IA: The Stonebound

[Ace Debonair]

Right, I've hit a problem. It's one of those ones that sounds like a really stupid question, too.

 

If the Imperial Fists were on Kagara, how would they deal with the Ork attack?

I need to get a feel for this before I accidentally write exactly the same tactics for the Stonebound and treat it as new and exciting. :eek

 

If they'd just steamroller about the place, letting the big guns do all the work, then fair play. I'll just say that Baines* appoints Rockhammer as Chapter Master because he's following in the footsteps of the Imperial Fists and doing a good job of it. :P

 

Then I can sort out the Combat Doctrine, then the rest of the IA will fall into place.

 

 

 

*I know, I know, he needs a different name. I just haven't put one together yet. B)

[Captain Juan Juarez]

It depends on the Commander of the Chapter forces.

 

Whilst the Fists are still masters of the siege, they are still Codex followers, so figure the Captains personality and that should suggest an answer!

[Wildfire]

I think people are getting way too caught up in the gene-seed thing. There's plenty of chapters out there that don't follow the same combat specialties of their originating legion. They had to change somewhere along the line. Why not from the very beginnings of the chapter, when a single influential personality (such as one of the few members of the training cadre) could create lasting traditions? Or, as the Blood Ravens, someone who took command with new ideas and changed the direction of the chapters tactics permanently?

 

Hawk Lords, for instance, are so good at thunderhawk deployments that other chapters get trained by them. Tell me what original legion specialized in that? Heck, the whole 4th edition trait system supported divergent chapters.

 

If you're really looking to give them something that reflects White Scars gene-seed, break down what might be gene-seed flaws vs. cultural bias. Seems to me the culture of their homeworld may be what leads them to prefer fast attack/nomadic styles of warfare.

 

Even if it is gene-seed related, you could parlay that into something half dwarvish and half white scarsish. For instance, perhaps instead of a fleet of strike cruisers and support craft they have a few massive asteroids converted into mobile fortresses. They might only use their fortress-monestary for recruiting purposes. The mobile fortresses supply both a nomadic them and a dwarvish theme simultaneously. Probably not a great idea, but the best I could come up with off the top of my head. ;)

 

Finally, while speed is a defining White Scars trait, that surely isn't the only noteworth piece of their temperment. Reading the Librarium entry, it seems their decendants display a tendancy towards ferocity and mercilessness. That seems dwarvish enough to me. The Master of the Hunt tradition may display tenacity and long memory, also excellent dwarvish traits.

[Ace Debonair]

I think people are getting way too caught up in the gene-seed thing. There's plenty of chapters out there that don't follow the same combat specialties of their originating legion. They had to change somewhere along the line. Why not from the very beginnings of the chapter, when a single influential personality (such as one of the few members of the training cadre) could create lasting traditions? Or, as the Blood Ravens, someone who took command with new ideas and changed the direction of the chapters tactics permanently?

 

Hawk Lords, for instance, are so good at thunderhawk deployments that other chapters get trained by them. Tell me what original legion specialized in that? Heck, the whole 4th edition trait system supported divergent chapters.

 

I've given up on trying to do it my way and have Scars-successor-space-dwarves.

Whilst I agree that people are getting caught up on the geneseed, the only thing I can do about it is listen.

It's cool, though. Even if I am jumping aboard the Dorn Bandwagon, I reckon the Stonebound will still stand out a bit from their brother chapters. ;)

 

If you're really looking to give them something that reflects White Scars gene-seed, break down what might be gene-seed flaws vs. cultural bias. Seems to me the culture of their homeworld may be what leads them to prefer fast attack/nomadic styles of warfare.

 

Even if it is gene-seed related, you could parlay that into something half dwarvish and half white scarsish. For instance, perhaps instead of a fleet of strike cruisers and support craft they have a few massive asteroids converted into mobile fortresses. They might only use their fortress-monestary for recruiting purposes. The mobile fortresses supply both a nomadic them and a dwarvish theme simultaneously. Probably not a great idea, but the best I could come up with off the top of my head. :)

 

Finally, while speed is a defining White Scars trait, that surely isn't the only noteworth piece of their temperment. Reading the Librarium entry, it seems their decendants display a tendancy towards ferocity and mercilessness. That seems dwarvish enough to me. The Master of the Hunt tradition may display tenacity and long memory, also excellent dwarvish traits.

Aggro was always right at the top of the agenda. Heck, I've never seen anywhere that's specifically stated 'all White Scars successors must rely on speed - it's a geneseed thing'.

