Custom Chapters, Anyone?

[Prussian Imperial Guard]

So, do you guys like coming up with your own chapters? If so, have you already? What is their name, history, colors, etc.?  

[Sean King]

Yep, I've got my own chapter, the Imperial Eagles. They were originally Enchanted Blue for primary, Snot Green secondary and Shining Gold trim. Very recent founding originally formed from the orphaned members of officially extinct chapters. First Chapter Master was a Venerable Contemptor dreadnought discovered in stasis in the vaults of what became the Chapter's Fortress Monastery. Was formerly the Chapter Monastery of a long forgotten extinct chapter. I use all this to explain why I have such a wide variety of equipment as well as many examples of relic armored vehicles.  

[Prussian Imperial Guard]

Sean King

Yep, I've got my own chapter, the Imperial Eagles. They were originally Enchanted Blue for primary, Snot Green secondary and Shining Gold trim. Very recent founding originally formed from the orphaned members of officially extinct chapters. First Chapter Master was a Venerable Contemptor dreadnought discovered in stasis in the vaults of what became the Chapter's Fortress Monastery. Was formerly the Chapter Monastery of a long forgotten extinct chapter. I use all this to explain why I have such a wide variety of equipment as well as many examples of relic armored vehicles.

That sounds awesome.

Mine is called the Gilded Sons. They're also a recent founding, with the whole point being to celebrate their lineage and relation to the Emperor (their Chapter Master is a Sensei (really wish GW would pick a better name for them lol), so their colors are an off-white, sort of light cream color for the primary, with gold for everything else (the gold both celebrates the lineage and is an attempt to emulate the Emperor by using lots of gold).

Their sector in space is called Pax Imperialis, with the sub-sectors being named things like Pax Primus, Pax Secundus, Pax Tertius, etc., and the planets being names after the more obscure Roman cities.  

[Sean King]

They haven't used that term in a while. Most think that the Sensei have become the Perpetuals in the Horus Heresy lexicon.  

[Ociluce]

I've made a lot of chapters over the years, but the one that I'm most proud of (and only one of two that I still retain in my head-canon) is the Stormcrows: a White Scars successor with slightly-more Codex-compliant appearance (shoulder trim denoting their company, red helmets for sergeants...), tactics, and loadout (I love Land Raider Redeemers...). I actually mentioned them in the Battle Report thread a long time ago. I haven't used them since then, and they've been gathering dust on my shelves. However, I'd put a lot of thought into them, and I'd actually started writing a codex for them. I gave up after a while, but not before detailing their history, combat doctrine, and organization. I figured that this thread was as good an excuse as any to go back and tidy it up.

It turns out that a lot of what I thought I'd written had actually come later, and had been bobbing in my head ever since. So, I've started to go through, edit the document, and make my changes. I may share the combat doctrines and organizations later, but I have the history up to date and ready to go, so I intend to share that now. I apologize for the length: this was meant to be a codex...

THE STORMCROWS

ON THE RECORD

Much of the Stormcrows’ history has been lost, as have many things in the benighted Imperium as it continues its inexorable slide into dissolution. How can anyone say what was real and what wasn’t unless they were there? Even archives can be altered, and living memory can be colored by centuries of deceit and retrospection. There is no-one left who remembers those most ancient days, be it on Terra, Chogoris, or Chaghan. Only confliction and agendas.

What is presented below is not the truth. It is, however, the best that the august agents of the Adeptus Terra can piece together from myriad reports and conjecture. The Inquisition has been singular in its refusal to contribute to the investigation, and seems content to leave well-enough alone.

EARLY OBSERVATIONS

There was once a White Scars Brotherhood that ranged farther abroad than any of its kin and often passed out of the Astronomicon’s light. Whereas other White Scars would bear squad markings on their right pauldrons, this Brotherhood bore a dark bird: an ancient practice, when the Brotherhoods of the Fifth Legion were immense and membership mattered more than tactical roles. In those ancient days, a Brotherhood’s icon sat opposite the thunderbolt of the Legion. The Brotherhood of Crows, as they called themselves, was an anachronism that the White Scars chapter didn’t recognize.

They were different in other ways from the White Scars that Imperial forces met. They were more likely to field siege engines than their kin and, despite maintaining armories of bikes and Land speeders, were just as likely to field Devastator squads and Land Raiders. Additionally, almost all of their equipment was ancient. Not merely ancient in that way that most astartes preserve old equipment, but truly ancient: much of it dated back to the Great Crusade. Their Terminators unanimously took to the field in Cataphractii armor, the regular marines in Mark III “Iron” and Mark IV “Maximus” armor, and their Rhinos and Land Raiders were of the most antique design. What new gear they bore appeared to have been scavenged from the many battlefields they fought upon.

