Emperor's Hawks

[Cptn. Palladorus]

The Marines were standing around their drop pods somewhere in the cavernous lower decks of the Accipitus Rex, in orbit above some no-name backwater in the Galactic Northeast that had yet to meet the Emperor. Most of them were checking their weapons. Two in Brother-Sergeant Castanilius's squad were chatting nervously, recent transfers from the Tenth Company. This was probably their first combat action in full powered armor. The massive pistons groaned and slid the bulkhead door open, and over the noise, the marines could hear the high-pitched whistle piped over the vox system, a holdover from a distant past. Low-high-low, the code for Officer on Deck. Techmarine Henicogrammus could hear the ceramite boots click on the deck as they came to attention, bolters held at port. "Brothers! About face! Begin boarding." The three tactical squads filed into the pods, each taking their seat and harnessing themselves in for the descent. Brother-Chaplain Fasciatus continued his sermon: "...consider the Terran Hawk, our ancestral totem animal; how he soars above the battlefield, carefully choosing his prey, spotting his weakness, waiting for the opportune moment, then dives to earth, breaking his prey's back in a single strike. You must..."

 

Below on the planet's surface, Brother Nisus held his speeder in line with the other 6 in his squadron, and listened to the sermon, transmitted over the voxnet -- "...but why do we kill the xenos? The Codex Astartes states that the most holy Emperor created imperfect humanity in his perfect image, and thus any deviation from this, any mutation, any corruption, any xenos, is a blasphemy against Him, and for this reason they must be cleansed. Do not show mercy, do not show forgiveness for their deviation, for..." -- The objective light on the panel winked on, and as one the squadron's pilots nudged their pedals, and the speeders slid from a line astern to an echelon left. Ahead, the ruined armored convoy could be seen just on the horizon; Brother Nisus flipped the afterburner switch, and was pressed into his seat in the tenth of a second before the craft's repulsor-generator compensated. Through his macro-binocular helmet lenses, he could see the tiny green flecks which were orks swarming around the smoking ruined Predator that was their main objective. They closed to within 1000 metres...500...400...300...200 and the gunners unleashed their heavy bolters and autocannons, the chattering staccato bursts stitching six double lines of in the sand up to the predator, where a thick crimson mist burst into the air; looking in the rear view oculator, Brother Nisus could see the blasted corpses of the Orks littering the ground around the tank's hull, and three bright orange streaks in the upper troposphere that were the pods dropping from the , but much more troubling was the dark cloud of sand and the plume of dirty smoke rising from the ork trukks moving to intercept the pods at the objective site. "Accipitus Rex, this is Brother Nisus, inform Techmarine Henicogrammus of an unknown number of ork trukks inbound on his estimated position of planetfall."

 

"Acknowledged, Accipitus Rex. We are prepared to meet resistance." The pods had crashed home around the Predator; the Techmarine had torn open the hatch and was inside, his fingers flying across the control panels as beneath his helmet he mouthed silent prayers to the Omnissiah. Brother Sergeant Castanilius signaled his squad to take up firing positions around the predator. Brother Canorus let fly a missile, and another as soon as he could chamber it. The first impacted harmlessly in the sand as the trukks swerved to avoid it, but the second flew true, vaporising one of the drivers in a bright orange burst; the trukk skidded sideways and tumbled, launching most of the boyz through the air, and landing on a few of them, staining the sand red with blood and black with oil. The remainder of the boyz jumped over the side of their trukks too soon, running before they hit the sand; a few rolled, breaking bones, but the majority landed safely, giving a great "WAAAAAGHH!!", wasting ammunition firing into the air as they rushed headlong towards the Emperor's Hawks position in one massive mob. At 150 metres, Brother Canorus was firing with his missile launcher, a few of the orks were vaporised instantly by direct hits, more were cartwheeled through the air; at 100 metres the two other squads opened up with their heavy bolters; at 60 the rest of the marines began picking off targets with their bolters, the unlucky orks falling to the sand and tumbling, being trampled by their komrades, but these were the minority. The mob crashed into the Hawks line, swinging crude cleavers and axes and hammers, the marines firing at point blank in bursts now, and some on automatic. Brother-Sergeant Castanilius let off a burst from his bolt pistol, cutting 3 orks in half, then leveled his plasma pistol and melted most of a nob. For a second it looked like the orks would fall back, and then another grabbed the fallen nob's big shoota, and they came on again. "I need more time," said the Techmarine, but the marines were forced to fall back, one squad on top of the predator and the others next to it; there was no time to reload now, the marines were hacking out with combat knives and bayonets and weapons they had picked up from the fallen orks, some with their bare hands; still, not one had fallen. Brother Canorus swung his rocket launcher like a hammer, launching a particularly large ork through the air over the predator; one of the others caught it on the end of a crude sword, he shoot it off and immediately ran through two more; still the orks came on. A pair of red streaks were flashing across the sky now towards the predator; the Techmarine said one final prayer and pressed the last combination of sigils, a hatch opened on the control panel, and the octagonal box holding the predator's machine spirit slid out with a hiss. "I've got it!" the Techmarine shouted, and grabbing the spirit, leapt from the hatch, his servo-arms picked up a pair of orks and crushed a third between them; his heavy bolter shredded a pair of others, another was melted by his plasma cutter, and a blast from his flamer enveloped another three, their skin turning black and sloughing off. The orks hesitated for a moment, then began to fall back, although as usual with their kind it was only to regroup and wait for reinforcements. A series of bright blue lines lanced down from the inbound thunderhawks, obliterating what was left of the orks and searing the desert beneath them into a dark green glass. The marines regrouped and reloaded, just in case, as the gunships touched down.

