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Currently I have 4 armies in various states of being built and painted...

When I got back into 40k I wanted to play Chaos the new Abaddon model had just been released along with shadowspear and I loved the new sculpts on the Chaos Space Marines so I went for Black Legion although I am more of a world eater at heart but until they release new bezerkers I am out!

Then I read The Emperor's Legion and Custodes really fired my imagination so I built and painted about 4,000pts worth of Custodes amd have been steadily adding to them for the last 12 months or so I am in the middle of adding SOS to them I love the models and the lore for the Talons of the Emperor and this is the army I play the most and by far my favourite.

This led to me having an idea of a Fury of Terra crusade force so I built a painted a Super heavy detachment of Knights around 1400pts at the moment two Paladins and a Warden.

As part of this I decided to build a custom chapter of Space Marines in a similar colour scheme to my Custodes the idea behind it being when the Custodes set out on Crusade they took a loyal chapter of these new Primaris marines with them these marines are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists which the Custodes sort of trust more than other Astartes. So far I have almost a full battle company although only half of them are painted.

So this brings me on to 9th and the Indomitus box I have always had a passing interest in Necrons since they were introduced so I will get round to building and painting the ones in the box soon enough and see what they are like.

After this I am looking at Imperial Guard to add to my Crusading force fluff wise and because Guard were my first proper army back in the Rogue Trader days and it would be nice to revisit them.

Harlequins for sure. I adore their aesthetic and their fluff is great. I love their playstyle, a very high skill ceiling and a steep learning curve but very rewarding when it goes well. The modelling possibilities are fantastic as well. I've recently begun toying with the idea of introducing new, unique roles to my Masque - a Harlequin troop master modeled to play the role of Khaine with a Death Jester dressed like the grim reaper whose role is to represent the nightbringer with the two acting out the infamous duel during the War in the Heaven. A Shadowseer model in the likeness of the Goddess Isha, using Wood Elf parts to create a Harlequin who represents Kurnous the God of the Hunt and even an avatar of Cegorach. The choices are endless!

Also Harlequins remind me of my old Wood Elf lists back in Fantasy

I agree, Luunar threads are fun.

Personally, it took me pretty long in the teens to really get into playing 40k. As kids, we shed a lot of Fantasy blood over the years and even in high school I played a lot more specialist games like BFG or Blood Bowl.

Originally, at the tail end of third edition, I started with Tyranids out of some misplaced antipathy towards power armour, because everyone was playing marines, right? Well, funnily enough the local meta was mostly Imperial Guard or Orks.
By that time I had accrued some skills in modelling and unlike my earlier fantasy lizards and mercenaries, the Tyranid project was a real learning place to go to town with conversions and interesting ideas. Learned how to use greenstuff properly, drill and pin metal models chopped into way too many pieces and so on. It also provided interesting bits to scratchbuild a hive fleet for BFG and continuity in colour schemes when I eventually got hold of the 2009 anniversary edition of Space Hulk. I'm still quite proud of some models in that force, like the plastic Carnifex kit where I converted all the zillion options in that the fourth edition codex allowed (the head alone is made from six or so optional bits). For the most part, this was somewhat explorative and never got painted in full army size, though one of these days I will probably return to them. The BFG side soon also sprawled to include a vast Imperial / Chaotic fleet collection that has been a staple of my demo game setup at various conventions and other events for the last decade.

I tried to make a Dragonball themed marine chapter with saiyan hair on the side, but soon dropped the project as both too fiddly and a bit daft

After school I had a couple of inactive years on the modeling front, though I played Bowl in several leagues very actively. Managing studies and roleplaying campaigns took the spotlight until the looming advent of 8th edition. I had bought the rulebook for 6th but the general state of the game was bad enough that I never ended up playing it. The rise of local interest in 30k also coincided with this and I decided to start my now main 40k project, the Echoes of Eisenstein. I had always loved the visuals of terminators and the Betrayal at Calth set emerged at just the right time to nudge me towards making a truescaled marine army, but it would be with now-adult-me's efforts to make it distinct. Usually my projects go for custom factions and homebrew colours, but in this case I felt the pull towards the ever grim XIV legiones Astartes, the Death Guard of Barbarus. Leaning towards resilience, effective yet unflashy and relentless tactics spoke to my stoic nature (coming from the deep woodlands of Finland, those who know, know ) as did their tragic history and fall from grace. However, the galaxy is a big place and I find it more creatively fulfilling to go for "what if" scenarios than replicating canon forces, so my army is a take on loyalist Death Guard who survived the fires of Heresy. Perhaps they hark back to those who escaped the Istvaan system with Garro aboard the Eisenstein, fighting through the civil war and beyond to honour their colours while their ertswhile brethren descended into madness in the Eye of Terror. As 8th edition rolled in, I got the DG codex and began using that as a base for resilient troops who utilize bio- and chem-weapons readily, eschewing any Daemon units or zombies from the list. The existence of Death to the False Emperor as a rule drove my narrative towards a slow segregation, as if the Echoes had originally served alongside the Imperial warmachine after the Scouring yet slowly over the years suffered more and more ostracizing, mistreatment and general abuse from the progressively more insane Imperium around them as years went by. This then lead them to break off in quiet secession, claiming and furnishing a small shadow realm of their own at the Imperial backwaters from where they could still prosecute wars against the Great Enemy, yet even more than outright traitors, they would bitterly hate those short sighted idiots in the current Imperium who would attack and aggravate anyone in suicidal, dogmatic fury instead of seeing the bigger picture for the benefit on mankind.

