Zuvassin

Not sure why people think GW really want or would ever try to make Marines match the lore. Marines matching the lore are coming 10 models to an entire 2000pt game. Not 10 units - which is what GW wants to you to buy - but 10 models. Game mechanics (and sales considerations) will always trump lore expectations. The moment you start jacking up Marine toughness, you either compensate by lowering the model count (bad for GW), upping the lethality of other armies and/or downgrading the lethality of Marines to compensate (making the whole thing pointless and redundant), or leaving the Marines over-powered (bad for the game). Edited to Add: what I think the new rules will actually allow, lore-wise, is for Marines to more easily reflect the lore of them being very skilled at all aspects of war. You can finesse their chainswords or bolters without having to worry that a stat increase on the base model will break other options (like meltaguns) or other units or armies (IE changing all meltaguns to help Marines impacting Sisters of Battle with meltas).

No, because the point is that through the first editions of 40k, GW wasn’t beholden to printed lore. They commonly changed, edited, dropped, and added details to suit whatever then-current tastes or needs dictated. When 3rd edition launched, Andy Chambers even openly discussed that the infamously minimal lore of the rulebook and (early) 3rd edition codexes was intentional as they felt 40k did better with more mystery as well as with less confusion over conflicting lore bits in the stories. King’s story is important, but in its day, it was just part of the churn of White Dwarf lore at the time. What made it important is more retroactive - in time as people began trying to scrape together a coherent and expanded narrative for what increasingly became the foundational story of 40k rather than the random bit of background it still was (and remained) when Assault on Holy Terra was written. I don’t think modern gamers appreciate that Chaos and Chaos Marines have always been popular in 40k, but it wasn’t until the 2nd Ed Codex Chaos introduced Abaddon as the faction’s big bad that the Horus Heresy became more central to 40k as the Imperium vs Chaos in a revenge war over unsettled business displaced Ghazghkull Thraka and the perfidious Eldar as the primary enemy tropes of 40k.

If I may (and I'll preface this by explicitly stating I'm just one person, with zero greater authority than personal experience): I helped co-write the original Index Astartes article for the Word Bearers. The WB had been my primary army in 40k Second Edition, and back then, before social media groups and even fancy forums like this became the dominant areas for the hobby, a bunch of us hung out on (email) mailing lists - the greatest one being IGCOM. It was there that a bunch of us got to know the then-WD editor, Paul Sawyer, and some of us eventually got asked to help with writing the Index Astartes articles for the original 18 legions. At the time, the lore was pretty much what had come out in the Realm of Chaos books and the materials supporting Adeptus Titanicus, as well as some additions and retellings in what became Epic as well as the 2nd edition Codex Chaos and then expanded a bit too in the Horus Heresy boardgame (the original, IIRC they re-released an updated version about ten years ago or so). Point being, there was a lot of open space to figure things out. For example: in Rogue Trader (ie 40k First Edition), the Word Bearers were just a generic Khornate Traitor Legion (IIRC, alongside the Night Lords, really only showing up in a few color pages of Khorne Marine heraldry with the World Eaters taking center stage). The 2nd edition Codex Chaos had about the only real information on them, a relatively brief blurb about how Larger and the Word Bearers were rebuked by the Emperor for taking too long to build monuments and churches to him instead of pushing forward with conquest. So, in that sense, the seeds of Monarchia were there, just not explicitly named or spelled out. Another thing not super explicit was exactly who all was where during the Heresy. Beyond the main duel of Emperor, Sanguinius, and Horus (IE Blood Angels and Sons of Horus), the only other real indicators of who had been at the Siege of Terra (which IIRC was basically one of three main plot points of the Heresy at the time, alongside the Istvaan massacres and the "flight of the Eisenstein") were the Horus Heresy boardgame and a few of the legion blurbs in that 2nd edition Chaos-dex. So it was vaguely known that the Blood Angels, White Scars, and Space Wolves were present for the loyalists, as well as that the Emperor's Children and World Eaters were present but respectively not well organized by this point in the war (IE that the Emperor's Children would turn from the actual war to rampage against civilians across Terra). I had noticed that a lot of the people doing these IA articles were really trying to shoehorn their legion into the Siege. I had also noticed that the 2nd Edition Codex Chaos sorta implied, without really overtly stating, that Larger had actually fallen first. It didn't explicitly tie the two together, as I recall, it was more that you could read between the lines of "after the Emperor's rebuke, Lorgar's eyes were opened that the Emperor was not a real god and he thus went searching" and "by the time Horus turned, Larger