How do you envision Traitor Guard?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, sitnam said:

Whilst the Chaos gods themselves don't wish for order, it doesn't preclude their mortal worshippers from enforcing discipline if they so choose. Traitor Guard should vary as much as actual guard. Some traitors will be Ill discplined, but others might be hardened by religious fervour, brutal enforcers, veteran status, or just plain ol training.

I think the leadership of the warband takes a big part in it. Even between, say, two Iron Warriors I can see a difference. One might not care anything for his mortals discipline, as long as they starve out the enemy guns. Another might take care for disciplined mortals, in order to maximize their effectiveness.

If you follow tzeench you’re looking for things to change. Discipline is generally antithetical to that.

if you follow slanesh you’re obsessed with what makes you feel good, discipline is antithetical to that.

if you follow khorne you are focused on spilling blood as much as you can, and discipline can get in the way of that.

nurgle’s stance on stagnation is the closest thing to supporting what militaries call good order and discipline within the ranks, because that often precludes a military from making important changes in a timely manner.(though many western militaries have gotten much better about that.)

Edited July 17, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[sitnam]

Having a religious doctrine doesn’t exclude you from military discipline. Not all Chaos worshippers are blind fanatics, nor should they be as defined by the whims of the gods as Daemons. The Blood Pact, have discipline and straight up use rogue psykers, which shows a departure with regular Khorne doctrine.

Discipline and organization make sense as a means to an end. A well planned and executed rebellion toppling an Imperial hierarchy? Tzeentch. Capturing exotic prisoners for torture? Slaanesh. Bloodshed….okay, just bloodshed is enough for Khorne.

Also, some traitor guard aren’t even really aligned to a single god, or sometimes any gods. I could see stereotypical Iron Warrior and Alpha Legion warband a making use of professional auxiliaries, perhaps alongside cannon fodder

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, sitnam said:

Having a religious doctrine doesn’t exclude you from military discipline. Not all Chaos worshippers are blind fanatics, nor should they be as defined by the whims of the gods as Daemons. The Blood Pact, have discipline and straight up use rogue psykers, which shows a departure with regular Khorne doctrine.

Discipline and organization make sense as a means to an end. A well planned and executed rebellion toppling an Imperial hierarchy? Tzeentch. Capturing exotic prisoners for torture? Slaanesh. Bloodshed….okay, just bloodshed is enough for Khorne.

Also, some traitor guard aren’t even really aligned to a single god, or sometimes any gods. I could see stereotypical Iron Warrior and Alpha Legion warband a making use of professional auxiliaries, perhaps alongside cannon fodder

Is blood pact khorne? I don’t recall the books stating which god they followed so I just assumed they followed chaos undivided.

to me it makes sense, as everything chaos related as far as civilization seems to be just a little worse than the imperium, so it makes sense their formal human military forces would be just slightly less organized. At least based off of my understanding of the lore.

[Goreshed]

Traitor Guard should be more efficient than cultists. Not saying they need to be miniature chaos marines by any stretch but they should be a lot more disciplined and have abilities to reflect that than compared to the regular human who put down their pen or farming tool and turned to chaos.

The different kinds of Traitor Guard would be as varied and should be as varied as everything else in the grimdark. They would be far more organized and have more invested into them than say cultists who are just trying to overturn what is going on. A big philosophical difference I could see is that with cultists you are expecting them to die, with zero returning to carry it on once the word has been given and they have been activated. They would be the chaff that just charges forward and gets the enemy to burn up their ammunition. Traitor Guard would be more along the lines of they are an investment and while at times they would be sent to their deaths there would be a greater thought into the bigger picture of the warzone and how that falls into place. One is more expendable than the other, specially when you are talking about investments in vehicles and training. Yeah it's chaos, but that doesn't mean that they just throw resources away that could be used to help their own end.

There is also the fact that there are simply different levels of how invested someone is into the side they fight on. Imperials have everything from the barbarian who is simply a zealot for his sun god to extreme fanatics (who are just like chaos cultists in that regard) to units like the Cadians/Mordians/Tempests. You could have Traitor Guard that is literally just jacking people from worlds and throwing them into a brutal world of who am I not wanting to die to more, to the more spiritually invested to those who take a more undivided stance to it. Same goes for training and for equipment. Some are more invested than others and all come from as many different backgrounds as those in the guard. There is a lot to explore in that and not many authors take the time to flesh that out as the bigger picture is more focused on the Imperial side.

