Reasonable Marines - looking for inspiration

[Dizzyeye01]

No affence meant here, I'm just wondering why a chapter would choose to join an attrition war and not try to end it. Did they meet fierce resistance? Perhaps they thought they would be ending it but it turned out to be an alpha Legion trap? Your chapter thinks they manage to get a good strike on the rebels yet they take hard hits achieving it and even then it didn't work out as planned.

[Kastor Krieg]

No affence meant here, I'm just wondering why a chapter would choose to join an attrition war and not try to end it. Did they meet fierce resistance? Perhaps they thought they would be ending it but it turned out to be an alpha Legion trap? Your chapter thinks they manage to get a good strike on the rebels yet they take hard hits achieving it and even then it didn't work out as planned.

Not sure which idea you're referring to? The point in history in which they learned that attrition war is not preferred?

 

I mean, they could as well be Imperial Fist successors and "learning from the mistakes of our fathers". IF were always too willing to take heavy losses. At one point they got wiped to a SINGLE MARINE surviving and calling the "Last Wall" protocol (the recent story). I could well see successors going "this is leading us nowhere, there has to be a BETTER way to fight" and devising their own method of war.

 

I don't want to go "when you're a hammer everything  looks like a nail", Marines are NOT dumb single-purpose tools. Adapt and overcome.

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

 Marines are NOT dumb single-purpose tools. Adapt and overcome.

 

 

Absolutely, but I think we're talking at cross purposes here.

 

We're not saying they are, we're not saying they're unbelievably, stupidly narrow minded in their approach to warfare. Leave that to the Guard and GW sponsored chapters.

 

Each chapter has a preferred method of war, just like a regular military unit with some specialized training, but they are willing and able to adapt as the situation calls for it.

 

As I've said earlier, you're seeing with too narrow a perspective on what qualifies as 'reasonable'. A good example being the misrepresentation of the Bolter (linked in my signature), where if we apply a bit of logic, even though we don't see them with a harness with ammunition pouches on it, they'd likely carry as many rounds into battle as modern day infantry.

 

Anyway I digress, I'm probably rambling how you don't want me to.

 

All I'm saying is that 'adapt and overcome' is what Astartes do, it's the Imperial Guard that just throw men and bullets at a problem until it dissapears. Think about the scale of the wars (planetary, solar system wide, sector spanning, galaxy encompasing wars) and the scope of 40k in general. Everything is turned up to 11.

 

Reasonable is relative. I think you might benefit from re-writing your brief incorporating what you have come up with over the last couple of pages of discussion and see where everything goes from there.

 

It will help to focus the discussion on the points you want people to throw ideas about for, rather than us just all rehashing the same points over and over.

[Kastor Krieg]

I will sit down and compile the ideas I like most from what we've got so far in the OP and we can go from there. I will bump the thread when it's done. In the meantime, please feel free to continue, maybe something new pops up.

[Minigiant]

Perhaps they thought they would be ending it but it turned out to be an alpha Legion trap? Your chapter thinks they manage to get a good strike on the rebels yet they take hard hits achieving it and even then it didn't work out as planned.

 

If you dont mind, I would like to take this for my reasonable marines

[Dizzyeye01]

Take away, I'm not running out of any ideas anytime soon at the rate I'm at ATM :D

[Grand Master Belial]

 

How about this as an idea. They are a fleet based chapter that is out on the the fringes of the Imperium. Where they used to be 1000 strong, they suffered some catastrophic event that left them severely debilitated and understrength. There are very few human worlds to gain recruits and even those worlds are sparsely populated as well. It would be several hundred years to gain enough recruits get to half strength. In the meantime, they have become familiar with several outposts used by Rogue Traders and other alien races to trade. Shedding their power armor, they are able to go onto these outposts to get their supplies as well as gain intel about events in the area. If they perceive a threat then they can take covert methods of getting down to the planet. Perhaps, even working with the Eldar Rangers and Pathfinders to use their Webway portals to get to a planets surface. From there, they will act as a small Kill Team to take out the perceived threat.

