Question - Any reason why Dark Angels could aid NLs ?

[Lautrec the Embraced]

I got a bit bored of painting blue recently and started thinking about creating a tiny traitors-from-loyal-legion detachment along my NLs. For some reason I started thinking about Dark Angels despite how unlikely it sounds, as I like the aesthetics and those legions were after all in proximity to each other at times (waging war against each other to be precise but still).

So, as I am not familiar with the Dark Angels, would there be any possible reason why they, be it a singular officer, a squad or even a few of them, would aid a rather infamous VIIIth legion?

We know that at least one memeber of the Raven Guard was *persuaded* to work along NLs. Don't remember much details, so don't know if he was just broken into submission or had some other motives. I'm thinking about the latter - could there be any reason for a DA to betray his own kin AND aid NLs?

I've imagined for example a disgruntled terran DA, who never took a liking to Caliban, its traditions and Lion's charming persona. As his choler sets in, he's not beyond killing his own officers and tangling with Warp - plenty of reason to feel disheatened by him. Or maybe an officer would be shunned in the legion due to his sadism that gets him drawn to the VIIIth? Or maybe just when left in certain death scenario, a pragmatic centurion could switch sides if he had something to offer his captors?

So that's what I wanted to inquire - who and why *could* at the very least, unlikely as it may be, think about such a switch of allegiance. Maybe a certain Wing or Order comes to mind? Or which unit/consul would be more prone to do so...


 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Lautrec the Embraced

[Doghouse]

There are instances of Loyalist Legions having traitor elements and the scenario you have described works perfectly fine as it ties in the the ultimate fate of Caliban. There were well established gradiences between the Terran and Caliban elements of the Legion and the fall from grace doesn't have to mean he just jumps on board with the warp entity worshipping right away.

 

I'd go the route you've described, maybe a Terran sergeant and his men who just eventually has had enough and switches sides. Despite their own reasons that is pretty much in line with a lot of the Legions that sided with Horus who didn't follow a deity. 

 

A totally disenfranchised minor officer that decides enough is enough would work fine, the heart of the story of the Heresy is the corruption that leads to a fall from grace.

[N1SB]

So that's what I wanted to inquire - who and why *could* at the very least, unlikely as it may be, think about such a switch of allegiance. Maybe a certain Wing or Order comes to mind? Or which unit/consul would be more prone to do so...

 

Yes indeed, the Dreadwing.  Now that I type it, even the name alone makes them a bit of a fit with Night Lords.

 

Every Legion had units that used borderline forbidden weapons, usually Destroyer Squads.  The types of dangerous weaponry were things like Rad weapons, Phosphex, real salt-the-earth types, etc.  One of the remarkable things with the Dark Angels (to the point I very nearly went with them instead of Iron Hands) is as the First Legion, they were prototype testing a lot of this stuff.  It's actually reflected in the Age of Darkness rules with how Dark Angel units sometimes get options that others don't, like iirc they can put Rad ammunition on certain Dreadnoughts or whatever.

 

That's the Dreadwing, who were seen as the most outright dangerous and dreaded of the Wings.  They didn't just have those weapons, they also housed the most unstable Dreadnoughts, and I think they even used Psykers after the Council of Nikaea (the Lion turned a blind eye).  It happens to something you mentioned earlier that they were particularly Terran, recruited around the Scandinavia region, and kept their own customs even after the 1st Legion found Caliban, the Lion, and became the Dark Angels.  These little nuances suggest they didn't particularly gel well with their Caliban cousins.

 

Putting these points together with what you were already thinking about, it's actually a pretty good narrative.  Dreadwing members, being part of the First Legion that tested the waters for new military weaponry might have been seconded to the Night Lords to share their best practices.  It might not have been altruism on their Primarch's part, it could have been arrogance, like "oh how cute, your Legion thinks it's good at terror tactics...let me show you MY Dreadwing."  Once embedded with the Night Lords, these Dreadwing members might realise they have more in common with them than the Dark Angels, since they were mostly Terran with little connection to Caliban.

