[Lord Scythican]

So what's the deal with Pre-Heresy armies?

Recently I have decided to give my Nids a break. I am painting a huge Warriors of Chaos fantasy army, but getting people to play Warhammer Fantasy is like getting some 26 year old to dig out his Pokemon deck for a battle.

So while I am painting the WoC army, I have decided to start another 40K army. A few people at my local game shop are working on Blood Angels, but I would rather do something a little more creative. I want to so some sort of Chaos army, but I was thinking of doing a Pre-Heresy Thousand Suns or Death Guard Army.

The problem is, I really do not know much about Space Marines or Chaos. I have no idea of how to "contruct" the army, as in what units to start with and what rules to use.

Do I buy some ultramarines and paint them in Pre-Heresy colours and then use rules from the Chaos Marine Codex? This seems a little limiting though.

Anyone care to share some ideas?

[Brass Claw]

Originally Posted by Lord Scythican

The problem is, I really do not know much about Space Marines or Chaos. I have no idea of how to "contruct" the army, as in what units to start with and what rules to use.

Do I buy some ultramarines and paint them in Pre-Heresy colours and then use rules from the Chaos Marine Codex? This seems a little limiting though.

Anyone care to share some ideas?

You could do that, but you could use warhammer 30K rules that the guys over at BoLS made up. I haven't look at them for while (a few years back i wanted to start a pre-heresy worldeaters, now people just use the blood angels codex) but they seem great back then.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2007/...a-ruleset.html

[Wargamer]

As a rule, a "Pre Heresy" army should follow Codex: Space Marines. Remember that before the Heresy there was no such thing as a Chaos Space Marine, so using the Chaos Codex is a rather dubious choice!

[Machination]

I find the best way to understand what an army looks like is to look on Google Images and see what other people have done for their army and how they have interpreted it.

Here are some images on the Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons:

http://www4.osk.3web.ne.jp/~hasinaka/ahriman3.jpg

http://www4.osk.3web.ne.jp/~hasinaka/tsst.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...nt_painted.jpg

http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs30/f/20..._by_Bastou.png

As for learning who they are, how they were organized and the part they played in the Horus Heresy I would recommend you take a look at this as somewhere to start from.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thousand_Sons

As for which Codex you want to use I'm afraid that if you want an army of Thousand Sons before Ahriman cast the Rubric of Ahriman you will have to use Codex: Space Marines as the Thousand Sons entry in Codex: Chaos Space Marines represents them when the Rubric was cast and after the Heresy. When it comes to selecting units you should first read about the Legions heritage and organisation before the Heresy and adapt your army to Codex: Space Marines accordingly, for example Librarians were prevalent in the Thousand Sons Legion therefore a Librarian would not be out of place in such an army.

You also said that you were interested in the Death Guard prior to the Horus Heresy, here are some images of them so you can build a rough idea of what to do.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4nzgPbHlNo.../Mortarion.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4nzgPbHlNo...DG-step-07.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4nzgPbHlNo...G_VIN_0013.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4nzgPbHlNo...G_INF_0001.jpg

Again if you want to gain a rudimentary understanding of who the Death Guard are, how they fought, how they are organized and the part they played in the Horus Heresy I would recommend you look at this article.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Death_Guard

Again as you specified that you are interested in the Death Guard before the Horus Heresy I must recommend Codex: Space Marines as, like the Thousand Sons, a pre-Heresy force cannot be represented by Codex: Chaos Space Marines as the entry for Plague Marines represents them after they are released from the Warp by Nurgle and transformed into Plague Marines. As for what units to take the Death Guard are almost like Imperial Guard in that they rarely use Rhino's and did not use specialised Space Marine units like Assault Marines, however they had a large frequency of Terminators in their Legion.

I hope this is of some help!

[Ironwinds]

Easiest way to do it, and not have to use different rules is use the SM codex. Avoid things they wouldn't have pre-heresy... like the land raider variants, just stick with the standard one. Some people will tell you to avoid land speeders and assault cannons but both are things that were around pre-heresy. Pre-heresy we had jet bikes so if you wanted to stretch you could throw those in.

I have actually considered doing this but never gotten around to it... except I was going to do pre-heresy IWs. IWs look so similar pre-heresy to post heresy that I could use all of my troops, I would just need a different HQ, different terminators, new dreadnought, and tanks that were not covered in spikes. Basically have 2 armies that shared half the models.

I would start with a captain and some marines as your troops. Then toss on some terminators, dreads, and tanks that both armies share(LR, predator, vindicator). Maybe toss in some bikes as well.

