Community project : Let's found a Chapter ! (Phase 3 & 4)

[GreyCrow]

"Such is the woe cast upon the Domains of the God-Emperor of Mankind in these times that in their wisdom and beneficence, the High Lords of Terra have this day issued this decree: Let there be a Founding of the Adeptus Astartes, and let the foes of the Emperor know that this galaxy belongs to Him, now and forever." — High Lord Tagus, Convenor of the 349th Congress of the Imperium

Greetings, battle-brothers ! Because many brains are better than a single one, because of the success and fun of Cormarc Airt's Liber Cluster, and because I don't know if this has been done before, I wanted to try out a new project : a collectively designed, brand new, Chapter of Space Marines !

The goal is to have as many B&C members provide insights, pieces of fluff, history bits, character/squad/vehicle profiles, short stories, defining doctrines, iconography and other suggestions to make the most fleshed out fanmade Chapter ! Let's put our collective mind together to design a characterful Chapter to rally behind, to collect, assemble and take to battle ! And perhaps, who knows, make it well known enough to inspire new members to join His Righteous and Glorious cause !

The starting point will be simple : it will mostly be a blank slate with just a few guidelines to ensure that the Chapter doesn't stray too far from the ideals of the Adeptus Astartes and to prevent having trouble finding new bits of content to add.

Announcements

Phase 2 (aka deciding the naming of the Chapter) has been completed ! We are all glad to introduce you to the Knights Panthera !

The Knights Panthera is a Codex-Adherent Ultramarines successor, known to capture prisoners on the battlefield as much as possible, then bring them back to their homeworld and execute them in large public ceremonies as tributes in the name of the Holy Emperor and the Imperium, sometimes in vast quantities. These ceremonies not only are designed to honour the Emperor and his vision for mankind, but also have a very strong morale boosting effect on the human population of the Knights Panthera's homeworld and neighboring systems. Respect and battle honours are awarded amongst the Chapter based on the captures : the more numerous or the more impressive the captives are, the more glory to the Astartes and the Chapter.

In battle, the Knights Panthera are known to favour a strong advancing battle line of Tactical and Devastator Marines pinning the enemy down, while light and mobile elements, usually Bike Squadrons and Assault Marines, reap the enemy from his positions and cutting off their exit routes. Promotions in the Chapter are decided by the High Council (name pending), who assign worthy company Captains chosen among the First Company Sergeants to the Companies based on their prisoner taking achievements and their Tactical Acumen. It is not rare to see Captains replaced by a new pretender that the Chapter Master and his advisors see more suited to the task, with the previous Captain either going back to leading a squad in the First Company or staying on his own will as advisor to the new Captain.

Ground rules

- First of all, let's be friendly to one another. There's no bad idea and the goal is to design something together and add as much content as possible.

- The design process will be conducted in sequential steps in order to maintain focus, and we will have to make sure each post is relevant to the current step.

- Each step will have its own specific guidelines or rules, that will be indicated both in the OP and a post in the thread. For example, defining the colour scheme will be different than pitching in fluff bits : the former will be more structured while the latter will be on an open contribution basis.

- Once a step is over, there will be no more discussion to alter it. In later stages, for example expanding the history, some steps will be permanently open to ensure the constant intake of content !

- Please try to expand on the ideas already submitted by other Brothers as much as possible.

Chapter Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for the Chapter that each contributor should keep in mind and follow :

- The Chapter is Loyalist

- The Chapter is from Ultramarines Geneseed (but mutations can occur)

- The Chapter is Codex-Compliant

- The Chapter represents the ideal of Knight-Soldiers or Soldier-Knights. How you interpret this is up to you !

These guidelines are just there to ensure the Chapter remains relatively widely acceptable and not too niche, which would make writing contents for it a bit complicated !

List of steps

- Theme of the Chapter - Completed !

- Naming -Completed !

- Chapter beliefs - Ongoing

- Combat Doctrine - Ongoing

- Coulour scheme and iconography

- Origins and Founding

- Homeworld

- General fluff

Let the Founding begin !

_____________

Ongoing step : Chapter beliefs and combat doctrine

So, now that the Knights Panthera finally have a name, it's time to flesh out how they act on the battlefield and what their beliefs are. We have covered that already briefly during the theme and the Naming, but let's flesh it out !

Because these two steps are pretty similar in terms of content, we will be doing them simultaneously : after all, beliefs highly influence the combat doctrine of a Chapter !

