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The Horus Heresy has ended and Imperium has regained control over most of it's territories and started rebuilding. Now, the moment of truth: will you stand beside Guilliman and accept the breakup of the Legions into Chapters or will you stay at Dorn's side and oppose this madness? Explain why.

OMG this is the best thread on dakka for a long time...Kudos and feth Robby and his plagiarism.....

 DarthMarko wrote:
OMG this is the best thread on dakka for a long time...Kudos and feth Robby and his plagiarism.....

Personally I just think that Guilliman and the Codex didn't really solve the problem, merely delayed it. The Badab War aside, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the number of Renegade Chapters is increasing with every passing century. It might even be said to have worsened the situation, as Renegade Chapters force the Imperium to fight a form of guerilla war; and as history tells us, guerilla wars are impossible to win for either side.

Yes,it is a plain irony...
In the end "first founding legion(s)" gained younger brothers, who would fight for them if called upon....*read : half of the IoM SM would fight for UM*...

Paradoxically, I even think that decentrilized, semi autonomous chapters are even more dangerous then legions....

You cannot argue with 10,000 years without any SM revolt even close to the scale of the HH. Codex Astartes did its job perfectly.

The Ultramarines, the Blood Angels, and especially the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels all function as legions in all but name. Basically, all the Codex did was spread the legions thinly across the galaxy. And no, it did not. The guerilla war between the Imperium and the Renegade Chapters might actually be on the same scale as a full-on revolt, albeit in a less obvious fashion. Without exact numbers though, its impossible to tell, though given the setting, it probably is, if not outright worse.

The only Chapter that functions anything like a Legion is the Black Templars Chapter -- not coincidentally, a Chapter that was founded in the immediate aftermath of Dorn's resistance to Codex Astartes.

I disagree. Especially with the Dark Angels; all the Grand Masters of the Successor Chapters kowtow to Supreme Grand Master Azrael.

 DarthMarko wrote:


Paradoxically, I even think that decentrilized, semi autonomous chapters are even more dangerous then legions....

As I said, guerilla war.

The DA cooperate on the issue of the Fallen. The UM successors are close allies but have no formal inter-Chapter command structure.

All the doings of renegade chapters has amounted to basically nothing. None of them have accomplished 1/1000th of what Horus did. Those who are not locked up in the Eye are little more than scrounging pirates. Of all of them, only Abaddon dares to even dream of attacking Terra -- and only that in some all but unforeseeable future.

Codex Astartes works.

 Manchu wrote:

All the doings of renegade chapters has amounted to basically nothing. None of them have accomplished 1/1000th of what Horus did. Those who are not locked up in the Eye are little more than scrounging pirates. Of all of them, only Abaddon dares to even dream of attacking Terra -- and only that in some all but unforeseeable future.

The Administratum could probably provide how much resources, manpower, and time is wasted fighting renegade guerillas across tens of thousands of light years. Not to mention when those 'small' warbands unite under a single leader, they cause huge damage over local areas of space. The cumulative effect would be debilitating, to say the least. Its like the Fall of the Roman Empire all over again.

Well people often forget to draw the Deathwatch into the equation when they are thinking on how many Space Marines they have, and the Ultras seem to have set a dangerous precedence in shipping out anyone who does something wrong in their eyes to Deathwatch. I would due to that fact assume a lot of chapters follows their example and uses the Deathwatch to store excess Space Marines. Of course it's just a theory.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
The Administratum could probably provide how much resources, manpower, and time is wasted fighting renegade guerillas across tens of thousands of light years. Not to mention when those 'small' warbands unite under a single leader, they cause huge damage over local areas of space. The cumulative effect would be debilitating, to say the least. Its like the Fall of the Roman Empire all over again.

I'm not saying the CSM are no threat at all. I'm saying, a renegade Chapter is a much smaller problem than a renegade Legion. Yes, it costs significant resources to face down the CSM. But the CSM have not posed an existential threat to the Imperium since the HH.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I would due to that fact assume a lot of chapters follows their example and uses the Deathwatch to store excess Space Marines.

DW assignment is if anything more dangerous than workaday Chapter life. Plus, it's not like the Chapter gets to recall marines serving with the DW whenever it likes. "Storing" excess recruits with DW would be an awful strategy.

