The Iron Dragons

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

My custom Space Marine Chapter.

 

I've been thinking about this for, I dunno, a year or so, and decided to come here with them for some additional input.  There's another project I'm working on in a conceptual sense, but until I figure out which sub-forum covers it I'll hold onto it.

 

In actuality, I've thought up more about their homeworld than I have the Chapter itself.  The chapter is called the Iron Dragons, their primary source of inspiration is Slavic, currently their Primarch is Rogal Dorn, and like many of his kids they deviate from the Codex in some pretty big ways, specifically in Chapter size and Company formation.  I'm thinking they also take a few pages from Corax's and Vulkan's books as well.

 

Their homeworld is one of several moons orbiting a gas giant.  This specific moon is primarily forested, with large mountain ranges breaking up the tedium.  Since it is affected by the gravitational pulls of both the star and the planet, the moon is geologically active, and most of the mountains are also volcanoes.  Because of the nature of it's orbit, it spends half it's year between the planet and the sun, and the other half with the planet between them.  Despite this the moon still possesses a day/night cycle, with summer days facing the sun and summer nights receiving the light reflected off of the planet, while winter days are dimly lit by distant stars and the pitch black nights spent facing the dark side of the planet.  During these dark months the people would seldom leave their homes, fearful of the nightmarish predators that prowled the frozen darkness.  These monsters were never seen during the Bright Months, for they were in fact creatures of Chaos that could only appear on the moon when it was safely hidden from the banishing rays of the sun.  Throughout most of the moon's history, Chaos cults were a very common problem, and no where was truly safe from their touch.  Until the Iron Dragons came, bringing with them the Emperor's Light.

 

Here's some designs I threw together while figuring out their color scheme:

 

 

The first design for the basic color scheme, I discarded it for having too much black on the helmet, causing all the various features and stuff to sort of blend together.

 

 

The second design, and the one I decided to go with for now.  I'm a little bit concerned about giving them bone faceplates, 'cause that's sort of the Chaplain's thing, and I don't want to basically be painting my entire army like they were Chaplains.

 

 

 

The Tactical Marine and the Tactical Marine Sergeant.  I gave them Imperial Fist logos because that's their progenitor chapter, but with their name and color scheme it looks kinda stupid.  If I ever create another version, I'll replace it with the much more name-appropriate Salamander logo.  I'll also put some orange on the Sergeant's helmet to make it more distinct.

 

 

 

Assault Marine and Assault Marine Sergeant.  Same as above, with the additional change of removing the bone strip from their beaks.  That was just stupid, what was I thinking?

 

 

 

Veteran and Veteran Sergeant.  I think painting veteran heads gold is a good idea, but I'm not sure if they're distinct enough from the regular marines.  I'm also not sure if they're distinct enough from each other, maybe the Sarge should have some more bling bits added.

 

 

Terminator armor.  Meh.

 

 

 

Company Captain, versions one and two.  I just did the second one a few days ago, and while I like it a lot more than the first, I'm regretting that I never wrote down the hex code for the shade of gold I used in the first version, this new one is weak sauce.  I think I was channeling too much Dawn of War commander for the first one, that's why it's covered in gold to such a ridiculous degree.

 

 

 

So yeah, that's all I got for now, feel free to leave suggestions, or complaints that I didn't provide enough info for you to form a suggestion from, it's all good.

[Olis]

I think the bone is a nice touch, personally. I think you might find painting alternate armour sections orange and black a bit of a pain, though. ;)

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Probably, but I honestly couldn't think of a color scheme that I liked better.

 

I briefly considered changing the chapter name to "Tarantulas", but decided it would be too big of a hassle to have to throw out all the world building I'd already done and start over.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

...  Wow, this thread didn't go anywhere, did it?