In 2018 the new version of Adeptus Titanicus also hit the shelves and I took it up in force, which led to the founding of my own titan legio, Legio Favilla, the Ashen Gods. This was another experiment in upping my modeling game (NMM painting all over and what not) as well as combining their background narrative with the XIV forces. Never a main battle line legio, the Ashen Gods were called upon when diplomacy failed and no compliance was to be gained, even through planetary invasion, and the heavy duty of civilization-wide eradication was called for instead. This takes a toll on their psyche and often they would be seen alongside the bitter sons of Mortarion, unleashing hell without restrictions. This bond manifests in miniature form by using old Epic miniatures on their bases in small dioramas, which of course snowballed into me making a huge Epic army of my DG. Miniature projects causing new ones, say it ain't so

Aaaand now that I have a large Astartes force for Epic, the titans and knights of course require infantry support and the painting queue has suddenly filled with hundreds of lobotomised servitors, killer robots and techpriests of yet unnamed forge world... My poor wallet, if I one day decide to make that army in 40k scale as well!

 Luunar wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I've got a few armies, but my current ones are Black Legion, a custom Primaris chapter and Space Wolves.

the Black Legion is because I promised myself I'd start them if Abaddon ever got a plastic mini.
My custom Primaris chapter has been a labor of love since DI came out. I'm writing the lore etc. And Lastly my space wolves started as sort of a side project for fun when I got the burning of propserio box. I slowly started to enjoy the army more BECAUSE of some of the over the top nature of it so many people object to, it's nuts and I love them.

Haha I actually like the space wolves, the whole viking theme is great ♥ I don't see myself doing SM ever, but if I did, I would do them definitely!
Just wish they had more of a shieldmaiden/valkyrie theme mixed in, but not sure how that would work aha (maybe just SoB?)

I agree with this sentiment. I got into Space Wolves because I loved the look of them and just how hardcore on the viking theme they went. From the wolf riders and werewolves all the way to the Wolf-drawn Santa Sled. Initially, though, it was the venerable dreadnaughts with all their talismans and stuff that made me get into them.

I also got into Eldar, but less for any particular model. I love them because they are a swiss army knife. Each unit is a tool with a job and they tend to do it very well. Its also nice that every model isn't basically the same base guy but with a different gun, etc.

I first learned 40k back in 1991 from a family friend and using photocopied and cobbled together rules from various publications. At the time I played whatever was available but the first models I ever bought were the newly released metal Eldar Aspect warriors. I didn't do much after that and forgot all about 40k until sometime in 4th edition when a gamestore owner gave me a Chaos Space Marine battleforce. That led me to play Black Legion until they killed the flavor and feel of the army in 5th. I then sort of floated around not really staying with one army until today I can field 2,000 points of several different armies including over 10,000 points of marines. I guess the moral of my story is I never really chose my army at first and once I got into the lore I wanted them all for different but equivalent reasons.

My first army was Eldar, picked them out because Space+Elves+Magic= cool to me at the time. Overtime that evolved to a love for Iyannden that I still have.

A few armies came and went between after that as I found the interest that got me to buy them was fickle, or my idea was outside of my skill/wallet to implement, with most sold or traded before too much had accumulated, so I wasn't feeling a huge loss. The reminents of those are my metal necrons (legacy of a friend trying to get me in, they were a Christmas gift), a few Cadian+Brentonian mashup conversions that were to be part of a WWIish army that I saw, and some Dark Eldar.

With 3rd ed witch hunters though I was able to build an army I had been thinking of for awhile. My stormtrooper company started to come together.

I also kept coming back to starting a sisters army, a bit here and there.

And over the years, I managed to assemble a more than decent sized collection of Space Marines, which mainly saw use as a loaner army for friends who wanted to try out basic marines. I had plans to paint them as UM 3rd company, but the time never really came.

After moving to Japan I found myself with more time and money than before, as well as access to more model shops than my area had back home. I ended up starting work on four new armies, still (slowly) being worked on.

My Space Marine Heros 1 sets are being built as Lamentors, sticking to the fluff as much as possible, aka no super-esoteric equipment, and using stuff to minimize manpower, such as dreadnoughts. To me they're one of the cooler Space Marine Chapters.

