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I am pretty new to this and I am starting a purely primaris army. To help give myself some drive and motivation, I have came up with sorta a general write up for them. I am no expert when it comes to Imperium or warhammer in all honesty and would like some advice and feedback from the more senior and knowledgeable members. I know there are certain cliches that should be avoided and i try my best to do so as possible. But I really liked the Alpha Legion but wanted a Loyalist chapter. Here goes

version 2.0 edit haha

Chapter Name: Celestial Zodiacs
Chapter Founding: Ultima Founding
Primogenitor: Corvus Corax (Actual Genesire would be Alpharius/Omegon though)
Left Pauldron: Chapter Emblem
Right Pauldron: Company Emblem (I know this is not codex compliant, its more for modelling purposes though as i really prefer to not use the default)
Chapter Colours: Black based / Purple on kneepads, shoulder pads and capes/cloth parts
Fortress Monastery: Zodiark and Hydaelyn
Chapter Strength: Below 1000

Doctrine: Upon initiation into a company, an Astartes will have their last name changed to their company name.
All companies will be lead by a company command consisting of a Captain, 2 lieutenants, a librarian, a chaplain, an apothecary and an ancient.
All companies will have the same amount of squads and specialists.
There will be 4 active companies; Capricornius, Scorpius, Taurus, Aquarius and 8 reserve companies, Aeries, Gemini, Leo, Cancer, Libra, Sagittarius, Pisces, Virgo.
Each active company will be supported by 2 reserve companies who will replace any fallen brother from the active company.
The Chapter Master may deem it necessary to deploy during the most vital of missions. If such deployment is deemed necessary, Ophiuchus Company will be formed by battle brothers drafted from the entire Chapter by the Chapter Master.
After completion of the mission, Ophiuchus Company will be disbanded and all battle brothers are to return to their former companies.

Chapter History: Made up purely of the newly created primaris space marines, the Celestial Zodiacs are a Chapter founded during the Ultima Founding. Imperial records show they are descended from the loyalist geneseed of Corvus Corax, progenitor of the Raven Guard. However, unbeknownst even the Chapter itself, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl experimented on Traitor Primarch geneseed and implanted into the Celestial Zodiacs with geneseed harvested from Alpha Legion heritage. The Chapter is wholly devoted and loyal to the Imperium but being purely primaris, found it challenging to earn their acceptance in the eyes of more senior Chapters. Their style of engaging enemies in the shadows and leaving no survivors hardly helps to build their reputation. They are however, content knowing that they are fighting a greater war and working to further the position of the Imperium even if there is no glory to be had.

The Chapter structure deviates from the standards laid forth within the Codex Astartes. Being primaris, they do not have scout company, instead relying fully on the mechanicus to provides fresh astartes members. The Chapter is broken down into 12 fully identical companies. Of these, 4 are designated as active and 8 are reserves. For every active company deployed to a mission, 2 reserves are brought along to support them. From handling logistics and resupplying to retrieval and replacement of fallen battle brothers alongside any other required assistance. Being mostly undersized and never at full capacity means they need to work as a cohesive unit to be able to function as a proper company.

They are a fleet based Chapter, maintaining 2 identical battle barges Zodiark and Hydaelyn and 6 vanguard cruisers. Both battle barges and all their vanguard cruisers are modified to look identical on the exterior. They are all painted black and optimized to travel in stealth, giving up on firepower and defence in favour of speed and silence. They rely heavily on the element of surprise to get into close quarters with enemy targets and inserting their astartes undetected. Unlike most fleet based Chapters though, even though their official designated Fortress Monastery is Zodiark, it is the combination of both Zodiark and Hydaelyn that makes up the Fortress Monastery. It is a secret among the Chapter itself and act as sort of a self preservation tactic in the event something should claim one of the battle barges, that the other would carry on the legacy. Each battle barge also travels a good distance apart from the other but close enough to reinforce one another if required and each is guarded by 3 vanguard cruisers. The Celestial Zodiacs rarely answer more than 2 missions at a time and are selective to the calls they answer. Always arriving in silence, unknown even to the forces they are aiding and vanishing before the forces they are aiding even realized that they have completed their duty.

I know its all very cliche and all and i dont have much to go around with but I'm trying. Some help with the lore or some pointers would be appreciated.