Let's keep in mind that the Knights Panthera are Codex-Adherent (10 companies, divided in Veteran, Battle, Reserve and Scout companies). As such, they will follow the general doctrines laid out by the Codex (and will use Ultramarines Chapter Tactics on the tabletop !) although some deviation from the Codex is permitted, though not as differentiating as the Iron Hands, Raven Guard or Black Templar Chapters, for example.

Please also keep in mind that the beliefs and the doctrines absolutely must fall in line with their general theme : a clear intent to capture prisoners for later public sacrifices in name of the Emperor, as well as a reliance on heavy infantry (Tactical squads) supported by cavalry (Bikes and Assault Marines).

That said, other uses for these squads, including metaphors of their role within the culture of the Chapter are absolutely permitted, as well as kinks for special formations or favoured deployment patterns !

This step is ongoing until Thursday November 6th at 12:00 a.m. !

May the Emperor protect your inspiration !

[Black Cohort]

Definitely interested.

 

When you say Codex-compliant, do you mean fully and completely or is deviation up to a point possible?

[Tiberius Cato]

Spanish Knights, without a doubt. With a hint of US Navy Seals.

 

I'm assuming codex compliant means 10 companies?

[GreyCrow]

Definitely interested.

 

When you say Codex-compliant, do you mean fully and completely or is deviation up to a point possible?

 

Let's allow deviation up to a point where it doesn't contradict the spirit of the Codex, but the Chapter must still follow the broad, defining traits of a Codex Chapter, being a successor the Ultramarines. They won't be as meticulous as the Ultramarines or the Black Consuls in their applications of the doctrines of the Codex, for example.

Any deviation should add a little flavour to the Chapter (such as the Star Phantoms being known to exclusively operate through Drop insertions), but shouldn't be the defining trait of the Chapter.

 

Spanish Knights, without a doubt. With a hint of US Navy Seals.

 

I'm assuming codex compliant means 10 companies?

 

Spanish Navy Knight Seals, that could be an interesting proposition !

Codex compliant indeed means 10 companies of 100 Marines at full strength, with a Veteran company, 4 Battle companies, 4 reserve companies and a Scout Company, as they are structured per the Codex Astartes

[Tiberius Cato]

Alrighty, cool. I look forward to see what other ideas people have for the theme! ^_^

[ElectricPaladin]

Here's what soldier-knight means to me:

 

• Not necessarily practical. Does things because they are the "right" thing to do, even if they are costly, impractical, or even considered absurd by outsiders who don't understand honor.
• Discipline and unquestioned hierarchy.
• Being seen as honorable is almost as important as doing honorable things. Honor is in the eye of your peer, your subject, and your enemy. It's important to look impressive, to act impressive, and to be magnanimous in victory - does this mean that they are even willing to show mercy to defeated Xenos? Offer to accept the surrender of Chaos forces before a battle?
• The strong protect the weak without denigrating them. These Astartes value ordinary humans, and may even envy them for getting to lead lives of relative simplicity.
• Responsibility is important. An honorable knight takes care of something. He doesn't fight just to kill - he fights to protect. If his battles leave a mess, he sticks around to pick up the pieces. Perhaps this is a trait they inherited from the empire-building Ultramarines - they're good at logistics and after they conquer a planet they like to hang around for as long as they can afford to, building roads and schools and infrastructure for fun. Hey... what if they even go so far as to view building, rather than destroying, as their "real" purpose, and it's a bit of a source of chapter angst that they rarely get to see these projects complete and end up leaving a cadre of serfs behind with Astartes-made plans to carry out?

[Firepower]

Greetings, battle-brothers ! Because many brains are better than a single one, because of the success and fun of Cormarc Airt's Liber Cluster, and because I don't know if this has been done before, I wanted to try out a new project : a collectively designed, brand new, Chapter of Space Marines !

Yeah, it's been done, and it was a nightmare

Too many cooks spoil the broth and all that. Although there was eventually a finished product (waaaaaaay past the original deadline). It's stickied at the top of the subforum. The trouble is, someone needs to run the show and be willing to make final calls (i.e. "Okay, we're done with Founding, lets move on to Doctrine" etc.) or else it just becomes circular. So be ready to crack that whip and drop the 'I said we're moving on!' hammer.

Anyway, if I come up with anything interesting, I'll make a little contribution.

[Black Cohort]

I am going to go a different route. Most marine chapters are based of the European concept of knights, which if we go to the core of what a knight is it is elevated military and social rank with certain things expected of them. So what if we go with a similar equivalent from a different culture.

