What I want from Codex: Chaos Legions (or whatever they name it)

I've obviously been fiddling with my Traitor legion, after all, that is what this blog is primarily dedicated to. That and Heresy era stuff in 40k. Now, as anyone who reads the blog knows, I'm not using the current Chaos Codex, but I know I haven't ever said what my real complaints about that Codex actually are and why I choose to not use it. So... allow me to enumerate.

The current Chaos Codex is a minimalistic attempt that destroys most of the flavor of Chaos and turns it into a bland pile of crap that performs poorly on both the battlefield and in capturing the imagination of most gamers(myself included).

The troops are generic and lacking in flavor. The four core cult forces are just that, 4 different units, and honestly only two of them are worth taking. The Berzerkers and the Plague Marines are, as everyone knows, better choices than Noise Marines and the shambling monstrosities that are the Thousand Sons. When you take them in comparison to other, newer (and older) codices, then you have no reason to even attempt to play as a Chaos army, it's simply not interesting or effective. Sure, the Lash+Oblit spam works on troops out of their metal boxes, but in 5th edition as we all know, Mech is king.

What I want to see in the Legions codex is not just a return to each Legion being unique, but each Legion having different, and viable builds when compared to one another. Obviously, I fully expect that we will see a lot of the same faces as in the previous books, Abaddon, Ahriman, Kharn, etc, but I want to see new characters. And by new, I don't mean just Abaddon with a facelift, I mean utterly new (special and generic) characters, preferably one per legion. The characters should unlock options for the entire army depending on what Legion they are dedicated to.

For example, a Word Bearers Acolyte or whatever their Chaplains are called could unlock something like making your generic marines into something akin to "Devoted" and give them all stubborn and relentless instead of whatever generic rules all chaos marines get. A Warsmith from the Iron Warriors could give all troops armed with a special or heavy weapon the tank hunters special rule and the bolster cover rule like the Tech Priests. The Alpha Legion dude could give something like all marines gain stealth and/or infiltrate. Things that make it obvious that your entire army, or at least parts of it, are actually acting in synergy with other parts of the army.

And really, the World Eaters deserve a bit more than just furious charge. Maybe more specialization in their assault troops or similar. Hell, give back the old Chain Axe rule and allow the Khornate Berzerkers to have rending or something like it in CC. Make the Legions unique and interesting again. Make me want to pay money to buy that codex, make me want to play my Iron Warriors as Iron Warriors.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

The Iron Warriors

Ladies, Gentlemen, and all points in between. Allow me to present some of the Iron Warriors. Now, I know this isn't anywhere close to all of the Iron Warriors I've got done, but it is all of them that I have with dry bases. Yes the bases are currently a very boring gray rock color. That will be changing tomorrow once the rest of the bases are dry and I can paint them with my volcanic ash scheme.

Until then, enjoy the current paint level. Part of two squads, the Pioneers and the Engineers. Also two missile launchers, the Sanguinary Priests, and some of the lightning claw and thunder hammer & storm shield terminators. Every head except one of the Sanguinary Priests is from Maxmini, as are the back packs.

With luck as I said, I will get more of them based up tomorrow and closer to finished, and maybe I'll get a chance to start cracking on one of the war smiths. Probably the terminator one.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

Finished reading Outcast Dead

I got the Outcast Dead last night. I opened it and got nearly half way through the book yesterday, and I finished it tonight. I loved that while it didn't deal with the overarching Heresy, it did deal with the Big E and showed him as a more sympathetic character than the arrogant prick he has been portrayed as in earlier books.

However, I am still rather upset that we have still only had 2 glimpses of the Iron Warriors. One in the short story in the Age of Darkness collection, and a bit more than that in The First Heretic.

I want a glimpse into the actual Legion.

And less Rogal Dorn, seriously, that guy is a gigantic dick.

Iron Within, Iron Without

Project log update. 11/7/11

Ok, so I finished off the Pioneer squad. I finished fixing the Sergeants for the three squads I have finished.

