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Basically my chapter would descend from a group of loyalist Death Guard and Iron Warriors who sticked together and survived in the thousands in Drop Site massacre. They fought together in the Heresy against the Traitor legions. And by the 41st millenium, there would be roughly a few hundred DG Marines and close to a thousand IW marines in the Chapter.

There are rules for creating a custom chapter - you just have to explain the traits they have based on their ancestry. The traits are stuff like

"marksmen"

"Battle-hungry"

"Artisans"

etc.

You can make up whatever backstory you want for your dudes.

Ruleswise, if you want to run via the Successor Chapter rules, you need to pick a Parent and then two Successor traits, as per the codex.

For example, you pick CHAPTER NAME as your <CHAPTER> keyword, pick Ultramarines as your parent and then pick "Stealthy" and "Long Range Marksman" as your traits.

Probably worth pointing out that there's a new Codex coming out in October so in rules terms we've no idea how successor/custom chapters will work in a couple of month's time.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
You can make up whatever backstory you want for your dudes.

Ruleswise, if you want to run via the Successor Chapter rules, you need to pick a Parent and then two Successor traits, as per the codex.

For example, you pick CHAPTER NAME as your <CHAPTER> keyword, pick Ultramarines as your parent and then pick "Stealthy" and "Long Range Marksman" as your traits.

^This is really the only situation where someone who is a fluff purist would not be able to achieve the maximum benefit from the rules, is the "parent chapter" business.

All the founding chapters (and maybe Black Templars too? I honestly have no idea how they work with this) are represented with relics, warlord traits, and a few other extras, and you normally would choose one of them as your chapter's "parent".

MOST of the stuff you'd get from the "parent" is alternate, as in, you take the Ultramarines power INSTEAD of a basic power from the codex, or you take the Iron Hands warlord trait INSTEAD of a basic trait from the codex, so you don't miss out on too much if you don't choose a founding "parent" chapter. But, if you want mechanical optimization, just decide "OK, since the Iron Warriors fight similarly to the Imperial Fists I'll choose the Fists as my "parent" chapter"

As has been mentioned already, we don't know if the 'successor Chapters' rules will remain in the new Marines Codex. So I wouldn't bank on that being an option.
Bearing in mind that neither Death Guard or Iron Warriors have any rules under the loyalist books, you could simply run them as dual-geneseed fluff wise but pick a single Chapter tactic to represent both on the tabletop.

So for instance, pre-heresy Death Guard, I found this little tidbit:

Operating in the role of heavy infantry, they were experts at survival, endurance, and stubborn defense.

...as the Scotsman mentioned, you could choose to use Imperial Fists rules to represent this, as that'd suit loyal Iron Warriors too, and that description sounds very much like the existing Crimson Fists that already use those rules.

Another option would be to run the two forces as two different detachments, and using different keywords that way - but you'll likely lose out on the benefit of some rules that way. Again, all depending on the new Codex.

You’re going to find it difficult to run one chapter as two different legions. You’ll have to pick one trait, etc. you could certainly make some believable fluff for loyalist refugees from traitor legions getting lost in the aftermath. GW already has. Plenty of rumors of the, being absorbed into Ultramarines, plus actual stories of a Warsmith, and others, helping Gulliman establish Imperium Secundus. Plus the theories of Grey Knights and Garro etc.

You could in theory try and mix and match weaver rules there are to be half and half of each legion.

I'd expect a Chapter to have one Chapter trait ten thousand years down the line, even if it did start from two sets of gene-seed, since it's organized and operates as one Chapter.

