Imperium/Chaos allies? (Rules question, not fluff)

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Is there any way in rules to run Chaos and Imperium armies together? I have a fun, fluffy reason to run a small Thousand Sons army alongside my Imperium stuff, and I'm looking for precedent to run a detachment of Chaos (probably a Patrol, maybe a small Battalion, if that matters). Specifically Thousand Sons.

[Gederas]

Is there any way in rules to run Chaos and Imperium armies together? I have a fun, fluffy reason to run a small Thousand Sons army alongside my Imperium stuff, and I'm looking for precedent to run a detachment of Chaos (probably a Patrol, maybe a small Battalion, if that matters). Specifically Thousand Sons.

It can only be done with Cypher as your Warlord. He has Chaos and Imperium as his Faction keywords.

[MysticTemplar]

It's not possible to run Thousand Suns and the Imperium together in matched play, though. Per the Matched Play rules on pg. 214 of the Core Rulebook, all units in an army *must* share at least one faction keyword, save for Unaligned models. So you could run an Adeptus Mechanicus and a Heretic Astartes detachment with Fallen models that have the Imperium and Chaos keywords, but you couldn't add a Death Guard or Thousand Suns detachment in there, because they won't share any Faction keywords with the Adeptus Mechanicus force. Who you pick as your warlord doesn't really matter here.

[Panzer]

Only if your army isn't battleforged, so not Matched Play. MysticTemplar quoted the right passage.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Ah... alright. Thanks for the responses, regardless. Is there any good way to counts-as a Thousand Sons army as something else which DOES have the Imperium keyword?

[Panzer]

The only plausible counts-as would be Grey Knights obviously, however a counts-as as a completely different already existing faction is ... tricky. Definitely ask your opponents if it's okay before doing so because when people see Thousand Sons models they definitely don't expect to fight Grey Knights rules.

[N1SB]

Is there any way in rules to run Chaos and Imperium armies together? I have a fun, fluffy reason to run a small Thousand Sons army alongside my Imperium stuff, and I'm looking for precedent to run a detachment of Chaos (probably a Patrol, maybe a small Battalion, if that matters). Specifically Thousand Sons.

 

I'm genuinely curious as to the fun, fluffy reason, though, please let us know.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

That would be the Wayward Sons of Asromiamun, my renegade Thousand Sons warband. They pick out when local Imperium forces (read: Forge World Ragnarus, the Crimson Knights and related) are being attacked by or are attacking Chaos forces and show up to help out the Imperium side. They wear pre-Heresy Thousand Sons colors and take special pleasure in destroying Chaotic offshoots of Ragnarus forces and their former brothers, the Thousand Sons. They have never, not once, been sighted in battle with any Alpha Legion warband.

[N1SB]

Oh cool, I like that.  While reading your Liber, I was reminded of An Idea a friend shared with me, that imho is strangely applicable here.  His idea is basically an Astartes Soup Librarian Detachment that is perfectly legal in Matched Play, to my understanding (so Brothers, correct me if I'm wrong, because this is kinda of a funny loophole).

 

It starts with how subfaction keywords work for Loyalist Space Marines specifically.  In addition to the IMPERIUM keyword and their respective <CHAPTER> keyword, they also get an additional keyword: ADEPTUS ASTARTES.  Thus, even in Matched Play, it's actually allowed within a single Detachment to have different Chapters of Marines, iirc, because they are all not just IMPERIUM keyword, but also ADEPTUS ASTARTES keyword.

 

However, it's usually totally not worth it as even then, because you don't get the Defenders of Humanity/Objective Secured rule nor their Chapter Tactics (which you get for being of the same <CHAPTER>).  The possible exception where you might not care is with: Librarians (in a HQs Detachment).  You take Librarians probably for their Psychic Powers rather than Chapter Tactics, because each Chapter has its own Psychic Powers, it can be a pretty powerful combination.

 

The example my friend used was a Dark Angel Librarian + Space Wolf Rune Priest (then you add a 3rd HQ just to fill out the HQs Detachment).  They have their own Psychic Powers, but they both have one that does the same thing: the -1 To Hit.  Normally you can't spam Psychic Powers and stack their benefits, but it turns out the -1 To Hit power has different names for these 2 Chapters...so you can cast both of them, and they do accumulate to become a -2 To Hit.  My friend was considering this as a counter to shooty Lords of War, like Knights.

 

Result: you basically get this very powerful Loyalist Marine Psykers Detachment wielding all sorts of Psychic Powers.

 

+++++

 

My friend is a multi-tourney winner (who insists he's actually not a tournament player because he's humble and deliberately avoids netlists), so he suggested this idea for gameplay reasons, but it applies here for lore reasons for your Loyalist Thousand Sons.

 

Consider a Loyalist Marines Librarian Detachment, but taken from different Chapters, to wield different Psychic Powers.  This represents how the Thousand Sons are master Sorcerers, they actually know all sorts of "spells".  They did NOT learn from their Loyalist Librarian colleagues who'd never teach them, but they're just so good at Warp Sorcery they figured out the equivalent casting on their own (in the same way Dark Angels and Space Wolves both figured out the -1 To Hit Psychic Power in parallel).

 

They don't have a Chapter Tactic, and normally that's a huge minus, but I actually like that in this case.  It reflects these Loyalist Thousand Sons having no Chapter nor Legion.  Having abandoned their Legion, they lost their Brotherhood of Sorcerers 6" bonus Psychic range, like they're not quite as connected to the Warp having stopped worshipping Chaos.

 

The result is I imagine Sorcerer Asromiamun breaking away from his Legion with a group of other Sorcerers.  They left the Rubric Marines and other Troops behinds.  They're just a few very powerful and ancient Marines that, knowing they don't have a full army, only join a battle when the Crimson Knights or their allied forces fight, wielding a wide selection of Psychic spells from their 10,000 years of experience, but not quite with the sheer brute power as they've severed their ties with Chaos.

 

Just an idea.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

As much as I really, really like that idea, I've already got a squad of Rubricae in the works. However, I might just put this idea into motion veeeery soon. Maybe they show up in small groups as casting support for the Crimson Knights, and bring the Rubricae when fighting as their own army?