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The Right Hands of the Emperor.
Imperial Fists Successor.


The Right Hands of the Emperor are a chapter from the 23rd founding of the Adeptus Astartes whose Geneseed was taken from the Imperial Fists. Their early history is layered in glory, successful campaigns against the enemies of the Imperium. Given the planet Arestes in the Segmentum Tempestus as a homeworld and recruiting from the neighbouring feral worlds allowed the Chapter to come to full strength in the almost record time of 460 standard years. Their armour was painted silver to match the basic hand hammered metal armour worn by the feral tribes on their homeworld.

Their speciality was fighting Tyranids, their well rehearsed Bolter drills cutting through thousands of the foul beasts from a distance, the Chapters scouts infiltrated deep behind enemy lines marking targets for the highly trained Devastator Units to use their Missiles and Lascannons to pick out and destroy Synapse creatures sending the hive into disarray. The skill of the Chapters Techamrines at adapting weapons, armour and ammunition to use against the hordes made them one of the only human forces that could rely on having the upper hand against the great devourer. This skill at fighting Tyranids was noticed early in the 41st Millenium by the Ordo Xenos, the chapter having the highest success rate in the sector against the alien plague.

in 999.M41 The Chapter was ordered to mobilise it's full force by the inquisition and travel to Tarsis Ultra to meet with Lord Kryptman and move to intercept the second half of Leviathan, one half of which he had just crushed alongside the Ultramarines.

The Chapters companies that were spread across the Segmentum were recalled to Arestes to rearm and begin loading for their long journey to Tarsis Ultra, on the eve before they left with almost the entire fighting force of the chapter feasting within the halls of the Fortress Monastery and the fleet in low orbit an unidentified Eldar Craftworld emerged from behind the systems Star, it's entire weapons complement was unleashed in one hellish hour upon the fleet and planet below. Despite a valiant attempt the might of the Chapters fleet stood no chance against the planet sized craftworld and fell within minutes. The Eldar vessel then unleashed its lances upon the planet itself, cracking the world under the Marines feet and leaving nothing more than a smouldering group of rocks.

As the Craftworld pulled away a single frigate, the 'Pride of Arestes' dropped out of the warp to see the devastation left behind and the Craftworld enter the warp, on board the remaining Astartes of the Chapter, a strike force taken from the Chapters 1st, 3rd and 10th companies numbering less than 100 souls declared they would not stop until they destroyed the Eldar vessel that had taken their homeworld. The Strike Force had lost it's commander in battle and is now led by the ranking officer, a techmarine named Brother Captain Vale who has put down the tools of the munitorium and donned the last remaining suit of Artificer armour the chapter possesses. Ordering his brothers to paint their armour in black with a single silver fist instead of the chapters traditional silver armour, they believe they should be dead alongside their brothers and live for no other reason than to take revenge. Vale leads his force from the front and always accompanied by the Chapter Standard bearer who wields the Standard of the Dead, a battered and burned banner listing the name of all 897 fallen Right Hands, for each time a Right Hand falls his name is added to the standard and this standard will be wielded by the last standing marine on the day the chapter falls.

They now move from system to system, following hearsay and rumour of the black craftworld, finding death and destruction in it's wake. In the 10 years they have been chasing it the closest they have come to a clue is in 07.M42 when under torture a captured Warlock cried out 'the devourer must feed' before his soul was consumed by Slaneesh, some say this proves a link between the Tyranids and the black craftworld, others believe it was simply the rambling of a madman whose soul was about to be consumed by a Chaos God. The truth remains unknown.

They have an unusually high number of scouts, now recruiting new initiates from any world they can, they have no armoured vehicles except a single Razorback, named Dorn that accompanies them onto every battlefield they tread.

The Right Hands will have their revenge, or they will die trying.

The enemies of the Imperium kneel in fear when the Right Hands battle cry rings out across the battlefield - ''the dead have come for you'

Brother Captain Vale, and behind him the Standard of the Dead.

So they have less than a Company and yet think to take on tens of millions of Eldar?

Do they have surviving Apothecaries? An Apothecarium aboard the Pride of Arestes?

Also, doesn't make sense why the Eldar would just lance up a world to stop Tyranids. That's only a minor inconvenience to the Hive. You gotta blow them to pieces.

Perhaps I was too vague, the Craftworld destroyed the Chapter to stop them being able to move to fight the surviving half of Leviathan.

As to whether this Craftworld is somehow corrupted by the 'nids and doing their bidding or the Eldar are pulling their usual trick of allowing others to fall to protect their own interests I am leaving deliberately vague.

As to fighting tens of millions with less than a company, this is a dying Chapter who are fundamentally on a suicide mission. I don't believe they can succeed but who knows.

There is a surviving Apothecary, however most of his time is spent on front line duty as opposed to research.

Without a fully-functional Apothecary, there are no new Space Marines. You require the Apothecary to be installing the gene-seed and the progenitor gland and the other organs and doing all the surgeries on your initiate children/teens to get them to develop into Space Marines.

