Critique about a home made chapter

[Border Prince]

I am planning to start a Space Wolf army, if their new codex doesn't mess them up too much.

I want some help and/or critique about the chapter I have created and plan to play as.

The chapter is called The Ulfheidnars. Ulfheidnar mean Wolf hide and is another name for the Viking Berserkers. I plan to give them grey armour, like Pre-heresy Space Wolves. (The Space wolves are their parent chapter after all.)

 

I want your oppinion on three things: The 'shoulder colour', the chapter symbol and the bikers.

 

I think the shoulders will be yellow, but I'm not sure about it.

 

The symbol is trickier. I want to use the Wolfsangle rune, wich means Werewolf, a suitable symbol for a chapter descending from the Space Wolves. The problem is that this rune, as most germanic runes was (mis-)used by the nazis and is nowadays associated with them. I don't want to offend people, so shall I use this rune?

 

I have a crazy idea for the bikers: Wolf cavalry!!! I found some cool huskies in a local toy store, that seems to be in the right size. The puppies are about the size of a bike, and the adults the sise of a elephant. Use a converted Blodclaw as a rider/biker and you get a cool count-as bike. For the adult huskies, put a Blood claw at the neck, like a elephant 'driver' and put a platform on its back, where a long fang can stand. This would make a cool assault bike.

 

For Russ

[Spacefrisian]

Use searchy and you will know what peeps think of a Chapter using Spacewolf geneseed.

[Border Prince]

What about the Wolfsangle rune, is it a good idea to use it despite its history?

[flintlocklaser]

What about the Wolfsangle rune, is it a good idea to use it despite its history?

 

When you say 'despite its history,' you are aware that the 'history' of it meaning werewolf it was basically made up in 1902 by the dude who did all the other crazy make-em-ups that modern 'rune interpretation' is based on, right? Historically it was a heraldric symbol for a wolftrap; so the 'historic' meaning isn't werewolf anyway. And like you said, today it's mostly associated with neo-Nazi trash. So since the 'historical' meaning is obscured by Guido von List being a crazy person, and the modern use is obscured by white power idiots, why not avoid the problem entirely and come up with something else?

 

EDIT TO ADD: here's an actual heraldric wolftrap in an old German coat of arms: why not try something like this?

[Border Prince]

Yeah, I have heard about von List and that the rune/symbol originaly meant wolftrap.

 

What about a battle axe? Easy to paint and it fit the Viking theme? Any suggestions of a chapter symbol?

[flintlocklaser]

Yeah, I have heard about von List and that the rune/symbol originaly meant wolftrap.

 

What about a battle axe? Easy to paint and it fit the Viking theme? Any suggestions of a chapter symbol?

 

An axe might work too. You could always go back to the really old school Futhark runes, and see if you find one you like the looks of. Most of the ones that the Nazis and their offspring have corrupted weren't from the real Elder Futhark anyway, but from von List's stuff, so you could have a real historical background to your symbol, without worrying about a dumb ideology having crapped it up for you beforehand, so to speak. The Elder Man-rune looks kind of cool, should be easy to draw, and so far as I know has no racist connotations attached to it.

[Skambankt]

I'm not a huge fan of DIY SW successor chapters, as fluff states there is none. Why not just make a real space wolf Great Company?

over the millennia a great many Companies have been lost in the warp due to Great Hunts and Warp storms. The 13. Comp still sport pre-heresy grey armour, and I have seen a lot of players doing the same colour-sceme on their models as they like it better. Space Wolves don't even have a fized chapter symbol, as the Wolf Lords all have different coats of arms. I use the two-headed wolf of Morkai over a halved yellow-and red background, and you can pretty much do whatever you want here. I'm not telling you what to do here, only asking: Why would you want to invent a chapter with your own Space Wolf fluff when the stuff thats canon is so good?

You have allmost complete freedom with the SW colour sceme as it is, and if that is your only reason to diy, I personally wouldn't bother.

