New Chaos Army: The Order of the Iron Ring

I started a new army this year, and it's definitely not a Chaos army. How could it be? They don't worship Chaos. Sure, they use Chaos, but so do some radical Inquisitors. They're not an Imperial army either; their ancestors besieged Terra beneath Perturabo's banner, before they scorned him and went off to found their own pocket empire. Ten thousand years later, their descendants know very little of the wider galaxy. The history of Horus' rebellion has long blurred into vague myths. They have endured through industry, discipline, and a proud martial tradition. Millennia of war against the encircling Orks has forged a society capable of withstanding constant strife.

In today's post I'll introduce this new force, explaining the choices I've made so far, how they're painted, and broad plans for the future.

Lore

The Order of the Iron Ring, colloquially referred to by its members and subjects simply as the Order, was founded by a small portion of the Iron Warriors when the Legion splintered in the wake of the Horus Heresy. The founders started to resent their Primarch Perturabo when he decimated his own Legion, and when he abandoned the Siege of Terra, the founders held him in total contempt. Tired of the Legion's failure to value its own troops, and equally unimpressed with the decisions of the so-called Emperor, they turned their back on the galaxy, and carved out a small empire of their own in a remote part of the Segmentum Pacificus.

Ten millennia later, most of this has been forgotten; the Order's focus is on its own eight solar systems, and defending them from the Ork empires they border. Indeed, when a child of the Eight Stars is learning of their heritage, this is all they are taught of the time before the Order:

*

In the beginning, people lived as they wished among the stars.

Then came the Master.

To lead his armies, the Master forged eighteen Fathers within an iron womb. Something was wrong with the Fathers, for they could not have their own children, and so the Master stole Sons for the Fathers, and changed the Sons. The Sons became of the Fathers, for their true parents were too weak to protect them from the Master.

The Fathers conquered the stars in the Master’s name, but the Master had no love for the Fathers, and so the Fathers had no love for their Sons. Once the stars all sat beneath the Master’s banner, the Fathers fought among themselves, and their Sons bled, and the Master’s domain fell to ruin.

And so the Sons hated the Fathers, and the Master, and each other, and they too fell to ruin. But from this Kaos came Order. The Founders of the Order saw that a true warrior conquers only that which can be defended. Their priests had a vision of Eight Stars, forming a great Ring. The Founders searched for the Eight Stars, and when they found them, they never left.

You stand upon the ground they claimed. It is ground that can only be held by the strong, so listen well: you must suffer not the weak; they shall inherit only the soil.

*

Reader, you're quite right: these are not nice people. I always find it a challenge writing baddies whilst also giving them some vestige of something that makes me want to play as them. For these guys I think that one vestige is that they genuinely have great affection and respect for each other, and a desire to defend their home, even though they do so by being merciless fascistic assholes, with all the awful marginalisation and intolerance that comes with that. Theirs is not a thoughtful or artistic culture, and in that sense, is kind of the opposite of everything I love. But hey, at least there's some love there, too, not like your garden variety Iron Warriors heartlessly giving no sh*ts as they send in the next wave.

The first 6 test minis; note I was using different grass tufts at this stage, before deciding they needed to be a darker richer colour.

Given this unwillingness to sacrifice troops unless desperately necessary, they make frequent use of summoned Khorneate daemons as shock troops. If you're going to use Chaos like a tool (and you know, where's the harm in that?) then it's best to go for Khorne. You know where you are with a daemon of Khorne; they're not going to seduce, infect or confuse you.

Priests of the Order

Summoning daemons is hard work for the uninitiated, but fortunately the Order have a Priesthood to do this for them. The priests are definitely not psykers, because you can't trust those. Instead, they are gifted individuals with a talent for finding other gifted individuals with the will needed to perform extremely specific rituals that are in no way psychic, not even a bit, thank you very much. The fact that the Priesthood fulfil the same role as a Legion's Librarius is entirely lost on the Order, who at this point haven't met a human from outside the Eight Stars in millennia, largely on account of spending most of that time defending themselves against Ork invasions.

Deacon of the Order of the Iron Ring
Conversion notes: Base mini is the Legion Praetor w Power Sword, with the Crozius from the Chaplain Consul, and a headswap from the MKIII kit. In-game he's a Sorcerer; the giant pistol is his "smite." Because, and this is important, he is definitely not psychic.

