As the title suggests I'm looking at running a campaign starting part way through The Great Crusade which will culminate obviously with The Horus Heresy, and perhaps slightly beyond that with the Traitors fleeing to The Eye of Terror.

Has anyone attempted such a thing? Otherwise open for any advice from anyone really. I'm not to worried about dates places and numbers, the flow of time in space and the fragmented records such as they are written by the winning side will take care of much of that. I intend to send them out with an Expedition Fleet to catch up to the Crusade, fortifying the conquered worlds with The Imperial Truth. In time I will steer them toward and away from certain conflicts or events as needed.

My player group will be 6 players, I will give them a choice of playing a character from any of the 18 Legions.

Thanks in advance.

I played in a Great Crusade Rogue Trader/Deathwatch campaign. Three different squads of marines on board a rogue trader vessel. We got catapulted to 40k (in the Dornian Heresy universe).

The actual character creation for the Marine characters:

1. No Deathwatch abilities as those don't exist yet. So no auto-confirm on Xenos or free Forbidden Lore (Xenos).

2. Pick a specialty and Legion.

3. Pick a Dark Heresy class and spend 1,500xp in it. Not in attributes. The idea there was to round off the characters and give them unusual skills, such as Medicae for non-apothecaries.

There is a thread elsewhere on this forum on a writeup of Dornian Heresy legions which would be very useful for ideas on how to represent the other nine Legions.

Edit: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Has there been actual write-ups for all the 18 Legions? Because that might be on of the first things to do.

There is no books for every legion but the Horus Heresy serie is beginning to be quite big, and interresting.

Those books are a must read to play in good background for the era of the Heresy.

You will learn about lots of secrets, heroes, battle and more or less chronologiacal events. From memory the legion mostly presented are the dark angels, Emperors children, space wolves world eaters, ultra marines sons of horus, death guard thousand sons, word bearers raven guard and alpha legion.

Imperial fists, night lords, iron warriors, iron hands are seen but not well covered.

Salamenders and white scars are b arely visible.

I write it from memory and have maybe miss some books.

Then you have the novels who cover little bit by little bit history from all the legions.

There is also the big book about horus heresy : Horus heresy collected visions. "The book is an art book with lots of text and great background source. And it is also a beatyfull book covering the legion but also sisters of silnce, custodes, deamons,adeptus mechanicus and all the miniatures from the card game horus heresy made in 2002.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I've had a look at that Domain Heresy PDF, looks pretty good, so I'll be starting there should any of the players wish to choose from one of the Legions that turns traitor. I will be making it abundantly clear they will not be required to pick one side or the other based purely on what Legion is chosen. They will be pushed and pulled enough during the campaign, not to mention will have to make their own personal decisions along the way. I'm already intrigued to see who will turn and who will stay true.

So I've read most of the novels, I've got the Horus Heresy Collected Visions as well as the new Forgeworld 'Betrayal' book, I also have the four Index Astartes which covers all the Legions.

I guess I'm going to have to go through each of my Death Watch books and choose what stays and what goes, and what effect it might have on the characters and campaign.

Just as an advise, I've run a game in the horus heresy and it is a lot easier to do if all of your players are from the same chapter.

If it is true that sometimes legion fight side by side they were more often alone.

The conceptual approach of melting knoledge and tradition from different legion was not really the basis of the crusade.

And even if they all choose a futur traitor legion we know now that not all units from those had turned traitor.

If you play during heresy only then maybe your group could be a melting pot of astartes legionary who had survived the treachery and bound together for survival and Him on Terra.

Hey
I have only skimmed these rules so I don’t know how good they are.

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/component/docman/cat_view/61-alternative-40k-roleplaying-games?orderby=dmdate_published

- Erik

Thanks Obetor, I'll have a read.

Thebigjul said:

I thought during the early years of the crusade that it was quite often different Legions would share the same battlefield. As the Primarchs were re-discovered, they were either put under the wing (so to speak) of the Emperor or one of the other Primarchs until they were ready to lead their Legions themselves, and in some cases two or three at a time. This I thought was where many rivalries, jealousies and competing for their 'fathers' affection all stemmed from.

Anyway, in the campaign that I'll be running, they will have that choice. They will essentially be starting out as newly created Space Marines or they might have been on garrison duty until now or in some other limited action role. Their Legions will meet at a 'mustering world' and joining a Expedition Fleet that will be visiting already conquered worlds and bolstering the Imperial Truth as directed by the Emperor or Warmaster when the time comes.

I came across this on a search for a Death Watch Horus Heresy campaign because I start one this weekend. Here is what I am doing;

The origins of the deathwatch share the same origin as the grey knights in a way and that is what I am focusing on. I would rather change a little bit of the story for my RPG to make it more fun. So here is the timeline of my game (by sessions):

1. Ullanor. To get the characters into the game we will start with the very end of the Ullanor campaign against the orcs. The Emperor creates a secret group of Astartes that would later become the beginning of the Grey Knights and the Deathwatch. He foresaw something and wanted to create these secret orders having Malcador deal with the details. The PC's are part of that group.

The groups are split between ships but the players are assigned to the Luna Wolves to serve them as Xenos experts. They wear one shoulder of the Luna Wolves and one shoulder of their home legion. It is considered an honor what they are doing now. During this time the legions competed like brothers and bad blood hasn't been spilled yet.

2. The Whisperheads by the Luna Wolves 10th and the PC's.

3. PC's go down to planet Murder on a special mission.

4. Interax conflict.

5. Tembra. Horus wounded and interned in the Delphos on Davin.

6. PC Investigation to find answers.

7. The Auretion Technocracy conflict.

8. Isstvan III

9. Escape on the Eisenstein

10. Creation of the Grey Knights and the Deathguard

grey knights and deathwatch were created after the emperor had been interred in the golden throne unfortunately sothe emperor never had a direct hand in creating them. It was the work of Malcador the Sigilite, the grey knights were created from 7 loyalist marines from the traitor legions including garviel loken from the sons of horus, and Nathaniel garro from the death guard

I came across this on a search for a Death Watch Horus Heresy campaign because I start one this weekend. Here is what I am doing;

The origins of the deathwatch share the same origin as the grey knights in a way and that is what I am focusing on. I would rather change a little bit of the story for my RPG to make it more fun. So here is the timeline of my game (by sessions):

1. Ullanor. To get the characters into the game we will start with the very end of the Ullanor campaign against the orcs. The Emperor creates a secret group of Astartes that would later become the beginning of the Grey Knights and the Deathwatch. He foresaw something and wanted to create these secret orders having Malcador deal with the details. The PC's are part of that group.

The groups are split between ships but the players are assigned to the Luna Wolves to serve them as Xenos experts. They wear one shoulder of the Luna Wolves and one shoulder of their home legion. It is considered an honor what they are doing now. During this time the legions competed like brothers and bad blood hasn't been spilled yet.

2. The Whisperheads by the Luna Wolves 10th and the PC's.

3. PC's go down to planet Murder on a special mission.

4. Interax conflict.

5. Tembra. Horus wounded and interned in the Delphos on Davin.

6. PC Investigation to find answers.

7. The Auretion Technocracy conflict.

8. Isstvan III

9. Escape on the Eisenstein

10. Creation of the Grey Knights and the Deathguard

Maybe picky but, its the Deathwatch. The Death Guard is one of the Traitor Legions.