I ended up with a Battle of Caph (sp) box set, and much of those ended up becoming part of a Ravens Guard army (Death watch rules) as sort of a SM band of thieves.

Then I ended up on a whim buying a 3rd party female Cypher model, and wanted to use her in games. But didn't fit with the armies I had available at the time. I needed bits for my Lamentors so I ended up buying a box of Deathwatch, and noticed the shoulderpads were for different chapters. I ended up swapping the Cypher space marine backpack for a sisters backpack and painted the model up as a 'sister orbata", traveling the imperium for atonement, while collecting relics for her sisters. The spare marines are in the process of being painted up as from their 'home' chapters, marines that are following her and her cause. Using the rules as a fallen army. The rest of the force is going to be made of demons, except for models I'm using a collection of IG, Space Marines, and such to represent the demon types. An army of fallen saints coming back to help the sister at her task. AKA not demons in fluff.

The 4th army is an IG light tank army. A tank equipped police force. Using the knock off Metal Gear Slug tanks from China I'm converting them into the various chimera chassie tanks, such as hellhounds, ect, scratch building small taurax to be tracked police cars, ect.

Future projects: A Dreadnought and Thunderwolf Space marine army. Using sister bodies on the wolves, to make a "Valkyries and the honored dead" army.

A Thousand Suns 'cult' of a Demon Princess and a her followers searching the galaxy for lore.

An a Thunder Warriors idea that won't start until I find a good base for the models to convert from.

A 'Tauist' (Earth religion, not the 40K aliens) themed Mechanicus army.

Most of my armies lately are built to fit a theme, rather than for the army itself. My sisters are an army of Space Mikos (Japanese shrine maidens), my IG are Tank Police. My Chaos/Demons are relic hunters and dead heros/Saints. Even my eldar have evolved over time to fit a theme, with the force being built around a spiritseer searching for a Wraithseer in hermitage (I don't own a wraithseer, and she hasn't found him yet), escorted by a band of dead brothers.

My first army was Orkz because Orkz are having FUN! Whereas just about all the other factions are all serious and moody all the time, not to mention Grimdark, here we have an army of hooligans who fight and die just so they can do it all over again tomorrow. Gameplay wise I liked them because they are on of those armies that can pick just about any kind of list and pull it off. Gunline, mechanized, dread/kan wall, horde, elites, in the competitive but not overly so meta were I play they can do it all.
Unfortunately lack of funds to play the Ork army I wanted to play eventually made me start a second army: Mortarion's Death Guard. I love the parts of their fluff were they are misery guts, but still a Legion unlike the shadows of their former selfs like the loyalists and half the other traitor legions. I like that they are tough and unmoving and above all the focus on infantry. I will admit the whole plagued/diseased look doesn't really do it for me, and the less deamons in my force the better, but overall the DG plays just like I want them too and that is the most important thing for me in this hobby.

my first army was eldar. it was 1998, and id walked into the GW in my town, not long before the release of 3rd editon. i feel in love with the eldar, they just plain Looked Cool, and everything else was secondary. so bought myself a army of them, still the largest 40k army i've had to this day (cant remember how much it was, pointswise, mind, but only about 2,000 points). I loved the lore, of the dying race that still had power to punish those that sought to end it.

Then warhammer fansaty dropped its 6th edition in 2000 and switched my buying to dwarfs, getting a force of them that was my mainstay for a bit, alongside a riders of rohan force for LOTR, but still playing the eldar regularly in things like the 3rd war for armageddon or the 13th black crusade events.

then i came back to 40k with the Imperial Guard (still just the guard in those days, the Astra militarum(tm) was still in the future). i just really liked the asthetic, the look of a then new cadian plastics, and the "feel" of a real world style army in 40k, of normal humans being thrown into battle with armour plated killing machines with nothing but a rifle and faith in the God Emperor thier death would mean something. i collected about 500 pts of them (i didnt have a great amount of money in those days), before my intrest was taken by the newly released Tau, of which a picked up a few boxes as well (not counting a other purchase for WHFB or LOTR which eat my cash as well). my parents and i also moved to a new, smaller town that didnt have a GW store, just a licenced seller, which gave me a supplier in those pre-online store days but not many chances to actaully play. i kinda drifted off.

then....i joined the army in 2009, and had to pack my models away, becuase i was going away. my parents never threw them out, but i gave away most of my collection (and my moderately impressive bitz box) to my cousin, who started collecting becuase of me and was (and is) still collecting.

And that was that, for many years. i still loved the game and the setting, played the heck out of Dawn of War and such, but i just was overseas in germany, and i couldnt really get access to my collection or other players i could actually speak to. I moved back after a half-dozen years but i was still seperated form my models, and now i had a wife and other responabilites. wargaming just became part of my history, that thing i used to do when i was younger.

