IA: Knights of Castilya WIP

[Tiberius Cato]

Hail Brothers!
I was inspired to make another IA when my friend and I were debating about the FIFA World Cup. Long story short, the idea of Spanish knights as a theme for a chapter came up and I knew it had to be done.
So like I said, I would like to create a chapter that is knightly and has some Spanish culture in it.
So here are my initial thoughts:
Background wise,in keeping with the virtues of Spanish knighthood they shall crusade across the stars purging the universe of all who challenge the faith of the Imperium and they will spread the Imperial Truth wherever their boots hit the ground. They shall be some of the Imperium's most devout and faithful sons.
As always, thanks for reading, and I eagerly await your responses! Suggestions and criticism welcome.

Brother Vicente Cortes 3rd Company, 1st Tactical Squad

[clearfloat][/clearfloat]

Origins of the Knights of Castilya

The Knights of Castilya are of the 7th Founding and were created to act as a standing force to combat chaos forces that was ravaging Imperial worlds in the Iberius Sector. They are Successors of the Imperial Fists by direct lineage. Their home world Castilya is located in the Iberius Sector on the southern edge of the Segmentum Obscurus.
The chapter has seen many conflicts in it's history and have become renowned for their unmatched perserverance in exterminating those that would dare to turn their back on the Emperor. As such, the Knights of Castilya have participated in countering every Black Crusade launched by Abbadon; often sending four battle companies each time. The Knights have developed an intense rivalry with many factions of chaos. The chief rivalry being with the heretical Word Bearers. The Knights go to great lengths to eradicate the influence and presence of the traitor legion, denying the spread of their blasphemous evangelism. On multiple occasions they have abandoned campaigns to pursue members of the Word Bearers legion, often to the misfortune of their allies.

Homeworld

Castilya is a civilised world with a culture similar to that of Terra's middle ages. Castilya is ruled over by six, formerly seven, kingdoms. The largest kingdom, Castilya, is the result of a marriage between the monarchs of the kingdoms Castíl and Aragonya. The kingdom allied with the other nobilities of the planet to remove the heretical monarch of the kingdom of Andaluth. After many centuries of conflict the heretics had been purged from the world, and Andaluth had been reclaimed in the name of the Emperor. The planet then enjoyed a period of peace until the arrival of the Adeptus Astartes. The people of Castilya worshipped the ground on which these demigods of the Emperor had treaded on. The kingdoms took up arms against eachother in an effort to prove their subjects to be the planet's mightiest warriors. When a recruit is selected the Astartes ensure that there is atleast another son or daughter in the recruits family, thus ensuring that the families producing the best warriors continue to do so. The chapter maintains a defensive force on Castilya composed an entire battle company. Every century a new battle company comes to take the place of the former.

Organization

The Knights of Castilya foster a small deviation to the organisation presented in the Codex Astartes. They forgo the use of reserve companies and maintain a full seven battle companies, accompanied by two veteran company and a scout company. The first veteran company is divided into what is known as two knight houses. The first of these, House Ramos, specialises in boarding actions and are primarily equipped in tactical dreadnought armour. The second, House Vilanova, specialise in rapid assaults; they often deploy to the battlefield in rhinos and land raiders to bridge the gap between forces. The second veteran company is comprised well- rounded veterans of the chapter. Each brother awaits further training for acceptance into the ranks of one of the prestigious houses of the first company.

Combat Doctrine

The chapter's typical combat method draws many parallels to Castilya's deeply ingrained tradition of bull fighting. They often send neophytes mounted on bikes to corral and ensure enemy forces have no chance of flanking them. Afterwards, assault squads are deployed to target enemy armour and assault craft to slow down enemy forces and force them to slog across the battlefield. This is followed byan attack by tactical and devestator squads; tactical squads primarily pick out high priority targets like seargents and pick them off to break the chain of command amongst enemy forces whilst devestators target any fortifications and destroy large groups of enemies with focused fire to whittle down the enemy further. After all this, the battle forces commanding officer takes the field and seeks to engage the opposing commander in a duel to the death. If accepted, the chapter's commanding officer taunts his opponent with all manner of faints and parries. When he is sufficiently pleased with the battle, he performs one final action, one that disarms his opponent and impales them through their heart in a singular movement.

Geneseed

The Knights of Castilya hail from the lineage of Dorn and inherit his sons defects.

