The great thing I've always said about Games Workshop is that they encourage you to create your own thing within their lore/gaming system/rules. This leads to all sorts of things, from people making/converting fantastic models to beautiful works of art (both in terms of miniatures & 'paintings').

For me it has always been about creating my own Chapters, Regiments, worlds, systems and the like. Over the years I would estimate that I've written up the background for at least two dozen different Imperial Guard Regiments, of which perhaps four have been put into action on miniatures. Whilst there are some 'standard' 40k Guard Regiments I do like (Mordians & Krieg especially), I do have a love for creating my own Regiments.

So I was curious whether if you had created your own Regiment/Chapter, what's their backstory in a nutshell?

The ghosts of Istvaan chapter under the command of Chaptermaster Veles Azril (a name derivided from the name of the slavic god of death and the hasua god of death)

Geen-seed: Raven Guard

21st founding

Due to the cursed founding they remember (through thier geen-seed) what happened at Istvaan and the cries for vengence that belonged to thier ancestors is now thier own. The chapter has the same specialty that their progenetors have and are thus heavily covert however they are much more vindictive and much less forgiving and has thus turned over every single traitor they've captured to the inquisition. They have an extra strong hatred against Iron Warriors and outright decimated the Iron Barrier (a thing of my own creation) during the 13:th black crusade.

"We are the ghosts of Istvaan and thus we shall haunt the traitors till the ends of the universe" - Veles Azril Chaptermaster of the Ghosts of Istvaan.

Chaos cult I was using for a game.

Void cult

Worshiped: The Leviathan (presumed to be some greater daemon of change)

The Leviathan's goals, and there by the cults goals was to render both planes into nothingness.
Famous for making planets go 'missing' after Inquisition finding activity on a planet.
In my game they were doing work on first a black whole device and then something of unbeknown horror. Forcing a chain reaction to cause the merging of the materium and immaterium planes. Can't reveal the ending because were still playing the game (it has been put on hiatus while I am at college.)

I love the sound of the "Ghosts of Istvaan". Solid background & a good basis for their purpose/cause. What are their Chapter colours/heraldry? Do they have the same form of organisation/equipment as the Raven Guard or their own?

Now that sounds like one spooky void Cult. Intriguing, especially the bit about them making planets disappear...

Colours: Mordian blue with chaos black shoulders. Heraldry: Well I searched for something fitting for a time and came upon shoulderpads that looked like robed skeletons (no those did not belong to WH40K but a 28mm miniture but ill make it work one way or the other) and I know that's really DA iconography but I couldn't find anything better and while it is DA iconography it's not really used on any of their successor chapters (or their main ones for that matter) so I think it rolls.

Oranisation and equipment are the same besides two aspects: 1. is that their chaptermaster wields a two-handed chainblade (he is played as kor'sarro khan but with an altered gabriel seth model) 2. The outmost elite are not terminators but a group of Astrates called "wraiths" and they are the ones who have completely melded with the personallitites of their predecessors thus while becoming another person (yet in a way maintaning their self since they are still present in the "fusion") they also become a lot more skilled then your avrage marine and are now the physicall embodyment of what the chapter is (played with legion of the damned rules) although I haven't figured out any special colours for them as of yet.

They are played with the vanilla codex and kor'sarro khan as captain thus gaining outflank instead of caombat tactics.

Blood Ravens, why?


Indrick Boreale, 'nuff said.

I play Praetorian guard. The limited edition 40K models released in the early or mid 90's (I forget when exactly). The differnece is I paint mine blue and white and call them the Albion 13th 'of Foot backed up by Armour from the 10th Praetorian Dragoons. Alba is a small cold mineral rich moon of one of the Praetorian systems Gas Giants. The Albion regiments are renowned for fighting in harsh terrain and their use of "the thin red line" and bayonet work. You get the picture im sure its basically a thinly masked bastardisation of 19th century Boer war Brits and Scottish/British units from 18 and 19th century colonial wars.

Since the recent codex changes I tend to focus on mass infantry units of up to 30 (prefer around 20) with a couple of special weapons but no heavys in the units for fast movement, stands of heavy support primarily Auto Cannons and Las Cannons (all modled with carriages and horses (i stole the idea form this guy years ago: http://colgravis.blogspot.com/p/army-gallery-gallery-of-finished-models.html ). I normally mix in either Rough Riders (all modeld as Praetorians, no the awfull GW ones) or sents depending on what I will be facing. I also take backup in the form of 1 or 2 Bassis and a LMB or DMB or occasionally both. Ive been playing guard since around '88 though when they were originally called Imperial Army. At one time belive it or not they even had Beastmen in the ranks, and Jet bikes and Vincent Blac Shadow bikes and Land Speeders, I still miss those. I have enough Praetorians to field an entire company with left overs (my wife has banned me from buying anymore for the last 3 years) and enough tanks to field a couple of armoured companys, when GW Edinburgh had that massive tank battle in White Dwarf about 5 or 6 years ago a lot of the tanks were mine Oh and around 75% of my guardsmen are unpainted, the majority of my tanks are finished though. I actually detest painting praetorians.

