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Some friends and I will be starting a crusade campaign(as soon as 1 of them get his Black Templars built lol). We're looking at probably having vanilla marines, Black Templars, Grey Knights(possibly something else Imperium), and Custodes. As the player in our group with the most armies to choose from this puts me an interesting position. I have CSM, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Chaos Knights, Eldar, Harlequins, and Blood Angels. Death Guard are out simply because I've been playing them most of the edition. Knights are out because I only have Rampagers and Tyrants, so not really fair. A Xeno army or Chaos army would add a bit of a break up of the Imperium. Though running Blood Angels could make for a 'Horus Heresy' style mash up. I was almost positive of Eldar since half of the other players haven't played against them, but the new data slate changes make marines a tempting choice. What does dakka think?

Will the Imperial players be playing against eac other in this crusade?

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about the Crusade system... but anyways I digress.

Yes, anyone can play anyone.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Will the Imperial players be playing against eac other in this crusade?

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about the Crusade system... but anyways I digress.

If you locked people to only playing "enemy factions" against each other in a campaign you'd rapidly end up down the same dead-end hole Lord of the Rings did, where the official tournament format required one player be Good and the other Evil, so you had to bring two armies whether or not you wanted to play them and you might not get to play the army you want to play.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Will the Imperial players be playing against eac other in this crusade?

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about the Crusade system... but anyways I digress.

If you locked people to only playing "enemy factions" against each other in a campaign you'd rapidly end up down the same dead-end hole Lord of the Rings did, where the official tournament format required one player be Good and the other Evil, so you had to bring two armies whether or not you wanted to play them and you might not get to play the army you want to play.

"narrative"

Eldar, sure. As you say, experience for players who haven’t seen them, and for a move for you away from marine type E.g. death guard.

That said, some generic heretics or t sons could add spice without much of a stretch, though of these I might gravitate to t sons.

When you've already got 4 imperial factions, a fifth and a badab war style civil war makes sense, I think.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Will the Imperial players be playing against eac other in this crusade?

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about the Crusade system... but anyways I digress.

The imperium has endless reasons to fight itself...

Bitharne wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Will the Imperial players be playing against eac other in this crusade?

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about the Crusade system... but anyways I digress.

The imperium has endless reasons to fight itself...

Consistently and on a reliable enough basis to gain veterancy doing so?

"Hey, how did you get the Star of Terra, sir?"
"Well, Sergeant, I fought a campaign against the worst this galaxy has to offer - other Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Custodes."
"Sir... are we the baddies?"

At the point where the imperium is executing a campaign against itself, someone is getting labelled Traitor.

Well, yes and no.
If we take each of the OP's player armies there can be plenty of reasons as to why they are fighting each other. I've come up with a connecting story to explain this bunch.
Regular Marines - This player's army is already in the conflict zone, possibly having fought there for decades. Perhaps this area of space has been hidden by Warp Storms for hundreds of years and by a miracle of the Emperor, the Chapter stationed within has stayed loyal to the Imperium.
Black Templars - Launching a crusade into this region to "reclaim" it for the Imperium, the Templars consider the occupying Chapter tainted by association with the Warp Storms. As zealous maniacs, they cannot be reasoned with and the Chapter must defend itself.
Grey Knights - The Grey Knights hear rumour of the agents of Chaos infecting this region of space. Coming upon two warring Chapters they conclude they are tainted by Chaos and begin purging them.
Custodes - A Shield Host happens upon the distress calls of the Regular Chapter yet upon arrival sees the Astartes at it again with another civil war. The commanding officer decides to do his duty in removing the stain of Astartes betrayal once again and leads his warriors into the fray.

If the OP were to play Thousand Sons, then they could be the orchestrators of the whole event. They conjured the Warp Storm to attempt to corrupt the Regular Chapter but failing to do so required more direct means. They then plant evidence for the Templars to find which then attracts the Grey Knights and Custodes, with the end game being the Regular Chapter turning to the Thousand Sons and Dark Gods for aid in defeating their numerous foes. By having multiple Imperial factions the OP also has the option to play parley scenarios where negotiations break down and the various factions resume their conflict.
The various Aeldari again could be the orchestrators in an attempt to weaken their enemy in this region for a mysterious purpose.

Right, so, at the end of the campaign, which army is "loyal" and which army is traitor?

It sounds like Custodes and the Grey Knights vs BT vs Regular Marines in your setup.

