Hey guys,

I am thinking about running a game in which my players begin several years before the events of isstvaan. My players will be members of a crack team hand selected by Horus Lupercal (this allows them to be from any first founding legion) who are used for high value strikes (to retain the whole deathwatch kill team structure). Over time I will introduce the idea of the Emperor maybe not caring about them as much as he used to etc etc. Its highly inspired by the original Horus Heresy trilogy.

Obviously this is going to require a lot of work and I wont do it unless I get a party who I am sure will be sensible about it.

but I just wonder what people think of this idea?

Makes me wish I was in your group!

Imo, it sounds like a great idea. I am hoping to run a Heresy campaign myself.

I think that several of the chapters that turn to Chaos, could be very interesting to play from when they were good guys. Especially those that do it "willingly", and not because they are corrupted by chaos artifacts.

I am thinking about using either Word Bearers or A Thousand Sons myself. But I will probably wait until we have the rules down a bit better, and maye even wait until the new Chaos books come out in the summer. But there can really be some great role-playing, being the greatest crusaders of all time, and then having to deal with all sorts of betrayal which can break even the heart(s) of Space Marines.

I am very interested to see if the players will just jump along the band-wagon like all their brothers, or be some of the few who try and stay with the Emperor against their own Chapter-brothers.

If you start up on your campaign, I'd be very interested to hear more about your ideas, and how it turns out!

Unfortunately the society I game with is based on a Uni schedule so It doesn't start new campaigns until September. However I figure as I am going to have to write chapter rules for all of the remaining legions, update the items list, to pre-heresy levels, invent rules for a bunch of now extinct alien races (megarachnids are going to be fun) and most of all write a story. I might need that time to make the campaign good.

Another thing I was thinking of, How did the Deathwatch start? would it be reasonable for me to have the Warmaster say tell them "while you are here you are still a part of of your legions but your first allegiance must be to me. Therefore I wish for you to daub your armour black with the exception of your shoulder pads" ie give the impression that the idea came about before the chapter was actually formed. Or is that idea ridiculous?

The Deathwatch started sometime after the Inquisition, which was started shortly after the events of Istavaan, if you believe the vieled reference in the Fluff (Flight of the Eisenstein). So it wouldn't really fit. And it would fit a little less if a 'special unit' founded by Horus was allowed to survive, in my opinion.

I think you should keep them all as part of one chapter. Perhaps you can have envoys from another chapter seconded to them, like the Rune Priest visiting the Thousand Sons, but might work better if they will end up with the same allegiance.

But I think it will turn rather weird, unless you find a great idea, to have a custom group outside the rest of the chapters (like Deathwatch), if you want to run it in a somewhat plasusible Horus Heresy setting.

A special set of missions, with the individual battle brothers along to "uphold the honor of their Legion" (and each time someone says Chapter instead of Legion in the game, they should get slapped) could simulate the feel of Deathwatch.

I wouldn't have them repaint their armor before the heresy, that seems a little off for that time frame. All the Primearchs are there and that means a level of devotion that isn't around in the 41st millenium.

Maybe it's not an idea from Horus but one of the more forward thinking Primearchs. Alpharius or possibly the Lion could have thought up the wackiness of bringing a random group of marines from different chapters together as a special strike team.

Alpharius could have come up with this idea just to annoy Guilliman.

The problem I see is that what is out there, at that time, that needs a special strike team and not just a legion being thrown at it? The crusade fleets were, for the most part, a full chapter plus several Imperial armies per fleet. That is a lot of bodies that can be thrown at a problem.

ItsUncertainWho said:

/slap

lol @ the slap

although to be fair chapters did exist, its just that legions were made up of several chapters (if the horus heresy series is to be believed. they still have chapter masters for example.

Ok so the consensus seems to be one chapter might be a better idea. I will think about that and ask my players what they want, If they all want to be different chapters I will find a way to make it work.

Semi Spoilers

@ItsUncertainWho: I was thinking keep them on board Horus' flag ship and have them participate in larger battles. for example I was envisaging as a first scenario having them pod into the battle for the Imperial High City in Horus Rising and secure the crash zone of... I forget his real name "the twisted" astartes who everyone thinks is dead but then they can be responsible for saving him, and also be involved in the massive clash with titans and stuff.

Oh and one last thing, possibly as much as 4/5ths of the crusade fleets had no astartes presence at all, I'm sure for fleets like that a crack team of death commandos could prove useful

Siranui said:

The Legions were broken down into Chapters, then each Chapter further broken down into Companies, etc.

Go /slap yourself.