and the Word Bearers had already blah blah blah". I saw a chance to make my beloved legion the actual first to fall, even before the most famous traitor primarch who the whole dang Heresy is named after. But I figured I'd have to be willing to sacrifice something to get that, and the obvious seemed to be to be one of the few people not pushing to make them the previously unknown star of the Siege or otherwise force them to be fitted into it. At the time, one of my best gaming friends was also involved - he'd been asked to write the Ultramarines IA. I asked if he'd be cool with it, then proposed that the WB and UM would be written to miss the siege due to the WB launching a surprise assault to pin the Ultramarines in the eastern end of the galaxy. This was approved, and I went to work coming up with details. I noticed in the 2nd ed Codex Ultramarines that Calth was mentioned as a dead world that had previously been something of a wealthy/luxury type world until its star started poisoning it. The blurb mentions nothing about the Heresy, I don't even recall if it explicitly mentions or even implies what exactly caused the star to kill the planet, but I saw the potential of a neat bit of lore to connect my favorite legion with my friend's favorite legion: Calth had been an important Ultramarine world and thus the target of a massive Word Bearer attack that would ultimately destroy it and pin the Ultras away from the Siege. Now, that initial idea had nothing of what got fleshed out in the novels about the underground war, the special Word Bearer ships, or the ruinstorm that served to be the thing that actually pinned the 13th in place for much of the Siege. I didn't even get to finish the IA as being in grad school my real life priorities took over. Anyways, nostalgia trip aside, I wanted to bring all that up because it really wasn't until the novels and subsequent FW game were started that the Heresy lore really was pushed into a formal "this is how it happened" shape. I think people nowadays maybe dismiss or don't believe or simply don't quite comprehend how off the cuff GW used to be with its lore. I think they're seen now - probably rightfully so - as this large corporation that likely has a super formal process to how background material gets created and vetted and sorted out, but that wasn't always the case. There used to be an interview with one of the early 40k people, perhaps even Rick Priestley himself, where the person mentions that the original lore was very explicit that power armour was Marine only. But that some "Marines" got sculpted that Rick felt were too outside the concept to be used as Marines, but he didn't have the resources to bin them or force a resculpt - 40k initially had little time and slots allotted to it. So he had to basically retro-invent the Inquisition and add the whole black carapace lore that technically anyone can use power armour, it's just only Marines who can make full use of it due to that implant. And that's really how it went. It's been said that the Horus Heresy was essentially the result of them needing a civil war story to explain why Adeptus Titanicus only had the exact same titans for both sides, but what gets overlooked is that the original story is essentially a rip-off of the 2000AD comic Rogue Trooper, which involves a sci-fi future war that's basically a retelling of the American Civil War and involves a plot where the "Traitor General" betrays the main character and his unit in a "dropside massacre". Similarly, you can see a lot of elements from other 2000AD comics worked into 40k, from "Kaos" worshipping robots (ABC Warriors), the hive-cities and weaponized judges of Judge Dredd, and Nemesis the Warlock, a comic about a psychic alien being hunted by a xenophobic human Imperium centered on Earth (called Termite), ruled by a Grand Inquisitor and his "Terminators". The up-pointing arrow that Marine Tactical Squads use as their marker is actually a re-use of what in Nemesis the Warlock is a stylized atomic mushroom cloud image used to warn people of highly-irradiated places. 40k lore was often very "seat of their pants" in terms of how GW came up with things. That includes the Heresy - they'd make stuff up, let random people like us help make stuff up, and when they realized that the gaming community as a whole were latching on to some of these things, they'd double down on them as basically fan-service. Hell, even as relatively late as the early 2000s, when they released the Inquisitor 54mm role-playing game, there's a supplement that covers a story in which someone's trying to locate a being who's heavily implied to either be Sanguinius himself or the son of Sanguinius. Heresy-wise, it's really only been with the shotgunning of random names, events, and such that came about when they made the Horus Heresy card game and associated "Visions" art-books, and then basically codified them with the Black Library novels, that any of this lore was suddenly fleshed out in a formal and competent way. And even then, GW still has an out - the first or second book of the Dawn of Fire series for 40k has an in-universe reference to the Horus Heresy novels as "romances" of the Heresy that are popular pulp tales within the Imperium. So even now, you could always claim the Horus Heresy narrative we currently have is just the distorted fiction known to the citizens of the 41st millennium, lol.

