What Traitor Legion would you like to do as Loyalists?

[Gamiel]

 

Anybody got any idea for how to make loyalist Lutheran Dark Angels?

Use lots of Green rather than red as an accent colour, lean into the "Knightly" aesthetic rather than "First among the legions" (Vague i know) and include a couple of the Caliban seperatist characters?

Good ideas but I was more thinking about lore

[WrathOfTheLion]

Well lore-wise, Luther would've at least still been nominally Loyalist until the Scouring.

 

He doesn't make the call to go all in until the very last minute, he almost backed out then.

Edited May 11, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[Dhar'Neth]

I’d love to make Dark Angels

[Hfran Morkai]

I'd be awfully tempted to try Loyalist Night Lords.

 

So still sneaky, terror tactics and guerilla warfare (maybe even some flayed corpses) but in the name of the Emperor.

[Kizzdougs]

My ECs are Loyalists 

 

[Burni]

Word Bearers. Loyal to the original truth.

[N1SB]

Regarding Loyalist Caliban Legionnaires, for Brother Gamiel and others:

 

Well lore-wise, Luther would've at least still been nominally Loyalist until the Scouring.

 

He doesn't make the call to go all in until the very last minute, he almost backed out then.

 

Brother Wrath presents the neatest, probably best answer.  Luther would have acted as Loyalist...in that it was an act, a pretense...until the end of the Heresy.

 

To illustrate, at one point in the Heresy, Luther was outright helping hide Typhon of the Death Guard from being hunted by his fellow Dark Angels that were lead by the Seneschal Corswain.  In an almost cartoonish "he went that-a-way" finger-point, he told Corswain he had driven Typhon away, while the famous Death Guard ship Terminus Est was just around the corner, metaphorically speaking.  Luther even offers to give Corswain his own men as reinforcements, to keep up the act.

 

I can see Luther periodically sending a frigate of Dark Angels to rendez-vous with Corswain or the Lion (who was cut off in Ultramar), as part of his pretense.

 

Brother Gamiel, your Loyalist Caliban Knights may well have been one of these offerings as part of Luther's Loyalist act.  There was no great conspiracy, it was always a small one, involving Luther, the Lord Cypher (yes, that Cypher) and a few others at the top of Caliban's leadership.  Who would Luther or those acting in his name send away from Caliban?  Probably those who showed signs they were more loyal to the Emperor, the Imperium, the Lion, or the Legion, over the Luther or the Order.

 

 

+++ Alternate Funnier/Sadder Take +++

 

 

While typing the above, I thought of something that was hilarious yet more tragic, because Warhammer runs on irony.  Brother Gamiel, an idea for you, if you like it.

 

Above I mentioned Luther helped Typhon, because they were acquainted from fighting together at the shipyard planet, Zaramund (same place as where Typhon was hiding with Luther's help, so it kinda went full circle).  Luther was then humiliated by the Lion after that campaign and sent home to Caliban, but before he went, Typhon brings a bottle of liquor to help Luther drown his sorrows, along with a friend: Erebus.  They were planning to start turning Luther.

 

Luther was clearly seen as a...schmuck, a dupe, that Typhon and Erebus planned on turning.  Erebus gives him a book on Chaos, to introduce him to The Truth, etc.

 

Luther flips through the book and is like, "Oh, Chaos."  Both Typhon and Erebus were like "dude, wuuut", surprised he even knew what it was.  Luther explained he came found such books on Caliban, secretly read them during his downtime.  At that point, I imagine Typhon did the backhand on Erebus's shoulder like a silent "see, I told ya, can I pick out fellow Traitors or what" and Erebus gave him a grudging nod like "man...turning this putz Traitor is going to be even easier than I thought."

 

Later in his recollection, Luther talked about reading that book and amassing more books on sorcery.  He would point out until he built a secured library, he would just openly leave these sorcery tomes lying around, because it was no big deal.  The Edict of Nikaea was a thing at some point, but Luther figured no one paid attention.  The Lord Cypher himself advised him on the arcane, and Luther would be able to do some Daemon-summoning and cast some spell like Smite to kill one.

