[WH40K] Custom Space Marine Chapter: Iron Dragons

[Tyyr]

Iron Dragons

[Tyyr]

Much like the other thread, after seeing some of my favorite Space Marine pics of all time and running with it for a character in one of the RP's I think I'm going to try and flesh out the idea of the chapter a bit more.

[Deepcrush]

You have any details for them yet?

[Tyyr]

The USB with the start of the write up is in the other room, with the sleeping wife.

Non-Codex chapter. Focus on mechanized warfare. All troops are mounted in razorbacks. 12 man squad as a basis. Assigned to defend an area of space. Accomplished Ork fighters. tac squads are a mixture of conventional tactical squads and devestators.

[Deepcrush]

Very sexy. I should post up my 40k stuff too. Give me a reason to get back into my writing. Easier to write then remember...

[Tyyr]

Iron Dragons

Overview
There is precious little known about the history of the Iron Dragons to outsiders. The chapter isn't particularly secretive, but neither are they talkative. What can be confirmed by the official records is that the Iron Dragons are a 5th Founding Chapter, lack the su-san membrane, have a slightly mutated Betcher's gland, and are a non-Codex chapter specializing in mechanized warfare. They were tasked with the defense of Tycho's Rift on the Eastern Fringe near Ultramar and have done so for the past eight millenia.

To those with the proper clearances it can be learned that the Iron Dragons are in fact one of the earliest successor chapters of the Salamanders. Without Nocturne's severe radiation the melanachrome mutation of the blood line is not evident but the slight dulling of their reflexes remains and is still unexplained.

Worlds
The Iron Dragons share some similarities with the Imperial Fists in the way they manage the worlds under them. This combined with their love of heavy weapons has lead many to speculate that they are a descendant chapter of the Fists. The Iron Dragons maintain at least a small enclave on all worlds in their protectorate but officially take part in little of the day to day running of them. They often encourage the Rift worlds to greater cooperation but have no official position in the governmental structure. Their largest fortress is on Tycho itself. The Iron Dragons recruit heavily from hive and standard imperial worlds, focusing on highly intelligent recruits rather than the brawn and savagery of feral worlds.

The worlds of the Rift are focused around the needs of the forge worlds XXXXX and YYYYY. The capital of the subsector is ZZZZZ.

During the initial exploration of the subsector the airid frozen deserts of ZZZZZ were believed to hide incredible mineral wealth. It was expected that ZZZZZ alone would be able to supply the twin forges with nearly 40% of the materials they would need. Initial digs appeared to bear this out as adamantine, diamantine, and promethium precursors flowed freely. Hive cities grew up with alarming speed as the Administratum moved quickly to exploit the world. After only half a millenium of heavy mining the mines and wells began to dry up, exhausted thousands of years before projections. The inertia of the Administratum would not be stopped however and tens of millions of workers and all manner of construction equipment continued to flow to ZZZZZ. With more and more workers arriving daily but no jobs awaiting them the planetary governor was sitting on a powderkeg. Showing remarkable foresight

Fleet
The Iron Dragons have two battle barges, the Great Wyrm and Steel Talon as well as five strike cruisers, eight rapid reaction cruisers, and numerous auxiliaries.

Organization
The Iron Dragons are a non-Codex chapter. They focus their efforts on heavy assault and mechanized warfare tactics. Heavy weapons are common in the Dragons and all troops have vehicle support. The Iron Dragons believe in flexibility and each company is designed to bring all necessary unit types with it to the field. The Iron Dragons employ no specialized companies, each one is a microcosm of the chapter as a whole.

The Iron Dragons have eight companies. Each company has twelve squads. Each squad has twelve men in it.

Motto:
Let faith armor your soul and steel your flesh.

[Mikey]

All troops are mounted in razorbacks. 12 man squad as a basis.

Two Razorbacks for evey single squad? That sounds a little nuts... or maybe completely insane.

What about termies? Razorbacks can carry six tac marines, but not termies.

tac squads are a mixture of conventional tactical squads and devestators.

I'm not sure I understand this. A codex devastator squad has four heavy weapons. A codex tac squad has one support and one heavy. Are you saying that your tac squads have an extra one or two heavy weapons, or an extra heavy and an extra support?

[Tyyr]

The Iron Dragons are a non-Codex chapter.

Termies aren't troops, they're elites. That's just the broad strokes overview. Termies would typically be given transport in Landraiders.

Each regular marine squad is made up of 12 marines, of which 4 are slinging heavy weapons choices.

[Mikey]

Termies aren't troops, they're elites.

They're still formed into squads, though. LR's make more sense.

Each regular marine squad is made up of 12 marines, of which 4 are slinging heavy weapons choices.

Interesting. So basically all your tac squads are devastator squads, just with three extra tac marines. Are you still using sergeants? What about assault squads, bikes, a/o speeders?

[Tyyr]

Company organization:
Command Squad
2 Squads of Termies
8 Tac Squads
2 Assault Squads (Assault squads use Land Speeder Storms for transport, 3 Marines per speeder)
4 Dreadnaughts
8 Predator Tanks
4 Whirlwind Rhinos
2 Whirlwind Hyperios Rhinos
4 Tempest pattern Land Speeders

The whole Chapter is made up of 8 companies. There is no traditional first company, all companies are equipped equally. There are no traditional scouts either. After training the newbies are inducted into line squads, not segregated into scouts. Companies are designed to be broken down into two equal parts for when a full company isn't appropriate.

[Deepcrush]

Tyyr, you have one post saying that your Chapter has 12 companies of 12 squads of 12 men. You have another stating that you only have 8 companies.

The whole Chapter is made up of 8 companies.

The Iron Dragons have twelve companies. Each company has twelve squads. Each squad has twelve men in it.

See the above. For the sake of balance, which is important for the SM chapters, you should go with the 12/12/12 split.

[Tyyr]

The 12 companies bit is the older stuff I had before I started to massage the numbers a bit. Eight is right.

[Deepcrush]

Okay, just thought I'd point it out.

[Mikey]

I have to say that I like the idea of spreading termies out through all the companies. While it makes sens for codex chapters to keep them all in the first co. because of theri traditionalism and hidebound attitudes, it certainly doesn't make sense from a war-fighting standpoint.

[Tyyr]

One of the things I noticed was that its often implied that only a portion of the Chapter's marines are in one place at a time. With things like termies in the first company, dreadnaughts, scouts, land speeders, and bikes, in all different companies and potentially spread around it would seem hard to assemble an appropriate force in any kind of a reasonable time frame. By spreading all the assets out throughout the companies you can deploy a company or even a half company with assurance that they'll have all the tools they would need to do their jobs.