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Ashcans posted:If you want to play a Pariah marine it doesn't seem so wildly impossible that your GM should stop you. I mean sure it might be a little strange and unusual, but that's sort of stock for characters - lots of them have weirdness in their background. I mean it might not be very well received, and could easily be the reason that your dude is no longer chilling with his chapter and working with Deathwatch instead (or whatever). Basically the chapter decided they didn't need to be turning these people over, the Inquisition finds out and gets all grouchy, and the chapter compromises by agreeing to second them to specific important missions when needed. I'm gonna keep the crazy ball rolling. After the player fleshing out the character with us last night (We start the game next week) We've established that he is a Pariah, But.. He's a Space Marine from before the Horus Heresy He was a Word Bearer who is still fiercly loyal to the Emperor He's also a chaplain. He's pissed/confused at what the Imperium has become and has persuaded my character, an Inquisitor, to fix this poo poo. My body is so loving ready 
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Feb 7, 2013 06:34
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Solus posted:I'm gonna keep the crazy ball rolling. After the player fleshing out the character with us last night (We start the game next week) So basically he's a guy who is really confused about why the Horus Heresy even happened, because he's immune to chaos. So to him it's like everyone just lost their minds out of nowhere. That kind of owns
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Feb 7, 2013 13:43
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Being that Pariah's creep the gently caress out of everybody (see the first Eisenhorn novel), his being the Chaplain may have actually DRIVEN his brethren into the arms of the chaos god... because when the word of god makes your flesh creep, why follow that god?
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Feb 7, 2013 16:59
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FireSight posted:Being that Pariah's creep the gently caress out of everybody (see the first Eisenhorn novel), his being the Chaplain may have actually DRIVEN his brethren into the arms of the chaos god... because when the word of god makes your flesh creep, why follow that god? Making people super uncomfortable is not exactly a negative in a lot of religious figures. You're supposed to fear your God.
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Feb 7, 2013 19:11
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Liesmith posted:Making people super uncomfortable is not exactly a negative in a lot of religious figures. You're supposed to fear your God. Not at the point of the heresy, as the emperor wouldn't even ADMIT to being a god, and the cult was outlawed by his own decree.
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Feb 7, 2013 20:29
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But that is why being a Word Bearer is an advantage, because as much as a Space Marine with a pre-Heresy viewpoint might object to many aspects of the Imperium's current structure the beliefs of their chapter and Primarch mean a Word Bearer isn't going to find the existence, prominence and dogma of the Ecclesiarchy totally objectionable. Which probably gives someone who is a member of a traitor legion a leg up on not being executed for heresy right off the bat. Instead you get to focus on all the other things that are probably hosed up from his perspective i.e. how Gulliman's "reforms" and the breakup of the unified Imperial military have prevented the possibility of rebellion (though you'll note it didn't prevent Vandire) at the cost of totally hamstringing the Imperium's ability to expand and deal with threats in a non-reactive manner.
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Feb 7, 2013 22:24
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LGD posted:But that is why being a Word Bearer is an advantage, because as much as a Space Marine with a pre-Heresy viewpoint might object to many aspects of the Imperium's current structure the beliefs of their chapter and Primarch mean a Word Bearer isn't going to find the existence, prominence and dogma of the Ecclesiarchy totally objectionable. Which probably gives someone who is a member of a traitor legion a leg up on not being executed for heresy right off the bat. Instead you get to focus on all the other things that are probably hosed up from his perspective i.e. how Gulliman's "reforms" and the breakup of the unified Imperial military have prevented the possibility of rebellion (though you'll note it didn't prevent Vandire) at the cost of totally hamstringing the Imperium's ability to expand and deal with threats in a non-reactive manner. He would still be executed for being a word bearer. Unless he was a black shield of the deathwatch or something, in which case they wouldn't ask him any questions because who loving cares about your heresy? The tyranids sure don't.
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Feb 7, 2013 23:27
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Also there's always hope for mankind starting a new crusade. That hope mostly resides in the Space Wolves, the one Legion that basically told Guilliman that if he thought they'd shrink down to 1000 guys he had another thing coming.
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Feb 7, 2013 23:30
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FireSight posted:Not at the point of the heresy, as the emperor wouldn't even ADMIT to being a god, and the cult was outlawed by his own decree. Doesn't mean cults weren't around. If you've not read the first few books of the Horus Heresy series, they have cults for both regular people and space marines. Not sure when Chaplains came about, though.
