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Generally one doesn't need a backstory for a lot of battles in 40k. Orks, tyranids, etc will always be at war with anyone else, no real backstory required. The imperium will always be at war with any othe rrace and itself.

But do you occasionally want a decent backstory for some odd matches?

I helped a few players do backstorys to make a battle feel right. One was iron hands vs salamanders. It wasn;t hard to imagine a case where an important imperial world was attacked thru no fault of it's own. Both chapters responded and after the battle the ironhands wanted to 'punish' the population for being attacked, the salamanders said "No." and defended the populace from the wrongful retribution of the IW. An IG player even got in when they had a mix of PDF and Salamanders against an IH force.

Another was catachans vs dark angels in an unusual fight. The DA and the CJF were both fighting a chaos incursion on a jungle planet and the DA plan was for a CJF force to lure a superior chaos force into a battle then the ravenwing would storm in and hit the chaos marines from the side. (This was a much earlier edition)

The heard a fallen might be in the area and left the CJF to be slaughtered by the chaos force. The CJF commanded demanded to know why the DA had failed to show up and was basically told to GFH.

He declared the DAs to be deserters and tracked the ravenwing force, projected where it was going and deployed some CJF in front of it to set an ambush and make them pay for their cowardice. The ravenwing, moving thru jungle, ended up in an ambush scenario where the CJF had had time to set up the old 'devil's gardens' for them, the victor was determined by how many DA units made it off the opposite table edge.

I'd have a hard time doing a story for custodes vs SOBs tho, the SOBs probably feel a debt to the custodes for letting them know that vandire was a traitor and using them, the custodes probably respect the SoB for turning away from a traitor once they were shown the truth. I think it'd take a really twisted set of circumstances to make them fight.

Very imaginative backstories, I like how you think!
...I'm really not sure what I'd come up with for Custodes against Sisters... perhaps a very very sacred relic that the Sisters want to retrieve, but the Custodes get wind that it's actually Chaos-tainted and so try to save the Sisters from making a huge mistake? That's all I've got.

In general - this kind of match-up always reminds me of the "training exercise" scene from Iron Man.

Ohh absolutely, every time!
Even if its a very short thing I always make up some some reason my dudes are shooting at my opponents dudes. It could be something very funny and nonsensical like. Our dudes were here having a summer camp living in harmony until somebody brought up pineapple on pizza and the whole thing went down south fast..

One time I had a mirror match with ulthwe v ulthwe with both of us running Eldrad...
We dug out a portal terrain piece from the terrain box and decided that the reason we are fighting is that Eldrad discovered some ancient relic and attemtped to do some time travel/warp shenanigans to save his race. But ended opening a rift to an alternate time line instead and was facing another eldrad with a another army trying to do the same thing. Obviously one of them had to be a chaos imposter... #Therealeldrad #please stand up
That was a fun game.

But other than that its things like my army came here due to an ancient distress beacon and came looking for old tech but found imeprials here so they have to remove them. After negotiations being a stalemate, a trooper with an itchy trigger finger twitched and a shot was firered.. And we will not stand for such uncivil barbarity...

Like virtually anything... Making up funny names and reasons why models do things is also a no brainer.

"the exarchs GF left him last week, so hes going to charge this dread because he has no other reason to live and might as well go out in a blaze of glory or win some battle glory and get her back!!"

That's why I really love this game and miniature sin general. Can be as goofy or serious as you want. With more time to prep you get more time to come up with ideas but if its on the fly anything will do IMO!
It doesn't always have to be serious. Some things are okay being nonsense.. its 40k after all. Its all nonsense.. We are grown men palyign with plastic painted toys that our respective other halves will NEVER know the true value of or we'd all be sleeping outside tonight..

I'm a huge fan of backstories; I'm a Crusade player, so stories are kinda the whole reason I play.

My Commandery of Sisters has a huge origin story, and it is likely that I will fight historical battles in order to flesh out the origin story in more detail.

