IA: Rock Wyrms

[Jacobite]

-Index Astartes: Rock Wyrms-

http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/7831700/640/Rock-Wryms/spacemarine-(2

Origins

The Rock Wyrms are a young chapter in comparison to many, having been founded as part of the 23rd Founding in late M37/early M38. They were created as another fleet based chapter to act as a quick response force to the Segmentum Obscurus; their role is one of saviors rather than avengers or crusaders. They travel the stars waiting for a cries of help to reach them where upon they sail with all haste to the aid of whatever planet is in need. When the Chapter was first created the Salamanders gene seed was chosen for very specific reasons namely the characteristics of humility, steadfast resoluteness and compassion for non Astartes.

The Battle of the Asteroid

In 673.M39 they answered a distress call from the Astropathic Station servicing the Opert System whose infrastructure was based around 9 worlds focusing on food production for the surrounding wealthier quadrants. The “bread basket” planets as they were known were under attack by unknown forces who were massacring the inhabitants without mercy. The populations of the two outer most planets were already completely decimated. The Rock Wyrms responded instantly dispatching their 2nd Company, 3 squads from their 3rd and their flagship “The Dragons Breath” to combat the threat. Elements of the 9th Company were also directed to assist have recently successfully aided in the pre emptive strike against WAAAAAGH Gubstick. At the time the Chapter was still Codex adherent so the 2nd Company number approximately 100 marines of various squad types, 30 marines from the 3rd and the 9th Company's contribution was of 25 heavy weapon specialists. 15 Chapter Veterans in Tactical Dreadnaught armor also joined the task force.

The Rock Wyrms arrived in system quickly and began to set up sweeping patrols that aimed to prevent raiders from moving freely within the system. The Dragons Breath formed the linch pin in this strategy, patrolling the 3 inner most planets while the 4 outer planets still un raided were protected by the three 3 Gladuis Class Frigates; “Black Scale”, “Night Skin” and “Fire Hide”. These would later be joined by the Strike Cruiser Granite Heart carrying the 9th Company Devastators.

Shortly after the arrival of the 9th Company they were also joined by a representative of the Inquisition, a Inquisitor by the name of Kilas Jard. He had also heard the distress call and concerned that it could be work of the Ruinous Powers he decided to investigate. This concern proved to be well founded as 2 months after their arrival the 7th Planet was struck by a Fleet of Chaos Raiders, Traitors of the Betrayers of Pain war band descended on the world, slaughtering all in their path and piling their bodies high as part of some cruel plan to bring forth a tide of deamons onto the material plane.

The Rock Wyrms fell upon their foes with righteous fury, the Betrayers of Pain, outnumbered fell back and took to their ships fleeing the system. Not wishing to allow their foes to escape and cause more havoc on another un-suspecting Imperial System the Rock Wyrms gave pursuit with their fleet.

When they emerged from the warp they found themselves on the very edge of the Segmentum, in front was a giant rock hanging in space, an asteroid so large it was size of a small moon and the Betrayers of Pain's ships entering one of the craters. The Rock Wyrms began a bombardment of the rock and then followed in with Caestus Assault Rams, the 5 ships of their fleet taking a pounding from the asteroid base before their fire silenced the defensive guns. It took the Rock Wyrms 2 weeks of intense close quarters fight to secure a beachhead. 2 years later they were still fighting their way through the close confines of the Betrayers of Pain's base, getting closer and closer to the centre where they knew a foul warp portal would be, that being the only explanation for the tide of fallen Astartes, deamons and traitor guardsmen who battled them tooth and claw. It had to be sealed before the rock could be destroyed. The Devastators of the 9th Company had put aside their heavy weapons and instead had turned to assault weapons of flame and plasma. Their assault squads had cast aside their jump packs, them being of little use in the tunnels. Grenades were used to blast through walls, gouts of fire clear tunnels of deamon spawn and men were trapped in deadly cave ins, the survivors bured sometimes for days.

