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i want to start a new space wolves army but want to do my own color scheme would that just be a new company or what..?

It could be a second- or third-founding chapter. You can just make something up and use the Space Wolves book.

Heck, you could say it was an off-shoot of a sucessor chapter that got sucked into the warp, and chaos them up a bit.

There is only one documented Space Wolves successor Chapter, and they were disbanded by the Inquisition due to mutation. The current theory is that the Space Wolves geneseed only works properly with natives of Fenris.


That doesn't mean that you can't create a Chapter that uses Space Wolves rules, though. It doesn't really matter which Chapter they are descended from, as successor Chapters don't always follow the same organisation or rules as their parent.

And, of course, you could always just make them an undocumented Space Wolves successor...

There was only ever 1 off shoot the wolf brothers and that ended in failure.

Its said explicitly there was only ever 1 successor so thats a no go sorry, all great companies in the chapter would have the same paint scheme aswell so you cant have your own paint scheme if they are spacewolves.

You can invent your own chapter and just use the SW codex, but you cant say in your fluff they are related to the wolves of fenris.

Could have a chapter, that, upon it's formation, worked very closely with the Space Wolves, and as such, their battle tactics, organization, and some of their wilder aspects rubbed off on them.

Just an idea.

hobojebus wrote:
Its said explicitly there was only ever 1 successor so thats a no go sorry,

There were also only 2 2nd Founding successors to the Imperial Fists... until there were 3.

40K fluff is mutable, and the background we are given is deliberately incomplete. It's a starting point, not a bible set down in stone.

There is only 1 chapter that KNOWS he is successor anyway, there could be plenty of others who do not know.

There are alot of unknown origin chapters, I it is entirely possible for a group of wolves to split off from the main chapter and start their on mini-chapter (inner feud resolved by banishment of the troublemakers?)

A Space Wolf successor would be exceedingly rare. A more likely scenario is that a particularly charismatic young marine gathers a close following and starts his own warband with their own paint scheme.

Still you could always have a different parent chapter and just say that they have a similar command structure and tactical style to Space Wolves.

 insaniak wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Its said explicitly there was only ever 1 successor so thats a no go sorry,

There were also only 2 2nd Founding successors to the Imperial Fists... until there were 3.

40K fluff is mutable, and the background we are given is deliberately incomplete. It's a starting point, not a bible set down in stone.

Yes but add in to the fact that there is little free Space Wolves geneseed, that is is well documented the effects of that geneseed on certain humans and that it has been made pretty clear in fluff that only fenrisian natives can handle the geneseed it makes it very unlikely. Add to this the fact that all foundings are controlled by the High Lords and that the Space Wolves have a less than friendly relationship with them it makes use of their geneseed even less likely.

Yes 40k fluff has alot of loopholes and gaps to slot fan made fluff in, but it also has alot of obvious plot points which should not be changed by fans if they want fluff other fans will care about. This gets brought up alot on the forum and usually ends up with someone saying that 'fluff nazis are stomping on imaginative people', but it is much more skillful and imaginative for a writer to work within a frame work and do it well than to just go 'my space marines fire rainbows and teddies, i'm being imaginative'.

To the OP:
1. Space Wolves do not have any successors and it is very, very, very unlikely an unknown one would exist.
2. Each company has is largely independant leader and have varied colour schemes, all are based on the grey but have unique bits (i.e. A single red arm on each marine).
3. The 13th company is an interestingvfluff army which allows for lots of colour scheme changes due to their captured armour and gear.
4. Honour is very important to space marines and even more so to Space Wolves, it is not unheard of for small groups of Space Wolves to leave the chapter to regain there honour, most don't last long, but those that do woukd most likely look different from standard wolves.

5. Just use the C:SW and create a new chapter with not genetic link to the space wolves, you can even replace the wolf elements with any other predators animal, bear, dinosaurs, terror birds. If you do it well alot of hobbists would be very envious.

Simple enough. Though unlikely to have a SW successor, it could just be a rebellious bunch taking off on their own as others have pointed out. Just put in a little bit of fluff about them returning to the father chapter to receive new recruits every century or something like that. So yes, you could have a SW army that isn't SW.

