[IT] The War Wolves

[Doctor Perils]

Defenders of Saint Chaste, Saviours of Sarment, Attack Dogs of the Cardinal... all these titles and more could once have described the War Wolves. However, all were set aside when they betrayed the Imperium on Sarment Prime and decimated the Ecclesiarchy's main powerbase in the sector. Where once their rage was seen as righteous, a manifestation of the Emperor's Wrath, it is now held in ignominy, a sign of their corruption and Heresy...

Hello, and welcome to my new DIY project! After having suffered a fair amount of hobby burnout in the second half of 2018, Ive decided to start afresh, stripping my old Shadow Wolf models and ripping the core of my old DIY fluff out - I should therefore be able to start on a more stable base.

I've decided to attempt a sort of a blog format here, where I'll take you through my thought process, as I think it could be of use for those who are starting out on their first DIY project and have no idea where to start. That doesn't mean I'm attempting to claim any knowledge that isn't already out there (quite the opposite - learning new snippets of fluff is a constant endeavour), or to have the best writing and/or creative skills (I'm not quite self centered enough not to realise that there are many better things popping out all over the place). Still, I do have a certain experience in writing Indices (that never quite get finished), and my short time as a moderator here forced me to examine the different pitfalls that are all too frequent (many of which I have fallen victim to more than once).
As such, I hope this thread will be both entertaining and informative to you (even if it is just to see where I make mistakes).

I welcome all (constructive) criticism - after all I wouldn't be writing this on a forum otherwise - but I still wish this project to be my own, so do not feel snubbed if I don't follow your recommendations.

---

In terms of format, I shall attempt to maintain the index up to date in the second post, and the first "blog" entry should find itself in the third post. If you notice I haven't updated the IT in a bit of time after my latest blog entry, don't hesitate to poke me - I'm very bad at keeping the final document ship shape and sparkling ^^

And off we jolly well go!

[Doctor Perils]

Entry 01 - the concept

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5269055

 

Entry 02 - the fall

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5270364

 

Entry 03 - the identity (part 1)

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5270370

 

Entry 03 - the identity (part 2)

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5271057

 

Entry 04 - the colours

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5272093

 

Entry 05 - chapter organisation

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5274928

 

Entry 06 - timeline first draft

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5275507

 

Entry 07 - warband organisation

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5278516

 

Entry 08 - homeworld

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5284168

 

Entry 09 - warband leaders

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5628182

 

Entry 10 - sub-factions

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/354304-it-the-war-wolves/?p=5630799

Edited November 13, 2020 by Doctor Perils

[Doctor Perils]

Entry 01 - The Concept

Though I've wiped the slate pretty much clean, there were some elements that I knew I wanted to keep, mostly because I wanted to keep my old model bitz.

One of these constraints was that my chaos marines actually have a mix of Space Wolves parts - including the emblems on the pauldrons; therefore, I wanted to keep some kind of lupine element in the theme.

In the distant past, my ex-Shadow Wolves DIY had been a traitor great company of the Space Wolves, before I discovered ADB had used the name in a canon story - at which point I reworked them into survivors of the sons of Varadon.
However, I knew this time I wanted to create an entirely new chapter that would turn traitor, allowing me more freedom both in creating my own thing, and in exploring their existence and culture before their fall.
While I briefly toyed with creating a successor to the Space Wolves, my experience has taught me its more trouble then it's worth (especially since I didn't want a Chapter from the Ultima Founding) - this also meant I absolutely didn't want to stick with a Viking culture inspiration.

What other civilisations could I use as examples? There are may out there, and a fair few have some pretty strong wolf myths (and good example being romulus and remus of Rome) - still, the one that kept coming back to me (personally) was anglo-saxon Britain. For some reason anglo saxon imagery and culture resonates with me more than norse culture does, and despite them being rather similar under many aspects, in others they are very different. As such, I felt I could get away with a lot of the runes and wolf pelts you find on Space Wolf models, yet inject a different feel then you have with the sons of Russ.

