"good" space marines...?

[Parriah]

It's only a game!
You should really just relax!

[Inso]

It's only a game!
You should really just relax!

...and a game is what you want to make it. If part of his enjoyment is trying to tie his ideas into a game system and the story behind it then why shouldn't he do it?

For me, part of the game is the depth of back-story. It helps you to add character to your troops and to associate with their trials and tribulations on the field. It is much better to 're-enact' a story with troops than to move counters around a playing surface and following basic rules with no story.

[Drachenklinge]

ha! 40k ... well, I like the vehicles of the Tau, the foottroupers of the SMs (but not their flying jeeps without wheels and tanks from maybe even before WW1) and sooner or later I will plunder some necronial bitz for some steampunk dwarves, I am thinking about. 

Hell ... the background? As said before, from what I have heard from some chaps from my local gamers club, they changed nearly everything possible since the ... dawn of the SMs!! (theatrical deep voice).

The first thing I am thinking due to SMs is ... the do not use camouflage, because they are so damn cool ... but wouldn't the damn-coolest SM not be even damn-cooler WITH a hot-spot top notch state of the art battle suit camouflage? Oh, well ... they don't know how to. I see. Brilliant, Holmes, brilliant.


So, what am I up to? The first thing I'd do is invent some secret "Templer-Orden" (maybe even in black and white as stated above ^^), and - according to some astronimical observation clusters between Mars and Jupiter - their Worldship is just about to return and - wonder of wonders - they do not have a clue, what is going on on this side of the galaxy*. Since they departed and went out for some even more secret mission quite a while ago, some minor details seem to have changed.

And by the way ... they really really wonder, too, that (and more imporant why!?) all documents has been erased from the archives! Especially about their mission and whereabouts.
As it happens to be, they have some pretty old (but odd) information about the real going-ons within the imperial leadership. Even the grey knights are not so grey-knightian as they think!
There is even some also erased information, that the official number of only 1000 chapters is a deviously invented (but very filthy) lie! Actually, there are 1001 ... the known 1000 ... and mine!!!

You do not believe me? Come and battle my truly "good" SMs!!

... well, see? fluff made! You just need to paint Your army! And I bet with a real hot fluffbunny, You will get all the tax-free fun-curses You need on a battle-field, while ... he tryest to burn thy Templerorden

He will want to burn You just because he fears the truth about what Your secret mission really has revealed! jaja, we all know that lot, don't we? 

best wishes
DK


* you think, You know the galaxy? I will show ya the real abyssal void, where three 'n a half warps would fit in easily!! I have met alians, where my worldship could have docked in one of their smaller escape-pod bays.

[Jaeger]

Words of wisdom (from GW actually):

In fact we encourage you to shape the game around your needs and your taste.
- Games Development, November 2008

/Jaeger

[Too Bo Coo]

Words of wisdom (from GW actually):

In fact we encourage you to shape the game around your needs and your taste.
- Games Development, November 2008

/Jaeger

I agree 100%, now try to get woiuld-be opponents to agree to your 'house-ruled non-GW Approved' Chapter...  I think the whole 'Chapter Approved' sloganeering supports some of this mentality.

[Jaeger]

Well you might also try to convince a chess opponent to play without pawns, or allow you to use the rules for canons from chinese chess for your rook.

If your opponent is ok with it, then it's all good. If not... play by the rules/fluff as written or find an opponenet who shares your needs and taste. It's as simple as that.

/Jaeger

[Too Bo Coo]

Well you might also try to convince a chess opponent to play without pawns, or allow you to use the rules for canons from chinese chess for your rook.

If your opponent is ok with it, then it's all good. If not... play by the rules/fluff as written or find an opponenet who shares your needs and taste. It's as simple as that.

/Jaeger

Right... gottcha Mate.  Thanks.

[Doomsdave]

http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/how-to-2000-ad-part-3-bluffer-offers.html

Hopefuly that link will go straight to a big pic of the Terminator Chapters from Nemesis the Warlock.

I will bet my house that pic was one of the major ideas for the space marine chapters back when the GW gods were mere broke 20 somethings.

Nemesis the Warlock and other 2000ad stories were the foundations that the 40k fluff was based on. Alot of fanbois if they didnt know would read Nemesis and say "Boy they stole alot of ideas of GW!"

It does not open the big pic. GO to the third pic in the blog and click on it

Wow. I never saw that picture.  Besides the very obvious similarities in motif and names, the symbol on most of their helmets looks just like the Biel-Tan Eldar emblem.  Very blatant.

[Blackwolf]

Yep,Nemesis was the the best,credo!

[Columbarius]

Isn't there a set of 'lost' legions from the first founding that are never spoken about. You could perhaps link your backstory to them.

[dbsubashi]

The Imperium of Man is a pretty big place. Almost anything goes. Space Marine chapters fight for many reasons. Some follow the "company line", some fight for their own reasons. From a fluff perspective, you can use this to create the chapter you are thinking of. Here are a couple of examples:
 

• Your Marines are trying to free mankind of their "heresy" of worshiping the Emperor as a god. I have done this with 1 of my Chaos Marine armies, who attack human populations to "prove" how feeble the Eccliessarchy (or however you spell it) is.
• Your Marines have an agenda that is kept secret, and will go to any ends to achieve it, even the total destruction of human worlds. They could seek objects like the Relictors, or certain individuals, like the Dark Angels.
• Your Marines may simply believe the other "good" forces are wrong, or doing things for the wrong reason, and thus must be smited as heretics. When I fight "good" armies with my loyalist Marines, I constantly remind my opponent that HIS army is the heretics, and MINE is the loyal and true. It unnerves them, and is great fun too!
• Your Marines may be sent to do their smiting by the Emperor's Tarot. Who is to argue with the Emperor's
  Wisdom, and why he wants wants them dead?
• Additionally, the Tarot may guide your Marines to spare and/or aid aliens forces. Again, who going to argue with the Emperor?
• In the sector of space your Marines are fighting in, certain aliens may be more useful as allies against a more terrible threat. The fluff points to many ad hoc forces combining against "world devouring" forces such as Tyranids or Necons.