Has anyone tried running a WB armored spearhead? I know tanks and tank squadrons aren't in a good place, so to speak, and Word Bearers aren't super well-known for being tank-heads anyways. Having said that, Word Bearers were my 2nd ed 40k army, so I have a nostalgia factor, and at the same time I'm not really interested in running the "intended" WB army of daemons and possessed (no offense, just don't really care for any of the models so far). As such, I'm aware it'll be an underpowered list, but is there anything useful with the basic Word Bearers special rules that would impact a tank-heavy list?

Depends on what the "point" of an army is to GW: Non-Marine allies for Imperial armies Thematic opponent force to pair with Genestealer Cults and Traitor Guard / Cultist themed Chaos armies more short-ranged/CC themed carapace army than Scions are as I suggested above - it would also allow GW to sell Necromunda kits to 40k gamers (if the army incorporated some of the gang kits as Imperial Cultists, auxiliary law squads, etc)

Outside Kill Team, it seems logical - and fairly straightforward - to implement the Arbites into Necromunda. We just saw the announcement of an Ogryn-sized automaton for them by Forgeworld. I bring up Necromunda because, if GW does fully integrate an Arbites "gang" into Necromunda, that opens the door for more plastic kits. Currently, beyond the basic ganger kit, a lot of Necromunda gangs have 3 additional plastic kits: a small vehicle kit for the Ash Wastes setting an upgrade sprue of additional weapons a set of gang-specific characters, such as Orlock Wreckers or Delaque wraiths, usually featuring 2-3 options with 2-4 models per option (e.g. the Orlock kit having 2x Arms Masters, 4x Wreckers, and a pair of doggos) GW seems to have a rule that any unit in a 40k codex must be plastic. Anything only available as a FW kit or a hybrid FW/GW kit doesn't go into the main codex army list, and only shows up as a supplemental data sheet (e.g. like they do for FW 30k tanks). Beyond that, for making a standalone 40k army, it'd really depend on the context. They're probably fine "as is" if the intent is to simply make them available as an allied or add-on unit for Imperial armies like Sisters, Guard, etc to take. Or even as one of a hodge-podge of entries in some sort of Inquisition or similar mini-codex. For something akin to a fuller army, or a semi-full army, the potential gaps would be: transport vehicle (would almost certainly be filled by standard Taurox, Chimera or Rhino options - it seems doubtful GW would commit to an Arbites-specific plastic vehicle kit, and as stated, this has to be a fully plastic kit to make it into a 40k codex) tank or similar combat vehicle (again, would almost certainly be a standard existing 40k kit being repurposed into an Arbites list) flyer (ditto) additional units - GW would either have to commit to further plastic kits to cover things you typically see in other armies - Terminator-like "heavy" troops, jump pack troops, biker troops, psykers, etc - or they'd have to find a way to basically work in some existing plastics to help with things. I'm no rumormonger or far-seer, so this is pure speculation, but here's some potential options if they truly wanted to do an Arbites army for 40k, but with me trying to keep it realistic in terms of new kit commitments by GW alongside the aforementioned "rule" GW seems to have about not allowing FW kits to be mainline entries in a 40k army: HQ: Commander figure (basically a stand-alone Judge using the basic kit, with encouragement to kit bash to make them more visually unique - could be supplemented by a Hired Gun type persona from an Arbites Necromunda range by FW for gamers that want a more unique or standout looking model to field) Inquisitor (makes sense to use the existing model range as they thematically fit) Psyker (probably either another stand-alone model using the basic kit, or one of the options for the Necromunda Arbites gang-specific characters, and either way supplemented by a resin Hired Gun model from FW for gamers wanting a fancier model) ELITES: Exaction Squads: in addition to the two "pure" squads of Vigilants and Subductors, I could see the Kill Team style squad used in 40k as an elite option, similar to the unique Deathwatch squad kit that got 40k rules to supplement the main 40k Deathwatch kits Support Characters, Part 1: this is where that plastic ganger-specific kit that Necromunda gangs get comes in handy - I could see something like a psyker judge or a sniper judge being fairly obvious options here, another idea might be something like