So, I've got a culture to take inspiration from: anglo-saxon Britain. To make sure I stay further away from the Danes, I looked at how the historical cultures were divergent at the time they coexisted:
- for one, Britain was exceptionally rich for the period - as such, there were several kingdoms that formed, several of which were stable enough for this period to be called the "Heptarchy" in history textbooks. Furthermore, several kingdoms rose to prominence at different moments: these include the Unification of England under Wessex, and the Mercian Supremacy. Since my family comes from Leicester, and it's not as well known as Wessex, I opted to look further into the Mercian supremacy (whose kings will give me a good number of characters names down the line)
- the other major difference is that Britain was already mostly Christian at the time of the Vikings (think of Lindisfarne). This was something I could play with...

So, Christian Mercians... doesn't sound particularly chaosy does it? However, what if rather than moving from paganism to Christianity, my chapter would go the other way? Perhaps in a messy spectacle of gore and bloodshed?
It just so happens that my pet Sector (the Sarment Sector) is de facto ruled by an Imperial cardinal, in the tradition of Richelieu and Mazzarin. And as the Three Musketeers taught us, every scheming Cardinal needs his personal guard, devious enough to accomplish all the most illegal and immoral orders he could dream up...

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

looking forward to reading this and maybe getting myself back on the writing horse. Both my IA and IT articles are found lacking.

[Kelborn]

I know what you mean. Got alone 5 Primaris chapters and all kind of stuff at hand, with each of them worthy to receive a full index. ^^"

 

Eager to see you progressing.

 

War Wolves being Shadow Wolves then? Or a completely new warband?

Edited March 4, 2019 by Kelborn

[Doctor Perils]

Thanks for the interest guys! I'm entirely replacing the Shadow Wolves with the War Wolves, a retcon if you will.

I've updated post number 3 with entry 01, and am going to move straight on to entry 02:

 

Entry 02 - The Fall

So, I have the germ of the concept of at least the chapter before its fall: a sort of secret police that operate for the cardinal of their home sector, who have roots in Mercian culture. I know that Space Marine chapters are beholden to no man, officially, but I also know that some chapters do venerate the Emperor as a god, so it's not completely out of the realms of possibility that one could work closely with the Ecclesiarchy.

 

This is where another constraint I wanted comes into play: I wanted to explore the chapter's corruption, and didn't want it to simply be a fact of finding an artefact (looking at you Fulgrim) or being "bewitched".

Taking from the idea of the Cardinal using the chapter to his own ends, I just need to think: what would happen if a particularly immoral cardinal came into power? They'd probably act in order to get rid of him. But what if a Cardinal who was slightly worse than his predecessors came to power? Well in that case, they'd probably just end up conforming to his wishes, even if grumpily. Now, what happens if the cardinals get slightly worse, generation after generation, millennium after millennium...

Well, in my opinion, the traditions of the chapter becoming ingrained with bloodshed and murder, and always in the name of the Emperor, whom they end up seeing as a vengeful god, a god of death and war... some may find it distasteful, but after all, it's in the Emperor’s name, it can't be corruption, can it?

Can it?!

 

Still, after a bit, one would like one of these Cardinals to get their come-upance.

Enter Buonifasti XXIII - imagine a Blanchian priest, ulcers and sores from a lifetime of decadence and more. Now, Buonifasti is an ambitious blighter - he was friends with the Lord Militant Ultima as a child, and the Ecclesiarch himself sees him as a strong contender to his succession, don't you know! - and to prove himself he has great projects closer to home: one example is... let's say a Hyperspace Bypass. The only trouble is, the people of [[Mercia]] are in the way: "take care of this for me will you?"

 

By those words was Buonifasti's fate sealed, and with him a large portion of the population of Sarment Prime and the Order of the Ardent Sword.

 

By this point, we all know the answer to the question "who will rid me of this turbulent priest?"...

[Doctor Perils]

... or do we?

