Index Astartes: Grey Death Legion

[Doghouse]

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/wiplogo.jpg

 

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/GreyDeathHomeworldbycoss.jpg

------------------------------ Grey Death Legion Fortress-Monastery "The Forge" by coss

 

 

"We have become the true masters of our destiny, we shall

reshape the universe itself in His name and we shall forge our future

from the stars in the heavens. For we are the true architects of fate!"

 

Chapter Master Lucien Tyr M36

 

 

Davinci Prime

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/Sol/AA12.jpg

 

Davinci Prime lay on the most northern point of the galactic plain and is believed to have been settled upon by human colonists during the height of that Dark Age of Technology.

Whilst most human civilisations had degenerated into ruin during the time now known as the Age of Strife the people of Davinci had thrived. For countless millenia, isolated by impenetrable Warp storms they utilised technology that would baffle even the most learned engineers of the Tau Earth Caste.

The natural curiousity of it's people drove them to the stars as they sought to explore the stars as their society prospered.

Ultimately in hindsight this, many scholars would argue, was their first step on the road to destruction.

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/DavinciPrimebycoss.jpg

---------------------------------------Davinci Prime by coss

 

The Imperium of Man

The thirty sixth millenia was a time of anarchy now known as the Age of Apostasy as the Imperium stood once more on the brink of terrible civil war under the rule of the High Lord Goge Vandire.

Although records of this time have long since been lost it is speculated that the Davincians had encountered an envoy of the Imperium. It is unclear which faction the envoy was alligned with but it is clear that shortly after establishing contact with the Imperium the planet was designated as the homeworld of the newly founded Grey Death Legion.

Some scholars say that the envoy had been an agent of Vandire and had been placed there to steal it's glorious secrets for the armies of the corrupt High Lord.

Whilst others still claim that the Emperor, in his infinate wisdom, had sent the envoy so that the planet may be spared from the conflict and would one day aid him apon his return.

Either way the genetically pure people of Davinci were soon intregrated into the chapter. With an unheard of thirty nine percent of the population compatible for the process of become a member of the Adeptus Astartes the ranks of the Chapter swelled with each passing year.

Eventually the Chapter was forced to re-organise it's structure to incorporate a further five companies.

Given their thirst for knowledge and technological innovation the years following the Age of Apostatey, known as the Reformation, began a golden age for the chapter.

 

Technology versus Ideology

Many have said the Chapter's disregard for the structure of the holy Codex had brought the wrath of the Emperor himself apon Davinci.

It is known that the Imperial Cult had not taken well on the planet and the Adeptus Mechanicus had begun to receive word of the Chapter's belief that the holy machines were little more than tools to serve their needs rather than an extension of the Omnisiah.

It is believed that the seeds of rebellion had been sown by agents of the machine god in order to seize control of the planet and it's secrets for themselves. However, this was not to be.

The Imperial Cultists, though few in number, launched daring raids on the planet's massive geo-thermal power regulators and unwittedly began a catastrophic chain reaction that ignited the planet's atmosphere destroying everything.

Over seventeen billions souls, including the fifth and thirteenth companies of the Grey Death Legion along with their fortress monestry, perished in a blinding flash of destruction. Waves of nuclear fire tore across the planet's surface, leaving a lifeless barren wasteland where the ruins of the once great cities jutted into the black ash filled sky like giant broken and jagged tombstones.

Where the planet's surface had cracked under the enormous force of the explosion rivers of molten magma erupted forth creating huge rivers and oceans of lava.

Millenia of progress was gone in the mere blink of an eye.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/juddski/Anargo%20worlds/GDLegion/GDLmcomrade.jpg

--Fallen Comrade by coss

 

Geneseed

The Librarians of the Grey Death Legion, keepers of the Chapter Lore, claim that the Sons of Davinci were created from the Geneseed of Iron Hands Chapter and revere Ferrus Manus as their Primarch. Some Imperial scholars believe that they are infact more likely recipients of the geneseed taken from Brazen Claw Chapter, a second founding successor of the Iron hands.

 

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/juddski/Anargo%20worlds/GDLegion/WipgreydeathlegionJP.jpg

----Grey Death Legion Assault Marine by coss

 

 

Force Organisation

The Chapter is divided into Companies numbered one to fifteen. Of these Companies only thirteen are active, the fifth and thirteenth are never used in remembrance of the Brothers that died during the destruction of Davinci.

Each Company is lead by a Commander who bares the title Master.

Each Company is a force comprising of anywhere between two to seven detachments known as Cohorts.

Each Cohort is in turn lead bya Brother Captain, although this title may vary depending on the planet that the Cohort was recruited from.