In a final titanic battle they gained access to the core and thanks to the sacrfice of Inquisitor Kilas Jard they managed to seal the rift. 26 marines feel in this action alone, as they pulled back to their beachhead they received transmissions from their fleet to hurry, a Chaos Armada had just exited the warp, presumably to prevent the Betrayers of Pain's base from being destroyed. The well ordered retreat turned into a desperate sprint to the surface. The extraction from the asteroid proved even worse with many of the Rock Wyrms assault rams shoot down by the storm of fire that was launched at them. The Black Scale was crippled and destroyed early on. The Dragons Breath was raked with fire and badly damaged, her warp drive becoming unresponsive. The Fire Hide and Night Skin, did their best to shield her from enemy fire while the Granite Heart took the fight to the enemy in a suicidal attack run that saw her take out two enemy cruisers. In a desperate act and with a ship suffering major structural damage to her spine the Captain of the Dragon's Breath made a jump to the closest friendly system. The Night Skin and Fire Hide jumped with her. The Granite Heart, her warp drive completely crippled and her engines failing angled herself at the Asteroid and rammed with all the speed it could generate, at the same time the tech-marines aboard disabled the safety wards on the reactors and allowed it to overload. The asteroid was torn apart by the explosion and the Betrayers of Pain hit hard by its loss as a staging post.

The Rock Wyrms had lost a Strike Cruiser, a Gladuis escort and 105 marines. The Dragons Breath was also so badly damaged that it would spend the next 85 years being rebuilt, repaired and converted into a Chapter Monastery. Although the losses were high for the Rock Wyrms they had learnt many valuable lessons, every marine who survived was now a veteran tunnel fighter and rather than just allow this knowledge to die the Chapter decided to break with the Codex Astartes and build on this. The 9th Company, in memory of the valiant actions of their Strike Craft would forever more be known as the Granite Hearted.

Home-world

As a fleet based chapter the Rock Wyrms recruit from many worlds, often ones which they have just fought on and often these planets are more than willing to offer up their children as thanks to their saviors. The Rock Wyrms fleet, larger than many chapters by nature of their role is a often split up and assigned to various companies as and when they require it. The largest vessel which operates as their Fortress Monastery is the former Battle Barge Dragons Breath, which is consistently assigned to the 1st Company. This serves as their primary strategic planning and training environment and has been significantly expanded over the years. The decks have been extended, hanger bays moved and added and manufacturing facilities expanded greatly, indeed the entire 5th deck is one now giant armory which any member of the chapter can use to maintain their equipment. The chapter also uses two further Battle Barges – Domil's Wrath and Fire Stone to act as heavy support should they be needed and it is a rare site indeed to see the Dragon's Breath being deployed to combat.

Each one of the 10 companies operates out of a Strike Cruiser, although elements are often deployed via smaller craft to combat specific threats.

Beliefs

While the Rock Wyrms do not follow the Promethium Cult, nor venerate Vulkan as their Primarch they do exhibit a similar belief system focussed on self sacrifice and protecting the weak. Unlike the Salamanders however they do not practice routinely branding themselves. The Rock Wyrms believe that it is each and every marines duty to maintain the war gear he uses and as such the vast majority of brothers are skilled weapons smiths.

A Chapter wide deviation from the Codex Astartes is that all squad members armour will be comprised of exactly the same types. They go to extraordinary routes to maintain this and the marines do not view their armour as their own but instead as belonging to the Squad, it is their job to maintain it and to pass it on, much like Tactical Dreadnaught armour. A servant has no belongings after all.

Organisation

The Rock Wyrms do not follow the Codex Astartes closely, seeing it more as a blue print. The Rock Wyrms operate a 10 company structure comprised of a First Company numbering 80 Veterans which routinely deploy in Tactical Dreadnaught armor, 4 under strength Combat Companies, 4 Traditional Companies with an additional Training/Scout Company as the 10th.