Beliefs

The Knight of Castilya hold honour and religious devotion above all else. They spend much of their free time in the grand cathedral that is the reclusiam of the chapter. Any time a brother is found to be lacking in faith in the Imperial Truth, he is sentenced to lecture and corporeal punishment by the chapter's chaplains and assigned a quest of penitence, in which he must prove his faith through spreading the word of the Imperial Truth. The Knights strive to show their purity, intent on cleansing the galaxy of chaos. The Knights have participated in countering the forces of the ruinous powers and many of the black crusades, boldly jumping into the breach to eradicate heretics.

Advancement through the ranks of the chapter is an arduous task for the Knights. To become a captain, an individual must have many confirmed kills on heretic Astartes and their powerful demon allies. The Knight-Lord Hernan Veracruz, the chapter master of the Knights of Castilya, is the greatest demon fighter amongst the chapter; he has vanquished a daemon prince and defeated many champions of chaos in his long and storied career.

Honour is also a powerful motivation for the chapter. Honour duels amongst brothers are commonplace for settling disputes, or even deciding who shall lead a campaign can be settled by an honour duel. The knights follow a strict code that dictates their interactions with other Astartes and non-Astartes alike. The code dictates that a brother of the chapter must interact in a calm and composed manner with others, displaying the utmost respect for them. Also, the code dictates that a man's worth is not only measured through battlefield prowess, but also through mental prowess as well. He is expected to be an expert in literary arts, a master of the political arena, a skilled artist, and above all else: a man of unshakeable faith and mental fortitude.

During free time it is common for members of the chapter to engage in Castilya's most valued tradition, bullfighting. It is a wonderful spectacle, a rare instance where common imperial citizens can watch Astartes in action. A knight takes to the arena, clad in the homeworld's traditional apparel -known as the Suit of Rainbows or Traje de Irises in the planet's tongue - with a small retinue often composed of neophytes to assist him in the ritual. When the bull is first released -a beast bred for the arena- the astartes observes it, looking for anything unusual. He notes any prefereances for a particular section of the ring and strange head movements or vision problems. He allows the bull to charge him and dodges it with a flick of his cape. He then has two neophytes armed with lances, known as lanceros, stab the bull in the meaty slabs of it's neck. This is to induce bloodletting and weaken the neck muscles to make it easier for the astartes to make passes of the bull. This is followed by neophytes equipped with small blades that are coated in a mixture that induces an adrenaline rush and has small flags tied to them. The neophytes attempt to place as many blades into the bulls shoulders to further enrage it and initiate the final stage of the bullfight. The final phase belongs to the asartes alone. The enraged bull charges him, time and again, only to be artfully dodged. The astartes performs many feints and passes allowing the bull to get closer and closer each time. When the astartes is pleased with his performance he performs one final pass. As the bull rushes past him he takes his blade and plunges into the bulls back, straight through the spine and heart, instantly killing the beast.

[Conn Eremon]

If you are looking at Spanish style crusaders, I would recommend taking a look at the conquistadores as well for inspiration.

 

Always a nice source, I happen to be using them for two different DIYs of my own.

[Tiberius Cato]

Yea, I intend to include los conquistadores as well. Would it be possible to not have a chapter symbol? I would rather display company heraldry only on the shoulderpads. If not, then I may use a cross of some sort as the chapter symbol. Also, since i'm going to make them templary they will have crusader squads that I will probly rename either esquadron cruzador (crusade squad in Castellano) or esquadron conquistador. Assault squads will likely not feature jump packs exstensively, but take rhinos for an armoured assault. And Devastator squads will armed to combat mainly Chaos, plasma and meltas I think.

[Tiberius Cato]

Tidied up the original post and got some barebones foundation layed down.

[Resarys]

Take a look at the Praetors of Orpheus. Their Chapter symbol is a small Ultramarine symbol in the corner of a shield with a sunburst. Using that same basic style, the upper left corner could be a small fist, emblazoned with a cross, (or whatever you want, but that would be appropriately heraldic, I feel) and the rest of the shield (or entire shoulder pad) could be taken up by individual/squad/company heraldry.