I really quite like it. I follow a bunch of symbolic ideas with my own chapter, so I love the 12 sign Zodiac. 12 companies aren't much over Chapter Strength, anyway, but they aren't even full, as you say less than 1000, so Gulliman won't be getting too anxious about you either.
I recommend you have a peer over the Lexicanum entries on Imperial Ships specifically Grand Cruisers and Battleships and Marines Navy. Most Chapters have a few battle barges, several striker cruisers and support and escort craft. In Battlefleet Gothic updates from about '03 iirc, the Space Marines list allowed them to take a "venerable" battle barge; either a named and modified one based on an example the Ultramarines rebuilt of an otherwise normal Barge or any one other modified from an existing imperial Cruiser or above class vessel. Additionally, there were rules for reserves, letting one squeeze in a couple more non-Marine ships. I run an Oberon as my Barge, with transport, attack craft and not half bad gunnery batteries I feel its a great fit for marine's multi-role needs. I think the Ultramarines still have a Gloriana grand battleship from the Crusade, the Space Wolves have one of the largest fleets at 8 Barges, over 30 cruisers, literally dozens of escorts, but it ranges down to chapters that lack a barge at all. As old as the Wolves, after several recent losses and the Devastation of Baal, the Blood Angels are down to just 2 Barges, 5 Strike Cruisers, and about a dozen escort class ships. I hope those resources let you pick something that suits you.

I like the named companies, it makes me think of the Legions which were large enough that they had Chapters as a level of organisation within them, and for example, the Word Bearers and the Thousand Sons named each of their divisions, rather than numbered. I think the Legion era Space Wolves did too, though I could be mistaken. Who needs a strip around the pouldron when you have an insignia for it.

I don't think there's anything there particularly out of the ordinary. If you found that Codex: Space Marines weren't a great fit for their rules, though it sounds like Raven Guard would be a great chapter tactic, you could use Dark Angels, Blood Angels or Space Wolves. Which Primarch would you claim is their primogenitor? This is a different question than who is actually their gene-sire. Knowing Cawl, even if Gulliman told him not to use the other 9 traitors genetic material, he would do whatever gave him the best results and just ensure Roboute never found out. Plus, are the Alpha Legion really traitorous...?

Yes I think you got it spot on and i'm glad you liked the concept of it all. I edited to add in the primogenitor and genesire. They are very similar to both Raven Guard and Alpha legion in terms of favoring stealth and that its also correct that I will be likely basing off the Raven Guard tactics and stuff gameplay wise.

I will need to go read through on the battle barges and stuff as that is where i am really lacking in knowledge too. I'll come about adding that part of it in once i read more.

I am also glad it seems to fit properly into the cannon. I wanted to make sure its a chapter that doesn't stand out too much and attract bigger cannon chapters attention (which is also why i wanted to make sure the that the non codex compliant aspect doenst come across as heresy). That way its easier to formulate stories around them. I appreciate all your input and it's helped me a lot! Thanks!

You're very welcome. I haven't put up anything about them really myself but I play a homebrew successor BA chapter, and out a lot of time into my own world building for them. I even planned out the whole chapter organisation, fleet size, squad composition so I don't over collect. I already have 3 mark 1 whirlwind and vindicators each from eBay so I hardly need more deimos patterns for example. My main concern is I have a lot of captains! XD

If anyone questions your chapter strength anyway, you can judt point to the Black Templars. There must be more like 4 chapters worth of them running around and they're as pure as you can get!

The ships are hard to research beyond the well known classes, some cruisers and battlehsips are barely named, let alone expanded on, or their BFG page is in an ancient magazine from eons ago. I found a conpendium somewhere, the Specialist Games forum has links to a lot of documents. One ship will mean that without allied aid, they would only be deploying in chapter strength because Marine ships are primarily to get you to system, fight their way to orbit and deploy. Often, hammering planetstrikes with drop pods, jump infantry, stormraven and Thunderhawks. The Raven Guard under Kayvaan Shrike love their sudden impact arrival as well, after all. Strike Cruisers, while better armed and armoured than Imperial navy counterparts of the same weight are still only light cruisers, each designed to carry around a company. Battle Barges are heavily armoured battleships, carrying on average up to 3 companies and are deployed in the most dire conflicts that out a sizable portion of chapter strength into a conflict.

I think it would be interesting, or probably necessary, that most of the chapter at least don't know about their genetic heritage. Maybe you could have an inner circle, or cults within cults or something so that the higher a marine progresses the more secrets are revealed, or maybe no one but Cawl actually knows anything about their gene seed being anything other than Corax.

I read up a little on the usual used ships by Space Marines Chapter and I didn't want to deviate too far from the usual. Meaning I don't want the chapter to be some sort of favoured group or anything.

