Questions on a new chapter

[Chaplain Septimus]

Hi there - Been lurking around a good while, making the occasional post. Busy working on my Chapter (I play in a fairly small group, usually in the campaign format with persistent armies), so we're all putting together decent fluff backgrounds, planning to maintain "histories" of the battles we fight etc.

 

My Chapter fluff is coming along nicely, and when I'm happy with it, I'll be posting it here for C&C. I've got most of the background drafted, explaining how the changes to the chapter came about, but there's a couple of things giving me trouble that I'd love to get the view of more experienced people on.

 

1) The chapter is going to have relatively close ties to the Mechanicus, but it's a fairly new chapter (founded M38). I'm looking to have a lot of Dreadnaughts in the army, so was thinking of having them come via the Mechanicus (possibly for performing some service to them). However, I've read in the Lexicanum that the creation of Dreadnaughts is an "almost lost" art. This implies that they can still be made, but that only a few places can still do it. Is it viable for a Chapter with close links to the Mechanicus to receive more Dreadnoughts than other chapters?

 

2) I've also read that Dreadnoughts spend a lot of time asleep. There seems to be two common reasons for this: a) that they can only afford to spend a certain amount of time awake in order for their systems to function properly, and that this time decreases with the age of the occupant; or b ) that they are permitted to sleep through the "boring bits" out of respect, but that it's not actually a necessity. Which is it?

 

3) I want the Dreadnoughts to play an active role in my Chapter's leadership and combat. If the answer to 2) is a), I can see two potential work-arounds for this. 1) That the Chapter has a lot more sarcophogai than Dreadnought suits, and it rotates the "awake" Dreadnought pilots through the suits, and leaves the sarcophogai of the asleep ones plugged into a separate support matrix; or 2) that once a Dreadnought reaches an age where it sleeps too often, in a great ceremony, the pilot is thanked for his service and given the Emperor's Peace and a new pilot installed. Which solution is most feasible within the 40k universe?

 

4) We don't trust mutants. Not at all. Librarians don't exist any more in the Chapter, and psykers are treated very similar to the way the Imperium treats them. Instead of Librarian HQ's, we have Psyker squads as Elites, with a single psyker (ordinary battle-brother, just with psyk abilities - and only visible, combat abilities at that!) surrounded by Chaplain-trainees who will execute him the second he shows any sign of taint, PotW etc. Is there a problem with this idea, and are there any other factors that I should consider when implementing this?

 

5) The Chapter is intensely religious. Significantly more so than other space marine chapters. Due to the close relationships with the Mechanicus, they revere and worship the Triune Emperor - Man, God and Machine. As part of this, the Chaplains play a massively increased role in the Chapter's leadership. I'm aiming to have a system where you upgrade a squad's sergeant to a Chaplain Trainee (or whatever) and that allows him to select a prayer / litany. As the squad enters into battle, with the words of this chant in their ears, it would marginally improve their performance in a limited fashion, providing a passive boost of some sort to the squad - there isn't really a system out there at the moment like this for comparison (that I can think of), so think a mix of the IG orders, SoB Faith effects and SW Saga's. I know that balancing the point costs will be tricky, but are there any other problems or considerations that I should take into account?

 

6) Lastly, the Chapter has fallen foul of the Inquisition at some point in the past. Details are irrelevant for this purpose, but the Inquisition couldn't find any evidence that supported a problem, even though they suspected things were being hidden from them. They decided that they couldn't take any action without some sort of evidence, but they certainly weren't going to do nothing, so they demanded an oath of service to prove the loyalty of the Chapter. As such, the Chapter has a rule - "Called to Service". At the start of any battle, roll a d6. On a result of 1, the Inquisition has demanded some of your troops to serve their own ends somewhere. Randomly select one of your Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support units (limited to Infantry / Jump Infantry / Bikers etc. No vehicle / walker types) using the roll of a dice and exclude that unit from the battle. You may take 1-2 additional tactical squads (with a maximum point cost of the lost unit) in it's place. I know this is hardly a great idea for a tournament army, but I think it's great for a fluff-based persistent campaign system. So... comments? Anything else I should consider?

