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As the title says, what is your system to enhance your fluff? How do you decide who has died and who was merely injured? How injured was the injured person? Where was the injury? How do you count kill counts? How do you name your Squads, Tanks, or special guardsman/cultist/marines/etc? What's your system?

HQ Units get named. Minor characters (like Sergeants and the like) only get named if they do something important. I typically don't like to kill of my named characters in they die in game because one: I would have to make up new characters each game because Imperial Guard officers are more likely to die than their men and two: They are major players in their armies. Minor characters die. My "Pask" is an important character and if you ever played him you know what typically happens to him.

I calculate kill counts.... kinda losely. I'll do it for my Vendettas but I won't calculate each and every kill they get. I know that my Plasma Vets have killed a ton of Terminators for example.

My tanks are named after things they've done. Pask's tank, for instance, is called "Land Breaker" since it's wrecked a lot of Land Raiders. My main executioner was called "Deathwing's Bane" for killing a bunch of Deathwing Terminators (This tank was destroyed though. I'll have to give it a new name). I may call my main Vendetta "Hell's End" if it wrecks more Hell turkeys.

My squads aren't really named or numbered. They are just known as "Plasma Vet squad in the Chimera with the Storm Bolter". In the story, they are simply called "Shock Troopers" and really aren't known squad by squad during battle unless being referred to by other infantry, which they are called "Fireteam Alpha" or something like that.

all I do is give the squads and tanks names, being orks I can't get too attached.....

other than that I name squad leaders and HQ choices (recently I was convinced to change Kaptin Blacktoof for Kaptin Bluddflagg!), and from there I might note down a tribute to the model if they ever do something truley amazing. (e.g. Sgt Lupo, who incapacitated Ghazzgkull Thraka with a single laspistol shot is now called Sgt "straight" Lupo)

GA

I'm a tyranid player, so things are a little different for me. Personally I only name the medium sized bugs or bigger, but even then the names are only Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omega, etc.

I also tend to call my prime Red, because he has the old Red Terror model.

For me I just think of one idea the explore it.

For example I have just started DE and I wanted to do a fairly unique scheme for my own Kabal, and the first colour was grey as turquoise I had already used on my CSM and that primary colour already belonged to another Kabal, so then I started thinking on my HQ, what was his motives for going to war? why would he fight other races? so then I explored the mainstream fluff into DE and realized that the DE have more personal and individual goal than conquering realspace, so I took that into account, then explored into that and it sort of grew into how he would achieve his own personal goals, etc...

Then comes the battles, which are played out where the fun is had... the game itself

Just my take on how I build fluff .

I name all my Sergeants, Chaos Champions and GK squad leaders and Justicars, if only to have something cool to put on my army list. Individual models such as MCs and HQs get their own name and a little fluff. Vehicles get a name only. Dedicated Transports other than Drop Pods get a designated name (ie, they are "mounted in Rhino "Indomitable", as oppossed to "Starflare" Land Raider Redeemer).

My Nids don't get names.

As for kill counts, I don't bother keeping track.

As for character deaths, I don't bother with that either. 9/10 times I end up playing another marine army so end up saying it was a training run.

So far I've named HQs, either using a variation of my own name, but I've switched to using Balthasar from the Dark Vengence set and just added Turmiel.

So far the only fluff type stuff I've add is painted the purity seals on a couple of Devs due to a friend's suggestion that they get some battlefield promotion or whatever. Another is one marine who lost his arm twice (bad glue job) so I painted his arm metal and consider in a bionic replacement. So far the story part is from a Tyranid game and just say his real arm got taken off that way.

I have come up with a name for my army's planet, which they are named after, and the names for my battalion commander, my company commanders, platoon commanders, 3 sergeants and a lord commissar so far. I've also figured out where my planet is in the galaxy. I haven't played any games with them (I don't even own all the characters I have names for) so I don't have any cool nicknames for my units/vehicles yet.

I've got two models named "the Norwegian" and "the Polish", respectively. The Norwegian is a converted Sergeant from AoBR who was one of the first models I painted (he's gotten a new paintjob since then) and the colours I used made him resemble a Norwegian flag. The Polish guy got the name because... well, I actually don't know how, it just popped up one game and stuck to it. I try to keep track of where they are during games and what they accomplish.

I've got some background for my hunter cadre and I've named its commander (or rather one of my opponents named him for me and it was so good i kept it). But since Tau names are so messed up crazy I haven't bothered naming anyone else. I probably should get around to that at some point.

As far as kill counts/battle honors etc I haven't played enough games to bother (and most of the games I have played end up with 75+% of my army dead, so there probably isn't much point). I do kind of want to start doing a "most valuable player" award with me and my opponent after each battle, then paint some medal or decoration on the model afterwords.


My friend though, he collected IG and used green stuff to make them look like the ODST from Halo, named pretty much every single squad leader after someone from that series, as well as giving them unique personalities. it was quite funny to hear him encourage his men as he geared up for an important roll.

I have only name one unit in my guard army. I was a lowly sergeant who single handled took on 7 tac space marines in close combat and won. It was a luck of the dice kinda thing but it happened, I have since added a little gold colouring around his armour and have made him a Platoon commander, his name is Pete.

