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So I have several CSM armies, was day dreaming today and a running idea i'v always had was to do a 2-3k army of every core chaos legion.

It's likley never going to happen with how quickly i paint and i have enough 'competitive' builds so if i did it i'd theme them as close to the legion as possible. e.g. lots of obilts for IW, maybe raptors for nightlords with the trick of trying to get in every available unit at least once.

For the legions:
Emperor's Children
Iron Warriors
Night Lords
World Eaters
Death Guard
Thousand Sons
Black Legion
Word Bearers
Alpha Legion

If 'you' were gonna throw competitive to the wind and have a cool hobby project where you'd have 9 armies at the end of it keeping to the legion's fluff how would you do it? Would you always make sure to include at least one unit of CSM or eqiv? Would you include daemons in say the cult based legions?

I'll start you off,
Since in any mixed force army they're gonna be your boss, as that's where you're infamous...


Black Legion Supreme Command

Start off with the big man himself, Abaddon the despoiler. And take a sorcrerer, Dark Apostle, Harkaan World Claimer, And a chaos Lord (with terminator armor, with a jump pack normally, all choices are good)
then slide in a force of terminators and or chosen (your choice) intoi that elite slot.

Well I can't speak for the other legions but I can tell you how I run my fluffy Night Lords warband.

First off, yes use csm. Night Lords shouldn't use cultists or daemons, they should be an all astartes force, they don't maintain a cult of standard human followers and generally shun chaos worship, looking down on those who do as week. I don't use any unit with the daemon keyword except warp talons, as they're just degenerated raptors.

Yes you should include some raptors and/or warp talons. Characters should have jump packs or terminator armour, as Night Lords like mobility. Terminators are also good, Night Lords love deep striking.

If you run dreadnoughts stay away from the mutated, tentacled hellbrute model. Instead either convert a box dread or run fw dreads. The Night Lords contemptor and leviathan are great models that fit the legion perfectly. Deep striking an assault oriented contemptor in a dreadclaw is a very Night Lords kind of move. For that matter, dreadclaws are a good fit for them.

Basically Night Lords should be a fast, mobile army that tries to get in close fast. Avoid static gun lines and castles. Even their super heavys should go for the throat. I love charging my fellblade into enemy troops. Nothing says "terror tactics" like 300+ tons of ancient war machine grinding infantry to hamburger while it continues to reduce its enemies heavier assets to burning wreckage with its guns.

I am a weirdo, so my choices probably aren't typical. But my Emperor's Children would have a Battalion of mostly Noise Marines. One of the HQ is likely a Master of Possession, possibly Lucius as the other.

It would definitely include a detachment of Daemons of Slaanesh, including an Infernal Enrapturess and lots of MSU to maximize musicians in order to compliment the Noise theme.

Depending on PA rules and fluff, I also see a place in this army for Fabius Bile, but it will depend on the evolution of his storyline- in previous editions, I believe their were explicit references to his quest for bodily perfection in his specimens somewhat aligning with Slaanesh's excess.

To work it up from 2k to 3k, I'd add a detachment of cultists roused to action by a Dark Apostle, and I'd load up on Daemon Engines to bridge the Daemonic elements with the SM elements.

None of this is based on competitiveness, and I'd have to give the Codex another good read to actually build it, but that's what I want visually. If the new PA Chaos Knight rules create cool effects for dedicating Chaos Knights to specific gods, that might be the thing I use to get from 2K to 3K instead.

some great starts! yea nightlords i see as a bit on the side of wanting to be renegade much like IW. AoB novels where great on this. I'd so wanna put some furies in there thou! it just feels right, kinda like they'd be hanging bout regardless.

Fabius would from my old school fluff perspective have no place in a EC army heh.

obviously main candidates for cultists are alpha legion and word bearers, thing alpha legion win out a bit here and word bearers could focus more on daemons and daemon engines.

IW i'm thinking is pretty easy, obilts, warp smiths, heavy support. tinge of cultists here also in novels they have a cannon fodder tactic with them.

Guess they way i think i'd play it is:
cult legions are a easy, 2 have unique codex books and the others you can easily do an army. I'd def have basic daemon troops for all 4.

nightlords, as said very 'renengade' fast stuff raptors, bikes, etc... i always liked the 'terror' aspect of NL so i'd prob chuck some spawn in there etc but convert it some how e,g, cage carts of loyalist troops or something.

alpha legion i'm thinking heavy cultist theme with meat an potatoe normal units preds, csm, etc

IW, obilts to the max, havocs to the max warp smiths, maybe some daemon engines

word bearers, all 4 daemon units as troops, some csm, dark apostles, daemon engines

BL are a weird one GW in 4th - 5this ed fluff made them versy much out to be looking to be possessed but i'd see them now bith abby and very much an eltie army so loads of termies etc. Does beg the question what legion would go all out possessed.

edit: sorry, beers have been drank, paragraphs are all over the place

For possessed you'd want Word Bearers. They are of course the legion that introduced the galaxy to the Gal Vorbak.

With respect to Iron Warriors, I really liked my 5E army fluffwise for them. Mechanized CSM's in Rhinos, Deep Striking Terminators, and Oblits with some Predators and Daemon Engines sometimes thrown in. Personally, I don't find Cultists really particularly Iron Warriors-ey, they use human troops in some instances, but I don't feel really anymoreso than any other Chaos Space Marines would, and even then they're more Guard equivalents used as conventional troops than proper Chaos Cultists, and the only big instance I can recall was in their wars against each other on Medrendgard. The Iron Warriors really more about heavy weapons, gear, armor, and vehicles, I think the Cultist thing comes mostly just from the fact that they have a Warlord trait that synergizes really well with them in this edition.

Agreed that Fabius wouldn't necessarily fit in an EC army, he's gone on a very different path from his birth Legion, I'd say he'd actually make the most sense in a Black Legion army of any Legion, they're the ones that actively scoop up all the in-demand specialists/experts.