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Exactly as it says on the tin.

FW's favourite sons have interred their erstwhile/current Chapter Master in a Leviathan siege dreadnought.

Unless I'm mistaken, Leviathans are very rare relics, impossible to replicate and deployed only with the express permission of the Chapter Master.

So how do the Red Scorpions have one?

They recovered one? Were given one when they were Founded?

Probably recovered one.

They are red, so therefore nick things like the Blood Ravens.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
They recovered one? Were given one when they were Founded?

Probably recovered one.

I was thinking that, too. But then I got to wondering - what Chapter would leave a relic lying around, just to be picked up? I know the Blood Ravens have a whole schtick based on collecting unconsidered trifles, but I'm pretty sure a chapter that has 'lost' a Leviathan would go all out to recover it if left behind on, say, a battlefield.

Depends on how it was lost and the nature of the conflict, could have also been one lost in ages past and uncovered.

Do we know how old the Red Scorpions are? They might have had it sitting around empty for millennia.

Banville wrote:
Exactly as it says on the tin.

FW's favourite sons have interred their erstwhile/current Chapter Master in a Leviathan siege dreadnought.

Unless I'm mistaken, Leviathans are very rare relics, impossible to replicate and deployed only with the express permission of the Chapter Master.

So how do the Red Scorpions have one?

So with express permission of CHAPTER MASTER and then we have CHAPTER MASTER who gets put into dreadnought...Maybe it's as simple as chapter master having enough clout to order himself one It's not like there are no leviathan dreadnoughts at all. Have we any reason to believe Red Scorpions flat out wouldn't have one? If not and they have even one of them...

tneva82 wrote:

Banville wrote:
Exactly as it says on the tin.

FW's favourite sons have interred their erstwhile/current Chapter Master in a Leviathan siege dreadnought.

Unless I'm mistaken, Leviathans are very rare relics, impossible to replicate and deployed only with the express permission of the Chapter Master.

So how do the Red Scorpions have one?

So with express permission of CHAPTER MASTER and then we have CHAPTER MASTER who gets put into dreadnought...Maybe it's as simple as chapter master having enough clout to order himself one It's not like there are no leviathan dreadnoughts at all. Have we any reason to believe Red Scorpions flat out wouldn't have one? If not and they have even one of them...

What inspired this thread was really the deliberately hazy background of the Scorpions. There's no record AT ALL of their Founding or progenitors, and no history of them more than 5 thousand years old. Their defining feature is their absolute belief in genetic purity and their refusal to comply with genetic sampling protocols. They also have this ostensibly rigid adherence to the Codex. This last is nonsense, though. Apothecary sergeants? Inventing new Land Raiders? The Chief Librarian as 2nd in Command and being given an Honour Guard?

I was wondering could the Red Scorpions be a 2nd Founding? Maybe a Traitor successor? The whole 'they're really adherent to the codex' in spite of all evidence to the contrary makes me kind of hopeful that there's a rather cool smokescreen being thrown up around them and that there's something darker moving beneath.

Much like when you first read the Tau 'Greater Good' stuff, it's tempting to take it at face value. Then you look at it critically and you start to see much more sinister elements. Vespids being brought to heel through gifting their leaders special helmets, with no mind control/indoctrination function whatsoever...

If the Red Scorpions have one then they have one and their CM can order it's use. Where they got it is, well, your guess is as good as mine.

The more important question IMO is why they hate their Chapter Master so much. Users of the Leviathan are liable to quickly die from the strain or go irrevocably mad, so sacrificing a great Chapter Hero for it seems like lunacy.

Hmm. Could be the Red Scorpions found one that wandered off from some long past battle, got lost and went unrecovered by the original owners (who didn't look too hard since they were secretly happy to lose the cursed machine).

Spetulhu wrote:
If the Red Scorpions have one then they have one and their CM can order it's use. Where they got it is, well, your guess is as good as mine.

The more important question IMO is why they hate their Chapter Master so much. Users of the Leviathan are liable to quickly die from the strain or go irrevocably mad, so sacrificing a great Chapter Hero for it seems like lunacy.

Hmm. Could be the Red Scorpions found one that wandered off from some long past battle, got lost and went unrecovered by the original owners (who didn't look too hard since they were secretly yappy to lose the cursed machine).

Ha! Yeah, I doubt he'd be very happy to wake up as a glorified battery. So does every chapter have access to Leviathans? Canonical access, not just our hand-wavery justifications for slapping a very cool model in our forces. Although rule of cool does trump pretty much everything

Anyone can have anything if their Legion had it. A new founding chapter could inherit it from a fallen chapter, some Forge World could have put one back together from scrap they recovered from an ancient battle, it could be gifted as a token of a great deed from another chapter. It could be pulled out of a vault the Chapter had sealed full of darker relics, and desperste times call for desperate measures, since Leviathans are generally viewed wih mistrust.

The Red Scorpions already had a high amount of heresy era equipment, such as MK4. So them running around with a Leviathan or two isnt as crazy as it sounds.

Every Chapter? Probably not. But the possibility is there for any given Chapter to have one.

I’m not sure the Codex Astartes prohibits new vehicle variants - otherwise the Ultramarines wouldn’t have a specialist Land Raider and Battle Barge.

Some believe, with their penchant for purity.....they might be Emporers Children decensdants.

Aren't they close buddies with the church? The organization has entire planets as shrines, I'm sure they can afford whatever price for the rare gear. Keep in mind also that the heresy era gear is still made, just much slower than the new stuff.

Because forge world

Honestly there’s not really a set protocol for acquiring Crusade-era relics other than succession, which is problematic when their founder is unknown. Acquisition by conquest if iffy because it could be Chaos-tainted or out of order due to centuries of neglect. There’s not really anyone you can buy or trade with for a Leviathan. And getting one made is fairly improbable too.

