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Secondments


Caran Lyg

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Basically, who served with who (whom?)? There's a lot of evidence for the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus having served with several legions, and in A Thousand Sons we learn that individual members of the Thousand Sons serve with individual legions, but I was specifically wondering if there was ever anything PREVENTING such exchanges of personnel. 

 

I imagine, especially early on while the Primarchs are being discovered many legions would serve together (or at least elements of next to elements of), to the effect of everybody having teamed up with everybody at some point. Is this reasonable conjecture? Also, if anyone has any insight into secondments I'd love to hear them. 

 

Cheers!

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It has been pretty well established that there was a good deal of cross-training between Legions. I believe it is safe to say that over a 200 year period that all the Legions would have shared the field of battle with all of their brothers at some point. Considering this is how each of the Legions would have grown to love/hate each other. It is referenced numerous times that X Legion hate how Y Legion conducts the business of war.
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The only thing that would have prevented would basically have been "Did the Legion in question send out squads to cross-train" or "Did the Legion allow any squads it received to cross-train". For example, the Space Wolves did allow a Thousand Son into their ranks but they treated him like a cancer. He was seconded, but was not cross-trained. It is part of the reason that the Wolves feel they were exempt from the Edict because "They do not have Librarians".
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Not to contradict the last post but I just finished reading Scars and the book made numerous comments about the White Scars fighting with very few legions. However, this appeared to be by design of The Khan and something that his legion took pride in.

 

I doubt that we will ever get a complete list of who served with who, but the Allies Matrix in Horus Heresy Betrayal should serve as a pretty good example of who each legion was willing to fight with. I would just use that. Let me know if you would like to check up on any specific combos for you.

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This is also one of those questions that begs for references, if you want to do it in a big scale (as in, Luna Wolves / EC type story links), but you can do anything you want at a small scale.

 

There's no reason any legion can't have fought alongside any other legion if we are talking about smaller explorator fleets, chapter-sized forces, and the like. I'm sure the Iron Hands encountered the Thousand Sons at some point, especially with the legions that don't mostly travel in one place at one time. Given the galactic reach of the campaign, even 20 legions cannot cover it if everyone remains unified at all times.

 

Multiple references exist in-universe via BL and FW: the BA and then EC on Murder in smaller forces without primarchs, the many campaigns of the Alpha Legion, the open disdain Angron has for logistics, and so on. There is always a reason, if you don't make things world spanning, that your favorites could have fought together.

 

The trick will be keeping the narrative either tied in with the canon, or small enough that lack of mention is due to scale and oversight, not that you have to retcon everything.

 

Just my view, but that's kind of how I think of the sandbox. Some major landmarks are picked out, but smaller things go on around them in a broad, undefined void that exists for players to explore.

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The Index Astartes series mentions a few joint operations between different Legions. The Luna Wolves were fighting alongside the Ultramarines and the Iron Warriors for a few campaigns (often leaving those two Legions to do the cleaning up after the grand battles have been won, just so the Luna Wolves can press on to the next glorious conflict). Corax was described as having removed his Legion from Horus' command, since he could not deal with Horus' personality. The Imperial Fists were often deployed together with other Legions, famously as a strategic reserve to be brought in to strike the final blow or to crack defenses that seemed too heavy for other Legions. The Ultramarines and the Imperial Fists were on a joint campaign against the Iron Warriors during the Scouring, but they likely already had worked together during the Great Crusade, as Dorn was said to have been honoured with a statue next to Guilliman in the Ultramarines' Hall of Honours (among three further unspecified Primarchs).

The Alpha Legion was said to have gotten into conflicts with some of the other Legions, even before the Heresy. But this was the 3rd Edition Codex Chaos, not the Index Astarte sseries.

 

The Forgeworld Horus Heresy books mention a few joint operations. IIRC the second book describes a campaign where an Ultramarines company is relieved by an Iron Hands force under command of Ferrus Manus. In the first book Guilliman seems to have directly witnessed the Emperor's Children in battle, as he praises their application of his own doctrines. IIRC the Salamanders are described as having fought together with other Legions on several occasions, though they were not allways a welcome ally due to their sometimes nihilistic attitude and teh tendency to rather go to their deaths than to abandon those they had sworn to liberate.

 

I don't know too many details from the Horus Heresy novel series, though in Battle for the Abyss it is suggested that the protagonist Ultramarines Captain and the accompanying Space Wolves had fought together in previous campaigns.

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It isn't just the two legions fighting in a campaign together, its single legionaries going and living, and fighting, with other Legions. I could see a group of NCOs from a earlier established legion being sent out with the first expeditions of newly formed Legions to help organize them. I could also see when one Primarch is 'tutored' by another, the legions mix to help ease the process. 

