Index Astartes - the Eternal Sentinels [Iron Gauntlet]

[Kelborn]

So your first company consists of bikers and centurions in Thunderhawks, right?

 

Wouldn't Dreadnaughts be a more viable anvil force than Centurions? I've always imagined Centurions to be very very slow but very resistible but never as part of a flanking maneuver. I'd make use of Dreads or Terminators along the Bikers. But that's just my two cents.

[Cryptix]

Hah, Term mix up. Sorry, that's what I meant.

[TheBlindPrimarch]

Good work on the IA, though you still have a few sections to complete before the 17th. No time like crunch time, right? lol. Anyways, onto C&C...

 

With the focus on rapid bike assault why did you choose to have your Chapter come from the Imperial Fists? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have them be descended from the Dark Angels of the White Scars? The strange practices of your Chapter also lend themselves well to White Scars culture.

 

I like the color scheme, though the addition of a darker cool color might make them more visually interesting and could be used to tie them with their parent Chapter in some way.

 

I'll echo the sentiments of others in regards to the idea of a Space Marine Chapter being regulated to territory control. While a Chapter would arguably have a high chance at successfully repelling invaders, their smaller numbers compared to the Guard would mean that they would constantly be spread thin over the area they are attempting to protect, especially if that area is frequently under assault. This fact alone would reduce their effectiveness as a force. The only solutions I could think of to compensate for this would be if the Chapter had more members than usual or if the area they were protecting wasn't very active, though if that were the case garrisoning a Chapter there wouldn't really make sense.

 

I'm interested to see this IA complete, good luck brother!

[Cryptix]

Started on beliefs not finished yet. Need to take a look at my references.

[Cryptix]

Beliefs are done!

[NovemberIX]

A couple of questions regarding the beliefs of the chapter. How does the Imperial Creed actually fit in to these beliefs? Is it something like the Emperor has imbued things with aye? or is it more of a Protector role? As it reads right now, it's very heavily tilted towards the Idajoleti, and very little to do with the Emperor. Also, is there a deeper connection between the fruit and the concept?

 

As for empowering weapons, I really like this idea and concept. It fits into the setting well, and it makes sense that they'd want to keep it under wraps. It seems on the table top it could be functionally be represented by a large use of power weapons, and maybe a custom +1 WS rule that could purchased for the chapter.

[Cryptix]

And with the timeline done I declare this IA finished, at 1,078 words.

[Doctor Perils]

Hi there, Cryptix!

So, here I am to give some feedback on your article. From some of the comments, I gather you are taking a good bit of inspiration from your own culture (or that of your ancestors): in light of that, I'd like to give a disclaimer that I don't know anything about this culture, so I might misunderstand some of what you meant.