Oh and one last thing, possibly as much as 4/5ths of the crusade fleets had no astartes presence at all, I'm sure for fleets like that a crack team of death commandos could prove useful

This isn't a bad idea, and makes it a bit more feasible in the time frame.

I have been running a similar Horus Heresy era game for A few weeks now. The PC's are currently a Cthonian hive gang and will shortly be recruited into the Luna Wolves. I did it this way for two reasons; 1:I created my own ganger careers so my group didn't feel like they all had to run out and buy Deathwatch books before we could start (theres a recession on yknow); and B: with everyone being marines from the same legion, I wanted to establish some roleplaying before they strapped on the power armour.

Once they become full fledged Astartes they will be pressed into service against the orks during the Ullanor Campaign.

ItsUncertainWho said:

no the whole chapter thing started after Guilliman wrote the codex... a legion was a legion and it contained companies of marines. and the expeditionary fleets that had marines with them contained everybody (legion wise) except for whatever support and training staff left behind on whatever homeworld they had. hence all those dark angels getting butt hurt over being left behind.

**** ultramarines ruined everything.. lol

Brother Adonai said:

Actually, some Legions did use Chapters as an organisational level between Legion and Company - those known are the Ultramarines (who extended the idea further with the Codex Astartes), Dark Angels (Astelan, the Fallen from Angels of Darkness, was a Chapter Master within the First Legion) and Word Bearers (who gave each Chapter within the Legion a distinct name and heraldry, as depicted in The First Heretic ).

Yup: 'Chapter' was a designation used in a few Legions. Still, Expedition Fleets still generally had an entire Legion with them, rather than component Chapters, so the /slap still stands.

Siranui said:

Based on the HH books the legions were split among multiple fleets and some parts of the legions hadn't seen each other in years.

I find this entire idea to be very intrigueing. If it were me I would lay the idea of a kill team firmly at the feet of Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines. This would be taking place during the time he was developing and expanding upon the idea of a standardized "codex" from which all legions/chapters ( writer skillfully avoids slap ) would base their tactics upon. I can see were an indiividual might see the use of a small group of highly trained marines would be useful in handling those matters where the use of an entire legion is either wasteful or lacking in clandestine roles.

Just my $0.02 for what it is worth.

Siranui said:

Still, Expedition Fleets still generally had an entire Legion with them, rather than component Chapters, so the /slap still stands.

Actually, we can't even guarantee that, given how few of the Expedition fleets we've seen (by the time Horus became Warmaster, the 203rd year of the campaign, there were over four and a half thousand distinct Expedition Fleets). Similarly, there is plenty of evidence to show that many Legions were split up in order to serve in multiple Expeditions (portions of the Dark Angels, Space Wolves, White Scars, Thousand Sons and Word Bearers - at the very least - are known to have operated in an assortment of Expeditions, their forces divided as and when required, while other Expeditions fought without the Astartes). Considering that the Legions are supposed to have been approximately 100,000 strong, it makes sense to spread that strength around in order to claim as many worlds as possible.

It makes sense, yet generally the fiction that I've read seems to place entire Legions in one place, because it makes a better story. cf: Luna Wolves, 1KS.

Personally, I'd spread them out a bit thinner than that, too.

It is an interesting idea. One that Horus may not have come up himself, but he does have four advisers close at hand who could come up with such an idea. A small group of multi-Legion space marines coming together for small objectives not only would help cement alliances between the Legions, but would remind them that Warmaster Horus commands all of the Legions upon attaining his promotion.

Now as far as I read, whole Legions were part of a single fleets, but that fleet often sent parts of itself off to smaller missions as in the case of the Emperor's Children.

Now note that any elite teams that Horus does form may be recalled to determine their loyalty once Horus is corrupted and would play a part in Istvaan in either the case of victim or attacker (though Horus could simply dismiss the team). It may even be that if Horus found a team of loyal warriors who were not a part of the first four Legions to defect that he may send them to gain intel, find followers, or even strike strategic targets to soften things up before his force steam rolls through.

since this thread has been brought back up I will give a bit of an update on it.

I have begun the campaign in orbit above Ullanor, all of the marines involved were summoned rather mysteriously to a staging location at 63 4 in the new imperiums code for planet designations (the fourth planet brought to compliance by the 63rd expedition fleet. from there they all boarded the same ship to a planet many were calling 01 173 (Ullanor) although technically Ullanor has yet to be brought to full compliance.