 

Imagine your Loyalist Caliban Knights was loyal to his homeworld and even the Order, but he came across Luther perusing these arcane tomes.  There was an ancient Library of Lupus that Luther mentioned he visited that held some of them.  Any member of the Order could just visit it after he was gone and be like "Ah!  Sorcery!"   Remember that the Order was formed to hunt the Great Beasts of Caliban, and it wasn't understood what Chaos was, but suspected they and Chaos were related.

 

That's all they would know, though, they didn't think there was a greater plot to turn against the Imperium, just that Luther is doing something Not Good.

 

Now consider your Loyalist Calibanites either escaped, or volunteered to reinforce the other Loyalist Dark Angels.  Luther was sending some reinforcements to keep up his act as a Loyalist anyway, so if people were that eager, great, easier job for him.  But your Loyalist Calibanites would do so to bring word to the Lion on Luther's dabbling with sorcery and breaking the Edict of Nikaea, suggesting something was suspect about him, that the Lion should have a word.  Now here comes the ironic bit.

 

The irony was Lion quietly sanctioned the continued use of psychic powers among Legionnaires within Dreadwing.  So Luther's sorcery would not be a big deal to him.

 

However, it's like your guys gave the Lion an early clue to Luther's betrayal...and he brushed it off.  Can't blame him, he had bigger problems to deal with, like Horus himself.  But imagine what it's like to be your guys if they survived the Heresy, it's like they always knew there was something up with Luther, they had that information literally in their hands when they flipped through one of his forbidden tomes, yet they couldn't avert the disaster that destroyed the Caliban and nearly the Legion.

 

Of mice and men, the saddest words are "what could have been."  Among angels, they are "I told you so."

[Doctor Perils]

I'm considering taking my Salamanders as traitors (running them as Word Bearers to avoid having to buy two Liber books :P that and I think green and fire coloured possessed/gal vorbak could look very cool)

[Kizzdougs]

I'm considering taking my Salamanders as traitors (running them as Word Bearers to avoid having to buy two Liber books that and I think green and fire coloured possessed/gal vorbak could look very cool)

Using the Loyalist book doesn't lock you into the using your Salamanders as Loyalists. You should be able to choose your Allegiance regardless of which book your Legion comes from 

[Doctor Perils]

 

 

I'm considering taking my Salamanders as traitors (running them as Word Bearers to avoid having to buy two Liber books that and I think green and fire coloured possessed/gal vorbak could look very cool)

Using the Loyalist book doesn't lock you into the using your Salamanders as Loyalists. You should be able to choose your Allegiance regardless of which book your Legion comes from

Indeed, however I'm already going to buy the traitor book for my IWs which I am far more passionate about, so I'm looking for ways not to have to buy a second very expensive book for my small salamanders detachment :)

[Jamafore]

I had an idea a while back of a Blackshield force made up from elements of the traitor Legions (3rd, 4th, 12th, 16th and 17th), alongside Imperial Army Elements, who went into a region of space with crappy warp routes which prevented them from safely returning to the Imperium proper but managed to establish a safe zone with a lost Forge World before setting further in to the region as they had no real way back.

  By the time they had resuced the human colonlies and eradicated all the xeno threats the heresy kicks off but they know nothing about it. Them jumping back to a way station being told that Warmaster Horus has betrayed the Imperium with other Primarchs with them replying 'What's a Warmaster and there are more Primarchs?'. Leads them to be raiding traitor lines from the warp routes in and out of 'their' region but sometimes come to blows with the hard faced loyalists who they try to enact a fighting withdrawal from.

 

Cancelled the idea as it required a lot of older tech (mainly Mk2) which would either be too costly in the long run, but with the start of the plastics from GW I may bring it back. We'll see.

