Warshrikes Index Astartes

[Claws and Effect]

ORIGINS AND GENESEED

The Warshrikes are a 7th Founding Successor Chapter of the Raven Guard. They were founded upon the destruction of a prior Raven Guard successor in the 4th Black Crusade.

Over time their gene-seed has stabilized somewhat. All the Raven Guard gene-seed's flaws are present with the exception of the Melanchrome. Warshrikes have the black hair and eyes of their founding legion but lack the pale complexion, though they are significantly more pale than the tribes their brothers are recruited from. The Betcher's Gland and Mucranoid are non-functional as well.

HOMEWORLD

The Warshrikes are based on the world of Lanius Primus, known to the natives simply as Spheria. It is located in the southeast corner of Segmentum Tempestus. Spheria is a Feral World at an early Iron Age level of development with 2 large continents dominating the planet, and a small inhospitable island located almost exactly halfway between them. The Warshrikes' fortress-monastery is located on this island. The majority of the planet is covered in 3 terrain types: mountains, desert, and scrub-land separating the 2. The rare regions of abundant water and resources are fiercely contested by the natives of the planet.

Due to a quirk in the planet's ecology, the natives of Spheria never developed the bow and arrow. This is because there is no wood with enough flexibility to make serviceable bows from. Because of this lack, the Spherian tribes developed techniques of increasing the power and accuracy of a thrown spear. Hunting is done with a sling for small game, and spears for larger game.

Spherian society is dominated by eight major tribes and numerous smaller ones that revere animal spirits and their ancestors. Shamans direct all facets of tribal life save warfare, which is the domain of the war chief. When a male child reaches 13 winters in age, he goes on his discovery journey. This quest is meant to determine who that child will become as an adult. He is sent out into the badlands equipped only with tools and weapons he crafted himself and no more than can be carried on his back. He is not to return until he brings down an adult male callax by himself, or not at all. The Warshrike Scout Sergeants sometimes shadow particularly promising youths for potential recruitment into their ranks. If a journeying hunter's possessions are discovered just outside the camp laid out in a particular pattern, it is a sign that the Gray Spirits have taken him to become one of their number.

Spherian tribal life revolves around the callaxes they hunt, which somewhat resemble the Terran elephants seen in pict-captures. The hide is used for armor and clothing, and the bones are used for tools and weaponry. They are heavily armored over most of their body except for the back of their neck, which is where the hunter strikes to bring them down. The hunter climbs one of the many rock formations in the callax's grazing area and patiently waits for the callax to walk underneath, then launches himself to its back, driving his spear into the soft spot between armor plates. If the hunter is not precise he can be thrown from the beast's back and trampled to death in seconds. The Warshrikes take a similar approach to battle; patience, followed by a single decisive strike.

There is some evidence that the Warshrikes are not the first Astartes to call Lanius Primus their home.The oral history and legends of the tribes mention a "great warrior" who united the tribes in the distant past who was then spirited away by the "Golden Hunter". This seems to suggest that the planet was the landing place of one of the Lost Primarchs, who was then retrieved by the Emperor. However, since the only evidence is in the oral histories of the tribes and is not corroborated by any official records it is idle speculation at best.

ORGANIZATION AND ICONOGRAPHY

The Warshrikes adhere to the Codex in general squad organization. However, they only have 8 companies of 125 marines as opposed to the standard 10 companies of 100. Each company recruits exclusively from one of the 8 major tribes of their homeworld, though any company may freely recruit from any of the lesser tribes. This leads to each company having its own unique culture, with each marine remaining with the same company for his entire service career. The 8 companies being comprised primarily of battle-brothers of separate tribes can sometimes lead to tensions. These tensions are resolved with a formal duel in the form of a wrestling match using the Spherian native techniques. Raising a weapon to a fellow battle-brother is strictly forbidden, and punishable by death.

