The Sons of Ananta - RG chapter tactics chapter

[Sons of Ananta]

I'm creating a homebrew chapter which runs the RG chapter tactics. 

The chapter is the remnants of a task force optimised for boarding actions, drawn from 2 chapters who historically worked together and came from the same geneseed line.  The mission went disastrously wrong and the taskforce was out of contact and assumed detroyed.  When they turned up again, one of their parent chapters had been destroyed, the other had turned traitor.  The remaining 350 marines amalgamated - as after 200 years of working together so closely they already had been forced to pool resources and command structures, and also to protect those marines from the traitor chapter.

The veterans of the mission wear the metallic green of the Ananta, while the colourscheme is quartered, drawing it's colours from the parent chapters.
It is veteran heavy and scout heavy, and I have recently started work on the concept of them running an auxiliary made up from failed aspirants (probably counts as scions) and a force made up of the marines who are working off the shame of their chapters disgrace and are a sort of perilous mission force (probablty a counts as Legion of the Damned).

Anyway, I've loved the process of getting to know the Ravenguard formations and CTs, and have had reasonable success so far.

Anyway, here is a gallery of my forces so far - I've got 1500pts painted, and counting!

 

This is Chaplain Adis Shanga

 

and magnetised with the Power Fist option

 

[Sons of Ananta]

Veteran Squad Jarrat.  They are the Chaplain's command squad, and have accompanied him into combat - often doing great deeds of their own.

Sargeant Jarrat has taken a warlord down in a challenge, and the thunderhammer marine has killed a Dimichaeron in CC and is the first of the new chapter to join the Deathwatch.

[Sons of Ananta]

The Maut Ankh sniper squad

 

 

edit to add:

 

This is my Veteran Scout Sargeant with Nihilus plus a heavy bolter option for the sniper squad,

 

 

[Sons of Ananta]

Tactical Squad Vayu

[Pearson73]

Nice quartered scheme, the colours contrast nicely with each other; add a bit of pop.

[deathspectersgt7]

Very cool like those pads(custom Minis). And like the colors also.

[ElectricPaladin]

This is really cool. I like the background you've created for them. I'm looking forward to seeing more!

[Quixus]

I like the fluff, too. The colour scheme is striking, but I can't help thinking about Harlequins in Power Armour, especially with the Chaplain and Vanguard Veterans. I also like the modified ouroboros chapter symbol. Did you sculpt it yourself?

[Firepower]

It's eerie how much these resemble some of my own past projects :lol:

 

I dig 'em.

[Sons of Ananta]

Thanks to all of you. Really appreciate the comments. To answer some of the questions:

 

I didn't sculpt the pads - I had them made. This is my first project back in the hobby after 20 years out, so I just don't have those skills.

 

The symbol is the Ananta, the 1000 headed serpent of Hindu mythology, but it's a symbol of rebirth and infinity, so it goes with the story. I'm sure the symbol must exist elsewhere - I'm not *that* creative, but I did design it. I've got some on my vehicles as well.

 

Because of their history as an unwanted stepchild in the administratum's records, I have them short of much heavy equipment - other than what they had with them for boarding. Storm Ravens and talons, a caestus ram, dreadnoughts and assault centurions are most of their heavy options. I considered making them even short on powered armour, but it's totally valid to say their focus and pride in scout and special ops means sometimes their battle brothers se carapace armour, so I'm making my scouts as knitted out as I can - often led by veteran sergeants and with decent weapons where I can get them.

 

With the shortage of brothers I'm planning not to run the talon except in really big or important games. The CAD with RG formations seems to represent them best.

[Sons of Ananta]

Scout Squad Bardas

 

They specialise in close combat and Vehicle wrecking.  Led by Veteran Sargeant Bardas, equiped with a power maul they ride to battle on their Land Speeder Storm.

 

 

[Sons of Ananta]

The Ironclad Dreadnought Hauth Harda.

 

He was a part of the original boarding party and often deploys by droppod, spearheading the Sons of Ananta's onslaught.

 

[Emicus]

Loving the use of colours :)

[Sons of Ananta]

So I've been working on the story and fluff of the chapter, and wanted to bounce the ideas I've been having off people, see if there are any thoughts, suggestions or objections.

Working with a 100 strong company as the basic codex unit I had the following ideas.

The chapter has approx 260-300 marines from the original campaign left - (about 250 combat troops, the others officers/techmarines/pilots etc).  All of them are veterans.  The chapter is recruiting but has no home planet, and have managed to nearly double their combat strength to around 650 battle brothers (regular marines).  As the chapter puts emphasis on ambush and hit and run tactics due to their survival fight in the years they were cut off a good quantity of marines work as scouts in carapace armour (I'm representing this by using specialist scout squads with vet sarges) - This would bring the average company strength unit to 25-30 veterans, 20-25 marines and another 20-25 scouts.

With this layout, the chapter would be able to field a first company of 60 odd, together with 4 battle companies and 4 weaker support companies with fewer marines and veterans.

This means the average 'battle company' is only about 75 strong, so they supplement their combat strength by using auxiliaries.  I know usually aspirants are represented as being killed/made servitors, but my thoughts were that my chapter is frugal - they are pragmatic to the extent of using the resources efficiently.  And their habits are to take groups of warrirs, some too old to take teh gene-seed, and use these troops as highly trained auxialiaries - with marine discipline and training, but without the geneseed and power armour.  The best fit for this and the tactics I employ, it looks like Scions would be the best fit, with their scout like capabilities.

 

So with 25-30 Scion Auxilaries, that would bring a company up to full strength, with other formations to come.

The first company is atypical.  As all combat deployments would contain a high proportion of veterans due to the makeup of the chapter, the first company represents special equipment and tactics.  They only have enough Terminator suits to outfit one squad, but they have a unit made up of 30-40 veterans of the Knights Amarinthine who volounteer for the most dangerous assignments and are equiped with heavy armour and shields.  For this unit I'm hoping to do some custom rules, but for now and against those who don't want custom rule sets, they are counts as LotD.




 

[Sons of Ananta]

I've finished to tabletop standard my first Storm Talon - It has my first attempt at a large scale of the diagonal stripe, as well as my first edge highlights and hazard stripes.  So overall I'm pretty satisfied with the results.  It's not as neat as I could hope for, but I only have limited time, and it felt like getting the overall feel and look of the thing was more important.