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Alright guys,

I'm looking at colour schemes to paint up the start to my new marine force, have been looking at chapters to use and have narrowed it down to these guys (if I do Raptors, it'll be the original blue / yellow colour scheme).

I've had a look around, with a focus on lexicanum, but was wonderign if anyone here knows anything detailed about either chapter - named characters / chapter tactics... anything that would influence the design and equipment of the chapter?

Help and advice appreciated in advance.

Kitch

aside from lexicanum you could also try visiting warhammer40k.wikia.com, it's another WH40K resource site.

For the sons of orar, I don't know much sorry. I only know they are probably/certainly a successor chapter of the ultras, that they are named after an Ultramarine captain that served during the HH and did some pretty awesome stuff against the Word Bearers on Calth and that they revere this dude as a true hero of the IoM.

I know much more about the raptors though.

They come from the 2nd founding, one of the few chapters that descend from the Raven Guard (hence their insignia and name). They are said to descent from a single Raven Guard scout company that was on training on Deliverance at the time of the Drop Site Massacre. During the HH and the Great Scouring, this company was often sent to work with other Imperial armed forces, as a result, the Raptors have a strong tradition of cooperation with the IG, the Navy, etc. They notably fought during the Taros Campaign, the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion or the badab War, where they always completed their objectives with extreme efficiency.
Their approach to war is rather rational and pragmatic, born from the various occasions where the chapter was brought on the brink of extinction. They are for instance, the only SM chapter that use camouflage as standard (other SM chapters do use camouflage, but only on special circumstances, and it is a rather rare occasion to see SM not wearing their livery). They also prefer long-range turkey-shooting to close-quarter battles. As befits a successor chapter of the Raven Guard, they are experts in scouting and guerrilla warfare.

They keep various homeworlds, all located within the Sutter Spiral Nebula.

Cool man, thanks for that.

I think I'm going to fuse both chapters together somehow, so I can use the omega sign and all those lovely FW Ultramarine models, yet adapt it to the Raptor colour scheme. I'm thinking red main colour with yellow secondary as per the original raptor scheme (yellow shins etc).

Wdyt to a back story of some IoM science types trying to splice the strengths of 2 chapters by gene seed manipulation? The splice didn't work, but as there was already a sub chapter structure in place they were kept in force.

As for why they didn't go back to their original chapters, I understand that both the SoO & Raptors fell off the grid or something...

Does anyone see any gaps in that story would need filling/ further explanation?

Would such a back story make sense?

The Raptors are detailed fairly extensively in Imperial Armour IX, and make a cameo appearance in IV too - basically they're SAS-type marines. I'm not aware that any detailed background has ever been written for the Sons of Orar, though I do hope that we'll meet Captain Orar in one of the Heresy books.

So far as your idea goes, it's your story, but I'd recommend you read up on the cursed founding - tampering with geneseed is one of those things the fluff suggests is uncommon and inevitably turns out badly.

English Assassin wrote:The Raptors are detailed fairly extensively in Imperial Armour IX, and make a cameo appearance in IV too - basically they're SAS-type marines. I'm not aware that any detailed background has ever been written for the Sons of Orar, though I do hope that we'll meet Captain Orar in one of the Heresy books.

Captain Orar is mentioned in one of the short stories in the HH books (I think it was Age of darkness). Not much is said about him except that he's close to Guilliman and is one of the most influential and revered captains in the entire ultramarine Legion (which probably has dozens of different captains). So he must have been a pretty awesome fella.

Oh, I am glad. Now to get around to picking up Age of Darkness...