Would be fun to see a "create a traitor chapter" video as well

I actually used the "doesn't match gene father" and "records are shit" as a neat combination for my own chapter, the Sable Owls. And they kind of feed into each other. See the chapter maintains that they are White Scars successors, but the Administration has them as Ultramarine descendants. Which was just a neat lore bit until their gene seed started to mutate. Not wildly, but slightly. They caught it early enough they might jave been able to fix it with some infusions of fresh gene stock, but the beurocrats wouldn't send anything other than Ultramarine like their records say and the Owls wouldn't take anything besides White Scars like their records say. End result is that they have a minor mutation (that they went of a penance crusade a few millennia ago to atone for) that affects their hearing. Basically they have super human hearing in comparison to the already phenomenal sense of a typical astartes. The problem is their ability to damped and withstand noises weren't similarly enhanced, and they don't have a superhuman sense of balance anymore. So while it makes them excellent stealth fighters, preferring things like ambushes, stalker bolters, and knives over chainswords, it does come with the price of not being able to use jump packs or drop pods. So no Iron Rain. On the other hand they can hear the heartbeats of the kill team trying to ambush them in that building over there so it's arguable if it is a worthwhile trade. Their biggest loss, in their kind, is their ability to easily use attack bikes like their lineage demands. They can do it, but they have to seg their helmets up to fully filter out the engine noise. Meaning that you have no audio cue for where your brother's cycles are, making adjusting formation difficult. Especially on the fly when under fire. And sometimes the enemy's vehicles have motors that are close enough to the bikes that they get filtered out too... End result is that due to their new fighting style they often get mistaken for a Raven Guard successor, further adding to the confusion about their lineage. I've got a bunch more stuff, but yeah it's a very useful tool.

I’ve always had the idea of three space marines chapters who where almost destroyed coming together and forming a whole new chapter with three different lineages and traditions working together. Each keep there own traditions and making new ones. And they pick there chapter master but having the highest ranking member form each different Original chapters fight for it in a three way dual every 150 years or so.

I did have a idea for a loyalist Space marine chapter. The Nova Watch, Marines who’s geneseed is of salamander origin and they target specifically cults of nurgle and work to cleanse plague worlds, and use pykers to try and find pyschic ways to cure nurgles disease’s.

It's amazing how much of a rabbit hole one homebrew chapter can turn into. I started out with just the Solar Spurs, my cowboy White Scars. Now I've got Macharia Eschate, an entire subsector with various regiments, planets, and so on where the theme is centered around frontiersmen from throughout history. It was then that I saw how versatile 40k really is as a setting.

I made a successor chapter with an unknown geneseed. They're from the Ultima founding and are called the Sundancers. They're in the 300s in total and just protect a planet from Drunkhari and daemon incursions. Their allies are a plantery defense force and a handful of Eldari.

