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Ultramarines Organization


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What piece of fluff? That the ultramarines legion was devided into 24 chapters after the scouring? That was never "false", though.

 

Oh, it was described in more ambiguous terms than the successors of other chapters. But that the imperial fists were divided into exactly three chapters has not been discribed with any ambiguity. Neither was it ambiguous that a legion was about ten thousand strong. The iron warriors were described as consisting of 11 grand companies of 1000 men. The salamanders, as a small legion, had seven grand companies. The ultramarines were said to at some point during the scouring have accounted for more than half of the marines in the field, which if you added all the other explicitely listed (non ambiguously) successor chapters together would have been somewhere around 25,000. Everything checks out with 24 second founding chapters for the ultramarines. Ah, but maybe it really was 25, or 26, since, you know, the ancient sources were not entirely comprehensive.

 

And wouldn't you know, now that black library has increased the size of space marine legions tenfold, from 10,000 to 100,000, the ultramarines are now said to have been 250,000 strong. Pretty much ten times of their size after the scouring in the older lore.

 

(iirc the current codex space marines still speaks of 10,000 strong legions, though.)

 

The Apocrypha of Skaros and the Apocrypha of Davio, of which the fact that they were called apocrypha seemed to have been missed by a rather vocal, unbending element of the fanbase that were prevalent in B&C for a time.

The setting itself said these are unreliable sources. What I disliked was that too many thought otherwise. Personally, I love the idea that the Codex is so revered, so relevant, and yet the oldest copy known by the wider Imperium (and perhaps the Ultramarines would disagree with this, using their own copy as evidence) believed to be false and inaccurate.

 

Unfortunately, there were those who said "Nope, that is confirmed truth," and used that mindset to, I feel, negatively impact the DIY community. So I wished there was a further distancing from the Apocrypha, more than there already has been with the Legion increase in size. What I dislike now is that the Chapter formation in the Legion negates that increase in size.

 

I'm afraid current discussion on this would be taking it too far from the topic at hand, so if you would like to continue, feel free to message me.

They were pink with rainbow striped shoulder pads. O_O

Excuse me! BLUE with Rainbow striped shoulder pads, thank you so very much! laugh.png

But seriously, other than the ones already mentioned in this and other topics, are there any other allusions or hints to eventual Second Founding UM Chapters? Inceptors? Genesis Chapter?

Rainbow Warriors?

Well, from what I've gathered from other accounts (I don't have the book - yet), here's the ones that've been alluded to:

Nemesis Chapter

Desert Lions

Eagle Warriors

Hawk Lords

White Consuls

Aurora Chapter

 22nd, the Nemesis, loved destroyers)

 

 

 

You know, I've been looking at the Ultramarines successor Chapter Nemesis for some time now, wondering what they are and how they got such a cool name.

 

Thank you Forge World for giving me the motivation to do some of these guys.

 

 

They were pink with rainbow striped shoulder pads. O_O

 

Excuse me! BLUE with Rainbow striped shoulder pads, thank you so very much! :lol:

But seriously, other than the ones already mentioned in this and other topics, are there any other allusions or hints to eventual Second Founding UM Chapters? Inceptors? Genesis Chapter?

 

Rainbow Warriors?

 

Well, from what I've gathered from other accounts (I don't have the book - yet), here's the ones that've been alluded to:

 

Nemesis Chapter

Desert Lions

Eagle Warriors

Hawk Lords

White Consuls

There is also heavy reference to the Aurora Chapter. The 4th chapter are called the 'Aurorans' and pre-Guilliman a company painted their shoulder pads green after seeing northern lights before a major engagement and the 4th have a passionate love affair with tanks and mobile artillery.

They were pink with rainbow striped shoulder pads. O_O

Excuse me! BLUE with Rainbow striped shoulder pads, thank you so very much! laugh.png

But seriously, other than the ones already mentioned in this and other topics, are there any other allusions or hints to eventual Second Founding UM Chapters? Inceptors? Genesis Chapter?

Rainbow Warriors?

Well, from what I've gathered from other accounts (I don't have the book - yet), here's the ones that've been alluded to:

Nemesis Chapter

Desert Lions

Eagle Warriors

Hawk Lords

White Consuls

There is also heavy reference to the Aurora Chapter. The 4th chapter are called the 'Aurorans' and pre-Guilliman a company painted their shoulder pads green after seeing northern lights before a major engagement and the 4th have a passionate love affair with tanks and mobile artillery.

Yeah, literally just realised that when I had another look at the list I made :P

I'll edit the post, thanks

I've been wanting to chime in on this post, but haven't had time for the past couple days.

 

- To clarify what Atia said about the Vigil Opertii, the "augmented humans" are space marine aspirants that could not complete the transformation process for one reason or another, but could still serve the legion.  They still look human so they can go where the Astartes cannot.

 

- @ Totem Pole & Tyrannicide regarding Evocatii: they are two double strength chapters (24th & 25th) of new recruits lead & trained by a core of hardened veterans.