Deathguard could be done fairly easily, pre-heresy they were just normal marines, they didn't use a lot of rhinos but otherwise were pretty basic. Thousand Sons would be really hard to do. The SM codex just doesn't have room for that many psykers.

[Lord Scythican]

@BrassClaw: I couldn't get the pdf link to work. It looked like a lot of people liked it though.

@Machination: Hey thanks for all those pics. I noticed that there were a lot of Warriors of Chaos helms on those minis. I have plenty of those in my bit boxes.

Originally Posted by Wargamer

As a rule, a "Pre Heresy" army should follow Codex: Space Marines. Remember that before the Heresy there was no such thing as a Chaos Space Marine, so using the Chaos Codex is a rather dubious choice!

Cool, thanks for the insight. I ran into a guy a little while ago, said he was going to use Thousand Suns rules from the Chaos Marines book. He said that is was a little too hard to use the Space Marine codex because Thousand Suns need more Psykers than what that codex can provide. Any ideas on that?

What about the Blood Angel Codex? Could it be used for a World Eaters army?

Originally Posted by Ironwinds

Easiest way to do it, and not have to use different rules is use the SM codex. Avoid things they wouldn't have pre-heresy... like the land raider variants, just stick with the standard one. Some people will tell you to avoid land speeders and assault cannons but both are things that were around pre-heresy. Pre-heresy we had jet bikes so if you wanted to stretch you could throw those in.

I have actually considered doing this but never gotten around to it... except I was going to do pre-heresy IWs. IWs look so similar pre-heresy to post heresy that I could use all of my troops, I would just need a different HQ, different terminators, new dreadnought, and tanks that were not covered in spikes. Basically have 2 armies that shared half the models.

I would start with a captain and some marines as your troops. Then toss on some terminators, dreads, and tanks that both armies share(LR, predator, vindicator). Maybe toss in some bikes as well.

Deathguard could be done fairly easily, pre-heresy they were just normal marines, they didn't use a lot of rhinos but otherwise were pretty basic. Thousand Sons would be really hard to do. The SM codex just doesn't have room for that many psykers.

How limited would this army be if I didn't use units in the Space marine Codex that are not in the pre-heresy fluff?

[Wargamer]

Not very.

The things to leave out are;

Land Raider Variants
Normal Land Raiders are fine, and indeed were very common; Crusaders and Redeemers did not exist, however.

Predator "Annihilators"
Predators should not have Lascannons of any kind - this was a Post-Heresy modification.

Vindicators
Original Vindicator fluff states it was developed during the Heresy, not before; it makes no sense for a Pre Heresy force to have them.

Whirlwinds
Their origins are less easily identified, but if you want to be absolutely sure, avoid.

Land Speeder Storms
These shouldn't exist now, so keep clear.


Aside from that... I think you could field just about anything else in the Codex without worry.

[Odo The Brave]

As people have suggested, the best way to run Pre-Heresy or even Heresy-Era Marines is to use Codex: Space Marines.

As for other things, in general I've found that Bolter And Chainsword's Horus Heresy Board is a great place to start both list and modeling wise. I personally consider a Pre-Heresy force to be different from a normal SM force due to their Armour and Paint Scheme. Paint Schemes are fairly easy to find in places such as Lexicanum, and there are a lot of Armour tutorials on the B&C board detailing how to make MKIII Power Armour and Pre-Heresy Terminator armour. I don't know how much you want to put into this project time-wise, but from what I've seen of your Nids you seem to be fairly good at conversion work.

[Wargamer]

Armour is always tricky... it really depends on a lot of factors, such as conversion skill or funds available.

Here's a few pointers for you though.

First, we have a very nice Power Armour Guide to use on 40KLexicanum.

As for actual models, Red Scorpions. Those guys are all sporting Mk IV Power Armour, and if you can afford it (and shave off the Scorpions...) it's a great way to do a Pre-Heresy force.

Alternatively, here's one of my (terribly painted) models:

Note the parts used; "kneeless" legs, torsos with exposed power cabling at the abdomen (and ideally, no Aquila on the chestplate), the "Corvus" beaked helm and the studded left shoulder pad. All of these are iconic elements of Mk VI Plate, which is what the Legions would have used toward the end of the Great Crusade.

[deraj]

Or you could go to the absolute greatest site for preheresy information: http://z15.invisionfree.com/The_Great_Crusade

It has a list of the vehicles/varients used, army lists, fluff, and pictures of each army's scheme.