 

Personally I say we go Aztec. They had warrior societies similar to knightly orders but very different concepts of how these people should act. Members of their warrior orders were expected to collect prisoners for sacrifice, only honourable foes could be sacrificed. It gives us the benifit of being different, still being honour based just with a totally different concept of what honour is. Imagine veterans draped with pelts carrying a http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl. Rank being determined by how effective you are at disabling powerful and honourable foes for later sacrifice. Dis-honourable foes wouldlikely be ddestroyed without hesitation. If we really wanted to we could make them a chapter based on a death cult world, where honourable foes are sacrificed to the emperor.

[Firepower]

I am going to go a different route. Most marine chapters are based of the European concept of knights, which if we go to the core of what a knight is it is elevated military and social rank with certain things expected of them. So what if we go with a similar equivalent from a different culture.

Personally I say we go Aztec. They had warrior societies similar to knightly orders but very different concepts of how these people should act. Members of their warrior orders were expected to collect prisoners for sacrifice, only honourable foes could be sacrificed. It gives us the benifit of being different, still being honour based just with a totally different concept of what honour is. Imagine veterans draped with pelts carrying a http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl. Rank being determined by how effective you are at disabling powerful and honourable foes for later sacrifice. Dis-honourable foes wouldlikely be ddestroyed without hesitation. If we really wanted to we could make them a chapter based on a death cult world, where honourable foes are sacrificed to the emperor.

If we can redefine 'Knight' as any warrior class, I got loads of things to play with :D

But if it's the more typical, general version of Knight, the sort rooted in European history...that well is a bit dry.

[baldur27]

So Spanish knights are we talking conquistadors and El Cid? cause that could be awesome

[Tiberius Cato]

So Spanish knights are we talking conquistadors and El Cid? cause that could be awesome

Kinda, I was thinking like the Reconquistador(e)s and El Cid. Spanish knighthood what at it's peak during and a bit after the Reconquista. A bit of the hyperbole of Don Quixote de la Mancha could probably be thrown in that mix as well! Haha

[Firepower]

So Spanish knights are we talking conquistadors and El Cid? cause that could be awesome

Kinda, I was thinking like the Reconquistador(e)s and El Cid. Spanish knighthood what at it's peak during and a bit after the Reconquista. A bit of the hyperbole of Don Quixote de la Mancha could probably be thrown in that mix as well! Haha

The Chapter wages war on a windmill after mistaking it for a Hive Fleet?

Fun note, I played the Governor in the Man of la Mancha in a high school play. Not nearly as cool as the Walking Dead Governor.

I'm thinking I should shut up now until I have something useful to say...maybe.

[Stercus]

The concept of an honour-led noble warrior is ubiquitous in human history. The practice is most famous amongst medieval European heavy cavalry, but is repeated in any society where the most effective military formations required constant training and high-tech equipment. The only people in most societies throughout history able to provide the material needs of fighting in this elite manner were the top social and economic levels, necessarily fewer in number than the masses of the labouring class that provide their means of livelihood. The development of an honour code as a list of unacceptable and acceptable practices in battle was simply a means of preserving these elite, but few in number, powerful warriors. Where it may be appropriate for mass untrained peasantry to butcher each other in the mud at the whim of a great lord, they are easily replaced. For elite, highly trained and expensive to equip warriors, a code of practice that includes such things as formalised duelling and prisoner capture/exchange is simply a means of not wasting the economic and training necessary to make them an effective force.

Translating this to a chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is fairly straightforward. The Space Marines are obviously elite beyond elite. Their technology represents the best the imperium can produce and their training and physical attributes place them as the equal of dozens of normal troops. My view is that the code of honour would be restricted for use between the Astartes and those that they acknowledge as peers. Most other human troops and almost the entirety of xenos would be regarded as inferior and the honourable practices between warriors would not apply in their case. Following the idea of knightly warriors would mean that a chapter of this type may well treat other astartes with respect as valued allies, but would have no qualms about driving regiments of guard like sheep towards the enemy, and certainly would be capable of extreme brutality against xenos or rebellious humans. Quarter would not be given because the idea that lesser soldiers were worthy of it simply would not occur.

 

As a subject of a possible cultural link to a warrior society from history, the medieval European knight may be in danger of being "done to death" as the subject of an astartes chapter's worldview. Similar societies that may provide a more interesting spin but that would not sacrifice that split between honourable warriors and inferior soldiery existed at various stages. A couple I'd like to throw into the mix are the shogunate period in feudal Japan with its associated samurai vibe, and the Anglo Saxon period of well armed noble thegns and carls in shieldwalls car ing apart masses of the indentured fyrd.

