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So dakka I'm wondering if I should start a Red Scorpions or Crimson Fists army, here are my pros and cons:

Crimson Fists:
Pros:
Classic chapter imo
Have liked them for a long while
I like the focus on sternguard and power fists
Already have most if not all paints needed for them
are IF successors
Recruit off Necromunda!
Cons:
Something I just don't like about how the colors are all the same with no white helmets for 1st company
Don't really like how they are all Mexican/Spanish, I would like to have mixed races, although maybe I could get away with it


Red Scorpions:
Pros:
Really like color scheme
Like naming for them
Fought in Badab war
Cons:
Shoulder pads, conversion kits, etc. are from FW, whereas the CF ones are GW
Don't like rigid following and worshipping of the codex and just their whole focus on purity in general.
Strange chapter organization
Don't like how their founding is not known

Crimson Fists:
Why?
Because they are badasses. Other than they killed themselves.

If you don't plan on using the FW book for the Red Scorpion characters/codex then I'd just go with the Crimson Fists. If you take Commander Cullen, he lets you take Apothecaries instead of Sargents. Magister Loth is pretty cool as a lvl3 psyker with an ability to turn his 2+ armor save into a 2+ invul save.

Just a quick glance at your list puts more Pros and less Cons on the Crimson Fist side of things. Crimson fists are still a cool group with Pedro making Sternguard scoring and, even though I don't play SM at the moment, I really like the Crimson Fists.

Red Scorpions. You'll be more unique, and LGS people love facing new stuff.

Since they recruit from Necromunda now, you can get away with giving them whatever racial background you want.

Personally, I'd choose Crimson Fists since they're not nearly as expensive as Red Scorpions. You could buy three Crimson Fists for every two Red Scorpions.

Plus, there are a lot more bits for Crimson Fists than Red Scorpions. Scorps have shoulder pads, Fists get three different shoulder pads and two backpacks.

 xSPYXEx wrote:
Personally, I'd choose Crimson Fists since they're not nearly as expensive as Red Scorpions. You could buy three Crimson Fists for every two Red Scorpions.

Plus, there are a lot more bits for Crimson Fists than Red Scorpions. Scorps have shoulder pads, Fists get three different shoulder pads and two backpacks.

Right...

You can get a pack of 10 CF shoulder pads from GW for $10.
You can get a pack of 10 RS shoulder pads from FW for $14.
I don't think an extra $.40/ shoulder pad is bank breaking....

Shoulder pads.... The fW and GW sites would like to disagree.

CF- Pedro and 4 similar sets of shoulder pads. Oh and some vehicle icons.

RS- http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Red_Scorpions?filter_reset=1

Do you actually need specific shoulder pads, aren't transfers enough? IIRC normal SM kits come with CF transfers and you can order scorpion ones from FW.

Also, if you want your veterans to have different colour helmets, then just paint them like that. It's your army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and about GW shoulderpads. I remember that in past some of the conversion bit pads were smaller than the plastic ones. Have they fixed that?

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, and about GW shoulderpads. I remember that in past some of the conversion bit pads were smaller than the plastic ones. Have they fixed that?

VERY good point. I completely forgot about that issue. It was mainly the old metal squad pads and chapter pads from that time. The current CF pads are relatively new sculpts compared to the very old world eater chapter pads. I would expect the size issue was fixed with the CF pads, but don't know for sure.

Red Scorpions because Badab war

CF, they're the oldest chapter, have great fluff, and garner universal respect.

CF are 2nd founding and RS are an unknown founding.

Niether are first founding so it's impossible to know for certain which is older.

 Chronepsis wrote:
CF are 2nd founding and RS are an unknown founding.

Niether are first founding so it's impossible to know for certain which is older.

???

Crimson Fists are a documented 2nd founding chapter. ALL of the second founding loyalist chapters are known. There is debate about a couple of traitor marine chapters being second founding chapters. While the Red Scorpions may be an unknown founding, that also automatically makes them NOT a second founding chapter.

Therefore, the Crimson Fists are older. There is no wiggle room on that issue.

Crimson fists are just awesome. Descended from IP, which are my favorite 1st founding chapter. For Dorn!

 kronk wrote:

 Chronepsis wrote:
CF are 2nd founding and RS are an unknown founding.

Niether are first founding so it's impossible to know for certain which is older.

???

Crimson Fists are a documented 2nd founding chapter. ALL of the second founding loyalist chapters are known. There is debate about a couple of traitor marine chapters being second founding chapters. While the Red Scorpions may be an unknown founding, that also automatically makes them NOT a second founding chapter.

Therefore, the Crimson Fists are older. There is no wiggle room on that issue.

Unless, like the theorized origin of the Blood Ravens, the Scorpions are a loyalist shard of a Traitor Legion, making them older.

If you don't know the age, don't assume. That gets you sent to prison with certain things

-Capt

The rumor about them being decedents of Thousand Sons?

How would that even work?

 kronk wrote:
The rumor about them being decedents of Thousand Sons?

How would that even work?

Thousand Sons side with Horus.

Loyal Thousand Sons break off and start their own Chapter.

Name themselves Blood Ravens.

Blood Ravens are born.

I would have thought we'd have heard more about them though, right? Did they just show up 100 years later and say "Hey...can we join the Imperium? We were always good and like the Emperor. Pretty please?"

 kronk wrote:
I would have thought we'd have heard more about them though, right? Did they just show up 100 years later and say "Hey...can we join the Imperium? We were always good and like the Emperor. Pretty please?"

Can't say for sure, it seems to be intentionally left ambiguous. Though, think about it. It's not like we know that much about 40k's history between M31 and M40.999

There are like, hundreds of chapters out there with unknown foundings, missing Primarchs, random IG regiments everywhere, hundreds of wars we haven't even heard of until GW/BL/FW sees fit to tell us about them.

I'd hardly be so shocked to find out that we didn't know everything about the founding of one specific SM Chapter. Especially if it was founded in such controversial times.

 kronk wrote:


Crimson Fists are a documented 2nd founding chapter. ALL of the second founding loyalist chapters are known. There is debate about a couple of traitor marine chapters being second founding chapters. While the Red Scorpions may be an unknown founding, that also automatically makes them NOT a second founding chapter.

Actually, I don't this is the case any more. This used to be how it when space marine legions were about ten thousand strong. However, the inflated 100K or more numbers seem to be the canon now. The named second founding chapters cannot be the only ones.

In any case, Lobukia's comment probably referred to Crimson Fists being on the cover of Rogue Trader.

 Crimson wrote:

 kronk wrote:


Crimson Fists are a documented 2nd founding chapter. ALL of the second founding loyalist chapters are known. There is debate about a couple of traitor marine chapters being second founding chapters. While the Red Scorpions may be an unknown founding, that also automatically makes them NOT a second founding chapter.

Actually, I don't this is the case any more. This used to be how it when space marine legions were about ten thousand strong. However, the inflated 100K or more numbers seem to be the canon now. The named second founding chapters cannot be the only ones.

In any case, Lobukia's comment probably referred to Crimson Fists being on the cover of Rogue Trader.

The Larger legions were around 100k before the Heresy.

I think it is suggested that these numbers dwindled greatly.

To few thousand for each chapter? I'm not buying that.

And actually, this sentence has been in SM codices for few editions: "These are the named Successors to the Ultramarines Legion, though the Apocrypha of Skaros states there are 23 Second Founding Chapters but fails to name them."

So at least Ultras have unnamed 2nd founding chapter.