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.

If you create your own space marine chapter, what are the disadvantages? Some of these are obvious: Citadel won't make you any customized bodies, shoulder pads, weapons, etc., which means that getting those will require sculpting on your own.

What about the rules? I assume that rolling your own chapter inherently prohibits you from taking unique characters and other chapter-specific rules. Here's where things get a little murky for me, though: If you create your own chapter, call it a successor of an existing one, can you still take the rules and characters of the parent chapter?

For example, suppose you make a "successor" to the Ultramarines (the Supermarines, perhaps?) can you create a character that exactly mirrors Marneus Calagar (in all but model and name) and play him with the same rules? Naturally, in the event that hte answer is "yes" I would anticipate that the rule would be "no mixing chapter rules within a single detachment."

Are there any other disadvantages?

Yes you can play a custom Chapter using an existing Chapter's rules, but cannot mix rules within a Detachment. You could paint the models Orange and call them Ultramarines if you'd like, as adhering to the color schemes is more of a fluff thing.

Yes. You lose the Special characters, but can keep the tactics if they suit how your chapter fights.

The SPACE SHARKS, for example [Ha, what a stupid chapter name. Bet no-one's thought of that before] Could fight like Ultramarines, and so use the Ultramarines chapter tactic, but they're not Ultramarines, so couldn't talk Calgar without breaking up their detachment as Calgar is a <ULTRAmarine> and the rest are <Space Shark>.

You'd have to paint on all your own Sharks, of course, but that seems like an advantage to me.

You can use whatever chapter for your marines so just call 'em ultramarines rules wise and all rules including special characters are yours.

Of course not that you need own chapter for that. You can use ultramarine models for blood angel detachment and use their rules and special characters no problem

AdmiralHalsey wrote:Yes. You lose the Special characters, but can keep the tactics if they suit how your chapter fights.

The SPACE SHARKS, for example [Ha, what a stupid chapter name. Bet no-one's thought of that before] Could fight like Ultramarines, and so use the Ultramarines chapter tactic, but they're not Ultramarines, so couldn't talk Calgar without breaking up their detachment as Calgar is a <ULTRAmarine> and the rest are <Space Shark>.

You'd have to paint on all your own Sharks, of course, but that seems like an advantage to me.

Haha, SPACE SHARKS I know, right? https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Tyberos-The-Red-Wake Ooops.

So I had assumed that, as an example, if you built a conversion that was physically based on Calagar, that might get you Calagar, even if the paint was all wrong. But that might be a stretch.

Well for one if you have them do anything cool at all then they'll be Mary Sues. You're pretty much relegated to being a kicking post.

Pretty much the only thing homebrews have going for them is being Your Dudes. No one will believe they met Tigurius at an ACDC concert or that your CM can shotgun 12 beers. You'll be relegated to footnote status in regards to lore. Tuomas Pironen will come to your house to explain in great detail why Your Dudes were NOT at Ullanor and why you should be ashamed of that one particular army badge you chose.

In fact, if you type homebrew chapter into a Google search you find semi nude bedueoir photos of Rick Priestly.

So... I mean yeah, you can make a homebrew chapter but... The question is, can you handle it?

The real disadvantage now is if you are a DA or BA successor chapter, you have restricted on what relics you choose.

 darkcloak wrote:
Well for one if you have them do anything cool at all then they'll be Mary Sues. You're pretty much relegated to being a kicking post.

Pretty much the only thing homebrews have going for them is being Your Dudes. No one will believe they met Tigurius at an ACDC concert or that your CM can shotgun 12 beers. You'll be relegated to footnote status in regards to lore. Tuomas Pironen will come to your house to explain in great detail why Your Dudes were NOT at Ullanor and why you should be ashamed of that one particular army badge you chose.

In fact, if you type homebrew chapter into a Google search you find semi nude bedueoir photos of Rick Priestly.

So... I mean yeah, you can make a homebrew chapter but... The question is, can you handle it?

I get the problem with Mary-Sue chapters, but without a little deviation from the established chapters, the whole thing becomes a little paint-by-numbers, doesn’t it?

 Grimgold wrote:
The real disadvantage now is if you are a DA or BA successor chapter, you have restricted on what relics you choose.

Unless you simply mark rulewise them as da/ba/ultramarine whatever

Creating your own stuff is the best. One of the reasons I never really could get exited about HH is that there really in no such freedom there.