a Judge-type that calls down orbital strikes from the Arbites fleet Support Characters, Part 2: obviously, some of the Kill Team roles could also be broken out into minor 40k character entries, like the dog handler and such TROOPS: Vigilant and Subductor Squads as the two base Arbite squads Palanite Enforcers / Palatine Subjugators: in terms of lore, the local planet law enforcement could be allies or enemies depending on their corruption and loyalties, but for 40k purposes, the Palatine Enforcer squad from Necromunda could be added as a somewhat less-elite squad - only downside is their armament options are not too different from what the Arbites have, but it'd be an option Navy Breachers: this may seem a bit random, but they'd be a bit more distinct from the Arbites than the Palanite squads, and lore-wise they could either represent the forces of the Arbites' own ships or gang-pressed Naval marines requisitioned by the Arbites to take on a corrupt planetary PDF or governor's personal forces Outcast Hive Scum / Cawdor: if you wanted something more akin to a "horde" option to help the semi-elite Arbites squads, you could have a generic unit like "Imperial Cultists" representing loyalist fanatics that side with the Arbites when they arrive to take on the corrupt local leaders FAST ATTACK: Judge Bikers: this would require that GW proper releases a bike kit similar to what they've been doing for Necromunda Ash Wastes, like the Orlock Quads or the bikes for Esher and Goliath - would also allow for biker versions of any Arbites HQ characters as well HEAVY SUPPORT: Taurox/Taurox Prime: the Taurox kit would theoretically work well here because it gives the Arbites both a combat vehicle option (Taurox Prime) and a straightforward transport option (Taurox), it isn't recycling the more iconic Rhino or Chimera kits outside of their standard armies, and I'd argue the visual look of the Taurox fits the Arbites look MISCELLANEOUS: Sanctioner Automata could be added via an Index type data sheet similar to the book they did for adding FW-only kits or 30k tanks into 40k any named/special character personas for Necromunda could be added in a similar manner, either as named characters or as generic equivalents Valkyries would be a tempting addition, giving them a flyer, but double-dipping both it and the Taurox from the Scions would probably be a bit too much (it's a shame that GW doesn't have a plastic kit for the Aquila Lander or Argus Lighter kits, either of which would have been perfect for an Arbites 40k list Again, all speculation and I'm sure plenty of people reading this will hate it. But 2-3 characters, 2-4 Arbites squads, both Taurox variants, and some repurposed Kill Team and/or Necromunda kits for some less elite infantry and you'd have a solid small army list. And the only new kits needed would be an Arbites characters kit and bike kit, both of which would fit the standard support for Necromunda gangs (and Arbites seem like a natural addition to Necromunda anyways). Throw in some data sheets for a few FW kits, and maybe allow some easy to ally options for some supplemental Scions, Guard squads, or Sisters of Battle, and you'd have a playable (but admittedly not too powerful) core for a 40k army.

The Night Lords' homeworld of Nostramo is also based on the prison colony "Nostromo", which is also from Joseph Conrad (the author of 'Heart of Darkness', which the film Apocalypse Now is based on and where Konrad Curze and M'Shen get their names from, directly and indirectly). Rick Priestley has degrees and training in archaeology and ancient Roman history. His original career path was to become an archaeologist with a focus on Roman sites in Britain. IIRC, he's stated in interviews that after a couple months of his first real archaeology job - which was basically crawling and sitting and kneeling in the dirt and mud uncovering objects carefully by the inchful of dirt - he decided to pursue his other passion, which was wargaming, lol. There's also a "King Gilloman" from some Merlin/King Arthur legends and tales, I think in particular ones regarding Stonehenge.

If they're going to significantly change the rules in any direction, it should be to replace them with Rogue Trader or 2nd ed 40k. Not only would that thematically fit the 'retro' style of HH, but it would encourage smaller games once people realize how every CC in the early days was individual combat.

Thank you for the compliment! I'm hoping to have smaller bits and pieces for most updates, with maybe some longer pieces here and there in-between. Thanks! I'm excited to start painting this army.