As for the Crusade itself, there are motivations that set it in motion. Our other factions are Crusading as well, though their forces will start out smaller- there's a GSC Cult that needs to grow from a single brood of Purestrains and a Chaos cult that grows from a 5 man kill team.

My favourite part is trying to find the point in both time and space within the existing lore that facilitates the stories I want to tell; anchors to existing lore are critical for me.I had to go back to the Rebellion of Cardinal Bucharis and the plague of unbelief for the origin story. The Crusade is triggered by the birth of the Cicatrix Maledictum, and Taddeus the Purifier's Crusade for the Blackstone Fortress will cross paths with the Commandery twice- once on their way to the fortress and once after the events depicted in the BSF game have concluded.

My playgroup and I almost always come up with a back story to our matches, even when we are playing matched play and what not. Usually we also talk about and 'translate' our battle rounds into narrative as well... its fun XD (we also play a lot of RPs together so that could be part of it XD).

I think there are some clear areas where SOB and Custodes might fight.

1. the Custodes are dedicated to the emperor and not the Imperium or the ecclesiarchy.
So maybe a disagreement with orders from the ecclesiarchy v.s. the Custodes interpretation of emperors will.

2. The custodes take no orders from the ecclesiarchy or Teran lords... the Custodes only answer to the emperor... maybe this power structure is at odds.

3. The custodes maintain the imperial truth. The imperial truth has always been at odds with believing the emperor was a god... though the custodes the believe the emperor should be treated as a god they do not necessarily believe he is a god... maybe some kind of disagreement over how pius or zellous they seem to each other ?


I think the main place to focus is that they both belong to organizations that believe they hold the right to be giving the orders and not taking them... this has to have put them at odds with each other on at least some issues over the last 10 000 years.

Anyhow, this is where I would look for that match up XD.

This reminds me of a guy from Dakka who quit playing Eldar because he couldn't justify Eldar fighting other Eldar.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This reminds me of a guy from Dakka who quit playing Eldar because he couldn't justify Eldar fighting other Eldar.

Pfff... Just keep flinging crap at the wall until something sticks and run with it
I hope things go back to normal and I can get some heads together and we can do some sort of crusade. I'd be in on fluffing that.

Live fire training exercises.

Holo-vid programs (accuracy optional)

War games being run by one side or the other in order to plan in case _____ has to actually be fought for some reason. You know, even Batman makes plans vs the rest of the Justice League....


For our just started Crusade:
My Necrons are minding their own buisseness, just searching for/farming enough RP to add the Void Dragon to a future list.
Other forces (including a rival Necron house) are known to be about.
And so numerous recon drone units (Spindel Drone unit from Blackstone) have been dispatched to provide an early warning if any of these forces approach too closely (I.E. on the battlefield).
When enemies are detected (round 1) the drones send out a distress signal.
Round #2 - A flight of Scythes* jump in to investigate/destroy.
Rounds #3 - 5? Access the enemy, kill as many as possible, try & hold any objectives.

Whatever the mission, there's no plan to actually WIN this initial battle as I'm almost certain to fail in holding any objectives.
How strong of opposition the Scythe flight encounters dictates how strong I make the next & future lists.
(for the record, I ran into a Deathwatch patrol, so pretty damned strong. Sucks to be my next opponent....)
I think some of the players completely failed to grasp the pure story aspect of this force.

The initial force:
Royal Warden - Warlord, mounted in the Nightscythe) (4PL)
Spindel Drone squad (3PL) - the only 3pl troop option I have
Nightscythe (8PL)
Doomscythe (10PL)
----------------------------
The two scythes + transported Warden started in reserve & arrive turn #2.
Yes, yes, I know. This violates the strat reserve limitations 2 ways - 3/4 units in reserve & over 1/2 my PL in reserve.
The real reason I built the force this way was simple. I wanted to play with both my Scythes NOW. That's 18PL! So the HQ, Troop, deployment & story/excuse for the pending loss() formed around them.

