Reason for going black shield

[Plaguecaster]

Hey I was just wondering how much other black shield players there are out here and curious on how you justify fluff wise the reason your marines went Black Shield in the first place, the being loyalist in a legion of traitors or vice a versa is a cool idea but was more curious about reasons other than being traitors or loyalist along the lines of more out for them selves than any one else

[Kol Saresk]

The army I'm trying to build will be at the core, a group of Word Bearers who were trapped on Calth, but managed to escape. Now disillusioned with their former brothers, they happen to run into a group of Night Lords who survived the events of Prince of Crows and out of necessity the two forces join up and decide to cause general chaos, havoc, and death for everyone who crosses their path, while utilizing the services of some Dark Mech to augment their forces with genetic abominations.

 

Obviously still a work in progress.

[Plaguecaster]

The army I'm trying to build will be at the core, a group of Word Bearers who were trapped on Calth, but managed to escape. Now disillusioned with their former brothers, they happen to run into a group of Night Lords who survived the events of Prince of Crows and out of necessity the two forces join up and decide to cause general chaos, havoc, and death for everyone who crosses their path, while utilizing the services of some Dark Mech to augment their forces with genetic abominations.

 

Obviously still a work in progress.

Nice I'm trying to do a word bearers force gone black shield myself though still working on how they turned

[Noctus Cornix]

I'm actually going to be making my own small scale ViV oriented Dark Brotherhood force to go to war with my friend's Alpha Legion. I'm going to be working in some kind of idea for these guys to have adopted the Nemean's iconography and his legacy as their own... As you can tell, it is very much a work in progress.

[Hyaenidae]

I'd want to do an Apocalypse Now style army; in the end, they just lost it. It was all too much. War is it's own reward, in their minds. 

[Kol Saresk]

 

The army I'm trying to build will be at the core, a group of Word Bearers who were trapped on Calth, but managed to escape. Now disillusioned with their former brothers, they happen to run into a group of Night Lords who survived the events of Prince of Crows and out of necessity the two forces join up and decide to cause general chaos, havoc, and death for everyone who crosses their path, while utilizing the services of some Dark Mech to augment their forces with genetic abominations.

 

Obviously still a work in progress.

Nice I'm trying to do a word bearers force gone black shield myself though still working on how they turned

Could be they took the doctrine a bit too much to heart and saw the rest of the Legion as heathens and apostates who were failing to uphold the Word. Or perhaps they were like Narek where at first they thought it was a great idea, but they're uncomfortable with the price they're having to pay. Perhaps they were a forgotten fleet that came back to find an Imperium that wants to kill them and a Legion that has disowned them.

 

Think of how you want your Blackshields to exist. Then worry about getting your Legion in there. Remember, part of the Blackshields os that they're independents, so Legion of origin is more incidental. That's even if you want a Legion of origin.

 

For example, my force that I mentioned above. All in all, if it goes the way I want, then I will have three armies; Blackshields(the Genetic abominations), Mechanicum, and Shattered Legions(Word Bearers and Night Lords). Since they will all be integral to each other and the Blackshields will be center stage, I consider it a Blackshield force.

 

So in a way, the Blackshields themselves will be both a mixture of VIII and XVII genetics and mentality, while also being something completely new and separate.

[helterskelter]

There's only one reason:

They took yerrrr job!

[Trevak Dal]

I use the rules because they are better at making the renegade space marines gw works hard to portray chaos as.

 

Plus +1 strength chain axes.

[Brother Heinrich]

SHAME.

[Hyaenidae]

Ah, here's a short I made a while back, about a Transhuman whose genetic makeup rebelled, leading him to walk the path of the Blackshield alone. Kinda a special case, mind ya, but it does show you can come up with all sorts of different reasons for resistance and rebellion, ranging from philosophical to scientific.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/312141-3rd-bjaha-sur-caballeros/?p=4177978

[Vodunius]

A couple of ideas I've batted around:

(Generic TO&E) A marine regiment suffers heavy losses including the death of its commander, the bulk of the casualties are taken by one of the of two battalions, the survivors of that battalion and its commander blame the actions of the other battalions commander for the debacle, legion command disagrees and makes that officer the new regimental commander.. the bulk of the depleted battalion goes renegade rather than serve under him. 

 

A particular unit liberated an ork held human world and garrisoned it for a decade against ork counter attack, watching and guarding it as it rebuilt and became a productive member of the Imperium.. even going so far as to induct new recruits from the world. Twenty years later the unit learns that half the worlds population had become infected by a xenos parasite courtesy of a food shipment from another Imperial world and that it had subsequently been viral bombed by another legion. The unit goes rogue and pursues a vendetta against the responsible legion. 

[Terminus]

Because black is slimming.

[Trevak Dal]

SHAME.

In the face of all loyalists get, they should be thankful I don't just play my tau all the time.