 Manchu wrote:
But the CSM have not posed an existential threat to the Imperium since the HH.

Apparently not, with the 13th Black Crusade having overrun Cadia and leaving the surrounding sectors in ruins.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
But the CSM have not posed an existential threat to the Imperium since the HH.

Apparently not, with the 13th Black Crusade having overrun Cadia and leaving the surrounding sectors in ruins.

Has it though?

That's right. All the might of the CSM legions has accomplished only an ongoing stalemate in a single sector.

Admiral Valerian wrote:Explain why.

Because this "madness" brought a modicum of stability for 10.000 years instead of just a hundred.
Because too much power in one hand has, time and time again, shown to corrupt people with ambitions of leadership.
And lastly, because Mankind's fate can just as well lie in the fate of Man, rather than genetically engineered freaks who are frequently recruited from backwater societies and thus tend to maintain rather strange traditions whilst secluding themselves from the realm they're sworn to protect. Even with the Codex Astartes resulting in severely downsized capabilities, they still cause sufficient friction as-is; imagine how troublesome they could get if they'd be even stronger (-> Badab).

 Manchu wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I would due to that fact assume a lot of chapters follows their example and uses the Deathwatch to store excess Space Marines.

DW assignment is if anything more dangerous than workaday Chapter life. Plus, it's not like the Chapter gets to recall marines serving with the DW whenever it likes. "Storing" excess recruits with DW would be an awful strategy.

I was not saying it was a good strategy, but it's an useful training-ground for warriors learning them how to fight ever more dangerous xenos. But the two chapters that likely have had the most Space Marines send many Marines away, while their numbers seems to be close to maximum all the time. I attribute that to service in the DW.

I stand with Guilliman. Think of all the Chapter Masters that have gone renegade, now imagine that these guys rise to power in a Legion, not a Chapter. Can you imagine the devastation if one of these renegades was heading up a Legion of who knows how many Marines?
No size restriction, central command structure, no Primarch around, that's a recipe for a disaster bigger than the Heresy.

It also weakened the Imperium militarily. The legions guaranteed Imperial military supremacy. No offense to the Guard, but they just can't completely fill the gap the legions once filled.

The Legions had their advantages, sure. But their disadvantages severely outweigh the advantages. What good is military supremacy if you destroy yourself in civil war?

1000 Space Marines are enough to hold a planet. Think the damage done if you had 10.000 or even 100.000 Space Marines going renegade. That's why Guilliman was right. The IOM is a corpse now, but it at least the Space Marines won't destroy it due to internal strife.

 Manchu wrote:
The Legions had their advantages, sure. But their disadvantages severely outweigh the advantages. What good is military supremacy if you destroy yourself in civil war?

Fair enough. But with that supremacy, the Tyranids and Orks among others would be less of a pain, the Eldar would be avoiding rather than confronting the Imperium (one legion laid waste to an entire sector full of Maiden Worlds where the Imperial Guard would most likely be slaughtered before they could even conquer one world), and Tau would have ceased to exist.

Yes, Legions could do a lot against all those Xenos. But, looking at the history of the setting, the issue is that the Legions were at least as likely to destroy the Imperium rather than its enemies.

Guilliman was right.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
The Legions had their advantages, sure. But their disadvantages severely outweigh the advantages. What good is military supremacy if you destroy yourself in civil war?

Fair enough. But with that supremacy, the Tyranids and Orks among others would be less of a pain, the Eldar would be avoiding rather than confronting the Imperium (one legion laid waste to an entire sector full of Maiden Worlds where the Imperial Guard would most likely be slaughtered before they could even conquer one world), and Tau would have ceased to exist.

Hm the Tau ceasing to exist makes my mouth water.

But aren't say 10 Chapters of a thousand marines just as capable as a legion, if not more flexible?

You can move chapters about easier I would assume than a Legion, filling wholes with others that aren't engaged when needed.

Legions certainly had their merits.

 Manchu wrote:
Yes, Legions could do a lot against all those Xenos. But, looking at the history of the setting, the issue is that the Legions were at least as likely to destroy the Imperium rather than its enemies.