 

Entry 03 - Identity

Up until this point, I have only spoken about the renegade chapter as "my chapter" (well, apart from in the thread intro). At this point in my thinking and research in actually still hadn't come up with a new name for them. I also haven't got a gene line to stick them to - this will be the aim of this entry.

 

[[Once I've eaten :P]]

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Great stuff so far!

So with the wolves being vikings, blood angels being italian, fists being german to name the few that come to mind...would that allow raven guard or iron hand to be more british?

Dark angels could be fun due to the secret police aspect.

[Kelborn]

If I had to name only one real life source for each chapter, I'd say Iron Hands could be Scottish - clans, claymores, honor, got beaten several times but never gave up, etc.

 

Regarding gene line, etc.

 

Ultramarines are known to feature a very wide variety in terms of featured cultures within thei successor chapters:

- Iron Snakes - Greek

- Emperor's Spears - Gaelic

- Howling Griffons - European Knights

- Mortifactors - morbid, death worshipping savages

 

Thinking about the secret police aspect, DAs and RGs come to my mind. Rather stereotypical.

 

Sallies were quite religious when thinking about the Ebon Drake's journey.

 

Does it have to be a successor of one of the loyalists Legions? When were they founded? Could a blackshield/ unknown geneline be a thing? Just working on the chapter itself and leave the past a mystery? Especially since they started to act upon the Cardinal's orders, who could manipulate their records, etc. via zealous members of the chapter?

[Doctor Perils]

Haha, you guys are getting ahead of me :)

 

Entry 03 (cont.) - Identity

 

So, name? I wanted a name that could work well both as a Chapter name and a Warband name - Warbands can take pretty much whichever name the Lord wants, but Chapters have a fairly strong naming convention - rarely more than two words, and in the case of three (or rarer, 4) its always an "Of" or some other pronoun or something. While it can hint at progenitor chapter or primarch, at the homeworld or colour scheme, it generally has to have an element of the chapter's personality.

As I wanted some kind of lupine imagery and Wolves can be aggressive and fiercely loyal to their pack, this felt pretty good for the Chapter - plus, the best known Wolf in germanic mythology was pretty evil, so it also fit with the Warband.

I now had a starting point (This is sometimes the hardest so I wasn't to make my life complicated for no good reason) - all I needed now was a second name element.

 

Delving into anglo-saxon mythology again, I wanted to look through different representations of Wolves, and what they represented in the culture. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything particularly inspiring. From Chaos inspiration, "Shadow" and "Dark" Wolves already existed, and while "Warp Wolves" sounded pretty cool, it didn't necessarily feel right for an ex-loyalist chapter... but wait! What if I just take that "P" off and make them "War Wolves"?! Perhaps a bit on the nose, but a quick google-fu didn't give me any results. What's more, while it wasnt a link to the Mercians themselves, the historical reference "War Wolf" did pertain to a later English trebuchet. Now we're talking!

 

War Wolves - simple but effective. Now it does sound slightly like War Hounds...

What if they were descendents of the World Eaters? Obviously this would not be a fact known to the wider Imperium or even themselves, but some canon chapters get away with their mysterious origins, and since I wanted these to be from around the Age of Apostasy it could also fit with the Dark or Cursed founding...

 

So, I started looking into other parallels for anglo-saxons and world Eaters. An obvious starting point was looking into "berserkers" in the early middle ages... only there didn't seem to be many poss ible parallels with Angron's sons. However, another, more surprising figure came up: while the berserkers and their cousins of the Ulfhednar worshipped Odin, their other main god was Tyr rather than Thor (using norse names rather than anglo saxon for simplicity's sake). Tyr was intimately linked to the Wolf Fenrir, not least because Fenrir bit his hand off - rather like how Dorn lost his hand one could say (throwing himself into the wolf's maw/lair). What's more, the Sons of Dorn are often of germanic inspiration and are rather close to the Imperial Creed. Plus, they have the most successors after the Ultramarines, so there wouldn't be any trouble explaining their gene-Father...