 

As for wolf chariots? Cool. I see no problem with Regular Space Wolves that has been isolated for a number of years and lacking armour and fast attack wouldn't use wolves to ride into battle. Elephant-sized wolves seems a bit far-out, as Fenrisian wolves being the size of a man is the largest of wolf breeds in the known universe. Could work though.

[Combat_Vet]

If you want a symbol from the wiking times and not one used by the "bad" germans, have to thought about the walknot?

 

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w291/meadows88/walknot.gif

 

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w291/meadows88/P1010818.jpg

 

It's a warrior's rune and a symbol of odin. I've never seen it used by any :cuss groups. But, you may want to look into that.

 

(on a side note I read today that people with it as a tattoo, tend to die by violent means. I've had mine through 42 months of combat tours, so I'm hoping that part isn't true)

 

better days,

[Grey Mage]

You realise the wolfsangle rune youve got there while very briefly used by the nazis and screwed up a bit by Von List goes back a long way to a very simple meaning: Need for death. Thats why it became the rune of wolftraps... most of the time wolves werent a threat, didnt attack settlements.... but if an incredibly cold season hit and the prey were scarce.... attack humans and their animals or die starving?

 

If your looking for a good were-wolf rune, say something implying the wulfen, then Id suggest using Mannaz, wich looks something like to P's facing each other point to point. It means man, and implies possibilities, change, and transformations. Its also very distinct if you can draw it properly on pauldrons, so youll not have to worry about any misrepresentations.

 

EDIT @200+: The reason they tend to die by violent deaths is that odin is known as a consummate tactition.... and really just cant care if any one of his soldiers lives or dies, as long as his campaign is successful. By the same token his greatest campaign is to try and change the saga of ragnarok, so he and his kin can survive it... thus he takes the best warriors to him... wich results in their deaths <_<. On the other other hand hes not dumb... there are always more campaigns, and so he cant take them all at once.

[JEFF4i]

Why not just make Great Company Ulfheidnar from the Heresy, or present? You'll be rankling a lot less pelts that way.

[flintlocklaser]

You realise the wolfsangle rune youve got there while very briefly used by the nazis and screwed up a bit by Von List goes back a long way to a very simple meaning: Need for death. Thats why it became the rune of wolftraps... most of the time wolves werent a threat, didnt attack settlements.... but if an incredibly cold season hit and the prey were scarce.... attack humans and their animals or die starving?

The design is a stylized wolftrap, true. But it was a heraldric symbol (called a cramp) for a wolftrap, not a rune - at least not until Von List added it to his bizzare stew of a system in the early 1900s. And even then his original Wolfsangel rune didn't really look much like the current one. Unsurprising, since neither the Younger nor the Elder Futhark have a rune that looks like the Wolfsangel. The Anglo-Saxon runes have a vaguely similar shaped rune, the Yew rune. But it of course means Yew, like the tree, and has nothing to do with wolves. So yes, it's a heraldric symbol that has a meaning as 'wolftrap.' But as a so-called rune, its origins are with Von List, and even then the shape he came up with looked more like a crooked 'X' and he originally called it the Gibor rune. The current 'Wolfsangel' stuff is from the 30s, and it is unfortunately all tied in with Nazi pseudomysticsm, not actual historical runic languages.

 

If your looking for a good were-wolf rune, say something implying the wulfen, then Id suggest using Mannaz, wich looks something like to P's facing each other point to point. It means man, and implies possibilities, change, and transformations. Its also very distinct if you can draw it properly on pauldrons, so youll not have to worry about any misrepresentations.

This is the same one I recommended earlier - like you said, the Man-rune has a good meaning for a SM chapter (it is the Imperium of Man, after all); it looks cool; should be easy to paint; and is so far as I know, it's 100% Nazi-free.

[LoneSniperSG]

Why not just make Great Company Ulfheidnar from the Heresy, or present? You'll be rankling a lot less pelts that way.

 

The man can do what he wants. It's easy to spring up a new chapter of marines that descend from Space Wolves. We have all these Wolf Lords with a chip on their shoulder who run off because they can't stand whomever as chapter master.

 

Here's what he can do for fluff. Just an example.

