Warmaster's Triumvirate VII

But how do we get a 3-way brotherwar if one faction plays the reclusion card.

Really, guys, the separatists should have superior numbers. Not by marines but by human axuiliaries. Why? Because they went to the eastern fringe, and the eastern fringe is YUGE. Lots of worlds to be made compliant during the 31st millennium. And those worlds only know about the Emperor by word, but they all seen the Astartes and Primarchs of the secessionist expeditions.

Also the disparity between conquering so many worlds and not receiving proper recognition or rights is the perfect reason for the expeditions to go secessionist, since it was basically how Horus fell in the canon heresy with the difference that this time, the Chaos Gods don't push the Warmaster over the edge.

We need every side actually involved in an ongoing conflict that ends with the Emperor getting wounded to near-death. The actual stalemate of a stagnant Imperium, an unorganised mess of chaos warbands and a slowly expanding yet equally failing secessionist formation can be focused on "after" we got this brotherwar done.

Reposting my idea from I think thread 3 because so far nobody has called me a big, steaming pile of shit for brains for suggesting it.

I've liked that suggestion from the very start. Couple of points on my end, nothing big:

>Once the Emperor assigns the Warmasters and returns to Terra, he should completely pull out of the Crusade
>Maybe Chaos in some way, perhaps indirectly, sets off the Seperatist, but I'd prefer for them to decide to secede on their own
>Since all the factions have 7 legions now, there really isn't a 'smaller expedition' in terms of legions. I still like the idea of the Seps starting off the war, with Chaos showing up later on though.

Otherwise, I agree with pretty much everything you said. The Seps having more men through auxiliary forces, Imperial Guard regiments and Xenos slaves(?), seems very legit.

About the three fronts though. I take it that only the three Warmasters' legions are permanently assigned to a front, while the rest moves around more? It'd make sense to keep a legion on a specific front for military reasons, but it's kind of boring from a story perspective, as the legions would barely have interacted with those outside their front/eventual faction.

I'm back in Kansas, will start this afternoon.

That'd be pretty cool. I'm thinking that perhaps while the XVth is anti-psyker its more less the reaction of UNCLEAN WITCHES, but is more a strong aversion due to the inherent risks. I'm not sure what SepMech was thinking, but I'd imagine a technophile would be more likely to see psykers as a technology and the XVth probably sees it as equivalent to having citizens walk around with atom bombs, so at Nikea their response is more akin to "Holy shit, guys. Have you seen what happens when powers go nuts? This whole perils of the warp deal? cont

>Sinistrum
That's a fair point. This said, I think the moment we have a Primarch from a forgeworld and inducted into the Mechanicum, you're going to see a faction gravitate towards him. The difference between this guy and Sinistrum (you'll forgive me if I change his name from Octavius Vect) is that I think Vect is trying to avoid being machine pope. I'm imagining him as really not being terribly comfortable with all that. I think he's got a similar view of the Mechanicum to Sinistrum "Machines allow humans to become more human", but I think he's also hardcore in favor of what he sees as the Emperor's vision of an enlightened humanity, and as a result really dislikes the dogmatism of the Mechanicum. I'm thinking that during the ramp up to the heresy, he's in the camp of the likes of Koriel Zeth, but post heresy, after seeing the Dark Mechanicum, he grudgingly comes to accept there is a role for the machine canons. But it's this attitude that, in part, leads to the innovation of the separatists.
I'm thinking that essentially, he goes from a techno-utopianist to a mad scientist out of Rapture or the like.

(I have to say I like where SepMech was going with this and I think his themes match pretty well with my own, but I think the fact that SepMech gave him titles like "Fabricator Marshal" without ever having heard of Sinistrum does point to a degree to which some of this is inevitable.)

I see a clear way for a surplus of numbers to become the latter.

Grégoire de Mouveau is the current suggested Warmaster of the Separatists and has a unique relationship with the Astra Militarum that gives his legion unprecedented authority over a vast number of human auxiliaries, should they choose to exercise it. This allows the Separatists to start the Secession with access to the majority of the Imperium's human auxiliaries.

But we must remember that the Legiones Astartes were the deciding factor of the Great Crusades and the Horus Heresy. With the Separatists only possessing three or four legions to start with, the remaining legions would gradually begin to reclaim territory from the secessionists. The Astra Militarum cannot stand up to Space Marines, even if when led by the Sons of Sovereignty.

Confident that their absence will not be noticed, some of the loyalist legions withdraw from the front lines and slow the advance of Imperial forces into Separatist space but it's still an advance - until the absent legions return as the Traitors and assault the Imperium on a second front.

With the Heresy in full swing, some of the loyalists are left in a difficult position. Some may choose this point to cede and join the Separatists while others might turn Traitor during the great war. This is roughly the point where the Separatists might try to put an end to hostilities with the Imperium and lick their wounds, after being worn down for so long. Although they originally had greater numbers and a larger portion of worlds, by this point at least a third of them have probably been regained by the Imperium and they're in no position to keep fighting.

This would allow the Imperium focus its undivided attention on the Traitors, who were expecting to face an enemy distracted and mired by war with the Separatists. The result could be an outcome that is similar to the traditional Horus Heresy.

I saw them call this Three Empires. What if it's Romance of the Three Empires? The Emperor is suddenly wounded and in critical condition. The war starts off with a fight over succession.

I like that idea with the aux forces.

>XVth and Psykers
...Their response is more that the imperium doesn't even understand the basic principles of how the warp works, so it's insane to go mucking about with it. Their recommendation is that they confine research to an Emperor managed research program.
Part of it is based on their own attempt to implement a librarius which went horribly, horribly wrong.
So I'm thinking he'd be down for making a spear for Kropor. This could well be a point of contention with Einchurt as well, who I'm thinking has a stronger view on the matter.
Also how do I edit the sheet?

I agree with most of what you've put forward. While I'm not particularly fond of the idea of the Seps having to call it quits at some point, it doesn make the most sense.

Very well, I trust that you'll see it through and come up with something great. I suggest changing the scheme to something without a lot of red, to show more distance from the Mechanicus than the Fists of Mars had. With the 20's horror thing you were suggesting, dark greens and blues might be the way to go?

Nah, the war really isn't one of succession. The Emperor should just get wrecked at the end of the Brotherway.

Oh, one other thought on the Admech thing:
Mot is traitor, Raj is loyalist. If the separatists are technologically advanced, I think they need technophile on their side and I think the three of them handle their technology in different ways.

I like this general idea. If we're not doing a war of succession, this seems like a good way to go. We could also have a Separatist legion go chaos and get booted from the team.

We'll see how it goes. Worst case, we can just rewrite. Honestly, with the whole ocean world background, I was considering a deep blue-green with neon blue highlights for that deep sea predator look.

I had been goofing around with some color schemes and got pic related. I think it looks pretty cool. The problem is that it's damn close to the Behemoth Guard color scheme. If it's good, I think we can go with that, else I'll mess around with some deep colors.

On the subject of the curse, I'm thinking it's some sort of degeneration. It may be as simple as something like the Curse of the Wulfen, where under extreme stress, astartes wolf out and go feral. Unlike the Spess Wulfs, though, it's uncontrollable. Unlike other curses, you can get better, meaning that sometimes a squad or even a company will come to after a battle and find themselves covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. Result is that the legion is highly secretive and tends to either fight such that this is no handicap or in such a way as to minimize the risk. This gives rise to a preference for macro-extinction campaigns and massed formations, the idea being that the legion gestalt will be harder to subvert. Means that they keep orderly ranks and all that jazz. Typically chant litanies and war sagas while fighting to keep in step. (ARE WE NOT MEN?)

I'm thinking they're best buddies with House Orhlacc.

Would be neat to have them keep the curse under wraps well enough that another legion fights with the goal of breaking their cohesion...

Alright, Empy starts to come and then he pulls out.
I think we can make Chaos indirectly involved with the secessionists simply by exposing their expeditions to chaos worship in the first place. Lots of unanswered shit that makes them question the Emperor's trustworthiness as they progress further and further away from Terra. A droplet in a sea, so to speak.

And speaking of "smaller tendrils": We still haven't really set the sizes of the Legions in stone, right? We could make them all fairly small sized in the case of the actual chaos heretics. Loxodontii peak at ~100'000, but I wouldn't mind going down to say 80'000 - 90'000.
About the fronts: I think we should go the military route. There's enough potential for inter-personal interaction there that we haven't exhausted, yet. Also, don't forget there's the great crusade up until the Ullanor campaign (or our own version of it) where there's not yet clearly cut expeditions, and where legions may interact with eachother who would not meet during the brotherwar.

...thinking that doing so will cause their lines to fold, but instead gets an entire army to go werewolf on their ass. Perhaps it gets misunderstood as chaos taint by observers and is one of the reasons the XVth joins the separatists.

Could be that there's a major campaign shortly before hostilities break out, akin to the Rangdan Xenocides which reduces some legion's strengths.

I think having some unexplained warp phenomena pop up would definitely be useful in shaking resolve.

Since Raj is the loyalist technophile, and he dies during the Siege of Terra, that might further add to the Imperium's technological stagnation. Just something worth considering.

I'd try to distance them from the Behemoth Guard. Their scheme is sweet, but part of the power of a color scheme comes from uniqueness.

Are you actually going for wolves? That doesn't seem to be particularly connected to either the Ocean world or AdMech aspects. How are you planning on tying it all together? Or should I just wait until you've delivered your write-up?

Right, fair point.

Speaking of legion numbers, I've put the Titan Marchers on 88,000. Considering the Marchers are a support legion and they'd be spread across all fronts, I think I should up that quite significantly. Anyone agree?

Agreed. Empy gathers the primarchs and rallies the legions to squash a major threat, then appoints the warmasters, then fucks off to wank on the golden throne.

I don't think so, actually. Maybe up them to around 95'000, but I wouldn't go beyond 100'000, seeing how they're supposed to be a support faction PLUS, if I recall correctly, they deploy titans and knights? A single knight is probably worth around two squads full of space marines. Having those superheavies plus a large amount of marines is quite possibly a fairly overpowered combination.

Well, I'm reworking it. See, my original idea was something of a schwarzwald planet. Planet Eastern Europe from Dracula. Idea was it was a subsidiary Knight World or something so you had fragments of archaeotech still functioning. From time to time, magi would come and conduct strange experiments beneath stormy skies. They'd have had sort of an eastern european feel. Knights of the Dragon or Knights of Lupus. All fits together easy. So here, I think SepMech has some really neat ideas that work with the archetypal thrust-- eg the ocean and tides as metaphors for the unconscious mind, and some good ones for this setting-- eg admech interactions, analytic attitude, so atm I'm trying to blend them together. The image in my mind is something like that famous picture of Nosferatu, and the techpriests have a lot of haggard Herr Doktor Rotwang. I'd kind of like to add some Caligari style mesmerists, but I am trying to respect SepMech's intention with regard to the anti-psyker attitude, though it may be that the original Librarius experiments resulted in Caligari shit, which is why they don't do it often.

With regard to climate, I'm thinking much of the planet is coastal pine forests on stratovolcanoes, sort of like the Pacific Northwest, Japan, New Zealand, etc etc, so if you can think of any good monsters from there, let me know.

So I'm thinking there's a few options for the curse:
Choose an under appreciated monster-- Wendigo comes most immediately to mind, but they're not exactly coastal.

Make up a word/monster-- Probably the best solution if we were writing a Le Guinn style scifi novel, but of limited utility in this scenario.

Fishmen-- Good old Lovecraft. Turning into deep ones and all that. Catch here is that fish/lizardmen don't feel right to me when there's not an ocean for them to go back into, but it's growing on me as I think about it. It has to be done right, though otherwise it's Flying Dutchman. IN SPACE.

Technicallly they deploy alongside the Titanicus and Knights instead of manning them themselves, but your point is valid. I've upped it to 95,000.

Jesus, this is exactly why I'm glad you're back. You've already put a lot of thought into it, looking forward to seeing your actual write-up.

My suggestion would be going for Fishmen. It might be the most simplistic, but thematically it's the strongest choice.

Ok, so I lied. I think the Fishmen angle could work pretty well. You have an Astartes succumb and they track him down, a long limbed, pale, horror with far too many teeth. It lurks in the shadows, clammy skin changing colors to blend in until suddenly it strikes, bioluminescent patches lighting up, something like a Kaiju from pacific rim in miniature. You could have a really creepy scene where erstwhile allies are sent in to find a missing squad and all they hear over the vox is a mix of Pacific Rim Kaiju and Heptapod A.

The most respected members of the legion are those who can do ambush operations without succumbing and they deck out their armor in bioluminescent patterns like the abyssal predators of their homeworld. Typically they also undergo surgery akin to that performed on skitarii, heavily dampening their ability to feel emotions, but protecting them from the worst of the curse. Maybe they have Thallax type servitors they command in their infiltration missions. Or maybe upgunned servo skulls/lesser skyllax. I'm imagining them infiltrating someplace and then beginning a cold emotionless hunt with cybernetic tendrils, sliding silently through the dark until they find their prey and then up go the colors and the killing begins. So respect tinged with horror.

Just a brief question: During the Great Crusade, how far along is the development of bolters and how widespread is the use of volkite weaponry?

I ask this because one of my plans for making the Sons of Sovereignty's armoury unique is to have them use a huge amount of volkite weaponry. As in, roughly a third of the legion still uses volkite chargers as their standard assault weapon rather bolters.

It's likely to be exceedingly expensive, but I'm hoping that's made up for by the fact that the Sons barely use any vehicles whatsoever, with dreadnoughts, whirlwinds and predators being almost non-existent within the legion.

Hey, beats the Sky Serpent's Volkite Fetish, where they had heavy armor and volkites, with the justification being that they brought in artificers specially for making volkites. It made more sense in context, but I, for one, think that sounds totally fair.
(In retrospect, I'd probably have had the Serpents take longer to get volkited up and a period with shotguns or something...)

Also worth asking:
Who invents the Razorback in this one?

in the hopes of not sounding like a giant arrogant douchebag: Let the Loxodontii invent them. Rhinos and Razorbacks are a centrepiece of their tactics.

Sounds good to me, I suggest you go ahead with that.

You hit it right on the head with this. While I'm unsure of the "revearing the primarch as the omnissiah" is where I was headed it certainlyr reaches the same endpoint.
Again, a similar point; a technophile and progressive (by standard AdMech standards) I had Vect see the Warp as something out of reach of his control...for now. As for the naming and everything rlse it is entirely your legion now. I'm happy to see part of the original plan be held and I'm more than happy to write up whatever tech heresy you desire

>I see an elite guard with Power Tridents and bolt crossbows.
>Fuck Yeah.

Are you only interested in writing up bits and gadgets for the Seperatists? Because I'd been thinking about writing up something for a Rajah-pattern Siege Dreadnought/Terminator, but I'm really bad at writing pieces like that.

Oh I'm happy to help! Wrote a dreadnought up earlier for the Silver Blades. Just give me an idea of what you'd like to see in it and I'll get to work.

Basically, I'm just looking for a Dreadnought that has completely forgone any sort of melee equipment and is in essence just a walking siege weapon. I wouldn't know what kind of weapon's you'd strap to such a thing though.

Meltas, Demolisher Cannons, Flamers, the usual things Astartes seige equipment (Ironclad Dreads, Vindicators, Leviathans, etc.) have

So a walking fire support platform? Well really there's no upper limit of what you can have. HK-missiles on the back, autocannons or lascannons? Really it's more what do you want in the standard pattern.

I see a Laser Destroy Array mounted on an the top of a squat, armless, quadruped dreadnought's chassis in my mind's eyes.

Isn't that pretty much a Leviathan Dreadnought that has taken only ranged weapons?

Well the Levisthan was not even really built by the mechanicus as it was by Terra and the big E himself. A lot of barely understood DAoT stuff that drove the people in them mad.

I'm not sure if that's what's wanted as much as a dedicated support siege platform.

Mortis dread?
Is there a dude interred inside it?

How would a bolt crossbow work? I was thinking stake crossbows as a possibility.

Could be a very hard to produce or even artificer bolter that instead of using the standard propellant to launch them (like a gyrojet) and instead uses an electric catapult (hence the use of crossbow arms to create tension) and the electricity activates the secondary charge to really get the stake moving. Slower to fire but are basically designed to punch through armor at short range.

I'mma make us a Discord server. Yay or nay?

If it were all sealed from an environment it would also allow for the crossbolt (in theory) to be fired underwater as well.

We've dabbled with the idea, and for now I think we're just putting our discord names in the sheet in case anyone wants to DM people.

I agree on that.

Missles and autocannons seem the most legit. The Marchers enjoy their explosions. Lasers are nice, but they do not weigh up against a missle.

Well, if it's a dread, obviously it's got a guy in it.

Feel free to post a link, I'll join most likely, though I can't say often enough that the major discussions should take place here, where we can archive it. Discord's a good place to discuss the basics of inter-Primarch relationships.

docs.google.com/document/d/1G-goEGC8ovWuQsE5qNSvERCtg9el9QIgL1cSTeue3AA/edit

Initial copypaste from my 1d4chan page.

As always, you might want to actually post a public link…

Goddammit.

docs.google.com/document/d/1G-goEGC8ovWuQsE5qNSvERCtg9el9QIgL1cSTeue3AA/edit

Yeah I think That Lambach would share certain views, and he is big on being on friendly terms with the other primarchs.
I guess it would be a good way of having the primarchs interact. As like a present of brotherhood? Or if you'd prefer go like Ferrus making Lorgars hammer, complete disdain?

Sounds like a deredeo pattern dread to me.

Posting this again

>Kothar Carnegal, Equerry of Mot Hadad
As sergeant of the Ashari Brotherhood, Kothar Carnegal is Mot Hadad's right hand man and mouthpiece of the legion. Terran born, Carnegal is in a unique position to mediate between Hadad and anyone else should his gene-father be in a disagreeable mood. Some have said that Carnegal once convinced Mot Hadad that he was wrong about something. Carnegal was sent to Nikaea in Mot Hadad's place as the primarch was convinced that his attentions were needed elsewhere.

What do you think? Too much like Kharn? What could I do better? I'm waiting to discuss the council of Nikaea until we decide what actually went down there.

Sure, what did you have In mind?

wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hellfire_Dreadnought

Literally this.

The Kharn comparison isn't necessarily a bad thing. Mot is like Angron, they need someone to keep them in check. If anything, Kharn is one of the Heresy era's best characters.

Planet Master will be the death of me.

Well I was fooling around with the idea of Lambach just using a normal spear from.his homeworld until 1 of his more techno / black smithy brothers decide it's not elaberate enough for someone of his nature. So I figured this would fall to Tide breakers or forge lords, and could be a good way to forge some character narrative.

I was actually thinking about this aspect of your fluff and thpught about maybe merging it with my own.
I said a few threads back that it would be cool if Linares and Lambach were friends but then Linares has to go full Russ on the CoH.
What I was thinking is that initially, after getting over the regret of having to bring in 1 of his closest friends the Silver Blades initiate a fairly 1 sided fight where the CoH take heavy losses. Then Lambach unleashes his newest spell, the one that got him in big trouble and raises all the fallen Silver Blades and Chosen as zombies. Initally shocked the Blades still win the fight but lose huge numbers doing so while Lambach and the surviving Chosen escape to join the chaos warmaster. What do you guys think to that?

I like it! Don't know how you or Silverish Guy would feel about it, and I don't want to push my own stuff too hard, but wouldn't it be possible for Raj, or atleast a decent chunk of his legion, being sent with Linares? I image a legion homeworld would be well defended and a Titan Legion wouldn't be out of place. Plus, it'd add to the relationship between Raj and Linares. Raj desperately needs decent relationships with his loyalist brothers, otherwise him staying loyal is kind of iffy.

Yeah I certainly don't mind Raj being involved. Especially as I think He and Lambach would also habe been very close. I only worry about "hogging" all of the Loyalists attention.
I do think it could be a very interesting time for Primarchs involved and gives us a few chances at cool storyline points.

So, there was some discussion previously about exactly how the Separatists might come to be, and survive in a *plausible* manner. I have done some thinking regarding this.

There's two phases to the Separatist existence, immediately during the Heresy, and then surviving long term to M40.

Early on it's easy. If the Separatists just so happen to mostly be near any part of the Galactic Fringe (logically Ultima but could equally be any Segmentum to shake things up a little bit.), then they can simply hide in the shadows. They'd be pulling a Rorshach "The Imperium looked to us to save them, and we said... no." Chaos betrays the Imperium, it's like a 6v6 Legion fight or something (Heresy in miniature), and the Separatists simply pull back as far as they can and conserve their strength.

That does require them to be REMARKABLY callous towards their Astartes brethren though. It also implies that they had some forewarning about Chaos (yet chose not to join and somehow got away with it), since if they break away and the other Legions *don't* fight each other, then the Seps get to go like 7 v 14+Living Emps, and are of course blown the FUCK out with no effort whatsoever. And do remember, if Chaos knows that the Seps know of their plans at all, it behooves Chaos strategically to stall and try to blow the whistle on the Seps! So the Seps have to get an inkling of what Chaos plans, without Chaos knowing they know.

Later survival is of course much harder to justify. As we know, the Imperium beats back Chaos then there's that era of purging immediately after the Heresy where they reach the Imperium's *actual* peak. There is 0 chance the Imperium won't extend that period and also move against the Seps. A common threat will hold the Imperials together that much longer.

>cont.

We can handwave that Chaos doesn't lose so hard of course. But that's lame. We can handwave that the Imperials are so battered after the big fight to drive Chaos back into the Eye that they never get their feet underneath them enough to mount a credible strike against the Seps. That's more plausible, but still kinda weak since it implies the Imperium is already virtually impotent in M31.

We can handwave technological superiority on the Seps part, which is weak as I've already described. But, there are two flavors of this, one more palatable than the other. The shit way is to say "There's a technological Renaissance for the Seps and they come up with all this bullshit-powerful stuff that the Imps can't match, despite having little more than a frontier-level manufacturing/population base". That is weak as fuck. And feels very wanky.

The other way is to say that "We may not have been able to advance, but by simple virtue of *not* having been ground down in the fight for Terra, we still have all our Crusade shit, AND the technical documents needed to keep it running." IF we choose to argue technological superiority for the Seps, this makes the most sense to me. They don't go above and beyond, they simply don't backslide so hard since "Humanity's Library" only burned down once for them, to paraphrase that classic greentext story.

It could also be argued that functional xeno alliances help keep the Seps alive. I will fight that with every ounce of my being, because that way lies the Knights Inductor and would signal the project's creative bankruptcy. Fuck that noise.

>cont.

Now, once the Seps have survived a little while, we can posit that given a "three way war", Chaos must also be much more active than in the OU. Lorgar and Magnus and them all sit on their asses for fucking ever and never do shit. If on the other hand our equivalents DON'T, then the Imperium can never truly strike at the Seps with their full force, lest the Eye pour troops into their flanks. This provides plausible justification for why they can remain stable. It also works in reverse, the Seps can never truly feel comfortable moving deep into Imperial space for the same reason.

Very long-term, the Tyranids will arrive. This could go two ways. The Imperials could say "As you abandoned us, so shall we abandon you. The death of all Humanity is nothing compared to making sure you shitfucks don't get away with what you did." Then you have the Ultramarines Vs. Nids fight but scaled way up, and they probably hold. For a while.

Alternately, the Imperials and Seps could reach a detente, saying "Fine. We still hate you. We still remember what you did. But you guys still have Volkite Weapons and Contemptor Dreads, we don't, Chaos is still a thing and your supply lines are far, far shorter than ours would have to be to fight the Nids. Maybe peace can be bought by a trillion Tyranid skulls."

Bonus hilarity ensues if a particularly panicked High Lord/Lords falsify a "vision from da Emprah" saying that he will forgive his wayward sons if they defend Humanity in its true darkest hour because they're scared shitless they will be eaten by Nids. Double bonus points if somehow the Emperor *actually* weighs in on the subject.