I remember rolling a custom Space Marine chapter using the dice tables that came from one of the Deathwatch add-on books and I was rather amazed with the results that I got. I haven't gotten to in-depth about the chapter and it's history and I rolled a d6 to figure out the number of starting heroic figures of the chapter, alongside worlds they recruit from. Everything was the result of rolling dice and the story is literally me making sense of the raw data and turning it into a story. The Golden Death are a successor of the Ultramarines that was founded as a crusading force sometime in the 39th Millennium. While their geneseed was free of deficiencies or flaws, experimentation in an attempt to improve the Ultramarine stock to better prepare this new chapter for fighting chaos tainted threats caused deviation from the pure Ultramarine geneseed that has been considered to be the starting point of the divergences that would come. Unlike many space marine chapters, the Golden Death are zealous followers of the Imperial Creed to the point where the Emperor has supplanted Roberto Guilliman as the most important figure of their beliefs. The stringent hypno-conditioning that the marines of the chapter undergo is greater then that of most chapters to instill a greater understanding of the Imperial Creed and deepen their faith in the Emperor further to safeguard their minds and souls.While they have had a history of fighting xenos in the past, the Golden Death lives and breaths to bring a violent end to the heretic and purge their stain from existence. At some point in the Chapter's history, they broke from the Codex and developed an organizational structure completely their own: This decision has made them quiet estranged from their fellow Ultramarine successors, alongside the original. Instead they focused their efforts on an armored assault doctrine and phased out the role of devastator marines from their ranks. The chapter has developed something of a preference of getting into close quarters/range combat, with power swords being their personal tool of choice outside of using their tanks. Possibly because of their combat doctrine involving more tanks and mechanized support then normal (and to the surprise of many, considering their zealous nature), the Golden Death have strong, friendly ties with the Admech and get along with them surprisingly well. Worshiping the Emperor in his aspect of the Machine God is an acceptable path for warriors of the Chapter. There are various cults of Chaos that *loath* the Golden Death and the Golden Death loath each and every one of them in turn in a more or less equal fashion. The chapter's homeworld is an airless, 'feral' planet in that its population lives in tribal societies in the underground hives that litter the world. They also draw recruits from a nearby desert hive world in order to bluster the relatively low numbers that their homeworld can produce. The chapter rules both of these worlds via a system of stewardship, maintaining a presence on both worlds but largely leaving the day to day affairs of governance to the ruling class. Of the chapters recorded heroic figures, 5 of them are well known, through Companion heroic figures seem to be common in the Golden Death (None of these people are named yet): The original Chapter Master and original Master of Sanctity were seconded from the Ultramarines at the founding of the Golden Death and were the best of companions. The Chapter Master has many stories connected to them of their fights against the followers and forces of Chaos, including the slaying of a daemon prince in combat. His disappearance during a 'warp incident' was considered a grave loss, through it is believed he is still alive and will one day return in glory. The Master of Sanctity was an important figure in many of the tales with his friend, through the primary legend about him remembered comes after the disappearance, in which he led a successful, brutal boarding action against an Elder Craftworld. A battle brother from the 9th squad, 2nd company and the Squad Sergent of the 4th Squad, 6th Company worked together and proved the lynch pin that shattered Waargh Kracker'Lacker, slaughtering many of the greenskins and their leadership, including Warboss Kracker'Lacker itself. A Chief Apothecary would briefly take over as the leading figure of the local Golden Death, Imperial Army and Navy forces in order to lead a campaign against rebels from the Imperium, shattering their armies and restoring a whole sector back into the Emperor's light. Unsurprisingly, the chapter is currently endangered in strength. They've been very busy after all.

I once made a homebrew chapter a while ago as a thought experiment for a DeathWatch Game I was running and followed none of the guidelines you made. The Chapter I made was called the Doomed Crusaders and basically what happened is that their geneseed was entirely destroyed/corrupted making it impossible to make new Marines. So what they decided to do was "fuck it" and use all of the geneseed they had left to make as many Marines as possible and go on one last crusade. Their way of thinking basically was: "If we can die a glorious death, then the Chapter will live on eternally in the memory of the Imperium". When it happened they were a few thousands, now they are less than five hundred. That's all I got. I might write some new fluff for them using your guidelines and see if it is much better.

I'm really enjoying these shorter non-podcast videos in addition to the usual content, it's cool seeing your channel start to branch out 👍

Finally a not shitty opinion on homebrew. For real, so many of the supposedly cooler people in the hobby are very gatekeepy about homebrew so it's so nice to see someone with a following talk about it in an inclusive way. Super excited for the other videos!

I know you guys are Space Marine Experts but it would be great to see other factions!

I love the creative power that the 40k setting can lend to homebrew. My homebrew chapter, the Dawn Barons, are of Night Lords lineage, and instead of hiding that fact, they openly embrace it as they fight to atone for the sins of their fathers. One of the chapter's customs/traditions involves librarians (and anyone else who wishes to show the true extent of their devotion to the chapter's cause) ritually blinding themselves in imitation of the chapter master blinding himself in anguish when finding out about the chapter's true geneseed origins.

Also one more thing to keep in mind with the Black Templars, they’re fleet based, they don’t stay in one location, and usually they’re broken up into multiple smaller groups on sub-crusades, so it’s a lot harder for anyone to get a precise number of how many there are at any given time (not to mention they mainly recruit from worlds outside imperial control other then themselves) In theory even if someone did count every single active Templar and raised a fuss, they could just say something like “you’ve made a mistake, these two separate groups you’ve counted were actually one single group, they simply finished one battle and moved to handle a near by threat, the eternal crusade waits for no one after all”. That’s of course is assuming someone can actually find them in time to bring up the issue, again, they never stop moving, and who the hell is going to try asking “hey are you sure you don’t have a few too many marines” in the middle of a battle? Even if they don’t kill you for asking stupid questions I’m pretty sure anyone they were helping would. The Astral Claws on the other hand were all stationed in the Maelstrom zone, not to mention they were actively fighting the Imperium, if I understand things right no one noticed how big they’d gotten until after the war started, and someone noticed a discrepancy between how many reports of Astral Claw encounters occurred at the same time, the number of confirmed dead Astral Claws, and how many there should be. That could be something to consider if you did want to make a chapter significantly larger than the codex and the Imperium would allow. Give a reason no one has cared, noticed, or been able to prove it to the wider imperium yet.

