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So for my Space Marine army, I'm really considering an Astral Knights scheme, and for their tactics, I was wondering, whom are they a successor of? For those not familiar with what I'm talking about, here is their wiki entry: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Astral_Knights

On to whom they are descended of, the absence of the Canis Helix and the Black Rage rule out both Space Wolves and Blood Angels respectively. They don't hunt Fallen so no to Dark Angels, so I think that leaves only the "big" Space Marines book, seeing as Grey Knights have no true successors (unless you count Silver Skulls). Ultramarines I would rule out, as they are not Codex adherents. They're not robots, so no Iron Hands, they don't have a fetish for Bikes/Jetpacks, so no White Scars/Raven Guard, they have a Chief Librarian, so no Black Templar. This only leaves Imperial Fists and Salamanders... Given the proclivity of the Imperial Fists for defensive tactics and the entire Astral Knights chapter perished when they ran head long into a Necron World Engine... does that only leave Salamanders?

According to the article you cited, they are codex compliant. Probably just more Ultras offshoots.

Nothing wrong with that though.

I would bet heavily against your theory of Salamanders though, as according to most sources they have no known successors ( a few rumored ones such as the Black Dragons and Storm Giants ).

I do like the choice you made with them though to make them your army. Good luck!

FM Argos

I'd guess Ultras as well.

Indeed. Not all ultramarine successors follow the codex that closely.

The Novamarines are more fanatical about it than their parent chapter, and the Aurora Marines (aside from a bit of a tank fetish) are extremely strict adherants. But the Mortifactors - the guys who wear armour decorated with people's skulls and drink blood to see the future? - are also Ultramarine successors.

The only chapters you can 'rule out' based on medical grounds easily are:

Raven Guard - geneseed causes albinism

Salamanders - geneseed causes coal-black skin and glowey eyes

Space Wolves - Canis Helix/Wulfen flaw

Blood Angels - Black Rage/Red Thirst flaw

Black Templars - black templar strain of Imperial Fists geneseed kills any psyker implanted with it

You can also probably guess at them not being:

Imperial Fists - they lack the Betcher's gland (we never see any astral knight spit acid but then the fact that they don't doesn't mean they couldn't have) but also lack the sus-an membrane - I can't remember if the surviving marine from the world engine attack is mentioned as using a sus-an membrane but I suspect nothing would have been retrievable without one. They're also not mentioned ever as competitors in the Feast of Blades, which has built up a fairly extensive list of Fist successors over the years.


That still leaves all the others. Not every iron hands successors necessarily obsess over technology, nor do every Dark Angels successors know about the fallen, only those successor chapters 'raised' by their respective parent chapters. A chapter could be founded by terra from the geneseed stocks they hold there and brought up to strength under the aegis of a nearby chapter with a different heritage. Hell, the new blood angels codex includes a chapter that didn't know they were blood angels successors until Asteroth turned up at the door...

Salamander gene seed doesn't cause jet black skin and red eyes, that's partially a reaction to Nocturne's environment. Plus the population is already "normal" black as well.

So somebody like the Storm Giants (if they are sallies) might not have jet black skin or burning eyes.

Ultramarines or Imperial Fists is the only real option for most chapters. They are certainly not Space Wolves or Salamanders. The Salamanders have not made any founding because they were much smaller than other legions at the time, and they are still smaller on paper (they only have 7 companies, although each is larger than 100 marines). The Space Wolves made 1 chapter to appease Guilliman, but the Wolf Brothers went horribly wrong and mutated or something like that, so unlikely another strain would be made after that.

Given their etymology, Imperial Fists seems the best choice considering other VII sucessors include the Iron Knights and Black Templars.

one thing tio consider is that beyond the second founding, source of gene seed doesn't always dictate a lot. sometimes the "sire chapter" will take an active intreast but I suspect a lot of the time they don't. especially in the case of the ultramarines (Gulliman said each chapter must be independant after all)

BrianDavion wrote:
one thing tio consider is that beyond the second founding, source of gene seed doesn't always dictate a lot. sometimes the "sire chapter" will take an active intreast but I suspect a lot of the time they don't. especially in the case of the ultramarines (Gulliman said each chapter must be independant after all)

This. A lot of later founding chapters simply don't care as much about their lineage because their traditions most likely come from their homeworld, rather than their genetic history. Not to mention they may not even have records of their history anymore. That said, I'm leaning towards the Astral Knights being Imperial Fist successors if only because the crossed-swords iconography is not uncommon amongst IF successors, the Celestial Guard, the Emperor's Warbringers, and the Crimson Guard for instance. However this is an extremely superficial reason and I personally would discard it in a heartbeat if there was any evidence to the contrary.

 troa wrote:
I'd guess Ultras as well.

This is always the safest bet. Approximately 66% of Space Marines are Ultramarines successors.

That literally means that around 660 of the 1000 Chapters are Ultramarines, leaving less 332 split between the rest of the First Founding Legions. We know the Space Wolves have none surviving.

