Alternate 40K - The Qantm 40K / The Qantm Heresy

This is a bit of a thought experiment more than anything but I figured I might as well share it. I've always been a big fan of alternate history and stories that run counter to established fiction or fact. I've also become quite enamoured with the idea of having a completely alternate 40K to the main one being used by GW. I know we have the Qantm Sector and running around being all free in that area but I'm thinking of more drastic changes. Stuff like changes to how the Horus Heresy played out or having the War of Armageddon result in an overwhelming victory for one side.

This is just a bit of fun so feel free to posit any changes that you would make to your own interpretation to the world of 40K.

Oh man! Apart from the obvious stuff, I've always wondered how the Heresy might have turned out if, instead of sulking on Prospero and waiting for the Wolves to arrive, Magnus had just packed up his entire Legion and headed straight for Terra of his own accord. Help the Emperor fix what he broke, have the Sons at Terra to bolster its defenses, have the Emperor more active since he wouldn't be stuck on the Throne all the time, have the Emperor actually EDUCATE his SPECIFICALLY psychic legion on psychic vs sorcery, etc. etc.

Would the Wolves still have razed Prospero if none of the Sons had been there when they arrived? Would the Wolves have been called back to Terra before even arriving at Prospero, and thus have avoided the Alpha Legion ambush that happened post-Prospero? With both the XV and VI legions still at full strength, how much differently would the latter half of the Heresy have gone?

The Heresy is always an interesting point to ponder "What if" because everything had ripple effects. Your scenario would still have to contend with the sheer Warp stormy goodness that afflicted the galaxy otherwise the Wolves also would have made it back to Terra in time. The fact that the Scars and the Blood Angels made it back at all is nothing short of miraculous.

My pick in changing the Heresy would be having Mortarion not buy into the treachery. He was always the odd one out as the kind of semi-reluctant conspirator and I think it probably would have been better if the Death Guard rebelled against him to turn to Chaos. That would be a cool story with something like a more obvious Dark Angels split in the legion's allegiance. A Primarch without his legion could have been cool.

I gotta mention the swapping around which primarchs/legions went good and which ones went bad.

One I like, it the 41st Millienium, and EVERY space marine force has dissapeared/died out/run away. All thats left is ancient myths, and the Guard holds the Imperium together

Dang that's grim Dom. Humanity would be pretty much doomed without any space marines.

It would be alot less than it is, but without space marines as an enemy either, the guard stands a much better chance. Chaos would be Alot weaker. And the Imperial Navey is still bad ass.

Mecharius did alot with just humanity

I could imagine living pilot dreadnoughts or more widespread use of robots to offset the absent strike force capacities that the Marines had. No marines would make things both easier and harder at the same time eg. no terminator marines to clear our space hulks and no dedicated marines to go in and explode Necron tomb worlds. It certainly would be pretty cool to see though.

Yea, the imperium would defs be alot smaller. And the necrons would be problem as you said, and without the deathwatch the Tyranids would be a massive problem too.

Tho at least Tyrantguard wouldn't exist

Following on from our conversation last night, I'm totally considering a mecha-guard game.

Lythen Rangers are go!

When we reach the milestone of getting into space in the chaos game we could rotate games. It would make a good checkpoint, if peole agree

Id still want tk get back to chaos eventually tho.

Could start off with some very basic mechs, like bulkier power armour, and slowly add experimental upgrades as the game progresses

Oo! And the comrade rules would actually make for a cool representation of the machine spirit of each suit.

I kinda feel like a creative exercise. For anyone that's interested, I want your creative ideas on how you would change the Horus Heresy. Specifically, what would you answer to the following questions:

1. Which Legion would you choose to change their allegiance ie. traitor to loyalist or vice versa?
2. Which Legion would you want to lock in and keep the same as in the standard Horus Heresy?
3. What event would you change and how would you change it?
4. What event would you want to always happen?
5. What is one thing that would you change about the outcome of the Horus Heresy?
6. What is one thing that you wouldn't want to change about the outcome?

Feel free to add anything else beyond these questions if you want. I like 'what if' scenarios a lot and I don't anticipate actually doing anything with this, however there is a small chance that I could get around to actually running a Great Crusade/Heresy era game of 40K (or 30K as it were). So yeah, feel free to contribute if you wish for a little bit of fun and re-imagination of the 40K world.