 

That settled it: the War Wolves, once Attack Dogs for the Cardinal of Sarment Prime, would be descendents of the Imperial Fists.

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Germanic they shall be!

[Doctor Perils]

Well, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were all germanic peoples, so it does stick pretty well.

 

The next entry will be speaking about my colour scheme, so I'll have to upload a series of images before posting it.

[Doctor Perils]

Entry 04 - The Colours

So, as my wish is to create a DIY warband alongside my miniatures, I had actually already started to craft a colour scheme alonside the early parts of the fluff. I had already used a rather nice shade of burgundy red in my Shadow Wolves, which I thought worked quite well alongside a dark grey. So I started by trying to combine the two colours into a coherent colour scheme:
 

This was what I ended up with, alongside an explanation for it: the Imperial saint that had led their early attempts at reconquering the Sarment Sector granted her stole to the first chapter master, who then integrated it into his fledgling chapters colours...
 
Unfortunately, while the story fit quite nicely, the colour scheme itself lacked a certain... pizazz?
 
My next attempt added that with a touch of yellow

I even ended up painting a couple of test minis... however, I ended up finding it a bit too annoying - a complicated red to mix up, yellow (still bothersome to paint, even with the glorious invention of Averland Sunset) and a halved colour scheme may look nice on paper, but their hell to put on a mini.
 

---

 
I decided to start over once I'd got the name for the chapter and warband. Deciding a "subtle" hint at the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, I included a teal colour that appeals to me

And a hint to the War Hounds using the same scheme with the Sons of Horus colours:

But lets be honest, that wasn't going to be any easier to paint

---

Now, I still wanted to have a scheme that wasn't a single colour, but halves and stoles didn't seem to work for me. So I decided to cheat and look at a set of schemes I find rather great: (shameless plug) the Broken Throne project.
One I really like is that of the Iron Bears. I replaced the black with a kind of desaturated blue

But ultimately on the model a much darker blue works better imo:

So this is my final colour scheme:

And as a bonus, here's an allied traitor guardsman:

[Kelborn]

Really like the color scheme and the way it was developed. What once was grey/red became blue and dirty yellow. :tu:

 

Most of the time, when I'm considering a color scheme, I set up a couple of colors I want to have and then sit down with the SM painter until I've managed to get something decent enough for me.

 

This kind of "blog" is an enjoyable read. Keep it going. :)

[Doctor Perils]

It's more of a brass/bronze/copper then a yellow tbh, it's not that easy to get across in the painter ^^'

 

And yeah, I do the same sort of thing - I forgot to mention I used the following interactive colour wheel while doing this:

https://www.sessions.edu/color-calculator/

 

I also used the Wikipedia page that presents the hex codes for the citadel paint range, but didn't find it that reliable.

 

 

And thanks :D it's nice to know someone's enjoying it - I'm much happier with the beginning of this IA/IT than I had been with the Shadow Wolves for a long time, and I've been enjoying doing some painting again for the first time in ages.

[Doctor Perils]

So, I believe I have now got a fairly good basic idea for the Chapter and subsequent Warband, so I'm trying to decide what part to flesh out next. Rather then taking the time for inspiration to strike, how about I let you guys decide? I'm only putting in two options here, but if you guys like the idea I can look into doing this again.

 

A - would you like me to expand on the chapter's homeworld first, or

B - would you like me to work on the chapter's organisation and how the Warband works later on?

[Kelborn]

World

 

Most of the time, homeworlds have huge impacts on chapters and the likes: Cultural Influences, mindset, legends, warfare and so.

 

Interesting to see more of such an important aspect. :)

 

Mostly I first start to think about the world and what it should feature so that my chapter fits in.

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Organisation!

I just feel that in the organisation the bones of a chapter and warband can really be fleshed out

[Brother Lunkhead]

Organisation

 

It's been may experience that organization is primarily based around mission, practical needs, and practical limitations. These characteristics once defined can be worked out fairly quickly, whereas world and culture takes longer and has more subtle (but important) impacts on a chapter.

