Pretty much as it sounds. I'm trying to assemble a plot for a campaign in my headset in the Heresy era.

Most of the rules work fine - mechanically, at least (infamy is fine, corruption etc something to be avoided depending on your alignment) - but it depends on what people want to do and who they want to play. The key thing is that I can more or less garuantee people won't want to play a homogenous legion.

Ideas I've had:

• The Shattered Legions - a group of survivors from the Istvaan Massacres (or similar early engagements). This has the plus side that the players all know they're on the same side, but the downside that they essentially have sod all resources and are probably being actively hunted. More importantly, it may limit what legions people can realistically be.
• Waystation Garrison - akin to the station in Battle Of The Abyss - multiple legions deployed to manage a key transit station. This works because they find out the heresy is going on part-way through, but they don't necessarily know which legions are and aren't loyal, and there may be members of the party who are following the traitor's orders. Reasonable resources, including army and fleet assets.....but can you trust them? Major issue is that you wouldn't get to reach out across the galaxy too much.
• Agents Of M.A.L.C.A.D.O.R. - essentially taking the role of the Deathwatch in contemporary 40k, I must say I quite like the Knights-Errant. Main downside is that they are very much dogs on a leash - they get little say in their choice of missions, and will generally not have any backup, although at least they get plenty of personal resources in the form of shiny weapons and equipment.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or people who've got experience is welcome input.

I would rather suggest a realatively small gladius-class frigate carrying a roughly equal mix of soon-to-be rival legion representatives, say, officers who return from a minor meeting concerning strategical issues. When they arrive at their destination system they learn of what happened, and worst of all, in their paranoia both traitors and loyalists want to be better safe than sorry and mark the ship with enemy officers aboard as hostile, and the only way to make things worse for unlucky legionnaires is to split loyalties rather than think of reasonable ways to survive. Oh, and personnaly I would not mind single legion based game.

Anyway count me in if you are looking for players.

Veterans of Istvaan definetly. Cause they are the most independant as they have no leash, just killing the heretics. In fact some go rogue. I have read a book where a small group of Istvaan veterans are hunting a World bearer chaplain and kill him. They have no support only their skills and their guns. I don't really mind but I like the book where a small group of Space Marines go to warn the Emperor. That was quite good. Yeah but tell me when you have finished because I like this idea.

A good idea could also be to make them members of the Crusader Host ala The Outcast dead. A story arch could involve them escaping Terra to either return to the legion or cause trouble for ether side.

I ran a game Heresy era with the group already together before the outbreak, and they got to decide to either go loyalist or traitor. When they decided to go traitor I had erebus send them on a mission that ended up being a warp trap and sent them to the 40k timeline to do some stuff then they came back.

Alpha legion, and let the players decide if they are loyal to Horus or the Emperor...

Alpha legion, and let the players decide if they are loyal to Horus or the Emperor...

Alpha Legion, and have them guess if they are still loyal to the Emperor. Or even better, have them being loyal to Horus to further the Emperor's goals, or (and?) vice-versa

Have every player be named Alpharius, and all look the same. Compound the confusion by having some players bring in new characters on the fly without telling the others.

Alpha Legion, and have them guess if they are still loyal to the Emperor. Or even better, have them being loyal to Horus to further the Emperor's goals, or (and?) vice-versa

Have every player be named Alpharius, and all look the same. Compound the confusion by having some players bring in new characters on the fly without telling the others.

Gm: "okay guys, are your characters traitors or loyalist?"

Player: "I can't say..."

What's the Horus Heresy book where it's a collection of Marines from various Legions in a ship chasing down a Word Bearers? ship that's on its way to kill the Ultramarines? I specifically remember that there's a Thousand Sons Sorcerer, a couple of World Eaters, and some others - who are all Loyalist on the pursuing ship. Has to be one of the early HH books, since I haven't read that many of them.

Oh, hey weren't the first Grey Knights founded out of Loyalists from all Legions? Then reinforced with a new geneseed group?

Could do Agents of an Early Inquisition.

Could roll with Agents of Horus (or someone else on that side).

All depends on whether they want to be Loyalists, openly Traitors, a mix of Loyalists and covert Traitors, or a mix of Traitors and covert Loyalists, or some other combination.

This is a question that has been bugging me every time I hear about Space Marines "going rogue", and is something to consider if that is the angle of your game.

