for the Emperors Children I disagree with the fact that the EC's would be one dimensional, in fact I think both Slaanesh and Tzeentch are very multi-dimensional as the emotions of
love and hope (two of the emotions that are the base of these powers) are the most complex out of the spectrum and Slaanesh isn't just about love (or the darker flip side: Obsession and lust)
but also about desire and desire is different from one person to the next, One persons desire might be physical beauty, another persons desire would be to become wealthy while anothers would
be to have personal power etc...

If you want to read up on Slaanesh there are a few novels such as the obvious (fulgrim and HH short stories) but also Sigvald is a wonderful novel and explores what makes a Devotee of Slaanesh
tick and why they would make those decisions, also Valkria the bloody albeit mostly about Khorne has some interesting storyline about Slaanesh as well ...now those last two are fantasy novels but
would work just as well in the 40k setting and in fact I use the Sigvald model as my Slaanesh lord for my 40k army, the choice is yours and it's important that you pick the army for the right reasons
love the army and it's fluff is a golden rule to gaming I find

also on a different topic Chaos Raptors being the Night Lords thing isn't all that recent 4th (3rd?) I 'm pretty sure it's 4th edition chaos codex you have the option of dropping 2 heavies for an extra fast attack in a night lords army and the limitations on Chaos Raptors being 0-1 fast attack is dropped for the night lords giving you the option of having up to 4 squads of Raptors in a night lord army!

...I miss my night lords =(

oh and also I'm making my Slaanesh marines black with "neon" colours such as bright greens, blues, pinks, oranges and reds in their fluff they come out at you in a riot of colours and noise and they look like they're ready to hit a rave..the defiler itself is a pallette of 11 colours (blue, silver, gold, 2 pinks, 2 reds, flesh colour, 2 purples and black) I'm toying with the idea of The Luminescent Host as a warband name

You had me going there on the depth of character that Slaanesh could provide and then you had to tell me about naming your warband "The Luminescent" host. Why does avarice, miss-placed love and selfishness always lead to iridescent hot pants?

You had me going there on the depth of character that Slaanesh could provide and then you had to tell me about naming your warband "The Luminescent" host. Why does avarice, miss-placed love and selfishness always lead to iridescent hot pants?

Is not the love of hot pants an emotion as complex as the deepest ocean?

I WAS thinking about The Cabana Boy Bananza Band as a name....but my wife might think there was something wrong with me

in all seriousness though I'm open to suggestions...after brightlighting them I recognized that people wouldn't see them as Emperors children so I have to think of something different



on a side note aha!! after several tries finally got the quote button to work

My personal favvy's would be:

1. Alpha Legion: I first fell in love with them for their tactics namely because I personally believe that things like honor and fairness are abstract ideals. In a real fight, anything goes, there is no code of conduct. They infiltrate and undermine their opponent before hitting if they even have to hit at all. Even Sun Tzu would agree with their methods as "supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
2. Night Lords: terror + guerilla + merciless slaughter. And once again, honorable battle? lol!
3. Iron Warriors: they were the best at what is considered as possibly the worst kind of battle to be caught in: Siege. Plus they're tech savvy, and I feel they also show (well, at least Perturbo) decent tactical expertise with the stint they pulled on the Iron Fists at Iron Cage. Not to mention, Honsou is pretty legit and, as 1d4chan likes to put it, one of the most evil mofo's out there.
4. Emperor's Children: For me, it's not so much them as it is Slaanesh. Slaanesh is the one Chaos God that I would imagine a vast majority of humanity would be susceptible to. He/she/it appeals to the many forms of the simple human desire of wanting more (ie Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, etc) and wanting to be greater than they are (pursuit of perfection). To me, Slaanesh is as close as one can get to Satan in 40k, and that makes him/her/it the best chaos god (out of the big 4).
5. Word Bearers, In a way, they won the Heresy as most of the Imperium follows the doctrine/a doctrine similar to that which Lorgar wrote that proclaimed the Emperor as a God thus crushing the Imperial truth (win). And they also like using subterfuge against the imperium as they plant "seeds" (some glorified cultist) to incur rebellion and heresy within the Imperium.

IMO the most interesting legions are either Word bearers (because of how fanaticle and zealous they are) or alpha legion (cause they use a gak load of cultist and destroy there enemy from the inside).
I want to point out that I am currently making an army based around Fabius bile, because he is not joined with any legion he sort of makes a legion on his own. I love the way he is all about scients and creating the "new man".

Nothing like fielding 6 TS sorcerers in an army where they're the only miniatures actually still "alive"

Sorcerers of the XVth are parodies of themselves. In the fluff, they ARE the perils of the warp.

What other traitor Legion has individuals that can stop planetary defense guns with Kine shields?

Fallen! True CSM? Night Lords...Konrad was a BAWZ, and winning a war with fear? Yes please!

KHARN is the CHOICE. KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN! KILL! MAIM! BURN!

^ Well played, sir.

Fair enough.

riverhawks wrote:Fallen! True CSM? Night Lords...Konrad was a BAWZ, and winning a war with fear? Yes please!

I always felt that the Night Lords were overspecialized. Yes, fear based warfare would definitely work well against some Imperial Guardsmen or a small Ork settlement, but it's no use against quite a few factions. Space Marines don't know fear and are specialized in actual combat, so the Night Lords would get their arses handed to 'em. Same goes for Tyranids and Necrons. The Night Lords are dependent on the other Traitor Legions when it comes down to actual, straight forward combat.