Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I get the whole breaking up into different legions thing brought on by Roboute but I'm wondering this. After that, would it be lore accurate to pla the IF, Uam, BA, WS etc.? Wouldn't you technically be paying a successor? And I know that with the wolves and DA that technically they are just one big successor chapter to give the middle finger to Roboute, but of the ones that truly did break apart what's the deal?

Roboute : "Guys, we're too many people."
Veteran #1 : "WhaaaAAAaaaat ?"
Roboute : "Ok, #1. you'll change your color to green and you'll be the Megamarines. Take a 1000 men with you."
Veteran #2 : "Argh."
Roboute : "Glad to see you stepping up, #2. You'll change your color to pink and you'll be the Flower Marines. Take a 1000 men with you."

And sunch until you have only 1000 Marines left in blue.

Veteran #345 : "Dear holy OMGyoureawesome Lord Roboute, I am glad with the green shoulders / pink knees / yellow torso / violet everything else. But 2 points : Coming with a name for my overcolored chapter will be hard, and what about you?"
Roboute : "I will always be there to help you #345. So you shall be called the Psychedelic Avangers. Since I gave you your chapter and your name, I may call you for assistance any time I need. My man Marneus here will be able to call you too. And as for me, I'll keep the 1000 Marines left, the cool blue color scheme, and of course the name Ultramarines (associated with all the goodies we sell on Ultramar - please buy a T-shirt or a mug before you go find you own home planet).

It basically went down like that.
Every primarch and/or chapter master did the same to thin the number of their chapter to 1000. Except BT which are badass enough to not respect Roboute and be a lot more.


To answer your original question : yes, the original chapters still exist and still wear their original color and names. So it is lore accurate to play them, as long as you do not field 1001 Ultramarines or more.
1001 Black Templars would be lore-ok.

The Space Wolves are a single successor not as an FU to Guilliman, but because they lacked the size to split up at the end of the Heresy (if I remember right), and their subsequent attempts at founding new chapters didn't go so hot (lots of werewolves). I think they are over-strength anyway though, and that IS a result of them not really following the Codex.

As for the Dark Angels, they did split up, and their successors are nominally independent chapters. However, the higher echelon members of the successor chapters are still part of The Inner Circle, so their leadership is still partly linked. But they aren't one big chapter, just a bunch of separate chapters who coordinate loosely to hunt The Fallen.

Seb wrote:badass enough to not respect Roboute

"Badass" or just "stubborn", you be the judge.

(for the record, I do think Templars are badass, but not because of some rebellious attitude that just seems to be "hip" these days)

My understanding of it was that aside from the 20 original primarchs and their chapters, other SM chapters were successor chapter that came about from the second founding, and then there was also a third founding. Chapters tend to remain close to the chapter they spawned from, though.

There has been lots of subsequent foundings, actually. So many that quite a few Chapters can no longer be accurately identified by their founding or parent chapter.

BLOODCLAWallday wrote: And I know that with the wolves and DA that technically they are just one big successor chapter to give the middle finger to Roboute,

The Dark Angels did split, they just kept closer ties to their Successors than some other Legions, due to their big, dark secret.

The Space Wolves didn't refuse to split to spite Guiliman. There just weren't enough of them left to split off.

Seb wrote:Every primarch and/or chapter master did the same to thin the number of their chapter to 1000. Except BT which are badass enough to not respect Roboute and be a lot more.

Uh, BT were a successor of the Imperial Fists... and were originally 1000 just like the others.

Seb wrote:
Veteran #345 : "Dear holy OMGyoureawesome Lord Roboute, I am glad with the green shoulders / pink knees / yellow torso / violet everything else. But 2 points : Coming with a name for my overcolored chapter will be hard, and what about you?"
Roboute : "I will always be there to help you #345. So you shall be called the Psychedelic Avangers.

Hahahaha, oh man. When I'm done painting up GK for Adepticon, I just might have to repaint my Relictors. I think I've found my homebrew.