 

My thanks, in advance, for anyone who has thoughts or comments for me!

[Generating Random Name...]

For number 5 there is the Black templar vowes, theres quite a few and they all do different stuff.

 

And for 6 you could even go fo having an inquisitor + retinue allied to your army to "check" on them...

 

Hope that helped, sorry i can't help with any of the others

 

GRN

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

First, for your Dreadnoughts, I would consider PMing Blacklight. He's currently doing something similar.

 

1. It is viable, but remember that they still won't have many dreadnoughts at all, considering they're a young chapter. So in other words, they'll have a couple more dreads than the average chapter of that age. I would consider making them an older chapter.

 

2. It's somewhat similar to a), as they 1. need to be kept in stasis to allow themselves rest(let's see you spend a few thousand years awake :) ), and 2. to prevent them from aging beyond the limits of the dreadnought.

 

3. With 2., you would still run into the problem of having too few dreadnoughts. With 1., I could potentially see this happening.

 

4. First, if you don't trust mutants at all, why do use psykers. Second, don't write fluff to fit the tabletop. It doesn't work. Think of this as a completely separate universe. Third, I don't see the chapter putting all the resources into training and equipping the psyker plus his guards, then having the psyker be killed on a moments notice, and the guards tied up baby-sitting until then.

 

5. Once again, keep the rules away from the fluff. Matter/Fluff+Antimatter/Rules=Big Explosion of Swarming Liberites. I would stick your rules ideas in the Homegrown Rules section.

 

6. See 5.

[soddinnutter]

1. It's not that they don't know how to make them its that they don't know how to make them fast.Each one has to be hand made and assembled by hand by an extremely well trained Tech Magos and Apprentices. The Mid Impulse Unit is the hardest part to make. Everything else is just hydraulics, armour plating, life support machine and a standard fusion reactor. Trying to get a machine spirit to be slaved to a human brain? that's a work of art.

 

2. Dreadnaughts spend a lot of time asleep because the sensory deprivation drives them nuts. Also they may still be in pain from the injuries they received to get them put in the Dreadnaught and their bodies are extremely good at filtering out the painkillers like any other toxins so eventually the pain may drive them a little crazy. And the human brain is just not meant to live that long. Regular marines, if they manage to not get killed in battle will start to go senile. this may vary greatly withe the individual. Ulric the Slayer and Dante are exceptions and not the rule. Both may be subjectively quite a bit older than Bjorn the Fellhanded. A dreadnaught living for the better part of 10,000 years? he will have spent much of that time asleep or he will be more nutty than squirrel :lol: .

 

3. The Sarcophagi are the hard bits to make. the suit is just a suit. If they must be in a sort of Elder Council thing then the second option is more likely. It's probably not that bad of a deal from an astartes point of view. It's not like they have much in the sense of personal survival instincts. After millenia of eating through a tube, slowly becoming more forgetful, knowing all your friend have been dead for 800 years and still having a dull pain where your limbs and eyeballs used to be they may not feel so bad about someone throwing a Going Away party for them followed by a restful sleep they don't need to get up from.

 

4. Having Psykers train in the arts of Psykery makes more sense then training them to shuffle books. That's what human Archivists are for. The chaplain trainee execution squad is going a bit silly though. By all means have a well trained veteran be their body guard but a squad is going a bit OTT. Space marine psykers are a lot harder to corrupt than regular ones.

 

5. Remember that a marine who trains to be a Battle-Preacher all day every day is not training to be a strategist. In the same way that a Captain would not always make a good Battle-Preacher.

 

6. Then have a representative of the Inquisition present at all times, observing the battles, sitting in on Council meetings and inspecting the new recruits. Or you could ally yourself with another faction within the =I= so they can't move against you openly without risking massive dissension within the ranks of the =i=.