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I watched a youtube Bat Rep yesterday of Sentinels of Terra vs. Tyranids. I noticed that the SoT player had a Whirlwind. Since the SoT supplement actually identifies every unit in the company, I don't use Whirlwinds, Bike Squads, Land Speeders, or any other unit not identified in the supplement. This means I can have one Dread, one Venerable Dread...but no more. What are your thoughts on this? If you play the fluff, do you PLAY THE FLUFF, or is it flexible based on your needs?

I'm kinda in between. I won't include something completely different from the fluff, but I'm not super strict either.

I base it on fluff and usually have some things that aren't entirely fluffy. The way I view it the fluffy army compositions aren't ironclad and the faction will alter it if needed.

I really dont care for the fluff much. But im a fluff player as in I am all about the theme. I only pick units that suit my theme.

For many of the more 'generic' factions in a codex (think Cadians for IG, UM for SM, Black Legion for CSM), any and every unit in the codex is a fluffy choice. Its when you get down to the more specialist sub factions where I care a little more about fluffy unit selections. Stuff like White Scars only using bikes or mech infantry and foregoing the use of more static elements, or Elysians using only light infantry/drop infantry and flyers.

For my Mordians, anything goes really. I'd probably paint up any flyers are proper IN support elements, but I'm not fussed if people use flyers as attached elements in their regiment's colours.

I'm not generally bothered by the fluff of my opponent, but I'd think twice about playing against someone using Unbound to bring GK and Daemons together.

Of course the list of SoT's units wouldn't include Whirlwinds. Whirlwinds are a part of the Chapter's armoury and are drawn upon by the companies based on the needs of each deployment. Unless, of course, those self-flagellating weirdos have stopped following the Codex Astartes.

First rule of being a fluffy player is actually knowing the fluff.


That said, I go for themes that I like, that are mostly fluffy.

Voted yes, but I think you should reconsider the options a little. I play a Slaanesh Noise Marine army and will only include units in multiples of 6 [if allowed] and I give everything Mark of Slaanesh [even Obliterators]. I never take troops with marks from another god or unmarked troops. Also, the majority of my Noise Marines have sonic weapons [the change to salvo forced me to take non-sonic weapon assault units, which was annoying, as before that everything had sonics]. I try to pretend that Black Legion don't exist as it makes me cringe to see Khorne Beserkers alongside Noise Marines.

I will never go against the fluff, but I do include units that aren't exactly 'Slaaneshy' [e.g. Oblits, Decimator] as the fluff doesn't forbid it. Perhaps one of the options should be "I'll include it if it's not against the fluff"?

Meh, I'm a believer in that the story should serve the game and not the other way around. So I pretty much take everything I want but since I like focused lists they tend to be lore friendly.

Well, in regards to your initial example, all Chapters have a vehicle armoury and nothing other than the transports are assigned on a by-company basis. Like the Techmarines that operate them (and also Librarians, for that matter) they are dished out too suit need and availability. For example, if the Sentinels of Terra were attempting to take a fortress, they would be sent some Vindicators and Land Raiders from the Chapter's 'motor pool'. So there's actiually no problem with the army list in question.

For myself, it depends on the context. My in-progress Ultramarines army is built as per the codex, so even when it comes to things like useless power fists on Devastator Sergeants or Company Banners they will still get taken. For the rest of my armies, the fluff such as it is is largely of my own making, so there's no specifics to follow.

In response to Paradigm and Thud's posts, the SoT supplement actually identifies the core company units, AND the auxiliary units (librarian, techmarine, terms, scouts, etc.), AND the motor pool requisitions (If I remember off the top of my head, it's two Vindicators, one Land Raider Crusader, one Predator, and one Thunderfire, and a handful of Centurion warsuits.) It's also got naval requisitions as well, but I don't know how you play cruisers and battle barges. It even goes so far as to name the squads, characters, and vehicles. Do other supplements not have that specific a list?

Now that I think about it, that list is under the "Crusade of Thunder" so I suppose the "Sentinels of Terra" NOT on the "Crusade of Thunder" could legitimately take any viable Imperial Fists gear.

Lynkon_Lawg wrote:

Now that I think about it, that list is under the "Crusade of Thunder" so I suppose the "Sentinels of Terra" NOT on the "Crusade of Thunder" could legitimately take any viable Imperial Fists gear.

That'll be it then. That list of auxiliaries is for a specific deployment, in general terms they have as much access to the Chapter's armoury as any other company.

As much as the Codex Astartes is thorough, it is also adaptable, and one of the bonuses of training Marines in every kind of warfare is that if you find you need extra Assault Marines then your Tacticals are trained in that role and just need the gear, or if you want to deploy an armoured spearhead then your units will be trained in Mechanised warfare.