Combine all of that with the simple matter that the chaos gods don't pay as much attention to regular humans as they do to marines or other heavy hitters that are able to offer more to them. Do they ignore them completely? Absolutely not. But a lot of that extra faith comes in from an influence of someone who is closer to the chaos gods than they are. Major examples I can see with that is during the Gaunt's Ghost series where a number of times after the leader of the chaos group was taken out then the more regular humans come to their senses and realize what they have done, or it just all falls apart because their 'conduit' to chaos is severed.

[TheWarmaster]

I imagine them to be fairly similar to the Imperial Guard.. but with slightly shoddy/worn equipment. A little mismatched and not so uniform with a few different marks of helmet/armour/rifle through the squads..

Big squads of 'guardsmen' all with autoguns/lasguns OR pistol/CCW (usually improvised CCW's like shovels and clubs and 2x4's with nails etc). The whole unit is equipped the same way though, ranged or CC. 10-20 model squads.

Heavy weapons teams of 10 men/5 weapons.. autocannons, heavy bolters, mortars, missile launchers etc. 2 operators per weapon. (5 weapon squads to differentiate them from regular guard HW squads, with the increased model count to make up for lack of heavy weapons in guard squds)

Veteran Teams of 5-10 models with shotguns and access to better armour and a few assault weapons.. think Breachers. Shotguns and Meltaguns/plasma/whatever.. maybe a replacement for elite units like kasrkin/scions but with a more in-your-face raider/breacher role.

Ogryn squads of 5-10 Ogryns with optional bone 'ed type leader. 

The usual tanks like Leman Russ, but maybe with some more esoteric turret and sponson options from days gone by, like Volkite etc. Hellhound, Chimera, Basilisk, Medusa etc. And sentinels, just the one type though, a middle ground between armoured/scout..

A 5 man HQ unit with a Captain, Icon Bearer, Loud Hailer/Radio guy but maybe with a dark preacher/orator twist to whip the troops into a frenzy.. a medic/butcher type guy and a a summoner/psyker. (These are an actual squad, like the good old days!)

A few independant characters like a commisar/task master type and a lieutenant/preacher type who can go around with auras where needed to keep people in line and on task.

A unit of 5 unsanctioned psykers that can float around and do all sorts of warp fuelled madness, with the ability to pool their power and fire off ridiculously powerful and dangerous abilities. High risk, high reward, exrremely dangerous for friends and foes alike haha!

Maybe a 5 man special infiltration type unit with camo cloaks, sniper rifles and explosives. Think recce/scout/saboteur types.

I'd also like to see Beastmen style auxiliaries with CCW loadouts only, kinda like in the Siege of Terra novels when they send the landing ships down and flood the cargo holds with Slaught and Frenzon to make them mental with rage and then just send them at the walls! Having a fast, hard-hitting CCW unit kinda like the Space Wolves Wulfen, but just amped up Beastmen would be sick! 10-20 model squads.

They'd be close enough to look like they used to be Imperial Guard, but mismatched and rough around the edges with octed stars scrawled everywhere to make them look very chaos.. kinda visually like the new Kill Team/Blackstone Fortress guys. 

I would LOVE to see a full Traitor Guard range AND a Dark Mechanicum range!  

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Kallidus
Edited to fix typos.

[Slave to Darkness]

Following a chaos god doesnt mean that the quality of the training will be lacking, there is a duality to the chaos gods, Khorne followers have also been honorable, Slaanesh also covers pride as well as boobs. Also the Imperium is worshiping a God Emperor, and the guard are trained well. Tbh I see the Imperium as more backwards than the followers of the pantheon, 'we cant do this because this book says so'... 

 

Chaos Guard should be the equal of the Imperial Guard, if not better. Maybe give us less juicy things due to supply issues but we can get around that with daemons and daemon engines. 

[Azekai]

I would love to see some really weird chaos stuff. Not necessarily wirewolves, but something on that level of strange. Masses of possessed guardsmen, chaos-worshipping xeno allies, terror-engines that are little more than daemon-operated marionettes. Mutants of various sizes. Tanks that run on human sacrifice. Chemical weapons. Cannibalism and scavenging mechanics in general. Mass psychosis that is capable of spreading into enemy lines. 

I don't want them to just be 'guard but worse' or 'guard, now with spikes.'

[Urauloth]

I definitely want heretic-operated versions of some of the basic guard tanks, but I also want insane cursed witch-engines and woe machines. The ideal army for me would be guard renegades backed up by a heavy dark mechanicum presence - not the ones that operate alongside the traitor legions, but the slightly less prestigious magi and hereteks who make things for and out of the lost and the damned. Some kind of fallen skitarii counterpart would be nice.

[Cpt.Danjou]

How I vision guard all depends  a little depending on how long they have been traitors. 