So what is the long term fate for these troops? Regular Marines wiped out in 250 years? Declared traitor? Black Templars kill a bunch of GK and Custodes... everyone looks the other way?

You find out by playing the campaign. If the Black Templars take consistently heavy losses and don't make many gains then it could be decided that the crusade was massacred to a man.
The Grey Knights are extremely secretive about their missions and if they rake in a lot of wins it could be decided that they have concluded the Templars and Regulars are not corrupted, mind wipe them and everyone moves on. In the Uriel Ventris novels, Uriel and Panasius are challenged by a Grey Knight and declared pure from Chaos since they could not beat him.
The important thing to remember is there is no right answer. The players could eventually decide that in the end the Inquisition steps in and stops the fighting, sending the Regulars and Templars on a joint penitent crusade, and leaving the Grey Knights and Custodes to leave without censure. You don't need to have the next 500 years mapped out from one Crusade campaign, in fact the "ending" I suggested could be the setup for a future campaign where the Regulars and Templars must cleanse an area of space claimed by Xenos and Heretics. That's how narrative works with Crusade, you make it up as you go along.

Yeah, I think you missed my point.

What if the players of the armies don't have the same vision of how it will go? The fact that there is no right answer is the PROBLEM because it sparks arguments.

I have seen and been involved in lots of campaigns of Imperium vs Imperium and it has always has degenerated into "he's the traitor, we can't let him live!" and just general feelbads from the Imperial players.

Now, in campaigns with a GM, something could be done, but Crusade isn't that.

My question would be "So what?". Who cares if at the end of it everyone is calling everyone else a traitor? That's what the Imperium does on a daily basis but individual factions also realise that a protracted campaign to wipe out something like an entire Chapter while you still have other enemies bearing down on you isn't something that can be kept up forever. At the end of the campaign, it doesn't matter who is calling who what because that is also part of the story. The Custodes hate the Astartes, the Grey Knights don't always win, and the Black Templars think every other Chapter are milksops because they don't crusade for eternity.

Here's another optional ending.
The Regular Chapter wins. The Templars are broken, the Custodes are humbled and the Grey Knights realise there is no Chaos taint. The Custodes leave to gather more warriors to end this upstart Chapter, the Grey Knights leave to file a report that the Chapter is not tainted, the Templars leave and swear to never come to the Chapter's aid in the future. Two out of three of the Imperial factions still view the Regular Chapter as traitors to the Imperium, and life goes on because 40k is not a place of happy endings. If the players are turning to real-life insults and actual grudges because they didn't win a Crusade campaign then that is a real-life problem and not a problem with the game.

First to OP:

With Crusade's roster system, your Eldar and Harlies would be parts of the same roster- if you choose either, you're effectively choosing both.

Do any of the Harlequin performances seem interesting to you? Are any of the Eldar Paths intriguing to you?

Interestingly enough, Chaos is similar to Eldar in its ability for the roster to contain all of your Chaos armies.

So if I were you, given that your friends are all Imperials, I'd say they're a team against you. They each get 25 PL and you get 75, but you use it to build 3 forces of 25 PL each.

It gives you crazy flexibility for missions out of the gate- you could play a game against any 1, 2 or 3 of them combined.

If you are getting started right now? I'd do the Eldar- they have their stuff already. If you can afford to wait til the Chaos Knights and CSM dexes drop, then they're an option, but I think it's a hassle to switch rulesets in the middle of a story.

If you don't find the multi-army approach above appealing, and you need ideas about why Imperials would fight each other, the first place to start is to consider the goals of each of the Imperial armies- all serve the Emperor, but each has different ideas about how best to do that. Equally righteous paths can still conflict and interfere with each other.

Simple answer is to make a Crusade list for each one and play whichever you fancy on the day. Nothing says you can't have more than one. As for the narrative element, don't worry about it. That's just a mechanical element. The last three opponents I faced played orks, ultramarines and harlequins. In my own head canon for my chapter those engagements would have been in three separate war zones and completely unrelated but it doesn't matter. Just play and have fun doing so.

The multi army approach is an interesting idea from a narrative stand point. I would like go 100% pure faction, but having multiple armies to play against would be cool. As it stands, I doubt we'll be starting anytime soon. My friend is pretty slow about building models lol. We may also get a few pick up players, which if I had to guess would be more Imperium players, so narrative might go out the window and just become matched play with the crusade exp lol

If it does pick up more Imperial players, consider doing a campaign with defined sides or decide on a specific narrative for the campaign. The story is the most important part of Crusade, don't let it fall to the wayside.