A few of you may know, that with my armies I always come up with a backstory, and try and work out a really cool/unique theme for my armies.

All of my armies have a pretty in-depth backstory, and since I've been trying to find a way to make chaos daemons interesting to me, I think my brain has finally produced a suitably interesting backstory to make me want to play/model them. So let me know if this sounds interesting to you.

(Please bear in mind, I've been up all night, so this may be pretty rambling. I'll edit it once I get some sleep)

Ok, in my 3.5 chaos army, the backstory (roughly) was that Demon Prince leading my army (known as "The Father") was an old-school Roman soldier, who while alive was kicked out of the military due to his 'extreme tendencies' when it came to force. Ultimately, he resorted to gladiator combat to sate his bloodlust, and after working his way through enough bodies over the years, he eventually gets put up against more and more extreme odds. He continues to excel, do in no small part to his patron Khorne.

He eventually dies a pretty honorable death, has his soul reborn into khorne's realm, and eventually ascends to demonhood. Eventually, through his rampant warmongering on anything he can monger on (as is Khornes way), he eventually begets a child on a demon (yes, rape was pretty common in the roman military), something that should not be possible. The child, however, is a twisted, sickly thing that will not survive very long due to it's distorted nature.

So, The Father seeks out a Sorcerer who can find a way to keep his child alive. Ultimately leading to Mr. Book. Mr. Book steals away from the 1k sons with a few choice Rubric Termies, and comes into the employ of The Father.

Knowing the only way to save the twisted child-thing is to stabilize it's warp essence and physical body at the same time, Mr. Book places the child into a dreadnought's sarcophagus. He then binds a warp-entity known as the Dahi-Maru into the Dreadnought and the child. The kid lives, grows, and continues to mesh with the warp entity.

Ok, so thats a quick recap of the 3.5 ed story. Now, fast forward to the current codices, and we run into the problem that most of the characters from my previous army can't even exist. (no rubic termies, no parasitic-possessed dreadnoughts, no dreadaxe Demon-princes with demonic speed, etc) So I am left to try and scavenge a story line for a new army, and this is what I got so far.

The Father one day up and disappears. Without the core influence of this leader, the war band quickly begins to fracture. Members are defecting constantly, and soon they will be forced to disband.

Desperate, Mr. Book attempts a locating spell to trace The Father throughout the warp. The focus he uses is a vial of blood taken from the Demon Prince. (You never know when such things will be handy, and Mr. Book is a cunning bastard) As he begins to pour his psychic energy into the blood to activate the spell, he quickly realizes something is going wrong. The Father's blood, inured with the energy of his weapon (dreadaxe, which consumed warp entities and energy) is eating the energy. Mr.Book tries to stop, but the blood continues to pull more and more of his psychic energy, burning away at his natural psychic blocks.

Eventually, the energy reaches critical mass, and is released in a massive explosion. Mr. Book manages to survive, but the Rubric Termies are scrap, and the remaining warband is killed off.

Mr. Book attempts to fix the termies, but finds he utterly lacks the fine control required to coax the spirits energy back into the armor. He soon finds that he lacks almost any fine psychic control all.

However, the accident has removed the normal limiters in his mind for psychic energy, and he quickly finds out that even his casual thoughts carry a phenomenal psychic weight. He finds that his daydreams and idle thoughts cause the scraps of metal and armor around him to move and form together with purpose. Though he lacks the fine control to rebuild a single suit of armor, he has the capacity to animate a battlefield of debris.

Ok, this is getting a lot longer than I thought, so let me break down the army theme.

The main HQ is a herald of Tzeetch (Mr. Book). The entire army is comprised of animated junk. Every single thing is scraps of armor, guns, vehicles, etc. All animated by Mr. Book. The idea being that when there is an incursion, all the enemy sees is junk pour out of a warp rift and fall to the ground. Only to shamble together into enemies as soon as Mr. Book takes the field.

Modeling wise, I like the idea of this, because it allows me to make some really fanciful/funny/weird models. Like I have a shot-up suit of power armor crawling forward on it's belly. Or another one I made, which is a dragon looking thing make out of power armor backpacks and shoulder pads.

I plan on making the more 'important' models out of gears and clockwork bits, to represent a more controlled construction, and thus more powerful.

So, for anyone who actually read through that whole thing, what do you think?

~Murphey

Murphey wrote:So, for anyone who actually read through that whole thing, what do you think?

sounds awesome!
(its kinda similar to my Zombie theme, but constructs made of scrap rather than corpses)

looking forward to seeing some conversions (especially considering i am still undecided as to what sort of shape i should make my Corpse Gollem).

cheers

~ Tim

Mr book Ninja, rewatched that last week.
If the child was stuck in a dreadnought that was becoming more possessed and using demon spawn (both sexually and from demon weapons etc etc0.. it would be fairly obvious to me that he would have grown into the image of his father now with raiment of his Dahi-Maru.. so he'd be a soul grinder.( a pretty bad ass one)
i'd also suggest that MR boko having had such a warp encounter and having beomce unpredicable but also more powerfull is probably best reflected by the blue scribes (hes fairly good efficency wise too)
Good start.

killmaimburn wrote:so he'd be a soul grinder.( a pretty bad ass one)
...
is probably best reflected by the blue scribes (hes fairly good efficency wise too)

agreed x 2.

you could use a Dread torso and put it onto the lower body of a Defiler/Soulgrinder, and the add mutated arms coming out of the original sockets.