 

As far as combat preferences goes, I was thinking a combination of calculated strikes against key targets a-la Raven Guard, with a combat focus on Bolters and Tactical Marine squads.  The thing they took from the Salamanders was the idea of having each Marine have a perfect understanding of how to repair and maintain his own stuff so the Chapter's Techmarines can focus on bigger things, I always thought that was a smart idea.  I'm thinking each member of a Tactical Squad is required to be proficient in using his Bolter and at least one of the optional weapons the squad might have to take on a mission.  IRL, this would mean having several different models of the same Marine, so I could swap "Brother Movingtarget with Missile Launcher" for "Brother Movingtarget with Bolter" if the Missile Launcher isn't needed, or if a Flamer isn't required, Brother Needstherapybadly won't have to stay home with it.

 

Now that I think about it, this sounds incredibly obvious and very likely to be how things already are, at least in theory.

 

Since there are only supposed to be 1000 Marines to a Chapter, it always seemed incredibly stupid to me when they behaved like a massive mob of regular soldiers to be thrown against a target.  I say supposed because I could never get the numbers to add up in my head.  Each Chapter is 1000 Marines, correct?  Correct.  Said 1000 Marines are divided amongst ten Companies of 100 Marines each.  The Tenth and First Companies don't actually function like the rest, instead splitting up their men amongst the other eight to provide Scouts and Veterans respectively.  Now is when everything starts to fall apart.  Those 100 Marines are then broken up into ten ten-man squads.  Six Tactical, two Assault, and two Devastator.  Boom, there's your hundred, right there.  So where do the Company's Captain, Apothecary, Techmarine, Chaplain, Librarian, or the Veteran Sergeant, Company Champion, or Company Standard Bearer of the Captain's Command Squad fit in?  For that matter, who then is driving all those Rhinos?  And where did that Land Speeder come from?  There aren't any rules saying you have to leave a couple Marines off the table in order to field one, are there?  Maybe there should be, because I am very confused.  And does taking a Sergeant for a Squad add another member to it, making it an eleven-man squad now?  I honestly can't tell anymore, I've long since lost the ability to see straight from all this.  I need to lie down.  Be back later.

[Prefect Apollyon]

...  Wow, this thread didn't go anywhere, did it?

 

As far as combat preferences goes, I was thinking a combination of calculated strikes against key targets a-la Raven Guard, with a combat focus on Bolters and Tactical Marine squads.  The thing they took from the Salamanders was the idea of having each Marine have a perfect understanding of how to repair and maintain his own stuff so the Chapter's Techmarines can focus on bigger things, I always thought that was a smart idea.  I'm thinking each member of a Tactical Squad is required to be proficient in using his Bolter and at least one of the optional weapons the squad might have to take on a mission.  IRL, this would mean having several different models of the same Marine, so I could swap "Brother Movingtarget with Missile Launcher" for "Brother Movingtarget with Bolter" if the Missile Launcher isn't needed, or if a Flamer isn't required, Brother Needstherapybadly won't have to stay home with it.

 

Now that I think about it, this sounds incredibly obvious and very likely to be how things already are, at least in theory.

 

Since there are only supposed to be 1000 Marines to a Chapter, it always seemed incredibly stupid to me when they behaved like a massive mob of regular soldiers to be thrown against a target.  I say supposed because I could never get the numbers to add up in my head.  Each Chapter is 1000 Marines, correct?  Correct.  Said 1000 Marines are divided amongst ten Companies of 100 Marines each.  The Tenth and First Companies don't actually function like the rest, instead splitting up their men amongst the other eight to provide Scouts and Veterans respectively.  Now is when everything starts to fall apart.  Those 100 Marines are then broken up into ten ten-man squads.  Six Tactical, two Assault, and two Devastator.  Boom, there's your hundred, right there.  So where do the Company's Captain, Apothecary, Techmarine, Chaplain, Librarian, or the Veteran Sergeant, Company Champion, or Company Standard Bearer of the Captain's Command Squad fit in?  For that matter, who then is driving all those Rhinos?  And where did that Land Speeder come from?  There aren't any rules saying you have to leave a couple Marines off the table in order to field one, are there?  Maybe there should be, because I am very confused.  And does taking a Sergeant for a Squad add another member to it, making it an eleven-man squad now?  I honestly can't tell anymore, I've long since lost the ability to see straight from all this.  I need to lie down.  Be back later.

