Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The background

During my break from playing 40k towards the end of 5th edition, I started working on a CSM army. One of my many purposes to it was to have an army that I could really spend time working on. Having painted some 200 guardsmen, I wanted something that I could pour my greenstuff abilities into, to lovingly craft stuff that really looked great.

Unfortunately, as 6th edition would wind up deciding, I had chosen to do this work on khorne berzerkers. Something which seems a little pointless now.

And so, being done with my guard again for the moment, I'm deciding to pick at my CSM again. I've read the codex a couple of times, I've been working on army lists, and I've broken out the models again. I had won a local league some months ago, but it wasn't held at my local store. I was faced with the choice of buying something with my in-store winnings in this town 40 miles away, or ordering something and then returning to get it. Going with the former option, the only thing available of the very, very sparse pickings were some CSM terminators.

Just a couple of days ago, I started putting them together, using mostly my old berzerker method, but I've hit a snag. I don't really know what I'm doing with this project.

One of the things I know I want is to continue with my old goal of making showpiece models. I've already got my terminators so far in dynamic poses, and have replaced the fur motif with chain that looks rather classy. I might be fine with this, but the new CSM codex has inspired me to step things up a notch. I'd like to do some nice modelling AND a stellar paint job. But here I'm having two problems.

The first is that I've noticed that the two don't go very well together. If you clutter up a model with detail, you're only going to make things worse with complicated painting. Meanwhile, the best painting requires large, flat surfaces to do interesting work on... which is sort of opposed to doing a lot of modelling work. The other problem is that I don't know what kind of paintscheme I want. This is in part because I had a plan for my old CSM - a khorne army - that I no longer have.

All of these problems are sort of propping each other up. I feel like I could start to solve all of them if I could at least solve one of them.

What faction?

Honestly, I've been put off somewhat by god-themed armies. The only one that really got my proverbial goat was khorne, and, moreover, in their new playstyle it doesn't seem to me that any marked or cult warriors really offer all that much relative to atheistic CSM units.

Instead, I like the idea of renegades. The idea that the only thing you need to make a space marine fall to chaos is to make them slightly better at their job. The idea that all space marines are a single action or a single event from their over-tightened springs to just pop and have them switch over. The problem is that I'm kind of at a loss for ideas, much less ideas that also present good modelling opportunities. Probably the closest I've come is the idea of running an alpha legion list, because then I could greenstuff scales on everything and then paint them to be irridescent. While it seems to have everything going for it... well... I don't know much about the legion, and I kind of don't like blue as a color for CSM. And the space dragon motif is a touch silly. I don't know.

What to paint?

So, I'm going to want to do something dazzley. Something more than my customary tabletop level. Something that actually takes advantage of the fact that washes exist...

One of the things I'm already committed to doing is putting a lot of effort into object source lighting. I figure I'll have a ton of opportunity with chaos, and especially with terminators. The problem is what to do? I've had the idea, for example, of being gold colored and having their armor covered in writing (think GKT shoulderpads, for example), with the idea being that they have recorded every crime against the people that the space marines have done, and exist to liberate mankind from the imperium. But, then, I can't think of any modelling work that would really go well with that. On the converse, really, I should be using regular SM models with chaos iconography or something. Plus, gold-colored CSM? Hmm...

I've seen a few patterns before that I could paint, but a lot of what I've seen that's interesting detail comes on colors or themes that I don't really know if I want to paint.

How to model?

I like the chain theme I'm starting, but that's rather simple. It would be nice if I had some sort of grand greenstuff thing I could embark on. The problem is that it's unclear to me what I should be doing. Moreover, I really, REALLY want to avoid the problem that a lot of the new CSM models have wherein I sculpt detail for the sake of detail and completely ruin the model in the process. And I've got to be careful about that in general. CSM models even before the orgy of unnecessary detail, already had borderline too much clutter on them. I've either got to choose carefully, or remove other existing detail.

I mean, I'm already having to use a fair bit of greenstuff to fix the problems created by un-crouching the models, but I'd like to have some kind of centerpiece bit of GS I do, to show off the fact that I have GS skills. The fur was good for that with my old models, but I'm not doing fur anymore. The skull masks were also good, but until I know for certain that they would fit the theme or paint scheme I'm going for, I don't want to pull the trigger on that one either.