He's also responsible for recovering the progenitor glands from the fallen, to ensure that you can recover their gene-seed to implant in a future recruit.

An Apothecary is a busy guy in an SM Chapter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I like the idea of an Eldar-hunting SM Chapter, though... don't often see that these days, see more SM+Eldar alliances and such. Elves are a popular thing.

I will never fight alongside the Eldar!

Overall its good on the Marine side but maybe some expansion on why they carry a razorback around.
On the Eldar side it really bothers me because Craftworlds dont enter the Warp and theres little reason an entire craftworld would carry out an attack. Id say the Craftworld "shimmered away" or something like that.

Psienesis is pretty much spot on.
I do like it, you may wish to include a bit more information on the craftworld and their reasons for attacking.
I do like the idea of a bare remnant of the chapter hunting a craftworld while trying to build up the strength to attack it.
Was the razorback the only thing they could salvage from the wreckage? Did they manage to reclaim their geneseed? Most chapter keep their gene-seed in a vault which is capable of withstanding the fortresses total destruction.
Did the Eldar take any losses? Chapter planets are usually strongly fortified and space/anti-orbital defenses can cause a lot of damage.

Its certainly interesting, like the idea of of a rump Chapter running after a Craftworld.

Thought it was a bit vague on their intentions though, at first you made them sound suicidal but then mentioned them desperately recruiting to build up strength. New blood seems superfluous when your goal is an honourable death.

Do they want to die like their brothers or rebuild and get revenge?

I like it, and though for whatever reason I can't see the picture you posted the armor colors and the reason behind them sound badass. Roll on with your fluff. Kind of inspiring me to start a brand new chapter, I run 3rd company Ravenguard myself, but creating your own narrative is one of the most interesting parts about this hobby.

I too like the Chapter fluff before the Eldar attack - but no sane Craftworld Eldar in the 40K setting would likely object to Space Marines fighting Tyranids. Well, unless the real reason for their attack was something else. Like keeping the marines away from something incredibly valuable to the Eldar that the Tyranid attack would have just discarded or left for later investigators.

IMO your poor marines have been chasing after Eldar that completed their mission centuries ago. And now they'll happily coast along unless the mon-keighs get close enough for the Farseers to think them a threat. A doomed remnant of a Chapter in any case.

I like it a lot, maybe you could say that occasionally The Imperial Fists help out and give them supplies/recruits (that way you can justify adding whatever new fancy piece of wargear GW gives SM in dataslates or supplements)

Also not really connected but this gave me the idea to call a Chapter (Loyal or Traitor) 'The Red Right Hand'.

It sounds cool and Nick Cave references warm my pretentious muso heart.

Spetulhu wrote:
I too like the Chapter fluff before the Eldar attack - but no sane Craftworld Eldar in the 40K setting would likely object to Space Marines fighting Tyranids. Well, unless the real reason for their attack was something else. Like keeping the marines away from something incredibly valuable to the Eldar that the Tyranid attack would have just discarded or left for later investigators.

Not necessarily. The Farseers may have seen that the chapter or the worlds it would defend would have some role in destroying the Craftworld so they acted to take them out beforehand.
Frankly the only thing i really dislike is the name is really wordy and just doesn't fight.
Hell even if they were just called the 'Hands of the Emperor' it might help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jape wrote:
Its certainly interesting, like the idea of of a rump Chapter running after a Craftworld.

Thought it was a bit vague on their intentions though, at first you made them sound suicidal but then mentioned them desperately recruiting to build up strength. New blood seems superfluous when your goal is an honourable death.

Do they want to die like their brothers or rebuild and get revenge?

They seem to be doing both?
A kind of suicidal revenge pact where the only reason they are rebuilding is to get revenge on the eldar but if they can kill them they are going to even at the cost of their own life.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

2x210 wrote:
I like it a lot, maybe you could say that occasionally The Imperial Fists help out and give them supplies/recruits (that way you can justify adding whatever new fancy piece of wargear GW gives SM in dataslates or supplements)

This also seems like a good idea. Doesn't have to be the IF, it could be any chapter, world, Inquisitor or Mechanicus group that helps out by giving them a few vehicles or a newish ship.

 Jape wrote:
Also not really connected but this gave me the idea to call a Chapter (Loyal or Traitor) 'The Red Right Hand'.

It sounds cool and Nick Cave references warm my pretentious muso heart.

Their Assault Marines should be armed with ashtrays. Big ones.

Ashtrays as big as a really fethin' big brick...

I shall have a shot at re-writing this later taking into account some good ideas.

The whole Eldar hitting them I do want to leave vague, has an entire Craftworld fallen to a Genestealer cult and is now doing the bidding of the nids or perhaps they are taking out the marines who may stop leviathan for some nefarious Eldar reason.

I need to make it a bit clearer though!

Interesting...I like the idea. Making up your own chapter and some pretty neat fluff to go with it. Nice.