And then.....Christmas, 2019. I was visiting my parents, and me and my cousin went to the local GW store (not the same one i first started in, but a new one in our new town that had been opened after i left for the army). i looked back on my history, and pined. I bought a novel for old times sake, talked to the store guy about how different the lore was form what i remember, and mourned the loss of my WHFB setting. i didnt think anything else about it, until on christmas day, my cousin got me a box of Admech for my present. I'd always liked the Tech Priests, but they'd been a background element, a model here or thier in a imperial army, never a full faction. Well, Once lockdown kicked in, i sat down and assembled them, and to my suprise, the wife found them rather cool, so i got the codex, and the new 9th ed rules, and some more models, and i have a small but solid admech force i am growing slowly, with a clear plan up to 1,000 pts and a few vague plans for a 2,000 pt list.

then, looking a bit more into it and the other options, i found myself the Custodes. something about them, another army list that has moved form the shadows of the lore into a playable army, their "greek heros" vide (i mean, there're CALLED the Ten Thousand, for christs sake!), has inspired me to take them as my 2nd army. it wont be hard to get a workable force together, they are relitively cheap (two boxes of line troops get you a 500 point army, with HQ, just like that!) Again, a clear 1,000 point list and ideas for a 2k list are in place. Given my much greater puchasing power as a 30-something working adult than my teenager with pocket money, it shouldnt take too long to make these lists a relaitiy. once i have done that, it really becomes a question of finding someone to play with, given the current unpleasantness.....

I played 40K (RT) from 1990 to 1993 and used to play SM.

When I came back to the game in 2018 I went for a first-born Ultramarines force out of nostalgia.

Then Index Renegade Knights came out. I wanted a second army, and what could be more different than giant daemonic war engines? It's great that they got a full codex and then Chaos Knight models too.

I'm still really pleased with both my armies. I lose a lot with my Ultramarines, so probably enjoy playing with my Chaos Knights more, but I still love the models.

I started with (RT-01) marines back in RT days, and left for while around 2E.

When I next looked at 40K, they were releasing Tau, and I bought into them as they struck me as the only “good guy” faction and they had mecha, a Japanese flair and focused on ranged combat.

I’ve got some twelve 40K armies now, but Tau is still my favorite.

I currently have no 40K models. I won't go in to the why or what for and try to keep it positive. My collection had over times had been collected due to convenience, mechanics, or story.

My first collection was Assault on Black Reach that I received for Christmas from my fiance' at the time (now my wife of 11+ years). At this point, I had been collecting codices for about 5 years, trying to figure out what I would want to start with, and gathering up the courage to spend the money.

At that time, I had decided that I wanted an army that could Jump and Shoot. There were specifics like Assault Marines, Warp Spiders, etc, but those were limited in range. Tau were the only ones at the time that could jump and have range, so I traded my Orks and some Marines for some Tau figures and started collecting.

Over time someone presented a challenge that Chaos would never ally with Tau. I took this as a challenge. I developed a story about how a trapped Greater Daemon of Tzeentch had convinced a Chapter's Apothecaries to alter their Chapter's genome. This alteration would make the psychic signature of the Chapter to be a poison to the Warp. For those altered, their mission was to change all the other sentients in the galaxy to become a similar poison. As a counter, any races with a signficant psychic signature caused them pain, with full on Psykers driving them in to a rage. This was when Chaos Marines were in their 4th Edition codex, but 5th Edition ruleset, so a rather less-effective army, but that didn't matter to me. I had built my army to be based on a Marine Demi-Company even using Assault Marines and Devastators to be Raptors and Havoks (that and they were plastic versus metal).

Over time, I was getting bored of my Chaos Marines, and I was loving the imagery of the Black Templar and felt I should start building something from there. I planned them to be the Loyalist remainder of the Cursed Chapter that my Chaos Marines grew out of and built them out from there. This was with their 4th Ed Codex as well, and eventually even kept them up through the 6th Edition slap.

Then over time, I was getting tired of all the ways to build armies, and wanted to go simpler. I had always enjoyed Necrons, but for a long time they had a built in lose mode. Their 5th Edition codex helped change that, so a few months before their 7th Ed codex was announced, I started switching to the Necrons. I never did finish building all the models, but I loved the Praetorians, Tomb Blades, Immortals and even basic Warriors.

Eventually I moved on to Warmachine and Hordes due to GW decisions, but that has nothing to do with 40K army choices. I may want to get back in to the game if I can start getting the funds for it again, which is right now a choice between Thousand Sons (I actually had a unit of them with my earlier Chaos Marines), Necrons, or Tau again.

I chose Harlequins as they are a small but beautiful faction, and prove that less is more. This is true of their models and rules.

Had considered Ynnari but sadly wasn't available in Kill Team and in regular 40K they were treated as an after thought. Hoping that is addressed going forward into 9th edition.