Right now we have the following finished.

Garrison Squad. 8 marines with varying weapons, either axes or chain swords plus bolt pistol. 2 guys with real meltaguns. 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. The Sergeant has the head that I have denoted into being the veteran helmet. These guys were pictured before on the blog.

Construction Squad. 8 marines with bolt pistol and hammer. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 Duncan brand kitbash that I need to do a tutorial on). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol, as the above Sergeant he has the veteran helmet. No pictures yet, will get those up ASAP.

Pioneer Squad. 8 marines with axes and bolt pistols. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 kitbash). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. Again, veteran helmet, and still no pictures.

Now, I have gone through all my bits boxes, I scrounged, I scavenged, and I finagled my way into finding enough bolt pistols, kitbashed meltas, powerfist, heads, backpacks, and torso's to do up a total of 7 more marines. Sadly, doing this will use the last of the heads I have from Maxmini so I'm going to have to order more before I can continue building. Now, if I pull the heads from the two built devastators, I can bump the squad up to 9, including the Sergeant. Only one problem. No legs. Not a single set unless I crack open my last box of tactical marines to steal their legs, which I will probably do.

But I won't have any devastators built, except two without heads. Now, I've got a different weapon batch for this squad, the Chaos Warrior/Chaos Marauder swords to go with their bolt pistols. Which gives each squad built so far individual appearances. One with cloaks, one axes, one hammers, one swords. Sure the sword squad will only have 9 marines (if I pull the heads off the Devs), but I won't have any of the Devs built.

I also won't have any characters built in the style of the army at all, which I really need to do. Also, all the marines so far have the regular, shitty style shoulder pads which I hate. Also, the majority of pieces in each squad are imperial, with insignia shaved away. Sure they look heresy, and sure the backpacks, heads, and weapons look damned good, but that's about all.

What I really need to do is put together the Forge World stuff and magnetize them with the 10 spare backpacks I'll have left over after doing whatever it is that I end up doing with the Devs/Sword squad.

I guess I better lay out a plan for the next little bit.

#1. More heads and backpacks from Maxmini. Either I've got three fully completed squads and two Dev squads fully complete (I've got two spare of the Veteran helmets, but not enough missile launchers), or I have three fully completed squads and one nearly complete. I figure I'll bulk it out to 6 squads of 10, just in case I ever field them, say... in Ard Boyz or something. So, just on the assumption that I'm going with the Devs being complete... I need 27 heads for the three squads, minus the 10 for the Forge World guys, and 3 total of the veteran helmets. Which still leaves me without having completed a single character figure. I guess I better figure to finish off the third squad of Devs also. Even if I just bump the Devs up to 6 people in total (if I ever feel like playing as Space Wolves, or as a just in case for the rumored Chaos Legion codex next year) and don't go with a single body after these... I'm going to need...26 heads. Truthfully... I may as well grab 40 heads of the regular heads, so I can build more special weapons as needed (I have plenty of Plasma Guns laying about), also that way I can bump the Devs up with a few spare bodies. Vet heads however, I only need 4 of. Better push that to 20 of those heads, so I can do a swap in when I start making characters and so I can make more Termies. Though I may want to get different heads on them just for differentiation. Backpacks... crap on a stick. I need nearly 50 more.

#2. Legs. Better buy more. Ditto with some meltaguns, the kitbash works, but I prefer real meltaguns.

#3. Hand weapons/bolt pistols. Yep, gonna needs some of those. Just for the one final squad, that's 10 bolt pistols, and 10 of some kind of weapon. Maybe I'll go with chainswords for those guys, I dunno yet. Must ponder.

#4. More missile launchers. I may have enough to finish the one squad of Devs if I go that route. But that still leaves me either 8 or 10 short. Better get that corrected.