 

Once you've built up the basic organization you can use world and culture to tweak and modify your chapter to mold it's personality.

 

Hope that was of some help. Looks like you are off to a great start. I think what you've got so far is fantastic. Good luck...… I'll be seeing you out on the galactic playing field heretic scum 

[Doctor Perils]

Thanks for the answers guys

So, two votes for org, one for world - organisation it is then!

So, here's a first pass

Entry 05 - Chapter Organisation

Created in the tradition of the Crusading Chapters espoused by certain VII Legion successors, the War Wolves complied in the most part to the Codex Astartes, despite some minor deviations that had been adapted from the methods of certain more famous crusaders, like the Crimson Fists or Black Templars.

This resulted in a certain degree of independence between fleets, which would be safeguarded into their days after the Purple Crusade or Saint Chaste.

However, this subtle split within the Legion may have helped promote a certain cult of the personality of their different captains and leaders, which may eventually have fostered the heresy of the Chapter. When came the betrayal at Sarment Prime, the warlords each had supporters ultimately more loyal to them then to the Cardinal, precipitating their fall into corruption...

So, to be honest I had not thought overly much about organisation previously, at least for the Chapter. With the new edition of 40k, I felt I'd like to try converting and kitbashing a fair few more characters then previously, but that wasn't much of a start.

So I decided to look again at the organisation of their progenitors and cousins.
I knew I wanted something reasonably close to the Codex Astartes, because it feels like us DIYers rely all too often on an organisation which is nob-compliant to give the feel for a Chapter, which I wanted to avoid. Anything too close to the Black Templars was therefore out (even if I love the concept of Neophytes)
However, I decided to look a bit closer at the Crimson Fists: after all, I have a similar dark blue in my colour scheme, perhaps the training cadre for my chapter could have come from the Crimson Fists?

While it turned out I'd find it difficult to justify a Crimson Fists successor at the time I was aiming for (they were whittled down to 128 members at that time), it was possible for me to emulate their "Crusading Chapter" organisation (which fits with the early days of the War Wolves) and to say their colours were chosen to honour the Crimson Fist's centuries long Crusade in the years just previous to the Founding of the War Wolves.

So what does being a "Crusading Chapter" entail? Well for one, it means you are likely to have more specialists per capita, as they are distributed about your fleets - this already sounds promising, as it means that I could expand my roster of characters through the specialists.

Further, both the Crimson Fists and the Black Templars seem to give direct command of certain troops to the Chapter Master (this is called the "Crusader Company" for the Crimson Fists) - this could absolutely fit the kind of tributary relationship of the Mercian supremacy over the other anglo-saxon kingdoms.

So, let's say the War Wolves start as a Crusading Chapter, with several fleets that are able to operate more or less independently. Since I want to remain codex compliant, I have 4 battle companies, and 6 weirder kinds of companies - to make life simple for myself, I'll say there are four Crusading fleets.

As such, I'd like to give one big capital ship to each of the battle companies, and probably one to the chapter master. In addition, it would be possible to have a Chapter Barque - however, I'll remain in the rule of "generally two or three Battle Barges".

 

So, 1 Chapter Barque, 2 Battle Barges, a number of Strike Cruisers and a fair amount of Escorts. How will these be organised?

• Well, rather than go the simple route of granting the Barque to the Chapter Master, how about I give it to the Master of the Arsenal? After all, the Chapter Forges will definitely find themselves on the Barque, and it makes sense to keep the Master of the Arsenal with the Arsenal.
• The Master of the Fleet will absolutely be better off with a Battle Barge
• And it only feels right for the Chapter Master to have a Battle Barge with the lack of the Barque
• Concerning Strike Cruisers, it doesn't look like there's an official guideline in terms of numbers. However, if we consider the proportions of the Ultramarines fleet, we'd have 6.375 Strike Cruisers per chapter. On the other hand, the Space Wolves have as many Strike Cruisers as Battle Barges... Let's call it at 3 Strike Cruisers and 2 Vanguard Class Light Cruisers
• The Vanguard Class Light Cruiser is supposed to be able to operate as a scouting vessel independently, at the expense of planetary assault capacity. Scouting sounds rather like "Master of the Watch", so I'll go ahead and give him both.
• The Master of the Marches, being in charge of Logistics, probably needs an extra Capital Ship, in case he decides extra transport is needed in a pinch
• Same with the Master of the Fleets

