Hi guys,
I had the idea of a homebrew Space Marine chapter yesterday, and I decided, why not, to share it with you. Not a lot of thing, maybe I will flesh it out a bit more later, who knows.
As always, feel free to comment, it is not art, just a little story that popped in my mind.
The Thunder Kinghts
Descending from the Ultramarines (7th founding), the Thunder Knights chapter is codex compliant. However, it emphasizes on infantry warfare, boarding and drop pods deployements at the expense of armored warfare.
Its chapter world, Craissy, is located in the Ultima Segmentum, between Bane's Landing and Ichar IV. It is a temperate feudal world, inhabited by several Houses in constant warfare, useful for the recruitement of new warriors.
Fortress-monastery: Orleanis, located at the North Pole of the planet.
The Thunder Knights are very proud, taking pride in their roots and history, being the progeny of the Primarch Guilliman Himself, and descending from the glorious Ultramarines.
This has caused them harm already, with others chapter risking their marines to save civilians, while the Thunder Knights don't care for civilians casualities, especially in regard with Space Marines casualities, or during battles they should have avoided to do alone.
They wear lots of personnal heraldry, campaign and honorary badges, showing each Marine history and achievements.
Their paint scheme is the following:
Their chapter symbol is a lightning, striking, separating the white half from the black half of the symbol. It is a representation of the Chapter, coming as a storm, a thunder, and separating the pure, loyal humans from the devil, the heretics and the xenos.
Some named Characters:
Chapter Master Gildebert
First Captain
De Gusselin
High-Chaplain Amaury
The Ruin of Craissy:
This short story tells the fall of their homeworld, invaded by a Kraken splinter fleet.
The discovery
Late 992M41 :
The atropaths of the Thunder Knights discovered with horror signs which left no room for doubt: a tyranid hive-fleet was heading straight towards the system.
However, it was only a small tendril, a little splinter fleet from the Kraken.
Decision was taken not to abdicate the system, but to defend it at all costs. As it was only a small splinter fleet, the chapter could resist it and it should not be given the opportunity to develop with biomass.
The Chapter Master Gildebert made the preparations begin, and recalled the maximum of his marines back to their world.
Rapidly, reinforcements from their allies flooded in, but most were deemed as unnecessary.
« The Thunder Knights are the Angels of Death, the choosen of the Emperor, and they do not fear the xenos! »
The feudal population of the chapitral world was partly evacuated, knowing that the war would take place on their world, in order to keep a pool of recruitment. However , all the men capable of fighting remained there.
After several months of fortifications, planning and training, the astropathic communications were cut off.
The awaited moment was coming,, the Thunder Knights could at last purge this ignominy and resume their wars through the stars.
Early 993M41 :
The hive-fleet arrived.
As expected, it was a small splinter-fleet, but it was still a colossal threat to a single Chapter.
The war in space.
The hive fleet immediately proceeded to Craissy, the only biomass present in the system.
The Chapter let the hive-fleet approach within range of the space defenses of Craissy before engaging combat.
The Space Marine fleet had been placed under the command of the First Captain
De Gusselin, who had two companies and part of the first, in order to board the tyranids spaceships while avoiding the same fate.
The fleet attacked from several directions at once, in a hit & run tactics, in order to disperse the hive-fleet and prevent it from concentrating on Craissy, while it faced the orbital defences at the same time.
The strategy worked well at first, and the hive fleet did not focus on the chapter world, nor on the flash attacks of the Space Marines fleet.
The first tyranid waves, dispersed, were quickly defeated.
After a few days, however, the Hive-Mind understood that the enemy's fleet was too small to do the consequent damages, that it was only a trap and so focused mainly on the world.
The Thunder Knights fleet had no other choice but to confront directly the hive-fleet.
The attack targeted synapse vessels and transport spores, trying to prevent as many enemy troops from reaching the planetary defenses as possible.
The hive-fleet then took advantage of its enormous numerical superiority to encircle the imperial fleet in an attempt to destroy it in a single, decisive, battle.
Evacuating the deadly trap that was closing on them, some Space Marines evacuated the fleet in stormravens, thunderhawks and drop pods to join their Chapter, but not all of them could, and many had to remain in the fleet, while the fleet had no other choice but to retreat out of the system.
The Tyranids were now free to attack the orbital defense stations. After several unsuccessful boarding, the stations still held and continued to destroy waves after waves of mycetic spores.
The hive-mind then decided on a less subtle strategy: tyranid ships directly crashed on them and drove them from their orbit to the planet surface.
The ground war
With the space and sky of Craissy now free of access, the real invasion could begin.
