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Did the title make you go "What the hell is this about?" Did it make you roll your eyes or wince in pain... knowing that the athor was about to get loved tenderly by the Lore experts and Liber veterans? I get it, believe me I do. But I have a idea. I think its pretty cool. Its either going to fall flat on its face, or be something that can be appreciated for what its trying to do. But first, a bit of a history on how I got here and why. I hope you are interested, because this is going to be a long subject... One I hope spurs discussion with all of you. I have been a fan of this setting for years. Since 3rd Edition I have been mesmerized by the art, story, video games and models that make up this huge universe that is 40k. I love how vast this universe is. I also love the idea that everything we have been told is a lie, or is wrong, or is a million different kinds of half truth. If some of you have read some of my posts in the other parts of this site, you will know I am a big fan of conspiracy theories regarding Imperial History... and quite honestly what some people come up with is just so much better than the official story on the matter. The beauty of this, is that the setting has this built in grey area that we can do some pretty outlandish things with "our" story and be just as official as anything else. I like that. So for the past year or two, my twin brother and I have been working together on the creation of a Space Marine Chapter that we could get invested in. Prior to this I was working on my Exemplars of Dorn. He had his individual creation in the Iron Sabre's. We both love the Imperial Fists and their successor chapters. But... that was where the agreements traditionally ended lol. Its crazy to think that two twins who share views on almost every other subject... but when it comes to what we liked and what we didn't in regards to OUR Space Marine Chapter... My God... it was like Rogal Dorn and Perturabo trying to decide how to plan a siege. I really just wanted a regular Space Marine Chapter. I just wanted my Imperial Fists... or my Ultramarines. I didn't want to do crazy things like injecting secrets and contention with brother Chapters. Oh but he did. He wanted dark secrets, he wanted betrayals and inbuilt conflict. I wanted Exemplars, he wanted Dark Knights. And believe it or not, over time, we started getting somewhere. We were going to call them Myrmidons. We were going to revamp his Iron Sabre, Terrible Angel plotline and basically make an Imperial Fist successor chapter that was created by the black sheep of the 7th Legion, who did shoot Ultramarines and Imperial Navy in retaliation and vengeance. Doomed to die at the Iron Cage, they didn't... but are still cast away by Rogal Dorn, who do something at a later date and redeem themselves in his sight and are legitimized. We were close, color scheme and chapter badge was being debated... and debated... and debated. It seemed we were going to be locked in a eternal debate and nothing would ever happen, we would just spitball until one of us died. The heart of the debate was a reasonable one. He is new to 40k. I have been painting miniatures for a long time. I have been invested into 40k for a long time. So Heraldry was very important to me. Not to say it wasn't to him, but he really just wanted to buy the Imperial Fist upgrade sprue and use the shoulder pads and everything. Oh that just couldn't be done for me. You cant call these guys Myrmidons and have the Imperial Fist iconography... Why their name would have to have Fist in it! I wanted custom made badges. To compromise we thought we would just change the name... Go with Ultima Fists... which had to have some story elements change and shift them to the Ultima Founding... but that just restarted the whole process. Its funny, two grown men arguing over how to paint their plastic miniatures. But I don't need to tell you guys that, you understand the seriousness of the issue. Then came the online debate over the new Codex and the Successor Rules. On its face, it wasn't that big of a deal for me. I liked the Imperial Fist and Crimson Fist rules and was just going to use Inheritors of the Primarch… then realized I couldn't for the Crimson Fists, not via a strict interpretation of the rules as written. Now right or wrong, the rules on this are clear. I honestly can see both sides. But it nagged on me. Why couldn't I do this? I wasn't making this argument from a gamer perspective, from a modeler perspective... but a Lore one! What if I dropped my own creation down and said "no, these guys ARE Crimson Fists". Would that fly? Is it silly? Could it be done well? I didn't want to just say it was a Winter Camo, as I was thinking about my own Exemplars of Dorn scheme, which was thought up via flipping the Crimson Fist scheme white instead of Midnight Blue. So I started reading all my old Crimson Fist stuff... researching the 40k wiki for thoughts and ideas... and my conspiracy loving self started working on an idea. A Chapter Civil War... I was pulling from so many things... the BattleTech Warden and Crusader conflict... the Brotherhood of Steel and the Brotherhood in Exile in Fallout 3. The Sons of Medusa background with the Iron Hands. Various Space Wolf companies. It started flowing together. Not only could I do this, there was precedent already in the existing lore! I ran my idea to my brother... and in short... he loved it. It and the color scheme. And it fits his chapter badge frustrations. He was getting his contention, his secrets. I was getting to use my older scheme... and do something that really resonated with me, the challenge of trying to Co-Opt an existing and very popular chapter, make it believable and like it could just slot in with existing Lore. And the name was already decided lol! So here we are. I think this can be pulled off. If nothing else it would be a fun thought experiment. So buckle up.