Lots of good ideas here.

It could even be a thirteenth-founding descendant of the SW. (Which is their own open-ended out-clause.)

 BluntmanDC wrote:
Add to this the fact that all foundings are controlled by the High Lords ...

...aside from the ones about which there are no Imperial records. No telling just what happened there.

This gets brought up alot on the forum and usually ends up with someone saying that 'fluff nazis are stomping on imaginative people', but it is much more skillful and imaginative for a writer to work within a frame work and do it well than to just go 'my space marines fire rainbows and teddies, i'm being imaginative'.

The thing is, the 40K 'framework' is very broad. There are so many unknowns and outright contradictions, that the only thing we can really say for certain about Imperial history is that nothing is actually certain.

Certainly the existance of Space Wolf successors is unlikely... but unlikely just means you need a clever story to explain them.

Or not, if you really don't care that much about the story.

 BluntmanDC wrote:


Yes but add in to the fact that there is little free Space Wolves geneseed, that is is well documented the effects of that geneseed on certain humans and that it has been made pretty clear in fluff that only fenrisian natives can handle the geneseed it makes it very unlikely. Add to this the fact that all foundings are controlled by the High Lords and that the Space Wolves have a less than friendly relationship with them it makes use of their geneseed even less likely.

Where does it say the SW have a less than friendly relationship with the High Lords? That's nonsense. They have a less than friendly relationship with some of the High Lords, most notably the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy. Rather more accurately, they don't get along with these two organisations whose highest member is one of the High Lords.
With the Imperial Guard, the Houses Navigator (IIRC there's a Navigator on the Council as well), and the Mechanicum, however, the SW have no quarrel, and the IG in fact seems to actively like the Wolves, as they're less intractable to them than other SM Chapters.

In any case, back to the OP's question: AFAIK, official background only states that there are no *known* successor chapters to the SW, and at the Second Founding they split only once, having never been a numerous Chapter.
That leaves:
Unknown successors (not only unlikely, but they would also probably not follow SW doctrine, so are more suited to be regular Codex Marines),
the 13th Company,
a surviving remnant of the Wolf Brothers (who due to Warp shenanigans have been thrown forward in time from before they were disbanded),
a rogue Great Company that did not agree with a past or the current Great Wolf and has set up shop on some other death world/primitive world/wherever , slowly changing its heraldry and colour scheme to better fit their new home.

I'll just leave this here for SMMSjosh14

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Wolves#.UOCkSeQ0V8E

The Canis Helix does not work when you use none Fenrisians to make your space marines, the wolf brother's were disbanded because the large majority of them fell to the wulfen curse.

Unlike the wolves they could not keep that side of themselves in check and as a result became a chapter of monsters, and the same would happen to any other chapter that tried to use their geneseed.

The book battle of the fang goes into this quite a bit.

The wolves would not allow their geneseed to be used to try it again, and after the armagedon debacle we know the high lords dont have the will to take on the space wolves, they know the whole segmentum would rise up to support them and it'd end in a new heresy.

canon is really super clear on this point, there was one attempt it failed badly and was never tried again.

Blah who cares make up your own fluff and poo poo on anyone that says anything. If you want Orks that where raised by Eldar go for it. You want Tau that fell too Khorn "what ever". Just paint your minis and have a blast because in the end of the day they are just plastic army men being pushed around by over grown children (that includes me). But most importantly YOU will have to look at those mini's every time you play, so you better enjoy everything about them fluff, paint, and playability.

Exactly it's your hobby you enjoy it if a fluff gamer has a problem tell the "I'm sorry you feel that way but it is my hobby and i do what I want."

Bran Dawri wrote:Where does it say the SW have a less than friendly relationship with the High Lords? That's nonsense. They have a less than friendly relationship with some of the High Lords, most notably the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy. Rather more accurately, they don't get along with these two organisations whose highest member is one of the High Lords. With the Imperial Guard, the Houses Navigator (IIRC there's a Navigator on the Council as well), and the Mechanicum, however, the SW have no quarrel, and the IG in fact seems to actively like the Wolves, as they're less intractable to them than other SM Chapters.

