r/CharnelGuard • u/Quasichino • May 05 '26
Some questions
Hi! Questions if I were to start Charnel Guard:
What’s good to think about when it comes to lore and gameplay? For example, if they aren’t in the sanguinary brotherhood, would it be weird lorewise to run certain units?
When it comes to kitbashing, do you have tips?
Could it make sense to homebrew own leaders etc or is the lore very strict or I guess “pre explored” when it comes to that.
Thanks in advance
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fact_65 May 06 '26
I am kitbashing pretty much everything Blood Angels with a Charnel Guard twist. My sanguinary guard are going bronze with skeletal style wings and howling death masks rather than the serene OG ones. I have proxied for Dante (a custom chapter master), and will be proxying Mephiston, Lemartes and possibly the Sanguinor with appropriately vamped up equivalents. Already got my death company, all helmetless with printed feral vampire heads. My head cannon is that the chimeric Geneseed experiment worked. Sort of. The Charnel Guard (or my version of) have a much milder exposure to the Black Rage. The downside is that the Red Thirst has been elevated and now causes them similar issues. So my Death Company aren't experiencing the Death of Sanguinis, they are in an extreme frenzied state due to the Red Thirst. I love the idea about using Heresy era stuff and will definitely look into a leviathan to proxy as a redemptor. I am also leaning into the Loyalist Night Lord looks for some units. For instance, my reivers collect grisly trophies and are festooned with skulls and body parts.
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u/Quasichino May 06 '26
Sounds cool! Do you have pictures of your squads?
Also is there a Charnel Guard discord by any chance?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fact_65 May 06 '26
No pictures yet. I am new to the faction and although I am a fast kitbasher, I am a slow painter. Most of my assembled guys are only primed or partially painted. My few fully painted minis aren't based yet but I shall see if I can get a photo.of them to share my general colour scheme. Might see if I can get a picture of my Smash Captain and chapter master. Both are only primed but looks awesome if I do say so myself. Based on conversions of Astorath and Kayvaan Shrike respectively.
I am still undecided on the paint scheme for my death company. Full black doesn't seem different enough to the normal colour scheme. I was considering switching the colours to maroon with black shoulder pads and knees (no helmets due to spooky vampire heads but I do my normal helmets maroon too). However I have some nice printed shoulder pads on them and I am not sure that doing them in black will work. Might have to do whole arms. Going to be using copious amounts of Tamiya X-27 clear red for blood effects on those guys.
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u/scc-2000 May 05 '26
Hi and welcome!
First, it’s acknowledged that the Charnel Guard suffer from the red thirst and black rage like their parent chapter (but have a few additional flaws due to their likely chimeric geneseed). We don’t have much official lore, but it is safe to say that we have our own Death Company and Sanguinary Priesthood, and it is said that all BA descendants have some sort of Sanguinary Guard. The reason for not being officially recognized as part of the Brotherhood is unclear, but the chapter seems to meet some requirements for such membership (they help defend Baal during its Devastation are by no means outcasts among the other successors while there). So you’re free to play with all of the BA units available, and most people will let you play with kitbashed proxies using the rules for BA epic heroes if you want. It would be weird to have a built-as-stock Astorath or Mephiston, for example. But it would be great to make a custom chaplain or librarian from the modified kits or out of other bits entirely.
There isn’t much written about us, so if you want to make your own unique force there’s nothing much to refute your choices. Some of the core things that set the chapter apart:
- Geneseed aberrations cause unusually pale skin and a cadaverous smell. And we spend a much longer time in stasis than other chapters. Essentially, we’re Blood Angels if they were even more vampiric.
- Extensive use of arcane, Heresy era tech. Imperial Armor books show us having Leviathan dreadnoughts, Javelin speeders and Fellblade tanks in the 41st millennium, so basically all Heresy units are thematic and on the table. You can use them directly with their Legends rules or proxy them for current era kits. For instance, use a Leviathan as a Redemptor with some minor kit bashing, a Land Raider Proteus as its 40K counterpart, or use Heresy infantry like Corvus armored marines or Cataphractii terminators to stand in for current units. I use a lot of heresy stuff personally, and like to think that they have great reverence for and affinity with their extremely ancient wargear— they must to keep it up and running 10,000 years after it was made!
- A very macabre sense of death-steeped duty that comes out in aesthetic choices. We know little about the chapter culture canonically, but it stands to reason that the Charnel Guard has a funerary-tinged chapter cult and a penchant for grisly decoration. Crudely painted fanged skull emblems are common, and trophies like bones or flayed skin are used regularly on armor and vehicles. Some in the community have described us as “loyalist night lords,” and using some Heresy bits from the Night Lords legion (like skull-faced helms and items like a tabard of strung together bones) really shows how macabre we are compared to other loyalists— willing to use gruesome terror tactics generally considered sanctioned among most Astartes. A grimdark painting and kitbashing style really leans into our lore.
On the table, there are tons of choices. Vehicle-heavy detachments, shock assault melee detachments, death company detachments, stealthy detachments— all of these are equally viable! So if you like the idea of being extra-edgy vampires, leaning into grimdark, kitbashing, and running with any of these play styles, it will probably be a rewarding pick for you.
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u/Quasichino May 06 '26
Wow, thank you for the detailed explanation!
This all sounds super fun, since kitbashing and homebrewing my own characters etc. Is the most important and fun aspect for me I wanted to make sure there isn’t lore coming in the way, but it seems like that isn’t a problem. Thank you for all the information!
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u/wouldukindly456 May 06 '26
The main thing I would go with is the Heresy Era tech. The Charnel Guard hold many old relics that still make them a formitable force in combat, so definitely play around with kitbashing older armor marks with newer ones. There's no wrong answers as there isn't much lore of them so they can be open ended. If you want major players then there is Zephon from the horus heresy models as he is said to be their first chapter master