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Like many people, when I first started reading white dwarf I was drawn to Space Marines. I loved the ridiculous number of Chapters and all of their background fluff, color schemes, special rules, and so on. Unfortunately, I'm also the kind of guy who would far rather become a pirate than join the navy so I've always been kind of skittish about investing in and running an established chapter. The notion of creating my own was far more attractive. I briefly flirted with the notion of making a renegade marine chapter from the chaos book, but the 6e codex didn't strike me as all that interesting.

Recently, I've picked up the Horus Heresy books and while I don't normally like reading fiction in pre-established settings, I've really gotten into that series. I just finished the third and I'm jumping into the fourth now. Suddenly, with the new Codex: Space Marine on the horizon, a bunch of things kind of coalesced into a coherent idea.

I'm thinking about creating a pre-heresy company of Luna Wolves to play as my standard 40k army. I'm thinking the fluff might be that they were part of the Great Crusade before Horus developed daddy issues on Davin and went Chaos Angst on the galaxy. A portion of the fleet is sent off on whatever mission - I can't decide if this should be "a ship" or a dozen ships, or whatever..more on that later - and because the warp is a ridiculous and quixotic beast at best, they hit some kind of warp turbulence that has them emerging on the other side of space 10,000 years later. Now this fanatically loyal force of the Emporer's Finest comes to find out that they aren't in Kansas anymore, and the regime they were loyal to is no longer the one in power. And is also a religion now. How weird is that?

Any thoughts? I know I've read somewhere in 40k fluff and back stories about ships in the warp that have come out years or even centuries later with the crew none-the-wiser until they reach their destination and are promptly destroyed by the Inquisition or whoever else.

I'm thinking this would give me a strong reason for having a renegade force rather than just "FOR CHAOS!" and I've been eyeing the FW pre-heresy MKII and III armors for a while. Bonus points? Having them be renegade gives me a decent excuse for adding in newer kits (read: bits stolen from non-forgeworld tac squads and the like), as they are forced to raid various foundries and loot their enemies to keep supplied.

So. Basic questions:

1) Obviously, I'll have to wait and see what Codex: Space Marine brings, but any other good options for how to "Counts as" a Luna Wolves regiment? I've seen discussions both of playing them as Space Wolves and IA9 Tyrant Legion - but I haven't had the chance to look at the IA9 book yet.

1a) If I run them as wolves, will the lack of wolf goodness (Mark of the Wolfen, Rune Priest awesome stick, etc) hurt me? I don't think they had Psykers either, so I'm out of magic mojo either way.

1b) If I run IA9, how does that work in terms of ..etiquette? I haven't played a lot of 40k outside of a couple friends. Does your average joe look hear that and go "oh, cool. that's different" or "NO. Thats not a legal list in this edition" ?

2) Any comments / suggestions on the fluff? Seems plausible enough to me, but it might also be a bit cheesy. Maybe not Ward cheesy, but still there. On the other hand, I'm not taking anything approaching any of the novel characters, so there's that.

3) Does anyone have any sources on the Luna Wolves themselves before they became The Sons of Horus? Specifically how they were organized, Cthonia, and so on. I basically know what I've picked up in the first three HH books, but the details currently elude me. I need to decide how many Luna Wolves would actually have been dispatched, how many ships, what kind of organization they made up (a chapter? a company? what is the leader of this lot? etc)

4) Any other general feedback? Advice? Others who have gone with a similar idea? This will likely be a slowly collected labor of love as I acquire the appropriate and expensive kit for it.

Thanks!

All you need to do is pick a rule book and follow the rules/structure outlined in that book. You can paint the models however you want and call the characters by any name you like as long as they represent a legal choice from you codex. The fuff you make up is there for your entertainment, it has no impact on game play so do whatever you like. If people think is inaccurate or un-fluffy that's their problem, its not like the books have any solid consistent cannon anyway. My buddie plays Grey knights as a pre heresy Thousand Sons army, painted crimson and everything.

Sounds good to me - in fact, I love how you've thought this through. A renegade Marine force that isn't Chaos is all too rare and has that quality of their deviance having an understandable motive - which is what sets a proper villain apart from the moustache-twirlers (ok, so they're not really the bad guys in a galaxy full of varying degrees of bad guys, but you get my drift).