Thousands and thousands of spores were dumped all over the planet.
Quickly, the creature mass gathered around the strongholds.
Having no fleet but still air assets, the Space Marines waged a mobile war, being the hammer that broke the tyranids when they faced the anvil of their entrenched troops.
The mountain passes had been closed, armed with automatic weapons, barrages made ready to explode and drown tyranids in the valleys, undefendable zones evacuated.
The whole planet was a fortress, and each house a bastion.
But in the face of such an assault, there could be no triumph.
Days after days, weeks after weeks, the Tyranids advanced.
The flights of gargoyles had become more and more present, accompanied by powerful Harridans, hive crones and others flying monsters. Now, the stormravens and the thunderhawks had to face them every time they flew, and every transport mission was as likely to be destroyed in flight as to arrive at destination.
The air war turned to the advantage of the tyranids and the mobile war ceased. Without rapid air transport, this strategy could no longer function.
Thunder Knights scouts set fire to the forests, the fields, and everything that could burn, in the hope of hindering tyranid flying creatures and depriving the xenos from resources.
The xenos came closer and closer to the fortress-monastery, while the marines retreated to their secondary defenses lines, and the chances of victory diminished quicly.
Passing through the underground and the mortuary crypts, the Chapter Master Gildebert led the bulk of his forces directly to the rear of the enemy lines, hoping to gain more time.
Squads of marauding scouts criss-crossed the planet, laying mines, embushing the xenos, slaughtering the synapses creatures and recovering precious information.
Thus the Chapter had heard of one of the main digestive pool in the valley of Azingour.
It was to decide to strike here, to carry the battle to the enemy and to destroy this digestive pool and all supporting creatures that would be there, and to attract extraterrestrial forces away from the fortress-monastery of Orleanis.
The surprise attack worked well at the beginning, as the Tyranids could not oppose such a force far from their main army.
The battle raged several days before the tyranid forces reached sufficient mass to pose a threat. Having established a perimeter around the underground, the marines retired, ready to blow it up behind them to bury their enemies there.
But the tactical retreat turned into a desperate escape when trygons and genestealers emerged from the underground and invaded the crypts.
A fierce battle broke out, while the marines struggled for every meter : their trap had turned against them.
Conducting a rear-guard action to enable the troops to withdraw into the fortress-monastery, Gildebert was mortally injured by a broodlord.
His dying body could be brought back by his guard of honor. The High-Chaplain Amaury took command of the survivor from this moment.
The situation was now critical: besieged by underground, surface and air, the garrison had no choice but to hold the siege of Orleanis.
And they held it.
Relying on everything they had, auxiliaries, automated defenses, condemnation of the upper and lower levels, they limited their losses to the maximum, but the xenos were advancing deeper and deeper within their monastery.
Salvation
And then came back the fleet of the Chapter, but not alone: accompanied by the imperial navy and reinforcements of the deathwatch. Having understood that its Chapter could not win this war alone, First Captain
De Gusselin had taken advantage of the retreat of his fleet to seek reinforcements.
The Imperial fleet engaged combat without warning, and, attacking the hive-fleet from behind, directly destroyed the synapse vessels.
The hive-fleet was annihilated during the cataclysmic battle of Pathay.
With the superiority of space, the fleet began a meticulous bombardment of the entire infected part of the planet, purging it of all tyranid trace, rather than risking a fight on the ground.
Reinforcements were also conveyed to the fortress-monastery, where the remaining decerebrated creatures were exterminated.
The Chapter had endured and survived, the system was safe, and the fleet-hive vanquished.
However, the losses were heavy, the planet henceforth unrecognizable: following the fires, the debris of the space battles and the crash of the orbital stations, millions of tons of dust and debris floated in its atmosphere and its orbit.
The bombardment aggravated the situation, piercing its crust and triggering terrible volcanic eruptions.
It was thus that the sun was hidden by dust, its heat and its rays no longer reaching Craissy.
The planet became a polar world.
The Chapter thus bears forever the mark of its vainglory, he who wished to win alone, and who nearly perished alone.
I tried to give French medieval name to the characters, to the planet and the battles (for example, the world of Craissy is, in fact, the Battle of Créci, same pronouncation but different orthgrahy ! The space batlte of Pathay is the battle of Patay, at the end of the 100 years war).
The idea is to give an European medieval vibe to this Chapter, with lots of personnal heraldy, some old pattern power armour (closer to true medieval armour that the Mk7) and less vehicles.
I'm not used at all to write this much, and even less "hombrew" stories, so it may have some errors and typos, I don't know, I tried to read it several time to avoid it.
Thanks for reading !