So basically, there's no concern about anything being particularly unfluffy with SM thanks to the nature of their structure and organisation.

As to the question about supplements listing such detail, most of them apart from SOT are about much larger factions than a SM company of 100-ish marines (including extras). The rest cover entire Craftworlds/Waaaaghs/Traitor Legions/Warbands ect. SOT and Clan Rukaan are the only ones that are so tightly focused.

fluff is almost always vague eneugh to allow you to use a fair number of options most of the time. where it's not, and is highly specific (such as the sentinals of terra fluff) it's almsot always for a snapshot in time.

yet 40k is basicly about fighting out battles that could have occured just about any time in the 41st millinium (or earlier in many cases) so there's plenty of room for unit compisition to change over centuries of service.

It really depends. When I build an army, I usually make it my own (the only real exception being the small few Thousand Sons I have but that's because I love them. If played, I try to stick to their style) regiment/chapter/warband/etc. From there, I construct fluff for them. Now then, some are specialized. For example, my tank regiment will be tanks, my mechanized regiment is mechanized, my air force will be painted differently as they aren't a part of guardsmen, etc. Then I'll unite the regiments for a battle. As per chapters/warbands that can't mix as easily, it is another situational answer, does it break my fluff? Usually the answer is no.

Lynkon_Lawg wrote:
If you play the fluff, do you PLAY THE FLUFF, or is it flexible based on your needs?

Do I fluff the play?

I follow themes and the general background of an "army". Silly supplements for singular companies don't interest me.
Armies tend to have only a few restrictions. My BT wouldn't have witches in their ranks, no matter where they come from, except GK maybe. But those were allies back in the day and not a standalone codex. So fluff says 'no psykers' and thats ok.
A RG army is often said to consist of "this" and "that", but usually there is a difference between what people consider typical and the 'go' and ' no go' of their background.
To me, the application of force 'just in time' and focused to achieve the mission objective supports the idea of using every tool in the toolbox. In fluff they are shown to sneak around a lot and vehicles seem a bad choice for this. But they got them and they use them when appropriate. It is important to see the bigger picture.
The fluff we get is a small blurb, a glimpse of the story. Not a decade of campaigning day by day.
Thus I 'd follow the basics, the pieces of fluff where the majority agrees upon a few things.

Now if we talk about a campaign, yes pre-built forces could be a good idea there. Limited forces to achieve a given objective.
In "free-play-mode", when my little plastic men have to oppose whatever they run into, I claim the right to have the forces I like. Instead of something a Higher ranking Member of the faction I play at this time deemed available / a good idea / etc.

So fluff = yes. To follow the writings of certain "authors" = no. Too much crappy fluff to tie yourself to it so tight....

I like to be fluffy, but I have no problem making alterations to set canon that make sense, a good example of this comes from GW themselves: during the 2nd Armageddon War it was the Evil Sunz, Goffs and Bad Moonz that swept across Armageddon Secundus, the other clans being busy rampaging over/consolidating Armageddon Prime. The Chaos Attack expansion for the Battle for Armageddon boardgame however included counters for the Snakebites and Blood Axes that could be swapped out for one or two of the existing clans as it was entirely plausible that the clan dispersal could have been different. It likewise included counters for Inquisitor Horst and the Squats of Golgotha who canonically had deployed with Imperial reinforcements to Armageddon Prime but easily have been deployed to Secundus if the Inquisitor has so chosen.

I always base my army ideas around an idea of the fluff for that force. For instance, my Guard force does not include plasma weapons as they originate on a fuedal world and I cannot see weaponry as rare and valuable as plasma being given to lowly guardsmen. In fact, the only army I have that includes any significant amount of plasma at all is my Chaos marine force, as they had access to the more plentiful supplies from the Horus Heresy. All of my forces are my own creation, so I only take special characters is they fit the idea I had better than the generic ones.

The only army I have that does not have a strict(ish) theme is my Tyranids, and that's because I have been working on slowly expanding them to a few units of most codex entries. For them, I tend to come up with a different army list each time I use them, often focussing on one particular aspect of the army.

As a Guard play I have my own fluff for my regiment which when people see the 142nd Angel Guard on the field of battle understand.

I absolutely play the fluff of Ultramarines 3rd Company using the organizational chart provided in the codex and only making minor tweaks that aren't expressly stated. For instance, tanks are not listed in 3rd Company so I can be flexible there, but Scouts are tenth and I will not include them. Terminators are strictly 1st Company, so I won't include them. 3rd company has an anti-Tyranid theme so the only element from 1st Company, the only veterans I use and will ever use, are Tyrannic War Veterans that count as Sternguard in the codex now. Also Captain Ardias, since I have no interest in Fabian, is Master of the Arsenal, which has it's own perks I can take into account.