Combat Companies make up numbers 2-5 and on paper comprises of 45 marines although this may be more or less depending on casualties and reserves present. A Combat Company will be lead by one of the Drake Captain, a veteran warrior akin to a Captain in a normal chapter. Under the command of the Drake Captain are:

1st Squad: Command and Communications
2nd/3rd Squad: Tactical Squads
4th/5th Squad: Support (Devastator) Squads
6th/7th Squad: Assault Squads
8th/9th Squad: Vehicle Crews and Reserves

Due to the Rock Wyrms skills at the close confines of tunnel fighting, subterranean warfare and clearing space hulks they have found that are required to routinely deploy on the battlefield in smaller squads than most other Chapters. The squads in a Combat Company number only 4 marines and a Sergeant. However this lack of man power should not confused for a weakness. To make up for the lack of numbers and to take full advantage of the restricted nature of the conditions they often find themselves in the Astartes in a battle company will often arm themselves with more specialised weapons than normal. More senior Chaplains, Librarians and Apothecaries will attach themselves to Combat Companies as they see fit.

Each of Companies 6-9 is lead not by a Captain but by a high ranking Techmarine called a Forge Father, he is aided on the field of battle by his arms man – a Drake Champion, the equivalent of a Company Champion in other Chapters and the rank prior to becoming a Drake Captain. These Line Companies are larger and follow the Codex pattern of:

Forge Father
Chaplin
Librarian

1st Squad: Drake Champion and Command Squad
2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th Squads: Tactical Squads
7th/8th Squads: Assault Squads
9th/10th Squads: Devastator Squads


When a Marine has proven himself in the the Line companies he may find himself transferred to a combat company. This is not to say that the Line Companies are training companies, on the contrary they are battle companies the same as the Combat Companies, the only difference being their composition and the specialised role of the Combat Companies.

Techmarines will attach themselves to companies as and when they are required. Due to the Chapters focus on metal working the Chapter has a larger number of Techmarines than others and it is not un-common to have several Tech marines attached to a Company to assist the Forge Father in his duty’s.

The Chapter is lead by a Forge Master, equivalent in rank and responsibility to a Chapter Master.

Combat Doctrine

When deploying to a war zone the chapter will routinely make planet fall at the locations of large amount of refugees, civilians or PDF and then move outwards towards the enemy. While also being a humanitarian action this method also has the benefit of first hand intelligence gathering. It allows the Rock Wyrms to directly interact with forces who have already encountered the enemy and they can ascertain what they could be up against straight from those who have already experienced it.

After their experiences fighting the Betrayers of Pain the Chapter has developed a niche within the Imperial war machine and now routinely responds to calls for aid in conflicts involving close quarters battle such as underground warfare, space hulks, ruined hives, tomb worlds etc. As such they use more close range weapons and have fewer numbers of vehicles that are common in other Chapters. Rather than using Thunder hawks to transport their forces they use Caestus Assault Rams, instead optimising their Thunder hawks for Air Supremacy. Instead of Rhinos, Razorbacks and Land Raiders they favour custom made experimental variations of Imperial Termites or Moles. These tend to be extensively modified by the Rock Wyrms artificers; reshaping their hulls to allow to the inclusion of turrets and weapons as well as additional heavier armour and more powerful engines.

The Combat Company's Devastator or Support Squads as they are known, while being skilled at long range warfare find their true calling in the confines of tunnel warfare. Armed with flamers, meltaguns and plasma weaponry they purge the enemy with short range powerful weaponry which would often be of selected and limited use on surface battlefields is deadly beyond reasoning at close range.

Assault Squads also favour more powerful weapons, routinely arming their members with the kind of specialised weapons that are selectively handed out in the Line Companies.

Tactical Squads, despite being smaller in numbers are very similar to their Line Company counterparts and will usually only carry a single special weapon.

The uniformity of armour has a practical benefit on the battlefield as it makes it difficult for enemy forces to identify specific squad members as veterans and in the heat of combat even squad leaders become hard to identify. Conversely in tunnel warfare it is not uncommon for individual squad members to be isolated from their squad mates through cave ins and explosions and so the Rock Wyrms train themselves to co-ordinate solely through their HUD and radar signatures to prevent this from affecting them. This reliance on technology has caused some other Chapters to initially look down upon them but are often proved unfounded when the Rock Wyrms have taken to the field and displayed the speed and synchronicity that they can achieve.


