Frost Guard

[Stupid Waldo]

Name:Frost Guard
Founding: Salamanders, 3rd Founding, around M32

​Specialty​: Defense, Flame (Frost) Weapons, Vehicles (lesser extent)

Tactics: Non-Codex

 

A loyalist chapter, the Frost Guard were created to guard the Imperium's borders against any and all threats.  Stationed near the edge of Segmentum Tempestus, the Frost Guard watches over an entire sector.  While their main duty is to ensure the stability of the planets near them, it is not unheard of for them to send strike forces abroad to assist in large war zones and massive crusades.

 

The Frost Guard is based upon the planet Psychros.  Psychros is a harsh, cold world, though temperatures do rise above freezing in the equatorial regions for at least a quarter of the year, allowing the feudal settlements and cities there to continue to survive.  It is from these hardy settlers that the Frost Guard draws its recruits.  The feudal peoples of Psychros are well versed at surviving in the harsh climate, and have done so for many thousands of years.  They remain perpetually locked in a feudal state of technology, partly because of a lack of available resources, and partly because the Frost Guard conscripts the best and brightest to become Space Marines, and also draws new stocks of chapter serfs from the better part of the citizenry.  Despite this and the climate, Psychros has a relatively high population, more than 20 million who manage to eke out a living in a small band of habitable land.

 

Descended from the Salamanders, the Frost Guard show an aptitude for maintaining their own arms and armor, and indeed it is part of their basic training that they be able to use forges and maintain, and even improve upon their wargear as they see fit.  This has led to the chapter being able to maintain equipment longer, and better repair damaged equipment.  Their abnormally large number of vehicles is a testament to this.

 

Another trait derived from their parent chapter is their fondness for flame based weapons.  Sometime around M35 an unknown Forgemaster, developed a new weapon based upon the flamer, but which was envisioned to use the fury of their planet against their enemies.  Utilizing superchilled and compressed fluids, these cold projectors spray out a cloud of vapor that rapidly freezes on contact with everything it touches.  This is extremely lethal, and when focused this way will allow it to cause armor sections or weak points to break.

 

As a necessity of their mission, they tend to be more defensive than the average chapter.  This is simply due to the nature of their protecting the various local systems from enemy forces, which rarely would call upon them to invade any systems.  It does not however mean that they are unskilled at offensive maneuvers, and indeed, it is often that they employ such maneuvers with static defenses in a method they refer to as the Hammer and Anvil.  In addition to a variety of new strategies that were devised to use the abilities of a space marine to augment defenses, they also have changed their armory to further their goals.  Unlike other chapters they tend to use more artillery due to the lack of extreme distance options given to the Whirlwind.  To this end they use some other artillery batteries to augment their forces, though usually only in the largest of battles, and they rarely utilize them when they are outside the sector, unless they are needed to crack open a massive enemy bastion.  Along these same lines, the Frost Guard needed a more defensively oriented tank, so building upon the Rhino chassis, they have been attempting to create a more potent battle tank, to support their lines better.  So far no successes have been made, but Forgemaster Daedalus has claimed that he is getting close to a workable conversion.

 

The Frost Guard try to be as intimate with their charges (the people of their homeworld and other close planets in the sector) as they possibly can, much the same as the salamanders.  It is slightly more difficult to do this with the native population being locked in a medieval time period as they are, but the battle-brothers of the Frost Guard manage to integrate themselves in the society as protective demi-gods.  Many times they help the people over come incredible difficulties, like when their settlements are ravaged by monsters and other creatures from the deep forest and endless mountains.  They do this without taking technology among the people to prevent them from advancing any further technologically.  To the Frost Guard, being able to survive on Psychros without technology proves how strong the people are, and makes them better serfs and better recruits.

