Ravenwing are a go

Its that time again,Ive got an itch to do another artistic, fluffy army.


The fluffiness that was the "Khorne dogs" has worn off so now it is time for me to make another for fun/fluff army. I was going through my Horus heresy books again and read decent of angels (in "the other office") where it talks about life on Caliban before the god emperor shows up and wrecks the place.
 Guys on horseback riding around in the deep dark woods slaying warp beasts sounds like a fun idea I wonder if I can make a army list based on that without breaking any rules in 40k. After some sketches and bitz hunting in my bitz box with no bottom I put in my order at my FLGS for a box of empire order knights. They are going to be the first squad of my pre imperium raven wing army.

Yep slap black barding on the horse, give him a chainsword to wave around and a pistol in a holster and I think I am on to something.

Or maybe keep the lance and sling the chain sword on his back. One thing I do know is that I am shaving off the stupid plumes on their heads and GSing the flat part that I am going to leave there. Instead of where this knight has his sun paint put the ravenwing sword and wing. The horses on the squads will all be different shades of brown with white or black reserved for the ICs.
One thing I do know is that I have too many ideas to be able to actually fit them all on the same models, so I will have to wait until I have them on the table to decide what to do with them. I might end up sculpting the entire body to make it look even more buttoned up and leaning forward.

The final question is what codex do I use for their rules. Do I go the dark angel raven wing route, or the Codex space marine captain on a bike to unlock bike troops?

Here are the lists

Ravenwing 1500
Sammael
Upgraded attack squadron
5 bikes 2 melta guns apothecary and standard bearer
1 sergeant with powerfist and plasma pistol
attack bike with a multi melta
3 attack squadrons each with

5 bikes 2 melta guns
1 sergeant with powerfist and plasma pistol
attack bike with a multi melta

or space marines 1500

Captain on bike with storm shield relic blade digital weapons artificer armor and melta bombs
Command squad on bikes
5 bikes apothecary 1 melta gun 1 power fist and 2 power weapons
4 bike squadrons each with
7 bikes with 2 multi meltas
1 sergeant with combi melta
attack bike with multi melta
1 scout bike squad with
3 scout bikers with 3 astaries grenade launchers and clustermines
1 sergeant

The captain is interchangeable with Khan on his bike for 5 points less

Both the armies as they scale up will get more bikes and either a librarian or chaplain on a bike

I'm open to changes to either of the lists but I am limiting my lists to only include models on horseback. The attack bikes I am going to make by putting 2 models on the horse. A knight controlling the horse and a squire type model behind him struggling with the multi melta.
I have looked into chariots for land speeders and while it will make the list more competitive, I just dont think it fits the theme too well as it is now.

So hopefully in about 2 weeks I will have the first proof of concept models ready to show off. Comments are appreciated.

Stay thirsty my friends.