Date: 9228007.m31 Location: Segmentum Obscurus Source: VIII Legion Cruiser De Noctum Authorized: Lord-Commander Jhariuk Zuvassin, Master of the 36th Company, Regent of Melanchthon + + Thought for the Day: “We are the consequence of your actions.” + + Like almost all of my masters, Krychek was born of Terra, a child of the pits, a boy marked by the sins of his parents. Born with nothing, born from nothing, the first sons of the Eighth Legion arose during the last days of Unification and the first days of the Great Crusade. They were Astartes, warriors who had left behind the fate of rattling chains shimmering in the darkness, who had ascended into the living weapons of a golden Imperium. They had escaped their fates, and for that one would have thought them eternally grateful, that if any Legion could champion the hope of the Imperial Truth, it would have been them. And yet, why the Emperor ever glorified such wretched creatures became, I believe, a question that would torment Krychek and many of his kind, a question of fate and purpose that would gnaw at them, that would haunt them, as the first signs of their gene-father's madness began to corrupt their already brutal and inhuman tendencies. ​Unlike his Nostramo-born brothers who would come to dominate the Legion, Krychek cared little for titles or favor, for reward or promotion. In combat, he was merciless and capable, but not known for his blade-craft. His was the victory of the cunning, the skill of a survivor who cared little for the glory of honor or courage, a warrior of unspeakable and unstoppable cruelty when it suited him. He was not a sadist, not like the Nostramo-born, not like his Primarch, but he was cruel and without mercy, a willing blade in the willing hands of his masters. An opportunist on the battlefield, Krychek was a loyal warrior of the 36th Company, and would become, by the end, a trusted voice amongst his fellow sergeants as well as the senior officers of the Company. He would also become the first member of the 36th to be inducted into the Vor Zekhon, the warrior-lodge otherwise known as the Black Hand of Melanchthon. What compelled him to join such a fraternity, I cannot say nor guess, for outwardly Krychek was a loner, his humors melancholic, his silences as assertive as the war-cries of the Fifth or Sixth Legions. In counsel, his votes were tallied by the dour glare of his judgment or the unsettling grin of his agreement. In battle, his men were trained to fight, like him, almost entirely in silence, without need for their sergeant's guidance no matter the situation. And while many of my masters honed the craft of fear through words - through whispered threats and taunting promises - Krychek and his men wrought fear through the very absence of language, their silence a pressing doom. He cared not for the vanity of stealth, for he was no son of Corax or Alpharius, but he was willing to use ambush and surprise to bring terror to his enemies, to let them know the hour of their deaths approached from unknown corners. He pursued war not as a soldier, but as an executioner, his men the silent blades that glisten in the rich veins of the condemned. Such was the infamy of his nature that Krychek was known amongst my masters as the Unspoken, and his khadre, the Seventh Tactical Squad of the 36th Company, as the Unspeaking. + + + + + + + + First model of my 30k Night Lords force has been assembled. For now, as with my bases, I'm focused on getting models done more than my typically nit-picky overthinking on making the "perfect" models in terms of poses and whatnot. Modeling-wise, I'm wanting a relatively "clean" and "standard" legion look for my Night Lords, so I probably won't have much in the way of kill trophies or flayed skins or the like. Hoping to get a decent chunk of my initial force - two Tactical squads and a Terminator squad - done between now and the weekend.

Yep yep! The lore states that even very specialized legions will have companies or other elements that are more general or specialized in other things, like White Scar heavy support detachments or IW fast attack elements. There’s also of course companies being the amalgamation of remnants from other companies, or a particular company or commander acquiring elements to fit a given battle or the personal preference of the commanding officer.

