How do you add army fluff? That is the question I am posing to you other gamers out there. Now before you answer let me clarify what I am talking about. I am not referring to army list construction at all. I am referring to some things you do to make your army yours.
One of my armies is the Black Templars. I wanted to stick to the codex for the army look but I still wanted to make them my own crusade force. One of the easiest steps I take is naming my characters as well as squads and individual vehicles. To the left you can see the leader of my crusade, Marshal Gaius Kilburne. I have 3 different models to represent him and I am working on a 4th. I also have my Emperor's Champion Castus Fabian, and my Master of Sanctity, Chaplain Kristoff Thaddius. Another thing I have done is create my own crusade heraldry. It is a very simple pattern but I find a way to fit it onto most of my models.
The last thing I usually work on is a back story for my army. My Templars are from the 2nd Crusade of Prima IV, where they finished a two year war against an awoken Necron force. The crusade now maintains a citadel on Prima IV awaiting the inevitable return of the Necron.
Another of my armies are my Disciples of Magnus Chaos marines. They are not as well fleshed out as my Templars yet, but I have named the main characters such as Daemon Prince Khaldun that you can see below. I am still working on a background for the army, but the main point is they are dedicated to Tzeentch and search the stars looking for arcane artifacts to further the goals of their patron god.
Those are some of the ways I have added fluff to my armies. Some other things I plan on doing is building a special new model for any that do something pretty outstanding in a big game like a Tournament. I also plan on writing short story form battle reports but that is a far off project.
So now that you see what I am talking about, what do you all do to add fluff to your armies?
-BJ
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6 comments:
I try to base my armies off of historic events and individuals. Currently, I'm working on my Warband of Antony the Marked, which you can easily tell is a homage to Mark Antony.
I try to incorporate the various games I've played with them into my fluff. As so far its been a war fought against a friends loyalist chapter and culminated in the rise of a Necron tomb and virtual destruction of my chapter.
I've tried my hand at short story battle reports, but so far my writing hasn't met the standards I try to hold myself to andas resulted in being locked away on my computer. I can't bare to publish something I believe to be sub-par.
Adding names to the characters and squads certainly helps flesh out the background and dynamics of the army. I like to try to think up coherent backgrounds for my armies and work from there (e.g. if they're from a warrior cultured planet, then do they have harsh sounding names that go along with that? Or are they more cerebral? etc.).
As the other posters said, adding names definitely helps. I go so far as writing small backstories for each of the named characters.
I, personally, try to make each Sergeant, Exarch, Warlock, Autarch its own figure by converting each one to be rather individual or unique.
Another thing that I'm considering doing for my next army is to put the army through a story - my example is that a large detachment of the Ultramarines 10th Company has been working behind enemy lines for quite sometime. They've seen much more action than is expected of the Scout Company and I plan on painting their armor and fatigues as very worn and battle damaged to reflect that.
Squirrel_Fish, I like that back story for you new army. Very cool idea that could lead to many conversions throughout the army.
I play Dark Angels, but I use the regular Marine Codex so I have more options. That's first and foremost, but like others here, I do a lot of naming.
All of my squads are named, and I further name their sergeants and leaders. If a trooper has an 'MVP' moment in a game, they'll get a name too.
My characters are always named as well, but my own names, not ones from the canon.
We did a campaign a while back and my battle reports always included a bit of narrative fiction from the characters in my army, that was kind of fun too.
Mik,
I am thining about starting a Dark Angels army, but I want to use the DA Codex. Did you not like it or you just wanted to use the reg marine dex?
I used to do the narrative fiction in battle reports, I am hoping to get back to doing it again someday.
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