Indeed, the legend of this Brotherhood goes back many thousand years, when such equipment was, if not common, then contemporary with Legionary issue. The insignia of the dark wings on fields of white are attested to in rolls of honor and historical accounts dating shortly after the Second Founding. Some even suggested that this Brotherhood was actually a Second Founding chapter in its own right as they numbered well over four hundred battle-brothers. But, that thunderbolt icon on the left pauldron distinctly marked them as White Scars, and that was one name that they answered to for many millennia.

They operated far from home, and their operations were based out of their single battle barge: the Constantinius. The Brotherhood of Crows lacked frigates or cruisers, or any other interstellar vessels: in the vacuum of space, their only transportation outside of the Constantinius was a small fleet of subluminal Stormbirds and Thunderhawks. This Brotherhood never broke apart: it was, all of it, engaged in a single struggle at a time.

It is also noted that, after the Horus Heresy, the Brotherhood never fought alongside their kindred from Chogoris. In fact, it seemed that these far-traveling steppe-warriors actively avoided them, hastily leaving at high warp if they caught so much as a hint of another white vessel, and refused to join a battle if their kindred took to the field. All communiques went unanswered, and they never received shipments from Chogoris. It is theorized that this separation from their progenitors is responsible for their ancient wargear: they had been without resupply for a very, very long time.

THE ERIS CRUSADE

Midway through M37, the Brotherhood of Crows joined a mustering of Imperial forces outside of the Eris Sector, deep in the galactic South at the edge of the Imperium. This was a crusade force, consisting of thirty Imperial Guard regiments and elements of four other Chapters, including the Red Templars and Crimson Fists. Makhai was the frozen and windswept forge world at its heart, providing wartime materiel to an empire with no shortage of foes to fight, be they aliens or heretics or daemons.

The militants had gathered there upon receiving a call for aid: a then-unidentified race of alien machines had arisen from Makhai’s crust and overwhelmed it, and a dozen other worlds reported these skeletal abominations striking from buried vaults and the depths of space. It was feared that this mysterious new race would spill out into the greater Segmentum Tempestus/Ultima if uncontested. It is now known that this strange, alien machine-race was an early-awakening of what has come to be known as the Necrons.

The war lasted a generation and ultimately razed the entire sector: it was revealed that the Necron presence was far vaster and more comprehensive than first expected, and that the vile, deathless xenos had colonized most of the Eris sector in the forgotten aeons of the past. After such a long absence, they fought to reclaim the worlds that once were theirs and cleanse them of the mortal interlopers.

The grip of the alien upon those worlds was too tight and ancient for anything less than total war to break. All too often, the crusade force was required to enact Exterminatus in order to wipe out the Necron tomb-complexes and their innumerable Warrior and Canoptek constructs. To this day, none can be certain if this actually eliminated the vile creatures. Resistance stiffened and numbers grew as the crusading force plunged deeper into defiled territory, and it is unknown if more necrons simply awakened as the struggle continued, or if the machine-forms were transported to the surviving worlds through unseen means to reinforce them.

Only one world was spared the planetary devastation of Exterminatus and mass invasion: Makhai itself. There, on what is now known to be the Coreworld of an Overlord, the Necron defenses were strongest. Not even the full might of an Imperial fleet could breach its orbital defenses to bombard the surface.

Where a fleet couldn't go by force, two ships could by speed and stealth: a Crimson Fists strike cruiser and the aging Constantinius. The two vessels raced past the targeting relays and crisscrossing network of gauss-fire to deliver their complements of astartes. Though the two vessels sustained heavy damage in the process, they bombarded the landing sites before the first dropships hit the surface, ensuring a safe landing for their planetward brothers.

The astartes cleared what resistance remained in the landing zones and carved a ruinous path to what they perceived to be the Necron command center, which had risen up from the dirt and bedrock like an upthrust of black-and-green obsidian. The fight was arduous but, time and again, the Brotherhood of Crows hammered the alien foe against the anvil of Dorn’s sons, and the gates of the necropolis rose up before them.