[Tiberius Cato]

That is something I was thinking about. It would be quite tedious to give each marine distinct heraldry but nonetheless very cool aslong as they retained the common element, the fist. Or possibly have the heraldry of the kingdom the marine hails from marshalled with the chapter's heraldry. So essentially it would be quartered on the chapter side and the kingdom side may be quarted, halved, or maybe even striped if I feel ambitious enough. The chapter crest would be similar to the Praetors of Orpheus but with a black fist on a yellow background emblazoned over a red cross on a white background. I don't know, just some thoughts. I will definately have to play around with the idea. Thank you very much for the suggestion Brother! :)

[Resarys]

There's also the odd Marine who has a wee little shield on the front left of his chest plate. I honestly don't know where you physically get those, but you could have that be common to the Chapter. Everyone has one, and it displays their personal/kingdom/etc heraldry. Small area to paint so fine, though.

 

You could also have "purity" seals. Not necessarily the typical purity seals, but scrolls painted with "writing" that record the deeds and lineages and whathaveyou of the brother wearing them.

 

The homeworld could even be very devoted to the Chapter, with families having a great tradition of their sons being selected. (Of course, that would make it a little hard to carry on the family line.... Hm, perhaps families are matrilinear, in that case.) If I may venture outside 40k for a moment, I'm thinking of Arisia of the Green Lantern Corps, here, who's family has been Green Lanterns for generations, which is quite a stand out achievement amongst the Corp.

 

And if you wanted any minor Codex divergence, you could change the name of Scouts to Squires. It would only be cosmetic. Or perhaps the Chapters serfs are the Squires, and they maintain a higher than usual number of them, owing to their recruiting traditions.

[Tiberius Cato]

I love those small shields, I've seen them on termies so they must be bits, or with my luck already on the shoulder pad. It would be cool to have them on atleast the veterans, captains, and Chapter Master as a symbol of prestige.

Edit:That idea of the kingdoms being devoted to the chapter is very nice aswell. Perhaps the more recruits the kingdom puts out, the more aid the chapter gives them. Nothing like Astartes warring with iron age men, but giving them resources to help them expand their power.Castilya, being the kingdom who sends the most recruits is the largest and most powerful. The other kingdoms have less power but some have more "professional" soldiers and even though they send far less to become astartes, they compensate with better skilled warriors. But anyways, I was thinking of incorporating the arms of each kingdom on the shoulder pad that denotes squad markings and the chapter arms on the other side. Then if I can obtain those small shields I can put them on the higher ranking battle brothers.

[Resarys]

Keeping the little shields as a sign of rank would be a nice touch, both making them more meaningful and saving you having to paint so many tiny details! Plus you could make storm shields a theme, if you actually want to use them in actual games. That provides a place for heraldry, as well.

[Tiberius Cato]

I will have storm shield options for all my captains and chapter master for sure (hurray for magnets!), and lots of backpack banners and such.

[Tiberius Cato]

New homeworld and organisation fluff added. Currently working on expanding upon Beliefs and Origins.

[Tiberius Cato]

Brothers, I seek your opinions on something I have been thinking about. I was thinking of changing the colour of the chapter to grey, not sure how dark of a grey, and keeping the trims and such gold. I was thinking this would make the various heraldries stand out more and allow me a greater range of colours aswell, as grey is neutral and I wouldn't have to stay with colours complimentary to red. Also, where might one find storm shields that do not have terminator hands, I can't seem to find any.

[Teetengee]

Grey sounds solid. Sorry, Perhaps the grey knight heraldry shields could be turned into storm shields?

[Tiberius Cato]

Possibly, I'll have to look into them. This chapter got moved to the back burner for modelling when I thought up the Eagles of Glory haha

[Teetengee]

Yeah, that project has been eating up most of my liber time too.

[Conn Eremon]

*sniff*

 

Do you guys smell that?

 

*sniff sniff*

 

Smells like . . .

 

Victory.

[Tiberius Cato]

I've done some editing, chiefly in the beliefs and origin sections. I'm not entirely sure on what else to add at this point. I've also elected to keep the primary colour of the armour red.

[Teetengee]

Homeworld: You probably don't need to say civilized world in two consecutive sentences.

I think that felled for the daemon princes is perhaps a little strong, defeated sounds better (especially since they don't really die.).

[gameos7]

Grey sounds good. Having civilised twice in two adjacent sentences doesn't read good. "The Torres house are reknowned". "he has felled three demon princes" makes them sound like trees. Slain, banished and as Teetengee said, defeated sound much better. Though 3 sounds like a lot, maybe just one Daemon Prince or Greater Daemon, or maybe they've just slain/banished/defeated/whatevered lots of daemons in their time, or something.