Seb wrote:Roboute : "Guys, we're too many people."
Veteran #1 : "WhaaaAAAaaaat ?"
Roboute : "Ok, #1. you'll change your color to green and you'll be the Megamarines. Take a 1000 men with you."
Veteran #2 : "Argh."
Roboute : "Glad to see you stepping up, #2. You'll change your color to pink and you'll be the Flower Marines. Take a 1000 men with you."

And sunch until you have only 1000 Marines left in blue.

Veteran #345 : "Dear holy OMGyoureawesome Lord Roboute, I am glad with the green shoulders / pink knees / yellow torso / violet everything else. But 2 points : Coming with a name for my overcolored chapter will be hard, and what about you?"
Roboute : "I will always be there to help you #345. So you shall be called the Psychedelic Avangers. Since I gave you your chapter and your name, I may call you for assistance any time I need. My man Marneus here will be able to call you too. And as for me, I'll keep the 1000 Marines left, the cool blue color scheme, and of course the name Ultramarines (associated with all the goodies we sell on Ultramar - please buy a T-shirt or a mug before you go find you own home planet).

It basically went down like that.
Every primarch and/or chapter master did the same to thin the number of their chapter to 1000. Except BT which are badass enough to not respect Roboute and be a lot more.


To answer your original question : yes, the original chapters still exist and still wear their original color and names. So it is lore accurate to play them, as long as you do not field 1001 Ultramarines or more.
1001 Black Templars would be lore-ok.

This is pretty much entirely wrong... At the time that the legions were split into chapters, there really weren't that many marines left, they had pretty much destroyed their numbers during the Heresy. Besides that, the legions weren't necessarily split into chapters of 1000, some were split into chapters of thousands (from what I gather, it was along existing organizational lines within the legions) because they were still too weak and disorganized following the Heresy to be able to function as cohesive military forces otherwise. The expectation was that they would re-organize at the chapter level rather than at the legion level and then split into further chapters. This is why the Black Templars (an Imperial Fist successor) maintain such large numbers, they simply remained the size they were at the time of the Second Founding rather than splitting into smaller chapters during the third founding. Another example of this was the Space Wolves/Wolf Brothers. The Wolves were to be split in half, one remaining the Space Wolves, the other becoming the Wolf Brothers. If this is true, then the Wolf Brothers would have numbered approx. 2-3 thousand marines...

Seb wrote:
To answer your original question : yes, the original chapters still exist and still wear their original color and names. So it is lore accurate to play them, as long as you do not field 1001 Ultramarines or more.

There's approximately 1500-1600 Ultramarines.

A Codex chapter has 9 companies of 100 guys. Outside of those 900 are a scout company of undetermined size, command staff for all those companies (not part of the 100), chaplains, librarians, chapter command staff, apothecaries, techmarines, and all vehicle pilots, operators, and naval specialists.

chaos0xomega wrote:Besides that, the legions weren't necessarily split into chapters of 1000, some were split into chapters of thousands (from what I gather, it was along existing organizational lines within the legions) because they were still too weak and disorganized following the Heresy to be able to function as cohesive military forces otherwise. The expectation was that they would re-organize at the chapter level rather than at the legion level and then split into further chapters. This is why the Black Templars (an Imperial Fist successor) maintain such large numbers, they simply remained the size they were at the time of the Second Founding rather than splitting into smaller chapters during the third founding. Another example of this was the Space Wolves/Wolf Brothers. The Wolves were to be split in half, one remaining the Space Wolves, the other becoming the Wolf Brothers. If this is true, then the Wolf Brothers would have numbered approx. 2-3 thousand marines...

No--the whole point of the Chapters was to keep any one person from having authority over something like a Space Marine legion. Same reason that the IN and IG split, and both were taken away from Asartes control. The Second Founding chapters were all in the 1,000 Marine range.