But I've never pulled it off successfully, so I'll give being an IF descendant a try.

 

The space fortresses sound cool, though. I might use them anyway. :)

[Wildfire]

It's your IA. I have to say, though, I thought White Scars were much cooler. IF is too dwarf-y as it is, I think using their gene-seed is the easy way out.

 

I could possibly be biased, though. White Scars are my second favorite loyalist chapter.

[Brother Argent]

Whilst I may not offer the best (or most often) comments I must agree that White Scar geneseed was much cooler. If anyone could have pulled it off it would have been you Ace.

[Ace Debonair]

Don't go talking me into carrying on with the Scars-Successory. :lol:

 

I swear to The Emperor, I'll do it and probably go insane from the massive headache that is finding a generally acceptable answer to the apparent incompatibility of the Dwarf theme and the White Scars theme.

 

Even typing that has made my head hurt. :)

Just give me a little while to work on the new version of this IA, and we'll see how it works out.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I don't see why the geneseed is really important... Yes it adds a part to the IA, but is it as important as the other sections?

[Lysimachus]

Ok, not looked in here for a few days but thought I’d stick my oar back in.

 

Having read through the last few posts it seems to me like most people, including me, (and most importantly Ace himself!) like the WS gene-seed. Therefore I’m going to chime back in and be all dissenting about Octavulg’s previous dissention! ;)

 

 

 

 

Breaking the conditioning doesn't seem quite right to me. Conditioning seems to vary from Chapter to Chapter and individual to individual, but this just rings hollow. It feels very much like what it is - a justification for your Chapter being descended from the White Scars but not fighting like them. It doesn't feel like a natural consequence.

 

I don’t see why it couldn’t work. As you say yourself ‘Conditioning seems to vary from Chapter to Chapter and individual to individual’ so almost anything is possible and still within the realms of defined fluff.

 

In any case, most of what we do is essentially justification; coming up with a cool idea, then figuring out some way to make it fit into the 40K universe!

 

 

...There'd have to be a lot of Orks.

 

… and of course we all know you never get more than a couple of hundred Orks together at one time… :huh:

 

 

A Space Marine Chapter just basically mutinied. That's a very, very, very serious issue.

 

Ok, I’ll admit, poor wording. I was being facetious, sue me. :P

 

 

It doesn't really make much sense for the White Scars to feel a group who fight in a fashion directly opposed to their methods is worthy of being recruited

 

Some Chapters recruit individuals from primitive/feral worlds whose most advanced idea of making war would be to hit the other guy over the head with a big rock. Ways of fighting can be learned if the Chapter feels that there are other advantages that make that extra effort worthwhile, e.g. genetic purity leading to a high percentage of successful aspirants.

 

 

it doesn't make sense for the Captain to stand for them doing things their own way

 

This I’ll admit needs a little more work. Perhaps Baines doesn’t even care all that much, he’s eager to get back to his own Chapter and only sees his assignment as ‘temporary caretaker’, and that they’ll have to make their own way in the galaxy anyway.

 

 

the whole thing with the conditioning raises circling issues of how they're stubborn enough and how the conditioning's weak enough. The strength of conditioning and Space Marines varies wildly from depiction to depiction, and I'm uncomfortable with the nature of the people of this planet being enough to drag the Marines away from both possible genetic preferences and conditioning.

 

Highlighted the relevant point. As previously mentioned, fluff-wise it’s almost a blank slate to do what you want with.

 

As far as genetic preferences go, WS are focussed on 2 things, speed and ferocity. Why not just say that they’re more focussed on the ferocity side of things? Come to think of it, you could make the Red Sabres more ‘ferocious’ than ‘speedy’ in the first place, therefore making for a slightly easier transition for the Stonebound.

 

 

I still think you'd be much better off just using the Salamanders or the Imperial Fists (I'd lean toward the Fists over the Salamanders - they're more dwarven in attitude, and there's less redundancy).

 

No offence intended by this, but have you considered that maybe this is a personal preference thing rather than a serious stumbling block to the IA?

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, it’s up to you in the end Ace, you are the one who needs to be happy with the final product. To quote the excellent Octaguide:

 

It is also important to remember that these criticisms are the opinion of others (though sometimes they can be the opinions of a lot of others). No one can force you to change your IA. It is yours and you must be happy with the final result, or your time was wasted. These people are usually telling you what they would do - but what matters is what you will do. You must determine for yourself what advice to follow and why.

 

Whether Octavulg’s right about all this or not (and I’m not disputing the fact that most of the time he totally is), the Stonebound can work with either IF, Sallies or WS gene-seed. The IF/Sallies are undoubtedly the easier option, but who said easy was good?

