New IF successor chapter need ideas.

[Warlord Torvold]

Greetings Brothers.  I have been a long time lurker on these forums and have made the odd post here and there but that has little bearing on this topic.  I shall give you a little back ground on my 40k career thus far.  I started this hobby due to being over at my friends place while he was having a battle his DA vs. some traitorous rabble.  I had heard of 40k before, knew a little bit of fluff but had never seen it played before.  "Hey X does that guy have a chainsaw for a sword?" I said pointing to one of his Sergeants "Yup." replied X and then I preceded to ask him everything I could about his armies weapon load out.  After the game and a couple hours of talking with my buddy I went out and picked up an AoBR   starter set 2 tactical squads and a box of Devs and a Razorback the next day.  I now have oh lets call it a demi chapter I have 20 tactical TDA,  18 sniper scouts 2 w/missile 6 tactical squads with sarg w/ chainsword/ bolt pistol and missile/flamer, 2 10 man tactical with plasma gun/ cannon and sarg w/ plasma/power sword, 2 10 man tactical melta/multi melta sarg w/ combi melta/power sword, 3 10 man Dev 1 with 2 missile/ 2 plasma 1 with 4 las and 1 with 4 hb, 2 10 man assault 1 with packs w/ 2 plasma pistols sarg w/ power fist/storm shield the other no packs with flamers bare bones sarg, 2 IC dreads, 2 Ven dreads and 5 dreads all various load outs pretty much one of everything.  1 vindi, 1 whirlwind, 2 preds dakka, 2 thunder fire cannons, 3 speeder typhoon, 1 storm talon. 1 LR crusader, 1 LR phobos(godhammer) 3 drop pods, 3 rhino/razorback.  I may have missed a unit or two in this list but I shall now get to the point.  I know I want my marines to be sons of Dorn.  What I have little or no idea on is which founding are they from.  Why were they created?  I do know I want to have a sort of CF feel to them that what I have is all that is left from the chapter and that there current strength is due to Necrons(the other 40k army I play).  They are fleet based now.  Seeing as I have not painted any of my models and barely half of them are even based black a colour scheme is something I need to figure out as well.  So what I am asking Brothers is help figuring out a colour scheme, a founding, and a reason for there founding.

 

[Arthanor]

Colorwise, you need to tell us what colours you like first, otherwise anything goes. What colour scheme did you use for your necrons? Something contrasting would be good. Do you have a name for your chapter? That may help too.

 

Storywise, the earliest contact between the Imperium and Necrons occurred in 897.M41 during the raid on Sanctuary 101. The latest founding to data is 738.M41. So that prevents having your chapter founded to combat Necrons specifically. I would go with a simple "founding to protect area X", a recent founding, and a homeworld located close to your necron dynasty's holdings. Then:

 

Necron tomb worlds often are death worlds, which can also be used as recruitment worlds for space marines (like Fenris for the wolves or Caliban for DA). One thing that could be interesting and fit with the "last of the chapters" and fleet based, is that your chapter's fortress monastery was on a death world which turned out to be a tomb world.

 

Originally, all was well and your chapter was doing its thing, until in the late M41, things took a turn for the worst. The ghosts and arachnid monsters of the local fairy tales start moving into tales of disasters striking remote areas. Then snatching people in the wild areas, the undercity, dark alleys and it keeps coming more and more in the open. By ~910M41, the situation has escalated so far that the entire chapter is recalled to deal with the issue. They are all that stands between the people and the monsters in the Dark, emerged from stories into reality.

 

Patrols encounter canoptek constructs, believing them at first to be xenos infiltrators with heavy cybernetic augmentations, until the chapter comes to the realization that they come from underground. Upon attacking the tomb, the chapter triggers its awakening and full blown war breaks out between them and the necrons. Despite their initial advantage, the chapter is pushed back until a desperate stand at the chapter monastery, with the orbital fleet carpet bombing the rest of the world. Rather than yielding more ground, chapter command decides to initiate the overload of the main reactors while evacuating all personnel up to the fleet in orbit. Between the reactor's explosion and the fleet using its most devastating weapons, the world breaks apart, leaving an asteroid field.

 

For years after, the chapter has been responding to distress signals relating to xenos, in the hope of finding more of the necrons. As it turns out, contact was first re-established with the dynasty to which the tomb world belonged when necron vessels was detected by probes left within the asteroid field. A mighty battle ensued and, with reinforcement from imperial navy, the imperial fleet was able to repulse the enemy. Since then, the chapter is trying their best to track the necrons back to their holdings, to share with them the pain of losing a homeworld.

[The_Chaplain]

Weapons errata: 

Wall of Text   Range -- S: User X 2  AP 3 Concussive

 

Seriously dude, break that massive text block up a little.

 

As Arthanor stated, we need your color preferences if we're going to help you with recommendations.  Also, if you're looking to start the basics of a liber astartes article- I recommend using the chapter creation table in fantasy flight game's deathwatch role play game rule book titled "Rites of Battle".

 

 It provides dice roll results for things like gene stock, gene stock purity, preferred combat doctrine, how codex adherent they are, etc.  I believe it to be a very handy tool that basically helps set up a successor chapter.

