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This is my first post here, sorry if I ask anything dumb.

I'm looking to build my first army as a chaos/loyalist army.

I have a passion for early/pre heresy Emperors Children, I really love the perfectionism and precision assault vibes (most assault armies feel a bit heavy handed).
I also don't like a lot of the spikeyness of the chaos models, but the fluff is super interesting to me. I also feel like Slaanesh is way more interesting when you remove sexuality from being its everything. Perfection taken to extremes could be so much more than flesh pleasure.

So my thoughts are to build a core army of stock marines in emperors children colours (purple, gold, white) that can be fielded as either chaos or loyalist, with a few exclusive models switching out between them, e.g. Land speeders in the loyalist but not chaos and obliterators the opposite. 30k eventually on the cards too. My question is, is this feasible?

I feel like the fluff is easy enough to explain away, (warp storm time screwery etc) but my concern is heavy weapons on tac squads and such.
Any tips/warnings/big no noes?

As long as you're passionate about what you're doing, and make sure to explain to your opponent what each unit is, I don't see any sort of a problem.

I too don't care for the "spiky marines" style of Chaos, so my normal Word Bearers are mostly built from Betrayal at Calth 30k models with a modern Chaos bit slapped on at random. For example, one has a 40k Chaos helmet, another has a Chaos plasma gun, etc. Keeps the models looking cleaner in my eyes, and helps the Chosen and other elite units stand out. As long as you're not trying to pass orks off as chaos marines, I don't think you'll run into any issues! Just ensure that whatever weapons you're arming your troops with are represented on the models, and go for it.

You don't really need Fluff to explain anything. If you want to build some Pre Heresy and Post Heresy EC for 40k, more power to you.

And just to add on: I'm not a huge fan of Spikes for the Spike God as well. I tend to use the CSM box for everything when I build the Army. Chosen get the Legion Shoulder pads and Legion Weapons from FW, normal CSM just use whatever's in the box. It's not the greatest System, but 9 times out of 10 if you see a Chaos Marine in my army, it's a Chosen.

Also look at some of the Legion Models for replacements for normal stuff like the Hoverbikes instead of regular Chaos/Loyalist bikers.

Thanks guys, good to know there wasnt some glaring error in my logic.

The idea about using legion stuff as counts as for loyalist and chaos force seems very interesting.
I am very keen to look more at that

Your army, do what you want with it.

Go for it. Most people don't even try to justify it (like me :3) and just straight up use loyalist rules with Chaos Models. With the state of the current CSM dex, I actually have an easier time representing my Iron Warrior's siege company with the vanilla dex.

That iron warriors is easier with space marines makes sense... All them vehicles.

I am worried about how far I can push the counts as/proxy rule though. Like start collecting space marines box deal has a dreadnought, but there are no longer rules for a chaos dreadnought (as such), which means that I'd have to run a vanilla dreadnought as a helbrute if I wanted to use it in a chaos army.
It is worth mentioning I am not hugely wealthy so I am looking for ways for cheap deals to work.
Also centurions as obliterators? I don't really know what the limit there is without excessive green stuff

Thank again guys

I would totally use the Centurions for your Oblits. For Cent Models, I would just Magnetize the Arms if possible and have a Loyalist set and a Chaos Set(IE a set using the extra gun bits and greenstuff for mutations)

Phallosaurus wrote:
This is my first post here, sorry if I ask anything dumb.

I'm looking to build my first army as a chaos/loyalist army.

I have a passion for early/pre heresy Emperors Children, I really love the perfectionism and precision assault vibes (most assault armies feel a bit heavy handed).
I also don't like a lot of the spikeyness of the chaos models, but the fluff is super interesting to me. I also feel like Slaanesh is way more interesting when you remove sexuality from being its everything. Perfection taken to extremes could be so much more than flesh pleasure.

So my thoughts are to build a core army of stock marines in emperors children colours (purple, gold, white) that can be fielded as either chaos or loyalist, with a few exclusive models switching out between them, e.g. Land speeders in the loyalist but not chaos and obliterators the opposite. 30k eventually on the cards too. My question is, is this feasible?

I feel like the fluff is easy enough to explain away, (warp storm time screwery etc) but my concern is heavy weapons on tac squads and such.
Any tips/warnings/big no noes?

I like your idea, and considered ECs myself for a while for the same reasons you do. I would strongly consider picking up Betrayal at Calth for the MKIVs - you get "historically" correct armours (my DV Fallen is doing my nut in). I would maybe suggest throwing your lot in with 30k though CSM codex is in a REALLY bad place, fluff- and crunch-wise, and the SM codex won't allow you the awesome boombox-wielding Noise Marines (Called Kakophoni in 30k).

As you say, the 30k emperors children are where its at. Unfortunately, the cost of forge world is (currently) prohibitive, although that may change with future plastic sets from games workshop. Although I love the betrayal at calth armour, it doesn't bother me too much to get 40k stuff and I can buy alteration sprues from forge world if and when that becomes an issue. The ability to play with people who have forge world fear by using standard 40k units is nice too, and I don't want to be too ambitious (ha) for my first project/army

Magnetisation is going to be big because I want to make as much overlap between codexes (including 30k in the future) with my units, but I really don't know how easy or achievable to this is for a novice hobbyist

I use a combination of magnets and pins in order to be able to swap out my weapon options. On basic troops with lots of options this is priceless, particularly if you prefer to play wysiwyg. Magnets are good for swapping whole arms and pins for individual weapons
Taking it a step further you could even go as far as to change a Rhino into a Whirlwind (for example) and back very easily depending on what you'r going to field. Once you start you make an expensive hobby a bit more affordable with some basic modelling skills.
With your plan to use your models as loyalist/chaos you could also use bluetack to hold the shoulder pads in place. Glue a non marked pad on the right and then blutac the one with your chapter/legion symbol on the left