 

I actually really like this idea of yours.

[WrathOfTheLion]

 

Putting these points together with what you were already thinking about, it's actually a pretty good narrative.  Dreadwing members, being part of the First Legion that tested the waters for new military weaponry might have been seconded to the Night Lords to share their best practices.  It might not have been altruism on their Primarch's part, it could have been arrogance, like "oh how cute, your Legion thinks it's good at terror tactics...let me show you MY Dreadwing."  Once embedded with the Night Lords, these Dreadwing members might realise they have more in common with them than the Dark Angels, since they were mostly Terran with little connection to Caliban.

I can see a few problems there, the wings in 30k were formed out of existing regiments, they weren't standalone elements like in the 40k Dark Angels. In a tree structure (if you know algorithms), it's more like picking a new root and rotating the command organization around that. As well, the 1st Legion was only very infrequently seconded to other Legions. As mentioned in both book 9 and even in book 1, the 1st and VIth Legions especially were a bit of pariahs there. As well a lot of the equipment they used would not have been shared with other legions.

 

In particular with the VIIIth however, the Dark Angels under Lion El'Jonson were deployed to the shield worlds outside the galaxy proper, and immediately upon coming back end up in an all out war against the Night Lords during the Thramas Crusade, so that might be difficult in general to pull off. You might be able to narrate as said a minor officer that decides to switch sides during that conflict, but the Thramas Crusade was a quite brutal clash between those two Legions.

[Jareddm]

Rather than a Wing, the Orders are a better route to explore.  There were dozens and dozens of secret Orders within the 1st Legion, each one dedicated to keeping the knowledge and skills of something specific.  These could be fighting specific enemies (Rangdan: Order of Broken Claws), fighting styles (Anti-air: Order of Broken Wing), battlefields (Extreme Cold: Order of the Argent Spire) or whatever else you could think of.

 

I could easily see an Order dedicated to fear tactics, something like the Order of Shattered Souls, having relations with certain VIIIth legion elements, and perhaps in a moment of dire need, one side or the other invokes a past oath in the name of the Order of Shattered Souls to request an alliance.  It might be begrudging but must be done lest a sacred oath be broken.

[MARK0SIAN]

It could always be a detachment that are loyal to Luther and his fellow conspirators. They could be working with NL as allies of convenience in some secretive matter to help bring their plans to fruition.

[Lautrec the Embraced]

Thanks a lot for your thoughtful input. It provided me a with a few ideas that I like. I thought about dreadwing initially, obvious connection with fear and I can have some fun with giving them esoteric weapons.  Though I doubt Lion would so happily lend his secret weapons wielding dreadwing memebers to Curze of all people, it's an idea to consider. I don't really want to make them Luther's lapdogs but I like the idea of a certain Order and its oath a lot.

 

I'm not sure if an oath is enough to betray your own legion outright and join NL but maybe if it went more like:

 

1) remnants of a small terran order are rescued from certain death at xenos hands by some unlikely NL (maybe also terran officer as well);

 

2) an Oath is sworn and the forces are on good terms with each other;

 

3) some years later NL secretly call for fulfillment of the pledge - something clandestine like providing some intel or delivering weapon schematics.

DA are honour bound so their Preceptor covertly oblige, besides, we're all on the same side...

 

4) Lion gets to know and his choler kicks in, he decaptitates the Preceptor without trial, disbands the Order, demotes its members

 

5) the few still living members, shunned, outcast, are held in contempt by DAs upper echelon and so start conspiring against them

 

Now, just have to find a reason why would they even be taken with the main forces to Thramas where the betrayal and the switch of allegiance can easily be arranged.  Maybe Lion wants to keep an eye on them, or give them a chance to redeem themselves...

[Gattopardo]

I actually don't think the Dreadwing have much logical affinity with the Night Lords. The Dreadwing (and to be honest, to a certain extent the Dark Angels Legion as a whole) are all about total extermination so that no trace of the foe is left and they are entirely eradicated and even forgotten. Whereas the idea behind terror tactics is to frighten people into compliance, which means leaving some people alive and not killing everyone.