The chapter has an elite unit of Assault Marines who use jump packs and power spears. Their favored tactic is taken directly from the marines' callax hunting days with the aim being to attack their foe from above, attacking out of the sun whenever possible. This is a devastating tactic that has broken many a command unit and front line. These units are known as Skyhunters. They frequently work closely with the company's bike squads, also armed with power spears, to flank the enemy while they are disoriented from the bikers' frontal charge.

Warshrikes Captains are known as War Chiefs and the Chapter Master is known as the Great Chief, whose position transcends tribal allegiance. The Great Chief's Honor Guard is known as The Warbound, and consists of one Warshrike champion of each tribe.

The Warshrikes do not have traditional Librarians or Chaplains, but rather a position known as Spirit Wards that combines both roles into one. The Inquisition has investigated these men several times, feeling that psykers being entrusted with a battle-bother's spiritual well-being is a dangerous precedent. Something about how the Spirit Wards' powers develop seems to give them an abnormally high resistance to demonic possession, but no one is quite sure what it is. It is commonly believed among the battle-brothers that the Spirit Ward would have become a shaman had he not been chosen to become a Space Marine. The Spirit Wards' primary task outside of battle is to keep the Chaos-taint from infecting the shamans of their homeworld. Even if the entire chapter deploys, at least a handful of Spirit Wards will remain behind to police the shamans, most of whom are frauds anyway. To this day, every time the Inquisition has investigated, they have left disappointed.

Upon the death of a Great Chief, a new Great Chief is chosen from among the War Chiefs by competition, with any War Chief reserving the right to remove himself from consideration. It consists of non-lethal combat and contests of strategy and guile. At the end of the competition, the new Great Chief takes command of the chapter.

The iconography of the Warshrikes somewhat follows the pattern laid out by their Raven Guard predecessors. The chapter symbol is a gunmetal corvid rising on the left pauldron. The company is denoted by the color of the squad type marking set into the right pauldron. Squad number is located on the right kneepad. The battle-brother depicted above is a Veteran Sergeant of the 7th Assault Squad, 3rd tribe-company.

COMBAT DOCTRINE

The Warshrikes take after their founding legion in a number of respects, less so in others. They exhibit the same patience in ensuring that they choose the optimum moment to strike, and they excel at guerilla warfare. Once battle is joined, however, their behavior shifts to somewhat resemble the White Scars or Blood Angels, displaying intense aggression and ferocity rather than the cold and calculating demeanor of their Raven Guard primogenitors. They do not lose themselves in mindless battle-rage, but will often hit a defeated enemy a couple more times "just in case".

An angry Warshrike will not taunt you or charge recklessly. He will not even take you apart with near surgical precision like his Primarch. He will come at you with an almost savage level of violence that the calm exterior from a moment before showed no sign of. And once you are dead the calm exterior will return, leaving onlookers to wonder if it really happened.

With their reverence for their anscestors, it should be no surprise that the dreadnaughts of the chapter are venerated more than some others. A dreadnaught will often be fitted with close range weaponry and sent in the vanguard to inspire his brothers even as he lays waste to their enemies. Some dreadnaughts are nearly as old as the chapter itself, and at least one is known to be piloted by one of the original 1,000 brothers.

Warshrikes do not have much use for any vehicle that cannot hold its own in a firefight, thus they avoid the use of Rhinos, deliberately reducing squad sizes to fit in a Razorback if the situation calls for armored transport.

They are very fond of the Stormraven gunship though, with some especially brave battle-brothers using them as a means of performing the Skyslayer maneuver......without benefit of a jump pack. It is a little disconcerting to the enemy when a squad of Space Marines lands in their midst leading with the points of their power spears before laying about them with their twin power axes.

Tactical Squads eschew the use of heavy weapons, viewing anything that cannot be fired on the move as dead weight. Their Devastator Squads on the other hand, prefer weapons with the longest range available, which they will cover the entire battlefield with from one carefully chosen location. Scout squads will usually either be bike mounted or have a mixture of sniper rifles and heavy bolters.