My introduction to the setting was through Dawn of War II after a friend purchased it for me. I have always loved arthropods so the Tyranids naturally drew my attention. I really liked their aesthetic, especially how the different creatures all look like specialized strains of the same overall organism (bit like real-world termites). My brothers and I discovered that there was a game shop in town that sold 40k miniatures, so we originally were planning on getting a couple models to build and paint for our desks. However, our mom thought it was good for us to get out of the house and do things with other people, so we ended up building small armies of our chosen factions and joining in the shop's league.

Now when I was little I loved heavy equipment (bulldozers, excavators, etc.) and there was a video game my dad would play that involved purging mines of infected mining robots. The Genestealer Cults basically combined nostalgia for those two things with my beloved Tyranids, so they naturally drew me in as well. I also rather like how they allow more exploration of the Tyranids while retaining human motivations and emotions that make them more relatable (and in some cases even sympathetic).

A bit of a ramble, but...

I started with Marines in 2001 in part because A) they came recommended, and B) I was a bit of a Terran player in Starcraft, and wouldn't you know it, but they happened to share a bit of an aesthetic, right on that border between sleek and blocky with very clean lines to it. Was never a big fan of the skulls but those were pretty easy to clip off.

The glitzy metallic schemes I'd settle on eventually became joked about as being 'for the cameras,' and from that statement these Marines evolved into those of the Imperial Lens Network, a corporate media conglomerate who televised their battles (with heavy editing if circumstances required) with a tone somewhere between Blade Runner and Dilbert. I started an associated Guard army for them, even, because I felt we needed more conventional corporate goons. I put ads I got from cheap NASCAR model kits on their tanks; the Basilisk sponsored by Viagra seemed fitting. Their particular brand of dystopia in the form of ruthlessly pragmatic American capitalism (Their color scheme is even metallic blue, red and silver) felt a bit more relatable than vicious theocracy.

I played them as mains until about the time 4th edition was ending, but would briefly experiment with small armies of Nids, Tau and Space Wolves.

When I started looking at the game again at the release of 8th, in... well, America in 2017... I found this theme less funny, even if one could argue the satire was more needed than ever. I played a few games, but in accidentally having become politically relevant (or my awareness of that relevance increasing, hard to say) and my faith in real humanity shaken, my heart just wasn't in them anymore, and by November I'd gradually dropped out of the rest of 8th without fanfare. I still use CEO Kasen as my namesake here and in some places, but mostly because the complete nonsense I spew is funnier accompanied by a serious-looking anime businessman rubbing his chin thoughtfully.


When I came back before the beginning of 9th, I restarted an idea I'd started during the heady days of the 3.5 Chaos Codex, but dropped because I couldn't quite get the parts I wanted to make it work.

I'm a bit of an anthropomorph enthusiast. A Furry, if you will. There's something I can't help admire about the culture's (on average) broadly accepting nature, LGTBQ+ friendliness, shameless cheer in the face of naysayers and... well, the art doesn't hurt, to say the least. But the obvious choice for an army like this, the Space Wolves, didn't quite do it for me.

The Space Wolves get a lot of flak for being furries, but from my perspective, they don't get there properly. Most of them are just hairy humans with plus-sized teeth. Even the Wulfen, arguably the furriest of the Space Wolves, sit in this movie-monster-werewolf uncanny valley where they're too furry for nonfurries, but not furry enough to be actual furry bait. My early attempts to shoehorn furries into the auspices of the xenophobic, mutant-fearing Imperium came across to me as fanfictiony even during 3rd, now even moreso. (And I didn't know about the Felinids.)

On the other hand, the libertine philosophy, focus on artistry, and tendency to get into bizarre and anatomically impossible kinks makes them a shoo-in to back Slaanesh. A Chaos army of infuriatingly brightly colored furry raver perverts out to get everyone to shed their humanity? Especially now that I have a 3D printer to make tails and heads and custom paw-mark logos and dubstep guns? Sorcerer-Artists with Warp-brushes who render harvested souls into special pigments to paint fursonas? Free license from the Warp to confuse genders, including female Marines and twinky male Daemonettes?

I can work with this. I can work with all of this.

And thus the Neon Chimeras return in 9th.

Tempestus: They seem the closest thing to current modern day special forces. For some reason they are still highly effective despite being unenhanced humans with better than average training.

 Strat_N8 wrote:
My introduction to the setting was through Dawn of War II after a friend purchased it for me. I have always loved arthropods so the Tyranids naturally drew my attention. I really liked their aesthetic, especially how the different creatures all look like specialized strains of the same overall organism (bit like real-world termites). My brothers and I discovered that there was a game shop in town that sold 40k miniatures, so we originally were planning on getting a couple models to build and paint for our desks. However, our mom thought it was good for us to get out of the house and do things with other people, so we ended up building small armies of our chosen factions and joining in the shop's league.