Here's a nice overview of the basics/generic organization of a Legion in general: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/5/56/SMLegionOrg.jpg The TL;DR is that you shouldn't stress the idea of there being any hard and fast "official" structure, at least above the standard Company level. To take that a little further, there's basically a lot of leeway and flexibility, as well as gaps in our knowledge, as to how the hinted at structure (as shown in that org chart) was actually carried out legion by legion. This is partly to allow for otherwise-contradictory elements in the pre-HH series lore, partly to give players flexibility in setting up their army and character backgrounds, and partly to represent the different attitudes of the Legions and their Primarchs, and even between different elements of the same Legion. The Night Lords, for example, in (IIRC) FW's Horus Heresy Campaign Book 2 - Massacre, are stated to essentially be a Company-based Legion, but that the titles of the company commanders (which would ostensibly be Captain) varied wildly. This was due to both the vanity of the officers (particularly those from Nostramo) and the somewhat arbitrary nature of how Curze rewarded his subordinates. Similarly, while they apparently didn't really have permanent or widespread elements larger than a Company, unlike the Imperial Fists or Ultramarines, such elements did exist (I believe the book explicitly mentions Chapters and Battalions), but these too were essentially the result of arbitrary rewards by Curze and were equally known by a confusing variety of names, including their commanders as well (their entry mentions Masters and Regents as examples). As for the Iron Warriors, and I may be wrong here as I think this is much more in line with virtually all Legions in general, the Company is really the primary building block. In the case of the IW, I think it's less that every single Marine has an unbroken chain of command as you outlined, or to put another way, that every Company has a Grand Company or Battalion it belongs to, but more that the primary and permanent structure starts at the Company level (and goes down), and that any structures above the Company-level were more fluid, arbitrary, and/or based on the needs and preferences of the Legion. For example, as stated with the Night Lords, their nature (ie distrustful and prone to rivalry) meant that the only real way multiple Companies would be placed together is if a particular Captain gained enough favor from Curze to be given command of a joint army involving several other Companies, possibly as a permanent reward (especially if they were made a member of the Kyroptera inner circle, where even a lesser ranked Kyroptera member had authority over non-Kyroptera Night Lords with ostensibly higher military ranks), otherwise perhaps solely for a particular campaign or battle. After Curze is mauled by the Lion, Sevatar would try to break the Legion into more or less five or six "Great Companies", but effectively, the Night Lords are aligned by Company, with anything greater than that usually the result of the Primarch's whim, the charisma of a particular Captain, or from battlefield necessity towards the latter half of the Heresy itself. For the Iron Warriors, I'd say they too are based around Company, with plenty of Warsmiths directly leading (and only leading) Companies. Grand Battalion, Battalion, and/or Grand Company (which, IIRC, all three are said to more or less be the same thing, with no or little differences) were likely to mostly be temporary arrangements for battle - Perturabo as a strategic mastermind (combined with the total arms approach of the IW) would almost certainly mean he'd want clear and direct leadership coordinating at all levels between himself and the line captains running the Companies. Particularly talented Warsmiths likely ended up acquiring authority over multiple companies or even multiple grand companies/battalions on a more or less permanent nature, but even then, they would often still have Warsmiths under them to lead the individual Companies (or other elements) as dictated by strategy or battlefield necessity. IIRC, it's even said that due to the fluctuating and inexact nature of Legion organization, you could end up with IW "Grand Companies" that had fewer men than a regular Company, due to attrition and/or the random chance of what elements or supporting/attached elements a given Company had with it. To use my Night Lords army as an example, my lore for it is that it's essentially a Battalion that was formed from the remnants of a handful of Companies that had been left behind to garrison a backwater sector that they had helped bring to compliance as part of the Crusade Fleet that they had been attached to. I haven't decided on just how large it'll be (lore-wise), but the idea is it gives me some flexibility as I can represent some elements as being from different Company types - IE, I could use one company as an Armored Company or Heavy Assault Company to explain having a bunch of Fellblades and Spartans (if I wanted to field them). Similarly, I've thought about modeling a sub-section of my eventual full army to represent both a drop pod list and a zone mortalis list, with the idea being that one of my army's "parent companies" was a Void Assault Company that had been fully equipped and specialized for boarding actions.