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Feb 7, 2013 23:33
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Liesmith posted:He would still be executed for being a word bearer. Unless he was a black shield of the deathwatch or something, in which case they wouldn't ask him any questions because who loving cares about your heresy? The tyranids sure don't. Well yeah but he presumably has a greater chance of convincing an Inquisitor not to have him killed immediately (apparently already established) if he isn't espousing obvious heresy about the non-divinity of the Emperor constantly. Liesmith posted:Also there's always hope for mankind starting a new crusade. That hope mostly resides in the Space Wolves, the one Legion that basically told Guilliman that if he thought they'd shrink down to 1000 guys he had another thing coming. Except that despite that despite ignoring the Codex Astartes the Space Wolves aren't at full Legion strength and don't appear to have been able to attain it at any point since the Heresy. On the other hand a chapter with more "normal" gene seed (the Astral Claws) was apparently able to triple itself in size in about ~150 years. Of course the Space Wolves do tithe gene seed so maybe they would be able to get back to full strength relative quickly if they cared to. I'd think that the Dark Angels would be a better candidates for quickly restoring a Legion structure and being the driving force behind a new crusade considering that while they nominally adhere to the 1000 marine limit they maintain a cohesive cross-chapter communication and leadership structure with all of their successors. Of couse they'd probably need to stop being so drat emo first.
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Feb 7, 2013 23:51
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Liesmith posted:He would still be executed for being a word bearer. Unless he was a black shield of the deathwatch or something, in which case they wouldn't ask him any questions because who loving cares about your heresy? The tyranids sure don't. Is there anywhere I can find more information on the black shields besides what was covered in rites of battle?
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Feb 7, 2013 23:55
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Or you could just get every black templar sub-fleet in one place at the same time. Do a proper crusade.
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Feb 8, 2013 00:22
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LGD posted:Well yeah but he presumably has a greater chance of convincing an Inquisitor not to have him killed immediately (apparently already established) if he isn't espousing obvious heresy about the non-divinity of the Emperor constantly. I'm actually pretty sure that most Space Marine chapters don't acknowledge the idea of the Emperor as a God. He's seen as the apex of mortal man, but not quite divine. Of course, I don't remember where exactly I'm remembering this from, but it's part of the reason why you have things like the Space Wolves being gone after by the Ecclesiarchy for their Wolf-Gods.
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Feb 8, 2013 00:30
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The Black Templars are the guys you are looking for for a new crusade. When the Codex Astrates came out the Imperial Fists were seriously pissed about it, and when they were finally forced to break up the chapter all the most zealous and least compromising members ended up in the Templars. The Inquisition is like 95% sure they have several times the allowed number (as in there are probably several thousand fighting members of the Black Templars) but their organization and constant crusade doctrine makes it basically impossible to prove - there are never too many in one place and proving how many are in different places at the same time isn't possible. Basically the Imperial Fists + Crimson Fists + Black Templars is basically already the strength of a Legion, if they felt like it. Plus they've never actually stopped crusading, so they're really all set for a new one any time!
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Feb 8, 2013 00:31
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LGD posted:Except that despite that despite ignoring the Codex Astartes the Space Wolves aren't at full Legion strength and don't appear to have been able to attain it at any point since the Heresy. Is this explicitly made clear anywhere? The space wolves broke into two chapters at second founding, then one of those was demolished and since then they have never made a successor chapter that I can find. So all the geneseed that would go to making new chapters is either being lost, stored, or used by the space wolves to make new marines. They maybe have had some catastrophic losses over the last ten thousand years, but it doesn't seem like it takes too long to replenish a space marine chapter, even one with hosed up geneseed. Are they regularly not retrieving their fallen? That's not in the fluff if so. Or are they saving up tens of thousands of geneseeds for some big expansion? basically, with other chapters there are these safety valves on their numbers, mostly their habit of spinning off new chapters every so often, and their obsession with keeping their numbers hovering around 1000. The space wolves don't seem to make new chapters and don't give a gently caress about keeping their numbers down. Why wouldn't they be back up to legion strength at this point?
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Feb 8, 2013 00:35
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I'm pretty certain each of their 13 Grand Companies are supposed to be considered as standard "chapter strength."