So:

• 1st Company: Battle Barge and Escorts
• 2nd Company: 2 Vanguard Class Light Cruisers (First Crusade Fleet)
• 3rd Company: Chapter Barque (Second Crusade Fleet)
• 4th Company: 1 Battle Barge, 1 Strike Cruiser (Third Crusade Fleet)
• 5th Company: 2 Strike Cruisers (Fourth Crusade Fleet)
• Reserve Companies: multiple Escorts, allowing an easy split of each company into the different fleets
• Scout Company: Split among the other ships

This gives us a general shape of the early chapter.

 

Later on, when granted their own homeworld, their Chapter Barque may be kept in orbit (I'd rather not make it land like the Arx Tyranus)

[Dosjetka]

That settled it: the War Wolves, once Attack Dogs for the Cardinal of Sarment Prime, would be descendents of the Imperial Fists.

All the more reason for me to purge them. :devil:

[Brother Lunkhead]

I can see the benefits of your chapter being organized around the structure of a crusading fleet. However, I'm finding it hard to rationalize how this crusading chapter developed such strong ties to a cardinal in one particular corner (Sarment Sector) of the Imperium to the point of doing his dirty work, thus leading to their corruption. Fleet based chapters like the Black Templars and the Crimson Fists (or even the Carcharodon Astra) are far ranging and very independent. They have strong ties to no one save the Emperor.

 

Here's where you may have to get briefly into world building mode and think a bit on your back story. Perhaps the War Wolves have some sort of blood debt to the Cardinal of the Sarment Sector that he is able to exploit. Or..... toss out the idea of the crusading fleet origin and go with the War Wolves as a bastion chapter. A bastion chapter with a mandate to protect a particular sector of space, would have stronger ties to that sector and thus more likely to be involved in its internal politics.

 

Just some food for thought

[Doctor Perils]

 

That settled it: the War Wolves, once Attack Dogs for the Cardinal of Sarment Prime, would be descendents of the Imperial Fists.

All the more reason for me to purge them.

 

Well, bring it on ;) If you create a homebrew chapter with associated kill team, we'll just have to see how it goes when you come over :devil:

 

I can see the benefits of your chapter being organized around the structure of a crusading fleet. However, I'm finding it hard to rationalize how this crusading chapter developed such strong ties to a cardinal in one particular corner (Sarment Sector) of the Imperium to the point of doing his dirty work, thus leading to their corruption. Fleet based chapters like the Black Templars and the Crimson Fists (or even the Carcharodon Astra) are far ranging and very independent. They have strong ties to no one save the Emperor.

 

Here's where you may have to get briefly into world building mode and think a bit on your back story. Perhaps the War Wolves have some sort of blood debt to the Cardinal of the Sarment Sector that he is able to exploit. Or..... toss out the idea of the crusading fleet origin and go with the War Wolves as a bastion chapter. A bastion chapter with a mandate to protect a particular sector of space, would have stronger ties to that sector and thus more likely to be involved in its internal politics.

 

Just some food for thought

Ah, indeed I've not been entirely clear when and where this stuff is happening - I was planning on re-editing Entry 5 again, but I may as well sketch out some of the warband's timeline before wrapping up the organisation part(s)

 

For a quick overview, I was planning on salvaging some of the timeline for my Sarment Sector from earlier versions. Basically

• the Sarment Sector is originally conquered during the Great Crusade by forces of Iron Warriors and Night Lords.
• After the Scouring, it is once again in Imperial hands, but a chaotic incursion somewhen in late M35/early M36 sees it taken again by the Night Lords, who make the inhabitants live through unimaginable horrors for several centuries.
• However, with the end of the Age of Apostasy, a renewed religious fervour propels a new Imperial Saint to launch a War of Faith, and the High Lords of Terra send some forces to support it
• among these is the fledgling chapter of the War Wolves. After witnessing several of the miracles performed by Saint Chaste, they swear an oath of loyalty (though not fealty!) to her, pledging to follow her into all her fights.
• However, when she dies (is executed/martyred) they transfer this oath of loyalty to the first Cardinal of the Sector, and that's where the oath goes downhill.

