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We all know about the Astral Claws' biggest space marine chapter heresy since the 31st millenia, but what about guardsmen legions? Have there been any large numbers of Imperial Guard legions turning heretic in a somewhat spectacular fashion?

If not can anyone direct me to some more famous renegade guard legions from the HH, my friend is putting together a renegade guard army to double team with my Daemon army and he asked me for some different renegade guard legions he could theme his army after.

Thanks.

The most visually spectacular betrayal is probably the Volscani Cataphracts' betrayal at the Kerrok Fields - just before the outbreak of the 13th Black Crusade.

The Imperium had figured out that a Black Crusade was coming and started mustering up forces. Kerrok Fields is a big landing & mustering field on Cadia, where regiments from just-about-everywhere were landing and forming up.

The Volscani formed up to be reviewed and then when the Planetary' governor's command leviathan rolled past, suddenly unfurled chaos banners and charged. They managed to disable the leviathans, killed the Cadian governor and came within a hair of wiping out the rest of Cadian High Command before a counter-charge by the Cadian 8th (led by one U.A.Creed) stopped them (which is how he got his current job).


Other good renegade forces:

Vraks Militia - Vraks was a Munitorium 'Armoury World' which turned traitor. The war between the defending militia and the Death Korps was a bloody trench siege that killed millions on both sides (the defenders, for obvious reasons - 'Armoury World' - had no problem matching anything the attackers threw at them in terms of artillery and ammo supplies).

The Blood Pact - one of the more 'competent' Chaos infantry forces. Not technically renegade guard because they've never been Imperial Guard - they are militarily disciplined and competent chaos soldiers raised during the Sabbat Crusade.

The Stigmartus - A pretty close match in competence but with more of a religious bent; led by Cult-General Elak Sarda, and such ranks as Officer-Bishop. They are again, chaos soldiery but more disciplined than most cultist forces - raised to try and stop an Imperial Crusade into the area around the Hadex Anomaly, with the aid of a few of the Word Bearers (hence the religious tendancies).

The Free Systems Alliance - mentioned in passing in Black Crusade. Very little detail but essentially a non-imperial group of worlds which increasingly embraced the powers of the warp as an alternative to being subsumed into and crushed by the Imperium. Essentially 40k-ify the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars with the Imperium cast as the 'Evil Galactic Empire' and the Warp instead of the Force. There is, in this case, only the (Grim) Dark Side.

Severian Dominate also counts, from the Deathwatch RPG. Altough it's relatively tame, when compared to Volscani, for example.

 mrhappyface wrote:
We all know about the Astral Claws' biggest space marine chapter heresy since the 31st millenia, but what about guardsmen legions? Have there been any large numbers of Imperial Guard legions turning heretic in a somewhat spectacular fashion?

If not can anyone direct me to some more famous renegade guard legions from the HH, my friend is putting together a renegade guard army to double team with my Daemon army and he asked me for some different renegade guard legions he could theme his army after.

Thanks.

The Macharian Heresy

Does The Confederation of Light count? Technically a religious order, but they definitely had a ton IG on their side when they took the galaxy from Goge Vandire.

Oh, and they won and took over the Imperium, so that's pretty big.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Confederation_of_Light

Vandire was the heretic, not Sebastian Thor.

 Psienesis wrote:
Vandire was the heretic, not Sebastian Thor.

Only because Vandire lost

 Psienesis wrote:
Vandire was the heretic, not Sebastian Thor.

The winner writes history. If Vandire had won, Sebastian Thor would have just been one more in a long line of heretics with delusions of grandeur, and his movement just one more in a line of crushed religious uprisings.

Also, the Dark Heresy RPG showed that the some remnants of the religious faction of Vandire, the Temple of the Saviour Emperor (i.e. the original Ministorum) have remained. They see themselves as the true faithful and see the Imperium as corrupted by being taken over by heretics. They were unofficially known as the "Temple Tendency".

It all depends on the point of view. If they ever got back into power, the Ecclesiarchy would be dismissed as an illegitimate rebellion, just like how other long lived regimes like the Ur-Council of Nova Terra (which lasted for 900 years) were portrayed as illegitimate.

In fact, that was one of the story hooks for this in the RPG: The PCs are sent to track down and suppress any remnants of the Temple they find. However what if in the course of their adventures they start to think the Temple might be right?

Wouldn't Cadian's be the biggest imperial guard "group". All the people are given martial training, the pdf is as proficient as a guard regiment and the guard regiments take the best of the PDF. Its society is entirely martial where other regiments' societies are more peaceful and the production of imperial guard seems to not be top priority.

Krieg might also be numerous having cloning and stuff. Necromunda used to be in the fluff for making lots of troops, having such a high population. I think Mordia is similar. Looking at the list of hiveworlds Ichar IV (in ultramar) has a pop of 500bn which probably makes a lot of troops, Minea has 250bn so probably also makes lots of troops.

Cadia has a relatively tiny population, only 850 million.

 mrhappyface wrote:
We all know about the Astral Claws' biggest space marine chapter heresy since the 31st millenia.

