Need help with my home brew chapter

[LordofPerfection1994]

Hey guys :) so having had a space marine army for a while (since last august in fact :lol: ) I have decided to do my own custom homebrew chapter. Fluffwise they are loyalists however I cannot decide which of the loyalist legions they came from and a name. My idea for them is that they are very similar to pre traitor Emperors children (Seeking to achieve perfection and being abit arrogant lol) having the similar tactics and the same beliefs, they pretty much dont like the codex astartes as they see it as a way of preventing them from achieving true perfection. The only part of the codex they follow is the chapter organisation. Colour scheme wise they are daemonette hide and screamer pink for their armour with bolt gun metal for their bolt guns. Bikers are pretty much the same except their bikes armour is Nagarythe Night. So any thoughts on a name for the chapter or which legion they are descended from? If I have put this in the wrong forum mods please feel free to move it as im new here

 

Thanks for any help

Paul

[Ace Debonair]

You want the Liber Astartes forum for DIY chapter stuff. ^_^

Speaking as a resident of the Liber though, I'll see what I can do to help.

Regarding who your chapter descended from, I'd suggest Ultramarines, as their geneseed is clean of any mutations or deviations, which could lend credence to their pursuit of perfection.

A pretty good rule of thumb with who your Chapter's ancestors were is to decide if you want any particular mutations or traits from any of the other legions (e.g. Black Rage from the Blood Angels or love of fast attacks from the White Scars, and if not, go with the Ultramarines. They're basically a blank slate, the option with the least hassle, and as chapters like the Mortifactors show, there's scope for your Chapter to be pretty different from the boys in blue. :D

I'm puzzled by the rejection of the Codex Astartes, not least since you're going to follow Codex organisation anyway.

Wouldn't it be better for your Chapter to want to improve (or dare I say perfect) the Codex and just rewrite bits of it? ;)

As for names, I'm not sure. :P

Also:

Is that anything like you how you pictured them? If not, tell me which bits are wrong and I'll try to run up a more accurate one. :D

[Aegnor]

What Ace said. Not that they hate or reject the Codex, but just see it as something they're outgrowing/improving on.

 

Blood Angels would fit with the perfection/aloofness, but the Thirst/Rage issues probably make Ultras the better choice.

[LordofPerfection1994]

I actually like the idea of them trying to improve the codex more :P Would explain why they seek perfection and would also allow the arrogance thing. Ultramarines actually do make a good fit but so do blood angels hmmmn that is going to be a hard choice. Will have to think on this one

[DarkGuard]

Of you pop to Liber. B)

[Reyner]

I'd go with Ultramarines geneseed. Before the Heresy the Emperors Children and the Ultramarines are quite relatable - Ultras had perfection in logistics and planning and EC were trying to be the best at everything. You could even go further with all the recent "fluff" where every marine aspires to be like the Ultramarines and their awesome Chapter Master. Take the arrogance of the Ultramarines and build on it with your guys trying to make a better version of the codex, they could embrace it and push it further.

 

Names are easy once you pick a category. Do you want to start with a colour (for example: Black Knights), start with an animal (eg: Falcons Argent (yes I know that sounds awful but it's an example!)) or you can go with them being "of something". Like the Sons of Jupiter or whatever. There was an old White Dwarf mag that had a great table for picking names like this, I think there's something similar in the Deathwatch RPG books.

 

So start simple just mix and match some colours/places/descriptions.

 

Black Knights, Red Bears, White Falcons, Warriors of Potato, Sons of Odin.

 

Simples!

[LordofPerfection1994]

Well in the end I decided to go with the Ultras geneseed :rolleyes: However they are still gonna be very pre traitor Emperor childrenish (in alot of senses haha). Oh I also decided on the name *drum roll* Knights Of Perfection is what I decided on. Fluffwise im planning for them to have quite a few "disagreements" with the ultramarines and other chapters. Namely they see the others as weak because they are either only trying to be the best at one thing or not trying to be the best at some things at all. As such the only force they would willingly allie with is the guard because in their eyes the guard can be taught to reach for perfection and to achieve it. Also they hate Chaos more so than other chapters as they consider it abhorrent to perfection and they also consider it the greatest imperfection (xenos races being the next imperfection), so no allying with Xenos for these marines unless it was a really dire and I mean dire situation. I plan to also have them not liking the sisters of battle or the Grey Knights either, as they see SoB as weak religous fanatics who dont understand the limits they place themselves under and will never achieve perfection and well they dont like the Grey Knights because they consider what they do to give all marines a bad name (namely relying on psykers and their powers along with force weapons to banish daemons)

[Veteran Sergeant]

Ultramarines is a good choice. For two reasons. First, most Space Marines are Ultramarines. And second, the Ultramarines exist completely outside of any trope. Ultramarines successors can be pretty much anything you want them to be. With their "flawless" gene seed, it definitely provides you a good base to start with.