The problem is finding that little deviation without sliding into the ridiculous. The main mistake I see people do is make the elite more elite and over specialize.

As far as the rules go. By designating your chapter as a successor you can't take special characters or relics of your parent chapter in the same detachment with your custom guys and benefit from eaches codex rules. This is to prevent certain rules cross overs like Gabriel Seth benefiting from the Standard of Sacrifice. But if you show up to the game and declare your successors are the parent chapter few will balk at it. In my case; I play a BA successor chapter with a custom name, personalities, and backgrounds, but rules wise they are Blood Angels. And I build my detachments as pure Blood Angels, so I use the relics and characters as I want.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
The problem is finding that little deviation without sliding into the ridiculous. The main mistake I see people do is make the elite more elite and over specialize.

As far as the rules go. By designating your chapter as a successor you can't take special characters or relics of your parent chapter in the same detachment with your custom guys and benefit from eaches codex rules. This is to prevent certain rules cross overs like Gabriel Seth benefiting from the Standard of Sacrifice. But if you show up to the game and declare your successors are the parent chapter few will balk at it. In my case; I play a BA successor chapter with a custom name, personalities, and backgrounds, but rules wise they are Blood Angels. And I build my detachments as pure Blood Angels, so I use the relics and characters as I want.

Your approach is effectively what I had in mind: Raven Guard with a different symbol and paint scheme, or some such. The place that it seems to get interesting is the characters. That and chapter specific troops, like the DA have.

Creating your own chapter has no downfalls, really. You don't have the specific emblems and whatnot, so I guess that's one I can think of. Otherwise, you play them as whatever you want. The rules don't specify that your army has to look a certain way. There are some rules in certain books like Dark Angels and Blood Angels where you are limited on what relics you can take if you are a successor chapter. Even then, just play them "counts as" Blood Angels or Dark Angels.

The only thing you'll have to be cognizant of is special characters who are a part of specific chapters or whatever equivalent. They have to be that chapter, even if you make your own, which can affect other rules. In game terms, take Gabriel Seth. If you use him, he has to be a Flesh Tearer chapter. Doing that means you are a successor chapter and would be limited on only a single possible relic.

Keywords are the only thing that makes a Chapter a chapter.

Went with my own, back in the days of 5th edition, indeed before I actually had the rules - just don't find the fluff of marines these days appealing so created my own.

Warriors of the Green Mountain, named for their mountain base. Part of an extended combined arms military they are a power armoured human infantry regiment, they gain the toughness and strength from the armour but are normal guys inside (Primaries now are tall normal guys). A dreadnaught is a normal guy inside the suit etc.

Makes integrating with their non-power armoured colleagues (using the IG rules) a lot easier in the background.

In terms of rules I've not picked a specific chapter for them to be, none currently really fit the style I want but will pick something for the table.

They have no specific special characters with any fancy rules, lack a liturgy of widely known heroic deeds, they are just bods doing a job, they gain history through the games they play.

But create your own? hell yes, make the army yours. You want Calgar etc? just pick the smurf ruleset and stick to it, but overlay your own names, colours and history

Making your own stuff is great, but yes you will suffer a few minor penalties if you stick to your guns and really don't just masquerade under another chapter's codex.

If you're competent at writing rules that aren't over-powered or cheesy you can also write up some of your own units or fluff or characters if you have a local group willing to play against them.

My CSM army has a nicely evolved back story and it determines not only the units I use in my army, but how I play them (I don't allow certain characters to summon daemons, etc.). I am penalizing myself a little bit, but not enough to ruin the game for me. I only use maybe 40% of the units in the Chaos codex, but it's enough to have a cool force.

I use one named character, Fabius Bile, and simply use my own model for him (as he represents very well what one of my Chapter leaders became). Since Fabius Bile isn't tied to any particular Chaos faction or god it's an easy thing to add without breaking the game or making me feel cheesy.

Well I was mostly joking!

But you see some threads and it's like ' Chataper Master Icarususus had defeated twelve swramlord to become Master of the Blade of the Emperor's Blads' type thing, or they're older than the HH or they're like Guillimans personal hairdressers or whatever. Those Chapters should all be sent on an abyssal crusade.