 

- @ Slipstreams: I do not recall the Iron Snakes mentioned in Tempest, BUT they are referred to by serpent figure-of-eight chapter insignia in Dan Abnett's Know No Fear (Captain Damocles' 6th company if my memory serves).

 

- @ Aquilanus: Besides the chapter references that Iron Hands Fanatic mentioned, there is also discussion about how the chapters that weren't involved in the Calth atrocity (7th, 10th, 19th, 24th & 25th; off the top of my head, so maybe inaccurate) were among the first to be separated from the legion during the 2nd founding.  We know that Genesis chapter was the first of the 2nd founding chapters, so they are probably one of the ones that didn't muster on Calth.

 

- @ Iron Hands Fanatic: I don't recall reference to the White Consuls, though I haven't finished reading Tempest.  Where were they alluded to?

Not having the book yet, I'm still not entirely convinced that the chapters of the Ultramarine legion are exactly the same as the chapters as they are split during the 2nd founding. I always interpreted the 2nd founding chapters not to be just the legions chapters sectioned off ie. the ~25 mentioned in the Apocrypha. But instead was created by scaling down each chapter to create a microcosm of the legion. Thus a legion chapter of 10,000 could form 10 2nd founding chapters. Although it sounds like there is some language mentioning the chapters splitting off whole cloth.

The white / gold griffon heads here are the White Consuls' Chapter symbol

The eagle heads are not identical to either variants of the White/Black Consul's Chapter symbols.  What's shown in Tempest are the insignias of the Invictarus, and I doubt all of the legion elite/honour guard were funneled into the Consuls' chapters.

Fair point - however, it's quite interesting that it is the same symbol as that used by the Mentors, who operate as elite 'tutors' to other Imperial forces, which kinda suits how the Invictarus operate

 

Even though they're a 26th founding chapter, it kinda leaves open the possibility that they bear the insignia of an earlier chapter which was destroyed

Still not identical, the Invictarus eagle has its mouth open ;-)  But I agree it's close to the Mentors chapter symbol.

 

So on the Ultramarines Tactical Markings and Heraldry pages in Tempest, I noticed some generalizations could be made, e.g.,

Helmet stripe for Sergeant

Laurels for Captain

White has lower seniority than Gold (Sergeant -> Lieutenant, Captain -> Senior Captain)

 

I am displeased with the convention of representing the Captain rank with laurels, as they have historically been used to indicate a Veteran in 40K.  In fact, Tempest isn't even self consistent, as it shows a Destroyer Ultramarine with the Captain's shoulder markings on his left pauldron, and the text calls it a veteran's laurel.  Plus I like freehanding laurels and don't want to restrict myself to painting them on only Centurions.  

Still not identical, the Invictarus eagle has its mouth open ;-)  But I agree it's close to the Mentors chapter symbol.

 

So on the Ultramarines Tactical Markings and Heraldry pages in Tempest, I noticed some generalizations could be made, e.g.,

Helmet stripe for Sergeant

Laurels for Captain

White has lower seniority than Gold (Sergeant -> Lieutenant, Captain -> Senior Captain)

 

I am displeased with the convention of representing the Captain rank with laurels, as they have historically been used to indicate a Veteran in 40K.  In fact, Tempest isn't even self consistent, as it shows a Destroyer Ultramarine with the Captain's shoulder markings on his left pauldron, and the text calls it a veteran's laurel.  Plus I like freehanding laurels and don't want to restrict myself to painting them on only Centurions.  

In the Shoulder Heraldry Page, there are a few Shoulder Pads with Laurels; some for Veterans, some for Command Ranks. The Difference is pretty minor/subtle but its there.

Don't have the book, but it it possible they're a different type of Laurel?

 

The top left style seems to denote veterancy, whilst the bottom left style denotes command:

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/2/22/IF_Legion_Pauldrons.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140411234044

 

Edit: basically what Slips said :P

Both types of laurels are used for the Ultramarines' rank of Captain in the Tempest book.  Looking at the photo from the Weekender preview (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/HH-Weekender-55.jpg), it looks like they cut a few of the shoulder designs that include laurels, and used one type of laurel to represent Senior Captain and the other type to represent Line Captain.  Bummer.

It is a novella written by Anthoney Reynolds concerning the Word Bearers stationed at Terra. It covers how they left Terra in the guise of joining the Istvaan Retribution and how after the Massacre, they joined the Shadow Crusade by attacking an Ultramarines world. They beat the Ultramarines but the Ultramarines destroyed the world with phosphex in the hopes it would kill the Word Bearers, but the 34th Company managed to survive.
  • 4 weeks later...

Considering this thread is about organization in the XIIIth I will throw out the following question:

 

What rules to best represent a company senior captain, the leader of a 1000 marines: praetor or centurion? I guess each company captain has junior officers under his command.

 

Also do you think each company had its own heraldry or would it make more sense on a chapter wide level. Argh! the organization of the XIIIth is confusing!

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