Project Outline: Black Legion

Chaos marines have always been one of my favorite armies in 40k. Back in the long long ago, in the dark days of 2nd edition before Codex: Chaos, I built my first chaos army. It was definitely a 'starter army' in terms of paint quality and models used (i.e., anything I could cobble together), but it was the first army I bought with my own money and built start to finish.

Over time I collected Berzerkers and Plague Marines, and muddled through the bleak years of 3rd edition. I was away from the game for a bit, and came back just as the 3.5 edition of the CSM codex came out. I played mostly Khorne previously, but this time I was hooked by the Black Legion. I tend to shun 'generic' armies, but to me the BL took things a bit farther; though they encompassed the entirety of the codex, they were also at the forefront of the Long War and at the end of the day were what chaos is all about. So, I set out to build an army. I really enjoyed the modelling aspect of the army, and did well with them in the game to boot. Alas, the 4th edition codex came around and torpedoed my army build-- demons went away and so a large bulk of my army became unusable. So, they have sat on the shelf for several years, biding their time for an eventual but inevitable return.

In my years of building armies, doing conversions, etc, I've found that most of the time my eagerness to get them on the table outweighs my patience. I've wanted to do an all-conversion army for some time now, but usually I end up rushing through things or losing interest in favor of actual gaming. This time I want to do it different, and do it right. The current CSM codex is more or less crap, so there's no great incentive to rush through the process-- just time to really pour it on from a hobby standpoint so when the next codex comes out (my guess is early 6th edition-- my hunch being with demons back :) ) I'll be ready for it with the bulk of an army already complete.

So as I mentioned above, this army will be done "for the art" as it were, and not necessarily according to what is good in the game-- I'm fully expecting that to change with the new codex. Mutations and the gradual process of a marine turning into a monstrosity has always been one of the coolest part of chaos for me, so that is the route I'm taking with the Legion. Every model will be converted in some way, and will likely include a mutation of some kind. I'm also looking forward to trying some new painting techniques; black is a color that is easy to do but hard to do well. I also hate Hate HATE painting the trim on chaos armor, so I'll probably end up having to find a work-around for that as well. So stay tuned, and wish me luck!