We still love you, Bro

[Paradox 01]

I'm in the process of creating a post-HH Chapter based on Death Guard Loyalists. I don't actually play so I know that at the end of the day I'm writing lists & rules and building minis for an audience of one, but I am a slave to fluff to a point.

 

I know some individuals survived the Heresy and went on to do great things (Crysos Morturg among them) and a few modern Chapters are rumored to have roots in Traitor Legions (ref: Silver Skulls), but does anyone know how many Marines survived Horus's purge of Terran-born Death Guard on Istvaan III?

[Kinstryfe]

In the old fluf, I believe they numbered only dozens. In the new fluff, you could probably get away with almost anything. You may want to rethink the Istvaan survivors angle though. Not many marines were on the surface who would have readily lived. A garrison force or force on exercises with another legion may be more likely and let you flex your fluff muscles a little more, without being restrained by a story event that is already fairly well defined:)

[Paradox 01]

Yeah, I get that. My idea was to create a DG-based Chapter made up of mostly Terra-born Marines with a distinctly Welsh flavor, using names and themes from Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" as a basis mixed with the sin-eater mythology.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

A small force of loyalists that weren't at Isstvan could have been anywhere. For my projects, I always like to weave my story threads between the big events of the canon and try to make them believable enough that I don't get a lot of "Yeah, that would never happen, bro" comments. Not much at all survived Isstvan and it would probably serve you better to make your force come from somewhere else.

[Paradox 01]

For my projects, I always like to weave my story threads between the big events of the canon and try to make them believable enough that I don't get a lot of "Yeah, that would never happen, bro" comments.

Same here, hence my original question. So it sounds like the answer I'm looking for lies in the classic, "delayed in the warp long enough to miss out on Istvaan but just in time to figure out that our Primarch is an emo traitor b!tch and we ain't about that sh!t" cliche.

[Laughingman]

Some legionaries ended up on multi-decade long expeditions attached to Rouge Trader flotillas, or nomad predation fleets. I suspect the duty was used as a dumping ground for misfits and victims of internal politics. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Or go with the "We somehow survived the miraculous viral bombing of the surface of a planet, followed up by the firestorm from the corpse gases of all those dead that was ignited by an orbital bomardment, and then Angron and his angry kids rushing down to the surface to kill the few loyalists that survived all that, and then Horus sending down traitors from all the Legions there to avoid killing Angron with more orbital bombardment and make sure the loyalists were dead" cliche. Whichever you want to do.

[Paradox 01]

Hmm, something tells me my cliche reads better than yours. ;)

[Laughingman]

So theoretically some unit of death guard may have attached to a rouge trader flotilla operating outside range of astropathic communication, thus avoiding being at istvaan 3 . More believable in my opinion, and less cliche.

[Paradox 01]

My wink was aimed at BC Kage, Laughingman. I can totally see your scenario as legit.

[Laughingman]

Might even be an excuse to paint up dusk raiders, after all a Terran born commander might refuse to bear the colors of traitors and instead revert to the old colors. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Hmm, something tells me my cliche reads better than yours.

I guess my sarcasm didn't translate well into type.

[Paradox 01]

My idea is to kinda break from even Dusk Raiders, go way back to Welsh theology due to "Albion" (British Isle) background

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Absolutely make it your own, man. If there's a little bit of actual canon you can tie it to, even a single sentence somewhere, so that it's got a little bit of legitimacy backing it up it will be even better, but do what you want to do. Who cares if deviates a little? If you wanted to use the rules, even if you don't plan on playing, go with the Blackshields options to represent a ragtag unit that has to scavenge enemy dead for supplies to keep fighting. Just do what will make you happy with the figures you paid for and will invest more time and effort into building and painting. I love reading project logs were people do this very thing.

 

I've never understood why some folks will throw away a great idea that they really want to do just because it might not be 100% in line with the fluff, so don't be that guy.

[FuriousFerret]

Re: The Dusk Raiders angle: Here's a quote from the Wikia, quoted in turn from p. 19 of HH Four: Conquest. So yeah, you could go with a Dusk Raiders-based Chapter, heraldry suitably obscured but a clear hint to those in the know. There are a number of chapters with colour schemes and chapter symbols that could work for you, or serve as inspiration. Here's one: The Marines Exemplar.

 

"Despite the paucity of records, accounts of small warbands that were once part of the known Traitor Legions fighting independently persisted throughout the war. In some cases, outcast forces proudly bore their original colours and may have regarded themselves as the true inheritors of their Legions. This can perhaps be explained, at least in part, by persistent stories and evidence long since suppressed of midnight clad warriors in defaced Night Lords heraldry savagely attacking Traitor forces at the liberation of Istvaan III, or of recurring reports of multiple Space Marine strike forces seemingly in the resurrected livery of the Dusk Raiders thwarting the Iron Warriors at Kibron and Malinche's Fall. "

 

 

[Kasper_Hawser]

for me, Nathaniel Garro was the very loyalist from the Traitor Legion I heard of and inspired me to admire not only the Death Guard but all the traitor legions BEFORE they became traitors.

 

Only problem was Garro stories were almost all written by James Swallow, whose style of characterization and writing is either hit or miss. He made Garro somewhat believeable but overdid the whole "believe in emperor divinity" stuff.