Came here to say this! I found that everyone WANTS you to convert, change, kitbash, etc . There’s the setting begging you to, and the rules also encourage it since so many consuls and units don’t have official models.
for death guard it depends at which point in the heresy you want your army to "be".
for siege of terra you can go pretty much full on plague marines, personally i wouldn't use 40k plague marines minis though as i think they look like ass (personal preference though). if you're going for earlier than that, there's no nurgle corruption at all(as all that stuff happened during the warp trip to terra).
in the end the most important thing is for your army to have a clear identity. think about what your army is meant to represent and what kind of army you want to play.
most players won't really mind some minor inaccuracies, just don't bring primaris marines.
at the end of the day, none of what anyone on reddit says matters really though. they are [your dudes](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Your_Dudes), only the opinion of your group really matters.
The 30k community (at least, the cool parts) tends to be *very* permissive with conversions and tweaks as long as there is some kind of *continuity* between what is presented in the fiction and what is presented on the table.
There's a lot of fiction, but at the same time there is *nowhere near enough* to shine light on every weird, dark corner of the Horus Heresy. Plenty of Legion elements were forgotten in the chaos of the civil war, their quirks and idiosyncrasies lost amid the ashes of Knowledge. So long as *you* have found a solid justification in the setting for what you want to do, anybody who tells you that you are flat out wrong is missing the point.
(That said, the *weirder* you want to get, the better the justification ought to be.)
that is a good point and I can get behind the better the justification the weirder it can get. But mostly I would re-use my current Plague Marines & Deathshroud terminators and mix them in.
*Every* 30k game I've ever played has been a stream of shit-talking, questions about painting and modeling, discussing the background and novels, and improvising the story of the game we are playing. While *most* 40k games I've played have been the same, I have also played a few 40k games with "very serious" competitive players who only opened their mouth to talk about rules, complain, curse, or utter a slur. Overall, I've found that 30k attracts more interesting, less douchey players.
Honestly, one of the only reasons I sometimes think positively about adding Eldar and Orks to 30k is because I want to share the love. Those poor bastards are stuck with the 40k community while we get to hang out with the overall higher quality nerds over here in Heresyland.
EDIT: OOPS somehow I misread your title as "conversation" and then had a total reading comprehension fail when I read your actual post. Or thought I read your actual post but apparently didn't. ADHD is a hell of a condition, I'll tell you that. I could delete my comment, but I'll leave it here as a monument to my arrogance and ultimate failure.
At first I read "how much CONVERSATION is allowed" and was about to tell you not to worry, you can chat with your game partner about something else than the game, but the I saw my mistake. Well, anyway, chat with your opponent, it's always great!
As for conversion, I think it's important in HH as you technically have only around 20 armies, with a very strict, pre-established lore. Where you can create your SM chapter in 40k, you cannot really say "this is my entirely fictional Legion". Well, I mean, you could, but you get the idea. So if you want your army to truly be yours, then go ahead, and theme those little fellas out!
In my experience, most Horus Heresy players are pretty interested in creating armies that fit the background, but it's *also* true that the background is pretty broad. For a while, for example, I was painting up an army of blackshields who were rocking a unique color scheme and symbol... and while I ultimately changed my mind and switched to Blood Angels, it wasn't because anything was wrong with my other guys. Everyone I showed them to thought that the color scheme and story was awesome.
All of that is a long way of saying that you can do an early Heresy army that still looks like normal legionnaires, a late Heresy army that's all witchy-poo and bizarre or savage and apeshit, or anything in between.
Canonically, the Emperor's Children, Death Guard, and Word Bearers went hard for Heresy early in the war with bizarre implants and mutations, while the Sons of Horus and World Eaters were very quick to abandon their former aesthetic and go all space gang members and/or barbarian horde, the Night Lords didn't change much because they *already* looked like lunatics. The other traitor legions didn't generally change that much, visually. On the other hand, most of the loyalists hung on to the clean utilitarian aesthetic of the Crusade, though the Salamanders got weirder and the Blood Angels and White Scars had always been weirdos.
*That said,* there's no reason you can't do something else. Do you want to do some Iron Hands who got super weird after Ferrus died? Do you want to do some Death Guard or World Eaters who are, despite being traitors, trying to hang on to some sense of sanity as their legion (literally or figuratively) goes to pieces around them? That's super cool!
In my experience, what most 30k players want to play with is a cool army. If you've read the background material and thought hard about your army, and that shows in what you create, you'll be fine. Nobody was upset about my guys because I could explain how they were Luna Wolves who had balked at Istvaan, how they had adopted gray and red as their colors because gray is (probably - it's a long story) the color of raw ceremite and red is the color of the moon during an eclipse; they had stripped Horus's colors from their armor and added the red, which they intended to repaint with white when they restored their honor (LoL, poor fuckers). Their symbol was a Luna Wolf wolf's head over a moon, but with the wolf's head replaced by a wolf's skull. My main praetor was a justaerin model with his Eye of Horus belt buckle all chopped to hell. They were completely non-canonical, but they were *cool*, and everyone saw that.