Space Wolves can work without the Wolfy stuff no problems. Grey Hunters are still very good even without the Wolf Standard, their main "thing" is to unleash Rapid Fire close-up without having to worry about the incoming charge, since they still get two extra Attacks from having 2 CCWs and Counter Attack as well. I'm not entirely sure why, rules-wise, they'd be a better fit than standard Marines though (especially with their new Codex around the corner). I think it's just a case of being careful exactly what units you take first.

As for using the Forgeworld list - acceptance will vary from person to person, so check in advance if you can. Most will be ok with it but as a courtesy make sure you go over any major differences they have, both as an army and as individual units. It wouldn't hurt to have lists drawn up with both this and a standard Codex, just in case you run into anyone that does have a problem with it.

I can only offer my opinion concerning the fluff, and I gotta say, it's not cheesy at all In fact, love the idea and I would like to point you to another person who's also creating a chapter that came out of the warp 7.000 years later:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/546200.page

You two should get along just fine

And a quick tip for 1b) They probably may have psykers. Librarians weren't Thousand Sons exclusive. The "Decent of Angels" book is about the Dark Angels and we are introduced to a DA Librarian.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still going to have to do some major research to make anything out of it. I need to work out company/command structure, figure out unit markings, etc. As most of the well known stuff (Reavers, Justaerians) were "elite 1st company" troops, and my guys are probably more likely to be.. fifteenth Company: Scrubs division or some nonsense.

It does mean I need to work out which companies are actually known (so I don't overwrite existing lore), how many companies there were, how many people are in the company, how many companies in a ship, yadda yadda. The ridiculous organizational / logistical nonsense that goes along with a Legion's organization.

I may have to piddle with the idea of giving them some IG friends as well, as the books left me under the impression that Astartes and Imperial Soldiers generally occupied the same vessels for the mission, with Astartes making surgical attacks and leading spearheads, and Imperial Troops mopping up behind them and occupying. I don't know if they were on the same ships, however. It would definitely make for another cool conversion though.

As for the librarians, I'll have to research further and see if that was a common practice during the Great Crusade, or if it became a thing after the fact.

Anything else you guys can throw at me is always greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'd run them as Ultramarines or Black Templars. BT has more of a pre-heresy feel to their fighting style but Luna Wolves and Ultras weren't far removed from their tactical doctrine. Maybe ally U's and BT's for a good balance.
Why are they renegades? Is the Inquisition after them? Lysander was lost but after the "Big I" tested him they gave him a stamp of approval. Did they try to make contact and were attacked just for being Luna Wolves?

 MWHistorian wrote:
I'd run them as Ultramarines or Black Templars. BT has more of a pre-heresy feel to their fighting style but Luna Wolves and Ultras weren't far removed from their tactical doctrine. Maybe ally U's and BT's for a good balance.
Why are they renegades? Is the Inquisition after them? Lysander was lost but after the "Big I" tested him they gave him a stamp of approval. Did they try to make contact and were attacked just for being Luna Wolves?

Depending on what the new Space Marine codex says when it comes out, I may well run them as 'nilla marines. Any list building prior to that is pretty speculative for me. It would be nice to have something that could emulate the kind of mixed-unit tactics they seemed to use (heavy assault spearhead with lots of fire support).

As for Renegade, I imagine it will be kind of complicated. Showing up out of the warp with "For the Warmaster" blazed all over their ships probably didn't help anything. But even if they made contact without being identified as bearing Luna Wolves markings and attacked on sight, I'm not sure they would go over too well with the Inquisition regardless.

Even if they were demonstrably, fanatically loyal to the Emperor and the Imperium of Man, one has to remember that the Great Crusade in their time was to promote a secular truth of science and reason for the advancement of humanity. Even if they weren't already under suspicion of heresy for their connections to Horus, I find it hard to imagine any imperial official making contact and being okay with an armed force of Astartes.. bearing the Geneseed of the arch-traitor.. running around with knowledge that the Emperor isn't a god - or didn't claim to be in his own time - and that the future of man was supposed to be without religion, rather than being dominated by a brutal and totalitarian theocratic regime.

I'm not sure that the Luna Wolves themselves would be all that comfortable serving people who claim to represent the will of the Emperor, while simultaneously being the antithesis of the enlightenment the Emperor represented in their own time. Especially given the whole "history makes our beloved primarch look like a traitor" thing. There might even be some denial there - at least until their first encounter with chaos space marines first hand.

But if someone has an idea that runs contrary to this, I'd love to entertain the notion. I haven't figured out where they fit in, exactly.