The point of this thread

So, I'm in need of some inspiration. Whether it's some fluff, or some pictures, or some stories, or some... whatever. Something that will help me figure out the answer to one of these questions, which will hopefully cascade into being able to answer all three.

Thanks in advance for any advice on this tricky problem.

Have you thought of looking at the list of chapters that were sent into the eye of terror on a penitent crusade and went renegade (the Judged)? Its on page 19(?) I think of the new codex, and has warband names that have little to no fluff outside of their Imperial chapter names. You could pick one of those warbands, create a scheme and perhaps a leaning towards a certain power based off of the name, and go from there. A few of them have the stories of their fall in the pages near the list, and one warband, the Magma Hounds I think, had armor that looked molten, which would be cool to paint. I am actually doing this for my Brotherhood of Lethe warband, the last chapter on the list.

Since you want to do some OSL the obvious choice is to make a 3x Helldrake list and do some really cool flames and diorama bases.

You could do an CSM army with renegades from various chapters. They could have parts of their former heraldry still showing from underneath their new paintjob. For cultists you could have a metal theme to them (Chains, spikey hair n all that good stuff). Lots of character and variety and you don't have to clutter them with too much detail.

For models, just get loyalists kits and "Chaosify" them.

If you want to go forward with the writing you could actually do grey knights models and green stuff the iconography to be defiled and obscured. Since you don't like any specific deity then you might want to think about defamed imperial iconography. There could be some pretty cool conversions possible there.

Seeing as you had some interest in Huron Blackheart have you looked into his history at all? Huron was the chapter master of astral claws (who have a pretty cool paint job)


who then became the tyrant of Badab. After that big mess (BTW FW produces an army list for his days leading these forces which is kind of cool with a mixed SM and IG conscripts sort of vibe) he then got into "piracy" and now leads the Red Corsairs which is fun as they are corsairs that rival legions.

Whatever you do please make a csm blog similar to your ig one. It´s one of the greatest WH40k things online

I actually do have a soft spot for the fluff of the Red Corsairs, I won't lie. I guess I'm just not sold on their color scheme.

I also REALLY like the idea of fallen grey knights, especially since there are several of those players at my FLGS (and likely any I wind up at), and I think it would tweak the "none of us have ever fallen" GK players more than anyone else if I add an "until now" to the end of their objections.

That said, I think I'd be more or less stuck with a tzeentch list, and, honestly, I think the best way to play them would be with grey knight rules.

Anyways, I just whipped up an idea for possible fluff (whipped up because I'm a writer, and so sometimes accidentally create volumes of script by accident). You can see a rough draft of it here.

That's the sort of kind of thing that I'm going for - traitors, rather than god-warriors, with some kind of creepy background.

The problem is that I don't know how I'd really model this. I kind of like the idea of mutation, but not in the concept of renegades, and without mutation, or a dedicated god I don't have obvious modelling possibilities.

So, here's what I have so far:



With the one on the right still needing more work (like the chains added). I like the poses I got on them, of course, but I feel like I want more than just good pose-work and a few chain bits added on.

And an interesting paintscheme, because the back of my mind is telling me to just be done, paint them red, give glory to khorne and be done with it. I really am looking for more, though.

Well first the red corsairs do not have to be painted any particular color scheme. Actually that is the great thing about corsair and renegade lists (eldar, IG, SM, etc.) you do not even have to match painting scheme from model to model. Just an overall theme (ie if they are neat and clear then they should all be or if they are weathered they should all be in various states of weathering).

For your fluff you could actually paint 4-5 different styles of armour and weather them all with battle damage.

or you could paint a handful of regular CSM models to act as the corrupting influence and then paint/model fallen grey knights with defamed iconography and battle damage and possibly chaos symbols.

btw here are some interesting pics I have seen.

Well, I am looking for something a little more involved than painting them like regular space marines and then putting red X's on them. I'm looking for something that has a bit more character to them - with a bit of history, a certain way about them, etc., rather than "they're pirates!"

I like the bronze color of the first grey knight, and that's a direction that I'm very tempted to go in, but I don't know if that sort of brass/gold + blue-green power weapon quite fits the motif of a chaos army.

One of the other things, I've realised, is that I'm sort of getting re-stuck in my original question from years ago of making something look scary. I want them to LOOK like for some, raping and slaughtering your family is a job, but for them, it's a hobby.

The fur and skull mask motif I think pulled this off rather well, but I don't know how I'm going to be able to replicate that same kind of effect from elsewhere.