You forgot the High Lord of the Administratum, whose Adeptus played an important role in the decision concerning the survivors of Armageddon - the SW Codex specifically points out how, since that day, "Grimnar held an abiding hatred for the Adepts of the Administratum". The same book also mentions how the IG's High Command got into an argument with the Wolves about the defence of the Montberg Spaceport, demanding the surviving SW to be chastised for failing to follow orders.

I'm not sure where you have that bit about the IG being "less intractable to them" from, but in general I would say that you seem to underestimate the Ecclesiarchy's role in the day-to-day life of Imperial citizens and officials. The majority of the people is quite religious, so it stands to reason they might rather listen to what their priests (each Imperial Guard regiment has at least one) tell them, especially given this is their only source of information on the Space Wolves. Certainly, the millions of Imperial Guardsmen that invaded Fenris in M36, enslaving the local population and intending to wrest control of this world from the Space Wolves, did not appear to have much of a moral issue with this mission. Likewise, the recent punitive expedition by the Adepta Sororitas would count as a War of Faith, and these have to be sanctioned by the High Lords of Terra. In other words, apparently no-one in the Council had much of a problem with this - either that, or it was an illegal action prompted by some individual Cardinal, which would admittedly explain the withdrawal, but is not hinted at in the material.

Let's face it, with their track record, the Space Wolves simply do not have many friends in the galaxy left. Their unique sense of honour, apparently so strong that it overrides better judgment, had them pick a couple fights too many, with people who are too influential.

As to the topic at hand, I suppose just playing a Successor Chapter with the SW Codex is the best way to go, if you really want to use these rules but cannot bring yourself to play actual SW. Yes, it goes against certain details in their GW fluff - but a number of novel authors and RPG writers deviate from it as well, and so can you. As a gamer, you are supposed to "take possession" of the setting and make it your own, which means you are limited only by your own preferences in terms of how close you want to stick to the studio fluff.

They are your mini's, so do what you like. You are the one who's going to drop a stupid amount of money on them. You are the one who'll dedicate vast amounts of time getting them to look like you want. You'll never get that time back, and likely never get that money back, so you better do everything in your power to enjoy your hobby your way.

Let's break this down real quick;

The literary mechanic that the game developers designed into normal SM chapters to allow for different color schemes and etc are "sucessor" chapters. Common geneseed and common rules, but freedom to create fluff and color.

The SW do not have this "successor" mechanic written into their fluff. In fact it is completely replaced with the "13th Company" mechanic. In the current codex, the 13th Company is no longer only relegated for the fabled 13th Co. It now represents any and all Great Companies that have either left Fenris on a Great Hunt, been lost in the warp, did not like the current wolf lord and instead took off to forge their own saga, etc, etc, etc.

This allows you to write your own fluff, decide your own tactics, and decide your own color scheme for your great company while using the common geneseed and common rules of the Wolves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It is the encouraged mechanic to customize your SW army just as the successor mechanic is the encouraged mechanic to customizing a SM codex chapter.

 Crawdadr wrote:
Blah who cares make up your own fluff and poo poo on anyone that says anything. If you want Orks that where raised by Eldar go for it. You want Tau that fell too Khorn "what ever". Just paint your minis and have a blast because in the end of the day they are just plastic army men being pushed around by over grown children (that includes me). But most importantly YOU will have to look at those mini's every time you play, so you better enjoy everything about them fluff, paint, and playability.

So in your viewpoint you believe it is fine to 'poo poo' on other hobbyists, i.e. Be rude. I don't quite understand it when people are like this, if you care so little about the setting of 40k why would you bother writing fluff about your purchases?

 Crawdadr wrote:
Blah who cares make up your own fluff and poo poo on anyone that says anything. If you want Orks that where raised by Eldar go for it. You want Tau that fell too Khorn "what ever". Just paint your minis and have a blast because in the end of the day they are just plastic army men being pushed around by over grown children (that includes me). But most importantly YOU will have to look at those mini's every time you play, so you better enjoy everything about them fluff, paint, and playability.

Agree with you completely, btw I don't se BL authors following any rules when they write their shenanigans.....

