Questions to Stormcast Eternals Stormhost organisation

[EMMachine]

Hi Guys,

It's more a narrative question than a gaming one.

I wrote the question in the title: Is the number of Chambers fix in an Stormhost?

The Point why I ask is. I started painting a Stormcast Eternals Project in february. Though I like the idea to craft a little background I desided to paint them as Celestial Vindicators and gave them the Purple Plums of the Bladestorms (and tried to make the troupmarkings with the colors of the tabards and buckles most correkt like the battletome said for celestial Vindicators). The only thing I didn't have done, was painting the helmet of the Lord Celestant white, like Thostos Bladestorm had. I already painted about 50 of 200 Models, while I came to the point of Allgates (think the guys that have read the book know how it ends for the Celestial Vindicators, and didn't want to spoiler in this thread).

Now I have the problem, that I didn't know what GW will do with this Chamber in the future and it was an error of me in the longrun choosing an "posterboy Chamber" since it was quite bad for crafting narrative so far for me, because I don't want to produce heavy narrative conflicts.

I didn't want to change the chamber completely but would perhaps repaint the plums, so they are another chamber. The point is, if I choose one of the other two colors (beige or black) which are actually not mentioned in the story (perhaps only that Celestial Vindicators had taken part in a battle) i'm not save that GW would write background for one off them some time and perhaps screwed my own crafts (exept they only will write background for the bladestorms).

Now we are coming to the actual point of my question. After most chambers in the battletome have three Plumcolors (in case of Celestial Vindicators purple, beige and black) are these the only strikechambers the stormhost has or could a stormhost have a fourth or more Strike Chambers, so craft my own one thats part of the Celestial Vindicators? I saw the structure in the Battletome and tried to read the part where Stormhost and Chamber are descriped but except that the number of Conclaves and Retinues inside the Chamber are restricted.

It's the same thing with extremis Chambers. In the description there is said that most Stormcost have only one Extremischamber but in die actual battletome multiple chambers have shown helmets with 3 colors of plums (and strangely the celestial Vindicator shown has the colors purple, beige or red, while in the old battletome of Stormcast Extremis there was a picture artwork with a black plume on the helmet).

But I think we all know that GW is quite inconsequent with the colors, after there are pictures for Celestial Vindicators with white shields while other ones with turquoise ones or the one shown Prime with a golden helmet or Thostos Bladestorms white helmet as the only hero with a white helmet. Or that some build there color on "Stegadon scale green" while others on "Macragge blue" that gives the miniatures a quite different finish (okay my models are painted with thousand sons blue so its more a cyan color, but it is a quite simular color theme). I don't think that I could count them because of the simularities in color as a complete different chamber without changing other colors.

So should I just make my own fourth chamber if this is legit or take one of the other two and hope that GW will never write background for them (after there are two named Lord Celestants for the Hammers of Sigmar in the Realmgate Wars, I'm not sure that the same couldn't happen with other stormhost chambers.

Would be nice to get some creativity for storycrafting back for that project, so I could connect them to my other projects in my own created continents (what could be possible after I read parts of the 'The "logic" of the AoS setting' Thread in the forum here) or find some points where they could be in the original background, so my Skaven and Stormcast Eternals where part of the battle in Godbeasts where Behemat was woken and corrupted (don't know how the place was called in the englisch story, only the german name "Schorfweite"). The point is that in this battle were Celestial Vindicators mentions but not what chamber and multiple Parasite Engines which all could perhaps hold there own clans after they have the size of cities and only one charakter was mentioned in that story.

Hope you guys could help me with this, because after painting 50 Miniatures in about 2-3 months and reading the story of Allgates I got some issues with motivationproblems for that project.

Regards

EMMachine.

[chord]

"So should I just make my own fourth chamber "  I say go for it,  AOS is all about doing what you want.  The rule of cool!

[EMMachine]

Okay, with a little research in 'lexicanum' a came to the conclution, that Stormhosts probably aren't restricted to three chambers.

I saw a total of 15 Chambers in the Hammers of Sigmar Stormhost (9 Warrior Chambers, 1 Exemplar Chamber, 2 Harbinger Chambers and 3 Extremis Chambers) and 9 Chambers in the Hallowed Knight Stormhost (5 Warrior Chambers, 4 Extremis Chambers).