The Templars maintain large numbers because they don't have the same centralized organization as the other Chapters. Instead of a single force recruiting into a single pool, the Templars are several effectively independent fighting forces recruiting on opposite sides of the galaxy. It's effectively impossible to get a head count of Templars, and they're never united into a single fighting force, so they dodge the limits on Chapter strength.

Yeah, no the second founding chapters were mostly above or below barring the Ultramarine successors. It wasn't the neat even split that people make it out to be.

Plenty of below, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that second foundings could start above 1,000.

From 'dexes i've got a feeling that 2nd Founding was mostly breaking along existing chapter lines - though pre-Heresy this was leftover from Thunder Warrior regimental structure somehow passed to Ultramarines and possibly others (see "Know No Fear"). In reality i doubt that real strength of most chapters then was Codex-stated 1000 from the start, more likely they used same pattern as "current" new chapters use - got a cadre of veterans/COs plus geneseed supply and new aspirants, then some time later grow up to operational strength.

What's interest me in current situation is do related chapters assist each other in other ways than on battlefield. BA successors afair helped parent chapter with unimplanted aspirants, and i assume that weapon/tech can be gifted by any chapter to their friends/allies, but can say Ultras send "stock" geneseed to younger chapter on brink of destruction or chapter have got to do with geneseed from founding/harvesting? Of course assuming that younger chapter posses no wastly different traits which will make this unwise.

A chapter would never send geneseed to another chapter.

If a chapter is on the brink they can petition the AdMech for some of their own geneseed. Since the chapter has to send continual tithes to the Admech for testing and storage they will have some to send back if needed. Off hand I can't remember is a fluff story actually involving this though.

Crimson Fists though would be a prime example of when this might happen though since they lost the majority of the chapter, their recruits, and all of their own stored geneseed in the explosion.

Have the crimson fists resurged yet or are they still teetering somewhat

BLOODCLAWallday wrote:Have the crimson fists resurged yet or are they still teetering somewhat

I don't know if there is any fluff after the takeback of their homeworld. No matter what it will take them along time to get up to full strength. Long enough that I don't think they ever will fluff wise.

As for the Space Wolves they had an elaborate plan. The Wolf Brothers were just them trying to gain a Space Empire like the smurfs. But Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons had other plans. The SW was to have one chapter at the differencing fringe planets making the outer walls of a fortress surrounding the IoM as a whole if memory serves. The Thousand Sons ruined that plan unfortunately.

Beaviz81 wrote:As for the Space Wolves they had an elaborate plan. The Wolf Brothers were just them trying to gain a Space Empire like the smurfs. But Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons had other plans. The SW was to have one chapter at the differencing fringe planets making the outer walls of a fortress surrounding the IoM as a whole if memory serves. The Thousand Sons ruined that plan unfortunately.

The Sons of Russ plan was actually to have around a dozen SW chapters surround the Eye of Terror, not the Imperium itself.

Yeah, and many of the Wolf Brothers fell to the ruinous powers.

Beaviz81 wrote:Yeah, and many of the Wolf Brothers fell to the ruinous powers.

They were purged due to genetic instabilities...
The few that were not horribly mutated may or may have not joined Chaos...

purplefood wrote:

Beaviz81 wrote:Yeah, and many of the Wolf Brothers fell to the ruinous powers.

They were purged due to genetic instabilities...
The few that were not horribly mutated may or may have not joined Chaos...

Red corsairs, namely. I see tons of SW corsairs.

BLOODCLAWallday wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Beaviz81 wrote:Yeah, and many of the Wolf Brothers fell to the ruinous powers.

They were purged due to genetic instabilities...
The few that were not horribly mutated may or may have not joined Chaos...

Red corsairs, namely. I see tons of SW corsairs.

And yet the Wolf Brothers are not SW...
The SW cruiser 'Wolf of Fenris' was captured when several SW turned against their brethren. That's why.
There are very few accounts of Wolf Brothers outside of the note saying they were wiped.