 

 

 

P.S. Again, I would like to add my total respect for everything my buddy Octavulg says. I’m sure he’s not remotely worried by the prospect of a little debating of this issue (certainly not from a moron such as myself :P ).

Edited May 25, 2010 by Strike Captain Lysimachus

[Octavulg]

Wildfire:

I think people are getting way too caught up in the gene-seed thing. There's plenty of chapters out there that don't follow the same combat specialties of their originating legion. They had to change somewhere along the line. Why not from the very beginnings of the chapter, when a single influential personality (such as one of the few members of the training cadre) could create lasting traditions? Or, as the Blood Ravens, someone who took command with new ideas and changed the direction of the chapters tactics permanently?

 

Because the method you propose is one that has been beaten to death, and then continually beaten after that so it resembles nothing so much as particularly tacky strawberry jam.

 

Single Charismatic Figure is one of the most common ways to change a chapter, and it's a cop-out. Instead of creating organic change in the character of the Chapter, it is all too often a deus ex machina used to save time and thinking in order to get things to where they 'need to be'. In order to properly explore the change, flesh out the SCF, and keep it from not coming across as a deus ex machina, the entire IA basically ends up devoted to exploring this mighty fellow and all that he wrought. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Ace does not want to write an IA about how a White Scars successor Chapter stopped fighting the way the White Scars do - and that's what using the White Scars geneseed/heritage requires.

 

Furthermore, people are using geneseed as a shorthand for "heritage, tactics, philosophical viewpoints, genetics and training". Because of the training cadre system, geneseed comes with a lot of baggage - and a lot of that baggage would need to be unloaded in order to end up with the Stonebound.

 

Hawk Lords, for instance, are so good at thunderhawk deployments that other chapters get trained by them. Tell me what original legion specialized in that? Heck, the whole 4th edition trait system supported divergent chapters.

 

Something tells me the Hawk Lords did not start off as a Chapter that fought exclusively on the ground and then decided to go with being air-focused. Evolution and specialization is one thing. But taking the White Scars and ending up with the Stonebound does not feel like a natural evolution - while using the Salamanders or Imperial Fists would. And the more natural things feel, the less time needs to be dedicated to justifying/explaining why they did that, which leaves more space for other things.

 

If you're really looking to give them something that reflects White Scars gene-seed, break down what might be gene-seed flaws vs. cultural bias. Seems to me the culture of their homeworld may be what leads them to prefer fast attack/nomadic styles of warfare.

 

Again - geneseed is more than just genetics. It is the heritage and identity of the Chapter - and if there's one thing that people in 40K overemphasize, it's their heritage and identity. There are two methods available to Ace - use the White Scars geneseed and come up with a natural evolution to some form of Dwarven/Stonebound/Kagaran tactics, or use some other geneseed that fits better.

 

And considering the White Scars are completely obsessed with speed and mobility, I really don't think there's a natural evolution of their tactics that ends up where it needs to.

 

Lysimachus:

 

I don’t see why it couldn’t work. As you say yourself ‘Conditioning seems to vary from Chapter to Chapter and individual to individual’ so almost anything is possible and still within the realms of defined fluff.

 

Equally, though, almost anything is impossible and still within the realms of defined fluff. :huh: However, I can't help but think that if a bunch of Space Marines seemed to be overcoming their conditioning, the conditioning would be increased in strength. If Space Marines want someone to be conditioned, I suspect they'd be bloody well conditioned by the end of it.

 

In any case, most of what we do is essentially justification; coming up with a cool idea, then figuring out some way to make it fit into the 40K universe!

 

True. I'm just not sure "their natural stubbornness lets them overcome their conditioning" is all that riveting. :P

 

… and of course we all know you never get more than a couple of hundred Orks together at one time… huh.gif

 

Planets are big places and Space Marines are quick. You need a LOT of Orks before they can deal with that (I would have thought, anyway).

 

That, and the idea that a Space Marine Captain who was chosen to mentor a new Chapter can't handle an Ork attack while his subordinates can is rather MISS.

 

Some Chapters recruit individuals from primitive/feral worlds whose most advanced idea of making war would be to hit the other guy over the head with a big rock. Ways of fighting can be learned if the Chapter feels that there are other advantages that make that extra effort worthwhile, e.g. genetic purity leading to a high percentage of successful aspirants.

 

Yes, but if the recruits are clearly not taking to the conditioning or methods proposed by the Chapter, why tolerate it?

