A Space Wolf successor chapter idea - thoughts?.

[Graymane]

Greetings Brothers!

 

Its been an age or two, and I'm sure many sagas have been sung since last we met. I hope you are all well! :)
 

After a long, looong break i have decided to again start painting and again i thought of making a successor for the space wolves. 

My original Draugrbjorn/Ghost Bear idea was ok, but there are now numerous bear themed chapters and i fancied something a little different.
 

As much as I have always been a loyal son of Russ, the first 40k book i read many eons ago when i was but a cub was the old Deathwing series of short stories. I was always taken with the now retconned idea that the iconography and colouring of the Deathwing was due to the then warriors of the deathwing, who had been raised from the strongly native American influenced 'plains people' had accepted their deaths in advance of a suicidal mission against genestealers and painted their armour in tribal colours and iconography of death. A tradition the Dark angels then kept to honour their sacrifice. Unfortunately this lovely part of history has now been stricken from imperial records. However i have attached some of the artwork for your perusal.

 

So i thought about this superb old story and some of the lore i had dabbled with before. Similar to old vikings sailing to north America and encountering natives, I'd have space wolves and a native american style civilisation of tribes with hunters/braves etc. However, i also thought this time i might also factor in some techno-barbarian aspects and have a fallen highly advanced civilisation as the tribal home world, where (Similarly to Horizon zero dawn - see image below) self perpetuating AI governed cyber creatures exist along side various evolved animals etc and are all to varying degrees hunted by the surviving humans for resources or for protection.    

 

 

I want to keep the modelling side fairly simple and space wolf based (as i have many  many models in my pile of shame and may have got some more coming...) so i want to keep the wolf head iconography. I thought i would pay homage to the original deathwing by having bone armour and the wolf head in red. The other marking on the armour I'm thinking could be based upon a blend of  runes, pack markings, native american war paint and iconography. 

 

So this is my first initial mock up of it - yes its done in paint and yes, im old...

 

 

Name wise, i am thinking one of two names so far. 

1 - Warhunters - they are warriors and hunters, named after the equivalent of Braves. 

or

2 - Rustwolves - Named after the packs of particularly cunning and vicious cyberbeasts that stalk the scattered tribes.   

 

There is also a 3rd contender that has been suggested but it would involve swapping all space wolf shoulder pads to ravenguard ones and that is the Red Crows - aka scarlet ravens or corvus rubrum

 

I'm also open to suggestions :)

 

So there you have it. My question to you all is what do you think so far? and thoughts on chapter name? any and all feedback most welcome :)

 

Cheers, GM 

[N1SB]

I owned the original Deathwing expansion for Space Hulk.  I think I know exactly how you feel.

 

You are doing exactly what Cloud Runner did, to restore the spirit of the plains people (in the story, their culture was destroyed by Genestealers, in real life, it was destroyed by retcon.)

 

I studied your mock-up, spent some time googling "Native American funerary paint" and thought about this before replying.  I noticed 3 colours: White, Red, Black.  White and Red you covered.  I would turn honestly turn your Blues and Greys to Black.  Then the chest aquila, sculpt a beak shape, then paint it all up like a totem pole.

 

Just my thoughts.  I might actually do these myself for a Dark Angels successor, for similar reasons as you.  Oh my gosh, it'd be a re-retcon if I did.

[Beef]

OMG i remember the original Deathwing story you mentioned, must be showing my age.  Always liked the native American theme and hated how it was retconned later.  I like your idea and think hell yeah go for it.

 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I like the Raven Guard primaris upgrade sprue a lot better than the space wolf one. It would add some interesting bits that I think would look good with the new space wolf units without being over the top. The drawback to both is they really don't have shoulder pads which would feel right for termies, which really feel like they should be in this project.

 

That said I know that there are rumors that space marines are going to get another wave of characters this edition, and I would wait to see if they get better sprues alongside it (the blood angel & dark angel upgrade packs are awesome). It also wouldn't surprise me to see a wolf upgrade sprue alongside the codex release.

[Graymane]

Thank you for the ideas and feedback. :) Any thoughts on the potential names?

[LameBeard]

The William King (I believe) story was great - although I’ve heard Rick Priestly sound bemused that Dark Angels ended up as Green-clad Native Americans when he invented them as Black-clad European Monks. So the retcon got retconned and I think this shows everything is canon and nothing is true and any homage to it is a great idea.

 

Of course any Space Wolf / Dark Angel mashup is heresy. Delicious heresy.

 

I can see why you’ve gone with the blue-grey - to tie in with the wolves. Have you thought about switching the bright red to dark red and using the pre-heresy wolf head transfers (the sheet with thousand sons on might be available without ruinous forgeworld price).

 

I love all 3 names, sorry no help there. Although I would not use the term ‘braves’ any more.

 

The only other thing that occurred to me is Necromunda Ratskins. I remember the designers talking about taking their inspiration from fur-clad warriors much broader than Native Americans - and including Vikings. I feel your idea takes this a step further, inspired by the cultures mixing, not just the visual cues.

 

I always avoided feathers on my Dark Angels because I thought it was over-the-top, but I think fur and feathers can work here - and so maybe lean more into that than these AI cyber beasts?

[Brother Hellion]

As a owner of a successor chapter of space wolf lineage of my own design, I do like the idea that your proposing about an indigenous inspired chapter. The fierce rituals, the colorful art style, the spiritual ties to the natural world seems like a good fit for the gene seed of Russ. The common problem a lot of people go through when pitching an idea similar to this one is a lack of research and consistency. Native American tribes are distinct from one another right down to the languages they speak so if your going to commit then I suggest looking deep into their history and culture. A good example could be the artic nations or the northeaster indigenous confederations of the pre Columbia era such as the Beothuk or the Mi'kmaq. You could also pick one of the more popular nations such as the Navajo or the Cherokee but avoid the cliques with both. 

I only heard about the William King story in passing in my years of collecting stories from the 40k universe. The image of super soldiers in power armor that is iconographic with Native American imagery sounds cool. I regret I never got a chance to read the story and hated that the Dark Angels got retconned into paranoid space knights with guns (Like we don't have enough of those). 

The names you suggested sound cool. I love Warhunters cause its simple and to the point. 
Rustwolves could work if you put more emphasis of them having deeper ties to the Ad Mechs and being more cyber/bionic inclined  with lots of tanks.
Red Crows could've worked if these guys were of the geneseed of Corvus but it'll never work for chapter of russ. Instead, try something like Red Wolves since these are actually found in North America and found in stories in Native American stories. 

Keep the paint scheme. The dominate cream white makes the blues and reds brighter. And the green lens are perfect.