#5. Shoulder pads. Ugh, I really hope that Maxmini gets those new pads released soon, I wanna buy them and cut the shitty pads I have now off my guys. At a ballpark if I only go with one shoulder per guy, that's still nearly 100 pads, and if I go with two pads per guy, as I want to... that's probably 200 pads. Lemme see here... 50 guys in the troops section, 15 in the Devs, misc in the characters/spares... call it ballpark 150 in reality. So, just on the safe side... 160-170.

#6. Vehicles/Dreads. Contemptor pattern dreads are fairly obvious. The Rhino's I can go with the ones I have and just add bling, or I could go all nuts and order Forge World Doors. I also should grab a Land Raider or two for my guys.

All that on top of painting. Fucks sake, this is going to be expensive as shit. But, I knew that when I started this project, and for the first time in a long while, I am going to follow it through when it comes to building this army in the way that I want to.

After all that... painting. Which I truly hate to do. I'm going to need more paint and shit.

Thank god for the new house I'm getting, at least I'll have a dedicated hobby room/man cave to build this stuff in.

For now... sleep.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

General theme for the army

So, since I've been working on the Iron Warriors, I've had a small bit of an idea. Not much of one, I admit, but at least a bit of an idea. No, not for how to play them, I've been playing 40k for so long that I'm pretty sure I know how to play power armor, especially Blood Angel power armor which is what I'm using the Iron Warriors for (Until the rumored Legion codex at least).

But, that said, I've had this concept in the back of my head for a while. Now, the Iron Warriors were never the feral world style guys, they were the seige engineers, the builders. Methodical, grim, and utterly unforgiving. But, even in a culture where those aspects are most embraced there is always room for betterment, individuality, and intrigue.

Now, seige warfare is cool. Guys who enhance their bodies with metal, and power armor, also... cool. Their vast grasp of technology, once again, awesome. But we have to remember, they were spread out, stationed in small numbers on freshly conquered worlds to keep them in line. In keeping with that, each squad is going to be visibly different from the next while keeping some of the same theme. The first squad of Iron Warriors that I got put together all wear the same cloak. They all have the same head from Max Mini, and have a mix of weapons (close combat wise that is, 2 Meltaguns and 8 Bolt Pistols ain't exactly a variety.) 1 has a power fist, 4 have chain swords, and 5 have axes taken from the chaos warriors box for Fantasy.

Now, I've got, I think, 20 or more heads coming from Maxmini which is the same head that every single one of the Iron Warriors is going to get except for the Termies and characters who are all getting the heads that I put on them already.

The next squad, well, one group of guys with cloaks covering their backpacks is enough. These aren't space wolves after all. The next batch will all have the awesome backpacks from maxmini. I've got 24 of those coming with this order along with the 20 additional heads. While I can't really do much with the bodies right now, I do know that both of the next two squads will have those backpacks.

Now, there's a very interesting set of shoulder pads at http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/shoulder-pads-tr-set-10-p-432.html. I'll attach a picture of the shoulder pads at the bottom. Now, if those shoulder pads fit regular power armor, I'm going to order right at 40 of them so I can outfit the next two squads in similar style to one another. I figure those two squads will represent "line" squads that were not deployed to hold down some backwater system, and didn't get a chance to add personal embellishments to their armor. I do believe however that I'm going to do a mix of weapons for those guys as well. However instead of the axes, these guys will have the hammers from the warriors of Chaos, because a hammer makes a better ideal for a tool than does say a mace, at least, in my mind, and these are after all, siege troops.

So, that'll be one squad of guys with cloaks, two squads of guys with little to no variation between them, and to that we'll add the Forgeworld assault squad I got, which will almost certainly need to be magnetized so I can swap backpacks or Jump Packs as needed. So, that's 40 guys, that even unpainted will give off the same theme of the army. Old, resolute, and Iron.

But, that's just 40 guys. Frequently I toss down 50-60 marines with power armor. If I do that... I'm gonna need more bodies. Now, I could just do up each of the squads into packs of 20. 20 guys from the line squads, 20 guys with cloaks, and 20 guys from Forge World. But honestly... I don't really want to do that. I need to find a new way to do another 20 Iron Warriors that look unique, yet similar in theme to the army as a whole. Of course, I could just roll with another pack of guys from Forge World.