Industry

When the founders of the Order broke away from the Iron Warriors Legion, they brought with them an immense number of support staff, ships, and other assets. It is unknown how long, if at all, the Mechanicum personnel maintained their independence from the Iron Ring, but such independence has long since faded from memory, as has the word 'Mechanicum.'

Model choices

When I began to seriously consider doing a Chaos army, I was initially thinking of going for the Black Legion. Always liked their lore, always found myself drawn to the all-rounders, always liked black with gold trim.

But also the prospect of painting a whole army with all that trim was quite intimidating, and I've never loved how the Chaos tanks, being the same as the regular Marine kits, don't share the aesthetic of the rest of the army.

And then came the new MK3 plastics for the Horus Heresy, and not only was I a fan, but they also screamed 'Iron Warriors.' I could have just straight up gone with Iron Warriors, but then, it's just more fun to come up with my own nonsense, and the galaxy is a very, very big place. You can absolutely have a pocket empire of 8 star systems (an entirely coincidental number, nothing to be concerned about) and it's just fantastically irrelevant to the wider galaxy.

This also lets me use the Heresy-era tank kits, which are cool as hell, and which I'd like to build despite my complete lack of desire to play the Horus Heresy.

Terminators. While I'm not wild about these sculpts, they fit the MK3 aesthetic well.

Painting

This is very much a side project next to my loyalist marines, so it needed to be quick to paint. Here's how it's done:

Construction

No sub-assemblies, but basing sand must go on prior to priming, since we're priming brown.

Priming

• Prime with a brown spray (I use Colour Forge's Hyrax Brown)

Iron armour

• Drybrush gunmetal all over
• Drybrush a mid-silver all over
• Drybrush Vallejo Air Steel over the edges
• Apply Nuln Oil Gloss all over
• Edge highlight the uppermost/sharpest lines and points with Vallejo Air Steel

That looks like a lot of steps, but each one is extremely quick. You could skip the mid-silver for a darker look, and you could skip the Nuln Oil Gloss for a more rusty look, but those stages in combination all add up.

Black cabling/rubber seals

• Paint with Black Templar Contrast paint

Gun casing

• Basecoat in black
• Chunky highlight with Incubi Darkness
• Edge highlight Fenrisian Grey

Pauldrons

• Basecoat Corax White (or any light off-white)
• Paint freehand designs in black, correct with the off-white
• Left pauldron gets an 8-pointed halo
• Right pauldron gets some Heresy era derivation of role markings
• Basecoat with a 1:1:1 mix of Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow and Water
• You could also use a yellow foundation paint, but this is easier to correct mistakes with
• Use your black paint to tidy any bits of the black insignia

Tactical insignia variations

Eye lenses

• Basecoat black
• Highlight Evil Sunz Scarlet
• Highlight Wild Rider Red
• Glaze with a dark red (I used Army Painter's Chaotic Red)

Leather/black cloth

• Basecoat black
• Do a scrappy highlight with a light brownish-grey (I used Army Painter's Filthy Cape)

Red cloak lining/fabric

• Basecoat Army Painter Chaotic Red
• Slowly layer up by mixing Army Painter Dragon Red into the Chaotic Red

Basing

• Drybrush Mournfang Brown
• Drybrush Skrag Brown
• Paint rims Rhinox Hide
• Apply tufts
• Gamer's Grass 4mm Wild Tufts, Swamp
• Gamer's Grass - Tiny Tufts Dark Moss (2mm)

Marshal of the Iron Ring

One shield plate bears the Iron Ring, the other bears a skull impaled on a sword, indicating this officer's role as an executioner of any who show weakness.

What's next?

This force gives me a 500 point boarding party. The task is now to convert it into a functional 1000 point army. This will entail adding Havocs, a Vindicator, and some transports, alongside bulking out the Legionaries. In time, there'll be heavier armour such as a Land Raider, and more Terminators. I'll get to these in whatever order appeals most at the time.

I don't see this army being a huge project; the scheme is easy and fun, so I can do the occasional unit as a palette cleanser between other things, but I can't see it going much beyond 2K. Time will tell! If nothing else, it's fun having another flavour non-Imperial violence to throw around.