Imperium Asunder

Oh man I was hoping there'd be more interest. Any of you guys out there from last time?

>>51416954
Yes?

>>51416954
Quick thing, can anybody explain what happened to the Tau?

>>51417297
The Tau developed as they did in the OU, but we're eventually caught in a proxy war between the Kor Protectorate and Imperium Minorum. I'm not 100% sure what happened to them after this, but the last thing I remember a lot of them were reduced to a nomadic existence.

Holy shit this.

Anyone find it kinda funny that the Eldar are getting a canon army of the dead to rebuild their old empire just like here?

If 40K keeps going in the current direction the only difference between it and AS will be that one or two of the AS Primarchs may not have died permavirgins.

>>51417297
Crushed by the Imperium Minorum, causing the Primarch leader of the Protectorate to kill his brother and spark a vicious holy war.

The surviving Tau are either in the Protectorate or Farsight Enclave descendants that have gone full Mont'ka and live to raid Imperium Minorum planets and make them suffer.

>>51419264
Yeah I thought that was fucking hilarious when I saw it. Speaking of undead legions, a while ago someone was talking about making a 30k list for the Undying Scions, did anything ever come of that?

>>51419310
Okay, what about the Kroot, or the Vespids?

>>51416954
Xun reporting in!

>>51417714
Some were taken into the Protectorate. Some of the other states took in Earth Caste engineers. Rail guns and gravitic drives are appearing more regularly, though there's some question of whether or not these are things that would actually be worth reverse engineering.

>>51419515
We never really discussed them. If you want to do something with them please do.

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I'm going to flesh out the Vigil civil war where they have a schism over necron tech, but I can't remember what crusade number it was. Anyone have a list?

>>51419603
The Kroot worlds along with the Vespids did survive, thankfully. They managed to save their asses by a warshere ramming his ship a 'la mazer rachkam style. It saved the kroot worlds. Along with vespid. These are some of the Tau's only worlds. Also, gue'vesa mostly joined the tau, although some defected.

>>51419795
Only potential issue with that is that the Damocles gulf was cleansed by the Sky Serpents acting as a neutral third party. In return for salvage rights. The Tau were given time to evacuate as a condition of Kor's ceasefire.
Could be that the planets to be cleansed were specified and Vespid and Kroot worlds didn't fall under the edict and so were left in situ, particularly if they're periphery to the Damocles Gulf.

>>51419596
Xun, what do you think needs working on? Upon rereading the wiki page, I think that the introduction could use a rewrite.

Also, Doctor Jobs compiled all the US successors in am imgur album here, and I'm inclined to think he did a very good job.

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/fFhWx

>>51414224
I'll do the rest of the Black Suns' wiki page today. Also, good to see IA is back.

>>51419678
The list is here:

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Imperium_Asunder_Campaigns#Crusades

>>51414224
I was under the impression that the Empra is already dead for a long, long time. What else would explain him being immobile on the throne with his body rotting and falling apart over the ages?

Hell if anything the Throne actually kept his soul tethered to his dead body so that he could still work the Astronomican.

>>51425580
Sure. In this setting he's dead-dead, though. In 40K it's arguable; he could simply be alive but so rotted and decrepit that he can interact with the world in no meaningful fashion whatsoever, and all his focus is set on maintaining the Astronomican. Or he could be tethered there by his body, or a bunch of other theories could be correct. Either way, the Emperor still has a tangible presence in the galaxy and there is SOMETHING important on that throne that has to do with him.

In this setting he's not on the Golden Throne. The Imperium is lost to the loyalists. The heretics won and the Warmaster is now the Emperor.

>>51419795
I quite like this.

The Kroot are cool. I'd rather they didn't go down with the Tau.

That said, a lot of them could be running around with the Farsight Descendants, being nasty space pirates.

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It kinda sounds as though the Tau ended up like Blanche's original concept for them.

Oh hey Imperium Asunder!

>>51425712
>>51426291
Is Farsight still alive Y/N? That sword of his would technically allow him to live forever.

>>51425712
Alright, they have more autonomy than previously, but are still pledging their allegiance to the Tau. The Tau Independance Coalition is in full swing.

>>51426819
I don't want to give a definite no, but it's possible that Farsight wasn't born at all in this continuity. The sword would still exist, though.

>>51427505
Didn't he emerge pretty early in the Tau expansion?

I hope this doesn't sound mary sue-ish
Alright, so farshight had a son, that son grew on t'ros, scavenging wrecks for parts. He finds about his fathers legacy.

>>51427681
I'm not sure about that one.

>>51427531
I think he did.

>>51427681
As Star Wars as that is, it actually works pretty well, I think. I can imagine small Tau populations on outlying mining planets, most of which would be Jade Empire anyway, thanks to their machinations during the treaty. They're really of the all can serve the Empire style, so outside of disappearing the occasional ethereal that pops up, they'd be just one more prole.

>>51423541
Black Suns have now been updated. More may be added later, but as of now, only details of the events (and the War of the Beast) remain unwritten.

Bump

Currently writing stuff about the 9th crusade.

Anyone here?

The Ninth Crusade

None know for certain what event spurred the awakening of the necrons. Perhaps Anshul's ritual at the outset of the Eighth Crusade triggered some ancient alarm mechanism that pulled the myriad dynasties from their slumber. Perhaps it was the execution of the Cacodominus by the Funerary Guard and the subsequent psychic backlash that caused such an event. All that is truly known is that when the necrons awoke, they were greeted by mortal servants in a splinter faction of the Undying Scions, the necropolis cult. These marines, led by their dreadnought superiors, had been subverted by members of the triarch praetorians, who had not gone into hibernation.

>>51437784
I like the idea of sorcery triggering necrons and so having some stronger anti-chaos reaction.

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>>51437784
Ugh, that last sentence runs on for way too long.

>>51438428
Thanks! I'm also playing with the idea that the Cacodominus was one of the Illithyd.

>>51437784
After meeting with their necron masters, the necropolis cult was convinced that using the xenos' technology could return their primarch to life. They laid siege to Amaranth in order to gain access to its vast tomb-complexes, but were eventually driven off with the arrival of the Crimson Warhawks liberation fleet.

>>51438452
With what we've been building them up to be, that Cacodominus idea works pretty well.

>>51425712
I would imagine the Kroot might be more widespread in this universe. The Protectorate would definitely allow them to settle and I can see the less rigidly anti-Xeno domains using them as mercenaries. I imagine they'd be widely employed in the Tempest Zone. I get the feeling the Storm Kingdoms might also use them.
I know I've also written that the Jade Empire tends to exterminate them, but I don't remember why. The cannibalistic tendencies and all that strike the Sky Serpents as just a bit too close to home and the Kroot are barely civilized?
If you're going to do human sacrifice and the like, then you need to be civilized to compensate?

