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I was wondering how other players tackle this.


Let's say you are playing the Dragonspears, a successor chapter to the Salamanders.


You want to add Vulkan He'stan to your army. Do you:


A) Paint him up as normal (1st Company Salamanders), but base him like the rest of your army so he looks like he belongs (The Salamanders Forgefather is visiting your army.)


B) Paint him up as a member of your army. (That's not Vulkan He'stan, that's Vul'kan Hes'tan, the Dragonspears' Forgefather!)

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was wondering how other players tackle this.


Let's say you are playing the Dragonspears, a successor chapter to the Salamanders.


You want to add Vulkan He'stan to your army. Do you:


A) Paint him up as normal (1st Company Salamanders), but base him like the rest of your army so he looks like he belongs (The Salamanders Forgefather is visiting your army.)


B) Paint him up as a member of your army. (That's not Vulkan He'stan, that's Vul'kan Hes'tan, the Dragonspears' Forgefather!)

The GW answer is, "Vulkan He'stan is a captain of the Salamanders, not any of their successor chapters." In fact, they explicitly state this position in the codex supplements.

That said, I'm in the 'do what you want' camp.

I liked it in the 5th ed SM codex they explicitly encouraged you to file the names off the special characters and make them fit your army.

As long as you don’t cross the streams and have 2 separate chapter locked units in the same army, go for it. Kitbash, make up your own lore. Rule Of Cool covers a lot of sins.

I don't care what color you paint your Minis.
Or what you call them.

But if you're using a faction locked character as that character?
Then I expect you to be using the appropriate RULES for that faction.
Unless you tell me "No, that's not ____. I just liked the model."
Or we've agreed on some sort of narrative scenario/ally rules ahead of time.

Same applies to faction locked units & vehicles.

Really this is only an issue with Marines. And mostly with loyalist marines at that.

What do I do?
Most often I (eventually) paint the named characters in their appropriate colors.

ccs wrote:
I don't care what color you paint your Minis.
Or what you call them.

But if you're using a faction locked character as that character?
Then I expect you to be using the appropriate RULES for that faction.
Unless you tell me "No, that's not ____. I just liked the model."
Or we've agreed on some sort of narrative scenario/ally rules ahead of time.

Same applies to faction locked units & vehicles.

Really this is only an issue with Marines. And mostly with loyalist marines at that.

What do I do?
Most often I (eventually) paint the named characters in their appropriate colors.

Just so I follow.

Example:

I am running the Dragonspears, a successor chapter to the Salamanders. I am using them as Salamanders using the Forgefather's Seekers Detachment.

But if I want to use Vulkan He'stan, I should paint him up in his Salamander colors?

Or are you saying I shouldn't use him at all, unles I have my army painted as Salamanders?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

ccs wrote:
I don't care what color you paint your Minis.
Or what you call them.

But if you're using a faction locked character as that character?
Then I expect you to be using the appropriate RULES for that faction.
Unless you tell me "No, that's not ____. I just liked the model."
Or we've agreed on some sort of narrative scenario/ally rules ahead of time.

Same applies to faction locked units & vehicles.

Really this is only an issue with Marines. And mostly with loyalist marines at that.

What do I do?
Most often I (eventually) paint the named characters in their appropriate colors.

Just so I follow.

Example:

I am running the Dragonspears, a successor chapter to the Salamanders. I am using them as Salamanders using the Forgefather's Seekers Detachment.

But if I want to use Vulkan He'stan, I should paint him up in his Salamander colors?

Or are you saying I shouldn't use him at all, unles I have my army painted as Salamanders?

They're saying don't break the rules
If your army is using salamanders rules with a salamander character - paint him as you wish.
If your army is using Space Wolves rules but is painted salamanders - do as you like.
But if your army has a Space Wolves char with space wolves rules and a salamanders char with salamander rules, that's a no no because current rules don’t like that. Use your Ragnar Mini as some Sally captain instead.
That's the way I read it and it's a sensible approach.

I think its up to you to do what you think fits best. Do you want him to be calling upon the Dragonspears who have come to his aid to follow in the purging of a great foe? Is he visiting the Dragonspears as part of a tour of duty where he's chosen to have his armor repainted as a sign of respect? It's really up to you how you want to justify it.

Personally, I'm a fan of giving everyone their tour of duty with the Deathwatch:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

ccs wrote:
I don't care what color you paint your Minis.
Or what you call them.

