Star Knights

[Brother Winter]

Name: Star Knights

Founding Legion: Salamanders

Primarch: Vulkan

Homeworld: None

Capital Ship: Battle Barge Sentinel

Main Colors: Mithril with Ultramarine trim

Specialty: Naval engagements and boarding actions

Battle Cry: "AXIOS!!!"

 

Organisation

 

The Star Knights are a roving fleet of ships, consisting of a pair of Battle Barges and several squadrons of Strike Cruisers. This much firepower has sometimes put them at odds with the Inquisition, but not enough to cause any lasting grudges between the two. The Knights have an unusually high number of Techmarines, indicative of a close relationship with the Cult Mechanicus. This is reflected in their ships as they are the most advanced Space Marine vessels in the Imperium, second only to the Grey Knights. Each Star Knight is trained in how to repair his own armor and boltgun to a degree, leaving the Techmarines to worry about keeping their fleet operational.

 

Since each Marine knows how to take care of his personal armor leaving the Techmarines to worry about other things, the Chapter has a higher amount of Artificer and Tactical Dreadnought armor available to them.

 

The Star Knights excel in boarding actions against enemy vessels, and typically separate into five man fire teams to attain maximum coverage throughout an enemy ship. However, they don't have much in the way of vehicles, relying upon precise orbital strikes, thunderhawks, melta guns and melta bombs to remove any offending enemy armor if they ever had to fight a land battle. They also don't use much in the way of heavy weapons except for their Terminator squads, keeping mobility throughout the entire chapter, which was decided after having learned several lessons from the immobility of their founding chapter, the Salamanders.

 

Second War for Armageddon

 

Where the Blood Angels fought the Orks directly, the Ultramarines defended the hives and the Salamanders protected the supply convoys, the Star Knights made their own actions against the Ork horde. Utilising a combination of orbital bombardments, teleporters, thunderhawks and drop pod insertions, the Star Knights reacted as an instant shield against any large scale Ork attacks made against civilian centers. Although there was little actual physical presence upon the battlefield, they made their own significant contribution by giving the civilian populace and their fellow Astartes some breathing room.

 

Third War for Armageddon

 

The Star Knights, along with the Salamanders, were among the first chapters to respond to the new Ork menace upon Armageddon. The Naval blockade between the never ending Ork Roks were being swarmed, only to be saved by the fleet of the Star Knights. Several Roks did make it down to the planet itself, but more would have landed were it not for the Star Knight's timely appearance. Stopping the Ork invasion in it's tracks with precise orbital bombardments, they let the Salamanders and Ultramarines advance to push the Orks back to their Roks.

 

The Salamanders got inside the Roks to their preferred close-quarters fighting, and planted beacons at structurally weak points on the Roks themselves. After getting out, Star Knight vessels in orbit fired upon those beacon locations, destroying the Roks and any inhabitants that they might have had.

 

The Fight Against Chaos

 

Typically, the Star Knights were stationed near the Eye of Terror, around Cadia, unless greater matters call them away. The Star Knights once again excelled in their support capacity in aiding the Grey Knights as support units. They didn't actually face any daemons, but instead formed a perimeter around the area where the Grey Knights would be fighting to prevent any outside forces from interfering.

 

In return for assisting them, the Grey Knights gave the Star Knights one crucial piece of technology to better help their fight against Chaos: the secret to the Aegis armor. A jealously guarded secret of the Star Knights, this gift represents the tie between the two chapters not as fellow Astartes, but as brothers.

[Aegnor]

By the standards around here, they're a little Mary-Sue. They have the most advanced fleet in the Imperium apart from the Grey Knights, they're from the Salamanders and have one of their key advantages - more mastercrafted armour and TDA, but not their artefact forge ship that helps make this possible, nor their weakness (a preference/tradition against the swifter moving army elements such as Speeders etc). They were pivotal in the 3rd war for Armageddon AND are part of the Angels Praeses around the EoT? The Grey Knights have provided them with the method of making Aegis armour as well? Makes them seem a bit too special/powerful/cool.

 

It's probably that last item that is the most problematic. The Aegis armour is incredibly costly to make - there's a short story about how the Grey Knights make their war gear, and its basically through the willing human sacrifice of psykers utterly devoted to the Emperor to imbue the armour/weapons/ammo with its spiritual energy. The GKs take some off the Black Ships to do so, not sure where your guys would be able to get such a supply. Further, the Aegis armour is powered by each GK's psychic power - I don't think a non-psyker can make Aegis armour work. There's then the issue that the GK are meant to be utterly secret, to the point of only (maybe only some) SM chapter masters knowing about them and normal Astartes who are exposed to them sometimes being mindwiped. Some chapters (perhaps especially those around the Eye) might be trusted to be aware of them, but the GKs don't make friends with other chapters or share their gear.

 

If you want these guys to be essentially GKs, with access to wargear no-one else has etc, I'd say make them GKs. Otherwise, pick a couple of these ideas and go with them, not all of them. The strong fleet containing some unique craft and the involvement at Armageddon seem like the two strongest ideas of those you have.

 

All this has the normal caveat - this is just my opinion based on the kind of shared universe ideas that are tried to put into the development of DIYs here in the Liber. Ultimately they're your models and your story, so it's up to you.