(Which is why the old Behemoth Guard were ok and the Void Lords are totally acceptable.)

>>51439631
Hmm, I've never given much thought to how xenophobic the Scions are. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Bump. I forget when most people are on for this.

>>51439755
Reflex is to have them hate xenos as usual, but I think there's a decent case for having a bit more of a complex view.
Pre-box, I can't imagine Sarco caring too much about xeno non xeno. He just wants a good fight.
Afterwards, I think he'd be inclined to avoid unnecessary bloodshed with a well chosen protectorate. We also have Kor running around and being tolerated, so I think there's a warmer climate towards xenos anyways.
After the heresy, the Scions are stubborn and have an iron will. But they also strike me as practical and desperate times and all that. I don't think they have the luxury of intolerance. When your primary enemy is chaos and you can get Kroot to go fight them, there's less of a reason to say no. And when Necrons arise and offer their aid, you've got a real debate on your hands. Unlike, say, Minorum, where they're not on the front lines and can afford to start a war with the Paladins over something as trivial as some minor xenos.

>Bump
>Bump
>Bump
>Have a bump
>Bump
>Bump

It's time to let this autism die.

Just looked at the new traitor legion codex. Emperor's Children are looking pretty strong with that icon of 4+ invuln, which makes me feel good about the 40k Spears.

>>51442358
And it's a matter of people seeing it anyways.

>>51444348
What do you mean?

>>51425690
Horus heresy books talks about this scenario.
Alpha legion tried to bring this scenario to reality because the Cabal prophesied that Horus will kill himself too.

How is Horus in this lore?

>>51445690
Horus doesn't exist in this continuity. We have a different cast of primarchs entirely.

>>51445690
This Warmaster is alive and kicking, though I think there's some (deliberate?) ambiguity as to just how he's feeling about all this.
I think he's going the war is peace route and trying to rule his Empire by pitting the four against each other. If he could dethrone them he would, not because he hates chaos, but because he wants total control.
The advantage with this version is that it adds some drama on the chaos end. The Gods are growing tired of the Warmaster and he's got his gambit. All we know is that things are going to go crazy as chaos pushes east.

>>51446282
Thanks.

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How much have we fleshed out the mechanicum?

>>51448188
Various. There's some worlds that are pretty clear and parts of the working of the Forgespace. There's a lot politics at play.

>>51445690
Horus doesn't exist, all the Primarchs are different.

The Warmaster is an Orwellian spymaster who is all about total thought control and paranoid dictatorship. He's scrubbed all record of his name out of history and the only people that ever meet him in person are the traitor Primarchs that have remained as subjects in his Imperium.

Rather than winning through brute force he won through deception. He made sure the loyalist legions were scattered when the Heresy started, pitted them against one another, literally stabbed the Emperor in the back rather than dueling him, etc.

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>>51448188

>>51448620
Inaccurate.

Replace his torso with a postbox.

>>51450100

Wait, if the Emperor is dead, why hasn't all of corporeal reality been swallowed by the Warp already?

>>51450041
As far as the last few threads went the Mechanicus split during the Heresy; part of them joined with the Behemoth Guard and became the Dark Mechanicum, part of them hooked up with the Fists of Mars and as a whole would start Forgespace. I also remember there being discussion about the Void Dragon but I don't remember what direction it went.
As of the current day all that's really said is that they and the Fists of Mars have become one entity. I know the other Crusader states also have their own factions of the AdMech so we should probably clear that up.

>>51450989
I'd been thinking the forgeworlds in the East fell into a few major categories.

Forges under the Admech based in Forgespace
--These are the ones that ended up swearing loyalty to the new Fabricator General on Tarsis Sinister

Forges under the Legions
--Notionally legion forges, like Kiavar of the Raven Guard. These are forges that were either established by the legions during the crusade or swore loyalty directly to the legions

"Independent" Forges
--Forges that did their oaths some other way. Either they swore loyalty to a traitor legion, to a forge diocese that no longer exists, or, in some cases, to the Emperor himself. Alternatively, they swore loyalty to Mars directly but don't recognize the Fabricator General in Forgespace.

I'd written up examples of how this all might play out politically for three Forges notionally in Jade Empire space, Tindalos, Incaladion, and Anvilius, I'll see if I can find them, but essentially, they ranged from:
"We swore loyalty to the Emperor and when he died that passed to Malcador and from Malcador to Xun. If you want to make a legal case of it, you'll need to submit the case to the heir of the imperium, the court of Xun, through your your Emperor appointed representative." (Way it was worded required for them to accept Xun as the rightful ruler of the Imperium.)

to

"Sorry, we have to check our foundational papers. Unfortunately our original EULA was lost when Mars fell, but the copy in our archives says we're doing what we're supposed to do. We can do a mission to mars if you really want to, but now's not the best time with it being run by heretics."

>>51450968
Basically, the Emperor has ascended to divinity and has been protecting the East.
There's also the fact that the chaos primarchs are in their dysfunctional Imperium. They might have been able to steamroll the loyalists during the scouring, but the warp storms got terrible very quickly and when they calmed down, they got hit by The Beast.

There's also >>51446282
The Warmaster needs to keep an eternal war with the loyalits to keep his Imperium together. And if chaos subsumes reality, he's no longer needed, so he works against chaos to a certain extent.
On a totally different tact, I ran a character in a Deathwatch game a bit back using a randomly generated chapter that happened to come out pretty Void Lordy. The chapter tactics were things that provided buffs against enemies in cover, which I think is a neat idea to potentially pursue with the VL. Dread, then sudden shock and awe terror assault, and the real expertise is picking out the cowards who hide. Cowards and the true opponents who know fear as well as you do and are waiting in the shadows for you.

>>51452132
>Legion Forge XXVII, designation Phlegethus
Conquered by the Undying Scions early into the Great Crusade, Phlegethus' position near important warp lanes and its rich deposits of raw materials made it an ideal candidate for colonization by the priesthood of Mars. As of the 41st millenium Phlegethus continues to provide war materiel for the XVIII legion as part of an ancient pact. Of note are the priesthood's use of Asphodim Assassin Servitors, a unlikely pattern known for their incredible speed and dexterity.

>>51450968
Most of Segmentum Solar is warpy. Terra is now a Warp storm of the same kind as the Eye of Terror.

Emprah used the last of his power to nullify they spread of the Warp further as he left physical reality. It's possible that the Warmaster actually wanted this, as dissolving realspace isn't in his interests. No realspace = no Imperium, and what he wants more than anything else is absolute, unquestionable control over the Imperium.