Precisely what happened after the Space Marines entered the complex is still unknown to Imperial scribes. All information on the crusade had been solicited and buried by the Ordo Xenos, and only a sliver has been declassified. Perhaps some description of the non-Euclidian battlefield resided in the archives of the Crimson Fists or the mind of a dreadnought, but the devastation of Rynn’s World saw the final destruction of the truth beyond the halls of Chaghan and the Watch Fortresses of the Inquisition. What is known is that, after a protracted fight in the middle of the Necron complex, the White Scars and Crimson Fists beat a hasty retreat to their dropships. The White Scars covered the Crimson Fists' escape, fighting back waves of Canopteks in the process. No sooner had the Crimson Fists left the ground than the Necron complex exploded, unleashing vast and alien phenomena across Makhai.

The battered White Scars vessel was pulled from orbit, flattening a mountain as it crashed. The Crimson Fists that avoided the great gravity-columns looked back in stunned disbelief at a planet that their eyes and sensors told them was impossible. Time and space were twisted and warped. Makhai’s surface was concealed under thunderstorms of unreality, blasted by lightning bolts of anti-time, bombarded by singularity hailstones, and swept by vortices spinning in seven dimensions. Tendrils of selective gravity lashed out into orbit, felling one of the planet’s three moons. The meteoric remnants of the latter incident were hurled in all directions, forming a ring system orbiting two degrees clockwise of a fixed point thirteen minutes into the planet’s future.

Bloodied and maimed but glutted in pyrrhic victory, the crusaders limped away from the now-dead sector for inhabited, Imperial space. Having committed scorched earth campaigns and Exterminatus on many worlds in the Eris sector, the region of space over which so many millions died was written off as a loss. The enemy had been purged, as far as the Tempestus Fleet could ascertain, but the collateral damage was too great to recover from. Manufactory complexes and agri-worlds had been leveled, and the Adeptus Terra decided that the Imperium’s resources could be better-spent fostering the growth of other, existing worlds than starting over from scratch on the dead worlds of Eris. It would be a long, long time before anyone willingly entered that place.

The Brotherhood of Crows was declared lost to a man. Much of what is known of the Brotherhood of Crows has gone on to be forgotten. The Eris Crusade has largely been swept under the rug, as the ancient Terran idiom goes; at that time in its history, the Imperium did not understand and wasn’t willing to admit the existence of the Necrons, and all records pertaining to them were sealed by order of the Inquisition. Their fate being so heavily tied to this mysterious threat, even the Brotherhood of Crows’ name was forbidden from utterance, and the veterans of that campaign swore sacred oaths to let them fade from memory.

But this could be allowed to stand: the Brotherhood of Crows had shed their blood alongside the four other chapters of the crusade, and that bond of fellowship was too strong to be silenced. Delegates from those chapters carried word of their demise to Chogoris, where the very confused and skeptical White Scars denied any knowledge of the four hundred battle-brothers believed dead.

WAAAGH! SNIKZLAP

Millennia passed.

In the late years of M39, the ork warlord Snikzlap of the Blood Axe clan launched an invasion of the Howling Griffons homeworld of Mancora. The constantly-crusading Chapter was mostly deployed at the time, and the Fortress Monastery was as lightly-guarded as a fortress monastery would ever be. However, those defenses were still formidable and dug in deep, and they inflicted grievous casualties on the invaders. Yet the orks were without number and slowly assumed control over the surface of Mancora.

The Howling Griffons were recalled from their crusades to defend their Chapter-base. First came a trickle of reinforcements, and then a flood. They fought like legends to defend their home and enacted a great retribution upon the numberless hordes, thinning the ranks and forcing Snikzlap to advance his troops in another direction: anywhere but Mancora. The boyz fled the world to fight another day.

Incensed and vindictive, the Howling Griffons quickly put their affairs on Mancora in order and pursued the greenskins. The orks fled into the abandoned Eris sector, and there the war continued in a long series of skirmishes. The Howling Griffons and Blood Axes fought on barren worlds and through empty space. Slowly but surely, the Imperial forces whittled away at the orks until but a handful of their ramshackle vessels remained.

The final battle between the Imperial and Xenos forces began on the outskirts of the Makhai system and slowly tracked starward. The dueling fleets exchanged blows and were, in the final battle, evenly matched. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the orks adapted better to the chaos of the asteroid fields and gravitic distortions: relics of a war long-forgotten. The deadlock was broken by an unlikely, and entirely unpredicted, force.