 

A slight quirk of the Frost Guard that they share with their parent chapter is their unnatural skin color.  It is considered to be a reaction similar to the one that occurs in the Salamanders, which causes their skin to become extremely pale, and their eyes to take on a pale blue, white or grey color.  It gives them a disturbingly ghostly appearance.  Often times when Salamanders and Frost Guard work together enemies will submit before any fighting happens, from the near daemonic appearance of the Salamanders combined with the phantasmal appearance of the Frost Guard.

 

Unlike other chapters, the Dreadnoughts of the Frost Guard do not sleep away the centuries, unless that is their true desire.  Most of them instead serve as teachers and advisers to the brothers of the chapter.  Their centuries of experience are unrivaled, which makes them excellent to tutor the recruits and oversee the training of battle-brothers.  On top of these duties, many dreadnoughts undertake personal projects to keep them occupied over the millennia.  These vary widely and can take almost any form, from exploring the wastes of their homeworld to study the native frostwyrms, to organizing the vast libraries within the fortress monastery.  One thing that many of them have in common is that such projects take hundreds of years to complete, which makes them all the more well suited to being who will live eternally unless slain in combat.  The oldest of these Dreadnoughts is The Ancient, Venerable-Brother Amadeus, who has served the Frost Guard chapter for more than 8000 years, and served in the Salamanders before that.  One of a handful of veterans that were sent by the Salamanders to help train the new Frost Guard chapter, Amadeus was the only dreadnought.  Even then he was considered ancient, as he became a Salamander in the latter days of the Heresy, though he never saw combat against the traitors then.  He was recruited during the period after the Istvaan massacre when the Salamanders were trying to rebuild.  After that he fought for several hundred years, until mortally wounded fighting traitors.  He was interred in a Dreadnought, one of the last of the contemptor patterns left to the the Salamanders, and served for over a thousand years more, until he was transferred to the Frost Guard.  Since then, he has taught the Frost Guard, and given them council in times of need.  He began the system of not putting dreadnoughts in the deep sleep (though they do sleep every now and then, they are still superhuman after all), and was the teacher and trainer to the first hundred or so generations of Frost Guard.  Eventually he passed on these duties to a younger Dreadnought, and simply serves as an adviser to the High Lord, or to any brother who comes to him with questions.  Marines will stand in line for days and weeks to ask him a single question, and he will patiently answer them all in turn.  It is because of heroes like him, that the legacy of the Frost Guard is unbroken and unclouded.

[Octavulg]

Quote

A loyalist chapter, the Frost Guard were created to guard the Imperium's borders against any and all threats. Stationed near the edge of Segmentum Tempestus, the Frost Guard watches over an entire sector. While their main duty is to ensure the stability of the planets near them, it is not unheard of for them to send strike forces abroad to assist in large war zones and massive crusades.

A Marine chapter might even spread beyond a single sector. One chapter to every one thousand worlds.

Quote

Another trait derived from their parent chapter is their fondness for flame based weapons. Sometime around M35 an unknown Forgemaster, developed a new weapon based upon the flamer, but which was envisioned to use the fury of their planet against their enemies. Utilizing superchilled and compressed fluids, these cold projectors spray out a cloud of vapor that rapidly freezes on contact with everything it touches. This is extremely lethal, and when focused this way will allow it to cause armor sections or weak points to break.

Good opportunity to talk about mirroring the love of flames on Nocturne with ice on this world.

 

* * *

 

A lot of potential here, but not much actually there yet. What are you looking for? What do you want these guys to be like?

[Messor]

I really like this idea so far, as Octavulg said, developing their traits shared with their primogenitors in juxtaposition with the new ice MO could be really interesting.

[Muras]

Maybe the cold based weaponry could have been developed in response to a type of Xenos that was largely immune to the traditional flame/melta based weaponry that the Salamanders employ?  Might be an interesting angle to expand upon.  Perhaps they fought, lost, withdrew and found that the Xenos were unable to mount a proper assault on your chapter due to the cold climate, this caused them to research using that as an advantage to pursue the Xenos and punish them for the damage they did?