I picture the Celestial Dragons as being Fleet base and having 2 Battlebarges, tentatively I am thinking of naming them Zodiark and Hydaelyn. They are completely identical but do not usually travel alongside each other. One would always scout out ahead of the other. The fleet also contains 6 Strike Cruisers, 3 assigned to accompany each Battlebarge and of course all 6 are identical to each other. (I like the running theme that the Chapter strives for everything to be as similar to each other as possible from Fleet and vehicles down to individual marine.) This would also tally up to 12 Companies worth of ships. I'm not sure if this is pushing the number usually allowed for Chapter but maybe you could help me out here.

During planetfall combat, since it is the Chapter's style of tactical deployment that each Company fights with 2 reserves backing them, the 3 strike cruisers usually attack together as a whole unit. The battlebarge would rarely attack and if it does it fills the full role of having all 3 companies in it. This would also mean the company is rarely spread too thin. Usually having a max of 2 to 3 different missions at a time. (1 Battlebarge must always remain out of danger in case everything else is wiped out)

The unique thing I guess is the Official fortress monastery is listed as Zodiark but the to the Chapter, both battlebarges make up the fortress monastery since both are identical. It is the 2 adding up together that makes up the whole.

I don't think company strength should be an issue, I always imagined them to be pressed for new members being usually out in the frontier and they rarely ever get to fully fill a company.(which is also why they fight as a unit of 3 companies)

Regarding their actual genesire, no one in the chapter knows it is Alpharius/Omegon. Only as the reader do we know that. Their tendency to prefer to look identical and act identical are traits passed down without them even realizing themselves.(I am assuming records of the alpha legion are scarce and inaccurate and furthermore being an ultima founding chapter makes it even more difficult for them to even find out about this.) Which in this case, only Cawl would be aware of their actual genesire.
Their chapter emblem though is a 5 headed hydra.(I'm not sure if this is too obvious or cheesy but it boils down more to me loving the look of it and wanted it as part of the actual paint scheme) The company emblem though is the constellation they belong to.

P.S would really like to read more of your chapter if you are willing to share it!

you can proably get a bit bigger then 2 barges if they're fleet based. chapters that are fleet based tend to have larger fleets

That sounds awesome. Yeah 2 barges and 6 cruisers is well within the ranges of what chapters can expect to field. I also love the fact that in BFG cruisers are almost always fielded in 3s even though the squadron size is 2-4, because 3 allowed you to take a battleship [see forum posting rules] the Barge. So each half of the chapter is a fully functioning fleet element. I think throughout 40k, ominously similar but not realy noticed heraldry is some of the best subtle hints at things. Certain loyalist successors, often Ultramarine and actually also Raven Guard are though of as either descendants of loyalist members of traitor legions, more often than not subsumed into the Ultramarines, like the Silver Skulls are probably Iron Warriors descendants from the loyalcontingent that helped thr Ultramarines, or the Doom Eagles are meant to be Raven Guard successors but are possibly the Dark Angel great company responsible for relics, weapons of mass destruction, biological, radiological and toxicological warfare the Dreadwing. Its easier just to link this https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#List_of_suspected_chapters

I created the Angels of Armageddon, a Blood Angels successor chapter founded during the 23rd founding in M37. Not named for the planet Armageddon, but when the Blood Angels deployed in chapter strength the Angels of Armageddon saw it as portentious and deployed a strike force in aid. Although they were founded as a crusade chapter, space bourne, they lost a battle barge and 2 strike cruisers in the warp attempting to reinforce the strike forces already at Medusa V. Although the initial forces, supporting other Chapters under the overal command of Sicarius, the entire 5th company, elements of the 7, 8th, 9th and 10th were lost. The Chapter never rebuilt the 5th company in thr intervening millennium, but gladly accepted Primais marines offered by Cawl's work and the Indomitus Crusade. Wih several veterans of the crusade, drawn from pure blood of Sanguinius himself, they became a new 5th company, anf are usually deployed apart in support of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th battle companies. With luck and the Emperor's will, they will help the Sanguinary Priesthood, thwir apothecarion, cure the Blood Angels and their descendants inherited Red Thirst and Black Rage. Having lost a sizeable portion of their fleet, they settled on the world of Aetridis they had defended from a splinter of Abbadon'd crusade forces, renaming it Heavensfall. Building a Fortress Monastary on its desolate moon, a mining world, Aetridis itself was a fairly civilised world, with 3 major hive cities but the landscapes between were temperate and agricultirally active. On the moon, Heavensfall 1, one hive city near the southern pole made the majority of offworld transport of refined or, brought in by mag-train lines from isolated mining camps. The Angels recruit both from these indentured workers, as well as announcing open competitions to the populace of Heavensfall itself. Applicants would make their way to the hive of Heavensfall 1, and must make their way to the northern polar fortress with rationed supplies and minimum equipment. Many noble families of the cities put forward their scions, honoured by their potential acceptance. The rations are calculated to be a few days short of the journey, and besides dangerous fauna and roving mutant gangs, this forces applicants to squad up. Any successful applicant arriving st the fortress will, as well as endurance and physical ability, have to have exemplified resource management, teamwork and mental fortitude. Chapter Serfs plant trackers on the applicants on their application to compete, and make efforts to rescue applicants who have shown ability but sacrificed their ability to continue in order for a member of their group to succeed. These applicants will still be trained as warriors and members of the chapter joining the rabks of serfs. These able men and women need replacing often, as they still make up the majority of naval crew for the Angels, as well as defend the fortress and key areas of the cities, and accompany the Angels as a standing army to garrison territory while other Imperial units are on route, since the Angels tend to fight at the front of engagement in faced paced warfare.