 

I myself had a similar idea, but a bunch of more 'outcasted' companies of several traitor legions that were sent on long term expeditions. Then a loyalist Alpha Legion captain brought them all together with "We can do more as 1 force, than 5-6 different splinters"

 

The only legion that I would have a hard time making fit is Word Bearers, as by the time of the heresy it's mentioned that the a vast majority of the dissenters in their ranks were quietly disappeared. Even Narek, at least from the stories I read wasn't so much "Pro-Emperor' as "Anti-Lorgar"

[Pacific81]

Well.. If you move the clock back 20-200 years you can do Great Crusade-era, and then all of them are loyalists :)*

 

*perhaps 2 lost legions excepted!

[Felix Antipodes]

I am torn between doing World Eaters, because I love their original colours and name, and an Emperor’s Children band in the colours of the original Doom Eagles, who I head-canon as a group of EC loyalists that escaped the Scouring and passed themselves off as one of the numerous 3rd/4th Founding Chapters.  They were sanctioned and replaced by the current Chapter when the Imperium worked out the scam (or just changed their colours/icon to be less obvious) down the track.

 

May do a squad of each and see where it leads.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Felix Antipodes

[N1SB]

 

The only legion that I would have a hard time making fit is Word Bearers, as by the time of the heresy it's mentioned that the a vast majority of the dissenters in their ranks were quietly disappeared. Even Narek, at least from the stories I read wasn't so much "Pro-Emperor' as "Anti-Lorgar"

 

 

Brother, I thought about how you framed things as "Anti-Lorgar" as opposed to Loyalist and Traitor, and I just realised a case could be for "Anti-Horus" Word Bearers.

 

Why would Word Bearers be anti-Horus, the Everchosen of the Powers?  Precisely because they think Lorgar should have been the Chosen One instead.  After all, wasn't their Primarch the Aurelian the most devoted to Chaos, while Horus was the favourite of the Emperor?  Lorgar himself stages a failed coup attempt against Horus right before they set off for Terra, and was cast aside, with only Zardu Layak's 5000 Word Bearers still held in the Warmaster's good graces and followed him to Terra.

 

However, it's still not really Loyalist, just "Anti-Horus", but I could work with this as an excuse to fight against other Traitors.  You raise a really good point.

[Gamiel]

 

On 5/25/2022 at 6:30 AM, Felix Antipodes said:

I am torn between doing World Eaters, because I love their original colours and name, and an Emperor’s Children band in the colours of the original Doom Eagles, who I head-canon as a group of EC loyalists that escaped the Scouring and passed themselves off as one of the numerous 3rd/4th Founding Chapters.  They were sanctioned and replaced by the current Chapter when the Imperium worked out the scam (or just changed their colours/icon to be less obvious) down the track.

Certain that you mean the Doom Eagles? Becouse they have not had two different colour schemes, it's the Death Eagles that have had that, and whose original was white and purple. 

If it's the later: have you read the  Index Astartes: Death Eagles article to the War of the false Primarch fanproject?

Edited July 3, 2022 by Gamiel

[Bloodwraith]

Nightlords. Had Kurze simply been mentored and helped by the emperor to overcome his developing psychosis. The Nightlords are the only legion that quelled entire systems just with the whisper they would be used. I agree with Kurze in the mantra of terrifying and killing a few times s better than devastating entire populations and or worlds when what they did was farm less destructive and efficient. And used properly could have been an asset against chaos. Fight fire with fire!

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Are we talking like Dornian Heresy or 30k?

I've always thought of Kurze as an unstable Bruce Wayne/Batman. I've always wondered if there ever were loyalist night lords.

They have always been one of my favorite legions visually. Had I not chosen Raven Guard as my 30k army I would have done Night Lords.

To answer the OP Raven Guard as traitors having the No Kings or Masters warlord trait is very interesting and spicy to me.

