Traitor Raven Guard

[TearsOfTheRaven]

I had an idea whilst thinking what to do next with my heresy era raven guard. 

 

A company sent to fight with/train with/learn from another legion (ie terror tactics from the night lords), and turns traitor along with said legion. This lets me add some variations in paint scheme and modelling, plus add some more possibilities  to the fluff i might be writing. It also gives me the option to (when i get around to it (so in a long time)) create a chaos warband for them in the future.

 

At thge moment i have it narrowed down to:

 

World Eaters: this means, CHAINAXES. LOTS OF CHAINAXES! AND BLOOOOOOOOOOOD! also perhaps butchers nails (after start of heresy).

 

Night lords: terror squads/raptors. and lightening and terror markings.

 

Iron warriors: seige tactics or void warfare specialists. 

 

So what does the b+c think, is it a decent idea or is it silly? could it work? is it plausible?

[Conn Eremon]

Raven Guard saboteurs attached to the Iron Warriors?

 

YES PLEASE.

[Reaver Lord Soul]

Personally, I think that it could actually work although i`m unsure about whether the legions you suggested would fit best ? Only reason I`m saying that is Corax never got on with either Cruze or Angron before the heresy. The Iron Warriors idea is definitely believable but for other legions it would either be alpha legion or word beaers ? 

 

Just my two cents :)

[No Foes Remain]

Or you could have a Terran officer who surivied the culling of the Terrans that wasn't a culling who disliked then dispised Corax for such tactics.

 

 

Just throwing it out there.

[TearsOfTheRaven]

i just liked the idea of stealthy guys equipped with chainaxes suddenly appearing in the middle of the enemy and then going berserk and killing everything, or having bones and the such painted on them and wielding giant chainswords covered in lightening. 

[Conn Eremon]

Man, forget Berzerker Ravens. Imagine guerilla warfare fought in the trenches. Imagine the incredible boom and rumble of mountain range-flattening artillery going suddenly quiet as saboteurs fade into the dark. Imagine heavily fortified walls, bastions of steel and ceramite, proved inadequate as hidden agents assassinate key officers and poison the wells. Imagine the soldier culture of the Iron Warriors distilled into a commando mentality with the Raven Guard. Imagine the growing terror as the enemy watches the night slowly envelop no man's land.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

the RG Predator-Nomad fleets are open for possibilities. they were cast out by Corax, ran the RG before Corax...who's to say (if they were still active) who they would have sided with?

 

WLK

[Dragonkin Arenis]

Iron Warriors-trained Raven Guard saboteurs? Yes please!

[Kol Saresk]

Man, forget Berzerker Ravens. Imagine guerilla warfare fought in the trenches. Imagine the incredible boom and rumble of mountain range-flattening artillery going suddenly quiet as saboteurs fade into the dark. Imagine heavily fortified walls, bastions of steel and ceramite, proved inadequate as hidden agents assassinate key officers and poison the wells. Imagine the soldier culture of the Iron Warriors distilled into a commando mentality with the Raven Guard. Imagine the growing terror as the enemy watches the night slowly envelop no man's land.

Or enemy sapper tunnels collapsing in on the themselves after the diggers are discovered dead just outside the enemy command post. Watch teams being found dead and put on display as scarecrows, their death's mocking their duties in life.

[TearsOfTheRaven]

Something like this:

 

He stopped and listened, something wasn't right. Then he realised. The barrage had stopped. He gripped the stock of his rifle in preparation of what was to come.

 

A bright, roaring star fell from the sky and smashed into the trench. Desperately dragging himself away on ruined arms, he was covered by a huge shadow. Rolling onto his back he gasped "friend or foe?"

