Dusk is upon us...

...and with it Death follows.

The Death Guard...my choice for this project began their existence as the Dusk Raiders and upon being handed over to Mortarion he changed the name of his Legion. An interesting bit of history to be sure, but why does it matter? Well I'm what you might refer to as a fluff builder - I love creating armies around a theme, a story or a bit of fluff. I've always done it for a few different reasons. First it lets me set a design direction, second it lets me really get into what I'm doing as I love a good story.

With the launch of the Horus Heresy line from Forgeworld, it opens up a huge option to explore the rich universe of the 40k history in the form of some fantastic modeling projects, army builds and options for adding to existing forces if you so choose.

The topic of this post will be a little discussion on why I chose the Death Guard and what some of the choices I've already made for what I will include in my army build. I don't have a final build all laid out in front of me, but I do have a basic scope with a number of choices already made and models on order. I am going to put up a quick caveat - I am moving from Washington state to Georgia in a couple of weeks, so the next update will most likely be after I get settled and well I won't actually start building things for a bit after that as well sadly...oh the timing of things. :(

The initial choice in the project was a bit of a toss up really as I've always been a fan of crazy ultra hyper zealous religious freek armies and the Word Bearers have always been one of my favorite forces of Chaos...however having just read the Word Bearers trilogy and the misbegotten climb to power by Marduk the nut ball, I have become disenamored with the Word Bearers as they have been written into the light of scheming, conniving, back stabbing, self important, egocentric, power hungry cry babies. Hardly an army worth my time...but we're talking pre-heresy here, the Word Bearers were the whole reason for the season. But still having been so off put by the recently read trilogy, I now have a bad taste in my mouth for them. Second, Chiller already has a huge ass WB force, thus making my choice a lot easier.

As a loooong time 40k fluffboi, having bought the WH40KRT book the month it was released here in the US, (I an say I was around at the beginning I guess) the other fanatical nutters I've always loved are the crazy witch hunters of the Inquisition and the Demon smiting Golden...er Silver boys of the Grey Knights. Based off of this and the fact that the Death Guard are not only one of the 4 Legions in book one, but also have some of the most amazing Terminator models out to date, the choice was simple.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

So for those of you who have lived under a rock the last few years and have yet to read through all the Horus Heresy books (like me) or have not listened to the Garro audio books (like me) this might come as a shock to you, but the Inquisition and the Grey Knights may have originated with Nathaniel Garro, Captain of the 7th Company of the Death Guard and the marines he was charged to collect by Malcador. As it has not been confirmed yet, this seems much more likely than the other possibility (do the research if you're curious). And with that story arc firmly seated in my mind the choice to go with the Death Guard as my first Legion project is firmly made.

As I started to look at they force lists and layout of the Legion structure, I returned to the vast resources of the 40kwikia and the Lexicanum to read up on the origins, the pre-Mortarion and the pre-Heresy Death Guard. As one of the few Legions that have histories of name changes and actual service under the Emperor of Mankind before being turned over to their Primarch, I find a need to portray that in my project. After having discussed the idea with my fellow Generals, everyone was in agreement that I should at least have a unit or two in Dusk Raider colors:

Dusk Raider color scheme

As the Death Guard heavily favor MKII and MKIII armor varients, I plan on having a large number of these two armor variants in my units, with the 2 or 3 squads of them painted or partially painted as Dusk Raiders. 

With this in mind I know I'll have a fair number of Tactical Squads, so I'll be starting off with those. I'll be adding a couple squads of the AMAZING Deathshroud Terminators and as the combat doctrine of the Death Guard is one of relentless assault and resilience. The Death Guard are not about fancy tactics, feints and ploys, they instead chose to wear their opponents down with sheer indomitable tenacity. With this in mind the Breacher Siege squads are a must, not only do they look supremely bad azz with with those big azz shields, but they provide the resiliency the Death Guard are known for. 

Alongside the Deathshroud Terminators, I feel the need to field a unit or two of the Cataphractii Pattern armor as well, not only due to this armor being the older Terminator suits, but also due to its steadfast heavy protection, it just seems to be fitting to throw some in there. The Death Guard are also know to have high numbers of Terminators, so this won't be out of place. With the basis of my 'core' force in place it's time to give some thought to the 'extras'.

The Death Guard are not known for having a large number of assault squads, bike squads or other fast attack options. With that in mind I look in two other directions Heavy Support in the way of Devastators and Siege tanks as well as the Elites in the form of Destroyers and Dreadnoughts. As the Death Guard are known for their use of the alchem and radiation weaponry more than any other Legion, I'll be putting a few Destroyer Squads into the list. Dreads are always a must, so a pair to anchor a flank should do me well and as much as Mortarion liked to foot slog, the Death Guard did have a heavy compliment of heavy assault tanks, so I've got a Spartan, a Typhon and quite possibly one of those new Glaives on my list as well.

As of now, I'm awaiting the arrival of some marines, but with the move just 2 weeks away, I may have to divert them to the new address...more to follow!