Every rogue trader is a good candidate for buying gear like that, having explored areas untouched since the crusade. Buying gear in the imperium isn't about spending money, it's about spending blood. If you shed enough blood in the name of any of the imperiums organizations, especially the big ones like the admech, the ecclesiarchy, etc you will get prizes.

For example the ia astartes say there were less than 100 fellblade a in the last 500 years, ain't no one stockpiling 100 fellblade, they have to go somewhere.

kingleir wrote:
Every rogue trader is a good candidate for buying gear like that, having explored areas untouched since the crusade. Buying gear in the imperium isn't about spending money, it's about spending blood. If you shed enough blood in the name of any of the imperiums organizations, especially the big ones like the admech, the ecclesiarchy, etc you will get prizes.

For example the ia astartes say there were less than 100 fellblade a in the last 500 years, ain't no one stockpiling 100 fellblade, they have to go somewhere.

I wouldn't be too sure this'd fly. Especially not with the Scorpions obsession with purity. It'd be like buying a second hand car with no service history, with the added drawback that the previous owner may or may not have communed with daemons and/or used it to slaughter lots of innocent people.

There's no sensible workaround for the Scorpions having a Leviathan other than it coming from their progenitors. The issue then is who were these progenitors....

I just find it very interesting.

I read up on them, it wasn't the chapter I was thinking of, but 3 things on the wiki jumped out at me.

1. Created land raider Helios which was later approved by the admech as an official pattern.

That could be a hefty trade.

2. Red scorpions and high ranking members of the administratum keep their home world a secret.

How much more trouble could they get in for changing the delivery instructions on a large shipment, accidents happen all the time.

3. High lords of terra requested their direct involvement in the badab war, which led to them receiving salvage rights for the conflict.

How many relics could be hiding in the wreckage of large space vessels, if you're turning traitor and running to the maelstrom, why leave the relics behind?

Banville wrote:


I was wondering could the Red Scorpions be a 2nd Founding? Maybe a Traitor successor? The whole 'they're really adherent to the codex' in spite of all evidence to the contrary makes me kind of hopeful that there's a rather cool smokescreen being thrown up around them and that there's something darker moving beneath.

While rumoured to be an Emperor's Children Successor due to their obsession with their perfect gene-seed, that's overruled by the introduction of Red Scorpion Primaris. As all Primaris are made from the original Legion gene-seed (and not the Chapters'), and Cawl has explicit orders to not use Traitor gene-seed, it is incredibly unlikely they are Emperor's Children Successors. Obviously, if Cawl disobeys the Lord Commander and de-facto Emperor of Mankind Guilliman and does it for the Hell of it, they might still be, but that is a death sentence and Cawl knows it.

tneva82 wrote:

Banville wrote:
Exactly as it says on the tin.

FW's favourite sons have interred their erstwhile/current Chapter Master in a Leviathan siege dreadnought.

Unless I'm mistaken, Leviathans are very rare relics, impossible to replicate and deployed only with the express permission of the Chapter Master.

So how do the Red Scorpions have one?

So with express permission of CHAPTER MASTER and then we have CHAPTER MASTER who gets put into dreadnought...Maybe it's as simple as chapter master having enough clout to order himself one It's not like there are no leviathan dreadnoughts at all. Have we any reason to believe Red Scorpions flat out wouldn't have one? If not and they have even one of them...

Bjorn couldn't get a Leviathan - the oldest Loyal Space Marine and ex-Chapter Master of a First Founding chapter has the latest and gre...ahh...latest and lamest military coffin.

Biblical times is only 2000 years ago. Look how much culture change in that time. I doubt you can use the red scorpions current culture to trace heritage based on similaraties in dogma and beliefs to something over 5000 years ago. They would have a shiftin baseline ssyndrome, same as most other things.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Banville wrote:
Exactly as it says on the tin.

FW's favourite sons have interred their erstwhile/current Chapter Master in a Leviathan siege dreadnought.

Unless I'm mistaken, Leviathans are very rare relics, impossible to replicate and deployed only with the express permission of the Chapter Master.

So how do the Red Scorpions have one?

So with express permission of CHAPTER MASTER and then we have CHAPTER MASTER who gets put into dreadnought...Maybe it's as simple as chapter master having enough clout to order himself one It's not like there are no leviathan dreadnoughts at all. Have we any reason to believe Red Scorpions flat out wouldn't have one? If not and they have even one of them...

Bjorn couldn't get a Leviathan - the oldest Loyal Space Marine and ex-Chapter Master of a First Founding chapter has the latest and gre...ahh...latest and lamest military coffin.

To quote the 40k Leviathan rules download for 7th:

"Those few Leviathan Dreadnoughts which survive into the 41st Millennium are ancient and terrible
relics, rarely spoken of and rarely deployed, dreaded as much as they are revered by those Chapters
in whose armoury vaults they reside and stand empty until direst need. The tormented and ravaged
minds of those interred within are driven to the edge of madness by the little-understood mechanisms
unique to the Leviathan, trapped in gore-soaked dreams of the lost Age of Darkness which haunt the
machines themselves, and soon suffer a final dissolution owing to the terrible strain the Leviathan
inflicts on those who would dare to master it."

For all his past glories Bjorn's role since his interment is as the chapters Lore-keeper, they wake him up every few centuries so he can make sure the chapters verbal history hasn't strayed too far from its original form. Sticking him in a Leviathan would be as helpful to this duty as setting him on fire. Culln having no such duty might have no issue with meeting such an end.

Fair call.
That description makes Murderfang sound almost sane.