As the fight spilled into orbit over the former capital planet itself, missile and turbo-laser fire lanced up from the surface and struck mighty blows against the unwary orks. Caught between the Howling hammer and the anvil of Makhai, the orks were destroyed utterly. When the last las-battery fell silent, a vox signal came from the planet below and greeted the Howling Griffons as follows:

“Has loneliness ended? Have we finally been remembered?”

THE IMPRISONMENT ON MAKHAI

In subterranean catacombs and deep within the underhives of fallen cities, the Brotherhood of Crows had found shelter from the spatial phenomena that ravaged the surface of Makhai.

In those dark and lifeless shelters, the Brotherhood nonetheless continued fighting. Necrons are nothing if not persistent and, even if the vast majority of their warrior-androids were destroyed or phased out to reinforce other Tomb Worlds, their self-replicating Canopteks remained. These things could effortlessly pass through walls and earth like a fish swims through water, and they harried the White Scars at every step for many battle-laden years.

It was a long and terrible fight, but the Brotherhood emerged victorious in the deep, and then emerged out into the sun after three decades of subterranean warfare. The planetary phenomena had since ended, and those astartes and human survivors were free to again take to the surface and assess their situation. It quickly became apparent that there was to be no rescue from the blighted world. Abandoned by the Imperium, Eris Sector went unobserved for many centuries.

Their astropaths had been slain when the Constantinius crashed. Their librarians had been systematically picked off by Deathmarks. The necrons had made any indigenous psykers their first victims in the purges of the civilian populace and PDF. Bereft of any form of psionics, the White Scars were unable to send word to the greater Imperium. Some of their Thunderhawks and one Stormbird had survived, but they were trans-atmospheric at best: their only warp-capable ship had crashed, and this left them marooned without hope of rescue. Only radio could reach beyond the Makhai system, but they knew that signal decay would erode any messages before they reached Imperial ears.

A sense of grim stoicism took hold in the surviving Brotherhood. They knew that they had been abandoned, that no help would come for them, and their tale would never be known. Yet they knew that they were loyal servants to the Imperium, and they were honor-bound to protect the innumerable citizens rescued from the unspeakable charnel-houses of the Necrons. Moreover, the humans needed to be protected in order for the astartes to survive: without humans, there would be no-one to pass their gene-seed to and create new space marines.

The fallen battle barge was salvaged and transformed into a new Fortress Monastery, and this mighty vessel became the planetary capital. The techmarines and surviving laymen of the Mechanicum worked to revivify the ruined manufactoria, and the gears of economy and daily life began to turn again. They rechristened the planet “Chaghan”, in honor of an ancient and revered Khan, and turned it into an isolated Forge/Chapter world.

The forges’ labors were partly turned over to keeping life going on the planet and partly toward furnishing and serving the Brotherhood, which slowly grew in number until, at the time of their rescue, they numbered over a thousand men. This is not to say that the years passed peacefully, or that Makhai had been transformed into a utopia. Far from it.

Despite having achieved a major victory over the Necrons, they could never truly wipe out the Canopteks without access to the more powerful weapons unavailable on the planet. So long as a single Spyder or Cryptek remained, the possibility of a machine army couldn’t be quelled. Day after day, year after year, and century after century, the machines manufactured more of their kind, and they created hidden complexes to hasten their rise and reproduction. At the order of a Cryptek or the fulfillment of some complex logic-chain, these innumerable and steely monsters would strike at Imperial settlements and conduct a nightmarish slaughter.

For thousands of years, the Brotherhood of Crows and its human auxiliaries fought against the armies. Soon after one robot legion was defeated, another would break free from some underground sanctuary a continent away and make a great ruin of a reconstructed Hive, and the cycle would start again. Even if a settlement escaped the Canopteks’ attention for today, there was always fear that they’d come tomorrow. The marines and their human auxiliaries were always and constantly fighting.

A great and terrible rage grew among the Chaghans. A terrible rage that comes from generation after generation knowing nothing but death and violence, and the pathological need to crush enemies that would never die the final death. Facing monsters that were without fear or mercy or compassion, the Chaghans unwittingly took after their attackers. In some ways, they surpassed them.

Finding a thousand battle-ready Space Marines on a galactic backwater world, the Howling Griffons duly reported their discovery to the larger Imperium. The galaxy finally took notice of the Eris sector after so long, and the Inquisition took a long, hard look at Chaghan and the marines in particular. The Chapter Master and his chaplains conversed with an Inquisitorial Grandmaster and his aides for a long time in the deepest and most private holds of the Constantinius. Much suspicion has surrounded those meetings, and many are the whispers of what deals and pacts were made to repatriate the nascent chapter into the Imperium. What is known is that, when those talks were complete, everything had changed.