In Lexicanum there are only mentioned two Warrior Chambers, but when searching in the different Battletomes of Stormcast Eternals and all plumcolors are correct they should have at least 3 Warrior Chambers (with the colors purple, beige and black) and 4 Extremis Chambers (with the colors purple, beige, black and red)

So the 'rule of cool' could be okay there. Now, if I do the change, I have to reason what color I will use and would fit with the cyan color of my models.

Here a little example with one of my troups (actually with the colormarking of the Bladestorms). I have an army with about 200 models, acutally 50 painted and would have to change 15 plumes if I would change the chamber (but that would be a lesser problem than repainting 47 models (if the Aetherwing stay the same color) and taking an entire different stormhost, what I wouldn't do after painting the 50 models in about 2 month).

red could work, but is already used in a chematic drawing for the extremis chamber. White could be possible, but is quite nasty to paint (especially I would overpaint the actual plumcolor). Could perhaps a dark green work?

 

[Artobans Ghost]

Looking really good! I like the green idea (as I personally like green) but I think it would blend nicely. 

[EMMachine]

Okay, yesterday I made my decision.

First I tried painting one plum green, but thought during painting that it wouldn't work for me.

Then I thought making them orange and painting the first plums lightend up my mood, so I painted all 15 Plums in this color.

So behold! The "Blazenhearts" Warror Chamber. I made a picture of the same Judicator unit to show the difference.

 

[Screwface]

Hold on, so what's the difference between the first and second pic? Just a different colour plume?

[EMMachine]

Yeah, thats the difference.

The Armourcolor declares the Stormhost (in this case Celestial Vindicators, even the color differ from turquoise to cyan).

The Chamber is declared by the color of the Plume on there helmet (in the case of Warrior Chambers the Purple Plume is for the Chamber of the Bladestorms (Thostos Bladestorm's warrior chamber).

Didn't wanted to recolor 50 of 200 Models but get my freedom to create my own part of background without causing too much inconsistencies (in that case after the story of All-Gates and what happend to Thostos Bladestorm in the story). And after the Hammers of Sigmar have 9 Warrior Chambers. Why shouldn't the Celestial Vindicators have 4 or more.

I only hope, that GW won't make a chamber for Celestial Vindicators with orange plume because I would get background problems again.

[EMMachine]

I changed the topics name, because I have another question for the stormcast organisation.

Each soldier is part of a conclave and organised in a unit called "retinue" inside the chamber.

These retinues are marked by the colors of tabards & buckles. Each Tabard Color could be used three times while they have another buckles color.

For example my Judicator retinue is part of the Justicar Conclave and have white tarbards with golden buckles.

That method works for Liberators, Judicators and Paladins.

How does this work with Prosecutors, Vanguard Hunters oder Vanguard Raptors, after these units don't have chainmail tabards with the surrounding clothpart thats painted in the color. Instead they use leather, which wouldn't look right when painted in the tabards color. And in the cases Procecutors could be nine units if the Harbinger Chamber is used and the same for Vanguard Hunters in the Auxiliary Chamber which could be nine retinues. For hammers of Sigmar they are often painted blue, which could be an indicator but in other chambers they are often brown of black and do not have the same colors as the cloth on the chainmail tabards.

In the case of Extremis Chamber GW was more vague, because the only informations were in the heraldic section of the Stormcast Eternals Extremis battletome.

There are parts where the saddlecloth is part of the retinue, or the color of the comet on the dracoths armor. But also a Fulminator of the Hallowed Knights which has silver bolts on his shield so he is part of  the Thunderwave Echelon (but on the next page a Celestial Vinidator Fulminator that also should be part of a Thunderwave Echelon but has golden bolts on the shield). There are also some badges of honor in form of colors of the rein (in case of hammers of sigmar, red ones for fighting in the first battle of the Hammer Draconis or white ones that weren't explaned further). There is no general indicator and in the new battletome no real explanation how the retinue works for them. Perhaps the easiest thing would be the saddlecloth + cometsymbol.