Take five minutes to get your breath back.

 

Once you start writing your fluff, people will comment.

 

Make sure of two things; firstly that you make the Chapter believable. Secondly that your Chapter has a unique quirk. We all make the mistake of turning our Chapter into our little snowflakes. However don't be so overcautious you make them boring/carbon-copies of another Chapter.

[NightrawenII]

The codex talks about fighting strenght, ie. the men in combat units. The support elements are not calkulated in, which means the actual number of marines in chapter is higher.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

The fact that the Iron Dragons are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists gives me a bit of an out on this, since so many of those openly pick and choose which parts of the Codex they follow.  I'll get into the current idea I have for how big the Chapter is and how it's organized later, right now I want to talk about an older idea I had for all these issues.

 

My original idea was that, while the Chapter would have only 1000 full Battle Brothers, it would also have tens of thousands of "Lay Brothers", which is an actual term for non full members of a monastery.  Higher up on the org chart than the Chapter Serfs but below the actual Marines, Lay Brothers would fill all the positions not clearly shown to require a Marine.  They'd drive the vehicles, man the spaceships, and even have their own members in the Chaplain, Librarian, Techmarine, and Apothecary divisions.  Part of this is from my confusion over the various "Masters of the Chapter" thing.  You've got a guy in charge of 100 specially trained, armed and armored super-commandos, and you put him in charge of the entire Chapter Fleet and all it's operations?!?  Why?  That's two very different skill sets there, there's no way he'd be able to do both at the same level of capability.  These guys are supposed to be leading their companies into combat all the time, when are they going to be able to sit down and perform all these logistical duties?   Another issue I had that led to the Lay Brother idea was with how Space Marines are sometimes used.  You have a small number of specially trained, very valuable soldiers at your command, not a massive amount of basic troops to bog down the enemy with.  Space Marines are for calculated and precise strikes meant to eliminate the critical underpinnings of the enemy's war effort, not for foot slogging and engaging entire enemy formations at a time.  That's the Imperial Guard.  Sure, the Black Templar can get away with it, there's so many of them they can't even afford to keep track of themselves anymore.  The Lay Brothers would be the answer.  When raw manpower is required, regiments of Lay Brothers would deploy to the field and act as a sort of Imperial Guard stand-in, with the Lay Members of the Chaplain, Librarian, Techmarine, and Apothecary divisions acting as counterparts to the IG's Ecclesiastical Priests, Sanctioned Psykers, Tech-priests and Medics.  Since they'd have been trained by Space Marines, I'm guessing they'd have fewer morale problems than regular guardsmen, and in fact would probably be somewhere between regular guardsmen and IG commandos in terms of hardness.  Not only would they deploy whenever the need to engage a mass of enemy units arose, they'd also deploy to work directly with the Imperial Guard units operating in the same theater while the actual Marines went off and did their thing.  Of course, now I'm pretty sure this deviation from the norm would be too much for the rest of the Imperium and would get them wiped out pretty damn quick, but I felt like mentioning it.

[NightrawenII]

It should be noted though that Masters of Chapter are not always company captains. And yeah, your idea is breach of the most important edict since Horus Heresy, The Separation of Power.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

It's a good thing I dropped it then, isn't it?

 

Something I was thinking of was the idea that static Companies don't exist in the chapter.  When a Captain wants to head out, he pulls together a team made of squads and/or specific Marines (I haven't decided yet) that meet the mission profile.  Depending on the size of the "Company" (I need a better name for this variation, but I suck at those) other Captains might come along as sub-commanders for the duration.