Guilliman was right.

Perhaps he was. I'll admit the Codex has certain advantages over the legions, but the way the Astartes (well, most of them; Uriel Ventris and AU Titus are exceptions) hold the Codex as sacred writ (something Guilliman never intended it to be) go a long way to negate those advantages.

Guilliman doomed the empire to decay and a long drawn out fall. With the legions still assembled the empire still would have spread perhaps having frequent revolts but this sort of spread and turmoil while bad for the individual is what fuels a society and keeps it from stagnating. The current setup is set to maintain status quo therefore the range of results for the future is same to worse with no option for better. With the legions around the result range goes to better to way worse which at least gives a chance to improve. (I sometimes think that this was the true goal of the Chaos gods to create a stagnating empire full of despondent potential worshipers)

This is proven by the fact that the empire has been in constant decay for 10,000 years with no upswings in technology or major gains in size. Alternatively they have lost portions of their system to even the Tau...honestly if even 1 legion still existed the Tau would be part of the empire or dead.

Additionally the dark angels really are still a legion in all but name. If the supreme grand master calls for the dark angels chapters they will come abandoning everything to do so. However, the only thing worth putting out the call (angering the high lords of Terra) is the fallen so they cannot act openly and deal with threats like the Tau which would be easily dealt with if the legion was given a free hand.

 ansacs wrote:
Guilliman doomed the empire to decay and a long drawn out fall. With the legions still assembled the empire still would have spread perhaps having frequent revolts but this sort of spread and turmoil while bad for the individual is what fuels a society and keeps it from stagnating. The current setup is set to maintain status quo therefore the range of results for the future is same to worse with no option for better. With the legions around the result range goes to better to way worse which at least gives a chance to improve. (I sometimes think that this was the true goal of the Chaos gods to create a stagnating empire full of despondent potential worshipers)

This is proven by the fact that the empire has been in constant decay for 10,000 years with no upswings in technology or major gains in size. Alternatively they have lost portions of their system to even the Tau...honestly if even 1 legion still existed the Tau would be part of the empire or dead.

Additionally the dark angels really are still a legion in all but name. If the supreme grand master calls for the dark angels chapters they will come abandoning everything to do so. However, the only thing worth putting out the call (angering the high lords of Terra) is the fallen so they cannot act openly and deal with threats like the Tau which would be easily dealt with if the legion was given a free hand.

Well said; exalted.

Personally, I consider the fall of the legions as contributing to the rise of the misguided and proscribed Imperial Cult, which is ultimately behind the stagnation and regression of the once progressive Human Empire. Legions were powerful on their own, but were designed to operate alongside other Imperial armies, and in the process impart upon them the atheist, rational, and progressive Imperial Truth.

The Codex Astartes might have worked out in the beginning, but its eventual straying from the design Guilliman originally meant it for (it was supposed to be a guide, not holy writ to be obeyed to the letter), religiously-inspired stagnation and regression, and the Imperial leadership's own misguided pursuit to maintain the status quo have doomed the system to failure.

Admiral Valerian wrote:No offense to the Guard, but they just can't completely fill the gap the legions once filled.

I'm not sure I would agree with this opinion.

Admiral Valerian wrote: the misguided and proscribed Imperial Cult, which is ultimately behind the stagnation and regression of the once progressive Human Empire

You mean preservation.

Also, "there are no demons, disregard that fiery beast with the horns, it isn't real" is anything but rational. Your so-called Imperial Truth is a fallacy that (a) is just as bad as anything the Ecclesiarchy puts out and (b) doesn't actually affect the Warp in the slightest.

 Lynata wrote:

Admiral Valerian wrote: the misguided and proscribed Imperial Cult, which is ultimately behind the stagnation and regression of the once progressive Human Empire

You mean preservation.

Also, "there are no demons, disregard that fiery beast with the horns, it isn't real" is anything but rational. Your so-called Imperial Truth is a fallacy that (a) is just as bad as anything the Ecclesiarchy puts out and (b) doesn't actually affect the Warp in the slightest.

I'd rather take that risk and deploy psychic specialists to deal with 'Warp void-predators' and have a progressive and technologically advanced empire over a superstitious and slowly collapsing one