My daemons are temporarilly banished. My grey knight's, are near-fatally wounded, but have an emergency teleport back to their battle-barge built into their terminator armor, that goes off if the suit detect's critical damage, and the finest apothecaries on-board to preserve them

For me, it depends on the army.

In terms of my daemons, I establish the fluff integrating battles into it as well as flushing out characters. Along with that, some of my CSM or traitor guardsman can become DP that might join the army. In terms of naming, I only name MCs as well as heralds that I grow interested/enjoy what they do in battle. Chaos is odd and for the most part until you go higher in the power level, they lack much individuality (still do just not as glaringly obvious higher up).

For my CSM, it is a tad bit more complex. After setting up a plot, I named two of my iconic characters. From there, I wait until a squad does something inspiring (same for vehicles). If they do, I reward them a name and if an individual shows their metal in glorious close combat or shoot the enemy down masterfully, I'll even name their sergeant as well as the unit. As mentioned before, after certain campaigns, if I feel successful enough, I will elevate a character into either spawnhood or becoming a DP. If they fail spectacularly, I will often shove them in a helbrute for one last suicidal carnage ridden battle (or make them possessed mwahahaha).

In terms of my marines, I've named sergeants and characters units planned to have names. This army has rarely seen the lights so not much to talk about here.

Finally my guardsman! I play mechguard so my model count is significantly lower. My guardsman in chimeras aren't named themself as they are supposed to represent a variety of things. Guys that have lost their vehicle and survived, support mechanics and others to replace others, as well as carriage for supports from different armies. My commander is named. If a character in his retinue does something of worth, I will name them to represent the fact they survive battle as well. Vehicles are released with no name until they kill enough enemies. Once that is done, they will acquire a name and begin a tally. If wrecked, they can be repaired on a 3+ or 2+ depending on the scenario. If they explode, a 6+ is required to be rolled for the same tank to return whilst a 4+ implies enough bits could be gathered to build a tank that deserves to withold the same name. Complicated yes.

My Iron Warriors had been tabletop trice in a row. I cannot name them.

When adorning your bad guys and their equipment with the corpses of your friend's army, you must actually beat that army first.

I'll name every character and special "I was bored so I made this trooper look like a guy from a novel" model. Everyone gets a little bit of backstory.

My Tau, since I only have four characters, will always keep their names and backstories until I decide it's time to retire that character. They also have more detailed stories, since there's only 4 of them.

In the chaos army I'm molding together, I change the non HQ characters Backstory and name after every death assuming there was a survivor in that squad, then the survivor gets a new name and backstory based on the events of that game, otherwise it's every 3rd death unless they are turned into a Spawn or a Daemon Prince. Then it's new character time. Same goes for Chaos HQ's too. 3 deaths or one Spawn/Daemon Prince transformation.

 amanita wrote:
When adorning your bad guys and their equipment with the corpses of your friend's army, you must actually beat that army first.

I have a kroot totem and I'm adding a head of each race that my Kroot defeat in combat. I think I've got most of them up there...

In general, I name my conversions. I named my Warboss, one big-mek, my snikkrot conversion (leader of "Da Kopta Droppas" because kommandos are Zoggin cowards sneakin' about), and a couple of my nobs. Unfortunately around the time 6th showed up and my Tau finally got awesome again (and my speed freeks army got smashed with a nerf bat), my Warboss was sucked into the warp by a void grenade. That campaign was a really cool way to say farewell to the army as it headed to she shelf. But I have a feeling that he's coming back after he gets painted in the warp.

I have a lot of backstory for my Tau, but only a few named models. I have one six-man squad of fire warrriors that I painted specially and they are known as my "strike team", because of how much tdamage they do riding around in their devilfish. I run Shadowsun in pretty much every game (since she was introduced in the last codex), and I've been keeping track of how many times she's been killed (twice in all of 6th, which is a few dozen games) and how many kills she gets in general terms.

I guess it's mostly my armies warlords that I care about, with a squad earning an honor every once in a while when they do something really spectacular.

Every Kriegsmen has a number in my army.

When they die on the field, the casualties are replaced by a new a Kriegsmen who's got the same ID

My friend has a imperial guard sergeant called Diebellator (meaning God warrior), because he charged and challenged the Deathleaper (which failed to kill him).

all my chaos marines are named but my blackguard corp isnt apart from "patch" so named after an accident with my first ever pot of greenstuff erased one of his eyes, essentaly the blackguard corp is guardsmen with black armor and a chaos star on the soulder, they are my cultist brigade

both my princes are named one is called "Lucien of the White Blade" and the other is called "Volenrudd" Lucien is a black mace prince but as no mace peices came with the box i gave him a shock white blade instead and used the same rules and pts values, as my best prince Lucein has many enemies at my club, most of our characters have names as if you dont name him the club quickly does. Volenrudd is named after a dungon a went through in skyrim, great thing about princes is that they can only be sent back to the warp rather then killed.