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Feb 8, 2013 00:37
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Ashcans posted:Basically the Imperial Fists + Crimson Fists + Black Templars is basically already the strength of a Legion, if they felt like it. So essentially there are a bunch of chapters out there that may well actually be legions that just don't advertise about it. Kind of puts the lie to the whole "the imperium sucks because of artificially low numbers of space marines" thing.
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Feb 8, 2013 00:37
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Liesmith posted:So essentially there are a bunch of chapters out there that may well actually be legions that just don't advertise about it. Kind of puts the lie to the whole "the imperium sucks because of artificially low numbers of space marines" thing. Yea pretty much. Its designed to support 'end game' scenarios where some primarchs return. They have really leaned heavily on the fluff recently for: - The Dark Angels, all the successors are basically bullshit and they all conspire as a full legion - The Black Templars, numbering anywhere from 5,000 to 30,000 strong but scattered as uncountable crusades - The Space Wolves, who never broke up anyways - The Ultramarines, all the successor chapters are ready to fold back into the Ultramarines at a moments notice, so essentially a full legion
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Feb 8, 2013 00:43
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Is there a reason why Black Templars would work alongside Grey Knights? Like a good reason, not just the standard "well it's 40k, anything can happen." They hate psykers, but then both they and the Grey Knights hate chaos even more.
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Feb 8, 2013 00:46
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Scoobi posted:Yea pretty much. Its designed to support 'end game' scenarios where some primarchs return. They have really leaned heavily on the fluff recently for: The Ultras were large before the Codex breakup, and their geneseed is more stable than any of the others. If they actually reabsorbed all the successors, including the weird death obsessed, totally not stolen off one of the two totally removed primarchs, successors, they'd probably be bigger than the rest put together now. Most of the later founding chapters are Ultras offshoots.
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Feb 8, 2013 00:52
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Manifest posted:Is there a reason why Black Templars would work alongside Grey Knights? Like a good reason, not just the standard "well it's 40k, anything can happen." According to their tabletop codex, they aren't allowed to ally with psykers except Grey Knights. Also, remember that they still rely on Navigators and Astropaths.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:14
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Moonwolf posted:The Ultras were large before the Codex breakup, and their geneseed is more stable than any of the others. If they actually reabsorbed all the successors, including the weird death obsessed, totally not stolen off one of the two totally removed primarchs, successors, they'd probably be bigger than the rest put together now. Most of the later founding chapters are Ultras offshoots. Turns out all the Ultramarine successor chapters came from one of the lost primarchs. Guy named Sigmar. yeah, you heard me. The Fantasy Planet is in the Eye of Terror. I don't care what anyone says. Deal with it.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:18
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MaliciousOnion posted:According to their tabletop codex, they aren't allowed to ally with psykers except Grey Knights. Also, remember that they still rely on Navigators and Astropaths.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:21
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Signal posted:I'm pretty certain each of their 13 Grand Companies are supposed to be considered as standard "chapter strength." Liesmith posted:So essentially there are a bunch of chapters out there that may well actually be legions that just don't advertise about it. Kind of puts the lie to the whole "the imperium sucks because of artificially low numbers of space marines" thing. The point isn't that the number of space marines is kept artificially low (though they are), its that while those chapters could act in concert as a legion they don't. They basically act as relatively small independent knightly orders/special forces groups that coordinate with other forces as they choose. And those other forces that they coordinate with are divided themselves- between the Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, and the armed forces of the Ecclesiarchy and Mechanicus. Its a pretty different situation from a Legion which had the equivalent of 10-250 "modern" chapters' worth of transhuman supermen working together in an integrated command structure and being supported by a unified Imperial Army. LGD fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 01:23
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Yeah, the command structure is really the problem with bringing strength to bear. Look at the Third (or Second) War for Armageddon, and how hopelessly hosed that command structure is. With everyone being their own supreme authority, it's basically a War-by-Committee.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:25
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Signal posted:I'm actually pretty sure that most Space Marine chapters don't acknowledge the idea of the Emperor as a God. He's seen as the apex of mortal man, but not quite divine. Of course, I don't remember where exactly I'm remembering this from, but it's part of the reason why you have things like the Space Wolves being gone after by the Ecclesiarchy for their Wolf-Gods. 3rd or 4th edition Space Marine Codex contained a daily schedule for the space marines, which included multiple hours of prayer to the God-Emperor... also, something like 2 hours of sleep and SOME chapters gave marines 15 minutes of free time every day. Most of them think that 15 minutes a day is excessive though.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:57