I don't want to deus ex machina a catastrophic event. I'd much rather "see, we went for attrition war and this is where it got us, NOWHERE". So from this day, they play smart.

 

And no, no xenos on board. Nu-uh.

 

I forget which HH novel it was in but I recall something similar with the Fists and the Iron Warriors. The two were known for sieges and breaking them but I recall some Fists getting bent out of shape because it seemed that the only missions they would get are the sieges and breaking them and they were capable of other forms of combat as well. 

 

Perhaps the chapter got caught up in some sort of siege (Iron Warriors, Tau or Demiurg) and their attempts to break it through traditional codex means did not yield them any lasting results. The human allies with them were getting desperate and began performing attacks with unconventional needs and were getting better results than the Astartes. While the pride of the chapter was damaged, they were not above learning from the examples of others and started their own unconventional warfare and began to celebrate success and were finally able to break the siege. Since then, the chapter has deviated from the codex for the unconventional warfare tactics they have honed on their own. The chapter may have come under the scrutiny of the Inquisition but the more radical members are supportive of the chapter as the "Ends Justify the Means." 

[Darrell]

From what I have read through the thread thus far, it seems that you are currently in the stage of "throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks" in Chapter creation. There's nothing wrong with that approach; all ideas have to start somewhere and we each have our own creative process. With this in mind, I would like to offer some advice that, in my experience, is helpful when creating a new Chapter concept. Then I'll touch on a few of the more specific ideas you've brought up thus far, and offer some feedback on them.

 

General advice:

 

Typically, I advise (or used to advise would be more accurate) folks to come up with a list of ten general concepts for a Chapter. Just interesting things that come to mind when they first came up with whatever their concept may be for the Chapter. Your first post appears to have eleven, so you're off to a good start. At this point in the process, your focus should be on laying the foundation of your Chapter idea. You need to create the skeleton upon which you'll build the "meat" of your ideas. However, that skeletal foundation needs to be sturdy as it's going to be carrying a lot of weight on its shoulders. We need to bring the focus down and really pinpoint what you want from the Chapter so there is something to build on. With that in mind, your next step is to take that list of eleven items and cut it down to seven. Once you've done that, you have to whittle it down to five. Then you organize them in order of importance to your idea. At that point, dropping the fifth item off the list might be a good practice to totally eliminate spreading yourself out too thin. Other ideas might come back later as minor details, or they may be gone forever. What is important is you ground your idea in such a way that you can have a better idea of what your Chapter is going to be. This helps avoid putting too many ingredients in the soup, so to speak, or a Chapter losing its identity before it had the chance to develop one of its own.

 

Be prepared to ask yourself "Why?" and do so often. "I think this Chapter should be completely divergent from the Codex Astartes. Why should they be divergent instead of adherent? Why are they divergent in the first place?" You answer that question accordingly, and then follow that up with "Why is that a good reason to be divergent?". Then you might ask yourself "Why are they allowed to be this divergent? Why didn't they react differently to whatever circumstances brought them to this point?". You need to constantly question your ideas, because nothing happens without a reason. If you can't find a good reason for something to happen, it's probably because the idea wasn't as solid as it seemed at first. It's important to note, though, that discarding ideas is completely okay! It is a part of every creative process, and no idea "has to work" if it's just messing the whole thing up. It's possible the entire project might be scrapped for the sake of an even better idea that came along, and that's also perfectly fine. Don't be afraid to discard things that don't seem to be working, or are causing more trouble than they are worth. You can always save them for another project somewhere along the line.

 

Keep in mind the goal of creating a DIY Chapter of Adeptus Astartes is to, in your own way, add to the Warhammer 40K universe. There are many ways to accomplish this, but, ultimately, one of the better methods is to try and fit your Chapter into one of the countless cracks and crannies that exist in that universe. The less you require the universe itself to somehow be altered, the more real the Chapter feels. Ideally, it should feel as if it has really been there all along--it just never got the spotlight it deserved until now. For example, it would be difficult to say "I want cowboys in power armor" and make that idea port directly into the Warhammer 40K universe. It is not a universe based on westerns that plays by the rules of westerns. Similar with concepts like "I want a Chapter led by Kratos Godofwar!" and other such things. The universe is what it is, and a solid DIY Chapter needs to exist in that universe seamlessly. That may sound constricting, but the 40K galaxy is a HUGE place; it is physically massive and there are 10,000 years of history to play with. There is room for tons and tons of great characters and stories within those bounds.