 

One idea I had was that there were two different kinds of these not-exactly-companies, which for the moment I will refer to as "Errant Companies" and "Crusading Companies".  Errant Companies are usually formed primarily of newer Marines, and the Commanding officers will have only been in that position a comparatively short time.  The basic idea behind Errant Companies is "Pull together a team, pile onto a Strike Cruiser (or Battle Barge, I can't remember at the moment), head off in a random direction, and play car games with each other until you stumble across an Imperial World in need of having it's ass saved."  Crusading Companies, on the other hand, are formed of more experienced Marines and leaders, and are pulled together for a single goal determined at the outset, like ridding a subsector of an Ork Empire, or reclaiming worlds lost to Heresy, or aiding in the desperate struggle to avoid being eaten by extragalactic aphids.  Maybe they should be called "Campaigns" or "Tours of Duty" or something, what do you all think?

[Prefect Apollyon]

It's a good thing I dropped it then, isn't it?

 

Something I was thinking of was the idea that static Companies don't exist in the chapter.  When a Captain wants to head out, he pulls together a team made of squads and/or specific Marines (I haven't decided yet) that meet the mission profile.  Depending on the size of the "Company" (I need a better name for this variation, but I suck at those) other Captains might come along as sub-commanders for the duration.

 

One idea I had was that there were two different kinds of these not-exactly-companies, which for the moment I will refer to as "Errant Companies" and "Crusading Companies".  Errant Companies are usually formed primarily of newer Marines, and the Commanding officers will have only been in that position a comparatively short time.  The basic idea behind Errant Companies is "Pull together a team, pile onto a Strike Cruiser (or Battle Barge, I can't remember at the moment), head off in a random direction, and play car games with each other until you stumble across an Imperial World in need of having it's ass saved."  Crusading Companies, on the other hand, are formed of more experienced Marines and leaders, and are pulled together for a single goal determined at the outset, like ridding a subsector of an Ork Empire, or reclaiming worlds lost to Heresy, or aiding in the desperate struggle to avoid being eaten by extragalactic aphids.  Maybe they should be called "Campaigns" or "Tours of Duty" or something, what do you all think?

I would suggest that if you can't think of a word to replace stuff like "Companies" to not bother and stick with the Codex. If you start writing the IA you may think of something suitable (and a reason for the deviancy), but its not vital, so don't worry about it.

 

The errant companies idea sounds promising, needs development, maybe Reserve Companies with the "least experienced" Marines could form these Errant Companies?

[Disruptor_fe404]

I like the idea of there being no standard Companies, with a Captain taking his pick of those available at the time. You could have the Chapter as a whole quite interested in duking it out with each other to gain the honour of being chosen.

 

A Chapter Master would be a very, very special individual amongst all of this though. Assuming they had one at all.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Trial by combat as a way to finish filling out the roster sounds like a good idea, especially for the younger Marines eager to kill in the Emperor's name, but at least initially certain squads would be selected because it's members happen to be better than average at something relative to the mission or lots of experience fighting a certain enemy.  A Company likely to engage in lots of warfare requiring rapid movement would focus on things like Assault Squads and Marines who are particularly good at using Land Speeders or Bikes, while a Captain off to stop a WAAAGH! will try to include as many Marines with prior experience fighting Orks as possible in his team before opening the last slots to volunteers.

 

 

And yeah, there's a Chapter Master, as well as a Head Apothecary, Head Techmarine, Head Chaplain, and Head Librarian.  I'm currently thinking there should be something extra special about being a Veteran, but I'm not quite there yet.