I guess that other than the line squad, I better get to putting the Forge World stuff together.

Here's the picture of the shoulder pads I'm talking about.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

I'm going to use this blog in an attempt to detail my journey into creating a Pre Heresy Iron Warriors Army for 40k. Now, I already own an Imperial Guard Army, and a Blood Angels army, and I owned an Iron Warriors army many many years ago, which sadly through mischance, hazard, and theft has gone missing. Much like my original Blood Angel army has.

But that aside, I still love the Iron Warriors, even if the current Chaos Codex sucks a gigantic bag of donkey cock.

So, Iron Warriors it will be. Now, I have some forge world stuff,  (20 MkII Assault Marines, and a 5 man squad of MkII regular marines) so as that armor style is older, and more in line with the Iron Warriors being one of the original legions, I think I'll be using them as the primary stylistic basis for the army. I'm also starting out with 10 assault terminators, which I ordered heads and shoulder pads for from MaxMini. So, with the idea of using the current Blood Angels codex (Because screw the current Marine Codex), I'm going to set up my Iron Warriors in the following format.

My HQ will obviously be a warsmith of some kind, what type of warsmith, I do not yet know. I do know I won't be using a psycher, because I don't really care for them to very much. I think that instead I'll either roll with a reclusiarch as the HQ, or a Terminator captain of some kind. I may roll with Tycho, as his army wide boost is a nice bump as opposed to the rest of the special characters.

Elites, probably not to many Sanguinary Priests to be honest, while their ability is nice, it doesn't really fit to well with the idea for the Iron Warriors. I will however use a few of them, but probably not nearly as many as I normally would for my Blood Angels. I'm thinking the Terminators and possibly a chaplain will be the primary focus of my Elites. The chaplain can be the junior warsmith, or something along those lines. Possibly the Warsmith's Equerry.

Troops however is the rub. While the Iron Warriors are known for massive embankments of traps and fortifications, that doesn't really work to very well for 40k. I admit that I could go with a tech marine in the elite slot for the bolter defenses bit, and is admittedly something to think about, right now I'm just not quite sure about it. I am certain however that I want the Iron Warriors to be a line breaker company. Which will mean lots of assault squads, probably in vehicles, backed up by heavy firepower. Probably 4 full strength assault squads in Rhino's, and possibly 2 tactical squads if I get around to them.

That sets the HQ, Elite, and Troops sections up, at least, it gives me an outline with which to work. From there I have a need of actual firepower, and the only real way to get that is either in a vehicle (which is fine with me), or with Devastators. Personally I love vehicles, but for this situation I think I'll be going with the Devs. Probably going to magnetize them at least somewhat, and primarily I think I'll be going with Lascannons and Missile Launchers.

Fast attack however, I am uncertain about. The Vanguard are a possibility, but I don't really want to do more jump packers, and because of that I may well just opt out of those guys utterly. Land speeders are nice, and I will probably end up with a few of them in the end, but for now... no. Bikes however, those are a distinct possibility, as are Baal Predators (With suitable Iron Warriors alterations of course).

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the first two of the Iron Warriors I have managed to slap together, without paint so far of course.

Two of the terminators I have. One dual lightning claws, one thunder hammer and storm shield. And because we are going pre heresy, there won't be an actual thunder hammer, how about instead a thunder mace, and rather than the current style for the storm shield, I'll be converting Chaos Warrior shields for these guys. So... Thunder Mace and Shield, and Lightning claw.

Yes, the termies are converted, I used different heads, the maxmini shoulder pads, and bulked their legs up a lot to make up some of the difference so that they actually look larger and more imposing. Forgive the horrible lighting in the pictures, I'll try taking better ones eventually. I'll also include a horrible picture of the idea I had for doing a Sanguinary Priest in termie armor for these guys, as I may end up using them together eventually, like I said, for right now, I'm not quite certain and will figure it out eventually.