>>51453479
I'm going to post planet and militia ideas I guess
>Amaterasan Rising Sons
The gas giant Amaterasa is home to a bizarre geological phenomenon. Several floating 'islands' rise above the storms of the planet below, and are ceaselessly fought over by the world's inhabitants. These wars do not make them exempt to the Vigilant Draft, however, and members from all island-states are inducted into the Amaterasan Rising Sons, a militia regiment known for their fanatical devotion to their homeworld and the Vigil at large.

What do you guys think about the illithyd?

>>51453479
So are they under legion rule? How do they relate to the Fabricator General in Forgespace?

>>51462614
They ostensibly answer to the fabricator general, but realistically they're more prone to helping out the Scions by building them tons of dreadnought chassis.

>>51462656
Roger.
Actually, how do the Scions do that? Do they have an ass load of techmarines or did they just let in the Mechanicum in a major way after Sarco got boxed?

>>51463569
The Emperor foresaw (and engineered) the Scions' drastic shift in tactics during the time between Sarco's wounding at the hands of the Eldar and his return to the larger galaxy. He ensured that many Scions had techmarine training but made it clear that they were no more deferential to the mechanicum than the average marine. Now, the Scions train each marine in the repair and upkeep of the holy sarcophagi.

>>51465207
Cool, so then the Scions field a large number of forgemasters, but are distant with Mars.

So how does this impact their relations with the Forgespace?

>>51465931
The Undying Scions don't have the warmest of relationships with forgespace, especially after the Ninth crusade, but they aren't as blatantly antagonistic as, say, Imperium Minorum and the Kor Protectorate.

>>51466436
Do we want to set up some sort of alternative contact thing, since this seems like an ungainly way to get things going again?
(Which is really too bad since I want to do up some more campaigns.)

Go away I'm being a hermit.

Also, Sarco wants to use my Discord. This is acceptable.

>>51468178
Only if you get rid of your peridot gallery you fucking degenerate.

>>51468206
No.

>>51468178
No! The galaxy needs you!

What Primarch are we up to in the detailing of homeworld and all that?

>>51468924
Hmm, were we doing Marcus last?

>>51469449
Sounds legit. I recall him wandering off into the wilds to fight kill bots until he was able to override the AI core or whatever left over from the earlier mechanicum attempt to colonize the world.

After that he returns and the cities start fighting over the new resources? And then he unites the cities and upgrades everything? That whole best of technology thing, I think.

>>51469541
Ideally there's some parallelism with Gengrat seeing how they end up being best buddies until the heresy.
Marcus being sort of an art deco optimism and Gengrat being a techno horror German Expressionist.

>>51468178
post the discord then?

>>51468206
>Anders is a Perifag

This isn't even remotely surprising.

Reading up on the Primarchs/Legions.

I feel like half these guys should have broken off together even without the influence of Chaos. Also, am I meant to think that the Negators and Warp Raiders are working together somehow?

>>51473536
I don't think that was the intention when they were written, but it's an interesting theory. Tell me, what evidence is there for it?

>>51414224
>terra consumed by a warp storm
Are you chaos players seriously this butthurt about getting btfo that you come to invent your own chaos wank lore here?

>>51474474
There should be laws against being this stupid.

IA ain't about Chaoswank. It's about a theoretical continuity where the Heresy ended badly and the Imperium is Chaos now while the Loyalists are the ones fighting it. Chaos is still the bad guys.

As far as I can tell, 90% of IA's lore focuses on the loyalist Primarchs after the Imperium falls and they set up their own nations in the galactic east.

>>51474555
This.
Chaos a shit.

https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/board-games/news/animal-rights-group-peta-calls-for-warhammer-fur-clothing-ban

This thread is now dedicated to talking about Amaranthian megapanthers. The apex predator of Amaranth, the megapanther is a massive catlike creature easily the size of a chimera.

>>51474912
I wouldn't say shit. But its power and threat is pretty exaggerated in my opinion. Chaos can and has been beaten backmany times. It is insidious and unrelenting, but not an immediate threat in almost any case.

>>51474555
Partly because we've not gotten around to detailing life in the dark Imperium, but yeah.

>>51476811
>>51474912
It's the big bad. The thing the East has been worried about for 10,000 years. They've kept it at bay thanks to strategy and determination as well as inefficiency inside chaos, but it's coming.

Oh, and while we're at it, did we have legion colors we wanted to redo? I recall the Void Lords as sort of being a mess.

And if we've not got much to say on Marcus at the moment, do we want to move to Grahanak or Faustus? (Skipping over a few that we don't have the people on hand for or we've already discussed at length)

>>51478231
Indeed. It's big and bad, but the real large-scale threat is always "eventually". While it is often described as "we are going to die any second now", Chaos tends to take its time compared to other, nearly as dangerous galactic threats.

>>51478558
>Faustus
As much as I like the bit about Luna being in stasis over Terra for ten thousand years, I really wanted the moon to be lost in the warp and attracting treasure hunters and astartes forces whenever and wherever it reappeared.

>>51478590
If we don't mind going all weird chaos with it, it could be that a reflection of the moon appears randomly out of the warp, overhanging planets ominously, attracting treasure hunters, filled with odd reflections of ancient legionarries from traitor and loyal legions alike.
It falls slowly, and vanishes just before impact.
Harbinger of doom and all that. People have been tracking the Red Moon, trying to find a pattern in the aetheric tides, since it usually preceeds a major chaos invasion or something, but seldom in that location.

Equally strangely, the Red Moon goes through phases, but instead of the interplay of light, entire segments of the surface are missing.


Something like that?

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>>51479302
I do like my psychic mirrors. That sounds like a cool idea.

While we're on the subject of psychic shittery, is there anything I need to flesh out for the Illithyd? I'm kind of lacking direction for them right now.

>>51479664
I dunno. They seem kind of like the sort of thing best kept in the background. Might be neat to have them run up against a Genestealer cult.
Actually, with them running around, I'd assume the Imperiums are much more resistant to Genestealer subversion, what with them being used to Illythids.

>>51483081
The Illithyd don't really infiltrate as much as they just steal people for fodder and reproduction. I'd be interested to see how they react to tyranids though.

https://discord.gg/cy7HQmc

Here's the link to Anders' discord. They mostly use the lobby for Penal Regiment stuff so I'd stick to the new Imperium Asunder room.

>>51484165
Not seeing the room?

>>51484665
Just a second, Anders masked it.

>>51474912
Not going to lie this seems like chaos fan wank Mary Sue X1000000

>>51484838
That'd be because you either haven't read into it, or don't want to. Either way, it's your choice, but I don't think any of the contributors would agree with you. Because most of the active ones are loyalists.

>>51484838
To me it actually seems like a chaos victory in IA is actually less inevitable than in the main continuity, because the crusader states are more unified internally than the Imperium, and the warmaster doesn't have that luxury.