The marines were a Luna Wolves Devastator, an Imperial Fists Devastator, an Emperors Children assault marine and an Imperial Fists Techmarine

Upon arrival in orbit above Ullanor the marines were quickly ferried by storm bird to the Emperor's flagship where they were met on the embarkation deck by a "mysterious old guy" who none of the PC's bothered to ask about. He told them that the final push had already decapitated the head of the Greenskin horde on the planet below, killing the warboss in charge, however the Orks were starting to rally in the mountains due to a massive focus of Waaagh energy in the area, unfortunately because all of the crusade forces were already committed to the final push and ork air power in the area was very strong the only forces that could be sent to destroy this Waaagh focus were the marines themselves.

The marines in a particularly docile manner all trotted into the teleportarium to go slay some xenos at the behest of the "mysterious old guy" (I don't know if you can tell, but I kindof wanted them to question him a bit and find out he was Malcador the Sigillite)

The marines arrived on a mountain plateau several dozen kilometers north of the main battle, just close enough to feel the discharge of titan and gargant weapons. They proceeded to fan out from their arrival site and soon found a road that looked as if it had been used recently by a large group of orks. They followed the road up into the mountains (the direction of the ork tracks) until they were ambushed by a few dozen orks. With a bit of luck and the might of the Emperor they quickly dispatched the greenskin threat with liberal applications of fully automatic fire (of course).

After this the marines continued more carefully as they had taken some wounds at the hands of the orks. They came upon a small ork compound in the mountains and setting up overlapping fields of fire, (there were three heavy weapons in the party) They made short work of all the Orks, Nobs and Killa Kans I could throw at them.

After clearing out the compound they searched it to discover a tunnel underground which they followed until they came across a powerful Weirdboy Warphead who was unleashing waves of Waaagh psychic power. After a tense battle with the Warp Head as well as a few dozen more Orks and a couple of heavily armoured Meganobz they came out victorious (there was a particularly nice shot from a conversion beamer, I started the marines at rank three with a lot of renown as well as making archeotech more common due to the era), preventing the Orks from regrouping so that the Emperors mighty armies could crush them utterly.

Meanwhile, A librarian of the Raptora clan of the Thousand sons (my fifth player who couldn't make it to the first session) who was fighting on the battlefield of Ullanor as part of the librarian corps assisting the Emperor's armies detected a massive psychic build up in the mountains and marched north on his own (the unit he was with were space wolves and wouldn't go on a wild goose chase because of "some sorcerous hunch") The Thousand son's librarian snuck his way up into the mountains killing a number of greenskins along the way and eventually caught a glimpse of the kill team as they returned to the compound outside the cave.

I am intending to run individual plots for each of my five players as well as the main plot running through the story line. The Techmarine will be recruited by the cult mechanicus to search out Archeaotech on the worlds he visits. The thousand sons will be subtly tempted with forbidden knowledge by a powerful Lord of change. The IF devastator is going to experience some kind of massive psychic daemonic event and manifest nascent psychic abilities which I hope the Librarian will cover up/ attempt to teach him to control it. The Cabal will attempt to recruit the Luna Wolf (again subtly) to attempt to warn the Legion and prevent Horus from being healed at Davin. and finally the Emperor's Children marine will recieve visions of provenance from the Emperor telling him that only he can change the fate of the universe. I have yet to decide whether these visions will be genuine or a trick of some daemon.

Anyway tell me what you guys think.

Sounds awesome though I wonder if Malcador would not be known by sight or at least by a psyhic presence that even those without potential could feel as he's been the Empreror's right hand since the Unification Wars.

Now with the way these character plots are looking it seems that you foresee a time where the players may be turned against each other in a micro-Heresy. The only concern I would have from there is to ensure that you have players who can keep the game as a game and not take personally that Joe killed Fred's character in an act of betrayal. Depending on my group's temperment on the weekend arguements got sparked over in-party fighting. If they can handle it? Awesome!

vastrix said:

Maybe, maybe not if the Marines were from there Primarch homeworld or recruited after the Unification Wars they wouldn't know him. Nor would any Space Marine care much on polical things since both the Primarchs and Emperor made most of the command decisions at that point of the Crusade(if I remember my lore correctly).

good shout vastrix, having checked my books Garro recognises Malcador on sight and so does Ahriman. I might have to have a retroactive word with the team about that

as for the risk of PvP all my guys know what happened at Isstvaan. I am intending to introduce cracks and see if the team pulls together or fractures. I am pretty sure they will take it in good humour and I intend to attempt to confine any out and out PvP violence to a finale session in the isstvaan system. then if the team does hold together and as a group choose either to stay loyal or rebel I will over them some actual Heresy combat. this thread was poorly named with hindsight

Narkasis Broon said:

Remember that Garro was Terran born, so that might be how he knew about Malcador.