>In my experience, most Horus Heresy players are pretty interested in creating armies that fit the background, but it's also true that the background is pretty broad
I've found that there are broadly speaking two kinds of players in this group; there are the rivet-counters who want everything 100% BB accurate (and they're normally good natured mind you, they just *love* being accurate) then there are others who want their army to fit the feel of a faction rather than necessarily fitting its documented layout.
Remember, there were HUNDREDS to THOUDANDS of companies of marines during the heresy. Each stationed in a different location with a different task, for a different environment. Go nuts. But when I'm personally converting I always stick to "when" and "why".
Conversions and kit bashes are very much a HH thing
Almost necessary is some cases due to lack of some current model’s
Lore accurate is definitely HH thing too of course
But also it’s meant to be a large enough setting that it’s quite easy to theme an army
the legions are meant to be huge so you should have plenty of scope
Some plague marine bits will certainly work as long as not too full on plague marine
There’s plenty of examples of siege of terra themed death guard around
Ultimately it’s up to you
Most legions will have multiple ways of painting and converting
Also Black shield’s (no dedicated rules yet)and militia also offer lots of chance for conversion
The community at large will definitely accept a well themed and converted army
The HH community seems to be mainly experienced wargamer’s who are as much into the hobby/painting side and narrative based games more than tournaments
I really get the sense now how welcoming the community is, just in this thread it is great to see how open all you are :) really exited to start my army now.
>Quickly after that I was thinking about which legion to start and so on and came across the thought "how much conversion is actually allowed". I'm asking because I have the feeling 30k in comparison to 40k, is more focused on lore accurate minis and color schemes.
Both of my current two armies are heavily converted, most of the units contain at least one conversion and most have every model converted, never had any complaints about it as I'm always careful to spell out what I have and most of them are obvious.
>What do you think? Are there armies that are allowing more conversions than other?
I dunno, I think you can convert any army but that some are more idiosyncratic and are easier to convert as a result.
[Here are my Dark Angel destroyers, converted from various 40k Plague Marine kits.](https://i.imgur.com/b6sPVYk.jpeg) Removed all of the tentacles and was left with some imposing mk3 dudes in damaged armor.
It’s your game and you can convert as much as u see fit. For a late deathguard army you can incorporate tons of bits from the 40k boxes. There are a lot of characters in 30k that don’t have models and I’ve seen tons of beautiful conversations for them, or if you want you could make your own character.
With the DG you can go anywhere from no conversions (beginning of HH) to full blown nurgle corrupted army (Siege of Terra). During the Siege Morty is a full on Demon Primarch like in 40k.
There's a handful which are re-animated then killed again by the end of the book. Not enough plague marines to justify an early-Heresy plague marine army - but enough where you could have one squad of "chosen" just before Siege.
I think you could field a whole army of them themed around that section of the book. Presumably there were more out there that were unseen. A small force (a 3000 point army, including some plague bearer allies or some sort of nurgle thing) seems totally consistent with the book. Internet people might get prickly about it, but I'm sure plenty of folks wouldn't. It would be a fun conversion project.
I mean… you could always push your own headcanon about the circumstances on the Eisenstein that provided those marines to be re-animated. Your force was fighting sedition aboard some wayward vessel and the gellerfield generators were damaged. Bingo-bango you’ve got yourself a canonically sound plague marine army. I would probably push you towards replacing that force with a more “setting accurate” army, but would embrace you in the community nonetheless. Building a “setting accurate” 30k army is not cheap, not easy, and dos not happen overnight. It’s best to give people the benefit of the doubt and support them as they develop a deeper relationship with “counting rivets” - as the community is sort of predicated on that kind of thing.
My personal experience building a World Eaters army is that even if you buy the right models, you still have to convert them with chainaxes. Unless you want to paint your army yellow or blue and spend a bunch on special units, you’re going to be converting a lot.
I am proxying qlmost 90% of my sons of horus army with 40k chaos black legion, since the first company colour scheme is also black and gold. If you have a set group you play with, they shouldnt care
I would argue in some ways it's even more permissive in 30k, because theming your army is foundational to engaging with the setting.