               
                  ----------------SPOILER ALERT--------------------------------------

  

• If you have read the Heresy book on the Alpha Legion, they allegedly turn to the "dark side" to save the Imperium from death and stagnation, and to conquer Chaos. They may still be operating on this hidden agenda, trying to save mankind from themselves. your Marines may be doing the same sort of thing.
• In the Heresy book on the Emperor's Children (Fulgrim), Fulgrim attempts to save several alien worlds and races. In the first Heresy book, Horus also attempts to do the same. Chaos forces their hand, as the aliens recognize their "alliance" with Chaos and attack them. If your Marines are not tainted, they may try to save aliens, and actually succeed!
• Chaos makes them do it!

You have many choices for why your chapter does want they do, and the fluff supports them all! Just go out and build them, and have fun!

[Drachenklinge]

Well you might also try to convince a chess opponent to play without pawns, or allow you to use the rules for canons from chinese chess for your rook.

I do not agree completely here. Because within chess, there is no option of making rules up (which does not mean, it can't be done, if Your opponents agree, sure enough), or rules which can be bend or broken. Beside maybe some chess-trainig-rules or set-ups, but none of it is around or about "fluff". So, only within games like chess armies are truly "balanced".


But the big big difference (apart from much cooler miniatures  ) is, that in RPG and/or tabletops, there is a story behind the miniatures which (here it comes) influences the set-up of the games and often additional rules itself. More important it seems to me, that all fluff and background stories seem to have some "blind spots on the map", even the most detailed versions. Though I do not think, that these blind spots are there really by intention, they exist nonetheless - free and ment to be filled by the gamer. Not so in chess. There is no mysterious set-up about the background of the black queen - and all the more not at all different from the one for the white (but actually I always thought the white queen a bit classy and sniffy ... always want's to go first ... annoying).

So, chess is determinated to last bit of information. Tabletop simply is not. Both I value as big advantages of their related games!

On the other hand it seems clear to me, that one can only make up his rules within the fluff and the blind spots, because just cause You like the minis from the SM you "cannot" use these models and play them with orc-rules. That would make less sence and cause more confusion.

Don't misunderstand me - I am a fluffbunny, but I like to bend the boundary of my beloved dwarves so that they fit into my liking (e.g. my proxy for the warhammer dwarfish helicopter - yuck!!), as long as they still come out stubborn, big-bellied and with as many grudges as possible. 

best wishes
DK

[Jaeger]

I was refering to the interaction between players.

The game itself is an irrelevant factor really.

It doesn't even have to be the rules. If you enjoy the dark setting of 40K and find the facist ways of the Imperium as an integrated part of the game/story, you might not enjoy playing an army where Dreadnoughts are converted to look like "Hello Kitty" (stretching to make a point).

I'm guessing Kasparov would object to playing championship chess with pieces sculpted as famous porn stars, while others might find it quite entertaining. 

/Jaeger

[Red Orc]

...
On the other hand it seems clear to me, that one can only make up his rules within the fluff and the blind spots, because just cause You like the minis from the SM you "cannot" use these models and play them with orc-rules. That would make less sence and cause more confusion...

I don't entirely agree with this - I wouldn't mind if someone used SM models with Ork rules as long as what was what (and why) was very clear - 'their armour doesn't work, it's all for show, but the 'bolters' are shootaz, their 'heavy bolters' are big shootaz and their 'plasma cannons' are mega blasters'. As long as the Ork list is legal, I don't really care what models represent it as long as it's pretty clear what's what.

I'd have much less problem with that, than with someone who says 'I've written my own army book where all my models have long-range assault rifles with tank busting bullets and I can take 20 of them in a squad and I can field 10 magic-using monstrous creatures as one HQ unit and to balance it out they're scared of chickens and need to take a morale test every time they fight one'.

[Too Bo Coo]

I don't entirely agree with this - I wouldn't mind if someone used SM models with Ork rules as long as what was what (and why) was very clear - 'their armour doesn't work, it's all for show, but the 'bolters' are shootaz, their 'heavy bolters' are big shootaz and their 'plasma cannons' are mega blasters'. As long as the Ork list is legal, I don't really care what models represent it as long as it's pretty clear what's what.

I'd have much less problem with that, than with someone who says 'I've written my own army book where all my models have long-range assault rifles with tank busting bullets and I can take 20 of them in a squad and I can field 10 magic-using monstrous creatures as one HQ unit and to balance it out they're scared of chickens and need to take a morale test every time they fight one'.

This entire thread is getting very silly now. 

1) OF COURSE each person is absolutely free to choose to do whatever they care to do with their personal property.  So this point above, made by others as well, is not lost on anyone.

2) The reality is that people who 'go rogue' in the GW universe have very very few opponents to play against, those other people also 'doing what they will' with their own personal property.  I played, and sold, theur games for a long time, my experience is pretty representative.  Simply put, an 'Orky/SM' force will have very few people to play against.  This really seems to be the more operative point if the guy wants to actaully play the game as opposed to engaging in a painting exercise.