[Olis]

Maybe the cold based weaponry could have been developed in response to a type of Xenos that was largely immune to the traditional flame/melta based weaponry that the Salamanders employ?  Might be an interesting angle to expand upon.  Perhaps they fought, lost, withdrew and found that the Xenos were unable to mount a proper assault on your chapter due to the cold climate, this caused them to research using that as an advantage to pursue the Xenos and punish them for the damage they did?

 

Ehh... research and development (as we know it) isn't exactly seen as a good thing in the 41st millennium, in regards to machinery. It's pretty much frowned upon and when some bright spark bolts something onto what it wasn't designed for originally, it takes the Mechanicus centuries to ratify and approve the 'new' development, if they don't hunt him down for being a heretek.

[Muras]

This is true, but the author is already talking about 'improving' upon their wargear earlier, so since they were already treading the line of heresy, I figured that might be an interesting character to pursue with the chapter. 

[Stupid Waldo]

Honestly I do have quite a bit more lore figured out for these guys, but these were the basics of it, and i didn't feel like copying the 50 or so pages from onenote to here.  And as to the whole issues with the mechanicus, that is actually another part of their lore.  the mechanicus doesn't entirely like their forward way of thinking, but since they have had no outward signs of corruption or heresy, they have left them alone, though they often do not get along to well.  Several of the battles I have fought with have had grey knights performing strikes on what they believe to be heretical artifacts only to find out (after they were soundly defeated) that it was just a slightly improved form of an existing technology, that centuries of work went into to perfect.

 

If you have any suggestions regarding possible effects for my cold weaponry, feel free to let me know, as I have not yet found a form that I like.  The original rules i had were convoluted and confusing, so i got rid of them and have simply been using the flame weapons stats, but if i can make them individualized, that would be excellent.  

[Stupid Waldo]

Does anyone have any ideas on what bonuses or penalties my army should suffer?? Right now im thinking that they wont be able to take bikes of any sort (as Salamander descendants they aren't prone to rapid attack, and from living on a snowy planet, such little vehicles would get bogged down very easily.  On the inverse of that, unlike Salamanders, we would make much more use of land speeders since they don't touch the ground, and therefore couldn't become bogged down.  I also want to completely replace the chapter tactics with something more appropriate.  I was looking at Vulkan He'stan's ability, and I like the idea, but I want to give it a personal twist.  I was thinking of keeping the flamer twin-linking for sure (in this case frost weapons), but i really don't know what else to use.  Any ideas for quasi-salamander rules and changes would be greatly appreciated :)

[Octavulg]

Having them simply be equivalent to flame weapons would work well enough for many purposes, I think.

 

I also wouldn't worry too much about particular bonuses or penalties. Among other things, there's always the sneaking temptation to let yourself have more of the things you like and leave out the things you weren't going to take anyway.

 

You could have He'Stan's ability mastercraft something other than Thunder Hammers (preferably something approximately as common Thunder Hammers).

[Stupid Waldo]

Thats kind of what I was thinking, but i eventually did want to make a company that acted as a quick strike unit and mount them all on bikes.  But after I thought about it I felt like bikes just wouldn't fit their style.  I'm still working on other things I can change to get them further away from codex.  I also feel like replacing combat tactics with something more chapter oriented is rather fair.  Combat tactics has served me extremely well in the past when i get my tacticals engaged with a carnifex or with grey knight paladins and i want to keep them alive.  But in my eyes it's not very much like the salamanders to run from a fight, so I want to swap it out for other rules.  If you guys think that they're too powerful, i can always make a flat points cost that i pay to incorporate my extra rules.  I just really want to get farther from codex, since i noticed that i was strengthening my army, without ever weakening it.  I've also been thinking about limiting the number of vanguard vets, and maybe land speeders to fit more with the slow and purposeful nature of the salamanders.  As for the frost weapons, I've created another thread for that, and i've decided that in most cases they will simply count as, but there will be a couple of more potent weapons (mainly in the hands of captains, veterans and heroes) that add on a freezing effect.