[Jareddm]

The way I've thought of it is that a marine has many different types of loyalty, all of which they must balance and prioritize appropriately as the truths of the Horus Heresy are revealed to them.  Thinking about which loyalties a marine values most and which they are willing to turn on is a great way to work out the decisions that marine makes, whether that mean staying loyal, turning traitor, or becoming a black shield.

Here's a list of loyalties that I found here from a different discussion:

 

Legion

Squadmates

Primarch

Homeworld

The Emperor

Terra

Humanity

Commanding Officer

Religious/Secular Beliefs

Machine Cult

Personal Honor

Combat prowess

Sanity

 

Some decisions may be easy to balance against these loyalties, but others may cause a great deal of conflict.  Try to think on all of these and more when determining your black shield's origin.

[Kelborn]

My Phantom Blades were once a cell of the Alpha Legion, namely most of the remaining Terran members.

They fought as the Ghost Legion for the Emperor and Malcador prior to their Primarchs discovery. Therefore, he swore their fealty to both of them. When Alpharius Omegon was discovered, the worked closely with Omegon. While Alpharius wanted to prove his Legions and his own abilities and superiority to his distrustful brothers, he focused more and more on glory and the most spectacular way of solving a conflict.

Omegon was the pure opposite. That is why the former Ghost Legion preferred to work for him, as he was eager to spread the influence of the Imperium like his fathers wanted it to hapen.

Right before Istvan and after the revelation of the Cabal, Omegon send the Phantoms, how they were called by the, into the region known as the Dominion of Storms. Knowing that there were hundreds of planets and resources which could be crucial in the coming war, Omegon wanted them to claim it for the Alpha Legion and prevent anyone else of conquering it. Omegon still believed that there has to be another way of defeating Chaos.

With the Dominion being fortified and ready for the imperium to claim, he wanted to assure that the Emperor would have the necessary means to deal with Horus and his dark masters.

 

After claiming the Domerian realm as their base of operations, another force appeared. Send by Perturabo for nearly the same reasons like Omegon (though the Lord of Iron wanted this possible giant fortress for himself), a grand company entered the Dominion and fought against the defending Phantoms. The war had its peak when still loyal members of the former 151st great battalion switched sides and joined the Phantoms. After defeating the remaining traitors, the masked themselves as blackshields, naming themselves the Phantom Blades, the guardians of the Dominion.

 

*edit*

Sorry for mistakes. Currently writing via phone.

[Reyner]

My Blackshields are going to be the remnants of an Iron Hands Clan Company that was almost completely wiped out on Isstvan V. The commander mad with grief over the loss of Ferrus and hatred of the traitors and the wider Imperium for allowing Horus to get this far. Kind of an Iron Hand cliche but this lets me sneak in some Tenth Legion awesomeness as well as crazy Blackshield gear!

 

Over time the Company becomes more of a Warband as other stragglers join them and they start reaving for supplies then attempt to carve out their own little empire.

[Kelborn]

Did nearly the same with a war and called the Iron Fist.

Shocked and disgusted by the death of Ferrus, they start to believe that mankind itself is weak and flawed and needs to be extinguished for causing all this misery. They found a space hulk and start to purge the Galaxy. 10k years later, they are still on it but were gifted by Khorne for the bloodshed they had done with his demon engines although they refuse to worship any of the dark gods.

[Midwest]

The army I'm trying to build will be at the core, a group of Word Bearers who were trapped on Calth, but managed to escape. Now disillusioned with their former brothers, they happen to run into a group of Night Lords who survived the events of Prince of Crows and out of necessity the two forces join up and decide to cause general chaos, havoc, and death for everyone who crosses their path, while utilizing the services of some Dark Mech to augment their forces with genetic abominations.

 

Obviously still a work in progress.

I've been thinking of something similar, mostly because I wanted to use the name "Night Bearers" as a warband name.

 

Do you keep them as separate squads, mix them within squads, or have they abandoned their heraldry completely (you mentioned in your other comment that you have them and Blackshields, so wasn't sure).

[Charlo]

I believe it could go something, like this:

 

= Ship arrives in system after being lost in the warp for ten years after a long compliance campaign = 

 

"Sir we are being hailed on multiple frequencies, conflicting messages from all sources"

 

"Bring them up on screen, I'll look over them myself."

 

=Preator pours over the information=

 

"So Horus is starting a Civil war and screwing everything up? While the Emperor no longer leads us and sits in a lab on Terra while his loyal soldiers die to keep his worlds in order?"

 

"That is correct sir."

 

"Turn the ship around. We've got an empire to carve lads."

[Midwest]

Potential reasons off the top of my head:

 

1. Break w/ parent Legion due to disagreement over allegiances.

2. Break due to personal grievances.

3. Break due to perceived personal shame (remember, two entire legions were deleted, possibly in-universe for the same reasons as the historical inspiration of Roman Legions being 'forgotten' due to shame/infamy/failure.