 

None of that may apply to you, but I feel those are good, general tips to keep in mind regardless of what direction a prospective DIY creator wishes to go.

 

Specific Advice:

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting "Reasonable Marines". However, keep in mind there is a difference between Reasonable and "Reasonable". Remember that the 40K universe is, by no means, a Reasonable place. Humans are, at best, a commodity to be spent whenever necessary. Ships travel between worlds by entering a dimension created entirely by thoughts and feelings, which is inhabited by honest-to-goodness daemons who seriously want to eat your soul. Those daemons are commanded by gods who also think your soul looks tasty, and that you are not nearly tentacle-y enough at the moment. People who pray to those gods get magic powers. And those ships? They're navigating through this hellish landscape of feelings and daemons with the help of three-eyed mutants who are orienting themselves by way of a dead guy, strapped to a chair, who is screaming so hard that light beams are shooting out of his mouth and eyes with enough brightness to be seen from across the galaxy. He maintains this beacon because he eats thousands of souls every day. And did we mention the aliens who have an armory maintained by chewing gum and duct tape, with weapons that work because they just assume it will? Sometimes when those aliens get a little crazy and take over one of the Imperium's world, Mankind responds by destroying the entire planet and every living person on it. Sometimes they even like to go to that option when someone on the planet is born with an extra arm because it's better safe than sorry. Also, if you disagree with that logic, you are the bad guy.

 

If you try to take something perfectly sound and reasonable, like putting special forces into the 40K world, it is going to stick out like a sore thumb unless you do some modifications to make it fit. This is similar to how, say, the sudden appearance of aliens and giant robots may stick out in a typical fantasy setting. Aliens and giant robots are great, but in a world that assumes there are no aliens nor giant robots then it's not having the desired impact.

 

With that in mind, it's obvious that there are groups within the 40K universe that can function militarily in ways that we would think of as "practical". Raptors, Raven Guard, Ultramarines (when they're not being written in "The Codex does not support this action" mode), any number of Imperial Guard regiments. So, it's possible to do--what's the trick? The answer is you have to find other ways to make them unreasonable, or have just the right of insanity or grimdarkness to fit into the 40K world. The Raven Guard have serious problems with their geneseed. The Raptors decided to show everyone what grim really means, and basically turned into a Chapter of gritty old war veterans that gets nearly annihilated from time to time when their plans don't work out as planned. Ultramarines can't decide whether to think for themselves or just shake the Magic Codex Ball to see what they should do (Tactics Unclear; Parade Time Maybe?). The Imperial Guard are basically just bullets the Imperium is firing at the enemy on full-auto; they are heroic in so many ways, yet utterly expendable. So, you have to decide how to develop these Reasonable Marines in such a way that they still fit well into the 40K universe around them. You have to show how maybe they're not so reasonable after all, at least from certain perspectives.

 

Along these lines, I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a Chapter of Adeptus Astartes. Space Marines exist for one purpose only; to do the job that is impossible for humans to do otherwise. If you want a group of people skulking through grass and sniping from long distances, why waste the tremendous amount of resources needed to create, and maintain, a Chapter when you can just throw some Ratlings on the field? If you need some people wearing carapace armor to jump out of a plane and infiltrate an enemy position, why not call a Drop Trooper regiment? Need a few good soldiers to sneak in to enemy territory and teach the locals how to rebel against their heretical new masters? Cadians could do an awesome job with that, or Catachans if there's a jungle nearby. Plus, they have the benefit of not being seven feet tall and looking like a professional body builder had a baby with a brick wall. That makes blending in a lot easier, even if just from the basis of a casual glance. The point being--if your Chapter is doing a job that a Guardsman (Militariumman?) can do, then your Chapter is not doing what the Imperium needs it to. Massive amounts of time, money, and materials are spent on even a single Space Marine. They are recruited, modified, brainwashed, trained, armed and armored beyond anyone else in the Imperium of Man. They need to use every gift and advantage they have to overcome an enemy--and even then, sometimes that's just not enough. So, try to think about what could define your Chapter beyond a concept of "special forces" even if it's developing it into something like "Special Forces x 11". Otherwise, you risk your Chapter coming across as a shallow concept and no one wants that!