[Black Cohort]

Even if you don't roll on the tables in rites of battle, going through the process but picking your choice from the tables will leave you with a strong start to a new chapter.

[The_Chaplain]

Yep cohort is right in that regard.

[Warlord Torvold]

I have not heard of "Rites of Battle" but I now will check it out.  It might be what I need to help kick this personal project off.  Thank you The_Chaplain for suggesting it. 

 

Aranthor I really like your info on the first contact with the Necrons.  I also like your Idea on how to make my chapter be effected by the Necrons with out having being founded specifically to fight them.  Thank you.  As to the colours on my Necrons I used a silver metal base coat spray with a Leadbeltcher dry brush with a little Runefang steel for the bodies and vehicle base colour. Going for a Terminator(the movie not TDA) endo chassis look for the bodies.  I used Yriel yellow for my gauss weapons I hate the green rods. Mephiston red I used for my Tesla weapon highlights.  I also used Wazdakka red for the eyes.

 

I was just reading through the 40k wikia marine chapter names specifically looking for inspiration for a name for my chapter when I came upon mention of the Emperor's Swords two chapters have born this name.  Both form an unknown founding and have unknown progenitor chapters.  One being destroyed through Alpha Legion trickery.  The other by having the misfortune to have there fortress monastery built on a Tomb world.  The first one I care not about the second on the other hand has peeked my interest.  What if not all the Swords where wiped out by the Necrons?  What if the survivors regrouped and instead of following the example of the Crimson Fists and rebuilding followed the path of vengeance.  The Emperor's Swords have been shattered now all that remains are the Broken Blades.

 

So I now have a name for the chapter or whats left of it the Broken Blades.

 

Still stuck on colour scheme but I'm one step closer to fleshing the Blades out.  Thank you all for the input so far.

[The_Chaplain]

 

Still stuck on colour scheme but I'm one step closer to fleshing the Blades out.  Thank you all for the input so far.

 

Well, they're broken blades right?  So I'd imagine a metallic iron/silver/steel color will be a major component of the color scheme.  If you continue the symbolism, Red could be incorporated for the blood of their sacrificed brothers (and that would be 100% normal for a dorn successor as they can be of a pretty morbid and sombre disposition).  

 

 

 

[Arthanor]

I'm glad you like the idea!

The tie in with the Emperor's sword has potential! There are two things that would worry me though:

1- If your necrons are mostly metal to tie in with the terminator movies, and then you pick a metal based colour scheme to fit with their name, that's going to be a lot of metallic toy soldiers in your collection. I know I would find that boring in mine (currently I have Black Templars, White&Blue Eldars, going for Red&Gold DIY IF successor and Silver&Green DIY DA successor, all different colours so each are distinct).

 

Going with the Red&Metal idea, I got this, which I think should look distinct enough, the black as a detail colour, plus the red, would make it stand out from the metal necrons. If you like robes, they work well as a symbol of humility to tie in with the "broken" aspect (and, in black, would look pretty good I think). By opposition, tabards can also work, tying in the knightly/sword aspect.

 

Also, depending on how you feel about it, pretty much everything of the Emperor's was golden, so you could swap the silver for gold for something similar to my IF successor.

2- Broken Blades has a nice alliteration, a nice sound to it, but it is a bit.. lacking in glory. It could work as a penance, the chapter renames itself, possibly change their heraldry, as a temporary mourning / redemption measure. Until it comes back to fighting strength, when it will rename itself the Emperor's Swords once more.

 

You could even make this a "tradition" of the Emperor's Swords: They get tricked by the Alpha Legion but a few survive, they come to lead a newly founded chapter with the same name, the new chapter gets mauled by necrons, but they survive and they will be back! Again!

 

I would also suggest: Sundered Swords or Shattered Swords. Essentially the same meaning to the name, except you get to keep the "swords" part of the chapter name. Basically, they are broken, unworthy in front of the Emperor, but they are still swords!

[Warlord Torvold]

Been busy with work and life haven't had much time to work on my 40k as of late. I have been doing a fair bit of thinking on this tho.

The_Chaplain: I thought of going for a metallic look for the Blades but as Arthanor brings up in his first point that would be too similar to my Crons look. I do like the idea of using red symbolize the blood of fallen brothers tho and will be taking that suggestion. Thank you.

Arthanor: The link for your colour scheme idea for the Blades doesn't seem to want to work for me all I get is a screen of code. I thought about incorporating gold into the colours but have decided against it as I want the chapter to be in a mourning/penitent state with them forsaking any and all ties to their former name and station. On that theme black seems to be the colour most associated with mourning and grief.

As to the name I do like your idea's but I feel that keeping sword in the name would not fit with my idea of the chapter feeling shame for there loss much like Dorn feeling shame for the Emperors fate during the battle of Terra. They are the shards of the swords. The bits of broken blade that may be reforged in fires of vengeance to one day become swords again. Hence why I went with Broken Blades.

So I just discovered that the B&C has a painter feature for marines feel a bit like an idiot for not knowing about it sooner but anyways. This is what I have come up with for my Broken Blades. What do you all think?