[Brother Lunkhead]

That sounds workable

[Doctor Perils]

Entry 06 - Timeline first draft

So, as it became obvious recently, I have to focus a bit more on the timeline that I'm working to. I've already posted quickly about the timeline of the Sarment Sector as a whole, but here I'll focus on the War Wolves themselves.

As mentioned, I want the War Wolves to participate in the "Purple Crusade", which takes place at the tail end of the age of Apostasy - by the end of which they have been granted feudal rights on one of the planets of the sector and have started their work with/for the Cardinal.

Originally, I had them being created in one of the (many) Foundings around that time. Now that I've given them more of a Crusading Chapter organisation (at least in their early days), it may be more logical to push their founding a bit earlier, and simply have the Purple Crusade be one of the many in which they take part.

The other major event in their history is their treason. While I want this to happen relatively recently, to justify a renegade chapter that still has decent numbers, I also have more possessed and daemon engine models then I did when I created my previous iteration: that is to say, they can't have become renegade so recently that they haven't had time to dabble with the powers of the warp.

We're therefore looking at a time frame between early M39 and late M41.

M36 to M39 is plenty of time for a Chapter to integrate the culture of their homeworld and to cement their dysfunctional relationship with the cardinal, so that's fine.

---------------------------

We know the Terran Crusade happens in or around 378.M36 - if the Purple Crusade is to take place after the death of Vandire and the resolution of the Age of Apostasy, to give the Imperium the time to Marshall its forces, I'll probably want it happening around 500.M36. To place pin an exact date down, I'll say the War Wolves are granted their new homeworld in 512.M36.

Also, let's call the attrocity at Sarment Prime the Cardinal's Slaughter and place it at around the time of a another big event in Imperial History, to give the War Wolves the time to escape to their local Warp storm. A Black Crusade sounds like the kind of event where the barrier between loyalty and corruption is thinner, so I'll piggyback on one - the 10th Black Crusade looks like quite a major deal for the Imperium, the 11th less so, and the 12th is too late for my purposes. So I'll put the Slaughter in 003.M39, two years after the beginning of the 10th Black Crusade.


In between? Well I know I find chapters with inner conflicts more interesting generally, so how about I create a couple of chapter civil wars?

For motives, one should probably be to do with whether the chapter should continue to accept the Cardinal's commands - I'll set that earlyish, to ensure the chapter follows the worstening commands with dogged loyalty.

The other inner conflicts could come about for a similar reason to many historical civil wars: succession crises.
Now, this would be difficult to put in place in a "normal" chapter with a Chapter Master appointed by his fellow captains. However, in a Crusading Chapter the Master seems to be a more particular place, because he has his own company to command. Perhaps a group of captains decide they'd like a more classical chapter master?
Let's say, 213.M37 is the first chapter war, and 850.M38 for the second.

While there'll obviously many more events happening to the Chapter, these will be a good starting point.

------------------------

How about post-Slaughter? Well as I mentioned I'd like them to escape retribution in the local Warp storm, in which I'll move my personal Daemon Forge World, Helsmed to give them a base of operations and a place to acquire their Daemon Engines - time being unstable, in the warp, it's not possible to pin a date on this

Then, I'd like them to participate in the second chaos conquest of the Sector, which will be a nice poetic mirror of their first appearance - this is after the opening of the great rift, so let's say 012.M42

And finally they will be defending the sector from Imperial reconquest in the "present day"