Looking for DIY chapter inspiration

[Prototype]

I've been meaning to repaint my Space Marines into a DIY chapter, but I haven't quite gotten a spark of inspiration just yet. I've been soaking myself in a lot of fantasy/history (particularly dark ages) lately, be it in terms of games or shows, since I've always liked a more fantasy/historical-orientated feel, except that they are in space; kinda like how Space Wolves are vikings in space or Black Templars are crusaders in space.

 

Thing is, I've hit a brick wall of sorts, and I'm not an artistic person by nature. One of the particularly catchy pieces of art that did spark something was this piece of art:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2011...telan_Merir.jpg

Its somewhat knight/templar-ish but certainly not Black Templars, but it doesn't entirely bear the look of the current post-heresy Dark Angels either. I'm a big fan of the whole knightly "feel", but without the pompousness of some of the actual medieval knights.

 

Then theres also the issue with their color scheme. Most armies already have the more common/logical color combinations taken a long time ago, and somehow my brain is just revolving around them being black; a color thats probably overdone to death.

 

I'd greatly appreciate any ideas you guys could help. Thoughts, ideas, even pictures (for inspiration or of your own DIY chapter), etc. would all be a great help. Forgive me for the vagueness of my ideas, but I've been keeping my eye out for ideas for almost a year, and I've got nothing that I'm happy with, that hasn't already been done. My thanks in advance.

[The_Chaplain]

Okay, I'll give what little advice I can.

 

You want to go with a knightly feel? That's a good start! Now, you need to pick a feudal/knight culture and country that appeals to the direction you want to go in. Read that country's history; try and get a feel for their culture and adapt it to 40k.

 

Then, I suggest you take the warhammer deathwatch roleplay book "Rites of Battle" and follow the generation rules it has for a successor chapter generation. More often than not, what is rolled on your end makes for the beginnings of an interesting chapter, and serves as a framework for you to start working on building up the army's background.

 

After that, I would read the 4th edition space marine codex and it's now defunct rules for successor generation. While you can't play these rules anymore, they can serve as inspiration to make your army more unique. An example would be: the trait that lets you take apothecaries as sergeants could confer a feeling of purity over all for your chapter, which would couple nicely if you rolled either highly pure gene stock in Rites of Battle, or slowly corrupting genestock. On the one side of the coin, the chapter may feel that their genestock is of better quality than from other, lesser primarch's geneseed and that purity aids them in battle; while on the reversal, the chapter has to preserve what good gene stock they have- in hopes of cloning and creating a better bank to use in new initiates into the chapter. Again, purely an example.

 

Then, I'd read the 5th edition space marine codex, as well as the Forgeworld Imperial Armour supplements which pertain to space marines (Apocalypse, Apocalypse 2, Imperial Armour 9&10, as well as Space Marines and the forces of the Inquisition) and see if anything pops out at you- a particular chapter tactic, a character that you can use as a "counts as", etc.

 

Once that's done, I suggest you throw together what you have in the beginnings of an Index Astartes article- post that in the liber astartes, and we can provide advice from there.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Also, watching movies of the time period you're going for, history channel specials, etc. can provide insight and ideas into colors and heraldry to use in your knightly marines.

[WookieeGunner]

First off, in canon black is a lot less common then you would expect as you can see from:

 

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pictorial_...ne_Chapters_A-L and http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pictorial_...ne_Chapters_M-Z

 

That being said, there is probably a lot of black in DiY stuff, but I bet it is still a lot lower then you expect (black is hard to paint correctly).

 

So, now to ideas. The pic you linked to is the basic robed Space Knight. Now historically speaking, the predominate place you saw this type of knight was on the Holy Crusades to free Jerusalem so you might look into that history. The robes were to keep the knights from getting heat stroke while traveling through the desert. I would look to this period of history for inspiration.

 

In addition, black (the color you are considering) is the traditional color of the Chaplain's armor. So how about if you combine these two. Your chapter is more religious then most so adorn their armor black in reverence to the black of the Chapain's armor. Perhaps they were created to assist in the clean up after the Age of Apostasy and therefore the initial Chapter Master and training cadre were picked due to their strong reverence so not to be swayed by the Heathen Cults.

