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I thought it would be interesting to see what peoples opinions were on the loyalist chapters of the HH, obviously in the current setting of 40k none of them are turning traitor anytime soon, but which do you think would be the first if one had to go?
What might help is listing the chapters in order of likelihood to fall to chaos/turn renegade and then give the reason why?

Have fun!

BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

 MarsNZ wrote:
BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

Doesn't really make them heretics both are pretty loyal.

Honestly I thought it was Iron Hands. They seem to consider all flesh therefore humans weak and pretty beneath them. Everyone else at the very core is loyal.

One could argue that DA and SW already are.

Both seem to put their own opinions and agendas above the Imperial whole. DA will drop whatever they are doing to go hunt the fallen, and the Wolves have a long history of thumbing their noses at the rest of the galaxy and just doing their own thing.

Dark Angels already are...

Wolves won't "thumb their noses" at the Imperium so much as they would at the High Lords or the Inquisition. They care deeply for the common people and have nothing but contempt for the higher ups.

As a slight point when the DA abandon a mission to hunt the Fallen they aren't just stupidly dropping everything and running off. They evaluate whether it's actually worth abandoning the current objective and chasing the Fallen is considered dealing with a threat to the Imperium which considering at least one group of Fallen intended to summon a lot of Chaos Marines is a reasonable assumption.

pm713 wrote:
As a slight point when the DA abandon a mission to hunt the Fallen they aren't just stupidly dropping everything and running off. They evaluate whether it's actually worth abandoning the current objective and chasing the Fallen is considered dealing with a threat to the Imperium which considering at least one group of Fallen intended to summon a lot of Chaos Marines is a reasonable assumption.

In THEIR biased arse covering opinion you mean?

 Lord Corellia wrote:
Dark Angels already are...

Wolves won't "thumb their noses" at the Imperium so much as they would at the High Lords or the Inquisition. They care deeply for the common people and have nothing but contempt for the higher ups.

How much contempt and ignoring orders/directives from the higher levels of government before you are a heretic? I get that the wolves are doing it for mostly the right reasons (although pride is a major factor IMHO), but at the end of the day, the HLoT are the guys in charge.

TheWanderer wrote:

pm713 wrote:
As a slight point when the DA abandon a mission to hunt the Fallen they aren't just stupidly dropping everything and running off. They evaluate whether it's actually worth abandoning the current objective and chasing the Fallen is considered dealing with a threat to the Imperium which considering at least one group of Fallen intended to summon a lot of Chaos Marines is a reasonable assumption.

In THEIR biased arse covering opinion you mean?

You think bringing in hundreds if not thousands of Chaos Marines ISN'T a threat to the Imperium?

I'd go with dark angels. For one thing, half their chapter already did turn heretic.

For another, they buried the truth, and if that information ever got out they may well be forced out of the imperium and possibly get the thousand sons treatment.

Blood angels seem too butthurt about daddy angel getting killed by horus, and space puppies are loyal, like all good pups.

pm713 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:
BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

Doesn't really make them heretics both are pretty loyal.

So were the Thousand Sons. Mutation is a capital crime in the Imperium whether you're intentionally a mutant or not.

 MarsNZ wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:
BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

Doesn't really make them heretics both are pretty loyal.

So were the Thousand Sons. Mutation is a capital crime in the Imperium whether you're intentionally a mutant or not.

Doesn't stop them being loyal to the Imperium just stops them being a part of it.

Thousand Sons are heretics because they decided to do heretical acts. Like Daemon summoning, dealing with Tzeentch and later attacking Imperial forces.

 MarsNZ wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:
BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

Doesn't really make them heretics both are pretty loyal.

So were the Thousand Sons. Mutation is a capital crime in the Imperium whether you're intentionally a mutant or not.

And yet Sanguinius, with his obvious mutation, is the only primarch to be named a saint by the Ecclesiarchy.

To PM713, quote, "Thousand Sons are heretics because they decided to do heretical acts. Like Daemon summoning, dealing with Tzeentch and later attacking Imperial forces."

That's not true at all, actually. Magnus loved the emperor, and vice versa, and didn't ever knowingly betray the emperor. His only crime was to continue practicing psychic experiments after the council of nikea, where the emperor, the most powerful psyker in the galaxy, for some reason outlawed psykers, except for when they were really really needed (like navigators). The whole nikea thing didn't make any sense to me.

Later, due to his experiments, Magnus learned horus was going to betray the emperor, and because the information was so critical, he turned to the fastest communication he knew - direct psychic communication, which was outlawed. But he did it anyways, just to warn his daddy. Then......he made a little whoopsie, got tricked by tzeench, and kind of destroyed the emperors greatest work and created a demon portal on terra.

