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I've never really been into the tabletop side of the franchise too much; rather I've always been the occasional modeler and now almost decade long devourer of the 40k background, but I've decided after some hoarding to start a Horus Heresy army! However something I've been wondering about is why is there no "Army of Light Compliance", rather a loyalist version of the Army of Dark Compliance (maybe with slightly different rules to differentiate between the two but you get my point). I am curious, was there some reason only the traitor legions get access to this style of army? You need the opponents permission anyway but I could see this sort of situation coming up all the time for the shattered legion forces (not to mention any other functioning army that probably has a bit of all 3 to begin with), so I don't understand why it's restricted the way it is. For example being boarded by a ship? Mobilize everyone on the ship! While the Salamanders might not do it, I can see some, IH especially, throwing regular humans/whatever mechanicum assets they have at objectives to give the legionaries freedom to focus on a larger objective or buy them time to get to a better position. Humans, servitors, and tech-thralls are easier to replace than astartes after all, dark as it is. Maybe they are saving it for the Great Scouring, if they cover it as it technically is after the Horus part of the heresy but still part of the heresy overall- I can see that as being an analog to Horus' march to Terra. I was curious on other's opinions on the matter as pretty much every other style of army has a traitor and loyalist counterpoint (besides Custodes but I don't see it as the same situation).

The current rules for 30K limit themselves to a few specific campaigns from each Big Black Book to tell the historic narrative of that particular campaign. The Horus Heresy went on for what, 7 years, and had repercussions for the next several thousand? Chances are, there was an "Army of Light Compliance" out there, somewhere, and we just don't have the rules for it. There were probably countless boarding actions that you speak of, but such a thing would be a very, very desperate tactic to use. While you are correct that a Space Marine is almost irreplaceable, when you are in deep space, who flies the ship? The Space Marine, or the crew? And if you threw the ships crew into combat and lost too many of them, then you would be stuck in space, with a ship full of Space Marines and no crew.

This is an aspect of the Horus Heresy that hasn't been covered yet (and probably never will unless they come out with a Hours Heresy Battlefield Gothic...). It sounds like you have the beginnings of a great scenario though. Try it out with your gaming group and tell us how it goes!

Honestly you could just field a "traitor" element of a loyalist legion and use the army of Dark Compliance yes?

 Tamwulf wrote:
The current rules for 30K limit themselves to a few specific campaigns from each Big Black Book to tell the historic narrative of that particular campaign. The Horus Heresy went on for what, 7 years, and had repercussions for the next several thousand? Chances are, there was an "Army of Light Compliance" out there, somewhere, and we just don't have the rules for it. There were probably countless boarding actions that you speak of, but such a thing would be a very, very desperate tactic to use. While you are correct that a Space Marine is almost irreplaceable, when you are in deep space, who flies the ship? The Space Marine, or the crew? And if you threw the ships crew into combat and lost too many of them, then you would be stuck in space, with a ship full of Space Marines and no crew.

This is an aspect of the Horus Heresy that hasn't been covered yet (and probably never will unless they come out with a Hours Heresy Battlefield Gothic...). It sounds like you have the beginnings of a great scenario though. Try it out with your gaming group and tell us how it goes!

I'm still in the planning phase because I want to do them right, combined with my MCAT prep it may be a couple months before they make a debut haha. I agree there basically has to be such a loyalist army, even if it was not a dedicated force ad-hoc formations are guaranteed to have happened (say events like Calth where units were scrambled all over the place.), so I am hoping that they release something similar eventually. For boarding actions I wasn't thinking fleet officers obviously, but I am under the impression from the first few Horus Heresy novels that the ships were brimming with extra personal that would be "non-essential" (Levy rule-wise), not to mention purpose trained arms-man/marines that are the human soldier element to a fleet (veterans/grenadiers/etc.). You aren't really risking any of the vital functions of the ship as far as I can tell if you use those groups of humans on a ship.

Agurus1 I suppose I could field a traitor loyalist legion, I actually didn't think of that. Hmmmm.. you might have just inspired me, warrior lodge Imperial Fists is an interesting concept to consider so thank you for your suggestion! Time to start creating a backstory and see how I feel about them.

I agree that starships would have arms-men dedicated to counter-boarding or boarding actions. We see as much in many of the HH novels. If I was going to represent them I would go with either Militia grenadiers armed with shotguns or augmented weapons or solar auxilia storm sections.

Glad that I inspired you! Lol

Edit: also just wanted to reiterate that you could still keep your fluff as a loyalist legion, just you would rules-wise lose access to all your legion "Loyalist only" equipment/characters/units etc...

The impression I get from the rules is that the Militia forces included in the force are literal meat shields for the Astartes. They're essentially throwing their mortal subordinates to soak up the fire whilst the Legionnaires advance. Sure, some Legions like the Iron Warriors always did this... but now they're on the side of the Warmaster anyway. The Militia represent units that are directly subordinate to the Astartes chain-of-command, whether they're slaves, cultists, Army, whatever.

Meanwhile, Loyalist Legions are far more likely to still work in unison with the Army and operate with their separate chain-of-command even if they're not quite equals. The Allied Detachment rules still allow you access to Militia in this case and vice versa.

 Arbitrator wrote:
The impression I get from the rules is that the Militia forces included in the force are literal meat shields for the Astartes. They're essentially throwing their mortal subordinates to soak up the fire whilst the Legionnaires advance. Sure, some Legions like the Iron Warriors always did this... but now they're on the side of the Warmaster anyway. The Militia represent units that are directly subordinate to the Astartes chain-of-command, whether they're slaves, cultists, Army, whatever.

Meanwhile, Loyalist Legions are far more likely to still work in unison with the Army and operate with their separate chain-of-command even if they're not quite equals. The Allied Detachment rules still allow you access to Militia in this case and vice versa.

I do generally agree, but I think there are instances where loyalists may use the troops as sponges. Best example are shattered legions/loyalist traitor legions, Iron Hands especially given their attitude (Autek Mor comes to mind haha). It's far easier to conscript/coerce new bodies from whatever planet your closest to rather than risk losing a marine that may have had a century or more of combat experience, or equally just the amount of effort it takes to get a new marine versus handing a person a lasgun, especially if your shattered force is a couple dozen marines. Alternatively in a dire situation I can other legions doing it also in certain situations. While I think the rules could easily be different (rites of war essentially but for a combined list), I just like the flavor of the few surviving marines using human and mechanicum assets at their disposal to fight back, and so far the dark compliance is the only way to do that!

If I do go through with it fluff wise they'll be loyalists but game wise I suppose I could always opt like Agurus1 said. Alternatively I may start with a legion list and slowly expand, hoping they add a loyalist equivalent of Astartes-Mechanicum-Imperial army force (Dark compliance with Taghmata allies).