The Ordo Xenos walked away with many artifacts and a wealth of intelligence. Selective and edited information of the Brotherhood’s ancient exploits was declassified. Black birds on pale pauldrons became a common sight on Deathwatch Kill Teams. The Administratum and Ordo Hereticus asked very few questions. Lastly, Chaghan received a truly astonishing amount of aid.

The Imperium spent decades toiling to bring Chaghan back into the fold and ready the space marines and their auxiliaries for the greater struggles threatening the galaxy. The Brotherhood rebranded itself, discarding the thunderbolt icon of the White Scars and replacing it wholly with dark wings and swords. Gone were the zig-zags and triangles on Chogoris white, replaced by blood-red stripes on Chaghan grey. They adopted the colors and signs of the Codex Astartes, and they learned all the new tactics and theories developed abroad during their isolation. The Brotherhood of Crows was no more, reborn as the Stormcrows.

Given access to the technological breakthroughs of the rest of the astartes and finally bequeathed interstellar vessels, the Stormcrows were nearly ready to fight all of humanity’s foes. But first, they had business to take care of at home.

Armed with weapons that could sunder planets and an anger long building, the Stormcrows scoured Chaghan with unceasing violence. They ripped continents apart and leveled mountains to unearth and eradicate the hidden, Canoptek tombs. Three years of bitter and vengeful extermination followed: violence so great that even the Crypteks took pause, learning that their unthinking machines were actually capable of fear. Invariably, the Crypteks themselves felt this fear as an Indomitus-clad Terminator squad ran them down shortly thereafter.

Glutted on vengeance and wholesome, mechanical slaughter, the Stormcrows in their gleaming grey-white vessels finally turned their eyes back to the stars and blasted off to rejoin them. This moment ended thousands of years of continuous warfare on one sphere, and the beginning of thousands more across the galaxy.

THE ANNALS OF CHOGORIS

That has been the story promulgated by the Adeptus Terra, gleaned from what information has been declassified by the Inquisition or floating through public records. Much of the truth is likely never to be known, as many details of the Eris Crusade are still sealed in the vaults of Watch Fortresses and Inquisitorial archives across the galaxy.

But, the Inquisition’s reach is not infinite. There are places that not even a Grandmaster can go, and one of them is the vault of an astartes Fortress-Monastery. Most chapters are fiercely independent, and the bonds of honor are stronger than any Inquisitor’s writ. Few would dare subpoena their records, and no space marine would agree to hand them over. Thus, certain information has gathered dust within those vaults, unknown even to the Inquisition, and available only for those battle-brothers sworn to the chapter.

The White Scars are more insular than most. Ironically, it is less by design and more by nature. That Chapter was always reckless, by the Imperium’s estimation, and unreliable. Few bother to consult them on anything, and the sons of Chogoris remain true to themselves in the face of an uninterested empire built on their struggles. The White Scars hold information that they themselves remain ignorant to because they have no desire to look for it. There are times that even a First Founding chapter wishes to forget...

There is a tome deep within the Fortress-Monastery of Khum Karta on Chogoris that details the Fifth Legion’s blackest moment. With so many hunts and glorious victories in the years that followed and preceded it, few have desired to open that tome and read its contents. They prefer to read of the Defense of Terra and their raid on the Lion’s Gate spaceport. They prefer to read of the Emperor’s first meeting with Jaghatai Khan and the Legion’s first steps into the stars. They prefer to read of the Sabbat Martyr, and they prefer to read of the Damocles Crusade.

They prefer not to read of the Second Battle of Prospero.

It was in the early days of the Horus Heresy. It was the most divisive time in the Legion’s history, when conflicts of loyalty and honor drove a wedge through its heart. On the fringe of Imperial space for so long, they were the last to hear that Horus had gone to war with the Emperor and that the galaxy was aflame. The White Scars held conflicting bonds of fealty: some were sworn to the Emperor, and some were sworn to the Warmaster. Lies came from both sides, and the White Scars couldn’t be certain of the rightness of either claimant. With so few answered questions, there was a long and uncertain period where nobody – not even the White Scars themselves – knew which side they would fall on.