 

I had an idea for a legendary member of the chapter, but I'm a little worried he might be too much of a Gary Stu.  Way back during one of the earliest Tyranid invasions, the sector of space the Iron Dragons operate in was in the middle of it.  The Chief Librarian at the time already had a huge list of achievements to his name and done all sorts of the things legendary members of a chapter do. (It's late here and I'm sleepy, cut me some slack.)  This didn't stop him dying at the hands (or, more accurately, giant and impossibly-sharp claws) of the Hive Tyrant leading the Splinter Fleet treating the sector like an all-you-can-eat buffet.  It's what happened next that sealed his status as a legend though.  His dying act was to reach out with his mind, grab the Hive Tyrant's portion of the Tyranid Hive-Soul Thingy, and drag it into death with him.  Not only did this permanently remove the Hive Tyrant from the Hive Mind, rendering it impossible to resurrect and making the Hive Mind incapable of remembering anything the Hive Tyrant knew or did, it also had the effect of permanently severing the corresponding Splinter Fleet from the rest of the species, reducing every single part of it to the level of feral animals.  In effect, he gave the Hive Mind a Stroke.  The Hive Mind was so freaked out by what had happened the larger Hive Fleet the splinter had formed from briefly lost it's military cohesiveness, ultimately leading to the Fleet's destruction.  Now for the more unfortunate results.  The lobotomized Splinter Fleet fragmented and dispersed throughout the Sector, so now practically every other planet has a population of Tyranids of some size on it, causing hell for the PDFs and local Guard and Navy forces.  Worse, a large portion of the Fleet settled in Ork-infested space, and we all know what Tyranid bio-chemistry does to Orks.  Wait, this is a Human-centric forum, so maybe you don't know.  One of the things Tyranids do to planets they're preparing to eat is seed it with stuff that sends the native life forms into metabolic overdrive, increasing the amount of biomass on the planet.  Like forcing antibiotics and artificial growth hormones down a Gold-n-Plump chicken's throat along with metric tons of cheap, Chemical Corporation-patented feeder corn until it's morbidly obese and it's liver has burst into flames.  This has the side-effect of causing a planet's Orks to explosively increase in size, in both the physical and populational sense.  So not only are countless worlds stuck with a case of space crabs, the local Orks get stronger and more numerous with each passing century.  Factor in all the usual problems an Imperial Sector has to face, and you've got a pretty full plate for the local Space Marines already.  Now take into account that the Tyranids are finally returning to this part of space with the Hive Mind dead set on making sure that what happened before doesn't happen again, and once again Mankind is almost certainly screwed.  Even more than usual, I mean.

 

So yeah, too OP?

[Disruptor_fe404]

I don't think even Tigurius can do that... And he's the one we think has gotten all up in the Hive Mind's grill...

 

The after effects sound like what happens when you take out all of a Hive Fleet's synapse creatures though. Once you get past the erasure of the Hive Tyrant from the Hive Mind's databanks, that is...

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Yeah, I thought it was too much.  Oh well.

[Prefect Apollyon]

Ward? Is that you?

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Oh, now that's just mean.

[Prefect Apollyon]

Oh, now that's just mean.

Yeah, at least you know he's all mary sue...

 

Keep plugging away!

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

I would suggest that if you can't think of a word to replace stuff like "Companies" to not bother and stick with the Codex. If you start writing the IA you may think of something suitable (and a reason for the deviancy), but its not vital, so don't worry about it.

 

The errant companies idea sounds promising, needs development, maybe Reserve Companies with the "least experienced" Marines could form these Errant Companies?

 

They're like Reserve Companies in that they're generally formed from younger marines, different in that they aren't all one type of squad and they don't just sit around and wait for positions to open up in the Companies that actually get stuff done.

[Prefect Apollyon]

 

I would suggest that if you can't think of a word to replace stuff like "Companies" to not bother and stick with the Codex. If you start writing the IA you may think of something suitable (and a reason for the deviancy), but its not vital, so don't worry about it.

 

The errant companies idea sounds promising, needs development, maybe Reserve Companies with the "least experienced" Marines could form these Errant Companies?

 

They're like Reserve Companies in that they're generally formed from younger marines, different in that they aren't all one type of squad and they don't just sit around and wait for positions to open up in the Companies that actually get stuff done.

Sounds fine, so Battle Companies that are counted as Reserves and get stuff done.

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

It

 

 

 

I would suggest that if you can't think of a word to replace stuff like "Companies" to not bother and stick with the Codex. If you start writing the IA you may think of something suitable (and a reason for the deviancy), but its not vital, so don't worry about it.

 

The errant companies idea sounds promising, needs development, maybe Reserve Companies with the "least experienced" Marines could form these Errant Companies?

 

They're like Reserve Companies in that they're generally formed from younger marines, different in that they aren't all one type of squad and they don't just sit around and wait for positions to open up in the Companies that actually get stuff done.

Sounds fine, so Battle Companies that are counted as Reserves and get stuff done.

 

If you mean "counted as" for the sake of the table rules, that's fine, but it's important to remember that Iron Dragon Companies are formed and disbanded all the time, and only last for the duration of the mission.  Marine Foranexample could serve under Captain Waytoomuchangst in an Errant Company that winds up saving a Hive Planet from Orks, clears out an abandoned asteroid base full of pirates, and during the last leg of the trip towards home make a pit stop to help the Imperial Guard put down an uprising instigated by Genestealers, then gets selected for Captain Facialtwitch's Crusade to halt Tyranid encroachment, then competes for the honor of joining Captain Smashedinface in reclaiming a star cluster for the Imperium.  Since static Companies wouldn't exist, the Marine's armor wouldn't be marked with a Company number.  Instead, I was thinking that the Chapter artisan's would create unique medals for each "mission force", and over a lifetime a Marine would gather more and more of these medals, his history of service adorning his armor.

[Brother Argent]

So basically like the templars crusades. Marines are drawn from an overall pool to achieve certain goals.

 

Oh and in regards to the whole reserve companies not doing anything reserve companies are deployed in their entirety. Just usually in support of one of the battle companies

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

It's funny, you never see the Captains of those Reserve Companies ever doing anything.  You get people like Captain Angelos and Force Commander Hair Gel running around leading several companies worth of men, but you never see the other Captains doing anything.  Boreale was leading FIVE companies worth of Marines on Kaurava, where the hell were the other four Captains?  Not keeping the perimeter secure, that's for sure.

 

What the hell is a Force Commander, anyway?  Never seen it on any Org Charts...

[Disruptor_fe404]

Force Commander was a designation that was in the 3rd edition Codex, IIRC. Possibly a subset of Space Marine Hero or something? It's been a while...

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

3rd Edition?  Wasn't that like, twelve codexes starring the Ultramarines ago?

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

I briefly considered doing a clever bit of historical allusion with my Chapter's origins, but decided not to since it caused additional problems.

 

See, several modern Slavic states descend from the same nation, the Kievian Rus.  The titular Rus that founded it, however, weren't Slavs themselves.  They were Viking traders and explorers who came up the rivers connecting Eastern Europe to the Baltic Sea and decided to stick around.

 

In order to reference this, I thought about swapping the Imperial Fists with the Space Wolves, but after thinking about it I realized that the Space Wolves and the Iron Dragons are a bit incompatible on that level.

 

1.  The Space Wolves prefer Assault tactics and don't follow the usual progression in Marine training.  The Iron Dragons have an unhealthy obsession with their Bolters and start their recruits out as Scouts like normal.

 

2.  Unlike the more monastical approach favored by most Chapters, Space Wolves are exuberant and prone to throwing parties with lots and lots of booze.  While my research has shown that Slavic culture is OK with men being more open with their emotions than is considered appropriate in nations with a stronger Germanic influence, I don't think the Iron Dragons are quite on that level.

 

3.  Apart from the draconic heraldry, there isn't anything very bestial about the Iron Dragons.  Space Wolves are Viking Werewolves IN SPACE!!! who use the word "wolf" the same way the Smurfs use "smurf".  Despite preferring Werewolves to Vampires, I don't think the whole "Wolf" thing would fit very well.  It'd be like Ultramarines suddenly having the problem of bursting out into Busby Berkeley Numbers once a month, it just clashes with the overall theme.