 

If you haven't read it yet, here is a discussion about that timeframe: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...=255975&hl=

[Prototype]

Thank you! I was worried all I'll get was a "so you want us to build your chapter for you? Pfft" haha.

I'll get the Deathwatch RPG book, I'm quite sure a friend of mine has it.

 

Is there a specific name for the knights you were referring to Wookie? I Googled several phrases but all I mostly got were the usual teutonic knight-looking dudes, with the white tabards.

 

Its good to know that black isn't overdone too. I'm thinking of complimenting my black armor with red cloth; white cloth would be the best IMO but it would be too much like the Black Templars, so red seems like the logical second choice, unless theres another alternative.....brownish beige?

 

Also, are there any online places out there that sell "bits"? Some bits like cloaks and tabards (for which I opened a separate thread for) or even like, robed upper bodies and other cool "knightly" bits even. I'm not confident in my sculpting, so for the mean time I'd be glad to buy them instead.

 

My utmost gratitude!

[CaptainAsmodai]

Look up knights Templar it might be what your looking for

[Octavulg]

Black is actually common as dirt in DIY chapters, at least in my experience. If you're gonna do black, I'd recommend mixing it up a little with quartering or an unusual other color of some kind. Alternately, I might recommend black cloth with another color of armor, which I don't recall seeing much.

 

There's a lot of different possible takes on knightliness, and a "hard-bitten professional warriors" angle isn't too common. I'd recommend adding some other stuff into the mix, both to keep them multidimensional and because multiple concepts often create neat things through their synergy.

 

God, I sound like such a hack.

 

Have you figured out a name, or what chapter you'd like your guys to descend from? Any idea for unique things about their home world, or their history?

[WookieeGunner]

Not specifically. The Teutonic Knights (aka Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem) are one, the Knights Hospitalitar is another. Here is a Wikipedia article that gives you a large range of Orders:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_order

 

That being said, the helmets in your picture look to be based on Sugar Loaf Helmets, if I remember correctly they were aroung late 13th and early 14th so say 1250-1350 ish.

[TennisBall]

Thank you! I was worried all I'll get was a "so you want us to build your chapter for you? Pfft" haha.

Which should be the answer because you are asking us to create a super cool never seen before chapter that everyone will love you for.

 

From what you've said though I don't know why you don't do Dark Angels. The second company is the Ravenwing who have black armour and use lots of bikes, very easy to base a knightly army on.

 

You could also do a Dark Angels successor chapter and use black as your main colour with knightly type heraldry on their shoulder and knee pads. There's nothing stopping you from having an army that looks like the old Dark Angels anyway. If you go with a successor chapter, you can use the Dark Angels icons which avoids having to come up with your own chapter icon and then try to either paint or model it onto your minis. You could also say that they revere the legion from which they came and try to make their current armour look like the armour used at the time of their primarch as a way of honouring the old legion.

[Joasht]

Thank you! I was worried all I'll get was a "so you want us to build your chapter for you? Pfft" haha.

Which should be the answer because you are asking us to create a super cool never seen before chapter that everyone will love you for.

Give the guy some space, there is no harm bouncing ideas off others.

Look at Heresy Online. A while ago I saw a beautiful pre-Heresy Dark Angels army inspired by that same piece of art. I tried looking for it to link it here, but no luck...

[TennisBall]

Give the guy some space, there is no harm bouncing ideas off others.

Look at Heresy Online. A while ago I saw a beautiful pre-Heresy Dark Angels army inspired by that same piece of art. I tried looking for it to link it here, but no luck...

Read the OP again. He's looking for something that hasn't been done before but doesn't have the imagination to come up with it himself. I have no problem with that, just the way it was asked. There were certainly no ideas 'bounced off' us or otherwise but a request for help which I believe has been answered.

I think it's better though if you can't come up with your own fluff then use one of the existing chapters, that's what they're for. Put effort into creating some great minis. The so called blandest chapter, the Ultramarines, has managed to inspire some very good armies that are unique to the people that assembled and painted them.