Do you name your models and create fluff?

[Sanai]

Every unit in my army has a name. My army is loosely based around a Strigoi vampire going against the degenerate nature of his bloodline to try and regain the glory of lost Mourkain, so the units all have Kadon/Lore of Beasts (and Lore of Death when I ran out of lore of beasts spells to name units after) based names-
I.E. my Varghulf is called "The Savage Beast of Horros" and I have other units like the Wyssanguard, the Hands of Kadon, Bjuna's Blades, etc.
If I get all of my current stuff painted I am going to reward myself with some Bloodknights- The Knights of Xereus.

 

[Menkeroth]

Every true hobbist should do it and so do I. All my CSM Champions, Sorcerer and Daemon Prince have names and a short biography and my Dark Angels Sergeants, Company Master, Librarian and Chaplain-Interrogator too. (and my Apothecary, Company Champion and the Standard Bearer as well). They must have it! It makes all the figures more real and alive, and all that stuff gets its sense. It's a hobby anyway.
So my VC characters will be that way also.

 

[Dimreapa]

I usually do, as I never make an army without a theme or uniting purpose. It's pretty much inevitable that I'm going to give them a narrative. I don't actually think it's that important or necessary to do so, but it is another way of being creative within the hobby.

As to the cans and can'ts of fluff, that heads down a muddy track. In the Warhammer Fantasy world it was believed that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't cheat death, and thus couldn't keep your soul from being devoured by the gods. Then this High Priest called Nagash came along...

In fiction writers often establish the rules in order to highlight that important individuals can break or bypass them. Whether or not this is done well ultimately depends, but I'm not going to hit anyone with a canon ball if they have a decent explanation of why they have an exception.

My army is early in its infancy, but I have a few characters in mind. It looks like most of them will get names as my fluff progresses. Although given the location I'm plumping for their Crypts (in Athel Loren between the Wildwood [and perhaps in the Wildwood itself] and Bretonnia), I'm toying with the name of the horde being The Fomor.

On homebrew fluff being read or not, just because you don't get comments doesn't mean it's not being read. I read a lot of fluff on forums, I seldom comment.

 

[Irisado]

I used to, back when I played, but I never did manage to get the back story for my characters as I would have liked it. Looking back, I wasn't anywhere near creative enough, and there are a lot of things that I would stage if I still played.

Naming characters and writing a narrative for them is something that I would encourage everyone to do. It's not compulsory of course, and should never be imposed on anyone, but it does help you to build your army in such a way that it has a character and feel to it which suits your preferences.

Creating your own character names and stories is also a good reason to take regular characters in lieu of special characters.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Personally I find when you name all your characters and units, giving them own little back stories and keeping tally of their greatest feats it adds an extra level of depth and fun to the game.

I always just start out mine with a rough timeline and start to flesh out events from there and add other characters and minor events as they progress, meet other characters and engade in battles against other armies in narative campaigns wrote by yourself and friends and their dealings with other characters and armies with what alliances they have had, any fights in which they were wounded and what not.

its just a great feeling being able to read back over your own fan fiction and remember the games you had as you read it.

 

[Latijva Harlot]

Always.

I love creating and developing my own background arround my armies. When I played with Counts I always liked to butt in a von Carstein or two (non canon) and gave them pretentious names like Alexander Dragunov or Valadika Nostrama (von Carstein both) :lol:

But now, since I've butted again the VC this new 8th edition I decided to do something like I did with my dark elves (or most of the armies i've been collecting): I created a "simple" and "plain" character as I bought the miniature and, after playing more and more games I gave him a personality based on his actions in the ground. (I once had a Imperial Captain called Edgar van der Chicken :lol: Guess why... ) And so, since I've started gathering VC armies again I've started with a Necromancer (which isnt an oficial gw miniature btw) called Latijva The Harlot and a Strigoi Leader only nicknamed "The Beast" As long as I keep playing with those two, and they give me feedback from the games I play with them I'll get to write a nice backstory and maybe "promote" them :lol: