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Which SM legions took part in the Great Crusade? Am i right in presuming it was just the Original 20 Chapters, or had the sub-chapters formed by then?


Also, would a Sub-chapter e.g Black Templars have Armour marks from before the heresy?

The Great Crusade was when the Legions (original 20) cleansed the galaxy, world by world, disovering the Primarchs along the way. The first Armour Mark seen in space was the mark II, Crusade armour, because it was the first to seal the user from the environment

All of them.
White Scars
Imperial Fists
Ultramarines
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Raven Guard
Salamanders
Iron Hands
Space Wolves
Word Bearers
Black Legion
Thousand Sons
Emperor's Children
Iron Warriors
Night Lords
Alpha Legion
World Eaters
Death Guard
Plus two who we have little information about.

Many Legions were organized into "companies" or "chapters", but they were still part of the Legion.

The First Company of maybe, the first Five Foundings would probably have some armor marks in their first company.

The great crusade ended with the heresy. Armor fielded before the HH was used and repaired until it finally failed, but certainly not everyone replaced the armor with newer Mk's so any working suit would be kept.

Some chapters had bits of fluff about using older Mk's ( Raven Guard, consecrators, etc ) and any pre Mk VI would be a pre-heresy design.
Thus, Mk II ( very rare ), Mk III, IV, V could be mixed into squads.
Still power-armor is standardized and maybe the suit isn't 100% from the time of the great crusade as replacements are possible.

Legions weren't organized into chapters, just companies

Word Bearers jump out in opposition to that, they were sub-organized into Chapters.

why?

Well, because that's the way they chose to organize themselves, each Chapter was named after a star constellation that could be seen on Colchis, their Primarchs homeworld.

Oh right

Yes, the original twenty legions were the only participants in the Great Crusade.

Earlier versions of Space Marine armor are certainly possible (and even likely) within those Chapters. The Space Marines are big fans of keeping their gear around until it is no loner usable.

The later chapters (Black Templars, Hawk Lords, etc) were formed after the Heresy. It was decided that Legions were too big and too powerful, so they had to be broken down. Those successor Chapters still had to be equipped however, and it is not inconceivable that they would have venerated pieces of wargear that had been brought with the original founding members of the Chapter (who would have been members of their parent Chapter at one point, at least some of them). Since several versions of armor have come out since the Heresy, another scenario that is likely is that of the hand-me-downs. When newer, better wargear becomes available, if an established Chapter decides that they don't want to hang on to their older gear, they may take the newer stuff and pass on their old armor to one of the younger Chapters, probably ones that are more in need of such apparel.

Just my take on it, two possibilities. Either way, if you want to field models in a Black Templar force who are wearing older armor, feel free! It helps give the units some personality! I myself try to take and convert as many figs as possible who have the older armor. I think it distinguishes my infantry better.

Thanks for the answers guys.

I'm buying some MkIII soon(ish), and so was wondering whether it would fit the fluff to fit into a a sub-chapter, but I think i've decided on Imperial Fists anyway!

Thanks again folks.

iproxtaco wrote:Word Bearers jump out in opposition to that, they were sub-organized into Chapters.

So were the Blood Angels. And a few other legions as well.

Matrim wrote:Thanks for the answers guys.

I'm buying some MkIII soon(ish), and so was wondering whether it would fit the fluff to fit into a a sub-chapter, but I think i've decided on Imperial Fists anyway!

Thanks again folks.

any mark would work with any chapter.

2nd founding chapters would still have recieved/had preheresy equipment and this would have been passed down through the generations.


and occasionally a cach of weapons and armor from the time of the heresy is uncovered. usually a fortress that was abandoned during the chaos of the heresy.

Older marks of armor are venerated as relics of the original Legions. It seems like even brand new Chapters will sometimes receive gifts from related Chapters, like a newly founded Ultramarines successor Chapter might be given an ancient weapon or suit of armor from an older successor Chapter, sort of a "welcome to the neighborhood" kind of present.

