The knights of Britannica

[The_Iron_Duke]

The knights of Britannica are from the 8th founding and where originally created by the high lords of Terra to investigate/ explore a new sector of the galaxy however their role changed later to a more combat orientated one after their first mission was complete, the chapter is not aware of who their primarch is. The chapter also follows the codex astartes very closely

The chapter's home world is a hive world under the name Britannica; the planet is surrounded by four moons that are called Ingland, Londus, Cymru and Caledonia where the chapter draws some recruits from. The natives of the planet recognize the emperor as the king of humanity and the imperium as his kingdom. The natives are naturally a proud people and can be very stubborn which usually means in war the marines would rather die in battle than live in defeat. This leads to many suicide missions like the charge of the "King's own bikers" against a battery of Ork artillery that lead to the loss of several hundred lives.

The chapter's first achievement is cultural not militaristic. During their early days of exploration a tactical squad lead by Sergeant James Cook came across a vault, with extreme caution the men entered and what they found defied all odds, the men had found artifacts of an ancient civilization. Inside was a piece of paper that was very badly water damaged but one line was still legible and it read "rule Britanya". A map of a strange planet that had various areas shaded in pink, the planet had seven continents and a large amount of water, A flag that had it's colours faded but it featured a horizontal line with another smaller one inside it, a vertical line of the same description and a cross going from corner to corner with another smaller one inside it, A portrait of a woman who wore a black veil and a play book entitled "a midsummer night's (the next word is illegible due to more water damage). The chapter immediately returned the artifacts back to Terra and to the high lords of Terra where they are now stored in a closely guarded fortress monastery protected from any prying eyes. This find has earned the knights of Britannica a lot of respect from many imperial factions.

The chapter fights in two stages where ever it can first they send in their tactical squads who pin the enemy down and keep them entertained until further support arrives. The second stage is the reserves which usually consists of Bikers, tanks and occasional flyers who drive the victory home. The knights of Britannica first shoot until the foe is pinned, shaken or disordered then the order will be given to charge and the reserves to move up where the battle is ultimately won. This tactic has been tried in tested in many a campaign the first being the attack of Iberia with great success. However some of the chapters most famous victories (and defeats but in the eyes of the knights of Britannica they died with honour which is always a victory) involve a small amount of men against an overwhelming force where it is the marine's stubbornness and sheer determination that brings victory; an example of this include the defense of Rorke's bastion where 124 wounded marines of the Royal Welch B company defied the odds against a waagh of 4000 Orks. During this heroic defense morale fell to extreme lows as wave after wave of Orks threw themselves at the bastion, at one point the Orks actually broke into the defenses and many marines almost retreated; it was at this moment when the leader of the company LT Bromson charged head into the Orks wielding his power sword and shouted "Rule Britannica!", the men who were routing turned back and charged into the Orks shouting the same war cry and some say the battle was won by this act of bravery. This moment in the battle is forever remembered by every marine, scout and engineer as they too shout the war cry "Rule Britannica" when they press the charge upon their foes. The battle ended with a relief force of bikers routing the Orks but this relief force is often over shadowed by the sheer stubbornness of the Royal Welch. However the knights of Britannica's battle record is not all acts of valour and feats of glory, the marines have had a fair share of defeats too an example being the retreat from Korrona where due to awful acid rain and constant attacks from a highly mobile chaos force, the generals of that campaign (much to the despair of the men fighting it) organized a full withdrawal from the planet.

*End of Liber Astartes*

I hope you enjoyed the back ground of the knights of Britannica any improvements will be appreciated and please address me as Duke as i know The_iron_duke is a bit of a mouth full. In case you didn't know this is a redux of my previous topic "the Brit marines" and i want to thank all those who helped me back then!

The_iron_duke

[The_Iron_Duke]

The colour scheme of the knights of Britannica

*Note* the blue on the armour may vary squad to squad, for example the royal Welch (mentioned earlier on) have dark green in place of dark blue

[Brother Olaf]

Hah! nice! Similar to a Chapter thats been floating around in my head for some years now. My armour scheme is close to the costume of Union Jack, the Marvel comics character :)

[The_Iron_Duke]

Thank you and that sounds cool :D

[Tiberius Cato]

I like this IA quite a bit, the only issue I have with it is the use of exact names. You can still use these artefacts but change the name a bit to compensate for millenia of age and wear. Like "Rule Britannia" can be "Rule Bri' anni" As if the manuscript had suffered some water damage and some of the letters had faded off of it. That isn't to say that you can't use the exact name, but very few artefacts seem to exist as their current day forms. Though not directly related to an artefact, I recall that in Horus Rising a man by the name of Sindermann, who is a secular priest (sounds like quite the oxymoron, yeah?) , whom describe the non-existance of spirits and daemons. He quotes that the ancient Terran belief of a evil diety known as "Seytan" was disproved by science and logic. Going by that you could even play with the spelling. "Rule Britahnya" maybe?

 

Or you could even have an epic poem of the adventures and tribulations of "Captain x" who rallied his brethren by shouting "Rule Britannica!", inspiring great bravery in his men. Thus all members of the chapter look to this epic as a source of guidance on how to conduct themselves and as a source of inspiration of bravery and honour in which they emulate Captain x by shouting "Rule Britannica!".

 

Just some thoughts, Brother Duke. Feel free to use what you please and disregard that you don't agree with. Do you intend to add more information about the chapter eventually? If so, I look forward to reading it! Cheers, Brother! :)

[The_Iron_Duke]

I'm glad you like it and thanks for leaving a comment :), i agree with the changing the name as "rule Britannia" is a bit obvious. I'll change it now and there will most certainly be more coming from the knights of Britannica :)