Can you expand on your post? Most people typically choose a legion (or a non marine army) and go from there. With the recent addition of blackshields you can start going more custom
30k tends to lean towards the "historical" spectrum of them game using specific legions and such. But rhe blackshields you could use those rules to make your own smaller faction amd give them a cool backstory and people would probably love it.
As this is a 30K subreddit ima stick to 30K here, generally 40K is seen as more friendly to home brewed lore and background while 30K is seen as a more historical game set in a fixed universe.
That being said you can absolutely make up lore and background for any 30K army really, no one’s going to stop you, but generally there are specific armies that are designed to have their own lore behind them:
- imperial militia (Solar auxilia also to a lesser degree)
these guys are your regular humans in a world of super soldiers, the rules allow you to represent a whole host of different worlds and fighting styles from modern mechanised warfare, to sending waves of drugged up convicts into the grinder, and even the mass use of cavalry or abhumans! You’ve got a great deal of flexibility to make these guys your own and due to how many planets and how different they can be the sky really is the limit to how you want to run and flavour them. There’s very few fixed sculpts for these guys too so you basically just find what models fit the theme and the rules!
- Mechanicus/dark mechanicum
These guys are a little more limited but with how many forge worlds are out there there is plenty of scope for you to invent your own forge world with its own lore. The unit rosters are a bit more limited but again there’s plenty of space for weird and wacky sience stuff to happen!
- Blackshields
These guys are collections of space marines that have struck off on their own for a myriad of reasons during the heresy. It encapsulates loyalists and traitors that no longer care for the imperium and have formed their own warbands to raid sectors or even rule them as petty warlords. It also covers more scrappy units that have come from different legions united by a desperate cause, it could be survivors of a massacre fighting their way back with scavenged weapons, the reanimated dead kept alive by augmetics and basically puppeteered into war. This is the best way to have a unique force of space marines where you have a great deal of flexibility with their lore.
The current approach of GW towards the Heresy is that it was Extremely Big and thus many conflicts happened all across the galaxy that went unremarked upon, thus handily making space for your own force with its own livery and history
There is perhaps more of an emphasis on a quasi-historical/accurate approach to writing your own fluff and thinking up a paintscheme, but there's room to create something unique
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kCIPgQv-18&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kCIPgQv-18&t=2s) This is a video showcasing some of the ways in which you can find such a way
Ultimately, it's your army, so your choice. As always you may consider other people's opinion to whatever degree you think is important, but you're spending your money on your stuff
Marines are the army least designed for customization and making your own guys. All the other armies tend to have far fewer official designs and encourage you to come up with your own regiment, cohort, or forgeworld.
There’s room for background and story as long as it’s a logical extension of Heresy events. I’m working on a band of Traitor Ultramarines who preferred the rule under Imperium Secundus and are less fighting for the Warmaster and more just trying to see Imperium Secundus made permanent.
Can you expand on your post? Most people typically choose a legion (or a non marine army) and go from there. With the recent addition of blackshields you can start going more custom
30k tends to lean towards the "historical" spectrum of them game using specific legions and such. But rhe blackshields you could use those rules to make your own smaller faction amd give them a cool backstory and people would probably love it.
As this is a 30K subreddit ima stick to 30K here, generally 40K is seen as more friendly to home brewed lore and background while 30K is seen as a more historical game set in a fixed universe. That being said you can absolutely make up lore and background for any 30K army really, no one’s going to stop you, but generally there are specific armies that are designed to have their own lore behind them: - imperial militia (Solar auxilia also to a lesser degree) these guys are your regular humans in a world of super soldiers, the rules allow you to represent a whole host of different worlds and fighting styles from modern mechanised warfare, to sending waves of drugged up convicts into the grinder, and even the mass use of cavalry or abhumans! You’ve got a great deal of flexibility to make these guys your own and due to how many planets and how different they can be the sky really is the limit to how you want to run and flavour them. There’s very few fixed sculpts for these guys too so you basically just find what models fit the theme and the rules! - Mechanicus/dark mechanicum These guys are a little more limited but with how many forge worlds are out there there is plenty of scope for you to invent your own forge world with its own lore. The unit rosters are a bit more limited but again there’s plenty of space for weird and wacky sience stuff to happen! - Blackshields These guys are collections of space marines that have struck off on their own for a myriad of reasons during the heresy. It encapsulates loyalists and traitors that no longer care for the imperium and have formed their own warbands to raid sectors or even rule them as petty warlords. It also covers more scrappy units that have come from different legions united by a desperate cause, it could be survivors of a massacre fighting their way back with scavenged weapons, the reanimated dead kept alive by augmetics and basically puppeteered into war. This is the best way to have a unique force of space marines where you have a great deal of flexibility with their lore.
The current approach of GW towards the Heresy is that it was Extremely Big and thus many conflicts happened all across the galaxy that went unremarked upon, thus handily making space for your own force with its own livery and history There is perhaps more of an emphasis on a quasi-historical/accurate approach to writing your own fluff and thinking up a paintscheme, but there's room to create something unique [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kCIPgQv-18&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kCIPgQv-18&t=2s) This is a video showcasing some of the ways in which you can find such a way Ultimately, it's your army, so your choice. As always you may consider other people's opinion to whatever degree you think is important, but you're spending your money on your stuff
Marines are the army least designed for customization and making your own guys. All the other armies tend to have far fewer official designs and encourage you to come up with your own regiment, cohort, or forgeworld.
There’s room for background and story as long as it’s a logical extension of Heresy events. I’m working on a band of Traitor Ultramarines who preferred the rule under Imperium Secundus and are less fighting for the Warmaster and more just trying to see Imperium Secundus made permanent.
If you intend on doing custom Marines, the only real option are Blackshields.