Each Cohort is made up of anywhere between twenty and sixty battle Brothers, often refered to as Legionaires, at any given time and their support vehicles.

The presence of Chaplains and Librarians varies depending again on the planet where the Cohort was recruited.

The Chapter poses no specialised veteran companies like many more orthodox Codex Chapters. Terminator armour is more readily available because of the chapter's superior and highly guarded construction abilities, therefore regular squads or squad leaders have been known to have been issued TDA.

Veteran Marines stay with their Cohort often forming elite specialist squads or go on to lead their own squads.

In addition there is no Scout company, recruitment is often left to the Cohort Chaplains and practices can vary between Cohorts. Some prefer to form squads of recruits lead by veteran brothers whilst others prefer to assign recruits to specific individuals much in the same way as the Black Templars.

Bloodlines are extremely important to the Chapter and although the majority of the people of Davinci were lost some had survived the cataclysm on far flung colonies.

Whilst the location of the majority of these colonies were lost along with their original Fortress-Monastrey the descendants of the colonists are highly sought after because of their superior genetic make-up. Whilst all Brothers are equal in the eyes of the Chapter it is known that should a true descendant of pure heritage be inducted into the Chapter then he is truely marked for greatness. Such individuals are highly sought after and it is a great honour for Cohort to have a true Son of Davinci in their ranks.

 

]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/juddski/Anargo%20worlds/GDLegion/GDLtechm.jpg

---Grey Death Legion Techmarine 2nd Company, 3rd Cohort M38 by coss

 

Chapter Colours

Originally the Chapter wore Red armour with Gold trims. Since the destruction of their true homeworld they have adopted the Orange and Grey of the two destroyed companies.

Whilst there is a standard Codex pattern for the Chapter as a whole it has long since become tradition that the Cohort Captain decides apon the form this will take apon taking command. Some Captains ever go as far as to have each squad patterned differently.

Chapter tradition decrees that any variation of the two chapter colours of grey and orange are acceptable as long as the chapter symbol is not obscured or dishonoured.

Armour variants vary from MKI to MKVIII pattern power armour. Cohorts are known to use unorthodox experimental armour variants and some have been know to fight only in carapace armour. The use of experimental armour patterns is not without it's risks however. Although such incidents are rare it has been known for members of the chapter to be mistaken for xenos or even traitors marines and fired on by friendly forces.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/juddski/Anargo%20worlds/GDLegion/Wipmarineandsneakygit.jpg

---Grey Death Legion Marine 4th Company 3rd Cohort M38 by coss

 

The Damocles Gulf Crusade: The Landing on Sy'l'kell 742.M41

 

Iron Hand Tech Priest Jacobsen knelt on both knees in the thick mud, his attention focused on the broken form of the Grey Death Legion recon drone that lay before him dormant on it`s side. He began to mutter a prayer as he prepared his tools.

He reached out a hand, running his fingers across it`s armoured skin as he annointed it with holy ointment of healing. The heavy rain pattered off it`s armour, mingling with the oils and creating long dark rainbow tinted streaks that ran the length of the damaged skimmer`s hull. He continued to pray.

Although he was aware of his presence Jacobsen did not acknowledge the Grey Death Legion Marine that now loomed over him, to do so would interrupt the sacred rites and possibly injure it`s spirit.

The grey and orange armoured marine took off his helmet and inspected it for battle damage watching the Techpriest with some interest. Without warning he lifted his ceramite armoured boot and slammed the heel down heavy on the side of the skimmer. The weathered grey paint flaked where the impact had clearly left a large dent in it`s side.

Jacobsen stared open mouthed in total disbelief, unable to contain his horror at such an act of sacrilege.

A slow whining noise could be heard from within the machine, it began to increase in speed as the sensor lights flickered on and it lifted up out of the mud.

The Marine put his hand on the Tech Priest`s shoulder as he leant forward.

"You Iron Hands are great warriors" he paused as he put his helmet back on "but you sure got a lot to learn about machines." And with that he turned and trudged off towards the battle front to rejoin his Cohort.

 

Doctrine and Beliefs

These tend to vary from Cohort to Cohort depending on the planet of origin of it's Brothers.

One common ideal that bonds the Brothers of the Chapter is an insatiable thirst for innovation. Whether this comes from their ancestors on Davinci or is a flaw in their geneseed is unclear, however they seem to possess an ability for invention and understanding of technology long thought to have been forgotten.

Wary of the ever watchful eyes of the Inquisiton and their suspicions of the betrayal of the Adeptus Mechanicus they are keen to protect such secrets from others.

It is suspected amongst some members of the Adeptus Mechanicus that the Chapter's Masters believe that they are the guardians of the STC and that they are waiting for the Second Golden Age of Mankind and the return of the Emperor.