I also had a Space Marine chapter when I first started. Early in 40ks life White Dwarf ran fan submission pages for fan art work. Some guy had submitted a picture for Warhammer FB table top Dwarf Gyro Copter pilots called "Orc Busters". So I unashaeadly stole it (I was 11) and called my Chapter The Ork Busters. They were Moody (later Midnight) blue with Orc Brown or Goblin Green helms depending (all Mk 6 Corvus as it was the only armour at the time). I stopped playing them eventually because I couldnt affoard Marines a Dwarf Army and guards at the same time and everyone also played marines (there were no army lists, no tyranids, genestealers, dark eldar etc) I still have a jotter someplace (nicked it from 1st year maths) with maps and crap written down about the chapter but I dont remember much of it.

My custom Space Marine Chapter:

The Dark Hearts

Black breastplate, thighs, arms.
One Pauldron Bleached Bone bordered by Blood Red
One Pauldron Red Gore bordered by Black
Red Gore Greaves and gauntlets
Helmets & Power Packs various patterns of Red Gore, Black, and Bleached Bone
Emblem: Black Heart on Bleached Bone, various green wreaths and vine decorations. Veterans all display roses in various places.

Before you say they sound like Blood Raven rip-offs you have to note my army precedes the Blood Raven's concept by three years.

Original Story: Decendents of the survivors of the purged 2nd Legion. Their primarch, Valorius Grael (Until GW gives an official name), was the son that represented the Emperor's love, passion, and compassion. First named the Pure Hearts the 2nd Legion spent a large ammount of time on the fringes fighting the Eldar. During a particularly long campaign the primarch witnessed the threat of the Dark Eldar and made the decision to form a one time alliance with the Eldar to fight the DE. This was the beginning of his fall. During the campaign alongside the Eldar, Valorius became intrigued with the grace and beauty displayed by the Xenos. He eventually fell in love with a farseer. He could not hide this from the psychic mind of the Emperor who sent his other Legions to purge the abomination. A lone company survived. They were isolated while on a special operation. After destroying a DE cult they were filled with grief and rage when hearing about the fate of their legion. They immediately turned on their Eldar comrades and embarked on a campaign that saw the end of that Eldar craftworld. Left isolated from the IoM, the last company of the 2nd Legion waited, watched, and fought their own wars. Upon observing the 2nd founding they saw hope. Still they waited and during the long wait they became masters of subterfuge, stealth, and espionage. They studied the IoM and when the 13th founding went into it's final stages they stole the original gene seed sample and hacked the Imperial Librarium. They inserted their newly named "Dark Hearts" into the 13th founding indexes and reinserted themselves into the IoM. New neophytes were never told their history and shame. The last Chapter Master to have any knowledge of their past was Grand Master Isaac Brettorian. Once the Chapter was at full strength he ordered a Founding Veteran's Pilgrimage. All Chapter members that knew of their history left on a pilgrimage and never returned. Master Brettorian's last words to the Chapter were "Remember Brothers, there is a great darkness that threatens to overtake your heart. The same darkness that is the weakness of all men. Always abide in the pursuit of justice, righteousness, and compassion where appropriate. Be vigilant in your quest for purity lest the darkness take you unawares. For the Grael!!!" Master Brettorian led his pilgrimage to far reaches to purge the Eldar until every last member of his veterans knew the Emperor's Peace. The Chapter's battle cry is still "For the Grael!!!" However they have no knowledge of their primarch. Instead they believe they are constantly pursuing their Holy Grail which is a pursuit for purity.

Interesting additions to the thread from you both. Thank you for taking the time to type them up for us to read. Must say I do like the sound of blue Praetorians - any chance of a picture or two of them for us to see, of the painted ones that is? Every Praetorian model I've seen painted has been in the classic '1870s British-Zulu War' style of dark blue/black trousers, scarlet/blood red tunic, white webbing and white/fawn pith. Use of blue intrigues me.

Don't worry about your colour scheme being similar to the Blood Ravens Partisan, I've seen several home-made Chapters using a very similar colour scheme, but it sounds as though yours has enough variation in it to set it apart from those Blood Raven chappies.

My own unit, my latest work, is the Machinegun Company of the 56th Siege Regiment of Krieg. This force is built for doubles tournaments and as such it will have enough models for 875 points. However the Machinegun Company itself is a lot larger than the single 'platoon' I will be fielding.
The entire army will utilise Forgeworld Krieg models, of which I have 3 of my Death Riders painted and am workingo n the fourth at time of writing. But on to the army itself;

The inspiration came from the British Machinegun Corps (MGC) of World War 1, who would deploy sections armed with Vickers Medium Machineguns to support Battalions and formations, to give them heavy direct/indirect fire support. With the World War 1 French/Belgian/Germanic appearance of Krieg soldiers the idea stuck in my head - what if I switched out the bog standard tanks + fliers + infantry approach and went 100% infantry...with the maximum number of Heavy Weapons squads all armed with Heavy Bolters? Thus my current army was born. excuse the large image, spoilers weren't working when I tried previewing the post.



Now the big problem you will no doubt have spotted is that there is no anti-tank support - thats for my doubles partner to worry about (he's building an armoured force to balance mine out) and we're actually rather keen to see what 18 Heavy Bolters can do to enemy infantry.

The background is pretty much all in that one image, but I will be fleshing it out further with stories/engagements/battles they've been involved in, but thats for the future.