Just a heads up, your fluff doesn’t really make sense. Death Guard purge happened on Isstvaan 3. All the DG loyalists were well and truly dead by the time the Iron Warriors arrived, which was to Isstvaan 5 (a different planet), the only DG left at this point were the ones who had done the killing loyalists. Iron Warriors had already done a “purge” of their own at this point on Olympia, and were committed as a legion to being traitors. There would have been no real loyalists of either legion present at the drop site massacre, let alone thousands to band together, and at no point in the lore were loyalists of either legion mentioned as a target of the drop site massacre, or at all during the drop site massacre, since there was almost definitely none present.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Just a heads up, your fluff doesn’t really make sense. Death Guard purge happened on Isstvaan 3. All the DG loyalists were well and truly dead by the time the Iron Warriors arrived, which was to Isstvaan 5 (a different planet), the only DG left at this point were the ones who had done the killing loyalists. Iron Warriors had already done a “purge” of their own at this point on Olympia, and were committed as a legion to being traitors. There would have been no real loyalists of either legion present at the drop site massacre, let alone thousands to band together, and at no point in the lore were loyalists of either legion mentioned as a target of the drop site massacre, or at all during the drop site massacre, since there was almost definitely none present.

Nitpick: There were loyal Death Guard left aboard the Eisenstein

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Just a heads up, your fluff doesn’t really make sense. Death Guard purge happened on Isstvaan 3. All the DG loyalists were well and truly dead by the time the Iron Warriors arrived, which was to Isstvaan 5 (a different planet), the only DG left at this point were the ones who had done the killing loyalists. Iron Warriors had already done a “purge” of their own at this point on Olympia, and were committed as a legion to being traitors. There would have been no real loyalists of either legion present at the drop site massacre, let alone thousands to band together, and at no point in the lore were loyalists of either legion mentioned as a target of the drop site massacre, or at all during the drop site massacre, since there was almost definitely none present.

Nitpick: There were loyal Death Guard left aboard the Eisenstein

The Eisenstein was the very first Marines warned by Saul Tarvitz, and they had completely left the Isstvaan system even before the original betrayal had been revealed, or at the very least well and truly before that conflict was resolved, let alone the drop site massacre. They went straight back to the Terra with the news, that news is why there WAS a drop site massacre in the first place. Dorn sent the 7 legions out to crush Horus while Garro was being inducted into Malcadors service and the rest of the loyalist DG were held in that Custodes prison as “guests”, they were NOWHERE in the area.

I’m sorry am I making any mistakes here or are you guys way off? It’s been a year or so since I last read the opening 5, but I’m pretty certain I’m fairly accurate here.

The Traitor Legions had mostly purged their ranks anyway, and Isstvaan III finished the job.

Isstvaan V Drop Site Massacre was about hurting the remaining loyal legions, not purging the ranks of the traitors.

Garro's remaining Loyalist Death Guard killed off the traitors en-route to Terra after the traitors tried to kill them with the Death Eater virus.

As much as the official lore might state the loyalist Death Guard on Istvaan were wiped out "to a man"... strange things happen in war. People can easily go missing and unaccounted for - especially if they don't want to be found.
I find it entirely plausible that maybe some loyal remnants of both legions managed to tuck themselves away somewhere. That they actually meet up without being discovered in the process would call for some extreme luck, so that part seems a bit less plausible, but still possible.

Rules-wise, for the next couple of months before the newest codex, there isn't an issue. You pick two successor chapter tactics which you could easily decide on one to represent the DG one and the other to represent the IW one or whatever you want really. If you are trying to extract all the mechanic power, you would also have to declare a loyalist parent legion to get access to that supplement.

That said, I personally don't think it needed. I have a Primaris only chapter that I declared to be unknown successors and don't use any of the space marine supplements. I don't play super optimized, but my space marines do quite well limited to Primaris with no super doctrine, Psychic Awakening stuff or anything else beyond C:SM 2.0. In fact, they do so well that I don't play them over 90% of the agreed points total as in I usually run them at 1800pts or less for 2000pt games. Again, with the new codex in October, I can't tell you what is going to happen though.

Lore-wise, I can't really help you. If you go with a Primaris army I think there's enough space in the margins to claim that Cawl used DG and IW geneseed. Still a little tricky that Ultima founding chapters are supposed to be only of one Primarch's geneseed, but that I feel is easy enough to wave off in a number of ways as well.

You could fluff it as either DG/IW ships lost in the warp before the betrayals set in, or dispatched on a joint mini mission before the purge and over looked a bruin insignificant /considered lost so ignored.