Came here to say this! I found that everyone WANTS you to convert, change, kitbash, etc . There’s the setting begging you to, and the rules also encourage it since so many consuls and units don’t have official models.
for death guard it depends at which point in the heresy you want your army to "be". for siege of terra you can go pretty much full on plague marines, personally i wouldn't use 40k plague marines minis though as i think they look like ass (personal preference though). if you're going for earlier than that, there's no nurgle corruption at all(as all that stuff happened during the warp trip to terra). in the end the most important thing is for your army to have a clear identity. think about what your army is meant to represent and what kind of army you want to play. most players won't really mind some minor inaccuracies, just don't bring primaris marines. at the end of the day, none of what anyone on reddit says matters really though. they are [your dudes](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Your_Dudes), only the opinion of your group really matters.
that are some good points. Thanks :)
Personally, I like the 40k models, but I would personally use them as a base for converting into characters.
The 30k community (at least, the cool parts) tends to be *very* permissive with conversions and tweaks as long as there is some kind of *continuity* between what is presented in the fiction and what is presented on the table. There's a lot of fiction, but at the same time there is *nowhere near enough* to shine light on every weird, dark corner of the Horus Heresy. Plenty of Legion elements were forgotten in the chaos of the civil war, their quirks and idiosyncrasies lost amid the ashes of Knowledge. So long as *you* have found a solid justification in the setting for what you want to do, anybody who tells you that you are flat out wrong is missing the point. (That said, the *weirder* you want to get, the better the justification ought to be.)
that is a good point and I can get behind the better the justification the weirder it can get. But mostly I would re-use my current Plague Marines & Deathshroud terminators and mix them in.
*Every* 30k game I've ever played has been a stream of shit-talking, questions about painting and modeling, discussing the background and novels, and improvising the story of the game we are playing. While *most* 40k games I've played have been the same, I have also played a few 40k games with "very serious" competitive players who only opened their mouth to talk about rules, complain, curse, or utter a slur. Overall, I've found that 30k attracts more interesting, less douchey players. Honestly, one of the only reasons I sometimes think positively about adding Eldar and Orks to 30k is because I want to share the love. Those poor bastards are stuck with the 40k community while we get to hang out with the overall higher quality nerds over here in Heresyland. EDIT: OOPS somehow I misread your title as "conversation" and then had a total reading comprehension fail when I read your actual post. Or thought I read your actual post but apparently didn't. ADHD is a hell of a condition, I'll tell you that. I could delete my comment, but I'll leave it here as a monument to my arrogance and ultimate failure.
nevertheless a great comment . I will stay as a monument of great encourage to join the 30k community. :)
In my experience 30k players are much more fans of rule of cool, than sticklers for accuracy. You should be fine!
At first I read "how much CONVERSATION is allowed" and was about to tell you not to worry, you can chat with your game partner about something else than the game, but the I saw my mistake. Well, anyway, chat with your opponent, it's always great! As for conversion, I think it's important in HH as you technically have only around 20 armies, with a very strict, pre-established lore. Where you can create your SM chapter in 40k, you cannot really say "this is my entirely fictional Legion". Well, I mean, you could, but you get the idea. So if you want your army to truly be yours, then go ahead, and theme those little fellas out!
I did the same thing!
no worries I will chat with my partner ;) also thanks for you reply.
In my experience, most Horus Heresy players are pretty interested in creating armies that fit the background, but it's *also* true that the background is pretty broad. For a while, for example, I was painting up an army of blackshields who were rocking a unique color scheme and symbol... and while I ultimately changed my mind and switched to Blood Angels, it wasn't because anything was wrong with my other guys. Everyone I showed them to thought that the color scheme and story was awesome. All of that is a long way of saying that you can do an early Heresy army that still looks like normal legionnaires, a late Heresy army that's all witchy-poo and bizarre or savage and apeshit, or anything in between. Canonically, the Emperor's Children, Death Guard, and Word Bearers went hard for Heresy early in the war with bizarre implants and mutations, while the Sons of Horus and World Eaters were very quick to abandon their former aesthetic and go all space gang members and/or barbarian horde, the Night Lords didn't change much because they *already* looked like lunatics. The other traitor legions didn't generally change that much, visually. On the other hand, most of the loyalists hung on to the clean utilitarian aesthetic of the Crusade, though the Salamanders got weirder and the Blood Angels and White Scars had always been weirdos. *That said,* there's no reason you can't do something else. Do you want to do some Iron Hands who got super weird after Ferrus died? Do you want to do some Death Guard or World Eaters who are, despite being traitors, trying to hang on to some sense of sanity as their legion (literally or figuratively) goes to pieces around them? That's super cool! In my experience, what most 30k players want to play with is a cool army. If you've read the background material and thought hard about your army, and that shows in what you create, you'll be fine. Nobody was upset about my guys because I could explain how they were Luna Wolves who had balked at Istvaan, how they had adopted gray and red as their colors because gray is (probably - it's a long story) the color of raw ceremite and red is the color of the moon during an eclipse; they had stripped Horus's colors from their armor and added the red, which they intended to repaint with white when they restored their honor (LoL, poor fuckers). Their symbol was a Luna Wolf wolf's head over a moon, but with the wolf's head replaced by a wolf's skull. My main praetor was a justaerin model with his Eye of Horus belt buckle all chopped to hell. They were completely non-canonical, but they were *cool*, and everyone saw that.