 

The shadow hissed back "foe"

[Castrmen Orth]

 

Man, forget Berzerker Ravens. Imagine guerilla warfare fought in the trenches. Imagine the incredible boom and rumble of mountain range-flattening artillery going suddenly quiet as saboteurs fade into the dark. Imagine heavily fortified walls, bastions of steel and ceramite, proved inadequate as hidden agents assassinate key officers and poison the wells. Imagine the soldier culture of the Iron Warriors distilled into a commando mentality with the Raven Guard. Imagine the growing terror as the enemy watches the night slowly envelop no man's land.

Or enemy sapper tunnels collapsing in on the themselves after the diggers are discovered dead just outside the enemy command post. Watch teams being found dead and put on display as scarecrows, their death's mocking their duties in life.

man i can see those scarecrows now. Maybe not quite dead but missing eyes as punishment for the threat they didn't see and missing tongues to emphasise the warning they were unable to give. Imagine coming upon those moaning desperate souls in the mist rising from the battlefield.

 

Gives ya chills man

[Kol Saresk]

I figured left alive but suffering would be crossing into the NL's territory. Fine line and all that.

[TearsOfTheRaven]

Damn it, now I want to make a trench warfare board. Complete with scarecrow sappers with their eyes, ears and mouthes sewn shut as punishment.

[Castrmen Orth]

Sorry guys think my inner night lord popped out for a second.

 

The cross legion thing sounds great though and given me some things to think about.

 

Kinda imagining a bunch of salamanders who put their humane ways to one side and operate as a destroyer squad

[depthcharge12]

Raven Guard saboteurs attached to the Iron Warriors?

YES PLEASE.

 

I love me some wetwork

[Nakuth]

Man, forget Berzerker Ravens. Imagine guerilla warfare fought in the trenches. Imagine the incredible boom and rumble of mountain range-flattening artillery going suddenly quiet as saboteurs fade into the dark. Imagine heavily fortified walls, bastions of steel and ceramite, proved inadequate as hidden agents assassinate key officers and poison the wells. Imagine the soldier culture of the Iron Warriors distilled into a commando mentality with the Raven Guard. Imagine the growing terror as the enemy watches the night slowly envelop no man's land.

 

So, Gaunt's Ghosts as Astartes, but with a 'real' commissar in command?

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

Man, forget Berzerker Ravens. Imagine guerilla warfare fought in the trenches. Imagine the incredible boom and rumble of mountain range-flattening artillery going suddenly quiet as saboteurs fade into the dark. Imagine heavily fortified walls, bastions of steel and ceramite, proved inadequate as hidden agents assassinate key officers and poison the wells. Imagine the soldier culture of the Iron Warriors distilled into a commando mentality with the Raven Guard. Imagine the growing terror as the enemy watches the night slowly envelop no man's land.

 

So, Gaunt's Ghosts as Astartes, but with a 'real' commissar in command?

 

 

Well thats nightmare fuel for the enemies of the Imperium

 

WLK

[Durfast Spiritwolf]

If I remember correctly, pre-Corax RG were pretty tight with the Luna Wolves, effectively operating as a specialist chapter within the Legion...

[High MarshalGR]

Iron Warriors-trained Raven Guard saboteurs? Yes please!

 

I like the idea presented in this thread and would love to see an army with those elements arising (I mean IW and RG, kinda), I believe there are good reasons it hasn't happened or is kinda illogical in my opinion, and here are some reasons:

1) Corax is a liberator, raised with the mentality of a freedom fighter (and commanding like a freedom fighter) unlike Perturabo who grew under a tyrant and learned to operate as one.

2) Corax has a loose chain of command for his Legion while Perturabo has an iron solid one, thus they have different command recipes.

3) Corax aims not to annihilate enemies but to perform surgical strikes of vital importance to the enemy while Perturabo does.

4) They have different views on war. I mean different, no kidding.

5) Corax likes for his Legion not to take unnecessary casualties, while Perturabo finds all casualties acceptable as long as the lead to the easiest mathematically path to victory. Take into consideration that Corax swore never to deploy his Legion next to Horus's Legion after the battle of Gate 42 when the latter send the Raven Guard to die merely for his vanity, ignoring Corax's views and suggestions. Imagine what would happen once the idealist Corax was asked by Perturabo to bent to his Iron chain of command.

