Early Crusade Astartes List/Force

[No Foes Remain]

So I've been watching some of The Outer Circle's videos on youtube and then hit this video here (caution, there is bad words) and it kinda got me thinking. What would a early crusade look like, before the Primarchs or at least after Horus, Russ and maybe Ferrus were found, in terms of unit choices from both a ingame and fluffy perspective.

 

For gaming models wise it would have to be limited to Mk III (and Mk II for you who are lucky enough to have some leftover) and ruling out the Sicaran and Xiphon as they were developed later on, lots of volkites for sure as they were more common during the early crusade than later on due to being a pain to make.

 

And thats about all I can really think off to be honest, not played 30k so not 100% on the unit rosters/choice. So what would an early crusade Astrartes look like in terms of avalible gear?

[Beren]

Possibly no Lightnings, Deredeos or Leviathans either? I think Malcadors were more common earlier on in the Legions. Not sure about what else.

[Vykes]

Something like that? -laughs- honestly I'm genuinely curious about that myself (partially due to my Luna Wolves feeling a little constrained given what instinctively feels like non fluffy choices). I broke it by having mk IV, frankly drop pods are more of a Russ/World Eater thing too, Aaand mk IV is pretty fancy and late crusade, but mk II is rare and ain't like we I can replenish that. I suppose if we're going reaaaally early then the legions are mostly all grey armour, too.

I'd assume more volkite hargers and mk II armour is a bit of a given, with the mk III suits growing in popularity towards the early to mid point of the Great Crusade during the push corewards. But a few of the few of the noteworthy types of units are kinda cost prohibitive or outright just not available. We don't have access or even good examples of things like Lightning Crows, Cerberus battle tanks, or Rhino Advancers, and the Stormbirds we have are both the stubby Sokars that are reaaaaally hard to use in game. But malcadors, like Beren mentioned, were supposedly from about then as a common asset.

Weren't even Land discovered stuff kinda rare in the early days: landspeeders, Land Raiders, anti-grav for Javelins and Scimitars, etc? I assume that Spartans and the Proteus might still be common enough as far as those patterns go.

Post Scriptum: Along with that mk III pattern push, weren't breachers pretty common in quite a few legions before the Terminator program? Then cataphractii pattern began replacing that with Tartaros coming into play alongside the mk IV.

[No Foes Remain]

@Beren: I think the only dreads would be the Castraferrum dread which is the standard GW one and flyer wise it would be limited to the thunderbolt I would assume. Also yes, I believe that the Malcador was the first MBT for the Legions but towards the mid-late crusade they were put into legion reserves (HH III has a image of a Malcador that was stated to have been taken out of reserves).

 

 

@Vykes: I thought of your army after I posted but I couldn't for the life of me find images of it, tired No Foes Remain can no search good. I'm not sure about Land's stuff, checking Lexicanum it says Land found the STC's for the Raider at the birth of the Imperium so its possible that the early Legions could have access to the GW Raider and Proteus.

 

And Breachers! I hadn't even thought about them, its highly possible that they were used in lieu of Terminators before they were produced.

[Beren]

Oh, there's another thread about warmachines of the Unification Wars that might also have some stuff for you in it.

[apologist]

The Lucifer(?) pattern dreadnought is mentioned as a very early pattern, isn't it? It'd be interesting to see the named Legion Masters in (sort of) place of the Primarchs, too.

 

In general, it'd be a great place to explore the proto-Rogue Trader stuff that's not yet been picked over, like disintegration guns, flight packs, the aforementioned old-school Dreadnought and so forth. 

 

I certainly like the idea. The Unification Wars are a great period, but the transition between that and the first steps of the Crusade is ripe for exploration.

[No Foes Remain]

Thats the idea Apologist, to use and refference the old stuff and the stuff that isn't always chosen first like the standard GW dread over the comtemptors due to them being better in every way for a little bit more in points and to not instantly take units such as the leviathan dread and the sicaran as they weren't around then.

 

Also bonus points for pre-primarch colours and gun-metal grey schemes.