Here is what you do - you create a secret chapter called, say, the Shadow Wolves, or somesuch, that exist, but the fluff says they are a secret strikeforce of X, Y or Z faction of the Imperial hierarchy, or something similar and are not known to the general populace. Alternatively, you reveal that a chapter of Space Wolves successors, created from Wolf Brothers who did not succumb, has been living on the fringes of Imperial space for millennia, and have just returned, like the Carcharodons did in the Badab War. This chapter probably do suffer badly from the wolfen curse, but have overcome it enough to function, even if the manner of their functioning does not meet with Imperial approval, they still see themselves as Imperial.

What colour did you want as your primary colour? I am sure I can come up with some fluff which, whilst not legitimate and may upset some real hard-core gamers, would satisfy most people...

(Bearing in mind, by the way, that the blog post on the main GW website has featured alternative schemes of Space Wolves, I think some of you need to take your heads out of your arses.)

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Crawdadr wrote:
Blah who cares make up your own fluff and poo poo on anyone that says anything. If you want Orks that where raised by Eldar go for it. You want Tau that fell too Khorn "what ever". Just paint your minis and have a blast because in the end of the day they are just plastic army men being pushed around by over grown children (that includes me). But most importantly YOU will have to look at those mini's every time you play, so you better enjoy everything about them fluff, paint, and playability.

So in your viewpoint you believe it is fine to 'poo poo' on other hobbyists, i.e. Be rude. I don't quite understand it when people are like this, if you care so little about the setting of 40k why would you bother writing fluff about your purchases?

Am I the one being rude or is the guy that says "this is the 40k universe so you cant use your imagination" the one being rude? Its your army in the past 20 years I have seen Starwars based armies (strom troopers), USA themed termie army (ug but what ever), and a slew of post herasy marines of legions that fell but "these guys stayed loyal" armies. What do all of these have in common? They all were fielded within the rules and made their owners happy. Who are we to say that their imaginary army does not fit within this imaginary world?

Come on people, how many times have you seen the fluff change on your armies since 1st edition? Who knows twenty years from now there very well could be hundreds of new space wolf chapters after the 10 founding or what ever? Build what you love and play your way.

Crawdadr wrote:Am I the one being rude or is the guy that says "this is the 40k universe so you cant use your imagination" the one being rude?

You really want an answer to that? Okay, I'll bite.

I think it's just in how you worded that stuff. The way I see things, you are entirely correct (see my own post above), but you've conveyed that message in a way that makes people who have grown to love a certain vision of the setting irritated. Especially since many of those people are still operating under a false belief that there is actually anything close to a canon in this IP. That's really all there is to it. /shrug

Before my own epiphany, I might've gotten angry myself. My love for "that certain vision of the setting" has not changed, but I've come to realise that we all have our own idea of 40k and you can't force yours on anyone else, so it's no use quarreling. Nobody forces us to play an army we deem incompatible with our own perception of the setting, after all. We may disagree on this or that, but we can still tolerate each other's opinion (and thus their army) as a fellow human being and hobbyist. Works the same for 40k as it does for, say, sexuality or religion.

 Crawdadr wrote:

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Crawdadr wrote:
Blah who cares make up your own fluff and poo poo on anyone that says anything. If you want Orks that where raised by Eldar go for it. You want Tau that fell too Khorn "what ever". Just paint your minis and have a blast because in the end of the day they are just plastic army men being pushed around by over grown children (that includes me). But most importantly YOU will have to look at those mini's every time you play, so you better enjoy everything about them fluff, paint, and playability.

So in your viewpoint you believe it is fine to 'poo poo' on other hobbyists, i.e. Be rude. I don't quite understand it when people are like this, if you care so little about the setting of 40k why would you bother writing fluff about your purchases?

Am I the one being rude or is the guy that says "this is the 40k universe so you cant use your imagination" the one being rude? Its your army in the past 20 years I have seen Starwars based armies (strom troopers), USA themed termie army (ug but what ever), and a slew of post herasy marines of legions that fell but "these guys stayed loyal" armies. What do all of these have in common? They all were fielded within the rules and made their owners happy. Who are we to say that their imaginary army does not fit within this imaginary world?