T'au vs Grey Knights would need some pretzel logic to justify, maybe.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
This reminds me of a guy from Dakka who quit playing Eldar because he couldn't justify Eldar fighting other Eldar.

You may reference to DoW2 Eldar Campaign. The idea could be as follows:

Two different Eldar Seer Councils made two different prophecies. And each prophecy has its own firm believers, who follows the prophecy to launch their own crusade. One day the two forces come across each other on a planet but the objectives of the two forces indicated by the prophecy are totally contradict to the other one. Then tragedy break loose.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
T'au vs Grey Knights would need some pretzel logic to justify, maybe.

Daemon Hunter Codex had a whole section on why DH/GKs would be fighting [Insert Force Here]. I wish more books had stuff like that.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
T'au vs Grey Knights would need some pretzel logic to justify, maybe.

Daemon Hunter Codex had a whole section on why DH/GKs would be fighting [Insert Force Here]. I wish more books had stuff like that.

agreed. a page like that in the crusade section of every codex would be great

I don't require a back story or inventing one to play a game, but I can imagine some people do. I had a friend, our school top swimmer, who would not enter the pool area, if he didn't pray before and he would not leave it without praying again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
T'au vs Grey Knights would need some pretzel logic to justify, maybe.

Tau are not human, there is no charter or write that deems them usable for the imperium like the navigators. This makes them shot on sight for any loyal imperialist, and GK are loyal imperialist. No pretzel is required, xeno hate is the basic of the imperial creed and just as important, as lets say breathing.

But as back stories goes, maybe the prognosticators saw a vision of tau coloniests landing on a planet, uninhabited, but which could support life, they start digging around, building etc while not knowing that there is a version of a smaller rune of binding that exists on Tallaran. If they are left to their devices, the next big conflict that happens on the planet, be it vs other xeno, chaos or humans, may or will break the rune seal. There for GK are send out to wipe out the colony, while it is still in its infant stage.

Karol wrote:
I don't require a back story or inventing one to play a game, but I can imagine some people do. I had a friend, our school top swimmer, who would not enter the pool area, if he didn't pray before and he would not leave it without praying again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
T'au vs Grey Knights would need some pretzel logic to justify, maybe.

Tau are not human, there is no charter or write that deems them usable for the imperium like the navigators. This makes them shot on sight for any loyal imperialist, and GK are loyal imperialist. No pretzel is required, xeno hate is the basic of the imperial creed and just as important, as lets say breathing.

But as back stories goes, maybe the prognosticators saw a vision of tau coloniests landing on a planet, uninhabited, but which could support life, they start digging around, building etc while not knowing that there is a version of a smaller rune of binding that exists on Tallaran. If they are left to their devices, the next big conflict that happens on the planet, be it vs other xeno, chaos or humans, may or will break the rune seal. There for GK are send out to wipe out the colony, while it is still in its infant stage.

The Grey Knights do one thing, and one thing only. They fight Chaos and Daemons. Xenos, especially xenos so uninclined towards the warp as Tau, are in the wheelhouse of the Deathwatch.

For the Apocalypse games we used to play, we'd have massive backstories for those. They were all themed around specific events in our growing meta-narrative, where every side had multiple named characters who would carry on between battles (unless they died).

Led to some fun moments, like my Inquisitorial Legion being unable to stop a mighty Daemon Prince from being freed from a Web Way prison. In a futile attempt to stop him, my leader, Lord Inquisitor Demetrius Valentine, faced down the beast in single combat (we were using the Balrog mini to rep the DP).

Suffice to say it... the Inquisitor did not survive, and that failure became known as "The Valentine Affair", and was a particular dark spot on the Inquisition within our homebrew sector.

Need? No (like, who won't the Drukhari pick on?)

Want? Always!

Grey Knights against virtually anyone is reeeeeally easy to justify. Chaos is en-route to a system, and the Grey Knights need to sanctify a ritual area to stop them. The enemy force is in the way.