The wildest of all possible scenarios is if the Seps decide to take the fight to Chaos. Either because they care more about killing Chaos than their own survival (for some reason), or because they eventually tire of the Galactic Stalemate and try returning to the Emperor by closing the Eye. Plausibility is strained by this though.

Thoughts?

Also, dark brown + gold is a vastly better color scheme than I would have expected. Playing with random shit on the painter sometimes bears nice fruit it seems.

I'd prefer a more active Brotherwar, with all three factions involved and fighting eachother, though the points you stipple out in regards to that. You say Chaos would probably hold off on going to war, but you have the keep in mind it's Chaos we're dealing with and logical decision making probably isn't their strong suit.

I don't have as much issue with the Seperatist advancing in technology quicker than the Loyalists. You brought up the point that there's a good reason the AdMech goes through all the rituals they do and that the Seperatists would probably be in great danger trying to make rapid advances, but it's also heavily implied that the AdMech seems to go too far in their conservatism, much further than they really have to.

I agree that the Seps shouldn't ally themselves with Xenos. Instead, they should conquer Xenos empires and turn them into auxiliary slave races.

Plenty of other good points have been discussed in regards to the Seperatist and what they have to do and what we want them to do because it's cool. As usual, the best answer is probably somewhere in the middle, so I suggest reading back some of the discussion in regards to the Seperatist from the past day or two.

Also, we still need a spiffy logo for the Seps, to go along with the Imperial Aquilla and the Chaos Star.

>logical decision making probably isn't their strong suit

This is true, but I base my assumptions largely on what we see early in the Heresy before everyone's brains get turned inside out by the Gods. They're allied to Chaos, but there's a much greater sense of planning, purpose and unity amongst the Traitors than you'd expect when compared to M41 Chaos troops.

Our Horus-equivalent would be well-advised to let the Separatists tip their hand first if at all possible, if he truly wants to topple the Imperium. That's all I'm getting at.

For now, I'm thinking presents of brotherhood. Given Lambach is trying to be on friendly terms with everyone, I think the lord of the XVth would reciprocate.

I like it and it totally seems like the kind of weapon they'd use. Give it a name like a Bolt Caliver or something, a mini-railgun kind of deal.

Though guns work underwater just fine since they contain their own oxidizer. It's also why you can fire a gun (or bolter) in space. The issue under water is fluid dynamics since its so dense. If I'm not mistaken, slower projectiles actually get along better under water since the stress tends to turn regular bullets into shrapnel near the surface.
Seems good to me. As others have said, the Kharn role is an important one and offers a lot of dramatic opportunity.

>Detante
I like. I think it makes a good deal of sense. You get crusades and border wars that flare up, but they usually see chaos as the bigger threat.

>Seps and Xenos
I personally liked the Xenos as slaves.

>Seps and Tech and survival
I liked the argument that they have shorter supply lines and can really concentrate on being well defended and organized. Granted that requires them to get going. But as per I also really like that idea with the Nids.

>Brotherwar
I personally like a massive war of succession, to be honest. It gets all three sides at eachother's throats, with each Warmaster a viable candidate. It also has the veneer of history.

In my model, the Emperor retires to Terra and either has some sort of issue in the webway and there's some sort of massive clusterfuck in the Imperial Palace or somebody (either separatists or chaos) attempts to initiate a heresy, the goals being different depending on the side. Either way, the Emperor gets wounded pretty early on and the war becomes one of succession.

I'll write something up for it. Perhaps figure out a pattern name and whatnot.

Which xenos are you actually going to take as slaves though?

Eldar/Dark Eldar? Good luck with *that*.

Orks? Guaranteed slave rebellions when the Ork spores inevitably bloom inside your base. Also Wierdboys will occasionally fuck you from the inside.

Tau? They don't even really exist in this time frame, nor are they likely to given where the Separatists are likely to travel.

Necrons? Lol.

Tyranids? Don't show up till very late. Also lol x2.

Minor xenos races? Literally who cares, plus if they're any good for anything at all, it's going to sound very circlejerky. "Oh yeah these random xenos are just amazingly good at ______, yet we're the only ones who have access to them". Like if the Separatists had a shitload of Jokaero or something, people are going to call bullshit.

Xeno slaves just... I don't think it's a good or productive idea.

So I think it comes down to a question of motives.

Loyalists are superficially easy. Pro-Emperor faction. The wrinkle is the other two.

A major question is whether chaos starts off chaosy or not. Are the chaos legions corrupted by chaos at the beginning of their campaign? If not, what is their beef? Why are they rebelling?

The other one is what the big issue for the separatists is. A bunch of primarchs got together and had an anarchist/minarchist reading group? Why does the Ancien Regime guy end up declaring independence? And what about it draws other primarchs to his cause?

This set of issues, then, really gets in to why the loyalists are loyal.

