Renegade Space Marine Chapters?

[LordGrise]

okies, so I play Tau, and a good friend of mine has gifted me with half a dozen Space Marines, an old SM Captain, and a Dreadnought. The allies table says that vanilla space marines are my battle brothers, and I was going to just paint these guys up (plus whatever reinforcements I buy - not sure yet) as Ultramarines. Then I got the bright idea to research to see what renegade Space Marine chapters might be out there who have not succumbed to Chaos. Perhaps they sheltered with the Tau in exchange for material support and the right to recruit amongst the gue'vasa...

yeah... according to the Lexicanum, it boils down to - there aren't any. The Soul Drinkers are all dead, the Astral Claws become the Red Corsairs, The Crimson Castellans are extinct, the Fire Claws become the Relictors then get wiped out, The Flame Falcons apparently all self-immolated (?!?), The Knights of Blood might still be around (but aren't vanilla SMs), and the Tiger Claws are apparently now Red Corsairs. Everybody else are CSMs.

I have not waded thru the entirety of the list off of the 40K Wikia, but it is not encouraging. Anyone got intel or suggestions? I know I could just whomp something up and claim they were descended from one of the Lost legions but I thought I might see what was out there first...

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Maybe use non-mutated Alpha Legion? Apparently the Tau sympathized with Chaos Marines (since they're rebels against a horrific empire) until they realized they tended to be violently insane/evil. If they met up with a non-Chaos worshipping cell of Alpha Legion they'd probably get along well.

I'd recommend against using the Lost Legions, DIY chapters using them don't work out well very often! Making a DIY one to go renegade would be fun - there's one chapter, the Celestial Lions, that were effectively destroyed by the Inquisition since they cared too much about imperial citizens and protested against the massive killings.

A similar DIY chapter (maybe a Salamanders descendant, since they tend to be compassionate), which protested to an Inquisitor killing millions of Tau "tainted" humans might be declared traitors, and then decide that humanity's better off with the Tau as rulers.

[Daemonette666]

Pick one from the great many out there. Soul Drinkers, Blood Knights, or make one up.

[Pendragon38]

I say build your own chapter and history. That's what I did for my army and its working great for me so far.

[magickbk]

The concept of the universe becomes pretty absolute for chapters that go renegade in the official canon. Either they are deemed to have been misguided in their interpretation of Imperial Law and allowed to return after some sort of penitence(see Lamenters, Abyssal Crusade survivors), or they are declared Excommunicate and the only place to go to hide is Warp/Real Space incursions like the Maelstrom where they eventually become corrupted due to choice or exposure.

The wonderful part of 40K, though, is that everything happens within a span of hundreds of years as opposed to now. You are free to pick almost any chapter at almost any time frame and build an army around it. Yours could be a Marine chapter reduced by losses(like the Scythes of the Emperor) who will join with other regional forces due to depleted numbers.

[cypher623]

Why not use one of the Cursed Foundings? When I built my inquisition army after the first daemonhunters book I used Legion of the Damned for marine allies. They are all renegade chapters wanted by the inquisition? Or better yet use cypher and the fallen as your allies. In his older incarnation he was an elites choice for any Imperial Guard army. The Fallen, especially those loyal to Cypher, would be perfect, plenty of DA bits and models lying around for conversions .