Grey Company: 30K Unification Era

[Ordo Machinum]

1000heathens has begun a March of the Legions  painting and modeling challenge in the Age of Darkness forum. Basically it is a different Legion model and piece of fluff per month for the next eighteen months.

 

I have joined in, but I am considering representing each legionnaire as a member of the same squad.

 

From Horus Heresy Book I: Betrayal, The Grey Legions (p. 27)

"...Some of this 'Thunder Armour', first named for the Thunder Regiments that were the Legions' forebears, was newly forged, but the Emperor's warsmiths also took or canabalised many suits from the armories and corpses of conquered foes. As if to mark a break from the wars of the past the armour was cast in storm cloud grey, and bore only the thunderbolt and lightning marks of Imperial unity. Over time Legions gained their own marks of distinction and character, and names..."

 

Early after their inception, the twenty battalions of the 'Grey Legions' numbered only a few hundred each. They would eventually grow into many thousands by the beginning of the Great Crusade.

 

However, during the Unification Wars of the Sol System these battalions were yet to be united with their lost Primarchs. It would not have been unusual for them to work together. They were all being led by the Emperor.

 

Out of the thousands, the Emperor may have united some of the legions in a company for the 'best-of-the-best'. Or, more likely, maybe they were a company of legionnaires that were a tad extreme, even for their own legions. Perhaps it was a gathering of legionnaires serving penance for some act committed in their service. A 'Dirty Dozen' grown to the size of a company.

 

Rather than a 40K Deathwatch uniting Chapters, this can be a 30K Greywatch - still uniting brother Legions to serve the Emperor for some specific purpose.

 

What do you think?