 

Other than that it all seems pretty good. Seems like the kind of chapter I'd want to corrupt if I was a Chaos God (or am I?), so you've probably done something right.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The kingdoms took up arms against each other in an effort to prove their subjects to be the planet's mightiest warriors.

 

You may want to distinguish actual fighting (in which people are maimed and killed) with a "flower war," like those the Aztecs once fought. A "flower war" can be set to a limited duration, to minimize effects on the kingdoms' economy as military-age men are forced to fight for their lives, instead of farming, working in factories to provide the Chapter with materiel, or other productive activities; be scheduled to occur on dates on which the Astartes will attend as observers, to better demonstrate who are most worthy to be recruited into the Chapter; and minimize death and injury to military-age men in what more sensible people (you and I) consider a pointless war, as blunt or stun weapons ("Set las-weapons to stun,") can be used instead of the lethal weapons that will be used in actual fighting.

[gameos7]

"The Torres house are reknowned". Renowned doesn't have a k. Also daemon, not demon, is the correct spelling.

At the end of the Homeworld section you state they have 4 battle companies, and then directly after you state that they don't have companies. Ummm...

Why are the veterans the only ones trained to use the centurion? Most chapters, almost all probably don't have centurions being used by veterans. Why are these guys different? And why do they not use Dreadnoughts? Is it dishonourable? If not, why don't they use them? It's just very odd to have veterans use, and even more odd with them being the only ones to use centurion armour. Very odd. I need more info on this.

Having a combat doctrine say anything other than "See above." when you just before it stated how they fight is a bit odd. Unless you have it say how each House fights again, move how they fight to the combat doctrine, or keep their close combat preference there and say something like "On top of each households fighting style, the majority of the chapter prefers to charge at the enemy and fight in close combat.", it all seems a bit weird. Then again, the chapter as a whole chapter could just like close combat and charging.

Finally, if they hold religion in such high regards, how does their chapter cult and their chaplains function? Is it basically the Imperial Cult? Some info on this might be good.

[Tiberius Cato]

"The Torres house are reknowned". Renowned doesn't have a k. Also daemon, not demon, is the correct spelling.

At the end of the Homeworld section you state they have 4 battle companies, and then directly after you state that they don't have companies. Ummm...

Why are the veterans the only ones trained to use the centurion? Most chapters, almost all probably don't have centurions being used by veterans. Why are these guys different? And why do they not use Dreadnoughts? Is it dishonourable? If not, why don't they use them? It's just very odd to have veterans use, and even more odd with them being the only ones to use centurion armour. Very odd. I need more info on this.

Having a combat doctrine say anything other than "See above." when you just before it stated how they fight is a bit odd. Unless you have it say how each House fights again, move how they fight to the combat doctrine, or keep their close combat preference there and say something like "On top of each households fighting style, the majority of the chapter prefers to charge at the enemy and fight in close combat.", it all seems a bit weird. Then again, the chapter as a whole chapter could just like close combat and charging.

Finally, if they hold religion in such high regards, how does their chapter cult and their chaplains function? Is it basically the Imperial Cult? Some info on this might be good.

Spelling fixed (I hope), company issue fixed, terminator armour reinstituted, and combat doctrine section removed.

As far as their chapter cult, I see them being very close to the methods of worship laid out by the Ecclisiarchy. The chaplains will preach the tenets of the Imperial Creed and enforce them upon the chapter's brothers. Those found lacking faith are sentenced to confinment to the reclusiam and must endure lecture and corporeal punishment from the chaplains.

Edit: as for the centurion thing, I was obsessed with them when I initially wrote this IA but that has passed, also I can't think of a reason to justify their exclusive use over holy terminator armour.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Clarification needed for the following:

 

 

The Knight-Lord is the greatest demon fighter amongst the chapter

Is "Knight-Lord" a military rank, like "Chapter Master"? Or an honorary title, like "Company Champion"? In referring to the Knight-Lord as the Chapter's "greatest demon fighter", are you referring to what all Knight-Lords must do to attain the rank/title, or are you specifically referring to the Marine who currently holds the rank/title?

[Teetengee]

I got the impression that it was a specific individual, but I would like to know the answers to the rest too.

[Sanguine_Knight]

In reference to the little shields. I know that the AOBR termies came with them. Don't know where else you get them.