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Hello people of Dakka! I seek your wisdom!

Before I go any further, if this thread is in the 'wrong' section of the forum. It seemed to make the most sense to post my question here but if someone who has a better understanding of how this site works feels it should be in a different place then I am humbly sorry.

Now onto the question, I am a fan of the Night Lords legion, I am drawn to the idea that they were a legion designed whose main purpose was to strike terror into those who would dare to question imperial rule usually by 'making an example' of those who have. Now in the 41rst millennium I feel that a chapter of space marines that specialise in this sort of thing would be needed/useful, and to my knowledge there is no force that does this (with the exception of the inquisition.) So I have written a backstory for a Chapter, sanctioned by the Inquisition, to fulfil this role. Now if I understand correctly the Night Lords gene seed is largely uncorrupted due to them not dwelling in the Eye of Terror and given the ruthless nature of the Night Lords it would make sense to use their gene seed to carry out this plan.

How do I imagine this force to look and feel on the battlefield? Well it would have a lot of assault elements, they are a chapter that loves to get up close and personal. They would be fast so bikes, jump packs, transports and deepstriking would be used to get up close quickly. Use of divination, I like how Konrad Kurze was tormented with the 'sight', be able to see things that have not happened yet and this is something that I wish to represent. I imagine them channelling this power to see which worlds will descend into rebellion and stopping them before they do. Kind of like the 'Minority Report'.

With me so far? Excellent. Now the issue is that I do not know which codex to use to best represent this chapter. I have narrowed it down to the Vanilla Marine Codex, The Blood Angels and The Grey Knights. I have some formed some opinions on what I consider strengths and weaknesses of each codex in terms of representing this Chapter.

Vanilla Codex
Strengths:
- with a wide variety of options this codex can be used to represent most styles of play.
- I already own this codex

Weaknesses
- blandness, there is nothing unique about it, it just feels generic.
- Another 'normal' marine army.

Blood Angels
Strengths:
- Represents the idea of a fast and assault based force.
- Lots of things that make it stand out from the crowd.
- Vlad the Impaler was the basis of Dracula, although I am trying to avoid the vampire bit of his history
- The Night Lords apparently used a similar doctrine to the blood angels

Weaknesses:
- A lot of the uniqueness reflects the blood angels and not the night lords.
- It has the potential to become just a blood angels successor chapter, especially with the Vlad link. Loses connection to the Night Lords.

Grey Knights:
Strengths:
- Access to high amounts of psykers with divination/psykers in general to represent the 'sight'
- Well equipped force, an inquisitorial aligned force should get some cool toys right?
- NEMESIS FORCE HALBERDS for all the impaling goodness one could ever need.
- Very elite

Weaknesses:
- some of the cool things that appears in the codex is hard to justify another chapter having (dreadknights)
- Emphasis on a terminator force. I imagine these guys as mostly power/artificer armoured

So what do you all think? I must confess that most of this is a result of me being ill and dreaming up wild and deluded fantasies that I felt I needed to express, so if this seems somewhat incoherent I am sorry. But I do seriously think that this would be a fun army to model and play so I am genuinely interested in your thoughts as to whether this army could be adequately represented and your own ideas to fill in the gaps.

Thank you all!
Breton_

I would honestly recommend the Vanilla codex, for a couple of reasons. First off, as you said it's the most versatile, and the various chapter tactics can support the kind of army you want very well, plus out of all the codices you mentioned it has the most unit options and formations (the 1st company one comes to mind with it's fear shenanagins). I don't think it's "bland" though, no more than running it from BA and saying it's your own custom chapter. I would avoid the GK book, unless you're looking to make the entire chapter psychically gifted as well

Just play blood angels and call it a day.

 Filch wrote:
Just play blood angels and call it a day.

Blood Angels? They don't follow the terror tactics/stealth of the Night Lords at all. They follow closer along the lines of World Eaters in terms of shock troops. The thing Blood Angels used to have (assault marines as troops) is gone now so the raptor analogues with the Night Lords also doesn't work (which is often overexaggerated anyways, Night Lords aren't just about Raptors).

I would say using the vanilla dex is the better call here, it gives you more flexibility to reflect on the different aspects of the Night Lords. If you want to have more of the brutality I think the FW chapter tactics rules for carcharodons might be up your alley. http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Forge_World_Space_Marine_Chapter_Tactics_V2.pdf

Raven Guard chapter tactics and formations look nice for a Night Lordish force

@War Kitten, thank you for the quick response. The first company task force is an option I looked at (I forgot to put in the 'Strengths' section) I am beginning to think that you are right. I suppose the only reason I overlooked it was because I already have a marine army and doing another seems a little samey. But then with the chapter tactics and options you can make two completely different armies. The more I think about it the Grey Knights was a silly idea.

@Filch, Again thanks for the response, are you suggesting that I play blood angels, as in, paint/model my models as blood angels or one of their successors or do you think that their codex best suites what I want to represent?

Looks like the majority of you consider the Vanilla Dex to be the best bet so I feel that is what I will do. Now I just need to decide if it's Raven Guard or Charcarodons.

You could also look into Charcoradons as Grimskul said. They have that same kind of terror aspect that the Night Lords do. But that's if you're willing to look into FW, if not then I'm sure the main book will do you just fine.

I'm going to do the same thing eventually with my 30K NL army just to get more play out of them (and since the CSM codex is so bad and unfluffy).

Personally I am going to go with White Scars from the C:SM book. Hit and run is very NL IMO. You strike, slink away and strike again.

I know what you mean about being bland, but if you stick to min sized squads and take a bunch of upgrades on the sergents, special weapons etc, you'll have a pretty unique force.

Interesting idea about the GK, but to me they just seem more bland than Codex marines.

 Lord Yayula wrote:
Raven Guard chapter tactics and formations look nice for a Night Lordish force

Yeah I agree, this might be the way to go and not have it just "vanilla"

Space Sharks or Raven Guard!

Also, I very much doubt the Imperium would tolerate gathering Traitor geneseed, such as from the current Night Lords, for anything other than maybe research, and probably not even that. However, they still have stocks of NL geneseed they could use.

If you're determined to do the idea, Space Sharks. Universal Fear is nice, extra attacks are fun, and if you specialize in Veterans you can run formations to sap your opponent's Ld further to make the most out of Fear, Pinning, and Morale tests.