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My home brew SM chapter uses the Iron Hands chapter tactics. I wrote their fluff to fit with these chapter tactics and the fact I wanted to model them with bionics and include plenty of vehicles. They're basically Iron Hands with a different paint scheme.

I'm trying to understand how my fluff can fit in with the chapter foundings. As I understand it, the first founding was the original 20 legions. The second founding was the break up of the legions into many smaller chapters. These new chapters were successor chapters of the original legions. E.g. the Crimson Fists are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists. But all the other foundings, after the second, were created from gene seeds created by the Ad Mech.

So if my chapter isn't a second founding one, does that mean it isn't a successor chapter of one of the original 9 loyal legions? And if so, tying fluff to the table top, how does that work with chapter tactics?

Every chapter tithes 5% of their geneseed to the AdMech for testing and for use in subsequent foundings. When a new founding is demanded, the AdMech will pick a chapter's tithe and use a process to grow out 1,000 sets of implants.

As for the particular chapter's that's used, there has been some back and forth. Some say that the first founding chapter's geneseed is most often used and that other successors are a rarity, used as a reward for some great deed. That's why even later successor chapters are considered to be "Ultramarine-successors".

The counter-theory is that successors are used just as much as first founding chapters but that it would most commonly be recorded just by the gene lineage, except in special cases. So for instances, a chapter may be a successor of the Red Talons, but it might just be recorded as an Iron Hands successor.

In either case, the new chapter is given a cadre of veteran marines, preferably from a chapter of the same gene lineage, who will lead and train the new chapter.

Apparently more details of this will be revealed in Laurie Goulding's upcoming book.