 

"Long ago, Wolf Lord Hans took his ship and his company and high-tailed it out of the Fenris sector, because he was involved in a feud with the Great Wolf Harald" Blah blah.

 

So the Space Wolves crash on a planet or something and after a couple thousand years, boom. New Astartes chapter.

[fore_Russ_and_The_Wolftime]

sry if somebody has already told you this but one of the biggest parts of Space Wolf history is that they only had one successor chapter and that chapter was destroyed

 

thier geneseed is just to unstable

 

and seccond i realy dont like DIY chapters because there are so many already and at my games group we always put emphasis on fitting stuff into the univers of 40K

[Grey Mage]

You realise the wolfsangle rune youve got there while very briefly used by the nazis and screwed up a bit by Von List goes back a long way to a very simple meaning: Need for death. Thats why it became the rune of wolftraps... most of the time wolves werent a threat, didnt attack settlements.... but if an incredibly cold season hit and the prey were scarce.... attack humans and their animals or die starving?

The design is a stylized wolftrap, true. But it was a heraldric symbol (called a cramp) for a wolftrap, not a rune - at least not until Von List added it to his bizzare stew of a system in the early 1900s. And even then his original Wolfsangel rune didn't really look much like the current one. Unsurprising, since neither the Younger nor the Elder Futhark have a rune that looks like the Wolfsangel. The Anglo-Saxon runes have a vaguely similar shaped rune, the Yew rune. But it of course means Yew, like the tree, and has nothing to do with wolves. So yes, it's a heraldric symbol that has a meaning as 'wolftrap.' But as a so-called rune, its origins are with Von List, and even then the shape he came up with looked more like a crooked 'X' and he originally called it the Gibor rune. The current 'Wolfsangel' stuff is from the 30s, and it is unfortunately all tied in with Nazi pseudomysticsm, not actual historical runic languages.

 

If your looking for a good were-wolf rune, say something implying the wulfen, then Id suggest using Mannaz, wich looks something like to P's facing each other point to point. It means man, and implies possibilities, change, and transformations. Its also very distinct if you can draw it properly on pauldrons, so youll not have to worry about any misrepresentations.

This is the same one I recommended earlier - like you said, the Man-rune has a good meaning for a SM chapter (it is the Imperium of Man, after all); it looks cool; should be easy to paint; and is so far as I know, it's 100% Nazi-free.

 

*spreads hands* missed your post man, I went strait from the OP. As for my comments on the wolfsangel was just from looking at it. The diagonal slash upon a strait staff is Nauthiz- or need, and the yew-rune is often associated with death.

 

Thanks for the history lesson though, Ill add it to my notes :D.

[Border Prince]

I have made up my mind and plan to use the Man rune as chapter symbol, partly because of that it look cool, partly that it looks like an M, which is the first letter in my name.

Another idea of mine is to not of use the ordinary pauldron marks for Troops and Elites and such, but suitable Elder Futhark runes?

Aesir for HQ and Special (These guys are the elite of the elite), Auroch for Elites (These guys are as though are as an rampaging bull), Man for Troops (These guys are the 'normal' ones), Horse for Fast Attack (Both horses and these guys are fast) and Giant for Heavy Support (Both giants and these guys can dish out some serious damage).

 

I agree with Skambankt that a long lost Great company is a better idea than a successor chapter. Actually, the idea of a long lost Great company that became something of a chapter of its own were my original idea of the Ulfheidnars origin.

[Grey Mage]

Well thats good, as the Space Wolves dont use the codex markings for their shoulder pauldrons. If you mean as pack markings.... well thats exactly what I do myself.

[LoneSniperSG]

sry if somebody has already told you this but one of the biggest parts of Space Wolf history is that they only had one successor chapter and that chapter was destroyed

 

thier geneseed is just to unstable

 

and seccond i realy dont like DIY chapters because there are so many already and at my games group we always put emphasis on fitting stuff into the univers of 40K

 

But that doesn't rule out my idea of actual space wolves becoming disconnected from the chapter and forming their own warband like the 13th company did.