So, I murdered my warband... Now what?

[RapatoR]

The idea of (in)glorious end for my warband is perhaps as old the warband itself. Basically, they would all die during the 13th Black Crusade. It was so compelling to make them one of the countless warbands annihilated in what surely was one of the most monumental wars that the Imperium ever faced. It was so thematic to tie their end to the end of the timeline... Well, right now that idea doesn't seem so great.

 

Admittedly I should have faced this conundrum at the onset of 8th edition. But I postponed it, due to me (1) being too lazy to think about it, (2) feeling that I could keep my warband in the pre-13th black crusade eta. Now it seems less and less tenable. At first glance, the way out should be easy. The thing is, I really, really dislike 'ressurection' and 'warp did it' tropes. So what should I do? Postpone their inevitable end to some other future yet-to-be-defined event? Or is there some way to do ressurection/warp without it being too in the nose?

 

TLDR: I Khayon'd my warband. How do I move into a new timeline, when I don't like 'ressurection'/'warp did it' tropes?

[Marshal Loss]

You could always say that they were virtually wiped but that the few survivors are attempting to rebuild the warband (possibly using the new Crusade rules for a bit of a thematic twist, allowing you to tell the story of their rebirth through their actions on the tabletop).

 

Alternatively, you could just say that their end was during the Indomitus Crusade instead, which allows them to be current enough for battles against Primaris to not be jarring

[MasterDeath]

1. A single survivor rebuild the warband

2. The warband fought some loyalists chapter in their last battle, and their sacrifice turned those loyalists to the true Emperor, just as Tzeentch had planed all along. They took on the mantle of their saviors.

3. As I see in your pots you seem to play AL, so... It was not this warband that died, but another warband that took their place, so your warband could... do something in the disguise of the now dead warband, that had to something in the disguise of your warband, before taking over the disguise off... You get the drift.

[Relic]

Send in the clones? Marines got cloned at some point in the Eye of Terror and awoken during the Indomitus Crusade. 

[Doctor Perils]

Oooh, interesting conundrum.

I definitely get the dislike for resurrection/time travel shenanigans.

 

The simple possibility of having a few survivors (or even a single one) who manage to recruit new members to keep the warband ticking along is probably the easiest;

Corruption (from any imaginable means) set in motion prior to the original warband's demise is also a good option;

I would say however that tying it into the demise of the original warband would be most interesting, so you'd need to give us a bit more insight into how that happened? Perhaps they saved the life of an influential patron (Abaddon himself? One of the Daemon Primarchs?) who sectioned off a portion of their own forces to take the warband's colours and name in their honour, creating a vassal force claiming a more ancient esprit de corps?

[sonsoftaurus]

Let them be dead and repaint?

[Elazar The Glorified]

Perhaps, when they fell that of their geneseed that wasn't corrupted beyond use was collected by an apothecary such as Fabius Bile or one of his Consortium. In the manner of their grim humour or because of previously existing alliances or grudges they can exploit, the new Marines they created for whichever Warlord they serve werr kitted out in a copy or parody of the panoply of the fallen.

[Doctor Perils]

Or, perhaps slightly different, during the 13th black crusade they are actually cursed by some means, and they know they are living on borrowed time - each year a few more turn into spawn or die, and they are now on a campaign to save themselves and their geneseed, or at least to wreak vengeance against those that have caused the curse? "Dead men walking" as opposed to simply dead? You could even do it along the lines of the Black Pearl crew: living dead, barely more than zombies, reaping havoc amongst the stars to get their post-mortal bodies back?

[BrainFireBob]

They died, but warp shenanigans- they can't truly die until X happens. Every death they slowly and painfully draw back together, feeling all of the pain of it.

 

Maddened, insane, they lurch towards their impossible goal to find their final peace.

Edited July 16, 2020 by BrainFireBob

[Lucerne]

Don't undo the event, but work around it.

 

1)Your warband died...But there are similar kindred out there. Especially for Alpha Legion, which makes a habit of false colours and "recycled" names.

2)Your warband mostly died.

3)Go with the Crimson Slaughter style of lore and have their doom be prophecy.

4)Have them as a "historical" warband, Badab war style.

 

 

"As you are, so were we. As we are, so you shall be."

 

"We were unmade by the Thirteenth. Our doom was foretold. But our name endures in defiance of fate, casting our shadow into eternity."

 

 

5)Play with the idea of alternative timelines.

 

"My dreams are troubled. Curious, how such a simple thing can still bother me so.