>>51484862
>>51485310
Speaking of, just what is life like in much of the Dark Imperium? The core domains are administered directly by the Warmaster and his proxy, Enoch.
I think we're going with a 1984 and reverse imperium deal for them, complete with Chaos Shrine Worlds on places like Ophelia IV, where the Asuran Sisterhoods convene.
Then there's the plague space of the Second Sons, which i get the sense are a set of rad wastes with just enough population to keep the legion functional and the daemons happy.
The Hunting Grounds have been described.
What's it like in Iron Hearts space? I imagine they aren't too warm towards chaos and are sort of the Protectorate of the Dark Imperium.
The Behemoth Guard overlap with the Dark Mechanicum and I am working in them, but they're mostly Hellforges and recruiting worlds. Except in outlying areas, I think the Warmaster ensures loyalty by providing food and souls from farm worlds--things get more independent the further out you get for strategic purposes.
Negators and Spears are in the Warp most of the time and the Arms have their Shrine Worlds.
And Calaxis is just weird.

So what else is there? Are there bastion worlds like Cadia? What happens when the gods fight in the warp?
What's it like with the Iron Hearts?

Ooh, what has happened as the Necrons awaken? I imagine that must have caused a lot of trouble as it forced a total reorganization of force deployments and largely negated the warp related forces.
Perhaps a neat first contact would be a Shrine World going missing ala sanctuary 101 and the high command is freaked because the warp has gone completely still. They try to send troops via athame tunneling or something and they can't break through. In the end, they have to fight as they did pre-heresy, so much of the anti Necrons forces are unaugmented humans.

>>51476111
Actually, PETA makes me think, does Sarco put pelts on his chassis?
What other sort of bling are people wearing?

>>51484838
That's because you haven't read any of it, you're just an oversensitive babby who can't stand the thought of his favourite faction losing even in an alternate universe.

Was Star Wars Empirewank because the Empire was in a position of power at the start? Because that's what your opinion comes down to.

>>51485854
IIRC it's been proposed that a large Necron dynastic alliance had taken a bite out of Segmentum Pacificus, and there's loads of Tomb Worlds awakening along the edges of Segmentum Obscurus as the Silent King begins his return.

So they should be a huge problem for the Warmaster's Imperium. Which is one of more interesting things about this setting that the Beast debacle also touches on - by inheriting the Imperium, the Warmaster has also inherited all the Imperium's problems.

>>51490418
>does Sarco put pelts on his chassis?
You know it, baby
>what other sort of bling are people wearing
We know that Balthasar has that weird spiny cloak, and I'm sure that Anders wears the skin of a lion. I can see Grahanak wearing not!xenomorph chitin.

>>51491215
All this makes me want a bit where the warmaster has captured one if his brothers and keeps him on terra, only to get taunted about how the emperor would've done so much better.

>>51485854
>What's it like with the Iron Hearts?

INDUSTRIAL.

They're more the xenotech/archeotech sort of heretics than chaotic. I also kinda feel like they should see themselves as the genuine protectors of their realm. Rubinek's whole shit was that he wanted to be left the fuck alone and allowed to keep his legion. I imagine they have a very "This is our fucking territory, it's not the biggest or prettiest, but it's ours and fuck you if you want it" mindset.

The Fortress Worlds are a vast war industry dedicated to fortifying Iron Hearts space, against both loyalists and possible betrayal by the Warmaster. Civilians are taught that Rubinek's sons are the only benevolent force in the galaxy - everything outside of Iron Hearts space is a terrible wasteland ruled by tyrants and monsters. Despite their alliance with the Warmaster, these teachings vilify him and the other daemon Primarchs almost as much as the loyalists. Brotherhood and cooperation are core tenets of its cultures. Sedition and betrayal are the greatest possible crimes; your fellow factorum workers are your family unit and, say, stealing rations, is therefore a vile crime against your brothers and sisters, prepare to be nailed to the outside of a smelting pot as an example. I see the Iron Hearts as closer to their subject population, almost like the Salamanders are, but far more brutal and judgemental.

>>51492099
Yes. Do it.
I can definitely see Graha'Nak popping in to taunt and spread terror, perhaps at one point he gets "captured" only to vanish with only a trail of torn corpses to make his passage. I'm picturing him as Curze tier terror plus some extra for becoming what amounts to an Emperor daemon.

Raydon might do it, but he's kind of dead.

Xun could and would.
It would be BL tier ruining ambiguity, but after his ascension I can see him stopping by, smashing wards in the Palace, basically pulling a Magnus to appear before the Warmaster.

Only other candidate would be the Warp Raider himself and I can't see him goading the Warmaster like that-- things are still just as planned.

Other alternative is a few traitor primarchs pondering the situation. Enoch might well think it, but never say it. Same with Aodhán, but he thinks empires like that are dumb.
Of traitor, I think Gengrat is the most likely to tease Redacted like that. He gives no fucks and never hated the Emperor. He'd just be stating a fact and by M41 he's realized what the Warmaster is up to.
I'm thinking of Gengrat as sort of the ultimate weaponsmith, a completely amoral craftsman.

Actually, what do people think of having Xun vanish on Prospero at the height of that crusade, calming the warp and all that jazz and subsequently making the occasional appearance beyond simply Jade Empire sightings.
Thus far we have the implication that Alexios summons him when he writes the new edition of his book, but that may also be Alexios going insane.
The Sky Serpents and allies claim that Xun sometimes speaks through mediums and appears on battlefields, but that could be a lot of things.
I'm thinking something closet to shards of Magnus, where there's incidents of contact with Imperium aligned warp entities that seem to be Xun or at least a reflection. Over time they become more coherent, but whether the thing...

>>51492546
Whether the thing that broke the wards on Terra in 561.M37 and spoke with the Warmaster was Xun or simply the result of that year's severe warp storms and the Warmaster's own repressed emotions is unclear.
Similarly, Xun has supposedly appeared in the Storm Kingdoms in M38, but armed in a manner reflecting the local folk traditions. Whether it's him or a manifestation of the collective image of the populace is unclear.

Stuff like that.

>>51492295
I massively dig it. It'd almost be a nice place to live, if you enjoyed being an almost space dwarf, with all that concern and caring tainted by bitterness and paranoia.

>>51492546
I think either Gengrat or Aodhan are best for jabbing at the Warmaster for pointing out that the Emperor would totally have defeated the loyalists and secured the Imperium by now. Neither of them seem to respect him at all.

Gengrat might be better simply because I'm not sure if Aodhan even picks up when the Warmaster calls anymore.

Though, Kashaln might say it too. He strikes me as loyal, but not above making jabs at his Lord if he feels the dude is being inadequate in some way.

>>51492669
I think that ever since Aodhan fucked off into the webway he's had the galaxy's biggest case of ennui and couldn't care less about the Warmaster or his political bullshit.

