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So, when a Chapter is pretty much destroyed (like the Lamenters or the Astral Knights) do they just sort of cruise around the Warp in their ship looking for fights they can aid in? Do they answer to anyone? What sort of activities are they allowed/not allowed to do? I assume becoming a Blackshield is always an option if you are the last four or five of your chapter, but what happens when you have a ship and 50 Astartes? Do they still have their thralls, servitors, any mechanicus ties they used to have?
This seems to be a great way to fluff build a Chapter, but are there any limits the Imperium sets on them as they head out on the Long Walk?

-STS

Depends. If you've got fifty dudes left you might go fly around looking for a fight, you might hunker down and try to rebuild, you might get disbanded by the High Lords and your remaining forces rolled into another Chapter/used to found another Chapter, you might go to the Deathwatch and say "we don't think we're useful elsewhere anymore, how about we help you guys out?" (I suspect the Deathwatch would break up fifty dudes and send them where they're needed rather than keeping them together, though.)

I wouldn't think there would be any more 'rules' for a final crusade than there are for the normal operation of a Marine Chapter; the Chapter Master is still autonomous and any relationships the Chapter has established are still a thing until the Chapter's actually gone. Thralls/servitors/etc. swore to serve the Chapter, their oaths aren't broken by the Chapter going understrength (even massively understrength).

Now in a case where the Chapter is assigned a crusade as penance (if a bunch of your Chapter goes Chaos, and one Company didn't, and the Inquisition finds them and says "we don't really trust you now, but if you take this one ship and these guns and go off into the Eye of Terror to kill Abbadon you'll get proper recognition when you die and we won't bombard your planet off the face of the galaxy just to be sure") there are going to be rules, but if the Chapter decides to go out with a bang of its own accord there wouldn't be any restrictions on their operation that a normal full-strength Chapter wouldn't have.

You either have them going on a crusade to go out in a blaze of glory, or (like the Crimson Fists) they set about rebuilding their chapter and conserving their strength.

It depends on how many battle brothers are left, how many apothecaries there are and what state their equipment for rebuilding is in.

Chapters like the Blood Angels can call upon successor chapters to rebuild their numbers, and certainly successor chapters may ask their parent chapter or brother chapters for recruits.

Also I think that if there only a few squads of marines left from the entire chapter they would be seconded to a brother chapter or their parent chapter (if known).

 Corennus wrote:
You either have them going on a crusade to go out in a blaze of glory, or (like the Crimson Fists) they set about rebuilding their chapter and conserving their strength.

It depends on how many battle brothers are left, how many apothecaries there are and what state their equipment for rebuilding is in.

Chapters like the Blood Angels can call upon successor chapters to rebuild their numbers, and certainly successor chapters may ask their parent chapter or brother chapters for recruits.

Also I think that if there only a few squads of marines left from the entire chapter they would be seconded to a brother chapter or their parent chapter (if known).

Yeah a chapter close to or there founding chapter may offer aid or like blood angels call in the banners of there successors and ask for help.

It seems more likely if they not too divergent that a close chapter may offer them a place in there ranks and close. If too destroyed they may not be able to refound but they could still serve under own colours as part of another and earn honours fighting as part of there forces.

No one's going to turn down free reinforcements, especytrained and experienced veterans. Plus a first founding/second founding old chapter has clout to get round whole extras or any issues from absorbing another cahpter into own.

The remnants of the Tiger Claws Chapter were absorbed into the Astral Claws (their progenitor Chapter). That was partly a special case as Lufgt Huron was illegally growing the numbers of his Chapter, but I could see a similar thing happening with other Chapters.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The remnants of the Tiger Claws Chapter were absorbed into the Astral Claws (their progenitor Chapter). That was partly a special case as Lufgt Huron was illegally growing the numbers of his Chapter, but I could see a similar thing happening with other Chapters.

Well, truth be told Huron was acting under the autonomy granted him as a Space Marine Chapter Master and if it weren't for that whole tithe fleet getting vaped outside Badab Prime he probably would have been able to argue his case. The Badab War is actually a great example of the Imperium driving out one of its own. However I believe the Lamenters were allowed to rebuild after having been captured and imprisoned, having been able to prove that they fought under the assumption that the Astral Claws were the true loyalists.