Input for my Homebrew Chapter

[blak43]

Ok so I've been working on my own space marine chapter and would really appreciate some input to help me pound out the rough spots, here we go:

Chapter Name: Brotherhood of the Lost Angels (The Lost Angels for short.)
Chapter Colours: Vary based on company and squad
Chapter Symbol: Silver sword descending through a cream halo on a black background
Founding Chapter: Created with elements from multiple first founding legions
Founding: Unofficial
Oldest Records of Chapter: Declared Excomunicatom tratoris shortly after the events of the Horus Heresy
Chapter Master: [Not yet decided]
Chapter Homeworld: Space based, some asteroid bound installations
Estimated Strength: 500-600

So the idea behind the chapter is that it started with a group of marines who were stranded after the traitor attack against terra, trapped in a damaged ship they heard a transmission about the fall of the emperor and came to believe hee was dead, they managed to join up with other thranded marines, rescuing others from damaged vessels and such all eventually coming to agree that the emperor was dead, and when they finally made contact with the imperium again there were... disagreements, and they were declared traitors.
Since then they have survived as pirates while trying to follow the emperor's ideal of a galaxy with humanity at its head, mostly through fighting the enimies of humanity around the imperiums fringes where the IG and regular space marines rarely trouble themselves, though they have never really fallen to chaos, they have definate problems with mutation and gene seed degredation but without the direct influence of the imperium, particularly the mechanicus they have managed to make certain technological advancements, particularly in medical technology and actually reversed minor mutations.

the company breakdown goes as follows:

First company: Elite company (note that theyre are very few suits of terminator armor in the chapter and only two full terminator squads exist)

Second company: the tainted, marines with minor irriversable mutations still deemed accaptable for regular duty

Third and fourth companies: standard battle companies (mostly)

Fifth company: The redeemed, marines who have had mutation corrections (often includes the hacking off of limbs)

Sixth company: Assault reserves

Seventh company: Armored company, all tanks and vehicle crews

Eigth company: Devestator reserves, all heavy and special weapon specialists, sent out in full squads and as additions to tactical companies, each marine is charged with the maintenance of his own singal weapon

Ninth company: The Fallen, marines deemed too corrupt for regular service, similar to death company

Tenth company: Scouts, Due to varience from standerd imperial doctrine and lack of support recruitment presents a definate challange for the chapter, as such the tenth company is a combination of raw recruits and veteran scouts who have maintened this position to fill a required role for the chapter.

[Colonel Bindoff]

So, loyalists who exist beyond the fringe, trying to further the imperium cause whilst being hunted by the emperor's forces?

From a player's POV, how will you run them? Have you decided on a ruleset? Are these vanilla marines with cool conversions or counts as blood angels?

In terms of fluff, I'd want to know how the recruitment works: do they raid innocent worlds pretending to be legit marines or what? Keeping up numbers would be hard when fighting for the imperium and presumably trying to evade loyalist chapters sent in to get the traitors. I'd also like to know what their fighting style is like, particularly if you're saying mixed gene seed origins. And you need a convincing reason why the various elements don't just go back to their home legions when they meet up with them. Astartes blood runs thick and all that.

I do like it when people go for it with the fluff, adds to the game. Keep it up pal

[sonsoftaurus]

Sounds interesting.

May want to cut out the part about being formed from bits of multiple legions. Might work better just to have them as a chapter that went on campaign into the Eye of Terror, Maelstrom or other heavily tainted area and were excommunicated upon their return due to physical taint. If you're wed to the Heresy-based origin though, it could work.

As for recruits/maintenance, I could see them taking two routes at the same time. One, especially targeting rebel worlds and recent renegades, fighting the Imperium's enemies and looting their gear after victory. Two, using the un- and less-tainted marines to masquerade as legit Imperial Space Marines, perhaps even posing as other chapters and requisitioning supplies/recruits from loyalist worlds along the fringes.

[blak43]

Alright, good comments!

In response to the questions about the multiple gene seed origins, the most important element is the belief of the chapter that the emperor is dead. This is a massive gulf in belief between themselves and the general imperial culture, particularly at the begining of the imperial cult, so when they come out of the warp sending transmissions of condolence for the death of the emperor they arn't exactly greeted kindly, as such there arn't really a lot of chances for marines to return to their original legions, though some would likely have found a way anyhow, other's would have tried and failed spectacularly and sort of made everyone else think twice...