Now when I was little I loved heavy equipment (bulldozers, excavators, etc.) and there was a video game my dad would play that involved purging mines of infected mining robots. The Genestealer Cults basically combined nostalgia for those two things with my beloved Tyranids, so they naturally drew me in as well. I also rather like how they allow more exploration of the Tyranids while retaining human motivations and emotions that make them more relatable (and in some cases even sympathetic).

This is so wholesome

Aesthetics - I thought chaos marines looked cool.

still do tbh

I started back into 40k because of the Dawn of War games, specifically DoW2. I bought a Assault on Black Reach and painted it up that way, using some forge world decals. I didn't get around to playing any games until 8th edition dropped though, but I painted my Dark Imperium as Blood Ravens anyway.

I'm not really a fan of the white dwarf rules though, so I usually run them as a counts as ultramarines or whatever I'm feeling like.

Started with Epic after seeing the Space Marine game art in a store, but can't remember exactly what it was that drew me to the Dark Angels. Definitely after seeing the Angels of Death codex, Space Hulk Deathwing etc. I was in, and first and foremost was the Ravenwing and still is one of my favourite armies today.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
A bit of a ramble, but...

I started with Marines in 2001 in part because A) they came recommended, and B) I was a bit of a Terran player in Starcraft, and wouldn't you know it, but they happened to share a bit of an aesthetic, right on that border between sleek and blocky with very clean lines to it. Was never a big fan of the skulls but those were pretty easy to clip off.

The glitzy metallic schemes I'd settle on eventually became joked about as being 'for the cameras,' and from that statement these Marines evolved into those of the Imperial Lens Network, a corporate media conglomerate who televised their battles (with heavy editing if circumstances required) with a tone somewhere between Blade Runner and Dilbert. I started an associated Guard army for them, even, because I felt we needed more conventional corporate goons. I put ads I got from cheap NASCAR model kits on their tanks; the Basilisk sponsored by Viagra seemed fitting. Their particular brand of dystopia in the form of ruthlessly pragmatic American capitalism (Their color scheme is even metallic blue, red and silver) felt a bit more relatable than vicious theocracy.

I played them as mains until about the time 4th edition was ending, but would briefly experiment with small armies of Nids, Tau and Space Wolves.

When I started looking at the game again at the release of 8th, in... well, America in 2017... I found this theme less funny, even if one could argue the satire was more needed than ever. I played a few games, but in accidentally having become politically relevant (or my awareness of that relevance increasing, hard to say) and my faith in real humanity shaken, my heart just wasn't in them anymore, and by November I'd gradually dropped out of the rest of 8th without fanfare. I still use CEO Kasen as my namesake here and in some places, but mostly because the complete nonsense I spew is funnier accompanied by a serious-looking anime businessman rubbing his chin thoughtfully.


When I came back before the beginning of 9th, I restarted an idea I'd started during the heady days of the 3.5 Chaos Codex, but dropped because I couldn't quite get the parts I wanted to make it work.

I'm a bit of an anthropomorph enthusiast. A Furry, if you will. There's something I can't help admire about the culture's (on average) broadly accepting nature, LGTBQ+ friendliness, shameless cheer in the face of naysayers and... well, the art doesn't hurt, to say the least. But the obvious choice for an army like this, the Space Wolves, didn't quite do it for me.

The Space Wolves get a lot of flak for being furries, but from my perspective, they don't get there properly. Most of them are just hairy humans with plus-sized teeth. Even the Wulfen, arguably the furriest of the Space Wolves, sit in this movie-monster-werewolf uncanny valley where they're too furry for nonfurries, but not furry enough to be actual furry bait. My early attempts to shoehorn furries into the auspices of the xenophobic, mutant-fearing Imperium came across to me as fanfictiony even during 3rd, now even moreso. (And I didn't know about the Felinids.)

On the other hand, the libertine philosophy, focus on artistry, and tendency to get into bizarre and anatomically impossible kinks makes them a shoo-in to back Slaanesh. A Chaos army of infuriatingly brightly colored furry raver perverts out to get everyone to shed their humanity? Especially now that I have a 3D printer to make tails and heads and custom paw-mark logos and dubstep guns? Sorcerer-Artists with Warp-brushes who render harvested souls into special pigments to paint fursonas? Free license from the Warp to confuse genders, including female Marines and twinky male Daemonettes?

I can work with this. I can work with all of this.

And thus the Neon Chimeras return in 9th.

This is brilliant, even if the obvious joke army about the Legend of Dark Matter Krystal would sadly be under Tzeentchian rules

Do you happen to have pictures of the first army, desire to know more intensifies as the appropriately propagand-y meme goes? I'm always curious about satirical forces that display more creativity and wit than sculpting giant dongs all over the place.