 

Also, I personally believe that if the Raven Guard were trained under the IW training regimens, they would no longer become good saboteurs to begin with. Their imagination, their loose command wouldn't be there to provide them with the ideas and inspiration which are necessary to plan for this type of warfare. They would become something else. Not to say that IW-RG wouldn't be fun, but I can't see Perturabo and Corax easily agreeing on anything unless forced by the circumstances.

[Kol Saresk]

The Raven Guard still have some of their origins on Terra with supremacists an Deliverance with a prison. Between the racists and the actual criminals who needed to be locked away, there is plenty of room for a darkness to exist within the Legion.

 

And Primarchs didn't always agree on a lot things. I'm sure Russ just loved to have a Thousand Son Librarian moving with his Legion. But it still happened. Sometimes orders are orders and two forces will be stuck together for a long time. And then there comes a natural transferrence of ideas.

 

This is where this idea would take place. The Raven Guard would monitor the Iron Warriors' efforts at siege strategies with sapping tunnels, reconnaissance and sneak attacks across the no-man's land. After watching, they would offer their specialized services at guerrilla warfare in exchange for knowing just what to hit.

 

From there they would be told how to identify enemy command bunkers, infiltrate enemy tunnels, do just enough damage to an enemy gun that it will misfire during the next barrage. And so on.

 

If you want to see a beautiful marriage of conflicting Legion ideologies, look up Vazzy's 129th Company. He has some magnificent Ultramarines who took a note from the VIII Legion and made a short where they scare the living daylight out of a daemon and it is beautiful.

 

That's the thing about the Legions; they're cultures. And like cultures, they cannot be defined by a single stereotype as there are always those who exist in contrary to it.

 

We already have one Raven Guard who defected to the VIII. We have another that was a convicted serial killer but has since become a commander within the XIX, albeit a hated one.

 

So why not mix in a little IV Legion rigid brutality? Might be nice to see some Raven Guard change from being a scalpel into a more rigid and brutal Bowie knife.

[High MarshalGR]

Wait, I never said it is impossible or that a small percentage of the XIX Legion can't absorb the ways of the IV Legion, I referred to those two Legions as a whole, not for their companies, a single Astartes etc. I am talking about those two Legions absorbing one another and having a single command. That's what I talked about above, not individual elements who like all humans have their own character and ideals. As you present it, I agree. But what you said is fundamentally different than what I argued about. 

[TearsOfTheRaven]

Thinking on the lines of sabotage, gurellia warfare and assassination I was planning on doing a squad/character or perhaps the entire army with ac hidden blades to represent combat blades. Of course this is heavily inspired by zsoulesss's alapha legion marine.

 

Would it work and suit the theme, or would it look silly?

[Kol Saresk]

Wait, I never said it is impossible or that a small percentage of the XIX Legion can't absorb the ways of the IV Legion, I referred to those two Legions as a whole, not for their companies, a single Astartes etc. I am talking about those two Legions absorbing one another and having a single command. That's what I talked about above, not individual elements who like all humans have their own character and ideals. As you present it, I agree. But what you said is fundamentally different than what I argued about.

Ah okay. I misunderstood. Apologies.

 

TearsoftheRaven; Maybe on one or two, but as an army theme, well have you heard of Assassin's Creed? The gimmick is assassins with hidden blades.

[Daemon2027]

I have been thinking along similar lines with a potential Raven Guard army, although mine would be loyalist, and would be aimed as an anti Alpha Legion force set in the fall out of Deliverance Lost. The idea would be a fast, flexible army that could play all the Alpha Legion dirty tricks (sabotage, assassination, creating misinformation) but could also bring a huge amount of fire power to eradicate all traces of the traitors (so armour, mobile artillery, and TDA).