Date: 9418088.m30 Location: Segmentum Obscurus Source: VIII Legion Strike-Cruiser Revenimus Authorized: Lord-Commander Jhariuk Zuvassin, Master of the 36th Company, Regent of Melanchthon + + Thought for the Day: “To break the law is death.” + + I heard it said once, on the lips of a man condemned by my masters, that there is no honesty like the honesty of a desert. He meant, I believe, that deserts do not seduce you with the promise of an easy life, that it is, in fact, life stripped bare to its most fundamental and brutal demands. To survive in a barren wasteland, in other words, one must learn to endure. To hunt. To live without respite or apology. "Such idealized nonsense," responded my lord. The mortal who had spoken those words had come from a desert tribe, only to rise to the position of city-governor in the days before my masters illuminated their world with the terms of Compliance. The man had been cowed by the growing Imperium, but as is the irony with many mortals, our short lives seem to only push us further to cling to the olden days. It had been on that very day of ascension, when his worthless backwater of a planet had been officially admitted into the Imperium of Man, that the mortal spoke those very words to my masters. At the time, I had thought it merely the poor attempt of an illiterate savage to appear cultured and sophisticated to his new masters. To appear worthy of his appointment as deputy to the new planetary-governor, an officer who had been hand-picked by my lord from amongst one of the Imperial Army regiments that had served alongside us. But within a decade, it would be proven that his words had been less poor philosophy, and more a prophecy. How the planetary-governor died I do not recall, if we ever knew to begin with, but we knew his killer. The man drifted from the light of his illumination, until he swam in such ignorance that my masters returned, bringing a very different sort of illumination. Their food and promethium were destroyed. Citizens vanished. And then one day, the light of their world's bright sun disappeared, swallowed by the black smoke of the funeral pyres that had once been hab-blocks. My masters burned his city, and when he and his people fled back to their homelands, they burned his desert as well. Such is the honesty of deserts. -Aratus bas Szelekh, Remembrancer, VIII Legion + + + + + + + + Just another quick and basic update. Since I tend to hate doing basing, I figured I'd try and knock it out real quick before working on the minis themselves. As I tend to either get bogged down on increasingly unsatisfactory complicated bases, or waste time being super nit-picky with resin bases, I decided to just create a basic scheme and stick to it. In this case, it's extremely simple: basic sand (GW) with some rocks (GF9) and skulls (GW). Primed/base-coated with Zandri Dust spray (GW), washed with Agrax Earthshade (GW), and dry-brushed with Tyrant Skull (GW). The rims are Battlefield Earth (P3), and once the minis themselves are done and attached, I'll go back and add some static tufts from GW as well. I feel the basic brown tones make for a nice contrast with the blues and metals that my Night Lords will be painted in, and there's just enough detail so that it's not completely boring, even if it's not the most evocative or complex. All I have left to do are the rims for about half of my initial 25 bases, so I'm hoping to knock those out tomorrow and then move on to building my Tactical squads and Terminator squad.

Date: 9278017.m31 Location: Segmentum Obscurus Source: VIII Legion Battle-Barge Lex Talionis Authorized: Lord-Commander Jhariuk Zuvassin, Master of the 36th Company, Regent of Melanchthon + + Thought for the Day: “Wisdom is the beginning of fear.” + + Oblivion comes. Like blades glistening in the twilight of dead and dying stars, our enemies hunt us. Amidst the shadow and ruin of a broken empire, of their broken empire, they hunt us. Their rage and hate consume them, burning like the throne-world once burned, and shall burn again. They hunt us, seeking to wash away their failures with our blood. They hunt us, seeking vengeance, to finally master cruelty in an age that has never known anything but cruelty, to take up the roles they once condemned my masters for becoming. But the hour is late, too late, for them as well as for us. We live now amongst the echoes of treachery and despair, as blade clashes upon blade and as life is answered with life. Still, they come for us, clinging to their hate, their veins running hot with the memories my masters have left for them. It is said that death haunts the darkness, and that it knows our names. It knows theirs, too. We are destined to be forgotten, to become the lingering silence between half-remembered words, the flickering shadows cast from the dying embers of a dead age, the black flame that shall one day illuminate their final hours. Our graves will be the nameless battlefields of unknown worlds, the trackless depths of the void, and the boiling madness of what lies beyond this broken galaxy. The great sin of my masters was to remind mankind of what it was, rather than what it wished to be. For mankind had come to think of itself as a god in a godless age, and crowned itself with golden lies, even as it sent my masters to slaughter and destroy in the name of peace and progress, even as it then condemned them for it. Who betrayed whom? What guilt when such sins were wrought into the very fabric of their being? My masters corrected such folly and brought low Terra’s hubris, stone by broken stone, lie by broken lie. They slaughtered, and they destroyed. They obeyed, and then they obeyed no more. They brought ruin, not only to His worlds and armies, to His systems and fleets, but to the very dream that still enslaves His children as it had once enslaved all of us. We have poisoned them with their own ideals, we have corrupted them with their own truths. And for that their brothers have set upon us with the fury of the betrayed, of those who lived long enough to find that the dreams of the past will become the nightmares of the future. They will endure now, as we have