The Manticores revised, updated from 2 year ago

[Tzimisce169]

Chapter name: The Manticores

Geneseed: Imperial Fists

Creation: 4th Founding

Background: Created as part of the
4th founding but unlike a lot of the new chapters of that time this chapter was formed with 1 very specific order. To fight chaos with fear and paranoia.

Several decades after the Horus heresy the administratum of Terra were still getting bombarded with reports of atrocities committed by members of the
Astartes. The only plausible explanation was that the traitors were continuing their raids for slaves and resources. After collating as much data as they could from various battlefields and the occasional survivor the High lords of Terra agreed on the creation of a chapter that could and would unleash the emperor's wrath in full and have the traitor legions at each other’s throats as a consequence. So it was that the Manticores were created with all the knowledge of the rivalries and hatreds of the Chaos legions.

To aid them in their task a rather controversial colour scheme was chosen. The Manticores were given the same livery as each of the traitor legions with each company taking on the colours of 1 of the 9. It is said that when the first chapter master received orders to attack an invading traitor force of Iron Warriors a huge smile split his face as he addressed his newly formed force. "Manticores. Do you want to get your claws bloody?"

The Manticores 3rd company launched into the Iron warriors with all the ferocity of a chapter keen the gather its first mote of honour and clad in the mimicked armour of the Night Lords. The Iron warriors were totally unprepared for the counter attack and swept aside within a few hours, partly due to the fact that the Manticores used 100% of their company strength and, at heart, they were still Imperial fists and relished the experience of smashing such a hated and loathed foe to the ground.

The chapter master, however, had one more ace-card up his armour. He made sure that a handful of traitors made it off the planet bearing a message for their leaders.

"Konrad sends his regards."

The next time the Iron warriors launched an assault it was against a war band of marines in dark blue and lightning armour with a winged skull on the
shoulder pad.

Organization and customs

The Chapter does not follows the standards of the codex astartes due to their un-orthodox fighting styles. It was though on creation that the codex would be too restrictive and a more flexible approach was needed. This does not mean that they are free to use whatever tactics and war gear they chose and things are very closely observed.

There are a number of significant differences compared to a regular codex chapter:

 

1. There isn’t a full company of veterans. Instead the companies are organized as follows:

20 Company Veterans.

20 Devastators

20 Assault marines

40 Tactical marines.

2. The chapter maintains 9 battle companies instead of 4. The scout company is as per the codex.

3. Due to the fact that renegade marines do not seem to employ scouts, the chapters scout company is forbidden from engaging in open warfare but instead are trained in secret locations against well armed criminals of the imperium and outnumbered a minimum of 5:1. The Scout Company is clad in black armour to show that they are in the process of serving the Emperor.

4. Due to the constant combat against chaos marines the chapter has a higher that usual number of Chaplains to maintain the marine’s spiritual purity. The fleet is also accompanied by a contingent of Inquisitors from the Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Hereticus. This serves 2 purposes. Firstly any renegades captured can be interrogated and secondly their constant presence reminds the marines that they are being watched for signs of taint and heresy.

5. Due to the erratic nature of the enemy the chapter is fleet based to allow for greater mobility.

6. When the chapter has to fight alongside brother marines the chapter adopts a colour scheme of white with standard codex markings so as not to be confused with the enemy. However the company veterans wear armour the colours of cracked magma in honour of the 3rd Chapter master and his bodyguard that sacrificed themselves so that about 200 battle brothers could evacuate a planet that was growing unstable.

7. After each mission each suit of armour is ritually cleaned, blessed and anointed with sacred oils to remove and tainted blood or ichor that may have worked its way into the cracks of the suit. Prior to each mission the armour is blessed by the Chaplains and the machine spirits with each set of armour are regularly inspected incase of any machine taint.

8. The company’s
colour schemes are as follows:

1^st: Emperor’s Children

2^nd: Iron Warriors

3^rd: Night Lords

4^th: World Eaters

5^th: Death Guard

6^th: Thousand Sons

7^th: Black Legion

8^th: Word Bearers

9^th: Alpha Legion

10^th: Scout company

[Gripharius]

This isn't an IA or a fully fleshed-out Chapter, its a single counterintelligence tactic that has been expanded into a Chapter.  Your Chapter is a one-trick pony.  Essentially, the only thing different about the Manticores is that, when they fight a traitor legion, they paint their armor with the color scheme of another traitor legion.

 

It strains credulity that the High Lords would create an entire Chapter focused on one single (and not always useful) tactic, which would be a significant waste of resources.  Additionally, considering how pervasive the threat of corruption by Chaos is in the 40kverse, I doubt the High Lords would be very enthusiastic about creating a Chapter designed to basically run around and pretend to be traitors.

