Falling in love with new old games (Team Yankee)

 11th Edition 40k is helping the homebrew?

Now it is funny that after the blackshields earlier in the year (actually finished them, I know that's nuts but font have good pics for this place) I really was going to focus on Old World. I did for a time, forcing myself to get a force fully painted and beginning a chaos dwarf army that is only 23 odd models from being done too. But there was something that that I could never get away from. 

Back in the earliest days of my journey in 40k I used to have a space marine army in a half half scheme of Macragge blue and Thunderhawk blue. Now I LOVED these marines and it was a long time before I branched out. But as I got better at painting they were repurposed, sold and thrown out as some were just destroyed from years of abuse and use. The thing was I always wanted to paint an army using Thunderhawk blue, I always thought about marines again but with my Fire Angels and then Dark Angel project the concept was shelved in my mind. 

Dark Angels served well in the 10th escalation I ran

The ever venerable Fire Angels, I own way more than I know

Now it wasn't until the beginning of 11th edition that I realised that I have started a new space marine project for each edition (8th Crimson Fists, 9th Fire Angels, 10th Dark Angels/Wolfspear). 

God I love a kratos

When it came to 11th I was excited for new models but all these marine projects felt finished or dead (looking at you fists). It was time to think about something else and one time it was working on nothing for the new edition. That is where the Might Brush came along. 

The culprit

I started to go back and think about the Thunderhawk blue idea and a quartered scheme with white. Going back with this idea I stated to look for symbols and that's when I locked eyes with the stags. These beautiful and inspiring decals. I slapped together a tester model and the rest is history. Or so I thought. 

Scheme example

I was working on the newly crowned Staglords (Lords of Cervus) and threw together some story beats of Imperial Fist successors and works more in task forces rather than normal company structures and the ideas began to flow. There was something in the messaging that was coming out of Games Workshop that made me feel that actually homebrewing and working on unique concepts within an army's fluff would be appreciated and not just thrown by the wayside. Now not entirely what has transpired in the actual start of the new system but anyway. 

I felt that I could write again, to throw together an idea and run with and to not feel constrained by the game as I used to and convert what I have to what I want for the army as a fluff choice and not always a rules consideration. 

RIP to the lads

So that is what I have done. I started with some veterans based on the old metal marine vets and victrix guard bodies to build blade guard. I plan to throw some intercessors together with boarding shields to theme to boarding actions (which I will have to share thoughts about soon). Now I don't think that Games Workshop has done anything extraordinary to make me want to create this project. But what I do think is that I have found something that I can build upon to play games and play campaigns in a setting that has been dormant for me for a long time. 

So since you got all the way through this absolute ramble, here is the first concepts of the Lords of Cervus (Staglords);

A late founding Primaris chapter, the Lords of Cervus wage war in the western reaches of the imperium. 

Hailing from Imperial Fist genestock the Lords of Cervus or as they are more commonly known as “Staglords” have set up chapter operations on the planet Cervus. 

Once thought lost to xenos predation, the human population is small but hardy and perfect for space marine recruitment. The chapter takes their name for their heraldic stag, a beast that roams the many plains of Cervus. A predator of immense size and strength, it takes many a mortal to take down a stag of Cervus. Countless have died to its distended jaws full of horrifying saw-like teeth. Or have been sliced from collar to waist by its razor sharp “antlers”. 

Potential recruits of the Staglords are sent in “warrior bands” to hunt the stags, with those returning with a trophy deemed worthy to join the chapter. 

Unusually the Staglords see their recruiting pool as a set of warriors together instead of apart. That their trials to become a marine of the chapter is one of collaboration and trust, not individual might and cunning. 

This translates into the combat doctrines of the chapter. Companies of the Staglords are rarely deployed individually and task forces are often composed of three or more company elements in a war zone together. 

First company forces are often seconded as bodyguards and advisors for the chapter's leadership. With each captain having a first company entourage to provide them with the knowledge and strength that only the most veteran of astartes hold. Many of these marines are ones that fought in grey shield detachment during the Indomitus Crusade, especially those deployed among the mixed lineage units.

The Staglords follow many of the tenets of the revised Codex Astartes but are more lax with company structure than other Indomitus founding chapters. This is often because of the larger than normal veteran company spread among the battle companies and how detachments and task forces are organised among the chapter’s fleets and active war zones. 

Now onto the rest of this all, an I probably should post here more often. 

Connor