But if you're using a faction locked character as that character?
Then I expect you to be using the appropriate RULES for that faction.
Unless you tell me "No, that's not ____. I just liked the model."
Or we've agreed on some sort of narrative scenario/ally rules ahead of time.

Same applies to faction locked units & vehicles.

Really this is only an issue with Marines. And mostly with loyalist marines at that.

What do I do?
Most often I (eventually) paint the named characters in their appropriate colors.

Just so I follow.

Example:

I am running the Dragonspears, a successor chapter to the Salamanders. I am using them as Salamanders using the Forgefather's Seekers Detachment.

But if I want to use Vulkan He'stan, I should paint him up in his Salamander colors?

Or are you saying I shouldn't use him at all, unles I have my army painted as Salamanders?

The detachment does not make your army Salamanders. Using Vulkans stat card - no matter what you choose to call him, or how you paint him, - is what makes your army Salamanders.
Grey plastic, traditional schemes, neon pink, etc? In the end they'll still be Salamanders if you use Vulkan's stat card. So paint 'em however you please.

Me personally? Like I said, I'd eventually* paint Vulkan in his traditional green/black scheme.
*1st though he'd spend 3+ years simply primed Corax White as I'm a terribly slow painter.... Eventually though.

It looks like this is going to be a moot point...

As the Internet cannot decide what color the Dragonspears actually are supposed to be.

I've spent three hours and so far no one agrees....

Plus... I'm having trouble finding the emblems, as I will want to slap them on to the 35 Infernus Marines I'm trying to buy.

I have such a difficult time hitting my opponents... setting them on fire seems so much simpler.

They're a Cyan. Emblem is a shield with crossed spears on it. The main thing people can't agree on is if its more of a blue or more of a green Cyan.

Here's what I would do.

Paint Vulkan in Salamanders colors.
Paint his "command squad" or whatever squad he hangs out with in Salamanders colors.

Keep the rest of the army the colors for the successor chapter.
Then what you have is a "Salamanders joint operation with a successor chapter".

BanjoJohn wrote:
Here's what I would do.

Paint Vulkan in Salamanders colors.
Paint his "command squad" or whatever squad he hangs out with in Salamanders colors.

Keep the rest of the army the colors for the successor chapter.
Then what you have is a "Salamanders joint operation with a successor chapter".

That's actually a pretty good idea. I was thinking of giving him the "Company Heroes" to hang out with.

This way, him and his team are being assisted by the successor chapter.

That might work.

 Nevelon wrote:
I liked it in the 5th ed SM codex they explicitly encouraged you to file the names off the special characters and make them fit your army.

As long as you don’t cross the streams and have 2 separate chapter locked units in the same army, go for it. Kitbash, make up your own lore. Rule Of Cool covers a lot of sins.

This is my preferred approach. If I want to frequently use a named character's datasheet but it doesn't particularly make sense to have that actual character hanging out with my army, then I'll write fluff about my own bespoke character and why his fighting style happens to be kind of similar to that of a named character. Maybe even kitbash a cool model together to represent them. One of the projects on my to-do list is to kitbash together a primaris Alpha Legion guy so that my Alpha Legion army (which uses loyalist primaris marine rules) can utilize the rules for Shrike or the named guy as I see fit. But that's not Shrike falling in with a bad crowd, no. That's... uh... Verneus Wyv, a brother of the legion who spent a little too much time on a corrupted space hulk and came away with leathery wings and supernaturally potent melee prowess thanks to the fiendish spirit corrupting him from within!

But as others have said, I wouldn't field a "Raven Guard" datasheet in the same army as a "Space Wolves" datasheet.

I'd mash em up a bit make them still obviously character X but in the style of the army.

Did that for my Khorne lads back in the day when I wanted an Abbadon but didn't want to use actual Abbadon. Still had the fancy Chaos sword and a scratch built Talon but he was very much not Abbadon.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
It looks like this is going to be a moot point...

As the Internet cannot decide what color the Dragonspears actually are supposed to be.

I've spent three hours and so far no one agrees....

Plus... I'm having trouble finding the emblems, as I will want to slap them on to the 35 Infernus Marines I'm trying to buy.

I have such a difficult time hitting my opponents... setting them on fire seems so much simpler.

Look for 3D printed symbols. You can either print them yourself, or pay someone else to do it. I imagine someone has already made the template, but if not you could also ask on the 3D plan sites and someone will make them and you can buy the plan.

Edit to Add: The SM Codex has a rule called Space Marine Chapters.