 

This I’ll admit needs a little more work. Perhaps Baines doesn’t even care all that much, he’s eager to get back to his own Chapter and only sees his assignment as ‘temporary caretaker’, and that they’ll have to make their own way in the galaxy anyway.

 

He's shepherding the future of one of humanity's only hopes for the future. Only about a thousand men have ever been in his position in the history of the Imperium. He is, for better or worse, the man who is most likely to define the Chapter for a long, long time to come.

 

As far as genetic preferences go, WS are focussed on 2 things, speed and ferocity. Why not just say that they’re more focussed on the ferocity side of things? Come to think of it, you could make the Red Sabres more ‘ferocious’ than ‘speedy’ in the first place, therefore making for a slightly easier transition for the Stonebound.

 

But you still have to explain that, at least somewhat, and focusing on Chapters other than the one the IA is about is rarely a good thing.

 

No offence intended by this, but have you considered that maybe this is a personal preference thing rather than a serious stumbling block to the IA?

 

I have. I don't mind the White Scars geneseed. I mind that there's no real reason for the Chapter to end up anything other than White Scarsy. Hefty chunks of the IA have to be dedicated to explaining why the Chapter ended up this way - and it's simply not necessary (and I don't really find the explanations that convincing).

 

The IF/Sallies are undoubtedly the easier option, but who said easy was good?

 

Depends on what you mean by easy.

 

There's "difficult to serve a goal" and "difficult because it's difficult". I'm a big fan of the first. Not so much of the second.

 

P.S. Again, I would like to add my total respect for everything my buddy Octavulg says. I’m sure he’s not remotely worried by the prospect of a little debating of this issue (certainly not from a moron such as myself tongue.gif ).

 

There's a reason you keep showing up in my acknowledgements, Lysimachus, and it's not because I like trying to spell your name. :P

Edited May 25, 2010 by Octavulg

[Wildfire]

Well, Octavulg, I'm just going to respectfully disagree. I think we have some differences of opinion about the "nature vs. nuture" thing with regards to SM. Perhaps it's because I go back to the days when marines weren't anything more than convicts with special training and psycho-conditioning, and there was no such thing as gene-seed.

 

In any case, I will freely admit you have much more experiance with IAs than I. At best, I'm an infrequent dabbler. I haven't read enough to tell what has been done to death and what's new and fresh (if anything). So I would ceratainly say that Ace should give far more weight to your words than mine. But with that in mind, the WS gene-seed works for me.

[Ace Debonair]

Just to let everyone know, I'm taking this all pretty seriously.

"Everything but the core is subject to change." That's my general motto with my IAs. The geneseed isn't core to this idea - the dwarfishness is. I can change that, and the Stonebound will still be the Stonebound.

 

Arguments as to whose geneseed is cooler will invariably end in favour of the Khan.

Arguments as to whose geneseed is more suited to the Stonebound lean more towards Dorn or Vulkan, and since I really don't want to explain the Stonebound changing to Codex organisation, Dorn's genes become the weapon of choice. ;)

 

With this IA, I've already torn out and re-done entire sections that I personally have been very, very pleased with. I'm totally ready to do that with the geneseed too.

My options are, realistically, to keep the geneseed and tone down the dwarfishness, or change the geneseed and get on with re-write three.

 

Reconciling dwarfishness and Scars-ish-ness into a single chapter is a task for a greater writer than I, or someone who's prepared to have a less-dwarfy-dwarf-chapter.

 

All I have to do now is write an IF successor that will assauge the doubts and make everyone wonder why I ever bothered with the White Scars in the first place. :P

Edited May 26, 2010 by Ace Debonair

[Ace Debonair]

All I have to do now is write an IF successor that will assauge the doubts and make everyone wonder why I ever bothered with the White Scars in the first place. :lol:

:wallbash: Famous :wallbash: Last :wallbash: Words :wallbash:

 

This re-write is not going as smoothly as I had hoped.

I'm not sure what I was expecting - changing the geneseed doesn't magically make the whole thing make sense, after all.

 

Between all the errors, new ideas, and changing geneseed, I don't think I can recycle more than a couple of lines from the present draft. :lol:

 

Although in fairness, I can forget the nomad/fixed split in the Kagaran population. I can also forget the 'riding around and launching raids' during the siege of Kagara despite having a whacking great fortress to wall up in. Best of all, the combat doctrine can be pure, undiluted Stonebound - moving at glacier speed but killing everything so much as twitches in front of them with terrifying agression and effectiveness.

