What's the most grim dark of CSM?

[Isengrin]

I got the meaning you intended, but regardless, I'm not a fan of the night lord themed models or accessories. They look cartoony to me, and the traditional blue and red and bright gold are just too colourful to be evil.*

*my subjective opinion of course.

In my indubitably unbiased opinion I have to echo Gederas. There's an easy solution if you don't care for the red and gold elements in the Night Lords scheme, just take a look below.

In the last few years I've come across MANY different armies that looked really grim and gloomy unconstrained by their legions colours. It just depends a lot on your painting style and the overall concept. But I also agree with the Word Bearers suggestions, those can look wicked!

[Reskin]

I got the meaning you intended, but regardless, I'm not a fan of the night lord themed models or accessories. They look cartoony to me, and the traditional blue and red and bright gold are just too colourful to be evil.*

*my subjective opinion of course.

In my indubitably unbiased opinion I have to echo Gederas. There's an easy solution if you don't care for the red and gold elements in the Night Lords scheme, just take a look below.

In the last few years I've come across MANY different armies that looked really grim and gloomy unconstrained by their legions colours. It just depends a lot on your painting style and the overall concept. But I also agree with the Word Bearers suggestions, those can look wicked!

Dude I love the muted metals and darker theme you have, they look absolutely savage! Tough decisions, you are almost making me second guess myself!

Edited October 22, 2020 by Reskin

[Xenith]

Hopping in on Team WB here - they feel like a natural contrast to Grey Knights, both in terms of colour palette and modus operandii. The Word Bearers are the most likely to be enacting some grand ritual to enable a daemonic incursion that a GK force would have to deal with.

 

NL, while indeed grim dark psychopaths, don't seem like they wuld specifically need the GK 's to deal with them. Also on the killing civillians for laughs side of NL's...well, they kill them one at a time for a laugh, or en-masse for some reason as they see humans as cattle, but the Word Bearers are the ones that sacrifice whole populations because a voice in their head told them to, or they want to turn a world into a daemon world.

[Reskin]

I dug around my garage and found the box released for 6th edition, with the Dark Angels and the Chaos army with the hellbrute I think its called and some cultists.

 

Bought the box set, didn't play any of the armies, so I'm gonna sell the DA and keep the chaos as a base, haven't put 'em together yet, but that should be a decent place to start.

 

Need to get my colour scheme and finish some GK stuff before I start though.

I don't own a chaos codex, but does anyone know exactly what the units were in that box set? I've lost the instruction manual and all the relevant paperwork that came in that.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Reskin

[WarriorFish]

That would be the Dark Vengeance box set, a nice start to your CSM in some Cultists, CSM with Lord and Helbrute The CSM come with various weapon load outs so wouldn't make for CSM squads directly, but they'd make great Champions (Aspiring aka Sergeants, or Exalted aka stab-Lieutenants). Alternatively they'd be a Chosen squad but you'll want some of the bread and butter first.

[Doom Herald]

I feel I have to throw in the Crimson Slaughter as a Grimdark warband, especially since you mentioned the Dark Vengeance set and they are the CSM warband from that set. They are driven mad, cursed by the gods. They were rejected by the Imperium long before then for being too rigid and overzealous. They are betrayed at every turn, be it Fabius Bile offering them geneseed and stabbing them in the back, Abbadon and the Word Bearers asking for them to participate in the 13th Black Crusade and trying to sacrifice and strand them. Even their own duty betrayed them and turned them into what they are now. They kill, because if they don't the ghosts of those they have killed will drive them mad and if they do, they are granted a reprieve from the spirits. They are utterly hopeless, utterly corrupt. Daemonic possession and corruption runs rampant among their ranks.

 

What's more Grimdark than loalyalists betrayed by their duty, literally haunted by those they killed by a curse from the gods, and betrayed by everyone constantly? Just to top it off, the most powerful are marked out by their helms growing longer and longer horns. They are alone; at once they are victims and villains. They have no knowledge of what legion they descend from and none to call brothers, except for those who share their curse.

 

Personally, I like the color scheme on the Dark Vengeance box more than the official color scheme that replaced it. I find that Khorne Red with Agrax Earthshade does this well, though I like using the Agrax Earthshade Gloss because the armor appears to be a little shiny to me on the box art. One extra bit of flair some add to them is using AoS Spirit Hosts to represent the specters that are supposed to haunt them, since the specters are supposed to manifest more prominently in battle. Admittedly, their rules are very lacking in 8th/current 9th and I wouldn't expect much more for them. That said, before we even had rules for them in 8th, I ran them as "counts as" Nightlords since Nightlords rules actually do a great job emulating the way they played when they first came out.

 

 

Edit: I almost forgot my favorite battle cry from Kranon: "Kill for Silence!"

Edited October 23, 2020 by Doom Herald

[MaliGn]

I've been browsing the heretic threads for WIP's and MaliGn's Word Bearers and Johanhgg's World Eaters look stunning! Both are fantastically sadistic and downright evil in their own rights. I cant decide, but I'll be stealing their paint schemes when I do!

 

Tzen has confirmed my new appreciation for the Word Bearers.

 

I hearing exactly what you're saying WrathOfTheLion, that looks dark and evil without even trying to hard.

 

That's my gripe with some of the sculpts and colour schemes for some of the heretic arstartes chapters, I feel they try too hard. But I'm feeling inspired by all the WB pics

Was just browsing and was surprised to see myself name-checked! Thanks for the kind words, I'll let you in on a little secret about my own word bearers, I nicked a lot of my ideas from Tzen's earlier Word Bearers force (the one that was featured in white dwarf a few years back).

 

I don't really consider what I do to be particularly "grimdark" I just want to tap into the over-the-top elaborate and baroque vibes in a lot of the artwork that doesn't easily translate to the scale of the models we use. That said, the newer chaos sculpts have a lot of that stuff "baked-in" that I spent ages adding to the old range to get the vibe I wanted so there's that.

 

I also paint quite clean rather than with the heaps of battle damage and grime that gets associated with the "Blanchitsu" style of grimdark stuff.

 

If you like the look of word bearers stuff I would recommend you try and find Razakael (I think that's the spelling), and totgeboren's old threads loads of cool stuff there.

[Reskin]

All good bro, you do sick work! Gotta give credit where its due.

[TorvaldTheMild]

Grim Dark before 7th I would have said death guard but they've become too cartoony.  At the moment it has to be CSM's as they look the most grim dark so far but we'll have to wait and see.  You can convert though, my World Eaters look insanely grim dark as you can see in my profile pics but I spent a long time converting them.  I'm hoping GW learn from their goofy Death Guard and do my World Eaters justice.