Multi-Chapter SM Army

[Tekore]

A question for all you ladies and germs who play in the fancier GW tournaments:

I would like, after I finish my 2000 points or so of Raven Guard, to paint some more Space Marines from a different chapter (current contenders are Imperial Fists, Iron Hands, Sallies, and White Scars). I've been thinking about how to do this without hobbling myself and letting myself never change lists. Could I have a list of say, Raven Guard scouts with Imperial Fist tanks backing them up, and use it in the GW tournies? I don't foresee having any problem locally, but I'm curious as to the long haul. I would use a base, and perhaps battle markings, that tied them together, as if they were on the same battlefield.

I can see this like having different Ork clans in the same army, but don't want any sassy business from tournies. Comments? Questions? Tuna Fish?

Tekore

[Wraith]

Call it a crusade army or something - Marines would see much more small force action than grand, full company, heavyweight deployments anyways, so the idea of small elements of several chapters meeting and working together during the course of a larger campaign is just plain sensible. Adding in a campaign badge or something to the different units is a great way to link them.

So long as it's a legal army, you ought to be pretty safe - they're your models, you get to paint them however you bloody well want to! The only real worry is the chance that a tourney organizer will arbitrarily boot you from their event because they don't like the idea and they have the power, and in that case: A: the organizer's a huge jerk, and B : you probably didn't want to play in that event after all.

[Lost Nemesis]

You can paint your miniatures however you want and use them in the same army; as far as I'm aware, there are no rules on paintjobs in tourneys other than the minimum X number of colours or what have you. I have never heard of a rule saying all of your models must be uniform; heck, Eldar armies painted to the fluff have all sorts of colours thrown in there.

As long as you aren't trying to use special rules/characters for those chapters (Shrike's Wing, Lysander, etc.) then you should be good to go using a vanilla/DIY traits list.

[distortiondave]

I had seriously contemplated this myself for use in apocalypse games, and still might, but had never thought of it for use in smaller games.

I think with Raven Guard you wouldn't go far wrong using Iron Hands and Salamanders as well. All three legions were almost destroyed during the heresy, so they have a sort of common bond there to begin with. I know they don't have any survivors from that time, but as a sort of memorium to their loss maybe they each contribute squads to undergo a particular crusade from which they aren't expected to return.
Good scope for fluff in multi chapter crusade ideas, and it wouldn't look odd on the table - Dark Angels have three colours, Blood Angels have two etc.
And you can draw them all from the same codex, which is a bonus. You certainly couldn't have squads from Raven Guard, Black Templars and Space Wolves in your army using all three codices and expect to be allowed to play.

[Tekore]

Originally Posted by distortiondave

And you can draw them all from the same codex, which is a bonus. You certainly couldn't have squads from Raven Guard, Black Templars and Space Wolves in your army using all three codices and expect to be allowed to play.

Oh, absolutely. At the end of the day, I'm not even looking to paint individual models from different chapters, or mix squads. I'd just like to draw up around 2000 points of each, while sometimes adding in squad(s) or tanks(s) from chapter A into an army list that is mostly Chapter B. I usually use a very Raven Guard list in friendly play (the Lost Nemesis combo of Assault Squads, Drop Pods, and Scouts), but in tournaments, I bring armor. I don't want to, fluffwise, paint Raven Guard Land Raider Crusaders and Vindicators (plus, I'm sitting on about 10,000 points of SM, and making it all one army sounds like it might get old).

My rough thoughts:
2000 Raven Guard (Lots of Assault Squads, Drop Pods, Scouts)
2000 Imperial Fists (Lots of tanks and dreads and big guns)
2000 White Scars (Bikes!)
2000 Salamanders (Drop Pod Army)
2000 Iron Hands (Transport Rush with moderate big gunnage)

I mean, it's a long term dream, but it makes me happy.

Tekore

[distortiondave]

'(plus, I'm sitting on about 10,000 points of SM, and making it all one army sounds like it might get old). '

I feel that pain...

I'm sitting on a bunch of unpainted minis in the hope they release sculpted salamander pads...

Anyway, I don't think you'd have any problems, rules wise. The only I can think of is trying to convince whoever you are playing that your Imperial Fist Devastators support Shrike and his cronies have the fleet rule... you may be as well, in tournament situs, to just use standard combat tactics rather than any conveyed by a special character, or counts as character.

[ShadowZora13]

Originally Posted by distortiondave

I had seriously contemplated this myself for use in apocalypse games, and still might, but had never thought of it for use in smaller games.

I think with Raven Guard you wouldn't go far wrong using Iron Hands and Salamanders as well. All three legions were almost destroyed during the heresy, so they have a sort of common bond there to begin with. I know they don't have any survivors from that time, but as a sort of memorium to their loss maybe they each contribute squads to undergo a particular crusade from which they aren't expected to return.
Good scope for fluff in multi chapter crusade ideas, and it wouldn't look odd on the table - Dark Angels have three colours, Blood Angels have two etc.
And you can draw them all from the same codex, which is a bonus. You certainly couldn't have squads from Raven Guard, Black Templars and Space Wolves in your army using all three codices and expect to be allowed to play.

Actually, I'd like to point out that the Iron Hands have a strong resentment to the Raven Guard and Salamanders for this very reason. During the Istvaan drop-massacre, the Iron hands surged forward to attempt to take out the rouge primarchs, while the Raven Guard and Salies retreated to cut their losses. So the Iron Hands probably wouldn't be seen fighting if them. For that matter the Iron Hands are a very secluded chapter, and probably don't fight with others very often.

But that is just from a fluff stand point. As far as using them with your Raven Guard, I doubt anyone would have a problem with it. A space marine is a space marine. Go for it.

[Boomer]

Not being funny, but if the only reason not to do any army in a certain way
is because someone in the G.W head office decided that chapter X
don’t like chapter Y because of reason B is just stupid.
Only one of my armies follows the official 40k fluff, and my other army is designed
from a totally made up idea I had one night after I had been chatting to Jesus.
Guess which army people like to play against more?
Fluff armies are all well and good. But they are YOUR miniatures so paint them how you please, don’t ever let a 30 year old, over weight fluff loving Nancy tell you otherwise
(i don't mean you ShadowZora13, I mean the people on Whineseer).
Infact, if someone told me not to doing something because it’s unfluffy then I’m more likely to give it a go. And anyways LatD was the fluffiest army ever, and look how G.W treated that list.

[The Paint Monkey]

I often thought about painting a SM army from all the rejected bits from skewed codices. I was going to use stuff that was always left out of other armies- Blood Angel Devastators and vindicators, Dark Angel Assault Squads (back when they would refuse to charge), White Scar tactical marines etc etc.

It would have been fun and using just a regular SM codex would have been tourney legal too.

[InquisitorAffe]

The only painting rule I have ever seen for tournaments is that one official chapter cannot be used as another. e.g., if your models are red and have blood drops on their shoulders, they can't use Codex: Dark Angels! It seems like you're safe on that count. Under the new Codex the presence of the appropriate chapter character should make it abundantly obvious what the army is. If you were say, planning to play Deathwing models as a 'Lysander-wing' that's when you'd transgress the GT rule.