LEGION RISING

It's 2017! And with a new year I usually start a new project. Sometimes I focus on what I have and other times I start new armies! 2017 is no different!

One of my first 40k armies was a Chaos Night Lords army. I really liked the aesthetics of the Night Lords and wanted to play them in a fluffy manner. I elected not to take marks of chaos, ran as many raptors as I could, and steered clear from anything with the Daemon special rule. In the end, I didn't have a lot of fun. I was limiting myself to the potential of the Chaos Space Marines Codex. It was is if I was purposely neutering myself to an already widely considered 'underpowered' codex.

So, I started running them with Blood Angels rules. Assault Marines as troops was a night fit for the Night Lords. Sadly, I felt like I was playing Blood Angels and not Night Lords. The army itself just wasn't working for me, so I sold it. Not 6 months later, 7 edition came out with Unbound rules allowing me to play the army I wanted to play...whoops. Oh well...

So, I let it go and continued playing my Orks and my Dark Angels. Along the way in 7th edition, I started my Dark Eldar army (which I LOVE) and then jumped into the 30k scene. And while I am playing Word Bearers during the Horus Heresy, I still had an itch for a pure 40k Chaos army. What to do, what to do... 

EMBRACE THE BEAST!!!

Last September I started pulling out some old Chaos Marine kits from my old army that I never built and come to realize that I still had enough to get me started again. Huzzah! But who to play?

The Night Lords? Nah... While I enjoy their fluff and color scheme, they weren't really the play style I wanted to do. Plus, been there, done that. Time to move on!

Death Guard? Emperor's Children? World Eaters? Thousand Sons? While I love all four of these very much, I didn't want to commit to one god in the pantheon. I like options and if I am going to embrace the taint of chaos, I want to do it undivided. With that being said, I wouldn't mind doing a few warbands with said gods, but more on that later.

Iron Warriors? I had thought about this one pretty hard. I think it would have been a really fun army to build, especially with lots of renegade guard and artillery tanks. Unfortunately, there really wasn't enough in the 40k fluff and rules to sell me on this. Perhaps I will build a single warband list later to scratch my itch, if it is still there.

Alpha Legion? Another one I considered. However, it doesn't really fit me as and my personae. While they have cool infiltration tactics and what not, they don't really inspire me on a grand army scale. They definitely feel like a small insurgency force type army in 40k. Much like the Iron Warriors, perhaps a small warband later on down the road. 

Word Bearers?! Oh man oh man, did I want to do this. But it didn't feel right building a SECOND Word Bearers army. While the conversion opportunities are truly limitless and there is nothing I love more than embracing the full extent of Chaos, I didn't want to tire myself out with yet another red army (30k Word Bearers & Dark Eldar). Probably tackle these guys later with a warband or two.

The Black Legion Now we're talkin'. The baddest of the bad! The big boy pants! Abaddon is one bad mother f...(SHUT YO MOUTH!) I like the paint scheme, they are RICH with fluff, they have a named character for me to use, and I can embrace EVERYTHING about Chaos. In addition, it completely makes sense for me to have smaller warbands of other legions tagging a long. It was perfect! Not only that, I want my Chaos army to be my second Apocalypse sized army (behind Orks), and with Chaos Titans available through Forgeworld, it seemed so right!  Plus I love Chosen and Terminators! EXCELSIOR!

Once I had made my decisions, the construction began! Not only that, a few months later, the Traitor Legions supplement came out, giving me TONS of options and ideas! It has been a lot of fun building thematic lists and playtesting them here and there.

As of January 1st, I have begun applying paint to The Black Legion and it has been a blast! Who know black and gold was so much fun?!

Get ready! Because the Black Legion isn't just coming to Cadia! Lots of updates on the way! WOO!