So my next project. A chap on Instagram (sounds iffy already..) in one of my chat groups has come up with a narrative/mini campaign kind of thing where everyone needs to bring a 500pts thematic army based on the back story he's created. There's 7 or 8 of us and the plan is to use these armies at Warhammer World whenever that becomes a thing again.
There's a Krieg army being put together, a counts as GSC army with headswaps from Necrons and general skulls, so they look like astronaut skeletons (for want of a better description) and think someone is literally fielding 500pts of Nurglings!
This is the backstory (copy and pasted, typos aren't mine, also lot's of text coming up)
Retton Manse:
History
The world known as Retton Manse is thought to have been settled late in the Dark age of technology, when Pyskers were first beginning to emerge in the species and so it’s fate was largely sealed before the first settlers landed.
One little known legend tells of a shining global civilisation, of mountains of glass and shining chrome’d materials forming the hearts of sprawling garden cities. The ability to transport matter instantly from distant planets and of a life of leisure and joy.
Much more common are the remembrances of the fall and the dark times of the age of strife when the cities fell, the gardens rotted and what was left of the citizenry were hunted through the blasted and howling ruins by demons and twisted mutant man-things as the sky swam with insanity and horror and the jaws of the warp closed in around the succulent morsel, isolating it from reality and leaving the world a playground for horrors.
As the galaxy calmed and the warp ceased it;s turbulent swelling in the aftermath of the birth of She Who Thirsts, Retton Manse emerged as a shattered and feudal society.
Distrustful of any technology they could not take apart and see the workings of and maintaining an uneasy relationship with what they called “sorcerers” (be it technomancy or psychic power) the feudal warlords carved the continents of the world up between them. Shunning the ruins of the past and residing in fortified halls and citadels in forests and mountains.
There are thousands upon thousands of petty kingdoms and warring tribes and clans on the surface of Retton Manse as well as hundreds of subterranean societies who exist in the ruins of their ancestor’s sewers and transit tunnels.
None have technology beyond blackpowder and cogs, preferring to rely on the strength of their arm and the visible workings of metal, stone and wood.
This world existed, unknown to the majority of the Imperium (though visited frequently by a cabal of capricious techpriests who crawled through the ruins seeking lost technologies) and the odd rogue trader who saw little of interest in quelling medieval peasants.
Then came the sundering of the imperium and once more the skies of Retton Manse were thrown into madness and horror and the people cowered behind their stone ramparts as mutant hordes overran the forests and burned villages by the hundred.
This time however Retton Manse was destined for a greater role in the Imperium.
For reasons unknown, the warp storms would not touch the world or it’s system directly, instead being confined away beyond the oort cloud. As such, despite being deep within the Imperium Nihilus, Retton Manse became a calm oasis in a sea of madness.
What was certain though was that travel to and from it was fraught with danger and a journey that only the desperate might make.
So it was that not ten years after the madness began that the “outsiders” began to arrive. Plummeting from the warp wracked skies and their battered failing starships in drop pods and escape craft were strangers who spoke of an Emperor and foes beyond imagining.
Some of them did.
Some were monsters who came to cleave and pillage and destroy.
Leading us to the now:
The warlords of Retton Manse are beset by their hereditary foes (the mutant hordes and each other) and the strangers.
The wisest have formed alliances with the offworlders, seeking to grow their influence and exact vengeance on their neighbours.
For now the ballance is maintained as the numbers of offworlders are tiny in the face of the hosts arrayed around them, but the battle for the soul of this increasingly precious world has only just begun…
I've bought these
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Going small/elite rather than horde, though I did flirt with the idea of skaven with lasguns. Going to field a shield captain with axe, 4 man guardian squad with spears (using Warden models as they look basically the same and a) were in stock b) have the spear option and c) i like the robes) and the 3 allarus guys, 2 with spears, one with an axe. 500pts on the dot. (fun side note, you can spend 400pts on just the Guardian box if you max out the options)
And here's my backstory for them - to try and vaguely tie in with the theme...
It's been several millennia, though how many exactly we do not know. Ships tumble out of the Warp, but due to the nature of travel through the empyrean the chronographs have read anything from 2,000 years to 12,000 years passed since we left on our mission.
When we first left Terra, at the end of the Heresy, we were in pursuit of a ship of renegades. These traitors had fallen foul of insidious promises from unnatural quarters and Horus. Either way, they needed bringing to heel, and eliminating.
We followed them through the warp into a sector that was mostly uncharted. When we translated into realspace there was no sign on the ship, maybe we lost sight of them or they became adrift. Either way the system we found ourselves in had the obvious reek of corruption and xenos taint to it.
There were signs of old civilisations lost, rebuilt and lost again. The populace were far removed from the Emperor’s vision and the Imperial Truth, giving themselves instead to superstition and craven false deities. In spite of this, the world appeared verdant, healthy, though in a flicker of a moment it would also appear rotten, diseased, corrupt.
We may have lost our quarry, but there was work still to be done here.
That was then.
Now, I am not sure if we are still the same men that left Terra. We have adopted tactics that help to inflict fear upon the foul mutants that rampage across the land, the adornment of trophies being a large part of this. It would have been a reason for censure before, but over time it has become a proven act to aid in the scouring of this forsaken planet. Some of the new tribes to rise are so afraid of science, preferring more.. esoteric means that they fear us as some kind of mystic being, some calling us the Demons. The name is an insult but serves a purpose.
We have slowly adopted the facade, leaving our armour to tarnish and our skin to turn sallow, leaving blood spattered on our weapons, scalping, taking heads for trophies. My Allarus brothers have even found that consuming the blood of fallen enemies helps to break morale of the weak willed inhabitants of the sporadic settlements. All things that the Traitors used to gain an upper hand, however we use this in His name, not to spite him.
During the early centuries here we heard the whispers in the darkness, trying to provoke, calling us heretic, monster, Fallen. This is not true! Many of my brothers have fallen foul of these lies; launching themselves in a frenzy of combat against fellow Custodes, hurling obscene accusations about being tainted. We have cut these from our Order, there is no place for words of dissent. No room for division. We stand together against the madness of this planet. Forever locked in battle, crushing, destroying. Taking skulls for Him. Spilling blood in His name to satisfy the whispers.
Blood for the Blood God.
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by Dave » Sun Feb 14, 2021 2:16 pm 
