The Ascended
Parent Legion - Black Legion (Formerly Sons of Horus, formerly Luna Wolves)
Primarch - Horus Lupercal
Colours - Black, Gunmetal, Crimson (Gold details and trims on officers of rank)
Chapter Heraldry - Stylised Heresy-era Eye of Horus
Chaos God - Chaos Undivided
Specialty - Strong Command Structure, Flexible Organisation
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Okay folks. Here goes. Over the years I've been a Chaos player at least...but never consistently stuck to one particular force. I started out Iron Warriors, went Death Guard, went Renegade (Extinction Angels), went Death Guard again, went Thousand Sons, went Emperor's Children, went World Eaters and now finally it seems I have settled on a Black Legion splinter warband.
But why though? How do I know I'm not just going to sell the army like every other? Well, first the problem I had was that every other army, save the Extinction Angels who were sold off as I needed money and their paint scheme seemed a chore (though it was unique - unique enough that a Google image search for Extinction Angels results in my old minis being in the first two rows of results still after all these years) was simple - their playstyle stagnated and I felt trapped and inflexible. They were all specialists - exceptionally good at one particular playstyle but shitstomped in the Rock-Paper-Scissors meta that is 40k far too easily.
A Black Legion splinter band allows me to be more flexible. I can add new units in from pretty much any Chaos army (I ultimately plan on perhaps one day going back to do Thousand Sons and Death Guard again) but I can paint them all as a Black Legion based scheme. So if I do decide I fancy an Emperor's Children or Thousand Sons army or whatever I can do them and add relevant units from the Black Legion without them looking out of place. Common sense prevails!
The paint scheme is simple - inspired by 2nd edition Chaos where there was no abundance of gold trims or details...simple black and gunmetal. To break up the monotony of colour I've decided the piping should be done in a deep crimson (rather than the 2nd edition orange. Ewww.). For squad champions I can pick out details (Chaos Symbols, Skulls) in gold. For characters I do do gold shoulders and details but keep the gunmetal trims. Chosen of course will be done in champion colours with their own champion being treated as a character.
Of course, it wouldn't be me without a somewhat complicated and convoluted background and some twists in the tail, would it? And in the case of The Ascended that comes in the form of the characters. My current forces have no less than 6 characters (!) and I've decided that a theme of the warband is its command structure. The Ascended is a proving ground for future leaders and champions. As such it's made up of smaller retinues and bands, who owe their loyalty to a particular character.
And of course, the Council of Traitors stratagem from Vigilus Ablaze is the perfect inspiration and reason for it so far...
There are 3 factions in the Ascended (so far) - The Fated, The Reborn and The Righteous.
The Fated are the main power of the warband - they consist of the Terminators and Chosen and are lead by two characters - a Chaos Lord with a jump pack - converted from Harkaan Worldclaimer and some Chaos Raptor chainswords (yay Chainlord) and his second in command, a Chaos Sorcerer who is simply a Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord without any conversion work!
The unifying 'marking' for The Fated is simple - gold detailing. In order to join this particular faction you have to prove yourself worthy. Something the Chosen and Terminators will already have done.
The Reborn are a bit more sneaky. They have a Chaos Lord, using the Dark Vengeance Chosen with a Power Axe - but he's not the true power. Instead that comes to the Chaos Sorcerer (a converted Dark Vengeance Lord using Harkaan's Helspear, an outstretched hand and Harkaan's skull mask head). The idea for the miniature choice for the Lord is the horn growths and bone growths from the armour. I want to paint a soft glowing corpselight where they meet the armour and really, the principle is that the Chaos Lord fell several millenia back and is being animated by the Sorcerer as a facade
The Reborn consist of the Chaos Havocs and 2 of the CSM squads in the army.
The unifying marking for The Reborn is to be a bone-coloured vambrace.
The final sub-faction are The Righteous...a faction of zealots lead by a Dark Apostle (a converted Dark Vengeance Chosen Champion) and his right hand Greater Possessed. This is the more aggressive portion of the force and is 2 assault based CSM squads - well, assault-hybrid squads.
I've got the initial lot of things undercoated - I need to wait til Wednesday to buy more spray but hopefully can get started proper over the next week. I'll share pictures as I get things done.
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