Traitor Ultramarines would be very interesting as they can almost do no wrong in 40k and I think having them fall to chaos would be a hell of a good time to paint and convert 

[Bloodwraith]

I personally don’t like the Batman analogy. He is nothing like Batman aside from the bat theme and colors. He is more of a Punisher character. Opposite side of that coin. Justice and vengeance at any cost. Even when the Nightlords started getting the less desirable recruits if Kurze was in a better mental state, they could have kept on their early track where they were still doing what they were designed for but remained controlled and on track. They didn’t have all the “honors” of the other legions but their results were far less destructive to planets etc.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

9 minutes ago, Bloodwraith said:

I personally don’t like the Batman analogy. He is nothing like Batman aside from the bat theme and colors. He is more of a Punisher character. Opposite side of that coin. Justice and vengeance at any cost. Even when the Nightlords started getting the less desirable recruits if Kurze was in a better mental state, they could have kept on their early track where they were still doing what they were designed for but remained controlled and on track. They didn’t have all the “honors” of the other legions but their results were far less destructive to planets etc.

Being the Night Haunter, and vengeance...stringing criminals up on city lights and over buildings except with their entrails. Fighting crime at night with the symbol of a bat. Strength through Fear.

Batman utilizes fear. Frank Miller's the Dark Knight recruits thugs and criminals to become his proxy. He trains them, rehabilitates them and turns them into his own league of shadows. There are more similarities than those. But those are but a few.

[Bloodwraith]

Frank Millers Batman was the anomaly of Batman stories for the better part of Batman’s history. Not saying it wasn’t good, but the Dark Knight version of Batman is just that it’s a version of him. The Detective comics version is far different. Punisher is pretty constant across all incarnations with this type of behavior and even actually the psychosis. Punisher also used fear, but punisher killed openly most incarnations of Batman would not and did not. Punisher also fought crime and used terror tactics , traps and even hunted his enemies. Punisher War Zone saw a level of violence that would possible make even the night haunter blush. I have always looked at Kurze as Punisher with Batman Iconography. The only Batman I would even consider comparing Kurze to is Thomas Wayne Batman.  aside from that in my view he is as I said Punisher with Batman’s symbol.

[Gamiel]

3 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Are we talking like Dornian Heresy or 30k?

30k

 

  

2 hours ago, Bloodwraith said:

I have always looked at Kurze as Punisher with Batman Iconography.

That's an idea. A Punisher themed NL force.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Gamiel

[JeffJedi]

I agree that the Wordbearers and Nightlords would be very interesting. Most of the others have been touched on in some way already.

 

I'd also enjoy seeing traitor Ultramarines and such. I know that in the 40k Red Corsairs there are a few Ultramarine Khorne Berzerkers.

[Gamiel]

Re. the Night Lords, one way to do it could be as simple as a smaller (relativly speaking) NL force secunded to a one of the Loyalist Legions where they have a "What is this brotherhood and friendship thing you talk about" epiphany and realise that they don't need to constantly infight, backstab and teardown each other and become more loyal to the people they have been secunded to then their own Legion. This could lead to them takin up some of the culture or symbols of the Legion they have been fighting beside. 

[Aeternus]

21 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

 I've always wondered if there ever were loyalist night lords.

Canonically there are indeed loyalist night lords - Fel Zharost, a terran who used to be the Chief Librarian (short stories Child of Night and Eater of Dreams), and iirc a group of night lords who served with the raven guard, stayed loyal and fought alongside them during the heresy (The Value of Fear).

Edited July 4, 2022 by Aeternus

[Mandragola]

Loyalist Night Lords would be interesting. I like their scheme but not so much the cheap halloween party decorations.

On topic, I think I'd be most likely to do Word Bearers if I did a traitor Legion. I've got Imperial Fists and Raven Guard, so if I made any third Legion I'd want something with a different play style and colour scheme. Argel Tal and a bunch of Gal Vorbak would achieve that.