vastrix said:

Given the artwork of a Black Legionnary, i'm inclined to say Abaddon's boys will be around in one form of other. Something I approve of greatly. ;)

Well, if they tie Black Crusade in with their other goodies (as they've done with everything else),  there is gauranteed to be Thousand Sons (as they've been mentioned more than once in the Dark Heresy stuff) and Alpha Legion (from the Deathwatch stuff).  Black Legion is almost a gaurantee, hard to have a black crusade without them (though it's been done).  If they mirror the Deathwatch Chapters, you'll have the following:

Black Legion - Ultramarines

Iron Warriors - Imperial Fists

Thousand Sons - Space Wolves

Alpha Legion - Dark Angels

World Eaters or Emperor's Children - Blood Angels

Word Bearers - Black Templars

FFG Chaos Legion - Storm Wardens

Since it only takes like, what, 15 pages to detail the CSM chapters if they get the same treatment as the loyalists it shouldn't be hard for them to do.

Well, one thing is certain. Normal SMs tend to think that they are better than humans, renegades and CSMs alot more so. So yes, normally most non-SMs would be in a precarious position in a mixed group. Personally I think mixed groups like that are a bad idea.

They cant manage the power levels in the already released lines between the different type of characters, with basically the Acolyte types being well above their Explorator buddies at 5k ep but being more in line with the Deathwatch Marines at 13k(though skyrocketing away soon after in most careers)...

Black Legion will most certainly be in... I mean, it's the Legion with all the other good stuff from every other Legion in it. The Undivided Legions are most proper... The aligned ones being mostly made up of one type marine...

The real trick will be how to explain getting CSM from different "chapters" together and to stay together for a long period of time. For the Space marines you have the Deathwatch convenience.For CSM you could have a warmaster banding together different Legions for a Crusade, but how long does a Crusade last? And even in a crusade why would there be a small group of random Legion Marines banded together?

My guess is that, given the title, the Crusade is the route they'll go for Marines. I suppose you could also have a Daemon or Daemon Prince who's banded together a group of marines for his nefarious purposes, but they would be AWOL from their Legions unless all from the same chapter. I think it's actually the biggest hurdle of the system to explain the group's cohesion.

 My ideas on this:

The different chapters: this will probably be like DW, 12 or so skills+talents cheaper/only avaiable to a single chapter, 12 or so to another, etc... The "newbies" could use their parent table, changing some skills or talents for others more chaos-related.

Following on the Deatwatch style of Space Marines, it is likely they will have the following tables: 1) chapter table, 2) chaos god table (5 tables here: one per god, and a fifth for Chaos Undivided), 3) specialty table. While it is possible that certain alternative advancements (like Noise Marine) will require to be a member of a certain Legion, remember you can be "sold" to a Legion, at least according to the Dawn of War storyline (Eliphas the Inheritor was a Word Bearer in DoW: Dark Crusade, to be sold to Abaddon and become a Black Legion member in Chaos Rising).

For the traitor legions previously discussed:

First, the Thousand Sons: this ones will most likely be avaiable only as sorcerers. The animated suits of armor always obey a Thousand Sons sorcerer, and that is a bitch for a player, even if the armors can go on their own. I think recruiting Rubric Marines as minions will be cheaper for these characters aswell.

Second, the Alpha Legion: I see some problems with them being in this supplement, as far as I know no member of the Alpha Legion has ever been in the Warp without the protection of a Geller Field (and no, they never went inside the Eye of Terror). Furthermore, they are not mutated, and they don't serve any chaos god...

The World Eaters would be another option to have as minions, since, well, I think most (if not all) of them are just crazy killing machines (specially their Daemon Primarch).

For the FFG "Chaos Legion", it should be a post-heresy traitor chapter, since I doubt Games Workshop will allow the use of one of the two "free slots" in their count of 20 original primarchs/legions. As for the other ones, I have no comment there ^^

Honestly, ever since we learned that character creation will be free-form, and that all the 'classes' will just be archetypical templates that you use in the beginning, I'm not sure we'll get any rules for the specific Legions anymore. It's not like we actually need them, and if anyone is likely to break with the tendencies of their Chapter/Legion it's a Chaos Marine.

Afterall, if a Black Legionaire becomes a Khorne Berserker, which is going to be making a greater impact on their personality? I'd weigh in on the side of the latter myself, because I can't see any reason why they wouldn't be mostly like any other Khorne Berserker.

It kinda sucks, but having the freeform system with archetypical classes, and then a Deathwatch-like system of Legions alongside it, just sounds like we'd be ripe for a clash of rules. Though, that doesn't mean they wouldn't give us guidelines, or a sidebar, talking about what could be done to model the various traitor Legions within the framework of the existing rules.

Yeah, there may be some recommendations for not using to different legions together for the value of immersion, but in the end I think that we can come up with decent ideas for having them appeare in various places together. They did after all manage at least two major wars, Horus Heresy and the 13th Black Crusade together, and so they should manage to work on a smaller level as well. My take is that Chaos Space Marines are also individualistic to a greater degree than the Imperial Chapters so they can probably form new warbands and such across legion borders.

Here's my take on them.

Black Legion: Is divided into various warbands with a general overlordship by Abaddon, and he only flex his muscles when he needs manpower and thus many members of the Black Legions can probably pursue their own agenda most of the time.

Night Lords: I don't know for sure 

Alpha Legion: They seem to be divided into independent warbands and cells operate pretty independent of each other, so no reason that they can't join up with other Chaos forces as they are already fostering Chaos cults and stuff.

World Eaters: Fractured into warbands so they should be able to more or less show up anywhere.

Emperor's Children: Fractured into warbands like the World Eaters

Death Guard: This can be a bit harder, but since Typhus could act pretty independent during the 13th Black Crusade I don't see individual agendas as impossible

Word Bearers: I can see some of them being sent on missionary work to use whatever oppertunity to spread the worship of Chaos

Thousand Sons: What I saw it looks like the Thousands Sons have also fractured into warbands, so no problem with following one's own agenda there.

Iron Warriors: Don't know for sure

Gurkhal said:

And that's not what I was talking about at all! :)

I'm saying that there won't be any rules for the different Legions, but they might give us guidelines for how to make a character from specific a Legion, like "An Emperor's Child has the Skills A, B, and C, and the Talents X, Y, and Z". Different Legions working together is entirely a nonissue, the game isn't about Chaos Space Marines, so they're not likely to go that much detail on them.

Much more likely are they to talk about the general animosity between Khorne and Slaanesh followers, as well as Tzeentch and Nurgle followers, and leave the players to use common sense and extrapolate from there for Chaos Marines.

Blood Pact said:

Well I wasn't thinking of my post as a direct reply to your own post, but rather basing it a little on it and then flying out on my own. ;) And while Chaos Space Marines are not the main focus, they remain within the game and Legions are an important part of the Chaos Space Marines, hence I would be suprised if it isn't at least given a sidebar.

 I'm thinking that there is a fairly simple way for them to do the Thousand Sons in-game...  You play as a sorcerer, and can have the, well, dust-buckets as Minions.

They'll be fairly expensive minions.