 

I dream of dying in fire on the soil of the world-fortress that was. Of the Warmaster fleeing Cadia in the face of Imperial retribution, leaving us to face inexorable doom in his stead. We died not in glory, but by obliteration under the Navy's guns. In my dreams, Cadia stood- and we fell. Fell to the last warrior. Failure instead of triumph. Shame rather than sacrifice.

 

Is this simple warp-sickness, or the lies of laughing daemons? Cadia is gone, any simpleton can see that...

 

Yet still I dream, of what was not, and what can no longer be.

 

In this age of confusion and nightmare, I could count us kings of infinite space...were it not that I have bad dreams."

 

 

6)They should have died. Something saved them. Who made a bargain for their lives, and with what- and at what price?

Edited July 17, 2020 by Lucerne

[Excessus]

What an interesting situation you find yourserlf in RapatoR. :)

 

 

I can see some really fantastic ideas already in this thread. Mine would be that the warband command knew of their oncoming demise (it was probably a part of the plan) and has made psychic imprints of themselves onto another warbands command structure as a backup...starting to awaken Preator of Dorn style where they slowly remember who "they are". Heck, they could even have fed the secondary warband their blood for decades to prepare for it!

[Paradigm]

I second Excessus’ idea, but it could be a good twist that it’s the enemy who destroyed them that turn into your new warband.

 

‘After destroying your warband at the end of the 13th Black Crusade, the thin-blood imperial lapdogs find little respite. As the Cicatrix Maledictum erupts from the eye of terror, this battlefield like so many others is dragged world-whole into the empyrean. As daemons descend upon your enemies, more familiar warriors walk like flickering ghosts across the battlefield. The souls of your warriors have no reality to hold them back and swiftly possess the bodies of the once victorious imperials.

 

Imperial thunder hawks descend to rescue what they think are their allies, only to pull the very corruption they fought into their heart. The strike cruiser of your enemy is badly damaged but manages to reactivate it’s gellar field as the thunder hawk docks, and make hard for realspace.

 

After decades of planning and pretending to be the warriors who defeated you. Your warband have risen in the ranks and slowly corrupted your enemies from within. You’ve made allies and pacts that will drag the entire company of your enemy to your side as soon as you strike.

 

One day your greatest warrior defeats the company captain while sparring and instead of pulling the blade as usual, he kills the loyal captain and declares himself the leader. The resulting fighting is bloody but brief and in the end the imperials stand no chance.’

 

You’ve now got nearly a full company of marines, a strike cruiser and brand new gear. Sure you don’t have the face your pappy gave you, but trapping your enemy in his own body while you wear it like a glove and corrupt his company is decent consolation.

Edited July 17, 2020 by Paradigm

[Xenith]

"Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated"

 

40k is full of hearsay and misunderstanding. Maybe part of the warband was wiped out. Maybe they wanted to appear to be wiped out so they can avoid paying a debt they owe. Maybe masquerading as another warband for a century, only to return when the time is right?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

"I was all that remained of my warband. My brothers, with whom I'd fought against the encroachment of fate for ten thousand years, lay still in shell craters like shallow graves. Our enemies were all around. Thinbloods of a dozen chapters, their panoply a riot of mismatched colors, were closing in. The pitiful corpse-worshipping human armsmen stood further back, letting these lesser Astartes do their dirty work.

 

"I was ready to die. My boltgun was empty, the teeth of my chainsword shattered. I could feel blood from a dozen wounds pooling in my boots. I had watched my brothers fall and now it was my turn.

 

"Our end was shared, of course. The bone and red of the War God's Teeth were intermixed with the colors of my brothers' livery. There, some of Abaddon's blackened followers. On the ridge ahead, leading the charge, a dozen Terminators in IV Legion livery lay motionless. Havocs at my back from some mongrel warband I'd not cared to learn were likewise in gentle repose upon that cursed earth.

 

"I tossed my useless bolter in the mud and gunned my chainsword in challenge. The Throne-lovers responded with cries of 'For the Emperor!' I killed the first one with a simple riposte, the tip of my chainblade finding the seam between helmet and plastron. The second landed a vicious blow to my head with his power maul before I gutted him like a fish. I pulled off the wreckage of my helm. More blood trickled down my face and I laughed. The rest charged together, realizing I was too dangerous to kill honorably.

 

"This was it, the moment I'd prepared for since Isstvan. I raised my sword...and the cloth-ripping staccato of a chain cannon overrode the drumming of blood in my ears. Tracers whipper past me, tearing into the ranks of the loyalists and driving them back. I turned to see that one of those fallen Havocs had regained his feet, his weapon firing on full. One of the Teeth not three meters from me clawed his way out of a shell crater. His smile was leering, maniacal, but his chain axe coughed to life. One of the Terminators I so lamented rose slowly as well, his power fist clenching and unclenching like a heartbeat as he stumbled back into the melee.