my army as no dark apostle but since its word bearer for the most part my apostle is actualy a hellbrute named Eliah the Prophet, or often in game simply the Prophet, i only realy bring him when facing tyranids so on his body i paint and 8 pointed star for evey monster killed by his hand, current count is 32 loadout is two fists both wiith heavy flamers.

tanks are also named and dedicated to gods, my dakkapread (hb sponsons havoc launcher and warpflame gargoyles) is called Ashrider and is dedicated to Tzeentch, my 2 drakes are called Sahloknir and Relonikiv both dragons in skyrim Relonikiv in his first game before i painted him was hit by a multi melta early on so i cut and greenstuffed sectons of on side of his face to melt them and dedicated him to nurgle and now he looks like a true undead nightmare from the warp, in contrast Sahloknir is dedicted to khorne and i hung chains off his wings with skulls on them and mounted a termiator trophy rack on his head giving him a crazy mohawk, the helldrake kit realy ugly so sprucing them up is adviseable.

my sorcerer is called Hotep Blackskull,

My own system for my lore army of space marines and imperial guard is that I name all my sergeants and above in the command structure. Only tanks and other vehicles get kill counts unless that squad destroy something they would be unlikely to ever destroy.

I just had a go at a mission that I had been thinking over, I might try and get the guys to play it and try and get them into 40K

Basically, I had a group of 5 Space Marines that were lead by a Librarian who was the HQ(?). They had to go through waves of Orks to get a stolen power core and then they had to fight through more waves of Orks to get back to the evacuation site.

First wave was 5 Grots and 1 Runtherd then the second wave was two Ork Boys and finally on the third wave the Marines had to take on two Nobz in close combat. Then the Marines had to go and fight 6 more Ork Boys and 5 more Grots and a Runtherd.

Sad to say that three Marines were injured. The first casualty was my heavy gunner in close combat, the Nob swung his axe and the Marine tried using his gun to protect himself, ended up being thrown accross the field with most of his chest cavity damaged. The second Marine fell to an Ork Boy who managed to shoot him in the gut whilst he reloaded and the third casualty was caused by a Grot on the way to the evac site.

And that is my fluff! My troops are only injured and when the battle is over they get sent back to recover. Obviously if they get mauled by something big it would depend on how good the fight was, the better the fight the more likely I'm going to have them live on.

I don't really name them so to speak, however, I will give them different colours depending on what they do, sometimes I'll paint on different markings depending on their stories. For example, tomorrow I want to paint the only other standing Marine to match the paint scheme of the Librarian and then I'll promote him to be his body guard or something.

Just my Chapter Master so far.....Savus Jebus

Characters get names and background, army gets a background as a whole. Squads get names depending on the army and "basic soldiers" get names when they do something great (lone fire warrior killed a Defiler with a EMP grenade when Tau first came out, got promoted) characters die when I get tired of the model or when I have anew idea fluff wise

Every one of my models counts as dying in every game, regardless of their survival. Rippers eat them! And of course their minds can be re absorbed into the Hive Mind.

For my Iron Warriors... well I name every model capable of being in a challenge, and try to record impressive kills. So far its been very unimpressive. In my first game, a multilaser killed my Warpsmith after I elected not to look out sir, and promptly rolled snake eyes. Humiliating! Other than that I had one sergeant punch out Marbo same game. In my second game, I never made it into assault because my Havocs massacred the DE army at range. That time, at least my Warpsmith and used the Brand to wipe out some Warriors.

My Canoness and most of the Sister Superiors have names and personalities. Though I've decided that if a regular Sister does something suitably impressive, she shall recieve a name and a purity seal. And I wouldn't bother counting kills, but impressive deeds instead.

As for fluff, I won't be too rigid about it. Me getting tabled and the named characters killed off might be fluffed as a grievous defeat where they were forced to withdraw, or I'll just kinda disregard it. I think that you usually have to be a bit loose about it if you want to incorporate tabletop battles into your army's fluff.

Every single tank I have gets a name. more often then not it has more to do with its concept or its weapon system.
select super heavies get names that don't follow that.

Character wise. I have a few named guys like the main "commander" of my IG forces. but otherwise not many troops are named unless they do something very good like the company command squad melta and plasma guys firing at a Hell Drake and bringing it down when a hydra flak battery and even a railgun from a broadside failed.

In terms of kills being recorded, it only matters to me if its a "big" kill.
In terms of my guys dieing, I never really concern myself with the fluff aspect of it.

I often create a short story or backstory for each unit (non-infantry unit, usually tanks or other vehicles). The only infantry that got a backstory were the "Space Marines" of my own design.
the stories and such are scattered across my blog. mostly made when the unit is finished (painted), but sometimes I get excited and after construction before paint is applied I make something.

After every battle, my Tyranids are melted down into biomass. If they performed well, that biomass might go into the Tervigon or Flyrant for the next battle. If they performed badly, their biomass goes into a Hormagaunt that gets run headlong at the enemy.

Wow, this has given me some great ideas!

 Bobthehero wrote:
Every Kriegsmen has a number in my army.

When they die on the field, the casualties are replaced by a new a Kriegsmen who's got the same ID

This.

My flyers do get painted-on kill markings for all air to air kills though.