Back in the halcyon days of 4th edition I started a Chaos Marine army. I had finished reading Storm of Iron, a fun read, and really felt like the Iron Warriors were the force for me. Low and behold, the Chaos codex had a nice sub list for these guys. Awesome! I didn’t feel like pure Iron Warriors, so I went with the idea, but made it my own. I wanted servo arms and lots of bionics on my grunts.
The Adeptus Mechanicus have also always intrigued me. The look and concept of these guys rock! I had to get some of them represented in my army as well. They have the all the bionic upgrades I could ever want.
Why would these forces be together? How could I justify Iron Warriors as well?
Simple! Relictors are a now rouge marine chapter. During the Eye of Terror they were deemed traitor. They like to use Chaos a bit too much for the inquisition. So, I’ll have these guys be part of an Ad Mech investigation force. Then have something go wonky along a small trip and there you go bad guys! They would be bad guys that were not really bad, just misunderstood. A force of Chaos wielding marines with some servitor backup and tanks was looking good.
The Ad Mech presence could also explain all the bionic upgrades to the marines; as this is a small marine force and any losses they take are a huge problem. They aren’t at full chapter strength, and need to keep as many battle brothers alive as possible. So, the Ad Mech take the wounded and at times dead and “upgrade” them. They also take their collection of servitors and make them battle ready.
I like the weird Mechanicus armory and wanted to use a Defiler to represent some strange big Mechanicus gun. A few Obliterators would also fill the strange cyber/robot/weapons they use. I also wanted to throw in a few big gun tanks as well. This would fulfill Iron Warrior scheme. This was back when you could dump a fast or elite for an extra heavy slot. Oh the joy of that!
I also needed these guys to look like fallen marines, but not super Chaos filled. I went with the option of mixing regular marine and Chaos marine parts. I removed aqulia from torsos when needed. That became very tedious, so I went another way. I decided to make most of the aqulia defaced. A few simple X cuts into it and there it is. That would be my proof that this force has turned its back on the Imperium, or the Imperium had turned their back on them.
So there it was my growing force of Iron-ish Warriors ready for battle. They only had a few months in them and then the new Chaos codex landed. Poof! Goodbye Iron Warrior sub-list. Hello new army. Also throw in the appearance of 5th edition and it changed my force even more.
I was running a very defensive army. A siege army as it was. I had no transports, this is 4th edition and transports are bad. I was on foot with a few vehicles to give me suppressing fire on the advance. I had toughness 5 Obliterators to walk the flanks and fire indiscriminately. This was changed to must have cheap Rhinos and warp time Demon Princes with wings. My army fell apart as a defensive force. I needed to change with the times.
So I grabbed a couple Rhinos and stopped production on any more Obliterators. I washed away the thought of a Basilisk for support and instead grabbed a Defiler(which sadly is still in box due to GW sending me one less sprue than I needed).
The good was the fact my servitor squads can work as Plague Marines now and we all know how fun they are. My Obliterators lost a step, now toughness (4) 5 and the loss of autocannons and heavy bolters. My vindicator got better with the scatter rules and has a bit more survivability from shooting damage. However, my plasma pistols are no longer rapid fire and are just a way to show unit champion upgrades. They just aren’t worth the points for one shot. I guess I could count them as combi-plasma. Not entirely a bad idea.
I now need to make a Demon Prince and probably convert my missing leg Defiler and this force is 5th edition worthy, but that isn’t how I always think and play.
So there is a look into the thought process and why I did what I did with my first Chaos army. Next up, I’ll have the annotated army photos.
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