 

I don't think the High Lords look out over the Imperium, see a specific problem or omen or evil, and decide to create a Chapter to fight it.  Rather, I think the High Lords get reports of specific problems or omens or evils, and then send one of the existing Chapters to go handle it.  When they get to the point where they have to fumble around more and more each time they reach back into their quiver to launch another Astartes arrow out into the grimdark, then maybe they decide to gear up a few new Chapters.

 

The creation of a new Chapter is a signifcantly rare event, to say the least, and it takes centuries to accomplish and a tremendous expenditure of very rare resources.  Chapters are expected to be functionally immortal -- to fight the enemies of the Imperium not for centuries but for millenia upon millenia.  When creating something so precious and so rare, something that is expected to endure for all time -- a fighting force of the Emperor's hand-crafted Angels of Death and the Imperium's most potent fighting force no less -- there has to be some sense of scale incorporated into their purpose.  Narrowing their focus to something so restrictive and minimal as a single tactic of warfare against a single type of enemy seems highly, highly unlikely.

 

A trite example: the U.S. Navy trains its most elite fighting force, the SEALs (also a considerable investment of time, man-power, money, technology, etc.) for SEa, Air and Land operations of all types (sabotage, rescue missions, recon, etc.).  It doesn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars creating a special elite fighting force, along with all of the support staff and equipment that that force requires, just to focus it on a single type of mission against a single kind of enemy in a single environment. 

 

Just as the U.S. Navy wouldn't spend all the resources necessary to create an elite special operations unit (and support group) that was trained solely for anti-hostage operations in hot, desert locations, the High Lords probably wouldn't create an entire Chapter devoted to only engaging in hand-to-hand combat battles against greenskins.

 

On the other hand, of course, stranger things have happened.  I'm just saying.

[Rik Lightstar]

Actually I quite like that with the scale of 40k, you can have Chapters and Regiments that dedicate themselves to one thing to the exclusion of everything else and there will still always be work for them.

 

You could have a chapter that ONLY fights Eldar and only with flamers, on planets with names that start with "A" they'd still be pretty busy.

 

Rik

[Gripharius]

Actually I quite like that with the scale of 40k, you can have Chapters and Regiments that dedicate themselves to one thing to the exclusion of everything else and there will still always be work for them.

 

You could have a chapter that ONLY fights Eldar and only with flamers, on planets with names that start with "A" they'd still be pretty busy.

 

Rik

 

You have a point.  The Astartes Praeses are devoted to guarding the Eye of Terror, for example.  I was always under the impression that there was a limited number of Space Marine Chapters, however, so it just  seems like they would be built more to be a Swiss Army Knife than a one-size hexagon-head screwdriver that only turns counter-clockwise.

[Rik Lightstar]

Oh yeah the overwhelming majority of chapters will be versatile, adaptable embodiments of the SPIRIT of Guilliman's Codex, but there's still room for some weirdness.

 

Rik

[Tzimisce169]

Thanks for the feedback Gripharius, although it's a liitle bit rude to shoot someone elses idea out of the air just because you think the 40k universe works a different way. I'm sure you would be offended if someone turned around and told you that something you created was pointless.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the Grey Knights created solely to take on the daemonic threat? No one considers them to be a waste of resources.

[Octavulg]

 

Background: Created as part of the 4th founding but unlike a lot of the new chapters of that time this chapter was formed with 1 very specific order. To fight chaos with fear and paranoia.

This makes a lot more sense as a tactic for a particular Chapter to adopt than as a thing for the chapter to be created for.  I share Gripharius' concerns (and also think he was quite polite to you).  

After collating as much data as they could from various battlefields and the occasional survivor the High lords of Terra agreed on the creation of a chapter that could and would unleash the emperor's wrath in full and have the traitor legions at each other’s throats as a consequence. So it was that the Manticores were created with all the knowledge of the rivalries and hatreds of the Chaos legions.

They kind of are at each other's throats a lot of the time, though.  

To aid them in their task a rather controversial colour scheme was chosen. The Manticores were given the same livery as each of the traitor legions with each company taking on the colours of 1 of the 9. It is said that when the first chapter master received orders to attack an invading traitor force of Iron Warriors a huge smile split his face as he addressed his newly formed force. "Manticores. Do you want to get your claws bloody?"

Except there's endless warbands and the like.  It would make more sense to repaint them as necessary.  Then have one small part of the armor in Manticores' colors (to avoid angering the Machine Spirit).    

The Manticores 3rd company launched into the Iron warriors with all the ferocity of a chapter keen the gather its first mote of honour and clad in the mimicked armour of the Night Lords. The Iron warriors were totally unprepared for the counter attack and swept aside within a few hours, partly due to the fact that the Manticores used 100% of their company strength and, at heart, they were still Imperial fists and relished the experience of smashing such a hated and loathed foe to the ground.