 

I'm probably missing some points, but I am getting tired. However, before I go to bed I wanted to comment on your concept of "shadow" marines and the nature of binary pairs. I think the idea could be very interesting, and may be a great way to root your Chapter into the universe. However, I think you may be taking it a bit too literally. Do they need to be recruited as pairs, trained as pairs, fight as pairs, be promoted as pairs, lead as pairs, et cetera? That would seem to cause a lot of logistical problems on a lot of different levels. Instead of giving orders to one squad of ten Space Marines, you are coordinating five squads of two Space Marines. You have to promote both, or neither. Not to mention, a large part of getting squads to work together as a cohesive whole is getting them to align their loyalty with the Chapter above anything else. In this paired system, you're running a danger of being less of a Chapter of 1,000 Space Marines and more of a 500 pairs of guys loyal, primarily, to their shadow. That kind of thing is a dangerous breeding ground for heresy (and you're pretty much guaranteeing that if one Astartes falls to heresy, two will fall to heresy). Done in a literal sense, I think it makes the idea feel a bit too clunky at a glance. However, if you take a less literal approach...

 

Suppose that partners are considered very important, for whatever reason that may be. Rather than basically chaining them at the wrist and ankles, consider something more along the lines of "the bond" being the most crucial part of the concept. I tried to think of a better term, but suppose each Astartes needs a "soul mate" (I really tried to think of something better than this) that they need to bond with. They have a special sort of basic camaraderie, an understanding that they can be honest with each other, be each other's greatest critic and staunchest friend. Training together is certainly a part of that, as they are Astartes, and perhaps they would fight together. But I would take the focus off so much the fighting and place it more on just the bond itself. Imagine a Captain who, through some ritual or whatever practice is needed, finds himself "bonded" to a newly-promoted sergeant? Perhaps even a Scout? This young marine is now getting to see an entirely different side of his Captain, who up to this point had been the utmost stern/professional/unmoving figure but now has the opportunity to see him with his guard down. Imagine the Astartes whose "bond" had fallen, and made the long voyage to Mars to take up the mantle of Techmarine so he could do everything he could for his fallen friend. The joy of waking him to go to battle with him once more, the solemn moments of placing his friend's sarcophagus to rest once again. Consider the "bond" between a Chaplain and a Librarian--a bond made even more curious when you consider at least one of the pair can potentially read the other's thoughts. This opens a lot of different possibilities for your Chapter to develop in a unique direction, which will be needed since "we fight like reasonable people should" doesn't quite carry enough weight on its own.

 

That above idea would have to be handled carefully so it's not "Buddy Cop" material nor venturing into "Space Marines Talking About Their Feelings", and it might not even be that good of an idea in its own, but it's an example of how you can take a concept and twist it a bit to potentially add a lot of depth to a Chapter to give it that spark that really brings an idea to life.

 

I hope these thoughts have been helpful, and good luck on your Chapter! 

[Kastor Krieg]

Excellent post, Darrell. Huge thanks. You've grasped the idea of "my Brother's shadow" very well, that's something I was conceptually feeling around for. I am going to whittle it down a bit after listing out first what I'd like to retain from what was already mentioned. Please come by the thread and participate, you seem to be getting the vibe of what I wish to accomplish here and have a lot of good advice.

 

And consider this gem sigged and stolen, I chuckled :D

 

 

Ultramarines can't decide whether to think for themselves or just shake the Magic Codex Ball to see what they should do (Tactics Unclear; Parade Time Maybe?).