~ Tim

Well, as for representing the son, I already had a model for him, as he was a Tzeetchian dreadnought (in 3.5) with 13 armor, flames of Tzeentch, two CC weapons, etc etc.

Basically, hes a chaos dreadnought model that I beefed up with armor pieces from other chaos dreads, one arm is a modified Tyranid crushing claw, he has greenstuff tenticles wrapped around his right leg and claw, and he has numerous hands reaching out imploringly from holes in his armor (as if begging for help).

Overall, I'm pretty sure I want to keep the model to represent him, and a 13 armor dreadnought is not that far away from a 13 armor soulgrinder, mechanically speaking.

So far, the armies layout is as such:

Mr. Book (modeled as a multi-arm terminator with wings made of junk, standing on debris. Model is still being made)
Herald of Tzeentch
Chariot
Soul Devourer
Breath of Chaos
Master of Sorcery

The Junk-Mound: (modeled as a small mountain of animated junk)
Great unclean one. (I found this the best rules to represent a large mass of rusted debris that slowly crashes towards you, and small arms fire doing very little to stop it.)
Could of Flies.

Clockwork Hero: (Modeled as a brass clockwork 'knight', armored in pieces of terminator armor. Fairly large.)
Herald of Khorne
Chariot of Khorne
Fury of Khorne
Unholy Might
Blessing of the blood god.

Animated Junk: (Modeled as random/whimsical aggregates of junk. Empty suits of armor, rusted street lights, etc)
Three 10-man units of pink horrors, 1 bolt of tzeentch and icon in each squad.

Flying Bombs: (modeled as animated jump packs/engines/flying armor stuffed with explosives/grenades/etc.)
10 Screamers of Tzeentch.

The Son (Modeled as described above)
Soul Grinder
Phlegm upgrade.

Clockwork Bruiser (Modeled as a clockwork knight, very large, armored in pieces of dreadnoughts. different sections painted for different SM chapters, showing the "scrapyard" style)
Soul Grinder
Phlegm upgrade.

Total: 1500 points.

As far as using the Bluescribes as a representation of Mr. Book, I actually refuse to use special characters in my armies (even in apocalypse). I tend to find that they are too powerful. So everyone takes them, and all armies start looking way, way too similar.

Not to mention, I never liked it when a game just handed me massive power. I'd rather have to figure out a good build and army synergy on my own.

Thanks for the feedback guys

~Murphey

Re: SC's, remember that in the newer codex books the Special Characters are really just archetypes now, rather than truly unique. but hey, its still up to you of course!

cheers

~ Tim

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:Re: SC's, remember that in the newer codex books the Special Characters are really just archetypes now, rather than truly unique. but hey, its still up to you of course!

cheers

~ Tim

Hmm, from everything I've seen, I wouldn't consider them "archetypes". If you read the details on The Skulltaker, Calgar, Kugoth, shrike, etc; they all have a very specific backstory, and are individuals.

But ultimately, I hate to see the game devolve into a "my special character can beat your special character" scenario, so I simply do not use them.

That aside though, what do you think of the demons list?

~Murphey

Murphey wrote:Hmm, from everything I've seen, I wouldn't consider them "archetypes". If you read the details on The Skulltaker, Calgar, Kugoth, shrike, etc; they all have a very specific backstory, and are individuals.

thats just the fluff given to those particular characters though - ruleswise a lot of the SCs arent that unique anymore. Skulltaker's entry for example could be used to represent any particularly mighty Khornate champion - it wouldnt have to be *the* Skulltaker.

Murphey wrote:That aside though, what do you think of the demons list?

KMB is the Daemon expert, but looking at the list, it does seem a bit top heavy and light on Troops. would you consider using any of the other Troop types?

cheers

~ Tim

Murphey wrote: what do you think of the demons list?

in general or yours?
Yours I'd make more clockwork heros as bloodcrushers (downgrade the herald) ,and less flying bombs (fluffwise you could always have the junk pile upgrade to that charector that throws stuff)
general I like the list.. it took me ages to get around it but I do like it.. but everyone who says its top tier doesn't know how to make lists that are luck proof.

killmaimburn wrote:

Murphey wrote: what do you think of the demons list?

in general or yours?
Yours I'd make more clockwork heros as bloodcrushers (downgrade the herald) ,and less flying bombs (fluffwise you could always have the junk pile upgrade to that charector that throws stuff)
general I like the list.. it took me ages to get around it but I do like it.. but everyone who says its top tier doesn't know how to make lists that are luck proof.

