Marines Errant

[Gree]

I have a question about the Marines Errant. I have taken interest in this chapter, after hunting down a list of possible Ultramarine successor chapters to play, and I really liked their color scheme and history except for one thing. The whole geneseed loss and slow demise thing. I’m not exactly keen on playing a doomed chapter.

 

Now the rulebook says that Huron got away with nearly all the geneseed. That’s fair enough, but then I read IA 9 which featured the Marines Errant.

 

Apparently the Marines Errant are supposed to take great care of their geneseed and maintain a larger than usual number of Apothecaries.

 

Although the Marines Errant are fleet-based, the Chapter’s number of Apothecaries is larger than is normal for a single chapter, and they maintain a repository fortress-monastery on the world of Vilamus in addition to their usual role. This secondary duty is very practical as well as ritualistic as the Chapter itself has often suffered severe desperation of its brethren in the past in situations were their precious geneseed could not be recovered.

 

This doesn’t really sound like they put all their geneseed into one place. For one thing it doesn’t make much sense to do that and it makes the whole base on Vilamus sound more like a secondary base than a main fortress-monastery. I mean, the rulebook claims they are doomed to a slow demise, but evidently most of the chapter still lives and they possess a large corps of Apothecaries to assist in any rebuilding. Is it possible for them to rebuild?

[Legatus]

I get the impression that the Imperial Armour descriptions of the Badab War Chapetrs are almost all completely made up from scratch, and only losely reference names that had previously been associated with a particular Chapter. For example, from the description in the 5th Edition rulebook I got the distinct impression that Vilamus was the homeworld of the Marines Errant. Not just because their fortress monastery was on that world, but also because it is described how Huron arranged to have the Marines Errant forces drawn more and more away from Vilamus, untill "eventually, Vilamus was left garrisoned by only 120 Space Marines", indicating that there would usually be more Marines Errant forces present, making this their actual homeworld. Yet in the Imperial Armour they are instead described a sa fleet based Chapter, and the fortress on Vilamus is demoted to being a repository for gene-seed. This seems to be at odds with the description of a, "understaffed" Vilamus fortress with "only 120" Marines being left there.

 

For now, it seems you can choose whether you take the 5th Edition rulebook fluff (where Vilamus is the Homeworld of the Chapter, and where they are dying off because of having lost almsot all of their reserve gene-seed) or the Imperial Armour fluff (where the Chapter is fleet based, and where they are extremely carefull with gene-seed).

 

I assume the reserves would be needed to guarantee the Chapter's continued existance because even though a Marine will produce two samples of gene-seed, it will more often than not just not be possible to harvest the gene-seed from a fallen Marine. I suppose it is likely that the Adeptus mechanicus still has some reserves of their gene-seed, but if the Rulebook fluff states that they are doomed to a slow demise, perhaps there are complications (perhaps tehy had kept more of the gene-seed for themselves, and occasionally skipped on the mandatory tithes, or something like that).

 

If the colour scheme is a big draw for you, perhaps the Eagle Warriors would be a suitable alternative? They are 2nd Founding, instead of 23rd. And they had already been mentioned in the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines.

[Gree]

If the colour scheme is a big draw for you, perhaps the Eagle Warriors would be a suitable alternative? They are 2nd Founding, instead of 23rd. And they had already been mentioned in the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines.

 

I considered it, but white is much harder to paint than silver. The new Badab War color scheme was chosen because it replaced white with silver and was easier to paint. Painting a force as Eagle Warriors would be very slow and tedious.

[No Foes Remain]

Even if their main gene-seed repository was cleaned out, each Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge would have its own gene-vaults with a decent supply of gene-seed to which the chapter can use. And therefore being a mainly fleet based chapter, they probably would have a decent stock of gene-seed in each Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge.

 

 

/Ventris.

[Romer]

I'd certainly say it was possible for them to rebuild. I remember reading in IA9 that at varying times it was likely the Marines Errant contained more than the codex definded number of marines, due to their crusading nature keeping companies isolated for decades at a time.

 

It logically follow then, that each company is capable of replacing and sustaining its numbers without needing to return to Vilamus.

 

If that's not enough, then alot of the descendants of Guilliman seem to maintain pretty good relations with each other. I'm sure the Marines Errant founding chapter the Eagle Warriors would gift their offspring a portion of their geneseed stores to ensure their legacy lived on.

 

The whole 'doomed to die a slow death' strikes me as GW trying to shower us with a 'grimdark' background without logically thinking it through.

[Vodunius]

If the colour scheme is a big draw for you, perhaps the Eagle Warriors would be a suitable alternative? They are 2nd Founding, instead of 23rd. And they had already been mentioned in the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines.

 

I considered it, but white is much harder to paint than silver. The new Badab War color scheme was chosen because it replaced white with silver and was easier to paint. Painting a force as Eagle Warriors would be very slow and tedious.

 

FW have a big metal fetish thing going on with IA9, Marines Errant had always previously been white & blue whilst Fire Angels had similarly always been white. There's no reason you can't do Eagle Warriors in silver & blue and say they're Forge World stylee. Cue obligatory note about Silver & White being effectively interchangeable in heraldry.

[Gree]

If the colour scheme is a big draw for you, perhaps the Eagle Warriors would be a suitable alternative? They are 2nd Founding, instead of 23rd. And they had already been mentioned in the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines.

 

I considered it, but white is much harder to paint than silver. The new Badab War color scheme was chosen because it replaced white with silver and was easier to paint. Painting a force as Eagle Warriors would be very slow and tedious.

 

FW have a big metal fetish thing going on with IA9, Marines Errant had always previously been white & blue whilst Fire Angels had similarly always been white. There's no reason you can't do Eagle Warriors in silver & blue and say they're Forge World stylee. Cue obligatory note about Silver & White being effectively interchangeable in heraldry.

 

We and Legatus had an entire discussion on that actually. Suffice to say, the use of white for silver and vice-versa is disputed.

[Marine Errant]

I have been collecting Marines since 1987 and Marines Errant since 1989 and there is NO way I am going to repaint 35000 points of Marines from white to silver......

As regards the original question, I prefer the FW take on things (naturally!!) and believe that, even with the loss of the repository, the Marines Errant have enough geneseed in their ships storage to keep the chapter going.

As an added plus point to keep you interested, in IA9 they are also noted as 'sometimes' making use of xenotech that they come across in their crusades. Makes for some interesting modelling choices :P

[Tranc]

I also believe the Marines Errant could recover, and agree with Romer that the "doomed to a slow death" wording in the rulebook was just there for dramatic effect.

 

As Legatus mentioned, each marine is implanted with a pair of progenoid glands. The entire scout company probably still have all of theirs, so that's enough to implate 200 marines, and if my understanding is correct, another 400 the following generation. The glands can be removed before a marine dies as long as they are mature, and according to Lexicanum both progenoids should be mature in 10 years.

 

So basically they just have to take it easy for 10-20 years, not committing their scouts to overly perilous missions, and the Chapter should be safe.