In M39, the chapter participed in the defense of a Forge World from ork invasion, and during the fighting found underground staging grounds with a good number of Heresy era legion vehicles. Having been traitorous during that dark era before being reclaimed in The Scouring by thr Dark Angels, this missed cache still had white and blue World Eaters equipment and armour. Seeing this reclamation from their once closest brothers, the Angels of Armageddon donated the majority to their brethren and parent chapters, keeping as little as one of each ancient war machine, a handful of old terminator marks and a few main battle armoured vehicles as well as the ancient stores of munitoons, small arms and even a few examples of volkite equipment.

I'm not sure what I'm doing about the Primaris and their Red Thirst, I want to field Desth Companh Reivers but I haven't fully worked out how my marines suffer from the red thirst. Not being entirely "blood" themed, more angelic and sudden bursts of violence like a meterioc impact, the usual "rip the guts out" savagery doesn't seem to fit. However, the Angels do only have a single Redemptor, having learned of their tendancy to burn out pilots, and with Librarian and Chaplain dreadnought members still surviving from their founding days, the reduction of Dreadnought Pilots from honoured veterans and ancient venerable sources of history and knowledge into just another element in a war machine disgusted them, leading them to question other aspects of Cawl's work. While this doesn't create much stigma for The Lost, the 5th company, beyond that monikers own past, it does cast doubt on the so called immunity to the flaws of their gene seed.

BrianDavion wrote:
you can proably get a bit bigger then 2 barges if they're fleet based. chapters that are fleet based tend to have larger fleets

I'm glad that it falls within the boundaries. I am totally fine with a smaller base fleet over a bigger one. In fact, I prefer the chapter as a whole to be understrengthed and small. This keeps them off the radar since their threat levels are lower and makes it more believable that their glories and battles go unrecorded or unnoticed. I like the whole secretive and mysterious feel of it. Also makes it easier to come up with stories for them and not seem over the top.


I really enjoy they writeup you got of your chapter there. Way more than I have thought about of mine. I have only decided the base background and chapter layout. Havent really penned any stories down about them yet. I don't even have a chapter master in mind.(well mostly because they do not have a generic chapter master model and I do not want to use named character models and paint it in my chapter scheme) Which led to make it such that their chapter master has since been missing and currently the stand in chapter master is the 1st company Captain who chooses not to ascend to chapter master but instead only take up the position for official purposes. (i.e meetings and legal stuff/paperwork)

Yeah, in the old days Chapter Masters were either a separate unit from the captain in 5th-7th, or a better profile in the same entry like 3rd and 4th. And you were expected to scratch build or kitbash a bery nice looking commander anyway. Since you'd use Raven Guard chapter keyword and tactics, you do have Kayvaan as an option, however he doesn't fit nicely into Primaris Ultima chapter lore. Unless you just bulk him up and say he is one. But still just use Kayvaans stats. There is a strategem to upgrade a captain to master but at 3cp for just the rerolls, its hefty. He doesn't even include an Orbital Strike like they used to either, that and relics are another set of strategems.

Thanks btw. I guess I've been sitting on it for like a decade. I ought to write down a definitive account, as much for my own memory as for showing them off. After having fallen away from the hobby back in 6th, I have a lot of cleaning them up to do before they grace the gallery here!

I absolutely love that 12 companies of the zodiac idea. Would it be totally offensive if I just outright stole that idea? I'd love to use it on some Thousand Sons.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
I absolutely love that 12 companies of the zodiac idea. Would it be totally offensive if I just outright stole that idea? I'd love to use it on some Thousand Sons.

I'm flattered. By all means use the zodiac idea and change it accordingly. I'm glad you liked it