The right to choose fell upon the shoulders of the Primarch, Jaghatai the Khagan. However, there were elements within the legion who sought to preempt his decision and set the White Scars down the path of rebellion. A warrior-lodge – ignorant of just how deep Horus’s corruption had gone – had lain dormant within the White Scars and colluded with the Warmaster’s allies in the other legions. Some Brotherhoods – each of which consisted of more than 500 marines in that day – were entirely inducted into the lodge. When the Primarch was away from his fleet on a fact-finding mission to burnt Prospero, the lodge initiated its coup and seized control of the legion.

Ultimately, this subversion failed. Jaghatai Khan returned and set his Legion down a Loyalist path, and most of the White Scars eventually fell in line with their Primarch’s decision. It was not, however, a smooth transition. The coup had occurred as the Death Guard arrived to welcome the turned Legion to the Warmaster’s camp, and the Khan’s decision led to a battle in the skies over Prospero. The Death Guard had come to find an ally and were unprepared for a pitched battle. The White Scars were still torn and their assault confused. It was ultimately a draw, with both sides taking light casualties and the fighting half-hearted.

In the aftermath, most of the Brotherhoods dominated by the lodge were reconciled with their Primarch and rejoined the Legion as steadfastly Loyalist as their brethren. However, some put up stiff resistance on commandeered vessels, still wishing to sway the legion to the rebel banner. These were personally put down by the Primarch, who visited every holdout vessel in turn with his dao in hand and “persuaded” his stubborn children of his rightness.

There is some inconsistency in the number of casualties taken in this time. Some ships were recorded as lost in the battle yet showed up later. Others just seemed to vanish in the confusion of the firefight, leaving no debris behind. The Legion’s historians and Stormseers believed that these vessels had been commandeered by lodge-members unwilling to accept their Primarch’s judgment, convinced of the rightness of their cause, and unknowing of Chaos’s touch. The theory went that they fled Prospero to join the Warmaster. None can say whether they fought for him or eventually turned from him: much went unwritten in that uncertain time, and not all decisions were made in the light of scribes.

A list of those lost ships is appended to the back pages of that ancient tome, the ink blurred and the pages frail. The list also includes the names of the Brotherhoods, as well as their Khans and each battle-brother who served with them. Should that tome ever be opened again and the names read, one would find a few curious names not far into the list. They would find a battle barge named the Constantinius, home of the Brotherhood of Crows, commanded by Chaghan Khan.  

[Prussian Imperial Guard]

Sean King

They haven't used that term in a while. Most think that the Sensei have become the Perpetuals in the Horus Heresy lexicon.

That's good to know. What are they called now, Star Children?

Ociluce

Nice! I guess, as a White Scars successor, I can assume they also like to go fast?  

[Ociluce]

Prussian Imperial Guard

Nice! I guess, as a White Scars successor, I can assume they also like to go fast?

Yup! My troops were usually bikers, (Thanks to a Captain or Chapter Master on a bike) and I could usually be counted upon to bring a unit or two of Land Speeders and Stormtalons, possibly with a Stormraven in reserve.

The Stormcrows aren't so reticent to field slow-moving units, though: the real-life Mongols weren't shy about parking siege engines outside a city and leveling it, so why should my Space Mongolians? I'd usually have a set of Centurions either on the field or embarked in a Stormraven, and a Terminator squad either in Deep Strike reserve or riding into battle from inside a Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer. I was also pretty proud of the way that my Devastators (in their own Deimos-pattern Rhino with a Razorback turret) turned out and, if I was going with a low-cost game, I might bring in a Predator in place of a Land Raider. I guess you could say that the Brotherhood of Crows were curious, and they were game to try anything. Eventually, I had to make them a spin-off chapter because they played so little like the White Scars.

The only units that I really shied away from were the Librarian, Thunderfire Cannon, and Whirlwind. The first was just because, when the switch to 6e happened, I couldn't get used to rolling for psychic powers; I like knowing exactly what my models can do before I pay the points for them. That was why I ended up killing off the psykers in the Stormcrows' backstory. The clubs I played in were dominated by MEQs, so the poor AP on the Thunderfire Cannon and Whirlwind didn't do it for me despite their range and utility.  

[Sean King]

You need a Spartan with Laser Destroyers. Which I have as well as a Land Raider Achilles. I have a lot of relic weapons, armor, and armored vehicles. I have whole units of Mk 2, 3, 4, and 5. I also have Volkites, Rotor Cannons, and Autocannons. My Veterans are nuts, over 40 Terminators, a squad of Breacher Marines, 2 squads Sterngard, and a squad of Vanguard Veterans. I also have a Relic Baneblade/Fellblade.  

[merydell]

The chapter I'm working on is the Frost Wolves