The emperor, understandably miffed, told horus to tell the space wolves to bring magnus to terra to answer for what he had done. Horus, already evil and seeing an opportunity, told the space wolves to destroy the thousand sons instead of arresting them, which they promptly did.

Feeling betrayed by the emperor, and with no one left to turn, Magnus was forced to cast his lot with Horus, who was really responsible for the destruction of prospero.

The story of the thousand sons is actually really sad. They were tricked into joining the people who really betrayed them, and by their new master, tzeench.

DA. Should this really be a question? The DA have always been borderline heretics, and half their legion turned already.
The SW could also easily fall into heresy, as the Months of Shame show. Their anti-authoritarian and divergent, independent nature could easily turn into disloyalty.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
To PM713, quote, "Thousand Sons are heretics because they decided to do heretical acts. Like Daemon summoning, dealing with Tzeentch and later attacking Imperial forces."

That's not true at all, actually. Magnus loved the emperor, and vice versa, and didn't ever knowingly betray the emperor. His only crime was to continue practicing psychic experiments after the council of nikea, where the emperor, the most powerful psyker in the galaxy, for some reason outlawed psykers, except for when they were really really needed (like navigators). The whole nikea thing didn't make any sense to me.

Later, due to his experiments, Magnus learned horus was going to betray the emperor, and because the information was so critical, he turned to the fastest communication he knew - direct psychic communication, which was outlawed. But he did it anyways, just to warn his daddy. Then......he made a little whoopsie, got tricked by tzeench, and kind of destroyed the emperors greatest work and created a demon portal on terra.

The emperor, understandably miffed, told horus to tell the space wolves to bring magnus to terra to answer for what he had done. Horus, already evil and seeing an opportunity, told the space wolves to destroy the thousand sons instead of arresting them, which they promptly did.

Feeling betrayed by the emperor, and with no one left to turn, Magnus was forced to cast his lot with Horus, who was really responsible for the destruction of prospero.

The story of the thousand sons is actually really sad. They were tricked into joining the people who really betrayed them, and by their new master, tzeench.

Alrighty then. Thousand Sons are not that heretical during the Heresy era.

3 of those options are already heretics

honestly i dont think any of them really are in desperate need of power. or are prone to human emotions.

Though i think from the HH, most of them though Khan might of gone to horus side, and girly man was way to ambitious as seen with his second imprium.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
To PM713, quote, "Thousand Sons are heretics because they decided to do heretical acts. Like Daemon summoning, dealing with Tzeentch and later attacking Imperial forces."

That's not true at all, actually. Magnus loved the emperor, and vice versa, and didn't ever knowingly betray the emperor. His only crime was to continue practicing psychic experiments after the council of nikea, where the emperor, the most powerful psyker in the galaxy, for some reason outlawed psykers, except for when they were really really needed (like navigators). The whole nikea thing didn't make any sense to me.

Later, due to his experiments, Magnus learned horus was going to betray the emperor, and because the information was so critical, he turned to the fastest communication he knew - direct psychic communication, which was outlawed. But he did it anyways, just to warn his daddy. Then......he made a little whoopsie, got tricked by tzeench, and kind of destroyed the emperors greatest work and created a demon portal on terra.

The emperor, understandably miffed, told horus to tell the space wolves to bring magnus to terra to answer for what he had done. Horus, already evil and seeing an opportunity, told the space wolves to destroy the thousand sons instead of arresting them, which they promptly did.

Feeling betrayed by the emperor, and with no one left to turn, Magnus was forced to cast his lot with Horus, who was really responsible for the destruction of prospero.

The story of the thousand sons is actually really sad. They were tricked into joining the people who really betrayed them, and by their new master, tzeench.

Close, but not exactly. It was actually only psykers within the Legiones Astartes that was outlawed (specifically the Librarius), not within the Imperium as a whole. Also, Magnus was not banned from using his psychic gifts, it was his sorcerous experiments that the Emperor warned against and forbade. When Magnus decided to warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal, he was afraid that any psychic communication might be picked up by Horus' own astropaths and decided to use sorcery instead, for two reasons. First to use a more secure, 1 to 1, communication with the Emperor. Second, foolishly, to prove to the Emperor that sorcery had its uses. He was unable to deliver his message through the Emperor's psychic wards however, and Tzeentch tricked him into borrowing additional power from him to break through the wards. That breach broke the Emperor's webway, damaged the Golden Throne, and made Terra vulnerable to Daemon invasion.

Heretics? Turn? Actually fall to Chaos en masse?