If your an ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit has a second Faction Keyword....(yadda yadda) That Faction Keyword is the name of the unit's Chapter

You cannot include units from more than one chapter.

And more Yadda Yadda about Black Templars, Space Wolves and Deathwatch that don't apply.

What happens in the rules is: Your army is faction is Adeptus Astartes. The rest of your guys technically don't have the Salamanders keyword, and won't have the Dragonspears keyword either, They are - as far as the rules go - not from any chapter -so they don't have any other Faction Keywords and the rules don't care. I don't think any left over Special Characters require units with their own/matching Faction Keywords. You could make an army with 3 Blue Tactical Squads, 2 Red Assault Squads, and 2 Yellow Aggressor Squads all led by Tor Garadon. Your Army Faction is Adeptus Astartes, and you may only include other units with the Imperial Fists Faction Keyword or No Faction Keyword. You can only use the generic detachments and/or exclusive to Imperial Fists (because the detachments will say Your Army may include XYZ units but it cannot include Adeptus Astartes units drawn from any other Chapter.

Am I right in thinking there aren't actually any chapter rules any more, and that the chapter literally doesn't matter other than preventing different chapters from mixing as mentioned above?

Crispy78 wrote:
Am I right in thinking there aren't actually any chapter rules any more, and that the chapter literally doesn't matter other than preventing different chapters from mixing as mentioned above?

Pretty much. That, and using bespoke chapter-specific units turns off the +1 to-wound part of Oath of Moment. At least, bespoke units specific to BA, SW, DA, and (I assume) DW.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Am I right in thinking there aren't actually any chapter rules any more, and that the chapter literally doesn't matter other than preventing different chapters from mixing as mentioned above?

Pretty much. That, and using bespoke chapter-specific units turns off the +1 to-wound part of Oath of Moment. At least, bespoke units specific to BA, SW, DA, and (I assume) DW.

I wonder if Ultramarines are going to get added to the “no +1 to wound for you!” List at some point. We don’t have a lot of chapter locked units, but have the victrix guard now. And a shed load of named characters. Compared to the other vanilla chapters that only have a couple characters.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Am I right in thinking there aren't actually any chapter rules any more, and that the chapter literally doesn't matter other than preventing different chapters from mixing as mentioned above?

Pretty much. That, and using bespoke chapter-specific units turns off the +1 to-wound part of Oath of Moment. At least, bespoke units specific to BA, SW, DA, and (I assume) DW.

Deathwatch is on the list. Note that BA, SW, DA, BT and DW specific detachments also disable the Wound bonus even if you don't have any of the specific units.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Am I right in thinking there aren't actually any chapter rules any more, and that the chapter literally doesn't matter other than preventing different chapters from mixing as mentioned above?

Pretty much. That, and using bespoke chapter-specific units turns off the +1 to-wound part of Oath of Moment. At least, bespoke units specific to BA, SW, DA, and (I assume) DW.

I wonder if Ultramarines are going to get added to the “no +1 to wound for you!” List at some point. We don’t have a lot of chapter locked units, but have the victrix guard now. And a shed load of named characters. Compared to the other vanilla chapters that only have a couple characters.

I've been saying they probably *should* be on the list since the list was introduced for that very reason. Smurfs have enough named characters and a couple other bespoke units to put them pretty close to the other chapters in terms of special units. So if the idea is that the +1 to-wound is there to make up for a vanilla army's lack of options compared to one of the marine+ chapters, smurfs should *probably* be on the list.

That said, I suspect they *won't* make it onto the list purely because they're framed as the default chapter and thus "surely" must deserve any and all vanilla marine benefits, right? Ignore the primarch, pile of special characters, and handful of UM-specific units standing over there.

Rather bemused by the idea that vanilla marines are remotely lacking in options...

The volume and quality of your special units has always been sketchy, but we made up for it with characters.

Not sure if it’s enough to put us on the same level of the other big name chapters, which also have a number of characters, plus a solid roster of units.

On the scale of Iron Hands to Space Wolves we are definitely somewhere in the middle, but where do you draw the line where the chapter specific options warrant dropping the generic bonus?

As someone who owns but rarely fields the named options, I’m happy keeping it. But people who spam/leverage them, do they need it?

Marines in general need a wound fixer. Full rerolls was too strong at the start of the edition but since they were designed with it in mind they really struggled without something. They built solutions into the non-compliant codexes (particularly Blood Angels) and then went back to try and add something unique to the compliant options. It's really about having a Wound roll solution more than anything to do with unique units, which Ultramarines still don't have (nor to Raven Guard for that matter).

