Minotaur successors classified?

[necroscope]

I got interested in making a kill team for Minotaurs but then I saw that they only deploy as an entire chapter.  I don't really want to commit to an entire army as I already have Blood Angels and Custodes army.  I want to know if Minotaur successor kill teams would be legit and what would they be like?  And further what would a full army Minotaur successor chapter be like in case I go insane and want to do something like that.  

[Ioldanach]

Just because they deploy as a chapter doesn't mean that a kill team wouldn't be viable. While the whole chapter might deploy to some combat zone, different elements of the chapter might be utilized in different ways. Larger detachments might perform individual operations, with small kill teams dispatched to perform kill team style missions.

 

If you want to make a kill team from the Minotaurs Chapter, I think you should go for it.

[necroscope]

Cool thank you.  That makes sense to me.  How about successor chapters of the Minotaurs is that a thing?  

[Halandaar]

Agreed with Ioldanach; Kill Team can just be the fringes of a bigger battle, with a small squad of Marines tasked with disabling a generator to bring down city defenses for the main chapter force or something like that. Just because the game is small scale, doesn't mean it isn't going on within the scope of a larger operation.

 

As for successors, I would be very surprised if there are any at all. The origin and history of the chapter is locked down so tightly that not even Inquisitors can access it, and the few records available to the Imperium suggest that their geneseed is highly suspect and is part of the reason they are so rage-filled, negligent of the chain of command and prone to hostilities against allied forces.

[Bryan Blaire]

Successors are typically defined by the Legion gene-line they came from, not a Chapter immediately preceding them in formation - for instance, even if you had a Chapter created wholly from Crimson Fist gene-seed, that Chapter would be defined as an Imperial Fist successor, just as the Crimson Fist Chapter is, not as a Crimson Fist successor. I don’t think we really even know if when a Chapter is founded, they restrict the gene-seed it’s drawn from to anything other than Legion-line anyway (so you might have a Chapter that had 60% Imperial Fist, 30% Black Templar, and 10% Crimson Fist - for illustrative purposes only).

 

Generally, when you have a Chapter that is heavily influenced by a predecessor Chapter, such as the Minotaurs, its likely that the new Chapter’s training cadre was from that predecessor Chapter, so the new Chapter’s future leaders learned all the rites and Chapter cult material from members of the predecessor Chapter (they may have even used their hypno-indoctrination regimen/program), but even then, you wouldn’t call them a “predecessor Chapter” Successor, they’d still be an Ultramarines Successor or whatever.

 

For the Minotaurs, I don’t think we know who their gene-line progenitor was, so we really can’t say that there would be any Successors from it. Now, if your story involves the Minotaurs have trained the new Chapter and the Chapter thinking of themselves like a Minotaur Successor, there’s nothing to say No to that that I am aware of - it’s just not usually how the term is used in the lore.

[Brother Tyler]

All that said, a later-founding Chapter can have descendants. Lineage might ultimately be traced back to the founding Legion, but each Chapter is a branch of the larger Legion family tree. And since we don't know the parentage of the Minotaurs, any Chapter created from their gene-seed might appropriately be considered a "successor" of that Chapter (even when "descendant" might be more accurate). While the successor/descendant distinction is a real thing, in common practice there's no problem with using them interchangeably.

 

As for what a potential successor/descendant of the Minotaurs might look like, I'd guess that anything inherent in their gene-seed (the notable behaviors of the Minotaurs, in this case) might be passed on. The appearance in terms of armour, livery, etc., is a clean slate. Much of that would depend upon a lot of variables, none of which are set in stone (Would the Minotaurs have had a hand in shaping the Chapter? Would there be any influences from other Chapters? Would a recruiting homeworld or homeworlds influence the Chapter? etc.).

 

The Badab War book indicates that the Minotaurs have no known descendants, but that doesn't mean that none exist, or that none may have been created in the Ultima Founding (which is set after the lore in the Badab War books).

 

I agree with the initial suggestion, though: if you like the Minotaurs, you shouldn't be afraid to create a Minotaurs kill team.

 

The question now shifts to what you plan on doing. If you still want to create some successor/descendant of the Minotaurs, this topic is appropriate. If you plan on collecting the Minotaurs, though, we can move this topic over to Index Astartes (if you want to focus on the Minotaurs), Kill Team (if you want to focus on an Adeptus Astartes kill team), or Works In Progress (if you want to focus on the modeling/painting aspects). Or we can leave this one here for a Minotaurs successor/descendant DIY discussion and you can create any/all of the other topics. 

[necroscope]

Thanks for all the info folks.  I'm gonna go with Minotaurs I think.  I'm still in the scheming stage.  I'll take that to the appropriate forum.  If there is any interest into changing it to something like Brother Tyler suggested please feel free.