1. As Nightrawen has indicated in another thread, it would be nice to see an "author's foreword" about what you hope to accomplish with this article - ie, in this case, that you would like to create a DIY Chapter based on the Yoruba people. This will help those who comment to understand what you are trying to get at if it isn't obvious from the word go. Write this foreword in a different font-type (ie italics), to help differentiate it from the article proper. If you have a "theme keyword" (like Space Viking Werewolves would be for the Space Wolves) don't hesitate to include that in the foreword.
2. Write an in-universe introduction to the article - once more it will help readers get a feel of the chapter before descending into the meat of it. Have a look at most of the Chapter articles in the 40k Wikia, as these have this kind of introduction.
3. Give the Important Information section a different title, and format it with bulletpoints, or in a table - this will help the reader get to the information of interest to him at a glance, a list in text format is less easy to read at a glance. Also remove the "if known" mentions if you have given that information, and remove any lines where you don't give info (like the Chapter Origins), but don't hesitate to add other lines that might be of interest (known tactics for instance)
4. Reduce the size of the Chapter Badge, but do keep the colour scheme and Badge right at the top - this helps to visually identify the chapter quite easily. Increase the size of the title and remove the mention "Space Marine Chapter", put it in-line with "Index Astartes" - as it is, it's difficult to read the name of the chapter, even if it's already in the title of the thread :)
5. You mention two planets at the end of the origins section, yet in the rest of the article you only mention Idajoleti - what do you mean in that case?
6. Any particular enemies they are known to fight? What happened in the Baltus Crusade (I know this was the beginning of a group project, but you need to allow people to understand your article without having to refer to outside sources)? How did they gain their planet? Why did they choose to no longer be fleet based? And what about their original mission (patrolling the Ultima Segmentum)? Since taking up position on their new world, has their organisation and missions changed?
7. You mention two kinds of "Aye": the fruit and the "soul/spirit" - If I were you, I'd give the fruit a different name, or give them a more substantial link in the beliefs section
8. As the Arobruans/Idajoletans are tribal, what does their life ressemble on a hive world? Are the hives particularly known for their violence, in the same manner that Necromunda is? On a heavily industrialised world such as a hiveworld, just how much fauna and flora is left, and how does that affect the Arobruans (as it seems to me that their beliefs are still quite close to nature)?
9. Since the chapter has taken control of the planet, are the Arobruans still taken to be ship slaves?
10. Why does your chapter have a specialised first company? What lead them to develop it like this rather then keep to the Codex? This is a really important question that should always be answered when creating a chapter that isn't entirely Codex Compliant.
11. The Inquisition have no say in what authorised creed variants are (just as much as the police or the secret service have in matters of theology) - you should replace that mention with the Adeptus Ministorum :)
12. Events in the timeline should be instead mentionned in the Origins/History section (with a short explanation of what they are), and therefore right at the beginning of the article - as a rule of thumb, anything important in the chapter should first be mentionned in the origins section, as that is the section that readers will logically start with: that is to say, the use of Aye  (which may be a latent psychic power of some sort), and the unorthodox organisation (specially wrt to the first company) should be mentionned in the history section with an explanation of the reasons (if not the precise nature of these differences)
13. As a matter of personnal preference, I don't particularly like colour schemes that overcomplicate themselves by alternating on each section of the armour (I especially dislike the alternation of feet/greaves for instance, though kneepads are alright with a specialised colour) - two metallic main colours can also look slightly off, as there is too little contrast (silver/gold is just such an example): I'd recommend adding a matte colour as a secondary colour (it would be even better if this were a darkish colour, or a rather vibrant colour) - this could simply mean replacing the gold regions with yellow or orange, but I'll leave that decision up to you
14. WRT the rules: though the allies rule is a slight downside, both the Empowered by Death and Knowledge of the dead are extremely powerful, and feel more like Ynnari rules then astartes rules - however, that may be discussed at a later date :)

[Brother Argent]

So firstly I will say that I LOVE the idea of a Yoruba themed Chapter.  I say this with the admission that I, until about five minutes ago, I had no idea who the Yoruba people were.  I still don't really after a skim of Wikipedia but what little I gleaned from the article seems rich in possible material to develop a Chapter from.  In fact I see a lot of potential from your whole article.

 

I do feel, however, that you have tried to put a whole lot of idea in a very short article and that, in my personal opinion, takes a bit away from the article itself.  What I would suggest is expanding more on what you have with working towards tying a lot of the ideas together.  As with writing a novel the best results come from writing more then is needed and over developing an idea before culling things back to the best part and leaving the rest as merely hinted at.  That way you have a fully developed Chapter with hints at knowledge at parts that suggest an even deeper piece.

 

On the actual contents and structure I feel that most whom have commented before me have covered that quite succinctly and so I wont repeat things.  All I can suggest you keep working at this, even after the first challenge ends, and I look forward to what you come up with.

[Legionare]

I abdolutely love your beliefs section. It's truly refreshing to see something unique like that. It is also nice to see how you've implemented a clear weakness to the usage of aye from the weapons. Very good work, only thing i'm missing is some more fleshing out of the chapters history.

[bloodhound23]

Glad to see how your update to the beliefs section turned out. 

 

Lots of ancient mojo- I like it.