>>51493935
Speaking of Aodhan, are we saying that the Eldar have abandoned their plans for Ynnead in favor of turning the primarch into Khaine?

>>51493994
Might be something worth having a civil war over...

>>51492669
I'd been imagining that Gengrat feels an odd sort of affection for the Warmaster. He keeps things interesting and provides plenty of interesting projects.
You're absolutely right, Gengrat doesn't really respect Redacted in the traditional sense, but I think he's also one of the more loyal traitor primarchs, oddly enough because he already has everything he wants. He doesn't have to worry about holding an empire together, he can focus on his obsessions. When he's in the mood to make monsters, he does just that. When he wants to wage war and solve the puzzles of siege and strategy, he does that. So he's quite happy that the Warmaster leaves him alone in return for a tithe of production and the occasional call to crusade.
I think he's the kind of guy who also likes to see just how much he can get away with especially because his informality really bothers Enoch.
So yeah, Gengrat barging in and politely insinuating that the Emperor would have nailed this sounds like just his style, with this as his way of announcing he's going to send help. I should write up a draft of that.

Which reminds me. I want to do up a story about pre-primarch Behemoth Guard, Judgement Bringers, and Sky Serpents on campaign against Orkz.

>>51493994
>Speaking of Aodhan, are we saying that the Eldar have abandoned their plans for Ynnead in favor of turning the primarch into Khaine?

I honestly don't know why they wouldn't just do both. Neither plan requires the same resources and they share few of the same moving parts.

And it's always good to have a backup plan anyway.

>>51495043
Also, I doubt even 90% of living Eldar know either thing is happening.

The Ynnead was basically a myth until Eldrad made it happen. Very few Eldar knew that the Harlequins were making it a reality. Similarly, I imagine only a few peeps have realized what's going on with Aodhan.

>>51492666
>I massively dig it. It'd almost be a nice place to live, if you enjoyed being an almost space dwarf, with all that concern and caring tainted by bitterness and paranoia.

Yeah, that's what I was going for.

To the extent that 90% of the Fortress Worlds' population lives in immense subterranean fortress-forges where they've basically reached the limits of building upward and so they've instead built downward, deep into the mantle.

>>51495084
Seems legit.
I imagine it only really becomes noticeable as Rhana Dandra approaches, like post escape of Altansar.

>>51496908
Ooh. Do we have a crusade that involves sieges of some of those worlds?

>>51492669
>>51494375
Ah my dearest living brother, how good to see you again.
The words came with an angular echo from Gengrat's Vox grill as he swept into the Warmaster's chamber, his silk cloak billowing with a dramatic flair that the Warmaster assumed was intentional.
So much of Gengrat's persona was, right down to the ever present Vox mask, with its finely worked fang motifs. He used it, of course, to produce binharic and other forms of technolingua, but it handled Gothic just as well and so even something as personal as a voice was modulated and sculpted by The Great Beast.
Then again, his words in the most formal dialects of Old Gothic, pronounced with the baroque inflection of the old Orbital Nobility was artifice.
Gengrat was a mask, from his speech to his beautifully lethal weapons.
As Gengrat was so fond of saying, it is in artifice that the true self is revealed.

The Warmaster looked up from his paperwork.
To what do I owe the pleasure?

I have some information regarding the recent events at Sanctuary 101, this so called Necron threat.

Speak.

They're quite fascinating, really. They are natural nulls. They take our most powerful ally and render it useless. Ironically our father would have found them a far easier opponent to face than will we.

Ignoring, or perhaps enjoying the Warmaster's displeasure he continued.

Of course, that was the great strength of our Father's vision-- diversity. We have come to rely on the warp to solve our problems and it has weakened us.
I can only imagine what Anshul and Balthasar will say, but against these foes, is trade them both for Xun or Alexios.
But you made your choice, didn't you. And you made it well. And here we are holding together the Western Empire with your mighty exertions. Or those of Enoch, at any rate. Sic transit gloria Imperium.
Of course, dear brother, I come not to chide, but to advise and offer support. I believe we can best fight these Necrons with flesh and steel and not the warp.

>>51500264
Strange advice from the chosen of what many call the Sorceror God, but war has changed and we must change with it. And so I promise a tithe of my forges for this mission, but beyond that, I have a request: that we mobilize the Iron Hearts as a vanguard. They can be an ablative fortress belt no more, but are needed against the Necrons. At least until I can get production going. Then you may do as you wish. It concerns me not.

>>51500264
>>51500332
Good stuff. I'm wondering what the necrons think when they wake up and see a bunch of warp worshipers in their old house.

>>51494375
WhIle I'm typing up things, what I'm thinking is about 60 years into the crusade, a Judgement Bringers fleet under the command of Romulus Kursk is surrounded by Orkz, clear in the path of a major waaagh. They're outnumbered. They've sent out calls for aid, but it looks like the situation is hopeless and they prepare for a last stand.
Suddenly, a fleet breaks from the warp. Some of the profiles are familiar, most are not, either being modified Imperial warships or stranger things.
It's the Behemoth Guard, thought lost 30 years ago. Turns out they were cut off by a waaagh and have been operating without support for the interval.
The two legions embark on a frantic Armored campaign on a nearby Ork world, hoping to draw the orks into a ground war to buy time for the fleets.
Cue awesome panzerkrieg with Behemoth Guard technicals and souped up tanks.
They capture a strategic position and fortify it to hold out for aid.
The proto-Sky Serpents under Baqar Hadbaal are the legion to respond and red thirst it up, providing enough forces to allow the Astartes to go on the offensive.
Kind of get into the pre Primarch character of the legions and the characters.
At the end, there's a great deal of enthusiasm for future campaigns with Armored forces and panzerkrieg. Then the call comes in for Kursk-- Enoch has been found and he's off to meet him, he plans to present bus studies on Armored warfare to Enoch.
And we know what happens.

>>51501944
I don't think I've gone into detail about what the Scions were like before they found Sarco, other than they acted a lot more like "generic" marines. Any thoughts?

I wonder what happened to the other regulars.

>>51506531
In my case, busy irl, tired, and even less capable of creating good and/or meaningful content than usual.

>>51503151
Oh, I thought they were like Raven Guard from a feral... oh.
Yep. I see the problem.
What's core to their persona? How do they dance when nobody is looking?
But seriously, what was it about them that made them capable of following Sarco when he was Tarzan and then following him just as well when he became Box-Primarch?

>>51506531
Yeah, I'm trying to think of a good way to attract attention, but I think you did it when you made the thread.

>>51507592
Accurate.