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Not all Legions fought side by side during the Great Crusade. When Garro confronts Dorn about Horus' betrayal, it's said that Death Guard and Imperial Fists had never actually campaigned together. I believe it was also said Iron Warriors, Raven Guard, and Ultramarines (surprisingly) refused to fight alongside the XIVth. Not sure about other Legions, as I'm obviously quite biased and focused on my interest.
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True, but with that said, Death Guard are a notable outlier in that they seem to have been more insular than almost any other legion. I don't have the book handy, but I think I recall something from the early part of Flight of the Eisenstein where it's mentioned Mortarion likes to keep his entire legion together in a single formation.

 

Even then, I'm sure someone got lost in the warp and spat out at the wrong place at some point. Just because you never intentionally campaigned together doesn't mean you didn't encounter each other. Or that it didn't happen before Mortarion showed up. The counterpoint is that clearly Garro and Saul Tarvitz know each other and respect each other as warriors somehow, and I doubt it's from the Emperor's tea parties!

 

I jest, but my point is, there is always room if you keep the scale limited and focus on the theme / narrative arc.

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True, but with that said, Death Guard are a notable outlier in that they seem to have been more insular than almost any other legion. I don't have the book handy, but I think I recall something from the early part of Flight of the Eisenstein where it's mentioned Mortarion likes to keep his entire legion together in a single formation.

 

Even then, I'm sure someone got lost in the warp and spat out at the wrong place at some point. Just because you never intentionally campaigned together doesn't mean you didn't encounter each other. Or that it didn't happen before Mortarion showed up. The counterpoint is that clearly Garro and Saul Tarvitz know each other and respect each other as warriors somehow, and I doubt it's from the Emperor's tea parties!

 

I jest, but my point is, there is always room if you keep the scale limited and focus on the theme / narrative arc.

 

Well the XIVth definitely campaigned with various Legions, off the top of my head I know Luna Wolves / Sons of Horus, Night Lords, Emperor's Children, World Eaters, and Space Wolves. My point was that not all Legions campaigned side by side or had much interaction on the battlefield.

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Not all Legions fought side by side during the Great Crusade. When Garro confronts Dorn about Horus' betrayal, it's said that Death Guard and Imperial Fists had never actually campaigned together. I believe it was also said Iron Warriors, Raven Guard, and Ultramarines (surprisingly) refused to fight alongside the XIVth. Not sure about other Legions, as I'm obviously quite biased and focused on my interest.

 

Well, there goes my Imperial Fists captain fighting with the Death Guard. 

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Why should that stop anyone though?

 

Morts: No Death Guard has ever fought alongside one of those prissy Fists of the Emperor.

 

XIV Legionary: Uh, sir. There was that one campaign in the Ihateyou Sector, where Captain Imaginationfail fought alongside Goddamnit of the VII, about thirty years ago.

 

Maurty: Why didn't anybody tell me this?

 

XIV Legionnaire: Because you're not exactly the most forgiving of fathers, just saying.

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Lol.. exactly.. the fluff for the space marine universe has holes in it to allow people to make up their own fluff within the basic boundaries.  I don't see why people are so quick to insist that it's a closed book and one must follow everything exactly.  Sure, read the books and the fluff and take everything as you see it in your world too, but there is so much that it doesn't tell you that you can't do, so why not just give yourself some space and unless told otherwise, add it in ?

 

In the case of what Morti said - I like Cormac Airt's post - it's a perfect example of making the fluff work for you by simply writing a hole in it and exploiting that hole.

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Stick to the fluff or burn, heretics.

Cool. So where is the fluff involving the Death Guard and secondments, not campaigns fought alongside other Legions? As far as I know, the only fluff we have for secondments are A Thousand Sons, which talks about the Thousand Sons sending individual Marines to other Legions to cultivate cultural information and another secondment program that was trying to set up the Librarius program across the Legions, and then Deliverance Lost which says that the Word Bearers chaplains were spread throughout the Legions as part of the Edict of Nikea, as a cover for spreading the lodges.

 

So, do we have anything else for secondments?

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Not all Legions fought side by side during the Great Crusade. When Garro confronts Dorn about Horus' betrayal, it's said that Death Guard and Imperial Fists had never actually campaigned together. I believe it was also said Iron Warriors, Raven Guard, and Ultramarines (surprisingly) refused to fight alongside the XIVth. Not sure about other Legions, as I'm obviously quite biased and focused on my interest.

 

IIRC that bit was Garro reminiscing that he had never fought alongside the 7th not the XIV in its entirety. Although there may be another bit.

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Well, the 'Death Guard' may not have fought with the 'Imperial Fists', but Mortarion was discovered relatively late, and the 'Death Guard' were [at least eventually] a very different Legion form the 'Dusk Raiders' / XIVth.

 

So it is entirely plausible, with a little interpretation, to say that the pre-Mortarion XIV fought alongside the Imperial Fists, or even their incarnation as the VII before Dorn.

 

Also, I was under the impression that pretty much all proto-Legions fought together somewhat during Unification.

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