I think the best answer to this is to talk about our primarch's motivations.

The Lord of the XVth (working on that name) splinters for a few reasons. I'm thinking he has a few differences in approach to his father. It's not a huge deal, more on the order of the Khan-- sort of like Leto II and Muadib. Means he hates the Ecclesiarchy when it develops.
I think part of it is also that the casual cruelty of some legions like the Death's Heads bothers him. It isn't that he's not pragmatic, it's that he thinks the Imperium has expanded too quickly and the extremes are the result of chronic mismanagement. He believes that by taking a smaller realm and developing it, he can make a better place. This also isn't really a critical issue. I'm sure some primarch has an Ultramar or Jade Empire and the Lord of the XVth wishes to promote that idea. He also could try to set up one of his own. Problem is that his legion is always on the front and they're not people people. They're scientists and to an extent artists. So I think this is something he admires in Gregroire and part of why he's drawn ideologically to the Separatist cause-- smaller, more focused states are better able to work with their people and avoid the sorts of ruthless pragmatism that leads to the atrocities,..

I've been reading through these threads and I think the whole separatist thing with three sides is pretty interesting and I was wondering if I could throw ideas in.

Just having the slave labour in general is a good boost to the seperatists to help their production efforts against the imperium which has the more developed core worlds of the DOAT human civilization and great crusade

Feel free to! Any ideas in particular?

There's plenty of xenos on plenty of worlds, most of them just get fucked by humanity and don't get the chance to leave their world. It's perfectly possible for the Seps to take worlds with xenos populations and dominate them.

Considering the fact that the Seps take Horus' route of being disgusted with the Imperium and the Astartes' place in the world, it seems like Chaos would have to be Chaos-y from the start.

But how are you going to meaningfully control those slaves? Think about who you're trying to put the whip to. These aren't half-starved humans with no natural weapons or psychic abilities, these are deadly species.

And if we handwave it to say "well we just put some kind of brain blocker in them" then they're not even all that good as slaves. Servitors would do just as well if not better, and for cheaper.

Yeah it seems to me there is a significant amount less "Death to the false emperor" and more "for the ruinous powers" among our Chaos forces, even at the start.

orbital bombardment is a thing and even in the eastern fringe there would still be plenty of humans to put into place to hold whatever the whip would be during this time period

Minor xenos. Less because they're good at things, and more because they're completely expendable. Stuff like tellarians or whatever.

...Again, it's not that he doesn't purge and the like, he just sees it as a massive inefficiency. He's envisioning Crusade-Era Ultramar or the Jade Empire. When he gets his own domain post-war, it doesn't turn out so well for a few reasons. Partly it's him and his legion. They're not suited to the task. They can administer well because they're astartes, but they'd rather be in the studio/lab/forge. Part of it is that everything has gone to shit and the fulfillment of his idea for smaller primarch domains comes in a world where there is no margin for error.

Even this could have worked. If it was just civil war, he'd have been able to remain loyal. He believes in the Emperor. But the damned Symphonious Disciples have gotten into power. And they're setting policy. And that is unacceptable.
And then there's also that minor note that some other legion, perhaps the aforementioned Disciples bumped into some fishman'd out astartes and thought it was chaos taint and got their rivals in the XVth declared Excommunicatus Traitoris.
(Pending user's agreement)

So basically fucked and stuck in a sticky position, the XVth went with Gregoire.

If it's romance of the three kingdoms IN SPACE, then they'll just support their candidate.

Hmm. Actually i think Xuns Idea of thr secession war makes the most sense. All fight for the golden throne. Having an empire somewhere on the galactic fringe is nothing. You want to sit on terra to rule them all. Otherwise you are a loser. Funnily something akin to game of thrones where terra is the iron throne ( nobody wants to ait on the golden throne -> speaking of which: how do they plan to keep the astronomicon alive IF the seps would win?)

For the motivation of the primarch:
As stated before Kane seeks power for himself to gain true freedom as ruler of his own empire. His men are important to that cause. Because of that he tries to invent tactics which ensures that the job is done and the men under his command survive. But whem givem the option of true power via khorne, he jas to decide if he drags his men with him in the darkness or not. We all know that he choses darkness and sacrifes his men. But he will not bend his knee. He did not bend it for the emperor and he will not bend it for khorne. He wants power but wants to retain his personal freedom.

>Considering the fact that the Seps take Horus' route of being disgusted with the Imperium and the Astartes' place in the world, it seems like Chaos would have to be Chaos-y from the start.
Have the Chaos traitors rebel first then have the separatists follow up.

newb here

if i buy a regular blue space marine box and paint them red could i play them as blood angels or is this not allowed?

>speaking of which: how do they plan to keep the astronomicon alive IF the seps would win?
Emperor is a puppet.

They're the same models.

The chaos warmaster could influence the sep to stay away. But how? Actively trap them or should they work togheter and then the sepa backstab the chaos but also attack the loyalists? I would prefer the other way that the seps rebel furst and chaos backstabs thrm but the loyalists can't forgive the seps and continue to fight against them.