Okay, after a lot of thought, I think I'm getting it close to a decision.

Before I present the options, note that I'm going to go with the fur and skull-mask motif regardless of which option I take.

A.) The DIY warband

For this, I'd use a bronze-gold color scheme, something like the above posted.




Pros:

- I get the fluff exactly how I like it.

- A metallic theme looks by far the most realistic. I generally loathe the "well, it's made out of colored material" sort of candy-coated look that a lot of painted minis have.

- It's god and faction neutral. Gold goes with practically everything else in the chaos codex. I could ally in some obviously tzeentch or khorne units, for example, and the gold-colored guys would just fit right in. I wouldn't have to basically re-make my army every time I wanted it to have a new focus, as I'd have a large pool of generic models.

- This can be made to look the most showy.

Cons:

- The paint scheme would be a touch flat and boring and, well... generic. Now, I could do my best to really make it pop by making heavy use of washes, but...

- It's going to be a bit difficult to differentiate from non-chaos marines. Yeah, I'll have spikes and fur and whatever... but that's not THAT much different than the light-side guys. If I want to say chaos, rather than power armor, then I'm going to need something more distinctive. I mean, proper gold would look like just a copy of sanguiniary guard, sort of.

- Why not just play iron warriors? I mean, I dislike the fluff (what little I could find), but I'm sure I'd get confused with them.


B.) Night Lords!

While I actually like the fluff for alpha legion a lot better, and I like the idea of both painting and GSing scales, well... I don't like the models. The blue and green motif puts me off every time, and the space dragon motif is a bit silly. If someone can really make an argument for why I should go alpha, I'd hear it, but until then, I think that the night lords are the way to go.



Of course I would 100% ditch the stupid bat wings, and I'd also purge all the red from the model, leaving just the dark blue and burnished gold.


Pros:

- This would give me the chance to go way further than before with my modelling work. That's because of a very, very audacious plan - I'd actually model the lightning, rather than just paint it on. I mean, you can see the picture on page 12 of the codex:



... and the reason it looks cool is because the lightning is coursing around him, rather than just painted on the armor. It struck me that it might be possible to replicate lightning arcs with really thin steel wire bent at kinky angles, and placed conservatively (not too many, and not making the arcs too big). Then, I could follow this up with OSL from the lightning arcs. This idea is bombasically, stupidly insane... but I think I might just be able to pull it off.

- I really like certain elements of their fluff. I like their atheism and skepticism and professionalism. And their shock tactics. They're also creepy.

Cons:

- I also, though, really dislike parts of their fluff. Mostly, I dislike the fact that they have no purpose whatsoever. Alpha legion is making a state within a state, set to supplant the Imperium and rule in its stead. Abbadon is trying to fuse the material and immaterial planes of existence. Night lords? Well... they just want to be dicks, for no reason whatsoever. If I wanted this, I'd just play khorne, who at least has a reason for fighting.

- They're dudes in blue pajamas. In a way, scary only looks cool when bounded by the comfortable and the real, which I'm not certain I could pull off. Plus, I think it says something bad if I'm more or less being forced to paint a mini off-black to make it look good.

Anyways, thanks in advance for further input. I'd like to be really sold on something before I start getting to the painting.

Do the night lords only because I want to see the lightning work and the finished product. That sounds awesome (if fragile).

I like the story of Blingus. Gives of a Rogue Trader Vibe to me.

The metallic examples would look pretty boss on a renegade force. I'd complement it with two non-metallic secondary colours though (bone, green and purple come to my mind, but your taste is propably a bit different). This way you could differentiate the units more, rather than your army looking like a big blob of metal. They would look less like Iron Warriors, too.

Some disorganized thoughts about building CSM renegades for you to take or leave as you see fit, organized in two points.

Uniformity is for Slaves: Unlike the more devoted Legions of Chaos or the pitiful "loyalists", renegades aren't about worship, concepts of ascension, unified purpose or any of that. Their ideal is the ultimate liberation of the individual self. As such, they don't care for dogma and doctrine, uniform or ritual, any pretense of shared identity. While renegades aknowledge the authority of their leaders in battle, as long as they demonstrate their worth, they will follow their own whims and ideas in every other regard. On the other hand renegade leader have no interest in displays of loyality and devotion, as long their subordinate perform in battle.