As an example:

During the Campaign of Shalawa the 4th Karolia Dragoon armoured regiment was caught behind enemy lines, cut of from supply lines and intel, they started to loot civilians and among the ranks complaints of the emperor had forsaken them. The officers most loyal the Empire had accidents or died suddenly in their sleep, and the commander started to have strange dreams and even visions during the day. One day they gave up the Empire, threw away their Empire insignia and removed every Empire symbols on their vehicles.

Now they are a "Traitor Guard", but still look like a Imperial Guard regiment.

We skip a couple of years.

Now the Karolians has joined up with similar groups, adopted rag tag groups of PDF, Mechanicum and civilians, even some crazy babbling priest. Their uniforms are dirtier, the vehicles jury rigged and more inclined to use energy weapons as ammunition is harder to get hold of. The commanders dreams are getting more strange as the situation for the regiment is getting more hopeless. The priests has vision of a creature they call Papa Nurgy. Squads adopt strange formations based on the number 7, the vehicles are are both dirty and rusty, the original paint almost gone. Spikes, skulls, bells are starting to appear on the equipment.

10-15 years has passed.

The rusty tanks of the 4th are still lumbering on even if they should not be able to move, the exhaust fumes surrounding the regiment, almost hiding the infantry, now almost always using re-breathers or gasmasks, almost everyone are carrying rusty knifes or improvised weapons. The infantry are wearing something to hide their faces, masks, gasmasks etc. many of them are showing sign of deceases, open wounds that do not heal, signs of starvation. During battles strange creatures appears, bloated daemons.

20-25 years has gone since they became traitors

Now they are completely dedicated to Nurgle, their Hellhounds spewing toxic goo from large vat tanks, bubbling with a sickly green mush. Other tanks has gotten maws in the front, eyes on the side of the cannons, some even has been transformed to have tentacles. The commanders tank has a throne on top of the turret where he sits bloated and pox ridden, screaming in an unknown tongue for Imperial citizen. Bells tolls, fanatics chanting, prisoners screaming as they die 7 times in painful deceases. Few of the original troops are left, but now the ranks has swollen many times over by people who have given up hope and feel like they have been saved by the Papa Nurgle and his army. The 4th has even gotten the attention of Mortarion and his more heavily armoured sons.

50 years later.

The 4th is no more, but some remnants are still left, tanks, now living things, moving over the battle field, laughing as their shells kills in Nurgles name. The commander dead since long. but his voice echoing from inside his vehicle, damned to fight for Nurgle in all eternity. Some troopers slowly walking as living dead around the the vehicles. armed with broken weaponry and torn uniforms, spreading decease in battle, and almost impossible to kill.

 

Just my vision of  Nurgle army.

 

Cpt. Danjou

[War of the Eagle]

This is what I envision.

 

HQs:

-Chaos Space marine Captain

-Chaos space marine sorcerer

-Guard Hq marshal or something with command squad

-Cult leader (with more tricky synergys than the guard leaders orders.)

Elites:

-Chaos space marines (give them specialty like Kasrkims or something)

-Chaos Ogryn (with marks)

-Rogue Psycher squad

- enforcer

-Cult operatives (choice between snipers or sabatours or summoners) (summoner just summon 1 squad of demon troops for free)

-Dark engine sear and servitors

-Ruinous preacher (gets a mark and litanys that pass mark like buffs)

Troops:

-Traitor guard squads

-cultists squads (ws/bs 5 but get marks)

-Mutants (get fearless and marks)

Fast attack:

-Hellhounds

-sentinals

-some sort of flesh hounds

Heavy Suport:

-Russ

-Basilisk

-heavy weapon squads

-demon engine (I like the idea someone had avove of a evil version of a penitent engine)

-some sort of big mutants or ogryn with heavy weapons (shorter range but mobile and durable)

-Hydra

-feild ordinance

-maybe a possesed that can burst into a greater deanon ala 3rd ed CSM

Transports:

-Chimera

-Rhino for CSM

-some sort of ramshackle half track that can have pure transport or half transport and gunplatform like a taurox

Flyer:

-Vendetta style Valkrye (guns no transport)

[Moonreaper666]

The Blood Pact, Stigmartus and the Nurgle ones from Darktide are like the cream of the Traitor Guard crop. Even Space Marines should struggle against them, especially when they deploy Chaos Spawns (There is also a Cadian Regiment which fell to Nurgle and now controls a Hive World to get new recruits and build new weapons)

 

There should be Traitor Guard/Traitor Solar Auxilia descended from Traitor humans that fled to the Eye and other Warp places during the Scouring