Needing help with developing fluff and potential modeling idea's any help is great!

[Dimascio]

First time poster and I figured this would be a good place to start for help with this particular problem.
I am painting my own force of Tau and my own Dark Angels successor Chapter, the main problem
if finding a good name as well as a proper motif for the force that doesn't feel forced or just plain stupid.
Not sure if it's just me or not but I feel if I'm doing my own colour scheme I should have a some sort of story
behind them.

[Spy_Smasher]

Personally, I enjoy coming up with the fluff around my projects. I see it as one of the ways this hobby is unique -- in that it combines gaming, modelling, painting and storytelling into one super-hobby.

I'm no creative genius but I do have my own SM chapter, the "Sable Shields," and over time, quite a story has developed. If it helps, I'll tell you where I got the various bits of inspiration for the fluff.

1. Historical sources. I always saw SM as "space knights" and wanted to create a chapter that had a lot of knightly flavor. When I was looking up different historical crusader orders, I came across one (purportedly) called the "Knights of Lazarus." There were all sorts of little details in their actual history that led to story elements. It also led to some color choices: the historical knights supposedly wore white and green. (My own guys wear black and green.) It also gave me a character name: Captain Lazarus of the 2nd Company, Sable Shields.

2. Canon fluff. There are "crusader" chapters in the canon. They are exemplified by the Black Templars, who come from Imperial Fist gene-seed. There are all kinds of details about crusader fleets that inform my own stories.

3. Deviations from canon fluff. My image of knights involves a lot of mounted combat. My guys ride a lot of bikes, more than would be normal for any codex-adherent chapter and especially different from a canon crusader chapter. Explaining the, who, when, where and why of how my chapter deviated from what's "normal" prompted a lot of cool ideas.

4. Practical modelling considerations. I'm a SLOW modeller. I don't have the time or skill to model up a whole space marine force to my own personal satisfaction. So my guys get Imperial Guard allies. A lot. In justification for this, I decided that my entire Imperial force was in fact the entourage of an Inquisitorial conclave. The SM component would be on some kind of long-term/semi-permanent detachment. In addition to creating story opportunities, it informed my color choice: to look good on the table alongside my grey and black IG, the marines went from white and green to black and green.

5. Just start somewhere. The stories seem to have a snowball effect. When I decided that my guys were on semi-permanent detachment, I wondered how that would effect their relationship to the rest of the chapter. That became an idea about how my guys were becoming estranged from their chapter and how a possibly dangerous cult of personality was developing around Captain Lazarus. It pushed me to make my guys more unique. The "Knights of Lazarus" with unnamed chapter master were changed to the "Sable Shields" of which my guys were the Second Company, ominously nicknamed the "Sons of Lazarus."

Hope that helps. :P

[KalidasiaGames]

I have been playing 40K with my Tau "Forest Tigers" for almost nine years and I have built up a really long and detailed story for them. However, it all began with the paint style I chose. My figures are painted in shades of brown and green with bright orange stripes as contrast and that is where I came up with the name "Forest Tigers".

Perhaps you can just start with a paint scheme that you like and then your army's name and function can fit its colors.