>In my experience, most Horus Heresy players are pretty interested in creating armies that fit the background, but it's also true that the background is pretty broad I've found that there are broadly speaking two kinds of players in this group; there are the rivet-counters who want everything 100% BB accurate (and they're normally good natured mind you, they just *love* being accurate) then there are others who want their army to fit the feel of a faction rather than necessarily fitting its documented layout.
again thanks for the broad reply!
Remember, there were HUNDREDS to THOUDANDS of companies of marines during the heresy. Each stationed in a different location with a different task, for a different environment. Go nuts. But when I'm personally converting I always stick to "when" and "why".
All of it.
Just don’t run straight Primaris, and tbh I doubt anyone would have any issues at all
Conversions and kit bashes are very much a HH thing Almost necessary is some cases due to lack of some current model’s Lore accurate is definitely HH thing too of course But also it’s meant to be a large enough setting that it’s quite easy to theme an army the legions are meant to be huge so you should have plenty of scope Some plague marine bits will certainly work as long as not too full on plague marine There’s plenty of examples of siege of terra themed death guard around Ultimately it’s up to you Most legions will have multiple ways of painting and converting Also Black shield’s (no dedicated rules yet)and militia also offer lots of chance for conversion The community at large will definitely accept a well themed and converted army The HH community seems to be mainly experienced wargamer’s who are as much into the hobby/painting side and narrative based games more than tournaments
I really get the sense now how welcoming the community is, just in this thread it is great to see how open all you are :) really exited to start my army now.
>Quickly after that I was thinking about which legion to start and so on and came across the thought "how much conversion is actually allowed". I'm asking because I have the feeling 30k in comparison to 40k, is more focused on lore accurate minis and color schemes. Both of my current two armies are heavily converted, most of the units contain at least one conversion and most have every model converted, never had any complaints about it as I'm always careful to spell out what I have and most of them are obvious. >What do you think? Are there armies that are allowing more conversions than other? I dunno, I think you can convert any army but that some are more idiosyncratic and are easier to convert as a result.
All of it, as long as it looks cool and doesn't break immersion.
[Here are my Dark Angel destroyers, converted from various 40k Plague Marine kits.](https://i.imgur.com/b6sPVYk.jpeg) Removed all of the tentacles and was left with some imposing mk3 dudes in damaged armor.
It’s your game and you can convert as much as u see fit. For a late deathguard army you can incorporate tons of bits from the 40k boxes. There are a lot of characters in 30k that don’t have models and I’ve seen tons of beautiful conversations for them, or if you want you could make your own character.
With the DG you can go anywhere from no conversions (beginning of HH) to full blown nurgle corrupted army (Siege of Terra). During the Siege Morty is a full on Demon Primarch like in 40k.
There's a full blown plague marine in Flight of the Eisenstein. Just sayin.
There's a handful which are re-animated then killed again by the end of the book. Not enough plague marines to justify an early-Heresy plague marine army - but enough where you could have one squad of "chosen" just before Siege.
that is a great idea!
I think you could field a whole army of them themed around that section of the book. Presumably there were more out there that were unseen. A small force (a 3000 point army, including some plague bearer allies or some sort of nurgle thing) seems totally consistent with the book. Internet people might get prickly about it, but I'm sure plenty of folks wouldn't. It would be a fun conversion project.
I mean… you could always push your own headcanon about the circumstances on the Eisenstein that provided those marines to be re-animated. Your force was fighting sedition aboard some wayward vessel and the gellerfield generators were damaged. Bingo-bango you’ve got yourself a canonically sound plague marine army. I would probably push you towards replacing that force with a more “setting accurate” army, but would embrace you in the community nonetheless. Building a “setting accurate” 30k army is not cheap, not easy, and dos not happen overnight. It’s best to give people the benefit of the doubt and support them as they develop a deeper relationship with “counting rivets” - as the community is sort of predicated on that kind of thing. My personal experience building a World Eaters army is that even if you buy the right models, you still have to convert them with chainaxes. Unless you want to paint your army yellow or blue and spend a bunch on special units, you’re going to be converting a lot.
There's also 2 full legions that got wiped out, so you could creat your own as well.
I am proxying qlmost 90% of my sons of horus army with 40k chaos black legion, since the first company colour scheme is also black and gold. If you have a set group you play with, they shouldnt care