 

Additionally, the Ultramarines actually do attempt to be great at everything and eschew specialized roles. So, in that way, your chapter doesn't really disagree with the Ultramarines. They're right in line.

 

Remember, there are two versions of the Codex Astartes. One, is the correct way, where the Codex is this massive tome of military learning that has helped the Space Marines be the most fearsome fighting force in the galaxy for the last 10,000 years. It has thousands of examples and the collected wisdom of generations of military leaders. It's like taking all of the best military leaders in history, and rolling all their works into one book. "Improving" the Codex is actually what the Codex is all about, lol.

 

The other way, which sometimes creeps into poorly written fluff and fan fiction, is that the Codex is some kind of instruction manual for dummies about warfare. That there is an "answer" to every scenario. If you ever read a character or bit of fluff say something like "In this situation, the Codex dictates" or "without the restrictions of the Codex" you can guarantee that you've found an author who actually has no idea what the Codex is about. It wouldn't ever have any dictates in it, because nothing in war can be dictated. The best generals in history have all been about innovation, improvisation and adaptation. And as such, nothing about the Codex's battle strategies would be proscriptive. It might warn against ways of doing things that don't often work, but it wouldn't give you the "only way" it would work.

 

Now, if your Chapter wants to innovate, and considers themselves even above the Ultramarines, what works out. They could see the Ultramarines as not being innovative enough. Interestingly enough, the only part of the Codex Astartes that is restrictive is the part about recruitment, training, and organization, and your Chapter apparently follows that pretty closely. Might be fun to play around with that inconsistency. :D

[LordofPerfection1994]

Ultramarines is a good choice. For two reasons. First, most Space Marines are Ultramarines. And second, the Ultramarines exist completely outside of any trope. Ultramarines successors can be pretty much anything you want them to be. With their "flawless" gene seed, it definitely provides you a good base to start with.

 

Additionally, the Ultramarines actually do attempt to be great at everything and eschew specialized roles. So, in that way, your chapter doesn't really disagree with the Ultramarines. They're right in line.

 

Remember, there are two versions of the Codex Astartes. One, is the correct way, where the Codex is this massive tome of military learning that has helped the Space Marines be the most fearsome fighting force in the galaxy for the last 10,000 years. It has thousands of examples and the collected wisdom of generations of military leaders. It's like taking all of the best military leaders in history, and rolling all their works into one book. "Improving" the Codex is actually what the Codex is all about, lol.

 

The other way, which sometimes creeps into poorly written fluff and fan fiction, is that the Codex is some kind of instruction manual for dummies about warfare. That there is an "answer" to every scenario. If you ever read a character or bit of fluff say something like "In this situation, the Codex dictates" or "without the restrictions of the Codex" you can guarantee that you've found an author who actually has no idea what the Codex is about. It wouldn't ever have any dictates in it, because nothing in war can be dictated. The best generals in history have all been about innovation, improvisation and adaptation. And as such, nothing about the Codex's battle strategies would be proscriptive. It might warn against ways of doing things that don't often work, but it wouldn't give you the "only way" it would work.

 

Now, if your Chapter wants to innovate, and considers themselves even above the Ultramarines, what works out. They could see the Ultramarines as not being innovative enough. Interestingly enough, the only part of the Codex Astartes that is restrictive is the part about recruitment, training, and organization, and your Chapter apparently follows that pretty closely. Might be fun to play around with that inconsistency. ;)

One thing I was playing around with is having my chapter masters honour guard being terminators instead of actual honour guard. Main reason being I have never understood why honour guasrd are not in termie armour in the first place :D 2nd is that I think a chapter master in artificer surronded by his loyal retinue of terminators would look pretty terryfying for anyone to face. My chapter masters bodyguard are going to take a bit of insperation from the Emperors children phoenix guard (seeing as it was that legion which gave me the idea to start this army) However obviously his bodyguard wont be captains lol. My chapter pretty much consider themselves better than everyone else because they seek to be the master of everything and to master everything to perfection because in their eyes the only way for the Imperium to survive they must embrace perfection and strive for it in everything they do. While they do accept Librarians and actually have respect for them as they see it as the Librarian not only has to perfect every form of war that other marines do in addition to perfecting his psychic abilities and mastering them but they also have to put up with the temptations and dangers in the warp, however as such they have not many librarians and the ones they do have are pretty powerful. Because of this process their librarian training protocols are pretty harsh compared to alot of other chapters :)

[Wulfebane]

Also they hate Chaos more so than other chapters as they consider it abhorrent to perfection

 

The vanity behind this statement I find a bit hypocritical as I would attribute such vain outlooks to the chaotic desires of Slaanesh.

