I hereby request that you guys critique the following Index Astartes article that I wrote for the Salamanders successor chapter along with the paint scheme. Be merciless in purging any flaws but please be constructive.
Index Astartes
Ghost Vipers
Origins
The Star Vipers were laid out by decree of the High Lords of Terra in his most holy year of 0.450.358 .M36 during the 14th founding. Recovering from the Vandire Heresy, it was decreed that they be selected of a stock most loyal and stalwart unbound by zeal but firm in conviction. The Salamanders formed the logical base stock as they were perhaps the most stalwart and even tempered of all Marines. After a 50 year probationary period to grow and train they were sent with exploratory expeditions toward the Ghoul Stars of the Ultima Segmentum in search of lost
STCs and Archaeotech.
They soon found themselves embroiled in conflict with the traitorous Mechanum garrisons at Carrilon Prime. The garrisons had been tasked by Horus himself to guard a vault of archaeotech from the Dark Age of Technology. The garrison stood steadfastly against the Star Vipers, defying every attempt at breaching their defenses. With their Astropaths unable to breach the sheer distance to the nearest Imperial garrison, the Star Vipers were entirely cut off from reinforcements. In desperation the Star Vipers, outnumbered and hideously outgunned waged a war of stealth and sabotage. They carefully ambushed patrols and supply shipments plundering what they could to continue their assault. They took tremendous casualties but in the end they prevailed when they finally intercepted a shipment of authentication codes which the few remaining expedition techpriests and techmarines managed to fashion into masking devices that allowed a group of the first company to infiltrate directly into the main Mechanum command center. There they obliterated much of the central computer control systems that held the enemy forces together. The Fabricator-General of Carrilon Prime assaulted the First Company, inflicting massive casualties with resonance weaponry before being cut down. Henceforth the First Company would be known as the Shattered.
Having defeated the leader of the rogue Mechanum leader, the Star Vipers claimed the world in the name of the Emperor. Having claimed the primary communications array, they were able to boost their astropaths enough to break to the distance and request reinforcements. Two full regiments of the Venaxian 77th arrived within 3 months time to secure the rest of the planet. The vaults held numerous crusade and heresy era marine artifacts. The Adeptus Mechanus explorers granted much of this to the Star Vipers in recognition of their immense sacrifice. The Star Vipers withdrew and petitioned the High Lords of Terra for a world to call their own, where they might regroup and begin to recover their losses. They also petitioned to have their name changed to the Ghost Vipers, in honor of the spirits of their fallen brethren. Both of these requests were granted and the Ghost Vipers settled into their new home, the southern mountains of Bellakara in the S'kardon Depths of the Ulthmagus Sector, Ultima Segmentum. The Ghost Vipers licked their wounds and set about regaining true combat strength.
Soon after, Waaaaagh Grotstompa roared through the sector. Coordinating assaults with the local Imperial Guard and the nearby Death Spectres Space Marines, the Ghost Vipers launched devastating ambushes and surprise assaults at ork weak points. The Waaaaagh was cut to pieces though it took several decades to fully clear out the sector to its pre-Waaaaagh ork population. By then the Ghost Vipers had risen to full strength and began undertaking extended combat operations. They cleared several Hrud infestations in the Ansagos Cluster before beginning an extended campaign against Chaos and Ork pirates in the Lower Jang-Kai Chute.
More recent events have been ominous with the arrival of Hive Fleet Moloch in some of the neighboring sectors. The Ghost Vipers remain vigilant lest the Tyranids arrive locally as well.
Home World
Originally a fleet based chapter, the Ghost Viper's massive losses on Carrilon Prime necessitated a more permanent home with a larger recruiting base. Bellakara lies in a sparsely inhabited region of the sector, away from major shipping lanes. It is a world quite unlike the progenitor Salamanders' home of Nocturne. Covered in dense forests and towering mountains, it is a majestic and largely untouched world, the more mundane human inhabitants largely clustered around the southern continents where the oceans become shallow enough to allow easy mining of the mineral rich seafloor.
The Ghost Vipers hold a small fortress monastery in the mountains as well as numerous outposts in the major cities. Much as their predecessors, they live and work within their communities rather than protecting from afar. They were once nearly lost to isolation, they will not allow it to happen again.
Recruitment generally takes place during the autumn of the year after the harvests have been collected. Various youth compete for the right to enter the trials. The first of these trials involve feats of survival and navigation as aspirants are stranded in the wilderness. Those that return are further subjected to tests of stealth, skill, and cunning. Those that are accepted into the chapter then undergo the processes of turning a aspirant into a full fledged marine. Once they achieve the rank of scout they are then taken to Helas Perdisus, a small rocky world with a dense and highly volatile atmosphere. It is here that they further their combat and infiltration skills, all the while dodging and weathering searing firestorms sweeping down from the upper atmosphere through clouds of condensed methane. Only when they are deemed to be sufficiently schooled here are they allowed the title of Battle Brother. They are then generally assigned to a Hearthguard Reserve Company and take up station somewhere within the Ghost Vipers' operational zone.
Combat Doctrine
Much of the combat doctrine of the Ghost Vipers is inherited from the Salamanders including a respect and skill toward high quality wargear as well as a love of flame weapons. Also present is the caution and calculated reflexes of the Salamanders. The primary deviation is the result of the Ghost Vipers' time on Carrilon. They are far more stealth oriented than most marine chapters, often spending weeks or even months setting up a string of precisely timed ambushes to be executed in an exacting fashion. These generally then take the form of close range fire fights fought with the utmost speed and often at blistering temperatures.
Organization
The Ghost Vipers keep the same general organization as the Salamanders with 7 companies all of 120 marines except for the scout company at 60. The first company retains the title “The Shattered” and must endure trials while wearing a broken and heavily damaged suit of armor. The Battle companies are assigned to various operations as need warrants. The Reserve companies typically take a more defense and ambassadorial role, helping to keep the worlds under Ghost Viper care safe and well prepared against outside and inside threats. This has earned them the designation of Hearthguard.
The ambush tactics of the Ghost Vipers rely more on positioning and stealth than on speed. Thus they maintain few light vehicle squadrons. They prefer to use marines where possible with those marines operating with only what they can carry.
Belief
The Ghost Vipers have a strong sense of community which they actively cultivate. They seek to lead by example rather than by simply striking awe into those around them. They believe that the spirits of the dead linger on after death, guiding and protecting those still living. This is a local derivation of the Imperial Creed and likely picked up as a way of dealing with their horrifying losses on Carrilon. This extends to their wargear and they take great pains to gather and maintain a large stock of older armor and weapons as a tribute to those who came before.
They inherit their belief in the power of fire from the Salamanders, reinforced by their extensive use of such weapons against the numerous enemies they have vanquished. The idea that fire is a shock weapon is thoroughly ingrained in both doctrine and practice.
Geneseed
Like their progenitors, the Ghost Vipers display no signs of mutation beyond the initial peculiarities of the Salamander genetic lines. Any deviations in combat protocol or chapter ritual are the result of combat experience and integration of local custom.
Battle-Cry
“We fight and we remember!”