It's a bit more fun to have the fluff restrictions as well as Force Organization when building lists. Brings the army to life in a way a competition list really just can't match and that's a big part of the hobby in my opinion.

However, the Eldar I'm starting won't have an ounce of fluff. Strictly building it to be a strong army of big guns and I might make fluff later but more likely it will just be themed. Lots of tanks isn't fluff though.

There is no 't' in "fluff" (or "lore" for that matter).

I played according to SOME of the fluff for my marines and eldar.
I pretty much ignored the new fluff in the GK codex.

Guard don't need fluff. They are the meatshield of the Empire. No more, no less - nothing else is needed.

In any case, I played with the MODELS I liked, not because their fluff or stats were awesome.

Not really, as I like to edit the fluff of my force to something I like better.

That said, I really would love a full battle company of Ultramarines, with every model built exactly as shown in the Codex of the Ultramarine's second, right down to the armour marks of each armour piece, loadout and Squad Names.

I was always somewhere in between. I'd stick as close to the fluff as possible, but it's not written in stone. In your example, Sentinels of Terra might not have a Whirlwind in their roster, but they're still Imperial Fists, they have access to the Chapter's armory. It's not unfluffy to bring a Whirlwind from a reserve company, especially if you know you're playing Tyranids where the Whirlwind is going to be a good tank to field.

IIRC Space Marine tanks are all part of the Chapter's Armory and aren't attached to a particular company (Rhinos might be, I don't 100% remember). So any company can requisition tanks as needed. So it's perfectly reasonable for the Sentinels captain to request certain vehicles for a mission. In fact I'm pretty sure Land Speeders and even Bikes fall under that category as well; they are part of the armory and not "2nd Company has 20 Bikes available" distribution.

You're basically being less fluffy by not taking them, because your captain would have access to request them

The fluff is 100% mutable, as determined by you. What is written in the books is only a starting point. I certainly don't follow the books to the T, but if I have some idea for how an army should be/would be then I will do my best to make it happen, based on what models I have available.

I also find I like going for 100% WYSIWYG, so a lot of times that means taking less optimal upgrades for my sergeants and other characters. Since the options for those models are generally more fluffy then effective, that would definitely make me a fluff follower.

could not answer the poll. Not sure how anyone could be definitely sure what the fluff is all of the time. You have a specific book but others give more of a general feel. Therefore that is what I try to achieve. Do not want to be like napoleonics if I accidently painted a chevon wrong they would have a hissy fit.

I do fluffy lists from time to time, especially when playing krieg (lots of infantry and artillery), but I also think them through game-wise.
I don't want to lose every game just because the list needs to be 100% fluffy by the original books, so I tend to create a fluff or an "fluffy explanation" for some units in the army.

For example the sentinels in my krieg army; I can't afford the heavy weapon platforms, so I could say that they were taken from some other planets PDF where they are fighting.

GorillaWarfare wrote:The fluff is 100% mutable, as determined by you.

Yes, mutable, malleable - and contradictory on quite a lot of details, depending on which book you're looking at.
Just look at the different ways people can depict the Deathwatch. If you're going by GW, all you should have would be a squad of 5-10 Marines, yet arguably that doesn't prevent people from building entire armies of them, usually focusing more on FFG's interpretation (which by this point is probably more widely known, too).

But to address OP's question in regards to unit limitation:

Personally, I largely base my decisions around the exact source of fluff, prioritising GW above other origins whenever I feel there is a conflict. Embracing this, when a source says that a type of unit would not be suitable, then ... yeah, I'd respect that. Either by not fielding it, or - depending on how much I like that unit - simply creating my own subfaction in order to field it without contradicting the limit.
It probably has to do with my appreciation of consistency. If I really want to replicate an army, that means I should aim for a 100% faithful portrayal, as per the sources I stick to. Yet given how easy (and fun) it is to create my own army, doing so is always an option and seems like "the best of both worlds" to me, in that I can build something close to whatever I like whilst retaining the freedom to alter it without it "feeling weird". Kind of like having one's cake and eating it, too!

For example, with the aforementioned Sentinels of Terra ... what is it exactly that the player liked about them? Whatever it was, I'm sure it would have been easily possible to recreate in an entirely custom army. That the player did not do so probably just means they don't think about such things as much as some of us do. Nothing to blame them for, just a different mindset.

 Lynata wrote:
For example, with the aforementioned Sentinels of Terra ... what is it exactly that the player liked about them? Whatever it was, I'm sure it would have been easily possible to recreate in an entirely custom army. That the player did not do so probably just means they don't think about such things as much as some of us do. Nothing to blame them for, just a different mindset.