Blood Angels are close to falling to Khorne but that's it.


Be labelled heretics?

Dark Angels for Legionisation. Space Wolves for disobediance and genetic mutation. Blood Angels for mutation. Salamanders for refusing to destroy a world of innocents like the Space Wolves did at Armageddon though a stretch.


Become renegades and break off but still serve the Emperor?

Space Wolves and Salamanders if they get fed up of killing innocents.



Unlikely for any of the above?

Raven Guard, White Scars, Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, throw Black Templars in too as they are pretty first founding having been led by Sigismund.

You know, at what point were the librarians allowed to start operating again? I presume they were used in combat during the heresy itself, and afterwards, I guess no one wanted to try and disband them again.

Was there an official overruling of the emperor's command at nikea? Or did everyone just continently forget about it?

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
You know, at what point were the librarians allowed to start operating again? I presume they were used in combat during the heresy itself, and afterwards, I guess no one wanted to try and disband them again.

Was there an official overruling of the emperor's command at nikea? Or did everyone just continently forget about it?

Nope, which is the old fluff around why Black Templars don't have them.
In one book of HH (one of stories in The Primarchs maybe) the Lion is fighting the Death Guard for the first time and theres Daemons. The Lion brings his ex-Chief Librarian and basically says "Well, the Emperor said no but feth it it works."

But no, the Edict of Nikea was never lifted.

I voted space wolves. the space wolves exhibit a "screw the rest of you we know best" sense of self rightousness that is familer. and could eventually lead the space wolves into trouble...
much like how it lead the thousand sons into trouble

Most of them have heretical tendencies.

Well... the Ultramarines ENTIRE 3rd Company fell to Chaos.... not to mention the vast majority of successor chapters that have fallen to Chaos come from them so.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, with regard to the Blood Angels, as Kyriss says in "Fear to Tread" "we will never have them now!"

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:
Well... the Ultramarines ENTIRE 3rd Company fell to Chaos.... not to mention the vast majority of successor chapters that have fallen to Chaos come from them so.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, with regard to the Blood Angels, as Kyriss says in "Fear to Tread" "we will never have them now!"

I would say Dark Angels are most likely. But I was thinking about the Ultramarines mainly because of what happened to the Emperors Children around the whole striving for perfection thing. It could easily be a trap that some Ultramarines could fall into, should someone push the right buttons and find the right leverage.

So ya'll claim DA to be most likely to fall?
You know, the ones that hate traitor marines the most of all the chapters? That have the DIRE NEED to purge those that betrayed them, that put that stain on their honour?
They might be prone to going rogue, but not heretical.
That would be a decision to make.
Also half the chapter went traitor, yes.
Did anyone remember what the White Scars were up to? Didn't have the Legion want to join Horus when the Khan was away for 5 minutes?

On the other hand you have Blood Angels which by flaw of the gene seed tend to go berserk, loose themselves and become mindless killing machines that need to be put down and crave blood?
This is in their very nature.

Wolves have a problem with authority, not loyality. They also are prone to going rogue, but not traitorous.

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:
Well... the Ultramarines ENTIRE 3rd Company fell to Chaos.... not to mention the vast majority of successor chapters that have fallen to Chaos come from them so.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, with regard to the Blood Angels, as Kyriss says in "Fear to Tread" "we will never have them now!"

Do you have proof of the Ultramarines third company falling to chaos? Sounds like something that is either from first edition (so super retconned) or something made up.

And the Space Wolves are an example of a chapter of everything they do making things worse. They tried to save the soldiers on Armageddon, which led to multiple worlds being purged. Taking in the Wulfen in the Fenris campaign. Taking up arms against fellow Imperial factions, thus weakening the Imperium.

But really, the Dark Angels are now closet heretics, even going so far to ditch other chapters during dire events like a Hrud infestation (the Ultramarines in that case!), the Wolves teeter on the edge of treason every hundred or so years, the Blood Angels curse is getting more out of control as the centuries drag on.

 Endriu Death Coy wrote:
Well... the Ultramarines ENTIRE 3rd Company fell to Chaos....

whats your source on that?

 Orblivion wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:
BA or SW. Foul mutant deviants all.

Doesn't really make them heretics both are pretty loyal.

So were the Thousand Sons. Mutation is a capital crime in the Imperium whether you're intentionally a mutant or not.

And yet Sanguinius, with his obvious mutation, is the only primarch to be named a saint by the Ecclesiarchy.

And Horus was made warmaster. The fact that Sanguinius is a saint goes against everything the Emperor wished in the first place.

Blood Angels.
Space Wolves and Dark Angels will kill each other over some sleight or other.