Modelling and painting whise I'd put little stock in the kind rigid color scheme we're so used to in WH40k. Sure, they will roughly share the same main colours and use some common symbols, but outside of that every champion will give his squad his own style and every trooper will stick to that even as much as he wants to. Instead of one symbol copied over and over, renegades display their armies symbol in many variants. By kitbashing imperial and chaos parts and removing the massive amount of devotional icons for practical blank plating you can decrease the clutter and can give more spotlight to the Chaos Space Marines personal trophies and decorations.

From an army building standpoint, this attitude means you are not very limited in what you pick. Sure, the vast majority of renegades doesn't care for the worship of chaos gods, but if a particular champion and his followers want to dedicate themself to a god or a small warband that is already dedicated wants to join, well, they propably wouldn't mind either. Sure, they will think they are deluded and stupid. But no one can deny that cult marines and dedicated champions perform on the battlefield, and that is what renegades care about.


You'll want to see a heretec or sorcerer about that: Renegades don't care about the worship of chaos, but they need a whole bunch of services and abilities they can't carry themself once they have cut their ties with the adeptus terra. Tech maintenance, manufacture, warp navigation, asthropaths, the apothecarium. Even if your specialists go along with your betrayal, which is far from guaranteed with techmarines and navigators having loyalities behind the chapter, you can't replace them when they die or you need more.

This is where Hereteks and sorcerers come into renegade forces and with them the influence of the warp. For what these traitor specialists lack in imperial training, suplies and qulification they replace with reckless use of the warp.

Your technicians might not be able to keep your stormcannon opperational or build a refractor field, but they know therunes that will shield you by the power of chaos and forge deamon engines. Your gellar field is failing and the navigator is dead? No problem, for the low price of 777 orphan souls a coven of sorcerers will show you entirely new and exciting ways to traverse the immaterium and you get one tentakle for free!

So yeah, I'm just throwing out one of the main reasons why renegades are pretty much still Chaos Space Marines, mutations and all. Once you leave the imperium, you need to approach the warp in a more direct way. This, as we know, tends to be rather corrupting. Especially since a "liberated individual" already has it's soul opened to the warp.

Yeah, one issue with modeling something scary is that a lot of our fear comes from being caught off guard by low visibility and sudden motion. Stuff like long, grasping talons reaching for us, or a still, partly concealed creature just staring straight at us.

If you go with the crazy idea of using lightning, maybe it would make for some interesting "half-concealed" lighting effects as it casts shadows across the power armor. Although, that's just making things more and more difficult to model and paint.

Well I gues you could always model them as clowns. You could make children weep and grown men and women anxious and "creeped out". There is even a phobia (Coulrophobia).

http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/20/11268831-no-laughing-matter-fear-of-clowns-is-serious-issue?lite

Doesn't really fit with your other limits though.

@Idle Hands
That is actually a nice addition.

I think you could do something cool with a metal theme with arcing lightning. You could do a dark titanium or aged gold metal as the base with a dark blue-black as the "highlights" you could then do lighting arcs where the surface under them are illuminated and lit up. It would be crazy difficult though and every model would be a project unto itself...so perfect for what you said you wanted Ailros.

I do actually really like the idea of "40k: the Jungian experiment in existential realities". It's one of the things I don't like about the pre-made chaos armies, and the fluff in the current codex in general. Chaos isn't "oh... look... we're BAD!!!!" Chaos is about space marines breaking from their solipsistic castration of the id to rebalance their humanity in a super-human physical form. It's about the perfection of the human mind and body met with complete freedom of action. It's about a blissful dystopia caused by Rousseau and Ayn Rand having a baby and then giving him two hearts and a chainsaw sword.

I feel like there's a fair bit of potential lost by devoting to chaos gods or one of the basic traitor legions, I suppose...

Anyways, the more I've been thinking about it, the more I'm thinking of sticking to my roots. I'm thinking of going with the skull mask and fur as my primary conversion work, just because it's both creepy and classy, and I already know how to do it. The less mental effort I can put into the conversion work, the more I'll have left over for painting.

Which means that I'm likely going with a metal-colored theme, then. I guess it's just a matter of what.

And a matter of picking a bit more of a theme, modelling-wise. I agree that there doesn't have to be uniformity, but it would be nice if there was at least a common symbol, or something.

I think a very interesting army could be made through an alternative take on the red corsairs.

