Some help with Chaos Space Marines - What to do?

At different points in the past 6 or so years I started numerous Marine armies always attempting to make each person as unique as possible, and eventually grew tired of it. One project was a Black Templar army where I used Space marine, Black Templar upgrade kit, Dark Angels Upgrade kit, and Brettonian parts to make the army. Even made about 4 jousting Black Templars on bikes. I didnt do so well at painting the color Black and pushed aside it went.....


Another time in my Warhammer history when I was playing Fantasy I got really excited when I heard new demons coming out in plastic. I thought "Oh boy I can finally field the army of Warriors with tons of demons that I always wanted" Got the advanded box (after a break in the hobby) and was surprized to find out its a whole army on its own at the time.... Some demons got painted up and pushed aside, used for various other projects (bloodletters to converted Ur-Ghuls for Dark Eldar) and some were sold off...

Yet another time I get the idea I can use some of my left over marine stuff (because I didnt finish the Templars and had some Marines left) and build a Chaos army from that. Got some Forgeworld Bezerkers on ebay pretty cheap, and a few Chaos Marines and regular Bezerkers. I couldn't figure out what to do with the regular marines and how to paiint them. I settled on making them some sort of Khorne army with lots of Bezerkers, didnt really like it and tossed it aside as well.

So now I got all 3 things sitting around taking up space, and I am trying to figure out what to do with it all. One of the thoughts that came to mind was to mix all of those parts together and make a Word Bearers army. Use the tabards, robes and hoods from the Black templar / Dark Angel parts stuff, mixed in with the Chaos stuff,. I always liked the look of the Word Bearers and didnt make them earlier on because I felt that they perhaps wouldnt side with Khorne Bezerkers. That was before I had this site, so that is one of my questions: Would a Word Bearers army use a group of Khorne Bezerkers? I know they are Undivided and dislike the Emporers Children but what about Bezerkers?

I just always liked the colors and look of the Word bearers from some of the art, yet know so little about them and think from what I do know I could make a pretty cool army of them from the parts of three armies that were started and not finished.

Officially they are kind of at odds with any single deity chaos guy. So they're kinda of 'meh' on all the specialized adherents and that includes Berserkers.

That said, i see two easy solutions.

1. First off, just field Berserks. It makes perfect fluff sense for the Word Bearers to utilize the Berserks as shock troops and cannon fodder. They would look down on them as inferior, but if it served their purpose I could easily see them using them.

2. Officially, the Word Bearers are the only CSM Chapter still packing Chaplains. I could see a very easy and fun bit of modding work to make 'counts as' Word Bearers with a Chaplain that used the rules for Berserks on the table top, and would fit quite well within the fluff of the army.

My thoughts.

I would sit on the ideas for 6 months - if the rumours be true the new legions book is just around the corner!

Good to know, maybe I'll just make that Dark Apostle model I've had on my mind for a few weeks using my fantasy Archon on foot.

Just going through my closet of 40k stuff and managed to find these things. Was wondering if I was to chop up and reassemble if I could pull together a decent Chaos army using a Word Bearer theme.

Chaos
Chaos Lord in Term Armor (magnetized arms)
5 Chaos Terminators (Magnetized arms)
10 Chaos Marines
10 Khorne Bezerkers
20+ Bloodletters
_________________________________
Black Templar
Chaplain in Terminator armor
10 Marines w/ Bolters
10 Marines w/ Pistol and CC
5 Assault Marines w/ Jumppacks
1 Dreadnaught (Black Reach w/ Melta and combat weapon)
5 Assault Terminators (Magnetized, could I use all with claws as a Chaos assault term squad of Khorne?)
*unasembled Terminators (have bodies, not sure where arms are or what I have)
1 Vindicator, 1 - 2 Rhinos

First things first - have you asked the lads and ladies over at Bolter and Chainsword? I've been taking a short break from my Kabal to work on a Khornate army and their help has been invaluable.

Secondly, Word Bearers are a fantastic choice of Legion. The fact that they are advocates of Chaos Undivided means you can run just about anything from the codex in your army and have it be fluffy. They are in no way "meh" toward the single-patron worshippers (every one of the faithful has his or her purpose, after all) - the WB worship the same gods, but by and large they worship the Chaos Pantheon as equal deities rather than favouring a single god over another. Check out their Wiki entry, they have great fluff and some seriously good stories based around their actions during the Horus Heresy (see The First Heretic, Battle For The Abyss and most recently Know No Fear).

Model-wise you've got a good collection with a lot of potential there and you are bang-on with your ideas for combining BT and DA parts. Remember that the WB traditionally decorate their armour with devotions to Chaos and verses from the Book of Lorgar, their Daemon Primarch, so all that scrollwork and tabard/robe cloth will be fantastic to add to that imagery.

Supporting what Thor said about the Chaplains, a Dark Apostle conversion would make for a brilliant Chaos Sorcerer. A terror of psychic might channelling the power of the Dark Gods to rend his enemies asunder and delivering crushing blows with a mighty two-handed Accursed Crozius...

Okay, I need to get back to converting my renegade Khorne-worshippers now. o.o;

Good luck!

Raucir

Thats exactly why I was thinking of using Word Bearers because of the look. The idea of tabard/robes and scroll work realy will add to the feel of Word Bearers. Also its because I have 3parts of armies (Templar with tons of DA bits, Chaos and Demons) that when combined together should make a decent Word Bearer force.

One thing I want to question is because I keep hearing rumors of a new Chaos codex in the works. From my understanding both the Dark Eldar and the Necrons got a pretty big change in some stuff when their new books came out, should I expect there to be that much of a change with Chaos Marines? I mean, I am pretty sure its safe to assume that "Chaos Marines" will still be equiped with Bolters or pistol / CC weapon, right? And that Terminators weapon arrangments shouldn't change too much in the future? I am planning on gettign a few bits that would be needed to do the conversions (some Chaos marine heads, chaos terminator armos, etc) and was just curious on that thought.

Rumours, rumours everywhere. But not a shred of evidence. Shame.

A lot of the rumours I've heard have believed that the new starter kit is going to include Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines - which probably won't happen because the point of a Starter kit is to always have a small set of Space Marines (tell me I'm wrong) versus masses of something reasonably squishy, to really show off the whole, last, best hope of humanity angle. A few people have guessed Craftworld Eldar. Which would be fun.

One of the accompanying rumours is that Chaos will be getting a new plastic Chaos Dreadnought kit, which would be brilliant, but otherwise nothing regarding new models. I for one doubt that we'll get new Termies, Chaos Marines or vehicle updates, but it's all speculation right now.

No point fretting over something we haqve no concrete info on, anyhow. Carry on regardlesss! That's what I've done and I've still got sixteen Berzerkers, two Rhinos and two Chaos Dreadnoughts to convert!

Raucir