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OK, so I've decided to start a chaos force. I've been inspired by helping a friend build a semi decent iron hands space marine list. We like to forge plenty of narratives and as I like his list, I've decided to build an almost chaos equivalent as their mortal enemies. He has created his own back story and chapter, so I'm hoping to do the same for mine.

Now I've not fully decided how to kit them all out yet. I'm hoping that the army list forum will help me. My list is essentially Typhus (but I don't want to call him typhus), a warpsmith, 2 squads of 20 zombies, two forge fiends, a defiler and a mayhem pack. (so three helbrutes...) that means that all my vehicles have 'it will not die' all but the warpsmith has feel no pain so you can see the iron hands comparison.

Now I'm pretty terrible at back stories, so I'm hoping there's some inspired writers out there. I've already stolen a name from this very forum to name my army. I have used the name "The Rotten Forge" so now I need names for the rest. Predominantly my warpsmith who will probably end up my warlord.

A name for a Chaos Warband? I'd recommend the names "Sons of [Name of Warpsmith]" or "[Name of Warpsmith]'s Chosen". Since the Champion leading this warband would basically call the shots, these name are straight forward and simple. If not, I guess that depends on what the Warband is after.

Also how did a Plague Champion ally with a warpsmith? What are each of them after? How does their goals interact?

Is the Plague Champion just tagging along? and if so, why? Is the Warpsmith controlling the Plague Champion through some form of leverage, e.g. a bugged PDA life-support system, promise of a powerful chaos artifact? Or perhaps the Plague Champion is so corrupted with pus that he had already forgotten who and what he is?

Perhaps the Warpsmith destroyed the Plague Champion's former warband and enslaved the broken champion somehow?

Like I said, I'm terrible at back stories, so forgive me. But this was my thought...

The plague champion (typhus in the list) has allowed himself to become so corrupted by nurgle that it will soon be his downfall. The rot is deep, and he is soon doomed to decay to a point where he will no longer be able to function. The armour he wears is the only thing keeping him alive with its ancient and intricate life support systems. It was badly damaged in battle, so he made his way to a forge world to find an artisan with the ability to maintain his armour. He found the warpsmith and the smith agreed to maintain his armour in exchange for great rewards and gifts from the gods. Essentially the warp Smith holds the cards as he is keeping the champion alive. The zombies are workers from the world and the daemon engines are the evil concoctions of the smith.

And I'm pretty set on the rotten forge as a chapter name.

I like the backstory; it may be a bit predictable from the set-ups IMO, but it's flavored certainly enough to explain the army composition and characters, etc.. And if the idea is to evolve, there are plenty of room for conflicts.

I'm not sure about the name... I'd seem odd for a warpsmith to change the name of his warband just because he got hold of a Plague Champion, I mean, this is still a Iron Warriors warband, after all. But if it had to have a Nurgle-ey name, I'd recommend "Forge of Pestilence", "Plague of Iron", or even "Scourge Masters". I think they sound better.

Still, your army, your call.

P.S.: What chapter? Is the "Rotten Forge" the name of the Plague Champion's chapter before he turned traitor? The most common unit in a Chaos Space Marine forces is a warband, which is formed when a CSM thought himself a bit too close to the Chaos Gods and sought the path of a Chaos Champion, and gathered a handful of CSMs and LotDs to honor his patron. Most Space Marine Chapters quickly disintegrated after turning traitor, and a majority of traitor legions have now effectively broken down to competing warbands. Although particularly strong or charismatic champions can lead warbands the size beyond a loyalist space marine chapter

I like some of those names a lot. Like I said, I'm pretty new to this back story stuff. I'm a wolves player normally, our history is written. If I had a name for the warpsmith it may be easier,but some of those above are very good.


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OK, this is good information. I like it. So, it will be the plague champions warband I think. He thinks he is in charge, but the warpsmith is pulling the strings. Hence the choice in warlord. I'm going to go with the name 'forge of pestilence' I love that even more. It's a name that has been created by the plague champion after he raised a small army of zombies and rallied the warpsmith to his cause.