One thing I like about homebrews is that you can kind of throw them off a cliff and see what happens. Like, oh yeah these dudes built a wicked bad fortress monastery, but then Kaboom! Chaos invasion! Tau Diplomat! Whoops, your planets Tithe was late, exterminatus inbound! Have Deldar capture and torture your favourite Captain til he stages a breakout and dies trying to escape. New Chapter Master? Officio Assasinorum hates that his hair is better, BLAM. Send the Chapter vets on a big crusade that gets wrecked by Orks. Let no one survive.

Killing your own dudes is as much fun as them killing stuff.

Annirak wrote:
If you create your own space marine chapter, what are the disadvantages?

You get to use Chapter Tactics and Strategems, but not the named characters or specific wargear that sometimes really benefit from those tactics and Strategems.

You're going to get people that sneer at it, because you're making your own thing and there's tons of people who are more concerned about your army than the ones they play.

You'll get mad when you see people online with the same chapter name.

People will assume you're only making your own chapter to hop around between Chapter Tactics (because you totally are gonna do this).

A lot of awesome models have molded heraldry and you'll be busy filing things off.

 darkcloak wrote:
Well I was mostly joking!

But you see some threads and it's like ' Chataper Master Icarususus had defeated twelve swramlord to become Master of the Blade of the Emperor's Blads' type thing, or they're older than the HH or they're like Guillimans personal hairdressers or whatever. Those Chapters should all be sent on an abyssal crusade.

One thing I like about homebrews is that you can kind of throw them off a cliff and see what happens. Like, oh yeah these dudes built a wicked bad fortress monastery, but then Kaboom! Chaos invasion! Tau Diplomat! Whoops, your planets Tithe was late, exterminatus inbound! Have Deldar capture and torture your favourite Captain til he stages a breakout and dies trying to escape. New Chapter Master? Officio Assasinorum hates that his hair is better, BLAM. Send the Chapter vets on a big crusade that gets wrecked by Orks. Let no one survive.

Killing your own dudes is as much fun as them killing stuff.

That's really a hard part too is making their fluff not terrible, but it's at least easy to avoid the former you made mention of. Space Wolves have NOTHING on some of the Mary Sue gak some people come up with.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Space Wolves have NOTHING on some of the Mary Sue gak some people come up with.

OMG they get along with the Eldar and have peaceful relations with the Tau and they hate the Inquisition and refuse to work with them and their Chapter Master was personally trained by Robutee Guilliman and their Primarch is a MYSTERY but also they always save civilians and they are the BEST at close combat and are also REALLY GOOD shooting

Also look like Chaos Marines for reasons

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Space Wolves have NOTHING on some of the Mary Sue gak some people come up with.

OMG they get along with the Eldar and have peaceful relations with the Tau and they hate the Inquisition and refuse to work with them and their Chapter Master was personally trained by Robutee Guilliman and their Primarch is a MYSTERY but also they always save civilians and they are the BEST at close combat and are also REALLY GOOD shooting

Also look like Chaos Marines for reasons

The saving of civilians bothered me the most in that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The saving of civilians bothered me the most in that.

And I really, REALLY hate crapping on peoples' creativity. I see some 'homebrew' online and I think, "Well, maybe it's just a kid or some one who isn't familiar with the 40k universe".... and then from time to time, I see someone in real life who has one.

A few weeks ago, a guy came in and wanted a pick-up game and he had an entire packet of lore he wanted people to read before playing him.

MULTIPLE PAGES OF LORE.

And it all essentially boiled down to literally everyone in his army from the Sergeants on up had an entire backstory.

And it was all... bad. Like, "Sergeant Skunknuts has personally slain a greater Daemon of Khorne with the jawbone of a baboon", and "Captain Poopieshoes killed an Inquisitor". Essentially a 'rogue' Space Marine Chapter that served the Emperor, not the Imperium, got along with everyone except Chaos and Orks, and somehow managed to have their own Knight House.

I... couldn't, man. I just couldn't.

But, you know, at least he put work into it....?

One of the wierdest rulings I've seen recently is the bit in the FAQ where it said your successor chapter can't use the Warlord Trait of the parent chapter. "Counts as" armies have been a thing forever, including special characters.

 Insectum7 wrote:
One of the wierdest rulings I've seen recently is the bit in the FAQ where it said your successor chapter can't use the Warlord Trait of the parent chapter. "Counts as" armies have been a thing forever, including special characters.

Which is absurd.

The Butt Ravagers being a Successor of the Ultramarines would certainly take the leadership traits and tactics of their parent Chapters along with them.

