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I run pre-renegade Soul Drinkers. I stick to the fluff where I can, ie named squad leaders, squad members & upper ranked vets. Past that I take liberties, but they stick to the same theme. I used the um example in the codex to build my 2nd Company, then did some elements of the 1st, 6th and 10th according to what I wanted to build.

Lynkon_Lawg wrote: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.

How so? There's bound to be countless Marine Chapters who stood on the brink of destruction and recovered. All you have to do is alter the history to actually give your army a custom background that still makes sense for the traits and rules you are going to use.

If you could give me specific examples for which traits you think are problematic, I might be able to come up with a more direct resolution. But generally, what exactly could it be that must absolutely be 100% unique to the Sentinels of Terra, aside from names (of the Chapter, characters, and the locations of their battles)?

Davor wrote:
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.)

What I am saying is that the Sentinels of Terra on the "Crusade of Thunder", which is the rebuilding period when Lysander is busted down to Captain of the Third Company as penance for nearly getting them wiped out due to his pig-headedness against the Iron Warriors, have a specific army list including all the core company elements (Lysander, Chaplain, Command Squad, Tac, Assault, Dev squads), auxiliary forces (Terminators, scouts, Librarian, Techmarine, Stormtalons), armory requisitions (Vind, Pred, LR Crusader, TF, Centurion suits) and fleet units. All of the units are named, which, to me, makes them unique. What I had not realized until this thread was that the specific army list was NOT SoT in general, but the "Crusade of Thunder" specifically. As someone said previously (I can't find the post to give credit) something a specific as the "Crusade of Thunder" shows a snapshot of time, not the 3rd company as a whole. I have land speeders, a whirlwind, another dreadnought, and several other SM models that I had not considered using due to "following the fluff" but realizing that this list is time specific, I might consider expanding the army with these non-Crusade of Thunder Sentinels of Terra, and just make sure that the I only put the Crusade of Thunder campaign badge on the correct units.

I'm pretty fluffy when it comes to my Black Templars-based chapter.
No psykers, LRC's, as many crusader squads as I can fit.

The only change(ish) I made is that I use bolters instead of HW/Pistol. The salvo of fire that 8 squads of 16 man crusaders puts out makes the "First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!" order for IG seem like child's play.

I will occasionally drop in some GK's and Imperial Knights, but that's only when absolutely everything on the battlefield must be eradicated.... for great justice

Wait, how do you even follow fluff "to a T"? 40k fluff is a very amorphous idea, drawn from many sources, on the one hand, and then you're encouraged to use your imagination on the other.

I mean, yeah, I like to have my armies have themes, and to have those themes be reasonably consistent with the 40k background, but I don't think it's even possible to "exactly follow the fluff" in a vast majority of cases.

I like to stick to fluffy lists most of the time. With Necrons, I don't spam any 1 model. I usually bring what I call my "strike force" of necrons, which I think resembles a decent force of necrons ready for battle. A Lord on a barge overseeing the battle, two ghost arks with troops, two A Barges for Heavy support, some deathmarks thrown in so my overlord can command them who to kill when need be, and some flyers for aerial support.

Then with Tyranids, I like to do the same thing. Gaunts, led by Warriors and a Tervigon for Synapse, and a hive tyrant giving aerial support and commanding the army below him, then Carnifexes barreling down the field. I hate lists like Nidzilla, or Flying circus. They just don't seem fun to play. Plus, I am collecting more Gaunts so I can try to field the Endless Swarm formation, led by a Swarmlord. I can't wait.

I use fluff breaking units because I find them fun to use and I hate restricting myself. (in my opinion of course) I might adhere to certain tactics and when I visualize the battle, I may think from the mindset of the commanders, but I've broken fluff a LOT. I've ignored the Allies Matrix before on several occasions because I wanted Orks to mind control some Nids for the battle. This has even reached the point of making my own units for armies (Ork Bouncers, Necron Dragon Robots, Samurai Space Marines, ect.) for the sake of fun. They break gameplay as well because they're usually quite unbalanced, but I still love using them.

Still, I wouldn't mind sticking to the exact fluff if my opponent asked me to.

Sometimes I like to break the fluff as hard as possible. You know have Drazhar and Karandras team up to lead a squad of Incubi.

With marines i do a bit but don,t restrict self, on my new IG I just made it up myself so its unique to me, did not want to follow someone else path, so you can say there fluffy but my own brand.

 Blacksails wrote:
or Elysians using only light infantry/drop infantry and flyers.

This, in my Elysian army I only have Infantry, x12 Flyers (x6 Valkyries x3 Vendettas, x2 Avenger Strike Fighters and x1 Vulture Gunship with Punisher Cannons) and am planning on adding x9 Tauros Buggies in the future (might even use the Scion Taurox model and runit as a Prime, its actually CHEAPER then the Tauros Buggies). My armies theme is that of an Elysian Air Assault unit so all of what I have fits into the fluff of what my army would probably take.

Voted yes because I always try to stick to my fluff, but sometimes I will just try adapting existing viable units to work fine with my army fluff-wise.

 Lynata wrote:

Lynkon_Lawg wrote: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.

How so? There's bound to be countless Marine Chapters who stood on the brink of destruction and recovered. All you have to do is alter the history to actually give your army a custom background that still makes sense for the traits and rules you are going to use.

If you could give me specific examples for which traits you think are problematic, I might be able to come up with a more direct resolution. But generally, what exactly could it be that must absolutely be 100% unique to the Sentinels of Terra, aside from names (of the Chapter, characters, and the locations of their battles)?

You are right about Chapters on the brink but the "Sentinels of Terra" supplement is about a single Imperial Fists Company getting beat down and re-built. Naturally, you can do whatever you want, it's your game, but considering the characters and relics are unique to the Company, when someone shows up with a purple army and says that they are a recent founding of the 3rd company of the Imperial Fists Space Marines, oh and hey, his name isn't Lysander, it's Bysander, and his unique, one-in-all-existence, weapon is called the Fist of Born, it's bound to raise some eyebrows. Now, does this mean that you shouldn't take formations from the "Rising LEVIATHAN" dataslates if your army is from "Hive Fleet Kraken"? That I can't say, but since there are no unique characters or unique relics in those dataslates, I would tend to be more understanding.

I think in general it's best to stay fluffy within reason. Old White Dwarfs used to call out things like taking mostly elite troops and very little rank-and-file (although this was WHFB) with the term "beardy" and it was generally looked down upon.

I've kept those articles and their wisdom in my mind and heart ever since reading them. Every army I ever built, and will ever build, will have some kind of a theme and stay true to that theme. They will represent a "realistic" vision of the army in the source material, not combine unrealistic things to eke out an advantage.

As an Ork player I hang loose with the fluff.

The Warlord of my Waaagh! is a Warpboss, which I have no idea if it's canonical at all. At this point he is a back burner Warlord who is lost in the warp, but still communicates with his generals.

Aside from that I don't diverge from the fluff too much.

I try to stick to it. The most recent one would be Zandrekh and his dislike for Deathmarks and Canoptek units. A lot of lists include both with Zandrekh but in his mind, he's probably feeling a little bit down to have these units forced on him.

In reference to the above discussion about bikes and Land Speeders, I believe the codex astartes method of deploying them is to issue them to assault squads (scout bikes aside, obviously). So if you're restricting yourself to a single company, every biker or speeder crew member means you can field one fewer assault marine. But it's perfectly fluffy to use them in battle companies even if they're not mentioned.