Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Wow, nothing do do but sleep late and stay up late. Kinda like summer vacation again but with financial worries...

Anyway, I've been wondering the the ultramarines are actually violating the codex astartes in a sneaky way.

Basically like 2/3 of the chapters are descendants of the ultramarines, owe fealty to guilleman his Ums, etc.

So if the ultramarines are on a campaign and have to work with other chapters there's a 66% chance that at least one of those chapters and a better than even chance more than one will be descendants of the ultramarines.

So basically the ultramarine commander will end up in charge of 2000, 3000 or more marines as he will naturally be in command of the Um spinoffs in the area.

The purpose of the CA was to limit the power of a marine master and prevent one man from having control of too many super troops and their ships. But in an situation where several UM spinoffs are working with the UMs the Um commander will have effectively several chapters under his command. Which kinda throws the codex in the trashcan, doesn't it?

Pretty sneaky of guilleman to set that up. I didn't know he had in in 'im.

Space Marines are proud and stubborn. Knowing you have Ultramarine geneseed doesn't mean your Chapter automatically bows to the Ultramarines.

*sighs* thats not how it works. A sucessor chapter is a 100% independant body that owes it's promegenator chapter NOTHING, at least, legally speaking,. obviously some chapters have attachments to their first founding source but they don't have to be, in fact there is evidance the Ultramarines have less connection to their sucessor chapters then others (which might be WHY the high lords use them so often for new chapters) in short yes a ultramarines force might be operating beside sucessors but it's not always garenteed that they'll care. in fact I can think of sucessor chapters of the Ultramarines that are outright enemies with each other, I can't think of that with sucessors to other chapters

That’s the codex working almost exactly the way it’s supposed to. It would be madness to break them up into tiny units if they didn’t have standard ways of operating that allowed them to collaborate when they team up. Almost any field with large operations undertaken by groups of separate organizations have this. Fire departments working together, construction trades, they all have uniform standards.

The only things that are separate is how they choose their leaders, how they recruit, and how they’re supplied.

If Calgar and Sicarius had a group of cronies in the Ultramarines that they could corrupt, and then they could go up to the successor chapters and put those cronies totally in charge of the successor, not just of a battle but training, promotions, equipment, assignments, then than that would be really bad. Commanding a few other companies during a battle or a campaign is the way it’s supposed to work.

The only thing that’s a little inexact is when you said the Ultramarines would always be in charge. If the Ultramarines’ officer is a brand new captain and the other chapters have their chapter master and first company captains then those officers would probably be in charge of the Ultramarines’ unit, not the other way around l.

The Ultramarines and their successors have no problem acting as a legion when they want to. For the best example see their attack on the Night Lords at Tsgagulasa during The Scouring.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
The Ultramarines and their successors have no problem acting as a legion when they want to. For the best example see their attack on the Night Lords at Tsgagulasa during The Scouring.

The Scouring is hardly a good example when it was basically 5 minutes after the codex started.

Ultramarines have no authority over the successors and neither do any other first founding chapters except the DA and the Fists Last Wall thing. Both of which are clearly not 'allowed'.

The Ultramarines have always been showed as having a great soft power above most of their descendants as far as I know.
Not as much as the Unforgiven and not above all but that's certain.
And they break the codex already with the tyranic wars veterans, so it's a not a first, even for them

Technically speaking breaking the codex isn't that bad either. It's meant as a guide not hard rules you must follow. The issues start arising when you do things that are traitory like try and build an empire or assemble thousands of marines under one leader.

Nice! Good, intelligent, reasonable answers to a question, not much snark, no insults, respect for an honest question. Just the way I like my threads!