As for the recruitment there is definately the added difficulty of needing to talk people out of their worship of the emperor and insure that they're not worshiping anything else. By majority the recruitment does involve raids of imperial worlds and vessels, capturing anyone of an appropriate age to be turned into a space marine and then weeding out the uncapable later on, which would involve a lot of failed candidates becoming labour/servitors to keep the chapters crubling ships running.

There have also definately been attempts to masquerade as official chapters, both as existing chapters to attempt to swindle away supplies and in attempting to disquise the entire chapter as a brand new space marine chapter, generally not very successfully, or at least not successful for very long, sometimes leading to lose more then they gained in the first place as the imperium dogs them all the harder for a while.

As for play style I'm using the vanilla codex for now, working on the third company primarily and a list based around a captain on bike though in the future I may use additional codexs to represent the specializations of the other companies, particularly the chaos codex and maybe blood angels for death company, but avoiding some of the more unique things like obviously no thunderwolves or anything in a chapter like this.

The chapters specific tactics would include a lot of rapid deployment and fast attack blitz type of stuff as they have a certain neccisity towards lightning raids and quick hit and run attacks, obviously they're not going to be holding vast cities against sieges and such, so there will be a lot of mounted and jump elements and less of the units made to stand around all game.

[sonsoftaurus]

Hmm, so they STILL think the Emperor is dead?

Do they have some other explanation for the Astronomicon? Presumably they use it for navigation since they're moving around a lot.

[Foxhound2delta]

So what codex do you run with? Because to me I could see you being able to use either Dark Angels or Blood Angels due to your fluff. I have my chapter as well and I call them the Black Daggers named after the United States Special Operations Command parachute demonstration team. I really liked the name so I borrowed if from them. Aside from the name I keep my chapter/models pretty bland so I can use either the Blood Angels codex or the regular Space Marine one.

[blak43]

@Son of Taurus : Yes they still beleive the emporer is dead, you have to remember they're cut off from normal imperial culture which means no acess to the Navis Nobilite though they may have bred any navigators they had with them at the time of they're excomunication they are still forced to utilize librarians, witches and xenos navigators to guide them through the warp, and have no astropaths, as such their contact with the astronomican is limited and even for those who see the astronomicon well from what I understand it's not exactly like the emperor is having conversations with people over tea, it might be up for a little debate whether it was really him or not from certain angles.

@Foxhound : Love the chapter name. For now I'm using the standard marine book as I'm working on the 3rd company, I plan to expand into some of the other codexes to represent the more specialized sections of the chapter later, particularly the blood angel codex to represent the hit and run style of warfare and for the addition of death company, though I will also look at the new chaos and dark angels codices when they come out and see how I might apply them to the army.

As for the models I'm doing definate conversions and part swaps to represent the chapters equipment foming from a variety of locations (some less official then others.) such as the space marine with assault cannon I made up, he'll probably be a counts as heavy bolter in games.

[awats124]

The only problem i have with this is that amoured companys arent (usually) real companys.

[Foxhound2delta]

When you say: "amoured companys arent (usually) real companys" do you mean in fluff or real life?

[blak43]

I beleive he means in 40k fluff, the standard chapter organization doesn't include the armored corps as a standard company, though for mine I thought the difficulty of aquiring and maintaining tanks and the like that it warented a full company.

And as a more practical reason because I wanted the chapter to be somewhat lacking in tactical marines so a reserve company of them was out of the question and I didn't want to have two companies of either assault or devestaror reserves.

[Malok1013]

Would this chapter be fleet-based? Because I don't really see them having a homeworld, what with being declared Excommunicate Traitoris. But I suppose if it was on some fringe planet on the very edge of the imperium it could work.

[blak43]

Definately fleet based, and potentially some secret asteroid based installations, holding ancient heretic prisoners or whatever else the chapter might want to hide.

[albertsevil]

The 'fluff' looks good. How are they re-arming / getting wargear though? and how do they communicate (if at all) with the Imperium at large? They must have some ways of finding out if planets needs help etc.

If I may be so bold, it's in the background that areas of the Imperium get cut off and are virtually abandoned / independant for long periods due to war storm activity or alien incursion. I'd suggest that your marines make brave the storms etc and make contact with these abandoned planets and sectors - maybe they can re-arm there, gain information and gather new recruits in the form of scouts or guard - the Legions worked far more closely with guard regiments than the 40K Marine chapters do. It also has the knightly image of forlorn warriors, shunned by the Imperium, coming to humanity's defense when the Imperium is not willing to do the same.

Just an idea, but hope that helps.

Ryan