endured, but there shall be no progress, no golden age, no Imperium as they sought to shape and enforce it. Like worms they shall return to the rotting birth-soil of their unholy Terra, groveling in the dark, clutching at a worthless corpse-god to save them from the cancerous fear that already gnaws at the tomb-world they have built for Him. Across the centuries that I have served this Legion, I have seen the hallowed dead abandoned to rot on meaningless worlds beneath meaningless suns, and the glittering beauty of worlds in their death-throes. I have seen the gleaming warships, wrought with ancient and irreplaceable artifice, gutted by the cruel hate of our dagger-hulled monstrosities, bleeding their sacred dead into the cold grave of the void. My masters have made burnt offerings of the very worlds that they had once made sacred with their own sacrifice, bringing death to entire worlds and systems and fleets, exterminating once-kindred souls with the same indifference – nay, with the same malice, with which we once exterminated the verminous xenos of this infested galaxy. My masters despise their gene-father, but they are his sons nonetheless. They hate him, and even more the One who returned him to them. And, truth be told, I would dare say they hate most of all their very Legion. They sought a different fate, but not even their blood could cleanse them of who they were: the lords of the night, sons of Terra, Eighth Legion. They shall die in the coming years, hunted and scourged by those they have illuminated from the darkness. My own death awaits even sooner. My ashes will be left to scatter upon the indifferent winds of a ravaged world, or to be cast upon the endless black of the void. I have served my masters through crusade and heresy, through loyalty and betrayal, through endless war and ceaseless death. Thanks to them, I have lived for over two centuries, yet in the end I remained like any other mortal, a weak flame that flickered only briefly in the eternal darkness. I am no ascended, no demi-mortal, yet I find myself sharing the beliefs of my masters: that our fates cannot be broken, no matter our vanities; that if justice exists in this galaxy, it is arbitrary and without mercy; and that, whatever we may owe our creators, we shall have repaid them our final debts when our last blade falls broken upon a broken world, gleaming in the twilight of His lies, clad in the polished midnight of our truths. Old Night returns, drawn forth from its restless slumber by the coppery scent of mankind’s fears. Our enemies fight its embrace, praying bitterly amidst guttering candles for a decaying sun to once more rise and return them to the light. Yet it is the fate of all things to end in darkness and despair, to drown in the very depths from which we each arose, weak and nameless, to die alone and forgotten. As Old Night returns and drinks deeply of this coming age, know then that it was I, Aratus bas Szelekh, last remembrancer of the 36th Company of the Eighth Legion of the Imperium of Man, born of Terra, slave of Nostramo, son of Melanchthon, sworn in fealty to both Legion and Warmaster, servant of the Vor Zekhon, who bound these words to ink and parchment in the dead runes of a dying tongue, who forged bitter memory into the dulled blade of history, and who prepared these works that shall now serve as the silent tomb of my masters’ words and deeds. And if, in some distant age, these works are uncovered, and the cursed ink of their making still glimmers in the dim glow of unknown stars – to such eyes that may one day gaze upon these pages from across the black gulf of millennia that shall stand between us, I ask of you only: Remember us. -Aratus bas Szelekh, Remembrancer, VIII Legion + + "Judgment comes for us all in the end." + + + + + + + + + + If you've gotten this far, thank you for taking the time to read the above lore for my new 30k army. I've always had a like for the general look of the Night Lords since the days of Codex Chaos during 40k Second Edition, so I've decided to build both forces for them in both 30k and 40k, along with a few allied elements. As such, I'm getting ready to start with the 30k army with the following: 2x Legion Tactical Squads 1x Cataphracti Terminator Squad w/ power axes I figure two tactical squads are a good foundation for any 30k army, and I’ll likely expand them to 15 or 20 Marines each later on. The choice in Terminators and weapon layout - Cataphracti w/ power axes - is mostly just personal preference. I’m not much of a competitive gamer, so I’m focusing on modeling what I like more than anything. Lore-wise, my 30k Night Lords are intended to represent a force of several company remnants that were left behind to garrison a sector that was brought into compliance early in the Great Crusade. They’re all Terran-born, and were effectively separated from the main elements of the Legion relatively early on in the Great Crusade. I'm hoping to balance the basic core of the established Night Lords character with some of my personal preferences (e.g. I generally find the gore and trophies a little too cartoonish for my tastes in a lot of the Black Library fiction). My 40k army will be the 41st millennium’s survivors of my 30k force. I’ve already planned to include an allied Militia force for my 30k army, and possibly a Knights force (given I’ve already bought a Chaos Knight for my 40k one, lol). I’m also hoping to include a Battlefleet Gothic fleet and a legio for Adeptus Titanicus at some point - possibly Legio Ulricon if ForgeWorld release more information on them, otherwise maybe the Tiger Eyes (my favorite Legio in terms of looks, lore, and rules) or a home-brew one. Anyways, thanks for looking, and I hope to start having actual progress pics (and more lore) up soon.