 CEO Kasen wrote:


I'm a bit of an anthropomorph enthusiast. A Furry, if you will. There's something I can't help admire about the culture's (on average) broadly accepting nature, LGTBQ+ friendliness, shameless cheer in the face of naysayers and... well, the art doesn't hurt, to say the least. But the obvious choice for an army like this, the Space Wolves, didn't quite do it for me.

...tread carefully my friend...for no one expects the Black Templars!

Lol, seriously nothing wrong with that. Speak of the devil, I'm currently painting Kitsune from that Bushido game. I like to use her for Ravenloft and Frostgrave as a ranger, wizard respectively.

A friend of mine from high school and I had always been fascinated by the lore of 40k, but we lived in the middle of nowhere before the internet was really a thing everyone had which meant we had no access to models.

I was in college during 5th edition, and I started delving further into the 40K lore. I found the setting so cool with the fall of humanity not being an "if" but a "when," but I didn't really want to go with an Imperial force because I felt like they were already over represented. I wanted to be a force that would inherit the galaxy in the wake of the collapsing human empire.

In virtually all other games that I played leading up to that I had preferred range to melee and I also liked to steer clear of magic users. It always seemed to me that the people who could still fight and compete with no innate magic of their own in a world full of magic were more impressive than those who could manipulate magic.

This combination obviously lead me directly to T'au. I loved their play style. I loved that they were willing to work with other races. I loved that they had no psykers. I loved their look(the large flat, smooth panels also seemed to me that they would be easier for a novice to paint). It was a perfect match.

I bought a Battleforce and a Commander model along with their codex and the big rule book during 5th edition. I started building some Fire Warriors and a Commander, but I never really found anyone to play with. My friend from high school that shared an interest in 40K with me went to a different college so we were not close enough to play. I also didn't know of any local gaming groups, and I was still pretty afraid to start painting out of fear of totally botching it.

My models would remain unused and unpainted until 8th edition.

When 8th hit I had a job, so I had more expendable income with which to expand an army and risk painting the models. My friend also moved in with me not long after 8th, and he had been slowly building a Grey Knights army over the years. With his army in the works it inspired me to finish building mine and get it painted.

We started out playing on old HeroScape tiles, but I eventually got some Games Workshop terrain and a gaming mat for us to play on. I also found a couple of other people to play with. A co-worker of mine had a 5th edition Ultramarines force that he brought out of retirement to play me, and a younger guy from my (now)wife's church had some Orks and Admech. I ended up playing probably ten or fifteen games with them throughout 8th and I went to a couple local events. I really enjoyed it.

My high school friend got a new a job so he moved out before 9th dropped, and with COVID going on I have not had a ton of time(or opportunity) to get games in. I have spent that time building a first generation Space Marine force. It started out as a Kill Team so I could play Kill Team with friends even if they didn't have models, but, as of yesterday, I have about 2000 points of Space Marines built with about a third of that painted. My T'au force is around 2400 points fully painted and built. I am hoping once the pandemic stuff subsides I will be able to get in my first 40K game with my custom Space Marine chapter and get the T'au back out blasting stuff off the board.

I started out with 40k in the Rogue Trader era, just before the 2nd edition starter set came out.

Can't recall what made me want to paint my Space Marines from that starter set as Dark Angels at the time, but I did. It was then the Angels of Death codex and White Dwarf that inspired me to, over a number of years, expand my army, with all the character models (Azrael, Asmodai, Ezekieal, Brother Bethor) along with 6 tactical squads, 2 assault squads, 1 dev squad, a few rhino, a Mk1 Land Raider, metal parts Predator, and a razorback, plus I bought the OG Dark Angels captain model (the classic one with the feathered headdress on his helmet).

Mostly I like the monastic kind of background that was introduced for them in 2nd edition. Plus the Deathwing models were/are good for Space Hulk as alternatives to the Blood Angels models.

I've bought a handful (500 pts) of Eldar and about 1000 points of Chaos, but nothing significant. But I chose them because of need/want of something other than Space Marines.

I'd like to buy an IG army, because Steel Legion. Sadly most of the models for a Steel Legion army no longer exist, unless you pay silly money on eBay. I love that WW1/WW2 aesthetic Steel Legion have/had. DKoK would be another option but they just don't quite do it for me like Steel Legion does, DKoK are too much WW1 for me, and they're a FW product.

A bunch of my friends played Dawn of War on PC and started playing the miniature game in 5th edition. I didn't really know anything about the lore so I just started with Necrons since that's what I was familiar with(before their 5th update). After bouncing around from army to army, CSM got their update in 6th and I was kinda taken with the new models. I started looking into their lore and the Horus Heresy as a whole and got sucked in. Rules wise I've always found them to be a bit meh, but the lore and challenge of painting all of the extra horns and skulls was more interesting to me. The conversions you can do with Nurgle is fun too. From a painting aspect, the different cult troops added a bit of spice for whenever I got bored painting my armies' main scheme, which is something I ran into with loyalist armies.