The more responses that I read, the more I'm in agreement with the mutability and malleability of the fluff in regards to SM and other general codices. When I started this thread, I was thinking about Sentinels of Terra specifically because I didn't realize the other supplements were not as narrow in their focus. I assumed (I know, I know) that Farsight Enclave or Iyanden blahblah were also as focused. With the narrow focus of SoT, I don't really agree with the quote above. The SoT fluff, and army list, are a specific company, that went through a specific issue leading to their near destruction, and the tools and tactics they used to come back from the brink. The Chapter Tactics, special rules, and relics (which is really the only thing different from a standard IF army) are specific to this company. Trying to create a new "founding" army based on the trials and tribulations of this specific company seems to me to be...a bit of a stretch.

I guess really my issue is with a couple guys as my FLGS, who I guess would be considered "that guy" or WAAC, who sit around talking about "If you take Kantor, you can blahdeblah, then add Cypher for the blahdeblah (is he a Marine or Chaos, I forget), and then get some Furioso Dreads for herpaderpderp" and I end up looking at them like they have three heads. Are these things, strictly speaking, legal? Maybe. It would sure leave a bad taste in my mouth though.

WayneTheGame wrote:
In fact I'm pretty sure Land Speeders and even Bikes fall under that category as well; they are part of the armory and not "2nd Company has 20 Bikes available" distribution.

Nope, Speeders and Bikes are company level assets the same as Rhino's and Dreadnoughts, and have been since 2nd edition:
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130915211407/warhammer40k/images/8/84/Space_Marine_Chapter_Organisation_Table.png

GW has sometimes left them out altogether (such 4th edition codex when they copy pasted Land RAIDER where they should have put Land SPEEDER) but they've never actually been listed under the armoury as far as I know.

Question is, do you play fluff and if it's not in your codex do you use another codex to make it fluffy?

I don't know nothing about Sentinels of Terra. Are you saying SoT don't use Whirlwinds, Bike Squads, Land Speeders? If so, then I see it as 2 ways. Person wants to play a Fluff list, but needs to win with plastic toy soldiers, or person wants to play Fluff, but also likes these units because they are fun to use.

Nothing wrong in playing something that adds fun for you while trying to make it as fluffy as possible but changes it up to make it more fun. (when I say fun, I don't mean adding it because it will be easier to win with, but the person likes the units good or bad and plays it, even if it's not really fluffy.)

Lynkon_Lawg wrote:
I guess really my issue is with a couple guys as my FLGS, who I guess would be considered "that guy" or WAAC, who sit around talking about "If you take Kantor, you can blahdeblah, then add Cypher for the blahdeblah (is he a Marine or Chaos, I forget), and then get some Furioso Dreads for herpaderpderp" and I end up looking at them like they have three heads. Are these things, strictly speaking, legal? Maybe. It would sure leave a bad taste in my mouth though.

The thing to remember is that there are ways to justify most anything, even if it's an unusual situation. For example, Kantor + Cypher is highly unlikely but not out of the realm of possibility - imagine a situation where the Crimson Fists are on a planet that Cypher is also on, and then something happens where they might have to have a temporary alliance (and, given that the Fallen are a secret to most people, it's up for debate if Kantor would even think that Cypher is anything but a regular Dark Angel on some super secret mission).

That said though, there's always a line which can be crossed when you think that it's not fluffy and is done deliberately to game an advantage. A two-detachment SM army is one thing (two Chapters being dispatched to deal with a threat), a two-detachment army that only includes the special bits of each is pushing it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gashrog wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
In fact I'm pretty sure Land Speeders and even Bikes fall under that category as well; they are part of the armory and not "2nd Company has 20 Bikes available" distribution.

Nope, Speeders and Bikes are company level assets the same as Rhino's and Dreadnoughts, and have been since 2nd edition:
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130915211407/warhammer40k/images/8/84/Space_Marine_Chapter_Organisation_Table.png

GW has sometimes left them out altogether (such 4th edition codex when they copy pasted Land RAIDER where they should have put Land SPEEDER) but they've never actually been listed under the armoury as far as I know.

Hmm interesting. Well in that case I would say yes it's unfluffy for Sentinels to have Speeders and Bikes, however, you could field them and paint them with a different company's color, representing troops dispatched to assist but placed under the command of the Sentinels captain or even do a second detachment to stay fluffy.

I try to stick as close as possible to reasonable fluff. I won't include Cult units, Daemons, or large amounts of FA units in my Iron Warriors army for example.

That said, I also usually pick the factions that I play in part based on the units that I like to begin with.