BELIEFS

The Warshrikes have held on to many of the beliefs of their homeworld. The primary one of these beliefs is the belief in the guidance spirit animals. For example, if a brother is weathering heavy fire without taking cover and emerges victorious, it is said that the spirit of the callax was with him. Should a brother perform an especially deft combat maneuver, he has the grace of the ossolus (a medium sized feline-like creature). It is not possession, but rather the spirit of the animal in question loaning the brother their abilities for a time.

The raven holds a position of great esteem among the Warshrikes, as it is seen as their Primarch's spirit animal. They believe that Corax himself watches them through the eyes of the ravens, and to kill one is one of the few things that can earn a brother a permanent banishment, or even death if the killing was deliberate.

Even the reverence of the Emperor is seen through their culture's unique viewpoint. Their belief that their ancestors continue to guide them after death combined with the knowledge that the Emperor's blood flows through their veins has led to the Emperor being known as "The First Ancestor" and venerated accordingly.

MOTTO

The chapter does not really have a battlecry per se. Each individual says whatever his personal oath is as he rushes into battle, but before each mission the War Chief tells his men:

"May the First Ancestor look upon your deeds today.........and find you worthy."

[Claws and Effect]

Placeholder.

 

Need to do some research on what these guys have been up to for the last 6,000 years or so.

[Donkey Kong]

Hello Realityburn, and welcome to the Liber!

 

I would recommend that you condense what you've written so far into your first post. Keep your second post as a bulletin to spitball new ideas, expand on what you have written in the article, and so on.

 

ORIGINS

Wonky Timeline: The 11th Founding puts your Chapter's Founding in the middle of M35. The Third Black Crusade Starts 100 years before the end of M32 in 909.M32. The Fourth Black Crusade starts with the turn of the millennium in 001.M34.

Wonky Map: The Chapter the Shrikes were founded to replace was destroyed in a Black Crusade, presumably around the Eye of Terror in the far "Galactic West" of Segmentum Pacificus. The Veiled Region is unmapped space in Segmentum Pacificus with little of note (it appears in a Soul Drinkers Novel and a Dark Angels Codex). Why does Terra need a buffer between it and this region of space?

 

Gene-Seed, they don't turn pale, but still have dark hair and eyes (Raven Guard mutation), they can't spit poison, they can't sweat insulation. Sure, whatever.

 

Founding Timeline taken from Lexicanum. Conflicts with Founding Timeline taken from Warhammer 40,000 Wiki. For the record, just to ease your mind that I'm not leading you by the nose, the only Founding in this time period that appears to have a set date is the 21st in 991.M35. Meanwhile, the 13th Founding is also said to take place in late M35 to M36. Make of that what you will.

Black Crusade Timeline taken from Lexicanum and cross checked with Warhammer 40,000 Wiki.

 

HOMEWORLD

"It is located directly to the galactic south of the Crimson Fists' homeworld of Rynn's World." No, it's not. Mostly because Rynn's World is in Segmentum Ultima and your guys are in Tempestus. More importantly, this sentence is useless. I don't care about the Crimson Fists right now, I'm reading about the Warshrikes.

You don't need to have a workaround to justify why your natives never got past spears and javelins. No bows isn't an excuse to never invent a sling. The Iron Snakes use spears because they're Space Greeks and someone decided to go all out with the phalanx parallels. You're telling me the Warshrikes use spears because the people the recruit from literally never got around to inventing anything better.

"callaxes" You've invented an animal that, from what I can gather, you want to play some significant role in the local culture, and doing next to nothing with it.

"oral history and legends" Are you going to do anything with this?

Of everything you've written, the most important and influential are the 8 tribes and the spirituality. The geography is nice but doesn't add anything.