I also have an Eldar army. I picked them up since I wanted a 2nd army and like the cult troops, I could paint aspect warriors in standard scheme apart from my overall scheme. I could've gone with demons for the same reason, but I generally dislike souping even if it makes sense from a fluff standpoint. Eldar also always seem to be on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to CSM rules wise. If I felt CSM were in a terrible spot, I can switch gears to something that had good odds of at least being decent. Though I never got on the cheese train for Eldar list building

Loving all of these replies guys! I would keep responding to each of these individually but I don't want to spam the thread too much aha

It's great to see people's passion and why people picked their armies

Keep them coming ♥

 Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Karol: that was Greyknights, right? Out of curiosity, if you care to share: was it mainly the gaming part (in a sense of that is the system most likely to find other players in your vicinity) that drew you to WH40k? Or what drew you in?

People at my school started to play w40k, and convinced me to play too. Later I was told that for each new person you brought you got store discount.
And as what drew me in, they convinced me, I was new at the school and really didn't want to be left out like in my old school. the fact that the army was already finished was a huge plus to me, specialy after seeing how much paints and brushs costs.

 Sherrypie wrote:
This is brilliant, even if the obvious joke army about the Legend of Dark Matter Krystal would sadly be under Tzeentchian rules

How the balls did I forget about her? Surely there's a head or bust on Thingiverse or something...

 Sherrypie wrote:
Do you happen to have pictures of the first army, desire to know more intensifies as the appropriately propagand-y meme goes? I'm always curious about satirical forces that display more creativity and wit than sculpting giant dongs all over the place.

Gods, trying to find them has been essentially one expedition down Memory Mountain excavating buried backups of old drives, glancing at childishly amateur versions of what I'd be capable of managing now, and scouring through old written forum RPs.

Didn't find the pics, but I still have all the models. Someday I may have to gallery them.

There are parts of this idea I'm definitely making sound cleverer than the actual models display, because a lot of the theme came through in writing. Now that I have a 3D printer, if I ever get the itch, I could go with things like replacing the Banner Ancient with a cameraman and a field reporter, load on servo skulls, have some of them wearing purity-seal neckties in addition to the custom logos, do the whole corporate theming right rather than just slapping some NASCAR transfers on shiny paintjobs and a bit of creative posing.

And to be clear, even though I'm 97% sure you weren't actually implying this, the Neon Chimeras aren't displaying giant dongs - I want to be able to put them on a table someday. Though I had thought of fielding a counts-as Chaos Spawn that was just a large black cube with "Censored by order of the Inquisition" on each side.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

And to be clear, even though I'm 97% sure you weren't actually implying this, the Neon Chimeras aren't displaying giant dongs - I want to be able to put them on a table someday. Though I had thought of fielding a counts-as Chaos Spawn that was just a large black cube with "Censored by order of the Inquisition" on each side.

Yeah, I wasn't. It's just something I've seen too often in the satire context, like hive fleet Phallus or one undead bordello army.

A redacted cube would be fun as a one off, or you could style it like OotS' Monster in the Dark (who is waiting for a dramatic moment to be shown off):

When I started there were four of us, we were all highschool kids so everyone wanted Marines, and we all picked one of the Big Four chapters. I picked last and got Ultras. Since then I've picked up DA but really only run a combo DW/RW with no Green Wing, I picked up Nids to go against my Ultras, the other "armies" (including my limited Green Wing) I've picked up were part of starter sets over the years I didn't sell off because it wasn't worth it to me - though most are still on sprue as my paint line is still long at the Ultras get first priority.

I started mini gaming with battletech and it has just as much background lore as 40K, so when i got into 40K lore became the motivation.

When i first started out i knew nothing of course so i was recommended dark angles. when i got the mini dex i immediately fell in love with the thematic nature of the highly restricted deathwing/ravenwing dedicated armies.

Eventually after many years i had enough lore understanding under my belt by 5th edition that i fell in love with the only true good guys in the space marine forces-the salamanders. i mean dragons, fire, compassion for the imperial citizen, and lets face it they are basically dwarves...i like dwarves i played them a lot in dnd.

I didn't even use a named character in my army until brey'arth ashmantle got released with the badab war books.

I also have always had a soft spot for the mechanicus since they first showed up in BFG, as well as classic grey knights (3rd ed) because again the lore and lore based rules.

Aside from problems with certain game mechanics of the edition it is one of the main reasons i really lost interest in 40K post 8th edition. it doesn't feel like 40K to me, it all feels to generic. marine chapters in particular have really lost their uniqueness. which is why i have gone back to playing 5th edition w/some house rules where all those great thematic restricted builds based on the lore can still be played (we allow players to choose whichever codex from 3rd-7th they want to use in our FLGS group).

Just introduced a newer white scars player to the "true" white scars army list from index astartes 1...bikes, hunting lances, true grit, hit and run...oh my

He is interested in trying it out, should be fun.