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I want to build more Space Marines but I don't want to buy 40k Marines since they seem to be on the way out. I'm limiting myself to P-Marines only and I think I'm going to wait until they get their own codex to do more than what I have now. But I still wanna build a loyalist army! I am building a super awesome Khorne CSM army because I love Berzerkers and their playstyle so I wanted a loyalist army that had a totally different aspect. I feel like 30k is a good bet as far as scale creep and model availability goes so I feel better about buying things like the box sets and the plastic kits GW is making right now. FW for me is going to be like the special treatment for HQ and centerpiece models since it's pretty expensive, but I'm not averse to saving up! Anyways, that's where I'm at with what I want in an army and what I'm willing to spend, what would be a good Legion to pick? It has to be markedly different from the World Eaters (but let's face it, I'll one day build a WE army for 30k too!). I also want to be able to build most of the army using GW period correct plastics too.

Cheers.

"Markedly different from the World Eaters" is a good requirement if you like the GW plastics; they're one of the most irritating Legions to try and build since the Calth/Prospero Tacticals don't have melee arms and chainaxes are hard to come by in bulk.

It's always a good idea to go Pride of the Legion for your Rite building your first 30k army since that gives you Troops choices organized like 40k Tactical squads (5-10 models with one upgrade gun per five), and the Imperial Fists are a good place to start since they've got strong units that don't require FW models (plain ordinary Hammernators, for instance), Legion rules that make plain old bolter Tacticals a strong choice, and lore that makes modern plastic vehicles make sense. Calth is also a better box than Prospero since you get a Dreadnaught you can use immediately instead of Talons units you need an extra book for and characters with no Legion-specific iconography.

I was kind of leaning towards IF actually, only because there was a really bang-on piece of artwork in the old 6th Ed codex that just turned my crank. The IF Tactical Marine reloading his bolter? I don't know why but that piece always made me want to do an IF army, but the thought of painting all that yellow seemed daunting!

What would a potential IF army look like and do they have current published rules? What would a good centerpiece for them be, aside from Dorn? And what is Dorn like as a game piece? He does look kinda Balla...

Fists are great and have some AMAZING named characters. Solid as a rock.

To play Imperial Fists in 30k you need the Age of Darkness rulebook or an old 7e rulebook, the Legiones Astartes Army List red book (which has the core list), and the Age of Darkness Legions red book (which has the first 13 Legions released, including the Imperial Fists). You can get digital copies of the rulebooks from Black Library these days so you don't need to spend vast amounts of money getting hardbacks shipped across the Atlantic if you don't want to.

I don't know anyone who plays Imperial Fists so most of what follows is speculation; I can tell you that starting out as Imperial Fists one Calth box, some spare storm shields (or a FW storm shield upgrade pack), and some Rhinos gets you a nice basic 1,500pt Pride of the Legion list with some quite effective buffs to baseline functionality between 3++/teleportation transponders (Deep Strike) on the Terminators/Praetor and BS5 on your boltguns.

As to unique Imperial Fists units you need FW models for you have two different units: Templar Brethren, who pack WS5, power swords, artificer armour, Furious Charge, and the option for combat shields to clean up in melee against anyone who doesn't have a 2+ armour save, and Phalanx Warders, a melee upgrade on normal Breachers (the bolter/riot shield unit) who get WS5 when charged and the option to to buy a lot more melee weapons. Templar Brethren are cool but for practical purposes their performance isn't that far off just getting more Terminators (and the Terminators have Implacable Advance so they can score objectives, whereas Templar Brethren only score if you have Sigismund to make them Troops), and Phalanx Warders only really shine in Stone Gauntlet (where they're Troops and T5 while in close order), so feel free to consider both optional. You also have three named characters: Sigismund, who beats almost anything short of a Primarch or a Custodes Tribune in a straight duel; Alexis Polux, a Breacher Praetor who's a bit underarmoured but makes a solid budget choice and has a fun party trick in his ability to make two power-fist attacks at I5 on the charge; and Dorn himself, who's one of the cheaper Primarchs and offers some strong army-wide buffs (Terminators in Troops, +d3 to combat results, army-wide Ld10, fortify three peices of cover with "reroll cover saves of 1"...). They're all strong choices with great models.

If you want a nice big vehicular centerpeice as well as a shiny character-series model it's hard to go wrong with any of the FW vehicles; the LR Proteus and Sicaran Battle Tank are probably the most generally applicable, and since you're the Imperial Fists with your arsenal of teleportation transponders you don't need a Spartan to get giant Terminator deathstars across the table safely, so pick whatever you like out of that bit.

... You make it sound like an all terminator list is possible with the Fists. I think I'm sold...

All-Terminator lists are possible with a lot of Legions. Plenty of Primarchs allow Terminators in Troops, Pride of the Legion allows Terminators in Troops, Guard of the Crimson King (Thousand Sons-specific) puts Terminators in Troops...

Imperial Fists are particularly good at it, it must be said, because of Teleportation Transponders (which gets your Terminators where you need them with a 15pt upgrade instead of 200+-pt Land Raiders) and storm shields. Do note also that you can buy storm shields model-by-model, so you can bring an assault cannon model along in a squad mostly made up of models with shields, and that you can save points on 30k Terminators by bringing power swords/power axes instead of power fists.