>>51501944
So because I've got a thing that I don't want to translate:

Kjell Maximus
A giant even by astartes standards, Kjell was drawn, like so many in the proto-Behemoth Guard, from the Rad-Warriors of Stralayzia.
Perhaps more widely known as the Night Rider, Maximus took naturally to command was recorded as a Praetor in the early campaigns beyond the Sol system, gaining renown for his Armored cavalry campaigns in the first three decades of the Crusade.
Precisely what happened after the XIVth was cut off by Waaagh Deffskull is unclear, but it seems that during the legion's 30 years without support, he rose to overall command.
Also during this time, the Walkabout, the native inclinations of the Rad-Warriors emerged and with the lack of mechanicum oversight and the needs of war, support vehicles, captured human vehicles, and wrecks were scavenged for parts and modified into a biazzare array of custom armor, which would prove so characteristic of the later legion.
Despite eventually sanction by the Emperor, these practices drew the ire of many with the Mechanicum and it took the wisdom of Gengrat Vannevar to forge solid relationships with forgeworlds, including Mezoa and the infamous Xana II.

>>51510871
Another section down, so:

Baqar Hadbaal
At this point in the crusade, Hadbaal was legion master and the reputation of the XIIIth was established.
Though the legion possessed no official cognomen, Storm Wolves, the name of Hadbaal's maniple was coming into general use.
In reality, the legion was less than unified, with skilled and charismatic leaders being granted command over one or more chapters. Hadbaal, by a combination of intellect, charisma, and ferocity had been recognized as lord over them.
Thus it was that at the time of Rust, Hadbaal led his own chapters and a loose confederation of other similar groups.
Despite this potentially fractious core, or perhaps because of it, the legion had a reputation for coordinated and complex assaults. With each level of subordinate expected to show initiative, leaders could design overarching plans with complex moving parts and leave the details to their subordinates.
(Going for a warrior chief and his generals kind of feel, Shang Dynasty style. Xun's the only guy to be able to get the legion to cohere and create a shared identity.)
This early legion was respected for their bloody victories, but not recognized in the military elite of the noble Terran Hab-spires as were the disciplined Angels of Light or Silver Spears.
Indeed, the fur clad XIIIth, bedecked in chains of skulls and war paint had no pretensions to nobility.

While strategies were diverse, Hadbaal was known for employing large numbers of jet pack equipped assault marines deployed from stormhawks as well as early models of terminator plate and legion dreadnoughts.

>>51509618
Maybe they were still stealthmarines, but more operator than feral world savage.

>>51512500
Out of curiosity, who's your favorite IA character? At the risk of sounding masturbatory, I'd say mine is Idrias Stern.

>>51513731
Probably Enoch or Aodhan.

The
>"this is fine"
Primarchs.

>>51513731
>>51515963
I really like the Aodhán and Enoch arcs. They both have nice and satisfying arcs that make them fun characters.

I also really like how Gengrat is turning out-- he's such a sick bastard, though this isn't really a setting lacking in fun characters. We've got good characters on both sides of it.

I'm legit doing up some Behemoth Guard for my chaos army, have some dual use Sons of Horus/Sky Serpents sitting around, and I'm looking for an excuse to do some Negators.

>>51516732
I want a dreadnought but I already have a necron battleforce and a start collecting skitarii box to do up. Oh, and the assassinorum game came today...

>>51512500
And to compete the set, the one that I'm most shaky on because I don't think I've heard anything on the pre-Enoch Judgement Bringers.

Romulus Kursk is easy-- he's the original panzer Kommandant. He's the love child of Patton and Rommel with a bit of Monty. Mostly Rommel, though.
At Rust, he's been using his Armored columns to assault Ork positions, but his fleet has been cut off by a sudden advance.
I'm thinking before Enoch, they're still quite orderly, but more in the style of WWII or a modern mechanized infantry force. They probably have some fist tendencies, too. Stubborn, honorable, orderly. Kursk and his men get cut off doing their duty and holding the line. The legion already shows a preference for big guns and it's perfectly normal to field vindicators at the company level.

So Kursk has his Predators, Malcadors, and Vindicators rolling, with about half of his troops riding in Rhinos or tank desant.
If he got rules, he'd be a Praetor who rode a tank like Pask.
This said, he's a bit of an oddball in the legion--he uses more rhinos than the average Judgement Bringers commander. Most footslog.

When he meets Enoch, he's looking forward to showing Enoch the efficiency studies on mechanized warfare. Enoch, of course, turns everything into artillery because he prefers the Western Front and Von Somme, Kursk's rival becomes first captain as Kursk's Armored divisions are depleted.

So at Rust, he gets along great with Kjell Maximus, who supplements his heavier armor with faster bikes, augmented rhino chassis, and essentially technicals. There's also a few heavily modified Malcadors and heavy tanks that have been kept running for 30 years, but the whole campaign gives Kursk a chance to really do some panzerkrieg with the Orks, using his vindicators as assault Guns against Ork forts. Typically, the ordered ranks of Judgement Bringers assault the breach on foot.

>>51517880
So the Rust Campaign:

The intent had been to catch the major Ork forces in a pincer movement. The primary forces involved were the chapters from the Judgement Bringers, three XIIIth Legion maniples, The Fists of Mars, Second Sons, and forces from numerous Imperial Army Regiments.
Kursk's forces were to flank when the momentum of the Waaagh shifted suddenly. Formerly opposed Ork forces united and engaged the Fists in a dozen systems, stalling their advance. Meanwhile Ork Warbands flocked to the front lines from what the Imperium would later recognize as Chondax.
These forces cut off the lines of retreat and support for Kursk's fleet. He prepared for the worst when the Behemoth Guard break from the warp, yadda yadda, story goes here.
With the increased forces at their disposal, they elect to shelter the fleet in the shadow of Rust and draw the Orks into a massive ground battle.
They have a two weeks to take and refortify a fortress on the surface.
They use the Behemoth Guard to draw off Ork forces while the JB assault the thing and then engineer defenses like crazy.
The Orks strike back in untold numbers. The fortress holds, but barely and the Orks are regrouping for another go when Baqar Hadbaal shows up with his posse and they attack the Ork rear.
The three forces then form a front and fight the orks, fighting their way through as Marcus does his thing offscreen. Don't worry, it gets a shout out in the Fists of Mars book, but this is the Rust Campaign and frankly it's bad enough they shoehorned the Sky Serpents in there.

>>51518086
I like it, but I'm too tired to give a more meaningful critique right now.
Did you see the bit I wrote about the Amaterasans a bit ago?

Good morning bump

Maybe instead of just a different flavor of operator marines the Imperial Scions (as they were known at the time) were more like the posterboy legion.

>>51523937
That would make sense. Get that steel in there early.

>>51525038
Thanks, I was afraid that offering them to be the posterboy legion would be a bit too much.

>>51527018
>_<
Seems legit. I want to read that now.