 

ORGANIZATION

8 Clan companies sightly above codex strength. Spears. Arbitrary names for existing positions (Your Captain isn't suddenly different from a Captain because he's called a War Chief. Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot is not suddenly an interesting and compelling character because he is referred to as the Jarl of Tra instead of Wolf Lord or Captain of the Third Great Company.). Combining the Chaplain and Librarian is unique, but I won't be the first to call it a good idea. You obviously realize that it's not something that would sit well with other Imperial institutions, and I don't think many Chapters would be happy to be investigated by the Inquisition. Why do Librarians need to play a role in spiritual leadership? Do psykers act as tribal spiritual leaders on the homeworld? If they do, doesn't that worry the Chapter?

 

COMBAT DOCTRINE

Guerrillas that fight like berserkers. I see a disconnect, but maybe you can make it work.

"Skyslayer maneuver......without benefit of a jump pack" Can I get a witness? Unless, that's what you were going for.

Other than that, this just sounds like you're describing the miniatures you like. Dreadnoughts, Razorbacks, Stormravens, Bikes.

 

BELIEFS

Spirit animals and ancestor worship. I think you're setting yourself up for a bit of work if every spirit animal is going to be a fantasy alien creature, even if you're going to draw parallels between Callaxes and Elephants or Ossoluses and, presumably, Ocelots.

 

MOTTO

What are these personal oaths? Where do they come from? Are they personal prayers?

I like the War Chief line though.

 

Lastly, more of an afterthought really, and maybe it's just me, but I don't like ellipses or dramatic pauses in what's supposed to be an informative summary.

[Claws and Effect]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Some of it is a little harsh, but I did kind of rush to get all this written down before I forgot it, so I suppose I left some holes. I'll address some of your points.

 

1) Founding: I literally picked a random founding for them. Wouldn't be too hard to make them an earlier or later one.

 

2) Map: Is there a rule that says a replacement chapter needs to be based on the same planet, or even the same segment? I didn't go into the chapter they were founded to replace because I felt it irrelevant.

 

3) Gene-Seed: They do become somewhat paler than the tribes they come from upon becoming Space Marines, but nowhere near as pale as the Raven Guard. Picture a white European as compared to a Native American.

 

4) I hadn't gotten into exactly why they were put on the edge of the Veiled Region, because I honestly hadn't come up with a reason yet other than there not being that many chapters in the area. It will probably involve Orks.

 

5) Homeworld. I consulted the map in the codex for the location, and my location logic is sound. Rynn's World is right on the lower diagonal edge of the Ultima Segmentum, which borders Segmentum Tempestus. I was shooting for their homeworld being in the lower right corner of Tempestus between Rynn's World and Necris. I brought the Crimson Fists into it because I was going to set up a sort of competitive rivalry between the Warshrikes, Crimson Fists, and Dark Hunters. Which I hadn't gotten to yet, and I may scrap.

 

They do have slings, but their slings aren't useful in combat for them. Another thing I hadn't added yet. The callaxes that were mentioned provide armor from their hide among other things. The Warshrikes use power spears because they've adapted their hunting techniques to combat with jump packs. I imagine getting speared by a Space Marine falling from the sky would be painful.

 

I hadn't put a great deal of thought into the specifics of the tribes yet, other than the notion that each specializes in a certain type of warfare, which would be reflected in that tribe's company.

 

6) Organization

 

I deliberately made the total number of battle-brothers equal 1,000, so the companies are larger but the chapter as a whole is not. And no, being called War Chiefs doesn't make them different than a Captain.

 

The tribesmen are used to being led by shamans, hence the combination of Chaplains and Librarians. Most of the tribal shamans are frauds with no real psychic ability, but a handful have a small measure of ability at divination. Tribesman would go to the shaman for advice and the battle-brothers see Librarians as essentially shamans. It is simply that the chapter's Librarians were officially given the job they would have ended up doing anyway.

[Claws and Effect]

Extensively edited as per KingHongKong's suggestion.