First wave (Primarily Chaos, some legions aren't) rebels, Imperium enacts drastic measures, some primarchs don't like it, try to split away in a second rebellion, some primarchs from the first rebellion join them.

I'm on mobile so I can't edit the doc, but someone wrote that Mot is anti-psyker when he's really just indifferent. Hell, towards the end of the great crusade he might just have used a tiny bit of sorcery. Would someone please rectify that for me?

Changed it to undecided/absent

Is there any room for more primarchs and if there is does anyone have a list of the ones that were created so far

All the legions as of this moment have been filled in and i've been working on the SepMech (hence the name). So likewise all the Primarchs have been taken.

We're unfortunately full at the moment. You'll find a complete list in the google doc in the OP. Feel free to stick around though, a spot might just open up?

If we posit that the Chaos Warmaster is feeling pressure from the Gods to go ahead and make shit happen (as opposed to trying to get the Seps to go to war first to pre-weaken the Loyalists), then it would logically follow that the ChaosMaster might try to get those Legions he suspects are not *truly* loyal, yet not vulnerable enough to Chaos to bring into the fold without unacceptable risk out on the Imperial Fringes.

3 perspectives on one action:

Imperials think the ChaosMaster is doing a good job encouraging certain Legions to really get out there and fight for the Emperor at the Galaxy's edge.

Separatists think there's a stroke of luck, they have an ostensibly loyal Legion giving them the cover story needed to put some distance between themselves and Terra before they make their move without arousing suspicion.

Chaos Legions of course simply congratulate their Warmaster on a manipulation well done, and prepare for open war in short order.

I have a question: Why is Mot Hadad Ashur's first choice for techy traitor?

That could work, but I think it would require a lot of luck to pick the right legions. The Warmaster would also be expecting a quick victory, not sure how feasible that is, given the defenses of Terra.
I also think if the Separatists were already planning something, and the Warmaster had an inkling of it, he could just expose them and use the ensuing purge to weaken the loyalist legions.

That's a neat idea. We could have the loyalist Warmaster go massively overboard in reprisals, that sort of thing.

You put your Discord name in the sheet, by the way (if you have one)

I think it would be efficient for us to talk out the Transition of the Legion. Plus with me basically being the SepMech writer (as far as has been established) you and I will probably be working closely.

>he could just expose them and use the ensuing purge to weaken the loyalist legions.

That's what I had said earlier, but everyone seemed to think that Chaos wouldn't do something like that because they're nuts.

I can't actually edit the sheet.

Ah. Sometimes you just can't win. But yeah, I agree with you.

So I suppose we need to pick a scenario. Atm we have:

1. Chaos makes the first move
--A. They send the Seps to the far side of the galaxy
--B. The Seps are mostly alienated loyalists because Je'She has no concept of proportional response or civilian.
--C. Seps splinter from Chaos after they see just how nuts chaos is.

2. Seps make the first move
--A. They're exposed by Chaos
--B. They're acting on their own and Chaos launches their own offensive
--C. Some of the Separatists fall to chaos.

3. Romance of the Three Imperiums
--A. The Big E is put into critical condition at the height of Ullanor or an equivalent. He's taken back to Terra in stasis by the custodes.
--B. Something happens in the webway
--C. The Emperor is knocked out fairly early and shit goes crazy from there.

This is by no means exhaustive.

I personally like 3A the most.

I like 3C, because it introduces the possibility of a new and terrifying faction, led by a fearsome tyrant that brings even the Emperor to heel.

Then again, such a creature would draw attention away from the Heresy.

This is Rokuten.

Not sure which one yet, but one of the 3s sounds pretty good. Though whatever takes out Big E has to be pretty major… also, I take the Emperor is just brought down, not outright killed yet?

>a fearsome tyrant that brings even the Emperor to heel.

It would be very dramatic perhaps, but where in the blue hell would such a thing plausibly come from? If there was a human at that level, someone would have noticed (or if they didn't it becomes a complete ass-pull on our part), and if it's not human... Well then.

If Daemon then why do they need a Horus?
If Xeno then why hasn't it "Beasted" everything already?

>Emperor blasts Horus out of existance at the end of the Horus Heresy
>Horus is thrown into another universe
>He wants revenge…

jk

So spitballing on legion culture and names and shit, I'm trying to think of stuff at home in misty seaside pine forests with a hint of terror. Perhaps something like Ingmarr Hrelyeh. Another option is to use some Tibetan because the consonant clusters are insane. Khrobo Rgyal.

Wardens of the Deep
Tide...
Dawn Breakers

I think so, yeah, though if people want to kill him off, I guess we could do that, but that would be major.

Actually one side effect of 3 would he that terra would be largely left alone. There'd be a siege once chaos comes out, but at first the Custodes would have it and keep it cordoned off. Just a thought.