>>51526471
Well, they'll never be Oathsworn or Angels of Light or Silver Spears, but I can definitely see them as being rather Fists. Then Tarzan shows up and everyone is like wut.
Then Sarco gets boxed and those who can remember that far back are like ahh, that makes sense.

>>51457730
>>51518719
Pun made me groan, so points for that. Question I have is what makes them special. How do they fight?
Are they Ashigaru levies? Neo-Samurai snipers? No. They aren't. I'm stealing that idea. Russo-Japanese War dudes?

>>51527823
A mix of WWII Imperial Japanese and American G.I.s similar to how the catachans are a mix of Americans and Vietnamese.

>>51527850
Cool. Write up some stuff for it, I guess.
How far do they go back?
Major campaigns?
Etc etc.

>>51529001
I'll have to get back to you on that.

>>51527823
So idea for neo-Samurai snipers is just sort of that, either a chapter, or, more likely a guard regiment. The nobility of the world places a great deal of emphasis on ranged weaponry and skill in shooting, you know, the whole old-school samurai thing where the proper weapon of the samurai was the bow.
So these guys do zen archery with some sort of traditional coil/railgun. The world they're from is a feudal one and natively speaking, these EM accelerated guns are relics and they absolutely wreck anything on those worlds. The mechanicum, of course, can make more of them pretty easily, they're just more specialized radium jezzails or something.

So these guys are recruited from the upper classes of the homeworld, which has a clever name like Yumido or something, trained in how to work with more advanced technologies like grav-chutes, falsehoods, etc etc, and used as sniper teams.
They're to Vindicares like a death cult assassin is to an Eversore.

If they're Jade Empire, they often work in tandem with/are drawn into Section 8 or distributed amongst other forces. So you might have a few lords and retainers assigned to a company in a particular warzone, kind of like how Stormtroopers work. And they're a bunch of snobs about it and write poetry.

>>51530799
Cool. And when you do, if you've got the time, I'm curious for more in depth thoughts on the whole Rust campaign idea.

>>51530821
>assassins
Did we discuss what happened to the assassin temples? I feel like this is territory we haven't explored before.

>>51532464
I'm really not sure.
Malcador survives long enough to head east, so presumably he brings them with him and they're refounded, unless there's a schism in some of the temples and some of them sign up with the Warmaster?
I figure the heads of the temples are loyal to Malcador personally and the Temples were deployed during the siege en masse.
I'd figure the temples are refounded in the east on various hidden worlds, with parallel organizations existing in the west as well, except Culexus, which probably has a daemonic counterpart.
There's probably also a few types of tech assassins and the Jade Empire needs stereotypical ninjas and wuxia assassins.
Maybe the various domains have preferred/mirror temples for their own private needs?

>>51512500
I'm thinking the early Sky Serpents are Luna Wolves, Space Wolves, Ashen Claw looking kind of guys. They favor aggressive tactics, massed assaults from all sides to cut the foe to ribbons, not much for siege ops. They're well coordinated and clever, but come off as barbarians and crude instruments. They're not Bloodhounds or World Eaters, though.
The big change that Xun makes is to get them to think about the big picture and incorporate state craft into the deal. Now they're applying those same thought patterns to management and psychological warfare and logistics.
They had all the skills and abilities to be Sky Serpents, but before Xun there was nobody to direct them like that.
For observers at the time, the change was unbelievable, it'd be like the White Scars turning into Ultramarines, but then you remember just how the White Scars really work and you see how it goes into their empire.
I'm thinking of a sort of Neo-Assyrian vibe for them in a lot of ways. Xun doesn't integrate peacefully like Anders. Xun brings unification, ready or not and is perfectly comfortable relocating planetary populations to serve his goals. It's ruthlessly efficient and the legacy of Tepectitlan is the propaganda engine it creates. Xun would have siezed upon conventional Imperial rhetoric, but the pseudo-Confucian culture of Tepectitlan shapes everything Xun and his legion do. They're going to raze your world, cull the rebels, rebuild it better, and your grandchildren will be better fed and educated and thank the Sky Serpents.

Of course the difference between education and indoctrination is minimal and the utopian society that could have been becomes a massive military-industrial complex police state following the heresy, but damn it's efficient and those administrators are skilled.
Anyways, at the time of Rust, I'm thinking the legion is equipped for that massive strike, so jump packs, terminators, etc.

>>51533845
They're using more drop pods than rhinos at this point and they're ferrying jump troops from drop zone to drop zone in Stormbirds.
The big switch with Xun is to mechanize everything he can because he's seeing that it takes less reset time between engagements. Jump packs are great for short ranges, but Xun is thinking on a much larger scale, in part because he's able to secure the resources that the Sky Serpents had not been granted priority for or had not been able to share between maniples.
The impetus for these reforms, though, comes partly from Hadbaal's observations at Rust.
(Xun still uses jump troops, though and some Tzolkin make more widespread use of them than do others.)

I'm imagining the early Behemoth Guard making the most of their small numbers and limited resources by extensively mechanizing using anything they can get their hands on. Loads of bikes, technicals, rhinos, etc. It's also when they get their start fielding robots, servitors, and mutants in the ranks--they need everything they can get, so they empty prisons etc on worlds they visit, though this echoes practices from Terra.
Post Rust, they're able to get resupplied after 30 years and they grab all the tanks they can, but they keep their penal levies and kill servitors. I'll write up an early siege about halfway through the crusade, but the idea is that all this leaves them well suited towards siegework too and after the Emperor ok's their technicals they really start to explore that Salamander style crafting streak.
Gengrat brings the technoccult to the legion and gets them in tight with worlds like Mezoa and the legion really begins to develop that technical proficiency. Of course Marcus as Gengrat's sponsor doesn't hurt either.

Their fleshcrafters are very late to the party, being a combination of lachrymerta and biologis magi with Oathsworn persuaded to join/stolen info/Behemoth Guard who had worked with the Oathsworn.
Not sure what they were called before Gengrat.

>>51534111
The Siege of Ket
The compliance of the Ket sector was the first major campaign the XIVth was tasked with following their return at Rust. Despite the misgivings of Mars, the legion was equipped with Predators, Vindicators, Malcadors, and over the protests of some in the Monitorum, Dracosans. Further the legion was given new Land Raiders and a full complement of siege guns. Requests for Goliath trucks were denied, ostensibly because the Ket Sector was heavily fortified and the campaign would be one of siege.
Nor were requests for state of the art battle automata such as the Vorax or Castellax honored. Instead, the XIVth had to make do with older and far simpler models like Kastellan or the archaic Conqueror Proteus.
Records indicate an above average number of penal legions assigned to the campaign.
Thus equipped, the fleet began their campaign.
The particulars are unimportant, aka, I'm tired, but the techmarines quickly found work arounds for the limitation of their robots, augmenting wetware algorithms and modifying load out and design. It is believed Mengthes Kraal, later the infamous lord of Xana first began to tinker with robots here.
Afterwards, the Mechanicum sees them and throws a hissy fit. They take it to court or the like and it basically goes:
They modified robots!
Kraal, why did you modify the robots?
Because they were substandard.
Is that so, Magos?
Yes. We could hardly trust them with the good shit.
So you gave them shitty robots because you didn't trust them not to tinker.
Yep.
So when the damn things didn't work, we had to make them work.
Heresy!
Could Kraal have possibly made an Abominable Intelligence? Or Silica Animus?
Absolutely not. These really are shit tier robots.
If you wanted them to behave, then you should have given them good robots and dispatched magi to keep an eye on things. Instead you gave them shit robots and no supervision and hoped they'd get in trouble from me.