...where do they get their ammo? Or fix their power armor? I mean, remember, a bolter is a temperamental weapon, loaded with absurdly expensive bolt-shells that aren't exactly easy to find on the open market - and have you imagined a Space Marine going into a shop to buy them? And, hell, aren't Space Marine bolts substantively better than "civilian" ones? (That's why I figured Legion bolters do more damage than standard patterns).

And, Power Armor - with it's neutral connection, life support system, targeting array, internal scanner, and self contained fusion reactor (or however they power the dang things) - is basically like walking around in a tiny space ship in terms of how fiendishly complex it is.

You get in a fight and your shoulder motivator gets slagged. Okay. How do you get a new one? Again, you can't just BUY a new part. Do you steal it? Where from? Do you get it on the black market? What black market exists to sell Space Marine power armor components? Do you jerry rig it? If so, does someone in the party have the skills to do so? Can a Space Marine (with their huge fingers) even do the minute work required for making small repairs?

To put it in modern terms: Imagine trying to run an M1-Abrams "rogue." Imagine the sheer logistical difficulties in getting all the bits and bobs and tungsten armor piercing sabot **** you rounds.

Of course, this does get your Marines out of their armor, away from their bolters, and force them to be all creative and stuff! And you can save your armor and bolt shells for when they are direly needed...

Which is fun!

What's the Horus Heresy book where it's a collection of Marines from various Legions in a ship chasing down a Word Bearers?

Battle for the Abyss.

This is a question that has been bugging me every time I hear about Space Marines "going rogue", and is something to consider if that is the angle of your game.

...where do they get their ammo? Or fix their power armor? I mean, remember, a bolter is a temperamental weapon, loaded with absurdly expensive bolt-shells that aren't exactly easy to find on the open market - and have you imagined a Space Marine going into a shop to buy them? And, hell, aren't Space Marine bolts substantively better than "civilian" ones? (That's why I figured Legion bolters do more damage than standard patterns).

And, Power Armor - with it's neutral connection, life support system, targeting array, internal scanner, and self contained fusion reactor (or however they power the dang things) - is basically like walking around in a tiny space ship in terms of how fiendishly complex it is.

You get in a fight and your shoulder motivator gets slagged. Okay. How do you get a new one? Again, you can't just BUY a new part. Do you steal it? Where from? Do you get it on the black market? What black market exists to sell Space Marine power armor components? Do you jerry rig it? If so, does someone in the party have the skills to do so? Can a Space Marine (with their huge fingers) even do the minute work required for making small repairs?

To put it in modern terms: Imagine trying to run an M1-Abrams "rogue." Imagine the sheer logistical difficulties in getting all the bits and bobs and tungsten armor piercing sabot **** you rounds.

Of course, this does get your Marines out of their armor, away from their bolters, and force them to be all creative and stuff! And you can save your armor and bolt shells for when they are direly needed...

Which is fun!

There is another option: find some space marines, kick their ass, take their ammo and rip the good armor parts from their cooling corpses! This is a method favoured by traitor marines and the Wulfen.

Chaos maruader -to his squad: "Knock it off with the head shots, you show-offs! i want a new helmet!"

A few marines going rogue isn't so bad- but when a full chapter turns traitor it has all of it's armouries, vehicle shops, ammo manufactoria, support personel and fleet to support its actions indefinatly.

Usually, marines going rogue on their own probably means they have some form of transport, usually a voidship, which means at least a few thousand people under their command, including a bunch of Mechanicus tech-priests, which can be convinced (nicely or not) to repair your stuff. You won't be able to get new stuff easily, but maintenance shouldn't be too hard. After that, you'll have to find some suppliers on a Forge World that aren't in the business of asking too many questions (which shouldn't really be too hard, the Mechanicus likes to keep things legal and all, but they don't usually care about snooping around in other people's business if it doesn't involve technology, so as long as you can provide adequate credentials, you should be ok); if you are a ship bearing space marines, you should be able to requisition ammunition quite easily if you need it for a "mission" (the Mechanicus will probably just note that Chapter X now owes them Y for the acquisition of 2 000 rounds of standard bolter shells, and they'll try to collect one day), but actual power armour is another matter, as it's pretty rare outside the chapter armouries (but getting it fixed should not be too hard). If that fails, you can always find shady dealers or hereteks, but that's stooping a little low.