Admittingly I'm thinking I might actually fluff out my Custodes. I do have a tinsy bit of fluff for my Primaris Blood Ravens, but it mostly consists of me naming my Primaris Captain, Optimus

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The saving of civilians bothered me the most in that.

And I really, REALLY hate crapping on peoples' creativity. I see some 'homebrew' online and I think, "Well, maybe it's just a kid or some one who isn't familiar with the 40k universe".... and then from time to time, I see someone in real life who has one.

A few weeks ago, a guy came in and wanted a pick-up game and he had an entire packet of lore he wanted people to read before playing him.

MULTIPLE PAGES OF LORE.

And it all essentially boiled down to literally everyone in his army from the Sergeants on up had an entire backstory.

And it was all... bad. Like, "Sergeant Skunknuts has personally slain a greater Daemon of Khorne with the jawbone of a baboon", and "Captain Poopieshoes killed an Inquisitor". Essentially a 'rogue' Space Marine Chapter that served the Emperor, not the Imperium, got along with everyone except Chaos and Orks, and somehow managed to have their own Knight House.

I... couldn't, man. I just couldn't.

But, you know, at least he put work into it....?

That's pretty bad.

The way I've been attempting my Chapter's lore is that it basically comes from some raw recruits. We have no understanding of organization or the Chapters history outside what these recruits are seeing, and that's it. Actually writing the story for it has been difficult but the ending will feature the last recruit alive, well, dying, as their Chapter Master has little care to the point of almost chuckling.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
One of the wierdest rulings I've seen recently is the bit in the FAQ where it said your successor chapter can't use the Warlord Trait of the parent chapter. "Counts as" armies have been a thing forever, including special characters.

Which is absurd.

The Butt Ravagers being a Successor of the Ultramarines would certainly take the leadership traits and tactics of their parent Chapters along with them.

Which, come to think of it, technically means theres a grey area if I want to use my counts-as-Calgar, who in turn must use the UM Warlord Trait. Not that any opponent cares, but I wonder what the official GW reaction to that would be.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That's pretty bad.

The way I've been attempting my Chapter's lore is that it basically comes from some raw recruits. We have no understanding of organization or the Chapters history outside what these recruits are seeing, and that's it. Actually writing the story for it has been difficult but the ending will feature the last recruit alive, well, dying, as their Chapter Master has little care to the point of almost chuckling.

I know, it's awful. And that's the thing- I used to do a Superhero RPG. It actually spanned several different groups, and people would always assume that the way to make good hero lore is to just add a list of achievements and powers to a name and a look, and BAM.

My Chapter has an unknown Primarch. But for good reason, they're the remnants of a Chapter that actually went Renegade and these guys were Loyal. A lot of shameful stuff happened, but the Loyalists did everything in their power to do right by the Imperium. There were enough of them left that it warranted them being reinforced during the Ultima founding, but their records were stricken. They know who their Primarch is, but they (and the Lords of Terra, to some degree) feel as if they have shamed him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Which, come to think of it, technically means theres a grey area if I want to use my counts-as-Calgar, who in turn must use the UM Warlord Trait. Not that any opponent cares, but I wonder what the official GW reaction to that would be.

"The Codex Astartes says that a Space Marine may repaint his armor in accordance with the needs of his mission. Marneus Calgar painted his orange, because planet Tangerinium.

 Insectum7 wrote:
One of the wierdest rulings I've seen recently is the bit in the FAQ where it said your successor chapter can't use the Warlord Trait of the parent chapter. "Counts as" armies have been a thing forever, including special characters.

It actually makes sense when you realize that there are successor chapters that have their own rules. For example, the Raptors are a Raven Guard successor chapter with their own characters/chapter tactics/etc. Being a Raven Guard successor does not allow you to take a Raven Guard warlord trait or relic or whatever.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
One of the wierdest rulings I've seen recently is the bit in the FAQ where it said your successor chapter can't use the Warlord Trait of the parent chapter. "Counts as" armies have been a thing forever, including special characters.

It actually makes sense when you realize that there are successor chapters that have their own rules. For example, the Raptors are a Raven Guard successor chapter with their own characters/chapter tactics/etc. Being a Raven Guard successor does not allow you to take a Raven Guard warlord trait or relic or whatever.

Hmmm.. Maybe that was the intent, but the language could have been more specific in that case.