 

So, in the most part, this post is just to say work has not stopped on the Stonebound. It's just going very slowly - like a good dwarf chapter should. ;)

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

So, in the most part, this post is just to say work has not stopped on the Stonebound. It's just going very slowly - like a good dwarf chapter should.

 

*Quaffs ale* Aye lad, slow and steady like but ye'll get there in the end, and wi' all ye limbs intact no doubt. All that remains of the enemy should be a ruddy smoking crater and by Grungi *cough* I mean the Emperor you'll do it.

 

moving at glacier speed but killing everything so much as twitches in front of them with terrifying agression and effectiveness.

 

Not to rain on your metaphor's but you know that Glaciers actually kill people because they move with unexpected speed and in unexpected ways? Perhaps something to incorporate in the stonebound. ;)

 

Between all the errors, new ideas, and changing geneseed, I don't think I can recycle more than a couple of lines from the present draft.

 

Been there... want a free t-shirt? ;)

 

I can also forget the 'riding around and launching raids' during the siege of Kagara despite having a whacking great fortress to wall up in.

 

This is probably a good thing. It isn't the Lions Gate spaceport after all. Thinking back this really was remarkably similar to the Assault on the Emperors Palace during the Heresy.

 

I look forward to the Stonebound's next incarnation Ace, and I'm not the only one.

[Ace Debonair]

Not to rain on your metaphor's but you know that Glaciers actually kill people because they move with unexpected speed and in unexpected ways? Perhaps something to incorporate in the stonebound. ;)

"Not to rain on your metaphor, but take that metaphor." :o

I look forward to the Stonebound's next incarnation Ace, and I'm not the only one.

So long as you're prepared to wait a bit - I'm finally getting central heating put in my secret caves tomorrow, and then the weekend will be upon me, which is always a busy time.

But now that I have expectations to live up to, I'm going to have to make sure I don't type this at 11:00 pm for a change. :)

[Philip S]

Do you have a Chapter symbol?

 

Philip

[Ace Debonair]

Do you have a Chapter symbol?

 

Philip

 

I have. It's something Codex Grey threw together for me, but I'm not quite tech-savvy enough to upload it on the 'net.

That's a Techmarine job, for sure. :P

 

Like it says at the start of the IA (under the pictures, I think), it's a pair of grey axes in an 'X' shape, with the blades at the top and facing outwards. :wink:

[Heru]

Do you have a Chapter symbol?

 

Philip

 

I have. It's something Codex Grey threw together for me, but I'm not quite tech-savvy enough to upload it on the 'net.

That's a Techmarine job, for sure. ^_^

In the userbar next to "My Controls" should be "My Albums", click that.

Next click New album and name it whatever you want and check the box next to public, then create album.

Open the album if it didn't open straight away and click "New Image", put whatever you want as the Caption, then go down to "Upload Photo" and click Browse; now find the image you want to upload and click open.

Once it is uploaded it should show up in your album, click the image and on the page that comes up copy "image link", then paste it in your post inside tags.

[Reyner]

You can upload the image into your Bolter and Chainsword gallery Ace there should be something like "My Albums" near the top of your page.

 

 

*edit* seems Heru Talon beat me to it.

Edited June 5, 2010 by Reyner

[Ace Debonair]

Do you have a Chapter symbol?

 

Philip

 

I have. It's something Codex Grey threw together for me, but I'm not quite tech-savvy enough to upload it on the 'net.

That's a Techmarine job, for sure. :lol:

In the userbar next to "My Controls" should be "My Albums", click that.

Next click New album and name it whatever you want and check the box next to public, then create album.

Open the album if it didn't open straight away and click "New Image", put whatever you want as the Caption, then go down to "Upload Photo" and click Browse; now find the image you want to upload and click open.

Once it is uploaded it should show up in your album, click the image and on the page that comes up copy "image link", then paste it in your post inside tags.

 

Heru, Reyner, I didn't know you guys were techmarines! :P

Thanks for that - the chapter badges for the Stonebound and the Infinity Knights are both in my album now, where anyone interested can have a look.

 

I'd put it here, too, but it's a bit on the large side.

I'll just PM it to Philip instead. ;)

[Reyner]

Oh yes. Praise to the omnissiah.

 

Those Chapter icons are very good :)

[Philip S]

I'll just PM it to Philip instead. ;)

:P

?

Philip

[Ace Debonair]

Coooooooooool! :D

 

Now all I have to do is get the IA sorted out. :P

Back to researching the old sagas for me.

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

That looks bloody good in my humble opinion. Nice work Philip.

[Apothete]

So... When do my favorite dwarven Marines get another pass on polish?