[Ace Debonair]

Well in the end I decided to go with the Ultras geneseed :) However they are still gonna be very pre traitor Emperor childrenish (in alot of senses haha).

 

Sounds good. :D

 

Fluffwise im planning for them to have quite a few "disagreements" with the ultramarines and other chapters. Namely they see the others as weak because they are either only trying to be the best at one thing or not trying to be the best at some things at all. As such the only force they would willingly allie with is the guard because in their eyes the guard can be taught to reach for perfection and to achieve it.

 

Wait, wait, wait.

 

Why would they argue with other Chapters for not being good enough and then get along with the Imperial Guard who (individually) are several orders of magnitude worse at warfare than a Space Marine? :huh:

 

 

Also they hate Chaos more so than other chapters as they consider it abhorrent to perfection and they also consider it the greatest imperfection (xenos races being the next imperfection), so no allying with Xenos for these marines unless it was a really dire and I mean dire situation. I plan to also have them not liking the sisters of battle or the Grey Knights either, as they see SoB as weak religous fanatics who dont understand the limits they place themselves under and will never achieve perfection and well they dont like the Grey Knights because they consider what they do to give all marines a bad name (namely relying on psykers and their powers along with force weapons to banish daemons)

 

More normal humans fall to Chaos than Space Marines do. Just sayin'. ;)

 

The factions to look to from a story or 'fluff' perspective are different from the tabletop perspective.

 

There's not really a lot of point bringing the Grey Knights into the picture; they're a very secretive organisation and your Chapter probably won't have many dealings with them. Sisters of Battle are also fairly easy to avoid working with, so long as you don't overly involve yourself with the ecclesiarchy.

 

However, the Inquisition and Adeptus Mechanicus are two factions you can't really ignore. The Inquisition is essentially the only body that can (kind of) police the Space Marines. It's complicated, but generally the Chapters that get up the Inquisition's nose tend to find themselves in hot water sooner or later. The AdMech are responsible for providing a lot of your Chapter's rarer or heavier equipment, like land raiders or terminator armour. You also have to send them geneseed tithes every so often, so they can both build a supply for if your chapter takes heavy losses, and so they can monitor the purity of your Chapter's geneseed.

 

However, the Inquisition is comprised of hyper-paranoid and nosy sorts, who will continue to pry if a Chapter seems too good to be true if only because in 40k, nothing is ever too good to be true. :P The AdMech is made up of people who can't turn a computer on without a six-hour arcane ritual with incense and chanting. Neither of them are particularly close to Perfection, is what I'm saying.

 

How your Chapter interacts with these two factions is entirely up to you. Chapters that tick both factions off would have a harder time of things than ones that don't, but on the other hand if your Chapter is arrogant and thinks themselves perfect, they wouldn't exctly want anyone's help in the first place... :cuss

[Aegnor]

The Knights of Perfection sounds a bit twee - unless that is a name they've adopted themselves as their obsession/ arrogance has taken a grip. Maybe they had a much more prosaic name originally which they abandoned in a act of self-admiration. In that context, I'd like it.

 

The reason for only allying with Guard might work better with a similar tweek. Maybe it's that they prefer to work with the guard as they get much more unqualified admiration and recognition as being obviously superior.

 

In any case, in many instance it would be far more likely for a chapter to share theatres with Guard than another chapter. Guard are everywhere - Marines are spread thinly across the galaxy.

 

I also don't see a problem with them being prideful regarding how much they hate Chaos and looking down on others who they see as being insufficiently strong etc, while themselves in a direction that might see them becoming vulnerable to Slaanesh. The Chaos Gods welcome deluded followers as much as they welcome people who deliberately tread the path of damnation. Such a deluded sense of superiority and pride is actually very fitting.

 

The issue you might have is how close to falling you want them to be. How much like the Emperor's Children do you want them to be without sharing the EC's fate?