Of note, this is also what's wrong with Assault Cannons as a weapon class, which were almost entirely designed with wound rerolls in mind.

I mean, on paper, I see the concept.

Here's your book of vanilla marines.

Now here's your marine+ chapter that can use everything the vanilla marines have (except named characters) while also having additional units and detachments to choose from.

Options theoretically mean synergies mean power, so the faction that has everything vanilla marines do plus a bit more is presumably stronger than vanilla marines.

So then you go back and give vanilla marines something to compensate them for that difference in power so that they don't just feel like worse versions of Blood Angels or whomever.

Now in practice, I'm not sure if SW are actually considered to have much of a boost from their bespoke options. My understanding is that most of the wolf-specific units are just sidegrades or downgrades compared to their vanilla counterparts and that the detachments are a bit meh. So you could probably make the case that more options don't always = more power.

The volume and quality of your special units has always been sketchy, but we made up for it with characters.

Not sure if it’s enough to put us on the same level of the other big name chapters, which also have a number of characters, plus a solid roster of units.

On the scale of Iron Hands to Space Wolves we are definitely somewhere in the middle, but where do you draw the line where the chapter specific options warrant dropping the generic bonus?

As someone who owns but rarely fields the named options, I’m happy keeping it. But people who spam/leverage them, do they need it?

So technically, the rule only takes away the +1 to-wound if you use bespoke detachments or bespoke units. So hypothetically, applying that same rule to Ultramarines would mean that armies that don't run bespoke units would still get the +1.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So technically, the rule only takes away the +1 to-wound if you use bespoke detachments or bespoke units. So hypothetically, applying that same rule to Ultramarines would mean that armies that don't run bespoke units would still get the +1.

I'm okay with adding Ultramarines to the list, because then it'll make people think twice before just doubling down on taking Guilliman and Calgar.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So technically, the rule only takes away the +1 to-wound if you use bespoke detachments or bespoke units. So hypothetically, applying that same rule to Ultramarines would mean that armies that don't run bespoke units would still get the +1.

Ultimately this comes down to optimization and which choice you wish to make optimal. If you take away the +1 if you take an Ultramarine character, then the characters have to provide something equivalent to a +1 wound bonus to the army rule. That's theoretically possible, but practically you're almost certainly going to be in a situation where all your unique characters are simply sub-optimal.

That was actually the situation they originally created for the divergent chapters. +1 wound when added to their detachments, was better than their bespoke units. Taking the things that defined those chapters made them weaker. As it currently stands, the unique units plus the unique detachments is proving to be worth as much or more than the +1 wound bonus. Interesting enough, Black Templars unique army rule and units has proven to be on par with the bonus, even if their unique detachments have not.

I'm not sure there's really a great option. Theoretically any chapter character is more options than nothing but very few can be transformative enough to be worth sacrificing a significant chunk of your army rule. I'm not even sure the Raven Guard could stand to lose it, let alone Iron Hands or Imperial Fists. They're good characters, but they're definitely not THAT good and taking them crippling your army would definitely feel pretty bad.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
and handful of UM-specific units standing over there.

There's only the one UM Specific unit now, because it was just added in the last pre-order. All the units (assuming you mean squads) that existed before were squatted with the edition change. They do still have a number of special characters the other "compliant" chapters don't, but the solution there is to finish creating them for the other complaint's.

Tyranic war vets were proto-sternguard, but once sternguard were out were worse (unless you were specifically list tailoring against nids, but why?)

You could briefly field the sword and board victrix guard that came with Calgar separately.

Basic honor guard have drifted around between UM only, anyone can have them, and legends over the years.

Now we have the new Victrix with blade and bolter.

And a zillion characters…

 Nevelon wrote:
Tyranic war vets were proto-sternguard, but once sternguard were out were worse (unless you were specifically list tailoring against nids, but why?)

You could briefly field the sword and board victrix guard that came with Calgar separately.

Basic honor guard have drifted around between UM only, anyone can have them, and legends over the years.

Now we have the new Victrix with blade and bolter.

And a zillion characters…

But you need one more and I would jump ship and play Ultramarines: Malum Caedo.

FWIW I'd paint up the character in your armies colours. I think "I've just happened to show up on my own and ended up in another army" is a bit weird/clashing.

I'd also be happy with you kitbashing and counts-as, providing there's no blatant modelling for advantage.