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One thing to keep in mind is that the fluff has changed. Before the Horus Heresy books, a space marine legion was like 10,000 dudes. When it became obvious that this makes no sense, (much like imperial guard regiments assaulting an entire planet with like 1 million soldiers instead of hundreds of millions or billions) , the authors kicked the legion strengths up to ~100,000 or more. The Space Wolves only divided up once, and after that failed they never divided again. So the 13 great companies, which the new codex does not list exact # of soldier per company, are whatever the space wolves had left post heresy / 13.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:58
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MaliciousOnion posted:According to their tabletop codex, they aren't allowed to ally with psykers except Grey Knights. Also, remember that they still rely on Navigators and Astropaths. Awesome, thanks. I don't have their codex, but have very recently gotten really interested in them. I guess I'll have to pick it up.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:58
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Signal posted:Look at the Third (or Second) War for Armageddon, and how hopelessly hosed that command structure is. With everyone being their own supreme authority, it's basically a War-by-Committee. IIRC, during the second war the Salamanders were being led by a greenhorn Chapter Master in Tu'Shan and the Ultramarines by Calgar, both of which ceded operational authority to Dante immediately.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:59
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FireSight posted:3rd or 4th edition Space Marine Codex contained a daily schedule for the space marines, which included multiple hours of prayer to the God-Emperor... also, something like 2 hours of sleep and SOME chapters gave marines 15 minutes of free time every day. Most of them think that 15 minutes a day is excessive though. I've actually got an old Space Marine codex around here from 2004, what edition would that be? I never played the tabletop but I have it regardless somehow.
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Feb 8, 2013 02:00
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Tardcore posted:I've actually got an old Space Marine codex around here from 2004, what edition would that be? I never played the tabletop but I have it regardless somehow. Its the 3rd edition space marine codex, though the prayers are less god-emperor cult and more 'emperor & primarch own'. The prayers are to both, in honor of the chapter existing.
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Feb 8, 2013 02:05
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3rd edition codex is from the mid 90's, 2004 would be 4th edition, so its probably not in there.
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Feb 8, 2013 02:17
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Scoobi posted:One thing to keep in mind is that the fluff has changed. Before the Horus Heresy books, a space marine legion was like 10,000 dudes. When it became obvious that this makes no sense, (much like imperial guard regiments assaulting an entire planet with like 1 million soldiers instead of hundreds of millions or billions) , the authors kicked the legion strengths up to ~100,000 or more. The Space Wolves only divided up once, and after that failed they never divided again. So the 13 great companies, which the new codex does not list exact # of soldier per company, are whatever the space wolves had left post heresy / 13. Just to piggy back on my own point. If you look at the difference between 5th edition & prior vs 6th edition. In 5th edition rulebook a legion is "tens of thousands strong". In 6th edition a legion is 100,000+ space marines in the main rulebook. 6th Chaos Codex says hundreds of thousands even. They are getting more on the realistic side of what it would take to conquer a galaxy. Jerkface fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 02:23
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As far as I know GW has always kept it pretty vague as to where the actual numbers of anyone stands because it's basically a terrible idea for them to let it get pinned down. Like we know that the Space Wolves were split once, their successor was a wreck, and they apparently never split again - but that doesn't even mean they still have the 10 or 100 or 200 thousand men they did as a Legion; if needed, GW could easily say 'Oh well you know they got their poo poo wrecked in this campaign and that campaign, and it turns out that for the last two thousand years their geneseed has been totally making GBS threads itself worse than anyone thought and actually they've lost a lot of people since the Heresy'. I mean it has always been implied that they have more marines than they should due to their funky organization and that it is kind of not talked about because basically no one thinks they are going to do anything against the Imperium (people think they're nutjobs, but the Space Wolves loyalty is basically unimpeachable). I mean the only people who are 'against' them would be the Dark Angels who are shadiest of the originals by a long shot. So we know that there are a number of chapters that are loving around and breaking the rules, but its never clear how many are doing that and how badly they are doing it. If you think about it, even serious Chapters like the Ultramarines have probably broken the limit before, because trying to actually stick to a fixed number like that must be stupidly hard. It takes something like ten years to turn a regular person into a Marine (including all the mods and training and stuff) and I suspect that even strict Astrates chapters have a number of additional Neophytes and whatever that are Marines in all but title, just so that a bad battle doesn't gently caress them up for a decade.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:01
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Also, there's a ton of dudes who don't actually count against the number of dudes in a chapter. Such as all the drivers, for instance. 