 

I'd say the Firewing are closer to the Night Lords' methods, if you're looking to focus on a particular wing.

 

Although the general idea of links between the Dark Angels and the Night Lords is tricky. It's generally hard to link the First to other Legions in this way, and particularly so the VIII - although to be fair as far as I know there was no particular enmity between the two legions and their primarchs prior to the Heresy. Links might be easier to establish between the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves for example, as both Legions were heavily involved in the Rangdan Xenocides.

[Lautrec the Embraced]

I agree, Firewing was the second wing I was thinking about; with Dreadwing it was mostly a literal understanding of the name on my part, as the similarities between them and the terror tactics require some mental gymnactics, maybe in a sense that whereas the VIIIth fear tactics can be summed up with "Look at their bloody remains! I'm scared now", the Ist would just go with "Look how absolutely nothing remained of them! I'm scared now"

[Gamiel]

Possebilities for why they go against the Lion:

- They believe themself betrayed for some reason, and the NL are the ones they see as showing them the light or came to their rescue when their fellow DA did not (this from their perspective, if you ask the DA proper they may have another version).

- They and the NL was a united force that was part of a explorer-fleet/similar and during that time the DA did things they feel ashamed for and feel it easier to just side with the NL (who has no problem with that they have done) than return to their Legion and admit what they have done.

- they are not real DA but Alpha Legion marines pretending to be DA

[WrathOfTheLion]

Usually the Dreadwing is going to eradicate them entirely, with no record of their existence remaining for someone to be 'afraid' of. A lot of times the service record of the 1st Legion was completely closed off.

 

I'd agree avoiding Luther's side is a good choice, Luther, although preparing, didn't decide to pull the trigger until the last minute before the Lion arrived, according to the Luther novel. Deploying troops to support the traitor side in the Heresy would've quickly blown any cover he might've been trying to keep.

[Jareddm]

Nice thing about making an Order the focus is they can be made up of multiple Wings, with legion members inducted whenever it is believed a new marine has something to add.

To continue with the fear tactics example the Order of the Shattered Soul might be 30% Firewing, 30% Ravenwing, 30% Stormwing, and 10% Doomwing.

 

Perhaps their mindset is closer to Astelan's than Luther's.  That the purity of their legion came not from their primarch and his homeworld, but from Terra.  It is possible to be loyal to Terra but not to the Imperium or to the Emperor.  Is it necessary that their turn happens during the Thramas Crusade, or might a particular Night Lords company happen to show up with Dark Angel allies in tow?

[Gamiel]

Possebilities for why they go against the Lion:

- They believe themself betrayed for some reason, and the NL are the ones they see as showing them the light or came to their rescue when their fellow DA did not (this from their perspective, if you ask the DA proper they may have another version).

- They and the NL was a united force that was part of a explorer-fleet/similar and during that time the DA did things they feel ashamed for and feel it easier to just side with the NL (who has no problem with that they have done) than return to their Legion and admit what they have done.

- they are not real DA but Alpha Legion marines pretending to be DA

- they are old guards and non-Caliban recruits (maybe from a bastion force or an explorer force) that don't like what the Lion and/or the Emperor is doing to the 1th Legion and belive that Horus will return things to how they were.

- believed lost to the Legion and in deep danger they made pacts with things the Imperial Truth deny exist, those new allies/masters have told them to fight alongside the NL

- they were fighting alongside the Word Bearers and the WB was able to turn them into the worship of the Chaos gods (those that was not turned was likley killed off), and was laterd asked/ordered to fight alongside the NL

- they belive that the Lion will side/have sided with Horus and are only doing his will by fighting alongside fellow Horus sworn

[MegaVolt87]

DA commander tired of mounting casualties fighting in a traditional manner, appreciates NL unpredictability + light warcrimes with comparatively less casualties- but its a slippery slope because the DA guy doesn't realize he is losing grip on his sanity as a result. Apocalypse now rouge DA commander + buddies.