There are:
10 named DA Chapters
9 named WS Chapters
24 named IF Chapters
21 named BA Chapters
5 named IH Chapters
13 named RG Chapters
2 supposed Sally Chapters


It's kinda hard to extrapolate past there though. We know the Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard had very few Second Founding Chapters because of Istvaan V, so most of their successors would have come later. Conversely, the BA had plenty of Second Founding Chapters, but as far as we know the Lamenters were the last BA Chapter created, and that was the 21st Founding. Plus, by that time, they already knew the BA were defective (because the Lamenters were an attempt to fix it), so it's entirely possible that the BA hadn't been used for some time previous to that. Dark Angels seem to be passed over because of the questionable loyalty of the Unforgiven.

So the best guess is that pretty much all new Chapters are Ultramarines, almost without exception. The reality is that while there could be as many as 100 Imperial Fist Chapters, that also includes every single currently existing one too. Plus we know the percentage of Ultramarines Chapters is increasing. The Ultramarines represented only just over half of Chapters at the time of the Second Founding, now they represent just over two thirds, a 16% or so increase. . And this makes sense. If you're going to go through the time, expense and effort of making new Space Marines, you might as well use the best possible geneseed, which is the Ultramarines.

There aren't very many referenced, but there are some, but would chapters founded from a Successor chapter still be regarded as being founded from the First Founding, Say Dark Sons (Novamarines) or Iron Champions (Executioners), Ultramarines and Imperial Fists respectively and be counted towards them?

I would assume so.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
There aren't very many referenced, but there are some, but would chapters founded from a Successor chapter still be regarded as being founded from the First Founding, Say Dark Sons (Novamarines) or Iron Champions (Executioners), Ultramarines and Imperial Fists respectively and be counted towards them?

I would assume so.

it seems to vary. you see a lot of cases of when a chapter claims to be a sucessor to another chapter but the chapter they claim to be sucessors to is "silent on the matter" I suspect you don't see very close ties at all beyond the second founding chapters

BrianDavion wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:
There aren't very many referenced, but there are some, but would chapters founded from a Successor chapter still be regarded as being founded from the First Founding, Say Dark Sons (Novamarines) or Iron Champions (Executioners), Ultramarines and Imperial Fists respectively and be counted towards them?

I would assume so.

it seems to vary. you see a lot of cases of when a chapter claims to be a sucessor to another chapter but the chapter they claim to be sucessors to is "silent on the matter" I suspect you don't see very close ties at all beyond the second founding chapters

Fire Hawks for example.

It depends on the intervening chapters as to whether it matters.

A successor chapter to the Genesis Chapter or Novamarines might as well be a direct successor to the Ultramarines.

A Black Templars successor chapter, however, is going to be noticably different to a 'direct' Imperial Fists successor chapter - and a subsequent successor to them might be different again, because each time you take some (but not all) of the previous chapter's culture and then blend it with a new homeworld's culture.

The only chapters which take a really keen interest in all their successors are the blood angels (because of the flaw) and the Dark Angels (where they can, because of the fallen), and - for the more positive - the Imperial Fists, because apparently fairly random new foundings still get tickets to the feast of blades, not just second founding chapters.

I fall into the camp of "It's a big universe, whatever works for you is possible."

As others have noted, not every successor chapter shows every tendency of the parent chapter. Moreover, not every chapter even knows what chapter is their parent.

Look at the Blood Ravens. For all the speculation and all the prevalence of psykers among them, no one has conclusively proved that they come from the Thousand Sons. They themselves don't know. One of their battle cries/mantras is "For the Unknown Primarch!"

You could leave your Primarch unknown to your chapter, or even yourself, and discover it as you play them. Perhaps your evolving play style will reveal your chapter's provenance.

If you want to go for some really interesting background you could decide that your chapter's geneseed sprang form one of the traitor legions. (Don't do Thousand Sons, it's too Blood Raven derivative.) While such an origin is incredibly unlikely, the Imperium of Man is a bloated bureaucracy. Some lazy Mechanicum functionary might have found a convenient cache of 'unwanted' DNA locked away somewhere, or someone might have manipulated the use of forbidden genes deliberately as an insidious experiment (Radical Inquisitor anyone?)

Still, a chapter whose genes come unknowingly from the likes of Horus or Kruze or Lorgar or Fulgrim might lead you to some interesting 30K-based combat doctrines, combat styles and quirks.

Just some thoughts to chew on.

My two teef.

Thanks for the input everyone. It would seem Ultra Marines are the most likely from sheer statistical probability, with Imperial Fists in second, based on again statistics. I think the latter would fit my play style a bit better, so that's likely what I'll go with. Again, I appreciate everyone's two cents though.

One thing:

Never base your fluff on stupid arbitrary game rules, lol. Never base your game rules on fluff. Even if the Astral Knights were Ultramarines successors, you can play them with Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics. The game existed for almost 26 years before they implemented those silly Chapter Tactics rules. They're 100% fluff-irrelevant. Even moreso when you realize that most Successor Chapters, while taking perhaps some things from their parent, are hardly carbon copies. There are no excessive mentions of bikes or land speeders in the Mantis Warriors for example. There's no obsession with bionics noted by every Iron Hands successors.