...Wait... that AI stuff sounds interesting...

>>51535137
Besides the robots, the legion developed a taste for sieges, blowing a breech with artillery and then using demolishers at close range to enlarge it and vaporize defenders.

First thing through the gap is something expendable to soak up bullets and then the Astartes come.

And Mastodons. Lots of Mastodons.

In many ways, it's a development of strategies that got started when they were cut off without resupply. Now that they have proper tanks and an empire behind them, they can really go all out and it's from actions like that that they get their reputation for siege warfare.
This, then is what gets them in touch with the less savory elements of the Mechanicum. Enoch keeps all that separate from the rank and file, but the XIVth is a legion of artificers and they get in tight with certain orders of Myrmidons and Ordo Reductor.
It's entirely possible that the Emperor was gearing them up as a potential backup in the event of a mechanicum rebellion, they were one of the testing legions for the Leviathan Dread. The legion was also deployed on more than one occasion against recalcitrant forges, but the Mechanicum never rebelled and the safeguard became the threat.

The cult of the machine spirit, I think gets started with the idea that since the Emperor is the Omnissiah and approved their field modifications, they, as children of the Emperor and Omnissiah are imbued with a spark of the divine, which grants them insight into the Machine.
As time goes on this gets further developed and the hostility Mars displays creates an antipathy towards the machine canon Mars is so fond of, but it's basically the Promethean Cult or Hermetica of Mezoa until someone shits the bed with Tzneetch thanks to Xana II and the Mouth of the Warmaster.
(Which is why nobody is worrying about the Behemoth Guard. They seem like more grimdark Ordo Reductor Salamanders or happy Iron Warriors. And they kind of are until chaos.)

>>51448188
Go to the wiki and look up the fists of mars, a lot of setup but unfortunately not well fleshd out

>>51535399
Unfortunately that was one of the things in progress when we paused over the holidays.

Does the admech under the FoM still have cybernetica bullshit?

>>51532688
I'd say that most of the Crusader States are against such underhanded means, so maybe Malcador established them in the astropathic abbeys and the sctual assassinorum descendants aren't deployed for inter-loyalist conflicts.

>>51543054
Of course, that's not to say that certain crusader states don't have their own assassin orders. You mentioned Jade Empire ninjas and FoM mech-assassins, and I'm sure the Byzantine politics of the Imperium Minorum have a place for them.

>>51543234
>>51543054
That'd make sense. I was imagining them mostly deployed at the behest of the Senate or the local equivalent in each of the states.

>>51544975
TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR NINJAS

>>51547735
O.o
I dunno. Probably highly trained humans?

Does anyone have that picture with all the Legion colors?

>>51549381
Unfortunately I don't seem to have it. I think most of the legions have color schemes up on their pages though?

ALEXIOS I SUMMON YOU

>>51547735
Yeah, I mostly mentioned them because the Jade Empire definitely has assassins and the power of stereotyped demands ninjas/wuxia assassins.
They've definitely got those snipers as one form.
Maybe there's a class of assassin that's mildly enhanced in addition to their training. Not as much as a temple assassin, but enough to do the sorts of things a ninja should be able to do. They're used when a space marine would attract too much attention-- the Jade Empire has Romulan levels of secret police activity and astartes are a part of that system.

>>51551837
Light the anon signal

>>51414224

Without a unified Imperium funneling inconcievable resources into it, how did the galaxy not get destroyed/conquered by a Waaagh that got off the rails, or one of the first Hive Fleets.

>>51554633
I imagine that the Vigil doesn't have assassins of its own, but makes the most use of temple assassins against the forces of chaos.
I asked about the color schemes because a terminator sorcerer came with the assassinorum game and I was torn between painting him as black legion and the Arms of Asura.

>>51557588
I'm hoping they show up soon.

>>51560304
Asurans.

>>51565098
The problem is I can't find their color scheme.

>>51565241
Oh weird, it's on their page now. It must have had trouble loading earlier.

File: 101530_md-Dreadnought, Librarian, Librarian Dreadnought, Object Source Lighting, Warhammer 40,000.jpg (59KB, 800x404px) Image search: [Google]

59KB, 800x404px

Reminder that the Baleful Blade hangs over the heads of the ancients just as the onus of the Vigil hangs over yours.

File: 1471302944111.png (617KB, 900x1771px) Image search: [Google]

617KB, 900x1771px

>>51565241
Here's one from back in August. >_<
It's out of date.

>>51570048
Thanks a lot! From this, I think the Judgement Bringers scheme would look the best on a terminator lord.

>>51570506
Do it. Make it happen. Start a Judgement Bringers army.

Just want to clarify something after looking at some of the new fluff from Inferno--mostly that discipline master image someone put up:
Besides the occasional ash blindness incident, the early Sky Serpents did not have issues with excessive brutality, not like the World Eaters or Space Wolves.
Violence was always controlled.
The legion was haughty and insular and was often intractable. More like the White Scars. The early Sky Serpents were similar to the the Medusan Clans, perhaps, or the Chogorian Brotherhoods, and they accepted few masters.
Xun sees all this and says essentially that part of being a superior being is holding oneself to a higher standard. Mortals aren't burdens, but can be inspired to greatness by greatness.
He also alters the nature of the organization to improve supply chains and allow those more complex strategies.
They always had complex strategy, maneuver war, etc, but were hampered structurally and by being little shits.
Essentially, Xun changes the warrior aristocracy to a more flexible meritocracy, making it so that siegemaster could actually direct a whole campaign and the infowarfare dude could advise and work directly with the forge lord.
Xun also standardizes constituents so that supply can be simplified while still being modular.
Xun takes the warrior code and modified it, redefined some terms, changed the structure a bit, and turned warlords into rulers and warriors into paragons.
They wrote poetry, painted, and collected lore before Xun and they collected skulls and trophies, and marked kills in engraved plate after he came, but he changed their bearing and self conception, and that changed everything.
Hopefully that makes some more sense, since I feel like I've been inching closer to the nature of the change but just not explaining it.