[Lord Commander Scrymgeour]

I'm quite glad Stercus brought that up. Don't confuse the two meanings of noble when talking about knights. Even in Romantic Chivalrous literature they are still pretty much rich bloodthirsty scumbags with swords.

[GreyCrow]

Good inputs so far guys ! :) We're coming up with very good material so far. To answer Black Cohort's and Firepower questions : No, it doesn't have to be inspired by a European culture, whatever the theme of the Chapter is it must be an interpretation of Knight-Soldiers, whichever one this may become :)

 

@Firepower : Thanks for the tip, I'll look this up and make sure this one works smoother. And don't worry, I love cracking whips :D

[Sete]

Samurai Knight's?

[Stercus]

Don't confuse the two meanings of noble when talking about knights. Even in Romantic Chivalrous literature they are still pretty much rich bloodthirsty scumbags with swords.

Even discounting the scumbags angle, which is probably not what we'd look for in an astartes chapter (although it might be interesting), the reason for the honour code is not about protecting anybody but yourself; you can think of it as a bit like the Cold War nuclear deterrent, but instead of 'if you attack me we both die' its more like 'we can fight, but if we do it carefully according to some rules, we can both have another go next year'. In both cases, nobody really gives two turds about what happens to the peasants.

[Sete]

Well I think Samurai theme would go along well with the Chapter. Also is popular and almost everyone likes samurais. I had an idea a while ago of making a codex compliant samurai chapter, azure dragons, guardians of the east, to face Tau and nids and orks mainly. Still waiting for samurai sword bits.

So they have to be, Knightly so honor is a big deal, codex compliant, Samurai were traditionalists I think, had a code of the warrior, bushido, masses of peasants as cannon fodder, and served the Emperor.

We could even use the scouts as a shinobi unit of some kind.

If they have a homeworld planet it could be called Ophiussa, which is High Gothic for Land of serpents or dragons. These are my suggestions. Take it as you will.

My idea was to use SW rules, so I could use Dark elves Cold ones instead of the thunderwolves. But that makes it non codx compliant. Also the scouts would have better stats for shinobi thingy.

[Tiberius Cato]

I don't know why, but when I read Samurai I imagined Astartes commiting Seppuku...

[GreyCrow]

Seppuku for Astartes would be relatively against the logic of battlefield efficiency, but going on a suicide mission for dishonoured Battle Brothers might be a great angle to explore !

[Sete]

Well that was some ideas. Sepuku is a waste, but they dont have to be 100% samurai.
BA I think has a lot of those do or die missions.

Also just received my Samurai Bits if you guys want to see how it looks ill assemble a mini quickly.

[Gorkimedes]

And here I just started reading The Tale of the Heike

 

Hmmm, there has to be  an interesting way to combine Aztec and Japanese cultures.

[Tiberius Cato]

Samurai warriors that take captives to sacrifice to the Emprah. Boom, Aztec samurai in yo' face!

 

But on a more serious note, the capture and sacrifice would be a nice element to denote Aztec influence, and have them follow a strict philosophy of how to conduct oneself on and off the battlefield to represent the Samurai. They could even have kabuki mask and stuff for the high ranking members, or those back flag (the name escapes me atm) things.

 

Oh and macauhuitils are a must, 'cause even the wooden + obsidian ones decapitate horses.

[Nomus Sardauk]

In my opinion I'd advise staying away from Knight or Samurai-based concepts.

Knightly themed chapters are a dime-a-dozen and the only force I've seen do Samurai well was Athrawes's Lightning Bearers Lost Legion, all the others felt very "WE ARE JAPANESE, CAN YOU TELL?!"

 

Somedays it seems like everyone forgets that Knights and Samurai aren't the only ancient warriors to have existed. That's why I find it so refreshing when I see things like Aztec or Celtic themed DIY chapters or even themed canon chapters like the White Scars (Mongolian), Carcharodons (Polynesian) and Minotaurs (Spartan Greek).

 

TL;DR: I'd suggest you try picking a more obscure culture/warriors like, say, Saracen soldiers, Russian Cossacks or Aztec/Mayan warriors.

[Captain Nameless]

Another option could be the ancient Egyptians, who pioneered the use of chariots, just replace the chariots with attack bikes and land speeders. I'm not sure if that really fits the soldier-knight theme that you're looking for, maybe mix it with some other warrior culture?