It also seems like this is the way Terminator armor is spread around, as depending on the fluff it's either extremely difficult or impossible to produce more. Like dreadnoughts, you fight to reclaim fallen Terminators so their armor can be repaired as best you can and re-used. Younger Chapters could potentially have less Terminator armor available as compared to an older Chapter. You may inherit some at your founding to get you started, but you're going to have to scrounge to find more, or wait for someone else to get wiped out and disbanded, if you want to increase your supply. This is one of the reasons spelunking on Space Hulks seems like such a popular pastime in spite of the obvious dangers.

Did the 2nd and 11th take part or were they destroyed previous to it? The Emperor's Children couldn't take part for the first few decades because of gene seed faults/corruption. If the lost legions were destroyed because of the same thing, they wouldn't have been part of the Crusade.

Durza wrote:Did the 2nd and 11th take part or were they destroyed previous to it? The Emperor's Children couldn't take part for the first few decades because of gene seed faults/corruption. If the lost legions were destroyed because of the same thing, they wouldn't have been part of the Crusade.

They did take part, but were destroyed during the Crusade.
The Emperors Children still took part, as did the 1k Sons (who also had some... problems )

iproxtaco wrote:Word Bearers jump out in opposition to that, they were sub-organized into Chapters.

Interesting.

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:Older marks of armor are venerated as relics of the original Legions. It seems like even brand new Chapters will sometimes receive gifts from related Chapters, like a newly founded Ultramarines successor Chapter might be given an ancient weapon or suit of armor from an older successor Chapter, sort of a "welcome to the neighborhood" kind of present.

It also seems like this is the way Terminator armor is spread around, as depending on the fluff it's either extremely difficult or impossible to produce more. Like dreadnoughts, you fight to reclaim fallen Terminators so their armor can be repaired as best you can and re-used. Younger Chapters could potentially have less Terminator armor available as compared to an older Chapter. You may inherit some at your founding to get you started, but you're going to have to scrounge to find more, or wait for someone else to get wiped out and disbanded, if you want to increase your supply. This is one of the reasons spelunking on Space Hulks seems like such a popular pastime in spite of the obvious dangers.

Terminator armour and other such relics are buildable it just takes a long time.
New chapters are unlikely to have much in the way of these suits whereas older chapter may have a large amount.

indeed, TDA is still completely replacable.

its just a time consuming process and its far easier to get some old suits back up and functioning again.

Re-building things also seems to be something the AdMech, and by extensio Techmarines, specialise in...
I'm not sure where (Possibly Titanicus) but it is implied that even titans that have been reduced to utter wrecks are taken and restored over a few decades/centuries of work.
And in Hellforged the Techmarine implies that they are actively encouraged to revuild things from wrecks.

its only good sense.


In a galaxy where you might be months, or even years, away from the nearest source of fresh war material recycling is encouraged.


its always cheaper to fix something then make a new one. this is why you will usually try and fix your car if it breaks rather then buy a new one.

Plus, it fits with the IoM's stance on 'older is better' (except Bolters and PA)

iproxtaco wrote:Well, because that's the way they chose to organize themselves, each Chapter was named after a star constellation that could be seen on Colchis, their Primarchs homeworld.

There's others too. According to the HH books, at least the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels were organised into Legion > Chapter > Company > Squad.

Exactly gents...
Kind of odd the IoM making sense...

ArbitorIan wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Well, because that's the way they chose to organize themselves, each Chapter was named after a star constellation that could be seen on Colchis, their Primarchs homeworld.

There's others too. According to the HH books, at least the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels were organised into Legion > Chapter > Company > Squad.

I'm not saying they were the only ones, but when he said that they didn't organize themselves into chapters, the Word Bearers were the first to come to mind because I had recently read the part where Lorgar talks about the naming of the chapters.

Basically, the 20 legions and billions of Imperial Army servicemen. People always talk only about the SM, for some reason completely unrelated to the fact that GW wants SM to be seen as the best and sell better

People talk about the Space Marines when disusing the HORUS Heresy? Yeah, because that's so odd isn't it, I mean, it's not as if the Astartes weren't the driving force, starters, and main fighting force in it were they?

Oh Snap!

And another thing, isn't it weird that we were talking about the Legions when the original question was a question about them? It's so odd that he would get an on-topic answer!

tbh iproxtaco, the response should have been 'obvious troll is obvious'