Some of the other chapters that ended up renegade after the Badab war might be cool to develop as a renegade force. This would give you freedom to include Huron Blackheart as himself but allow for a better colour scheme than the basic red and black (which is the main thing that puts me off the red corsairs).

For example the Tiger Claws: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tiger_Claws#.UcAfgZwwDdI

Some of them are now Red Corsairs, and I think a paint Job that fused their modern look with the original tiger striped look might really work.

There are also lots of other chapters that have gone renegade that might give you interesting options for developing a warband.

 Ailaros wrote:
What faction?

Honestly, I've been put off somewhat by god-themed armies. The only one that really got my proverbial goat was khorne, and, moreover, in their new playstyle it doesn't seem to me that any marked or cult warriors really offer all that much relative to atheistic CSM units.

Instead, I like the idea of renegades. The idea that the only thing you need to make a space marine fall to chaos is to make them slightly better at their job. The idea that all space marines are a single action or a single event from their over-tightened springs to just pop and have them switch over. The problem is that I'm kind of at a loss for ideas, much less ideas that also present good modelling opportunities. Probably the closest I've come is the idea of running an alpha legion list, because then I could greenstuff scales on everything and then paint them to be irridescent. While it seems to have everything going for it... well... I don't know much about the legion, and I kind of don't like blue as a color for CSM. And the space dragon motif is a touch silly. I don't know.

I think the biggest issue with faction is that people seem to then think that they can only include the elites from the faction in the army. This leads to really boring khorne armies full of berserkers who can't accomplish anything because they are too busy being shot to pieces to get to grips with their opponents. My khorne army has *1* unit of berserkers and that is it. The rest is normal CSM and havoc squads and supported by forge world khorne daemon engines like the blood slaughters. Khorne never once said that he only accepted skulls from hand to hand combat. He wants blood and skulls, that is it. Just don't use psychic powers and he is happy. Reaper autocannon offer up plenty of blood. So my army is painted and dedicated to khorne, but is not a one trick wonder. You can also have more in your force if you use regular CSMs as well. Cheaper, different options. For my tzeetch army I actually stick with the wording from the book that states that the rhubric marines are becoming rarer and rarer, so the force is built around a chaos lord who found a tomb that contained 2 squads of rhubric marines and some other tzeentch war marines and he has used them to build up a massive warband of cultists to support his endeavors, but still only those 2 units of rhubric marines.

Renegade forces are certainly more open ended and can lead you to just about anywhere with modeling and with painting. The Alpha legion is an oddity to me. They do their best to infiltrate and obfuscate to achieve their goals, but that doesn't translate at all into a table top wargame, so once they have gone to war they are doing it just like everyone else...

Skriker

 Ailaros wrote:
I do actually really like the idea of "40k: the Jungian experiment in existential realities". It's one of the things I don't like about the pre-made chaos armies, and the fluff in the current codex in general. Chaos isn't "oh... look... we're BAD!!!!" Chaos is about space marines breaking from their solipsistic castration of the id to rebalance their humanity in a super-human physical form. It's about the perfection of the human mind and body met with complete freedom of action. It's about a blissful dystopia caused by Rousseau and Ayn Rand having a baby and then giving him two hearts and a chainsaw sword.

I feel like there's a fair bit of potential lost by devoting to chaos gods or one of the basic traitor legions, I suppose...

I see a bit of inconsistency about what you want from your warband.

You like the idea of space marines that break away from the chains of their servitude to the Imperium and go do whatever they want to satisfy their interests. Like you said, super humans that now kill as a hobby instead of a job.

At the same time you ding the Night Lords for not having a purpose. Aren't they fulfilling your requirements for what a chaos marine should do? They are not praying to a certain god, or doing the bidding of Abaddon, they go to planets to satisfy their urges to terrorize and maim. Every warband leader follows his own plan, takes advantage of their freedom to the maximum.

That's why I also like and collect Iron Warriors. The older fluff from Index Astartes says that they are not only interested in shooting stuff. When a breach in the defenses is made, they also excel in assaulting the breach and taking the fight to the enemy hand to hand. This feeds into my desire to have an assault based army with jump packs and bikes.

My fluff states that my company commander gained an interest in forbidden technology before the Heresy and then used the rebellion to break away from the Imperium so that he could pursue his interests without restrain. Plus his mastery of technology looks like sorcery to the naive, so I use psychic powers without drawing on the warp.