Thursday, August 28, 2014

Changing gears for a little bit

So I've been running this blog for a good and solid 2 years now. And I think I'm kind of burnt out on 40k for the moment, but I'm not exactly dropping the blog or 40k.  But I am going to shift my hobby focus a bit. What am I shifting it to? Well I've decided to go back to some model work I haven't really done in about 10 years: Gundam models. Don't know what Gundam models are? Well they're models, based on the Mobile Suit Gundam Franchise. In connection to shifting to Gundam Models I'm also going to experiment with Tamyia paints. So stay tuned.

Saturday, August 02, 2014

the March of Chaos...

So I'm a masochist. I enjoy torturing myself. I have to be. There's no other answer for why I keep coming up with more projects to under take and keep throwing myself into them to the depth that I do! In the last 7 months I've under taken the following projects:
And those are just the projects that I can actually be bothered to list off the top of my head with out really searching. There's a bunch of other models sitting on my project shelf that isn't included in that list. So what am I getting ready to say? Yup, I'm working on something else. Actually I've been working on it for several months now. With the revamp of the blog it seemed like a good time to talk about it. So what else am I working on? Well remember a couple months back I took that info on Atomic Warlords and remade the Chaos Space Marine army list? Weeeeeell I'm taking it further and rebuilding Codex: Chaos Space Marines, actually rebuilding is the wrong word. Replacing is more accurate. See I'm not actually rebuilding the Chaos Space Marine codex, I'm replacing it with a series of three codecies; Codex: Chaos Renegades, Codex: Chaos Legions and Codex: Books of Chaos.

Why am I making three books to replace the single book? Well because from my view of Chaos you have several distinct major factions of power and influence that can potentially feed into any given army that is assembled under the 'Chaos' banner. These forces include the following:

Traitor Legions: These are the 9 traitor Legions that turned traitor during the Heresy.
Renegades: This is the mix of Astra Militarum and Adeptus Astartes units that have turned traitor following the heresy. The occasional squad of Marines that want something more, the disgruntled Militarium units, the detachments of marines that have been lost in the warp for 5,000 years.
The Dark Mechanicus/Chaos Titans: Yeah, there's the Dark mechanicus. What more is there to say? These are the dudes who create and maintain the Forge fiends, Mauler Fiends, Defilers, HelDrakes, Chaos Knight Titans, Lord of Skulls, and all those fun little toys.
Chaos Daemons: ...um the Chaos Daemons.Yeah, it's the Daemons.

Largely any mixture of these four powers can be used to create an army under the banner of "Chaos" and each have their own strengths and weaknesses, too many for any one book to be able to properly facilitate into an army. Thus why I feel the need to create a series of three books.

Chaos Renegades: This is the book most closely based on the current Codex: Chaos Space Marines. This book will focus on the more combined war-bands as an army aspect of Chaos. See, this is NOT Space Marines with spikes. This is Warlord who has cobbled together an army out of various groups. Each group has been paid/coerced/threatened/blackmailed/ or in other form asked to perform some duty with in the army. Once again, this is NOT a space marine army with spikes. Some of the units may have come from Space Marine chapters, but they are no longer Space Marines. They are augmented, genetically enhanced, post-human warriors. They are in this for their own gain. Bonds of loyalty are rare finds outside of the smaller war band/squad. Armies built from this book will be extremly diverse and may even appear to be patch work armies where mobs of Traitor Astra Militarum solders fight along side Dark Mechanicus daemon engines while a unit of Marine Bikers zooms up the field.

Chaos Legions: While the legions as they existed during the Heresy are gone, there are still groups that emulate their operations and organizational structures.So while technically speaking these armies are not THE Legions, in-game there is no appreciable difference. Yes, all of the original World Eaters got the Butchers nails stuck in their skulls and thus became Berzerkers. Yes all of the original Thousand Sons became Rubrica. Yes all of the original Death Guard became Plague Marines. But there are other groups that emulate them and in so doing have formed a sort of second generation of the original Legions. The Sons of Horus reformed when Abaddon forged the Black Legion, while aspiring butchers emulate the World Eaters. Here is where you will find the resources to field these second generation Legion armies. The Traitor Legions are still extremely powerful armies with many of the strengths of the original Space Marines Legions including technology that has been otherwise lost to the throes of time AND formations and operational standards that were handed to other groups following the formalization of the Codex Astartes.

Books of Chaos: Initiative 5 Terminators with Sonic weapons. Plague ridden dreadnoughts dedicated to Nurgle, exuding clouds of flies and noxious as it stomps forward. Daemon infused war engines utterly removed from what the Dark Mechanicus can build. During the 3rd-4th edition era, there was a series of Sub-lists in the Chaos Space Marine Codex called "Books of Chaos" and the idea behind them was that it would allow players to craft and field armies that were dedicated to a given god of Chaos. These sub-lists gave us a lot of extra options that have since been removed. Some of these options include God-speccific upgrades available to the likes of terminators which is the basis of the often lamented "Cult Terminators". Books of Chaos will be the renewal of this concept and will be expanded so that it will be a viable army on its own right.

So whats my point to all of this? Well I've set up a second website to serve as a central point for all of my efforts in re-craft the Chaos Space Marine codex into these 3 replacement books. So I invite all of you to go there and check out my efforts on that front. At this time the majority of my work has been focused under the Chaos Renegades book so that have the majority of info at this time.