 

Geneseed: Unknown. They are likely formed from the Ultramarines, both statistically, but also because their chapter symbol is similar to two other known Ultramarines successor chapters. It should be noted though that they are somewhat similar to the Raven Guard in tactics.

 

Founding: M37. 23rd founding.

 

Chapter Symbol: A stylised white wing.

 

Color Scheme: Red and Yellow

 

Homeworld: The battle barge Accipitus Rex.

 

Tactical Doctrine: The Emperor's Hawks prefer to survey their targets from orbit, picking out the weak points, deploying from drop pods or thunderhawks to break those points with overwhelming force before running amok behind enemy lines disrupting the army. They prefer fast units such as assault squads, land speeders, and dreadnoughts dropped in pods, but dislike bikes as they are much more difficult to deploy quickly from the air.

 

Organisation: The Emperor's Hawks follow a more-or-less standard organisation, allowing of course for preference in armory and motor pool.

 

Beliefs: Shortly after their founding, the first Captain-Chaplain of The Dark Claws retreated into the wilderness of their original homeworld (records lost) where on the fourteenth day he slit his wrists, soaking the sacred texts he carried with him, and burned them, then inhaled the smoke. It was in this state that the Emperor appeared to him in the form of a great hawk, and revealed to him the current color heraldry and name of the chapter, and set them on a Great Crusade to the galactic northeast to reclaim worlds which had been beyond the rule of the imperium since before the dark age of technology, converting by the sword as they went. Since then, the chapter has been based in their battle barge the Accipitus Rex and numerous strike cruisers and other escort craft, recruiting from each world they conquer. Each marine undertakes his own "Seer's Quest" during his training, and the vast majority wear feather totems taken from indigenous falconimorphs, believing that these totems bring them closer to the Emperor.

 

Traits: I'm still not really sure if I should take any or just go with the standard codex list.

 

Anyway, I realise that was pretty damn long, but thanks for reading whatever little bit of it that you did and thanks also for your criticism and advice.

[Ferrata]

Geneseed: Unknown

 

I would go the whole hog and just say they are Ultramarines successor, unknown always seems to be a kop out to me.

 

Founding: M37. 23rd founding

 

We dont know when most of the foundings where, so just the number (23rd) or date (m37) would be best, not both.

 

Besides them to points, nothing else seems wrong.

 

Ferrata

[Daeothar]

Excellent; you have nailed the frantic action perfectly! ^_^

 

One thing though; the two chatting marines right before deploying should not come from the first company but from one of the reserve companies or (if losses have been very great) directly from the scout company. I doubt 1st company veterans would be chatting nervously, maybe relaxed but not nervously.

 

As for traits, might I suggest the one where fast attack choices can become elite choices? (isn't that Blessed be the Warriors?)

 

Drawback could be Eye to Eye; fits your chapter perfectly!

 

I think you should expand on the prehistory a bit more, as it almost looks like an afterthought right now, while it could be very interesting to read more about the how and why...

 

All in all pretty darn impressive; keep it up because you've got some very nice material here! :)

[Commissar Molotov]

Ferrata and Daeothar have nailed most of the obvious points, but I thought it would be interesting to pick up on what you said about the first 'Captain-Chaplain'. Why does your chapter mix the two roles? Why did this come about? Does this suggest that the Emperor's Hawks are a particularly zealous chapter? Adding some information on their character would be very useful.

[StormDragon]

That's a very nice piece of writing you've got there. :wacko:

 

I'm looking forward to reading more about the Emperor's Hawks.

[Cptn. Palladorus]

Thanks for the wonderful comments everyone! You're too kind. Go ahead and tear it apart.

 

It was about 4 AM here when I finished this, so I was a little rushed, but hopefully I'll have time to write a little more about their history in a day or two.

 

Daeothar: Yeah, like I said, it was 4 AM here. Those two nervous marines should have come from the 10th company, they just finished their time as scouts and got fitted with their power armor.

 

I was thinking for traits either Blessed Be The Warriors and No Mercy, No Respite, with Eye to Eye or Cleanse and Purify and Trust Your Battle Brothers with Eye to Eye and Have Pride in Your Colours. But I'll probably just go with the basic codex list.

[StormDragon]

I think looking at what you've written so far Blessed Be The Warriors definetly fits as does Eye to Eye. I'd say No Mercy, No Respite seems optional fluff-wise, although you'd need it or Take The Fight To Them to get a major drawback for eye to eye. Equally standard codex could represent your fluff just as well.

 

Maybe as you develop your fluff a bit more it will become more obvoius as to whether or not you should use traits or stick to the codex.