Many temples have been established on otherwise barren and inhospitable worlds that some believe may very well house fabled STC Libraries that date back to the Dark Age of Technology.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/juddski/Anargo%20worlds/GDLegion/GDmrelic.jpg

---Xenos Artifact by coss

 

Cohort Example

 

Second Company Forth Cohort

Recruitment World: Tavakor

Chapter Trait Advantages: Trust Your Battle Brothers, Scions of Mars

Chapter Trait Major Drawback: Eye to Eye

Chapter Trait Minor Drawback: We Stand Alone

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/GreyDeath2.jpg

 

Captain Nathaniel Volt

Captain Volt commanded the Forth Cohort of the Second Company from 453.M37 to 663.M37.

After he was fatally wounded during the Fourth War of Detrimus Two he was placed in one of the Chapter's ancient Dreadnoughts and given the great honour of becoming one of the Temple Guardians of a fabled STC Library.

 

Forth Cohort Organisation

 

Grey Death Legion Tactical Squad: Codex Pattern

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/aaaa.jpg

 

The Forth Cohort consisted of sixty Battle Brothers making up three Tactical squads, one Assault squad and one Devastator squad. The final squad consisted of a unit of Cohort Veterans. The Veteran squads of the Cohorts vary tremendously in both equipment and organisation, some specialise in infiltration, some specialise in tank hunting or represent some martial prowess of the Cohort's recruitment base. The Veteran squad of the Fourth Cohort was designated as an Explorator Squad. Their objective was to seek out rumours of locations of lost STC records and often employed the services of human mercenaries to aid them in their quest.

The Cohort also had access to a formidable arsenal of vehicles including several specialised Rhinos, four Annihilator pattern Predators, two Redeemer pattern Predators and a Siege Dreadnought, Venerable Brother Mathiatan.

 

Grey Death Legion Tactical Squad: Second Company, Fourth Cohort Pattern M37

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/aaa.jpg

 

 

Cohort Master Heraldry

 

Captain Kurt Lohard

3rd Company 6th Cohort M40

 

Chapter Trait Advantages: Heed The Wisdom Of The Ancients

Chapter Trait Major Drawback: None

Chapter Trait Minor Drawback: Have Faith In Suspicion

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/Wipwings.jpg

 

 

Lord Harkon Kreig

6th Company 5th Cohort M39

 

Chapter Trait Advantages: Blessed Be The Warriors, No Mercy, No Respite

Chapter Trait Major Drawback: Flesh Over Steel

Chapter Trait Minor Drawback: None

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/wipHammer.jpg

 

 

Credits

 

Chapter Background and Graphics: Doghouse

 

Artwork: Coss

 

Chapter Icon: Dominar Mortis

 

Captain Lohard Heraldry: Tubal

 

With special thanks to Greydeath for letting me loose on this project in the first place.

 

 

 

Just a little background to how this Chapter came about (yeah, I know that Grey Death Legion was a battletech army :P ).

Basically I had to come up with an army for converters, something that'd stay within the boundaries of the forty kay universe but allow players total freedom to go nuts with convertions.

It's called the Grey Death Legion after the board's creator Greydeath (never hurts to suck up to the boss... :P ).

The colour scheme comes for the board itselfs colours.

 

Painting Guide

 

(STILL ROUGH DRAFT WHILST I SORT OUT SOME PROPER MINIS, INSIGNIA, ETC. THESE EXAMPLES ARE JUST QUICK PAINTJOBS I WHACKED TOGETHER).

 

Colour Scheme

 

Although the Chapter colours are Orange and Grey there is no real hard and fast rule saying that you have to stick to this specific colour scheme.

Purists out there will probably want to get as close to the "official Codex" scheme however there are those who will undoubtably want to do some thing a little different.

There are several ways of painting the Grey Death Legion. First off there is the codex pattern and it's variations.

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/Doghouse12/SolConspiracy045.jpg

 

The Marine on the left bares the official Codex pattern colour scheme as follows.

 

Helmet: Orange

Torso & Groin Guard: Orange

Breastplate (chest eagle/aquilla): Metalic silver

Backpack: Grey with metallic silver nozzles and exhaust vents.

Pauldrons (shoulderpads): Grey with Orange trim. Black unit insignia

Cuisses (Thigh armour): Grey

Poleyns (knee pads) and Greaves (Lower leg armour): Grey

Sabatons (boots/armoured shoe): Grey

 

The Marine on the right bares a sanctified variant of the Chapter's Codex pattern of which there are a number of variants.