 

"These were not my brothers. These were not warriors I'd stood beside on the black sands of the Drop Site or the walls of the Palace or any of a thousand battlefields between then and now. But they bore witness to my stand, my refusal to die. They were...inspired. Together we butchered those deluded fools who thought they could stand against us.

 

"They follow me now. We move from engagement to engagement, picking up the orphans of dead companies. We are united not by blood or friendship, but an everburning hatred of those who have torn down our history and laid low the colors of commands older by far than any of these thinbloods.

 

"I'm still ready to die. The Powers will claim me at any moment, I can feel it like an itch I cannot scratch. But until my gods drag me screaming into the Warp, I will send my enemies there first...with my brothers at my side."

[RapatoR]

Wow. A lot of great ideas floating around. I really wish I was as creative as you guys. I particularly like the 'dead men walking' angle. Although starting a crusade force seems very tempting too...

 

As some of the fellow fraters rightly pointed out, I didn't provide any context for the the warband or its demise. The reason for this was simple. I always envisioned is as a completely unremarkable event in the grand scheme of things. Just a warband becoming one of the many casaulties in encounters with the Imperials (or perhaps a rival warband).

 

Now the warband itself is something like a 'penal batallion' of the Alpha Legion. It's an agglomererations of individuals who were sent there as a punisment, mixed with the remnants of destroyed warbands that nobody else would take in. (Yeah, it's an excuse so I can paint in a variety of different paint schemes and invent backgrounds for multiple warbands :D). I just... don't see them being noticed by one of the big names or gods - I don't have a Daemon Prince for the very same reason. So some of the proposed ideas, while being great, wouldn't fit with their 'bunch of nobodies, doing stuff beyond notice' vibe. However I hope some of the fraters don't mind if I steal some of the suggestions, and make them into one of the rumours that is circulating about them among the fellow warbands. After all, we cannot have an Alpha Legion warband returning from the dead without bunch of lies accompanying it. :)

 

That being said, I am still far from being decided, so keep the suggestions going!

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Fabius Bile them....

 

"such an unremarkable death for a warbands of astartes.

 

Still....

 

 

Waste not, what not! I can work such wonders with their flesh. And as they have no further need for it...."

[Julius Firefocht]

Wow. A lot of great ideas floating around. I really wish I was as creative as you guys. I particularly like the 'dead men walking' angle. Although starting a crusade force seems very tempting too...

 

As some of the fellow fraters rightly pointed out, I didn't provide any context for the the warband or its demise. The reason for this was simple. I always envisioned is as a completely unremarkable event in the grand scheme of things. Just a warband becoming one of the many casaulties in encounters with the Imperials (or perhaps a rival warband).

 

Now the warband itself is something like a 'penal batallion' of the Alpha Legion. It's an agglomererations of individuals who were sent there as a punisment, mixed with the remnants of destroyed warbands that nobody else would take in. (Yeah, it's an excuse so I can paint in a variety of different paint schemes and invent backgrounds for multiple warbands ). I just... don't see them being noticed by one of the big names or gods - I don't have a Daemon Prince for the very same reason. So some of the proposed ideas, while being great, wouldn't fit with their 'bunch of nobodies, doing stuff beyond notice' vibe. However I hope some of the fraters don't mind if I steal some of the suggestions, and make them into one of the rumours that is circulating about them among the fellow warbands. After all, we cannot have an Alpha Legion warband returning from the dead without bunch of lies accompanying it.

 

That being said, I am still far from being decided, so keep the suggestions going!

 

The entire original Imperial Fists chapter was wiped out to the last man in the War of the Beast. It was rebuilt by each Imperial Fist successor chapter contributing some Marines and formally declaring that those Marines are now the reborn Imperial Fists, with the same armor colors, traditions and all. For all intents and purposes, it was as though the Imperial Fists were never wiped out.

 

I think you can try a similar idea. Some allied Alpha Legion cells contribute a few Marines to reform the warband, just enough to rebuild around that core of veterans. Then you can use the new Crusade system to thematically rebuild your warband. 

 

Not to mention it is totally in character for the Alpha Legion to pull this kind of stunt.

 

"We are Alpharius."

 

"Strike off one head, and two more shall grow in its place." 

[Khornestar]

Retcon. :)

[techsoldaten]

You just say they're all dead. You don't need an explanation, they are dead and continue to fight.