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Feb 8, 2013 03:04
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Liesmith posted:Turns out all the Ultramarine successor chapters came from one of the lost primarchs. Guy named Sigmar. yeah, you heard me. The Fantasy Planet is in the Eye of Terror. I don't care what anyone says. Deal with it. I legit always thought this was undisputed. And even if it is on a shaky foundation, who cares, it's silly and crossover-friendly enough to where it should be true.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:04
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Ashcans posted:
Isn't that only because the wolves know a bunch of them turned to chaos, or do I have that backwards? poo poo, what IS the score with the Dark Angels? Are the current DA dudes who sided with horus, and are now hunting down the loyalists to hide the truth, or are the current DA loyalists hunting down the remnants of the dudes who sided with horus? Pharmaskittle posted:I legit always thought this was undisputed. And even if it is on a shaky foundation, who cares, it's silly and crossover-friendly enough to where it should be true. It WAS true at one point, but GW has gone pretty far to try and retcon it. I still like to think of Sigmar as one of the lost primarchs though, he fits the description to a T.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:12
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It's a really old idea that GW doesn't advocate. I mean it basically derives from the fact that the origin of Warhammer 40,000 was 'Lets put this fantasy poo poo in spaaaaaace' and they lifted elements of the setting wholesale when they did that (like the Chaos Gods, the idea of the Old Ones, etc.) There is stuff like an in-setting book (Liber Chaotica?) which is some fantasy dude roaming the Chaos wastes and he definitely describes things that are basically Chaos Marines. There was also the Albion world campaign, where the prizes were 'ancient artifacts' that were totally 40k gear (things like an Auspex, Flamer, Power Armor, and a Lightning Claw, I think). At the same time, there is a ton of stuff that doesn't actually match up or make any sense. For instance, the arrival of Chaos in the Fantasy world is a result of the Old Ones gates collapsing or being breached; that doesn't match up to the creation of the Eye of Terror, because the Old Ones were gone for ages before the Fall of the Eldar and the creation of the Eye. There is also stuff like the fact that in 40k the Eldar gods are mostly destroyed by the birth of Slaanesh (with a few surviving either as fugitives or enslaves). In Fantasy, both Slaanesh and the Elven pantheon (who correspond to the Eldar one) exist at the same time, and the Elves don't appear to have anything to do with Slaanesh's creation. I mean obviously the answer to this is 'the planet is in the Eye or Terror, so timelines and consistency are hosed' but its also basically because they've diverged the two worlds as they've developed without trying to keep them in sync.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:15
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Ashcans posted:
This is how I've always taken it. I think it makes things kind of fun. The idea that there's a primarch being worshipped as a god on some feudal world, cut off from the rest of the galaxy is just cool.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:18
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Manifest posted:Isn't that only because the wolves know a bunch of them turned to chaos, or do I have that backwards? No, it's way dumber than that. The Dark Angels and Space Wolves were fighting together during the Great Crusade and the leader of one of the planets they were attacking called Leman Russ a bitch. So he wanted to kill him personally. Lion El'Jonson was like 'whatever man lets get this done as easily as possible', and ended up killing the guy himself. Russ got super pissed and attacked El'Jonson for disrespecting his feud, and they fought for a week to a standstill. At that point Leman Russ is like 'haha bro, glad I got that out of my system, we cool right?' but Lion El'Jonson was a super serious dude and still pissed off, so he cold-cocked Russ when his guard was down. Ten thousand years later, both chapters are still pissy about this, apparently. For a long time I think there was an implication that we didn't really know which side of the Dark Angels civil war was which, and there was some question so to whether the group that survived was the traitors or not - when GW introduced Cypher there were lots of hints that he was a loyalist, and was trying to work his way to Terra to expose the Dark Angels as having been traitors. I think that this has largely been swept up, and the current canon is that the surviving Chapter are the loyalists, but that no one else really knows that their homeworld had turned traitor - so they are desperate to keep that from ever being known or no one would trust them again (and possibly they'd suffer some sort of exile or something). So its imperative that they hide all trace of the treason and hunt down any possible survivors to prevent it coming to light.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:23
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