Chapter Colors

The Chapter having taken recruits from many worlds has developed a culture of sparsity, they discard all the frivolities and trappings that most other chapters have instead only keeping the Crux Terminatus in wide spread circulation. This open display of humility is a constant reminder to the Astartes than where-ever they have come from they are now a Rock Wyrm and have cast their former lives behind. Now they are a servant of the Emperor and his subjects.

The armor of the Rock Wyrms is primarily unpainted, instead it remains the bare unpainted ceramite that it has always been. The only colors that are applied to the armor are white bone on the inner shoulder pads and the Aquila on the chest plate should it be there representing the Rock Wyrms faith and humility. The trim of the left shoulder pad is used to display company color as follows:

1st Company: N/A (will only deploy in Tactical Dreadnaught Armor or will take on the colors of the company they are serving with)
2nd Company: White
3rd Company: Yellow
4th Company: Orange
5th Company: Red
6th Company: Grey
7th Company: Blue
8th Company: Dark Purple
9th Company: Black
10th Company: N/A

Also on the left shoulder pad is the squad number represented by a unique pattern of lines and the squad type. Devastators/Support Squads have the top most portion of the white inner blacked out, Tacticals the middle and Assaults the bottom, representing their role on the battle field. Command Squads have a vertical black bar. Officers Rank is denoted by the wearing of a cloak made reptile hide as a sign of rank but other than this no indication of rank is given.

Librarians, Apothecaries and Chaplains, like the rest of their brothers, wear uncolored armor with the exception of their left shoulder pad which will show their traditional symbols and colors (horned skull, prime helix or skull respectively). Chaplains will wear a skull helmet and carry a Rosarius , Librarians will also wear a tabard with the appropriate symbols on it. Apothecaries carry the tools necessary to their job like in any other Chapter but otherwise are unchanged from a normal marine.

The Rock Wyrms chapter symbol is a simple symbol representing a dragon coiled protectively around a planet. It is painted in black on the right shoulder pad.

Gene Seed

The Rock Wyrms gene seed is based of that of the Salamanders chapter and as such is very stable suffering from no obvious mutations or flaws. However they do not have the jet black skin and red eyes, unlike the Salamanders the Rock Wyrms do not come from a high UV environment which interacts with the gene seed. There is some minor variation in the skin and eye color of the Rock Wyrms but this is due to the variance in their recruitment grounds.

Battle-Cry

Forge to the foe!

[NightrawenII]

Hmm... hmmm...

 

I have two questions;

 

#A Jacobite, mate. You are in army, aren't you?

#B Do you find your article enjoyable?

 

 

~NightrawenII.

[Jacobite]

Hi Nightrawen, A): Nope I'm not, never have been, I'm an actor actually. Why do you ask? ^_^ Thats quite a broad question. Did I enjoy writing it? Parts yes, other parts not so much. It was very nice to get the ideas that had been mulling around while painting my first squad down on paper. I'd like to ad some more "immediate/actiony" stuff in the future but first I have to write up individual pieces for the 5 marines I've just painted and also a tank for my other SM force. Do I enjoy reading it? At the moment I couldn't possibly comment, I only finished it recently. Ask me again in 6 months.

[NightrawenII]

Hi Nightrawen, A): Nope I'm not, never have been, I'm an actor actually. Why do you ask?

To confirm certain theory. Hmm, I was wrong then... :lol:

 

:D Thats quite a broad question. Did I enjoy writing it? Parts yes, other parts not so much. It was very nice to get the ideas that had been mulling around while painting my first squad down on paper. I'd like to ad some more "immediate/actiony" stuff in the future but first I have to write up individual pieces for the 5 marines I've just painted and also a tank for my other SM force. Do I enjoy reading it? At the moment I couldn't possibly comment, I only finished it recently. Ask me again in 6 months.

Oh, I'm patient. ;)

 

 

~NightrawenII

[Jacobite]

What is this theory? I would love to hear it.

[Jacobite]

So I've finally finished my first squad of these guys (Well I finished painting them a month ago but couldn't get in teh right frame of mind to get their personal fluff done till now) so I just thought I would let anybody interested that they can be seen here.

 

I would post them up here but I don't have a log for them on B&C after my Crimson Fury one died a nasty death.