Come on people, how many times have you seen the fluff change on your armies since 1st edition? Who knows twenty years from now there very well could be hundreds of new space wolf chapters after the 10 founding or what ever? Build what you love and play your way.

Star wars theme army - does not infringe on fluff as it is clearly an army based on external fluff that the collector had no intention of it existing in the 40k universe and is a painting or modelling project. Or the storm troopers can be from a world with similar reproductive tech as krieg but better armour tech.

USA army - perfectly fine as their are a massive number of worlds with multitudes of cultures in the IoM.

Loyalist traitor forces - their is potential ways to do it, but are generally poorly done.

I have no problem with imagination. Their is a vast difference between imagination and skillful creativity, someone capable of writing fluff within an already created fluff universe that is imaginative will generally be better written than someone being 'imaginative'.

In the 10,000 years since the Heresy, there have been untold chapters of space marines created, disbanded, split into smaller parts, destroyed, turned to chaos, renegaded, lost to the warp, or lost to history. There are chapters of space marines that haven't encountered each other in thousands of years.

It's entirely possible for there to be a chapter that is completely unrelated to the Space Wolves in their origin but have developed an entirely similar fighting style and command structure over the millenniums that have passed since their founding. Paint your Space Wolves green and call them the Forest Wolves of Winnebago Prime.

 Lynata wrote:

Crawdadr wrote:Am I the one being rude or is the guy that says "this is the 40k universe so you cant use your imagination" the one being rude?

You really want an answer to that? Okay, I'll bite.

I think it's just in how you worded that stuff. The way I see things, you are entirely correct (see my own post above), but you've conveyed that message in a way that makes people who have grown to love a certain vision of the setting irritated. Especially since many of those people are still operating under a false belief that there is actually anything close to a canon in this IP. That's really all there is to it. /shrug

Before my own epiphany, I might've gotten angry myself. My love for "that certain vision of the setting" has not changed, but I've come to realise that we all have our own idea of 40k and you can't force yours on anyone else, so it's no use quarreling. Nobody forces us to play an army we deem incompatible with our own perception of the setting, after all. We may disagree on this or that, but we can still tolerate each other's opinion (and thus their army) as a fellow human being and hobbyist. Works the same for 40k as it does for, say, sexuality or religion.

Amazing. I find myself fully agreeing on a matter of background with Lynata . Footnote: I do like to argue, though. Sometimes I even play devil's advocate just to see how far I can take a really silly argument.
Actually I suspect we mostly just don't see eye-to-eye on the SW, but that's the only discussions I ever run into you. Might have something to do with those being the majority of discussions I take part in.
Have an exalt!

<3

Bran Dawri wrote:Actually I suspect we mostly just don't see eye-to-eye on the SW, but that's the only discussions I ever run into you.

For the record, I still dig the original idea of the Wolves (Viking Space Marines! How could this not be awesome?), I just think that over the years, it evolved into something else I just can't "approve of" anymore, as far as my own perception of the setting is concerned. In part, I may even be angry with GW specifically because I liked the original idea (few people might have guessed it, but my very first Codex was 3E Space Marines ), and then saw it "corrupted and ridiculed" (warning, personal opinion). It's just sad, as I think there is a lot of wasted potential.

In the end, it's all a matter of scale and preferences... As long as we keep any discussions civil and tolerate each other, I don't see a problem. Not anymore, anyways. I'd still prefer more consistency throughout the IP in order to better resolve fluff debates (or rather, resolve them at all), but we gotta work with what we have.

As far as the Devil's Advocate is concerned ... yeah, been there myself.

But in the end how does another persons fluff effect your game play? I mean I would rather have some well painted minis's with an off beat concept on the table then a fluff perfect junk army on the table any day. Its just a minitures game after all, the rationalisation some one uses to paint their army a certain color or use a certain rule set should not matter in the slightest as long as they are not cheating. Shoot if fluff matter so much to people I doubt we would see so many twinked out armies on the tables. Grey knights and Crons comes to mind (yuck). Now thats a crime against the fluff on the game and not fun to play agianst which is the bigger crime.