I’m painting a Stormcast army in an original color scheme, and I know so little about their organization. Do I need to invent a whole Stormhost for them, or can individual Chambers/Conclaves of a Stormhost have their own unique names, color schemes, etc.? I’m more familiar with 40K Astartes structures, or Chaos warbands. The military structure of the Stormcast sort of confuses me. I imagine Stormhosts are more like Astartes Legions, with individual Chambers varying in color schemes and character like the Astartes Chapters. Since AoS is very open to making your army your own.
I thought I saw something about a Chamber from one of the big Stormhosts that took on the symbols and colors of one of the Cities of Sigmar. I’d like to tie my Stormcast to my (hopefully) future Cities of Sigmar army, thematically and lorewise.
A Stormhost is like a Space Marine Chapter, composed of many Chambers which are like the Space Marine Companies. The Stormhost usually has the same color scheme across all its Chambers, but Stormcast seem way more “your dudes” than Space Marines so individual Chambers having different colours is definitely within the lore. Stormhosts may also have a particular theme, such as all being from a certain Mortal Realm, or all being seafarers, or having been killed by monsters, or having cried out to Sigmar for vengeance before their death, or even having been already dead for centuries. It’s a pretty fun bit of backstory to write for your Host/Chamber.
Here are some of the 'official' ones if you haven't seen them before
There are several different types of Chambers, with a big chart here
The books I’ve read only seem to follow this organization loosely though. The main thing is that a Chamber is normally led by a Lord-Celestant, Lord-Aquilor or Lord-Arcanum (or Lord-Imperatant, which came out after this chart!) and the Chamber will usually be named after them, e.g. Gardus the Steel Soul leads the Steelsouls Chamber of the Hallowed Knights, Tarsus Bullheart leads the Bullhearts Chamber of the Hallowed Knights, Vandus Hammerhand leads the Hammerhands of the Hammers of
HammerSigmar.Then, one of those leaders will be Lord Commander of the Stormhost. And a Stormhost may all be sent to the same campaign, or split to different places, and then each Chamber may go on separate missions that lead to differences between them - like, for instance, defending a certain City and afterwards taking on their colors. So their color scheme and icons may be identical to their Stormhost, or slightly different, or completely different! Basically, you can do what you like, and if you break the conventions just make sure to have a cool story for why your dudes are unique.
Ah, thank you so much! Cool, so I’m not limited to a single chamber or how they died. My Stormcast are desert-themed, so maybe I’ll just say they all come from deserts. Lions of Valor? Idk, I’ll figure it out. Thanks again, I was worried no one would answer this.
I don’t suppose you know the fluff “rules” for Cities of Sigmar? I have a whole city planned called Dunehaven that’s tied to my Stormcast, but I’m not sure if there being an original city in the Mortal Realms is a thing or not. I haven’t bought any of the army books, so idk what the lore-friendly rules for making original stuff is yet, lol.
You’re very welcome! I’ve been reading way too many AoS novels on my phone lately so Stormcast military organisation is my temporary area of expertise
As for Cities it’s even looser lol. There are a few specific ones in the rule book (leaks for the new one here!) but just like with the Stormcast, it says you can create your own and use the rules that are closest to your fluff. For typical City lore, some of them already existed and endured against Chaos, some fell and were liberated, some are built on or restored from old ruins and some are newly founded - in fact, the recent release for CoS is the Dawnbringer Crusades, which are specifically about the groups setting off to found new ones. They’re often built on or near some special thing, like a realmgate or a magical resource or just a mundane strategic location. They always have a Stormkeep (a keep… for Stormcasts) but that lines up with the lore you’ve already written anyway. So, you can pretty much do whatever you want with even fewer restrictions than the Stormhost!
Awesome, I love it. I have a whole lore for a city called Dunehaven. Whenever I get around to buying/painting/posting the minis for CoS, I’ll go into more detail about it.
Thanks again for the answers. They helped a lot!