The thing is, most Chaos raids are, well, raids.  People don't see them coming.  Your chapter would need a lot of coordination with Inquisitorial intelligence resources (possible, but still unlikely to be perfect).  Again, it'd really make more sense if they repainted as necessary.  

Also, they'd need thing like IFF codes and the like.  Pretending to be traitors requires more than just paint.  

Organization and customs

The Chapter does not follows the standards of the codex astartes due to their un-orthodox fighting styles. It was though on creation that the codex would be too restrictive and a more flexible approach was needed. This does not mean that they are free to use whatever tactics and war gear they chose and things are very closely observed.

The Codex isn't seen as restrictive by the Imperium, at least not unnecessarily so.  It would make sense if they modified it to accomodate the particular tactics of various traitor groups, though - fighting less efficiently in order to better persuade their enemies they are who they pretend to be.  

1. There isn’t a full company of veterans. Instead the companies are organized as follows:

20 Company Veterans.

20 Devastators

20 Assault marines

40 Tactical marines.

Makes sense, at least to some extent.  

3. Due to the fact that renegade marines do not seem to employ scouts, the chapters scout company is forbidden from engaging in open warfare but instead are trained in secret locations against well armed criminals of the imperium and outnumbered a minimum of 5:1. The Scout Company is clad in black armour to show that they are in the process of serving the Emperor.

Why not just have them fight in Chapter colors independently?  And/or deploy in support of other Chapters?  

8. The company’s
colour schemes are as follows:

Fixed color schemes seems unwise - better to repaint each battle, I think.  I mean, sometimes you'll want multiple companies to pretend to be the same group, for example.  

Thanks for the feedback Gripharius, although it's a liitle bit rude to shoot someone elses idea out of the air just because you think the 40k universe works a different way. I'm sure you would be offended if someone turned around and told you that something you created was pointless.

He was polite and explained himself at length.  He has nothing to apologize for, IMO.  

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the Grey Knights created solely to take on the daemonic threat? No one considers them to be a waste of resources.

Daemons and psykers.  Two enemies who are spread across the Imperium in theoretically infinite numbers.  

* * *

I like the idea.  I just don't like its implementation that much.  

What I recommend:
1) Have it be a tactic they develop and dedicate themselves to, not something imposed by the High Lords.  Avoids the issues Gripharius points out, and costs you nothing.  Have them also do things outside this, even if it's their main focus.  Discuss those things somewhat.  
2) Explain their character so we understand how these tactics developed.  Right now they're just these guys.  These tactics suggest an interesting character (while the brief excerpts you've posted suggest bog-standard gung-ho guys).  
3) Don't have assigned colors for each company - adapt them battle to battle.  
4) You may want to explain the other things they logically have to do in order to persuade their enemies they're somebody else - an Emperor's Children warband with no Noise Marines is still going to arouse suspicion.  And no daemonic corruption?

[Gripharius]

Thanks for the feedback Gripharius, although it's a liitle bit rude to shoot someone elses idea out of the air just because you think the 40k universe works a different way. I'm sure you would be offended if someone turned around and told you that something you created was pointless.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the Grey Knights created solely to take on the daemonic threat? No one considers them to be a waste of resources.

 

I did not mean to be rude.  I pointed out what I felt was a flaw with your idea and tried to explain my reasoning.  I do like the concept in theory and I don't think its pointless. 

[NightrawenII]

Background: Created as part of the 4th founding but unlike a lot of the new chapters of that time this chapter was formed with 1 very specific order. To fight chaos with fear and paranoia.

While I think this is good theory, I don't think it will work in practise, or at least it will be not as effective as you think. Observe:

 

The forces of Chaos are chaotic.

In fact, the idea of chaos legions is misnomer, most of them have dissolved into uncounted warbands long time ago*, not to mention the later renegades. Which means they aren't overly united nor follow the same agenda** and if you read the 'dexes, the traitors spend as much time fighting the imperials as each other***. The daemons 'dex even gives off the vibe that the Chaos gods are more interested in fighting each other rather than mortals. Go figure.

 

So, I don't think the Manticoras' actions would have any real impact on Chaos forces, because they are already like that. IMHO, it's like bringing wood into the forest.

 

It would work far better if the Chapter has sneaked into Eye of Terror and kept the forces here occupied with their internal feuds, but this creates another unique challenge(s).

 

 

* Being fractured into small cells is major point of the Alpha Legion lore.

** Well, the diverse nature of Chaos prevents that in first place.

*** Khârn the Betrayer

 

 

~ NightrawenII