Truthfully, as a codex, I think the Demons are one of worst.(power wise) They run into a host of problems due to their special rules, not the least of which is the DS issue on terrain heavy boards. The number of times I've had a unit wiped out due to one lone demon landing in a wall, I can't even begin to count.

That being said, they can do some pretty nifty things, and against armies that are not prepared for them, they can sure do a lot of damage.

As far as replacing the hero with BloodCrushers, I've had some really, really bad experiences with Bloodcrushers. I'm not a fan of them. The Herald gets str 7 attacks on the charge at I6, which allows him to take down a hive tyrant with him fairly handily, where as bloodcrushers get Implant attacked long before they even get a chance to swing.

My opinion on most Khorne units in the codex (heralds aside) is that they tend to have too narrow a range of optimum functioning. Bloodletters have no gernades, low saves, and average toughness, so charging into cover against generic units will get you chipped away/killed before you swing. Bloodcrushers are just a bit too slow movement wise, and initiative wise. So they tend to get dragged down by genestealers, Banshees, Harlies, termies, and a host of other baddies.

Sorry, got on a rant there. Damn insomnia is making me a bit loopy, where was I...?

Oh yes. As far as the Hero goes, I also really like the base I of 5. So even if you are charged by a unit of LC termies, you can pretty handily kill off enough of them that you have a good chance of surviving, because you are catching them before they swing.

Also, Bloodcrushers come with 60 mm bases, so when you are DSing them, its REALLY easy to scatter into a really bad spot.

~Murphey

P.S. Ok, I'm gonna nab some Zs before I start ranting too much more. Gnight all!

i've tried a herald on chariot once b 4, and then opted for the 2 bloodcrushers, but having read Murphy's comments Im going to give them another try...

maybe I could get u to look over my GT khorne list Murphy.. hereIve been developing it with the help of some members ready for the 14th March.

EDIT: "luck proof" ?? what's that mean Toby?

KInG wrote:EDIT: "luck proof" ?? what's that mean Toby?

i think he means that a lot of how well the Codex does comes down to pure luck:
- who gets the first turn (or who gets to choose who goes first)
- whether you get the half of the force that you want
- when the rest of the force comes into play
- where everything scatters to

you could limit this effect by:
- assuming your opponent will get the choice of who goes first, and build/plan accordingly
- make both halves of your force identical
- ??? (take lots of units, to balance even things out? but then you suffer in KP...)
- take lots of Icons

none of which are that great really.

~ Tim
p.s. i just realised that my Zombie list hasnt taken any of those precautions

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:you could limit this effect by:

Kind of.. Luck proofing is the tangential opposite ( ) of the eldar glass knife. A list that doesn't care about dice, doesn't need for X to be applied to Y before it falls down. these lists are usually fairly monosolabic and chock full of redundancies..If something is good then take it times 6 etc.
Examples would be.. the first smurf list I took against king (year or so back).. 150 shots (mostly stong).. it didn't matter if the first 110 didn't kill him.
50 pie plates, doesn't matter if the scatter is awfull an army thats not all hidden in av14 will just vanish. Super falcons with CC in 4th (so what if your shooting at them my tactics will work)
A lot of codexs have a list that you can take (max boots on ground, max mechmax FOC) that can still be effective with appalling luck and at 60% casualties.They aren't the best..thats why I compare it to the eldar glass knife.. its just a list build style-rather than meaning its invincible.
You can't do it with demons.(just to go through tims remedies 1)generall, everybody should 2)Not a good idea. you want those CC troops down+ you want those big scary tanks gone. 3)Lots of units is always fun, KPs be damned, just make sure they are the right units. you can cover more ground, don't get bogged down or danced around by fast stuff so much 4)more than 2 is a whole unit, and you still don't have a guarentee that the 2 in the first(?) wave will land safely, near anything and still be there turn 2.
Demons has too many variables to keep in check.(that said I think the points take it into effect a bit- if you have the half you want and perfect scatter..its an evil army list)
(note its frowned upon by some to take lists that remove luck from a dice game )
BTW shouldn't this be shuffled to kings thread so murphys fluff/list thread can stay on topic?

On topic

Murphey wrote:As far as replacing the hero with BloodCrushers,The Herald gets str 7 attacks on the charge at I6, which allows him to take down a hive tyrant with him fairly handily, where as bloodcrushers get Implant attacked long before they even get a chance to swing.

For that you lose 2 wounds,(5 less attacks base,7 on charge, which is a btter chance for popping rear armour) and the ability to rather rudely admittedly ignore, stack/spread wounds, your still slow.. and you can't grab multi units to tar pit. I guess if you play against a lot of nids it makes sense .

Murphey wrote:Also, Bloodcrushers come with 60 mm bases, so when you are DSing them, its REALLY easy to scatter into a really bad spot.

Whats the RAw size for a 40k space chariot?