 

Many opportunities for stoic / laconic humor in games. You make a save - "You cannot kill what does not live!" He destroys a unit - "Good job destroying the dead!"

[Lay]

Now the warband itself is something like a 'penal batallion' of the Alpha Legion. It's an agglomererations of individuals who were sent there as a punisment, mixed with the remnants of destroyed warbands that nobody else would take in.

Interesting concept. I'd go with the above idea of those warbands that used to send members to the original penal battalion forming a new one. If the Alpha Legion saw value in having them around in the first place, it only makes sense for them to be rebuilt. Not to mention that there are probably many heavily decimated warbands in the wake of the 13th Black Crusade that would make for good recruits.

 

To make things interesting, the first mission of the new warband would be to reclaim the resources of their predecessors, like hidden bases, ships, dormant chaos cults, etc. Imagine an ongoing quest that reveals more about the original penal battalion as the story of the new one develops. That way you can develop both warbands.

 

For example, have them locate the wreck of a downed Thunderhawk to get the coordinates of a cultist cell. Locate the cultist cell to get the coordinates of a hidden outpost. Locate the hidden outpost to uncover data of an operation that the original warband was planning. Except that the data is encrypted or corrupted, it only gives them the name of a space hulk. So they locate the space hulk where they find... etc.

 

Maybe they have to impersonate members of the original warband in order to get in touch with certain operatives or get access to certain places. Maybe resources on certain planets have fallen into the hands of rival Chaos factions after the Great Rift opened, so now there's pressure to uncover as much as possible before it falls into enemy hands. Or maybe there are survivors from the original warband who have gone rogue. After witnessing the destruction of what they saw as their only way to do penance, they became disillusioned with their allegiance to the Alpha Legion and are now claiming their former warband's resources for themselves.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Lay

[Ketzer]

What about this: Your Warband made a name during the 13th crusade. Their slaughter and their devotion to the dark gods became legend.

A legend, that survived their ultimate fate.

One day another leader of a warband picked up the name of the legenday warband and wants to continue their story - or just does so because that's what the Alpha Legion does  - but I'd stick with the first concept.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Remember, when you are telling the "history" of your warband, you are really telling its story - and different people can legitimately (or illegitimately) have different stories for the same thing.  Take D-Day, for example, where the story can differ even between allies - in the West, its seen as the US and Britain launching the blow that would bring the end to the war, while for the Russians it was a sideshow from their being well on the way to winning the war almost entirely on their own.

 

Whose point of view are you telling the story from (even if its just a story in your head)?  Is it from the viewpoint of a member of the warband?  Their victims?  Some (dis)interested bystander?

 

While there is a tendency to try to tell the "true" story of your warband, that may not be the best or way of doing it - indeed, given the dilemma you are grappling with, my opinion is that this is not the best way to tell your force's story.  You could try telling their story from another's viewpoint - which allows you to add another layer to the mystery, in that the viewpoint itself may be unreliable (whether it being because of a limited viewpoint, bias, or having their own interest potentially distort their tale).

 

Perhaps the solution is to tell the story from the viewpoint of someone else trying to determine the truth (perhaps an inquisitor, an imperial historian, or an enemy chaos warband) by piecing together facets of the story learned from others - that allows you to have multiple viewpoints of varying reliability, from which the narrator is trying to glean the portions which, if any, reflect the truth.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Emicus]

Let them be dead and buried (repaint!) or 'Phoenix' them into a new warband.

 

Yes that's 2 roads to the same destination:p

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Maybe they were Alpha Legion all along and just disappeared once their mission was completed.

[Espresso]

They are Chaos Space Marines, Veterans of the Long War, to them this entire affair, war, death, struggle, joy, exultation, savage city fights, slave raids, conflicts with the other warbands etc. ... all of this is to them just a blur. 

 

Did I die, or I am still alive? Have I not fought those yellow marines before, or after, or never? Or are those yellow marines my brothers? I recall a certain Cedric, an Imperial Fist... I think? Didn't I just gut him, or help him escape the wreckage of our Land Raider...

 

It is not the Warp, it is neither a temporal anomaly or any other form of shenanigans. It is simply the life of a Chaos Space Marines. 

 

In time everything, faces, sounds, pains... all is just a blur, all is just more of the same and every time more painful... or less.

 

You don't have to have any explanation at all. Was your warband destroyed? It was, most certainly, yet creatures trained to endure the very hell itself would not so meekly keel over and die or allow themselves to be forgotten. Not out of duty and most certainly out of spite.