Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Blood Eagles return!

Well, with my purchase of some dirt cheap CSMs off of ebay, I have indeed cobbled together a field-able CSM army.


Not too many minis painted for these guys, here's most of them.


Here's the rest, Lars Blood Eagle (my Lord) & my dreadnought.


Note: the Imperial Fist's former Termie's T-hammer arm under the dread.

This army has been an on again, off again side project. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with the CSM codex. YES, you can make a brutal list with it. BUT, the eviceration of the fluff by Gav Thorpe, and the fact that all legion armies can essentially be the same put me off. The 'all for one, one for all' should have been left to the Three Muskateers.

So skipping the Legion idea, I instead went with my own warband. I don't have much on background fluff. The 'Blood Eagle' was a ritualistic form of torture (resulting in) execution used by the Norse for particularly high valued targets. Google it, go to wikipedia, etc., a strong stomach is required (which i have and I still felt sick after first reading about it). I have a book on the history of the vikings that goes into gruesome detail on the Blood Eagle. So given that its also the name of my lord, the easy route would be to say they're Space Wolf Renegades. However I opted for them to be Wolf Brothers' survivors. The Wolf Brothers were a SW successor that suffered from severe geneseed degeneration and was excommunitcated and hunted (supposedly) to extinction. Their numbers depleted, no apothecaries surviving, they've turned to none other than the infamous Fabius Bile to help replenish their ranks. A dangerous prospect indeed.

I like the idea of Fabius's enhanced marines/monsters. I will need to get some spawn at some point to represent his 'oops, that didn't work' experiments. I've always seen the enhanced marines, especially with their self destructive tendencies, as more or less the 'fifth mark' of Chaos, the Mark of Malal. Malal is the 'Renegade God' hellbent on the destruction of the other chaos gods (again: google, wikipedia). Considering Fabius' wandering nature, the fact that he's not really associated with any named Chaos god, and his experimentation on Chaos marines that often turns out as bad for them as it does for any captured victims, Fabius easily strikes me as a possible follower of Malal.

Here's what I'm going to try out this weekend:
(Note, Lars himself will not be taking to the field.)

Blood Eagles, 1848 Points

HQ:
Fabius Bile
Ivan the Cannon (Sorcerer)
Mark of Slaanesh, Doom ‘Bolter’

Elite:
Dreadnought
Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter, Extra Armor, Heavy Flamer

Fallen Angels (Chosen Marines, 5)
Plasma Pistol, Icon to Chaos Glory
Asp. Champ. w/Plasma-Bolter

Troops:
Enhanced Marines (8)
Flamer, Icon of Khorne, Asp. Champ. w/Powerfist

Enhanced Marines (8)
Plasma Gun, Icon of Slaanesh, Asp. Champ. w/Powerfist

Enhanced Marines (8)
Plasma Gun, Icon of Nurgle, Asp. Champ w/Powerfist

Thousand Suns, Asp. Champ & (7) Grunts
Bolt of Change, Personal Icon

Lesser Demons (5)

Heavy Support:
Havoc Squad (6)
(1) Missile Launcher, (1) Heavy Bolter, (2) Plasma Guns
Icon of Chaos’ Glory

Vindicator
Demonic Possession

Again, a cobbled together menegerie (the Vindicator is still in the livery of my Dark hands' Loyalist SMs, the Havocs are leftovers, The Fallen Angels wandered in from who knows where), but for not using them in forever, it'll do I suppose. More of a training/getting the feel for the army list than anything.

2 comments:

Papa JJ said...

That dreadnought looks awesome, I love seeing custom Chaos dreads. I really like the background you've come up for your Blood Eagles, looks like a fun army to play with all Fabius Bile's fellas in the mix. Also I'm glad to hear you're planning on using some spawn. I've always loved modeling and painting them and so at least a couple usually find their way into my Chaos armies.

I share your sentiments about the Chaos Marine book, I'm still frustrated with it too. I used to play both a Word-Bearers style army as well as a pure Death Guard force. I was so disappointed when the book came out that I put the armies away until just a few months ago. I've now begun to appreciate this edition of the book, but it really did take approaching them with a truly open mind. But the 4-way, Chaos God group hug thing still annoys me. Whatever.

You've motivated me to get out my remaining Chaos army and figure out what I can do with it. Thanks!

Da Masta Cheef said...

Gav stated in one of his many 'this is my defense, now please stop throwing stones at me' threads that the codex was aimed more at newer renegade warbands. With that in mind it probably shouldn't have obsoleted the old dex. However if you take this approach to building an army, it by enlarge removes the horrific fluff/flavor issues...sorta.

Thanks on the dread! (on all the compliments actually!) Like a lot of my stuff, this one's been around the block a few times & has fought with several armies (it still bears the name of 'ol' Ironsides' from when it fought with my old Iron Hands army). The reason I resurrected the Blood Eagles was mainly that I didn't want to repaint it again, I rather like its current color scheme. See? Dreads are good for more than just gunning down your own troops!

And yes I need spawn. Great models, lousy stats (what do people want? they ARE spawn). They'll fit nicely into my bit of fluff & likewise assume the role of the disposable 100ish point allied Inquisitor & groupies that most of my other armies partake of. Though rumor has it that Inquisitors are losing that option (NOOOOOO!!!!!).