Actually the greatest accolade the Badab War has earned is that it was the largest Astartes conflict since* the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion a mere century before, which according to Imperial Armour 9 spanned a quarter of the Segmentum Solar and was only the largest Imperial civil war for a millenium.

* with the exception of a few sources which erroneously referred to it *as* the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion.

 fallinq wrote:
Does The Confederation of Light count? Technically a religious order, but they definitely had a ton IG on their side when they took the galaxy from Goge Vandire.

Nah, they had permission from the Emperor so they don't count as heresy. People can whine "history is written by the winner" all they want, but that doesn't actually match with the lore where it outright states that the Emperor had Alicia Dominica execute Vandire. I guess if you want to exclude that from your headcannon for whatever reason, then whatever.

 Melissia wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Does The Confederation of Light count? Technically a religious order, but they definitely had a ton IG on their side when they took the galaxy from Goge Vandire.

Nah, they had permission from the Emperor so they don't count as heresy. People can whine "history is written by the winner" all they want, but that doesn't actually match with the lore where it outright states that the Emperor had Alicia Dominica execute Vandire. I guess if you want to exclude that from your headcannon for whatever reason, then whatever.

Technically what happened is a Custodus took Dominica to the Golden Throne, and then no one knows what took place there. Then she declared Vandire a heretic and cut off his head. So the situation is a little more ambiguous than you're making it sound.

Cardinal Bucharis (the "bag guy" from the battle of the fang, I think) had a large force that would have been made up of Guard Regiments. I am a bit rusty on the details though, so that might need some fact-checking.

Probably the storm of iron book.

Or that one time when the grandmaster assassin killed all the highlords or terra then wrecked a bunch of space marines until he got blaped by a single spacearine

Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

He banned all religion that wasn't centered on him as the object of devotion. There were billions of people on Terra alone that worshiped him as a god while he was walking around doing his GC thing, and he made no attempt to stop them.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

He banned all religion that wasn't centered on him as the object of devotion. There were billions of people on Terra alone that worshiped him as a god while he was walking around doing his GC thing, and he made no attempt to stop them.

Well I don't know the details, but he did punish lorgar for building shrine worlds during the great crusades. However I can't remember if that was because he was taking too long or because the emperor didn't like such relegious imagery. :/
Can someone confirm?

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

He banned all religion that wasn't centered on him as the object of devotion. There were billions of people on Terra alone that worshiped him as a god while he was walking around doing his GC thing, and he made no attempt to stop them.

Well I don't know the details, but he did punish lorgar for building shrine worlds during the great crusades. However I can't remember if that was because he was taking too long or because the emperor didn't like such relegious imagery. :/
Can someone confirm?

The destruction of Monarchia by the Ultramarines, on orders of the Emperor. The incident lowered Guilliman's opinion of the Emperor, and may have had some influence on his actions in forming the Imperium Secundus (among other things going on). But most importantly, it was probably the pivotal incident that led to the Horus Heresy.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

He banned all religion that wasn't centered on him as the object of devotion. There were billions of people on Terra alone that worshiped him as a god while he was walking around doing his GC thing, and he made no attempt to stop them.

Well I don't know the details, but he did punish lorgar for building shrine worlds during the great crusades. However I can't remember if that was because he was taking too long or because the emperor didn't like such relegious imagery. :/
Can someone confirm?

The destruction of Monarchia by the Ultramarines, on orders of the Emperor. The incident lowered Guilliman's opinion of the Emperor, and may have had some influence on his actions in forming the Imperium Secundus (among other things going on). But most importantly, it was probably the pivotal incident that led to the Horus Heresy.

Thanks, but did the Emperor order this destruction because he did not like the relegious imagery?

 mrhappyface wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Well I'm pretty sure the Ecclesiarchy's dominance over the Imperium is technically heresy seeing the emperor banned *all* religion.

He banned all religion that wasn't centered on him as the object of devotion. There were billions of people on Terra alone that worshiped him as a god while he was walking around doing his GC thing, and he made no attempt to stop them.

Well I don't know the details, but he did punish lorgar for building shrine worlds during the great crusades. However I can't remember if that was because he was taking too long or because the emperor didn't like such relegious imagery. :/
Can someone confirm?

The destruction of Monarchia by the Ultramarines, on orders of the Emperor. The incident lowered Guilliman's opinion of the Emperor, and may have had some influence on his actions in forming the Imperium Secundus (among other things going on). But most importantly, it was probably the pivotal incident that led to the Horus Heresy.

Thanks, but did the Emperor order this destruction because he did not like the relegious imagery?

I suppose so. It was a punitive action against Lorgar and the Word Bearers, because they violated the Emperor's policy of forced atheism, via the Imperial Truth. So, yeah. The Emperor was especially unhappy that he was the object of devotion in this "illegal" little cult that Lorgar built up.

Not that it mattered anyway, since there were plenty of secret Emperor cults in existence on Terra at the time. And they formed the basis of the pre-Thorian Imperial Creed. I guess the Emperor didn't stop to think that if you look, act, and have super powers like Space Jesus, people are gonna think you're Space Jesus.

Macharian Heresy. Took substantial resources to put down

Probably during the 13th Black Crusade.