 

Helmet: Orange

Torso & Groin Guard: Orange

Backpack: Orange with metallic nozzles and exhaust vents.

Pauldrons (shoulderpads): Orange. Black unit insignia

Cuisses (Thigh armour): Orange

Poleyns (knee pads) and Greaves (Lower leg armour): Grey

Sabatons (boots/armoured shoe): Grey

 

For the Orange I painted a Blazing Orange base coat over a Chaos Black undercoat. I then went over the base coat with a fifty fifty mix of Blazing Orange and Fiery Orange leaving Blazing Orange in the recesses. I then highlighted with Fiery Orange.

 

For the Grey I started with a base coat of Shadow Grey over a Chaos Black undercoat. I then painted a seventy five twenty five mix (three parts SG to one part SWG) of Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey over that leaving Shadow Grey in the recesses. I then highlighted with a fifty fifty mix of Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey.

 

The easiest way of preparing the mixes is to use the empty mixing pots. For a fifty fifty mix fill a paint pot up to halfway with one colour then add the second colour.

For a seventy five twenty five mix fill a pot up to three quarters full then add the second required colour. Shake thoroughly untill the colour is a solid uniform colour and has no streaks.

Just be sure as to mark each pot with it's contents so that you know which are base coats and which are highlights.

This will allow you to paint an army with consistant colours throughout and is especially handy for painting large vehicles.

 

This is not however set in stone, after all the marines are your army and Cohort traditions can vary from homeworld to homeworld. So as long as the Chapter Icon is present then you could pretty much do what you want.

 

For the codex anything goes really, you can stick to the Codex: Space Marine and design your own Cohort using the Traits system or use another Codex like Codex: Blood Angels.

Other Codexes allow you to further expand your Cohorts background. For example say that your Cohort is from a fuedal world ruled by a knightly order then you could use Codex: Black Templars. Or if you wanted barbaric feel to your army then you could use Codex: Space Wolves. It's up to you how you represent the Legion with your Cohort.

However this should be done in the spirit of the game, ideally once you've chosen a codex it's best to stick to it so that your opponents know exactly who they are fighting. The other side to this is that should stick to one codex then your models acan be themed to suit that codex.

 

The Traitor Companies

As suggested in the Chapter Background material the Gred Death Legion is not just restricted to the Imperial Players out there. A dark chapter in their history tells of Brothers that thought that the Emperor had turned his back on them after the destruction of their homeworld. Some turned renegade forming bands of mercenaries and brigands that roam the Maelstrom even to this day.

Others turned to the ruinious powers of chaos becoming mighty champions hell bent on revenge on their weaker Brothers that remained loyal to the Emperor.

The colours work pretty much in the same way as the Pre-Heresy stuff for the First Founding Chapters. These are refered to as the chapter's Pre-Reformation colours as they predate the era that can after the Age of Apostatey known as the Reformation in Imperial history.

 

The Pre-Reformation colours were:

 

Helmet: Red (Gold for sergeants and officers)

Torso & Groin Guard: Red (gold for Captains)

Backpack: Red with metallic nozzles and exhaust vents.

Pauldrons (shoulderpads): Red with Gold trim. Black unit insignia

Cuisses (Thigh armour): Red

Poleyns (knee pads) and Greaves (Lower leg armour): Red

Sabatons (boots/armoured shoe): Red

 

For the Codex you can use either the Codex Space Marines to represent renegades or Codex Chaos Marines to represent either traitors or renegades.

Pre-Reformation organisation was standard Codex, ie; one hundred marines to a Company, ten squads to a Company, etc. The Cohort structure was not introduced untill after the destruction of their homeworld.

Insignia vary but most still use the original chapter icon, although it has been noted that some chaos marines have replaced the cog with an eight pointed star and the spanner with a trident.

[Aurelius Rex]

Grey Death is a popular name, it seems. Is it any relation to Race Bannon's Gray Death DIY chapter? :P

[Hemal]

I think it has links to Battletech? Anyway, the first few pics are too big - best off posting links or else make them smaller..

 

Also, doing a quick bit of maths, each cohort is roughly 20-60 battle-brother? In which case i'd fix the size of a company to no larger than 150 marines, otherwise chapter size will be well above Codex..

[Brother Chaplain Darius]

I think it has links to Battletech? Anyway, the first few pics are too big - best off posting links or else make them smaller..

 

Also, doing a quick bit of maths, each cohort is roughly 20-60 battle-brother? In which case i'd fix the size of a company to no larger than 150 marines, otherwise chapter size will be well above Codex..

 

Indeed, Grey Death Legion was a name of a Mercenary group in the "Battletech" book series. However, the name is (imo) Gothic enough for WH40k. It certainly has an excellent ring.