I think another way to cheat with wanting a Chapters that utilize the traits of multiple cannon Chapters. You can chose which Capture they heil from, but say they have picked up on the culture, techniques or lessons of another Chapter. I guess almost similar to what the Crimson Fists do. Being successors of the Imperial Fists, but having a lot of traits similar to the Ultra Marines.

but I want you to be my dad

My homebrew space marine army is supposed to be rouge remnants of the second legion that had finally showed back up in the 41st millennium. Since I was using dark angel model’s for this army, I needed to justify them having watchers in the dark. To make a lot of bs homebrew lore short, I decided that the second primarch was a powerful blank, but his genetic flaw was that he was forever stuck as a child. This meant that whenever someone was implanted with his geneseed there was a chance for them to become a blank and stop growing as well, explaining the presence of the watcher in the dark models. I used this bit about him being stuck as a child to help explain why he ended up getting erased from history. Essentially he was still rather naive and innocent like a child, so he ended up not being able to handle the brutality of the Great crusade. He thought if he and the eleventh primarch rebelled most of the other primarchs would join up with him, and they could do a relatively bloodless coup of his father’s imperium. This belief was quickly shattered, alongside most of the bones in his body when Lemann Russ showed up to execute him and the eleventh primarch. In the few hours between realizing he had made some massive miscalculations in his plan and dying, he managed to get some of his legion to flee into the warp. Once they eventually popped back out they found an Imperium even worse then the one they had rebelled against, but they had no real way to rebel against it without immediately dying. Fortunately they had popped out in the dark side of the galaxy that’s disconnected from Terra, so they had some degree of breathing room. So taking advantage of the fact that every record of their existence has been censored and that they are in space boonies, some of the survivors reluctantly rejoined the Imperium, mostly for the sake of fighting chaos. They made up a bs backstory to justify their existence, and most people in the dark side of the galaxy were a bit too desperate for help to question them too much. Another bunch of them hated the Imperium even worse now and tried continuing the rebellion. They only had middling success in this, claiming five systems before being ground to halt and forced onto the defensive; essentially becoming a diet Farsight enclaves. Then the rest of them decided to neither rejoin the imperium or fight against it, instead choosing to fly around and look for any planets in need of their aid and happily giving it; before moving since if they stay too long people might start to ask some questions about who they are and the last thing they want is attention. The reason I had them split into three separate groups like this, is so I can easily justify any tabletop game I end up playing. And the ones that rejoined the Imperium are used to justify any game that I use primaris instead of 30k models in. Their Legion culture is heavily based upon their Primarch’s faith in Protethism, which is basically the Protestant version of Catharicism. This has lead to the legion being very much into self sacrifice and favoring weapons usually considered dangerous to their users, like plasma weapons. They have always used very few dreadnaughts, viewing such a thing as delaying their battle brother from moving onto the afterlife, making them rather cruel in their eyes. They are also very much into mercy and almost always offer their enemy a chance to flee before the battle begins. During the great crusade they got along with very few of the other legions. This was due to a mix of their religious beliefs and their merciful attitudes being considered naive at best, and the large number of blanks in their legion didn’t help matters. They ended up having rivalry’s with quite other legions, like the Iron Warriors and and Deathguard, but their most intense rivalry was with the 1000 sons. The second primarch’s home world had originally been controlled by a cabal of Tzenetchain sorcerers; which lead to him having a dislike of any sort of sorcery which was shared by his legion. The 1000 sons on the other hand got massive headaches at best whenever around the second legion, so this caused a mutual hatred to form between the legions. Weirdly enough, the legion had a decent enough relationship with the night lords during the great crusade. While they had major problems with the Night Lord’s methods, they were able to at least appreciate the ultimate result of less deaths. They also got along with the Salamander’s, the Ultramarines, Raven Guard, and the eleventh legion. In the current setting their biggest rival is the night lords, since both legions are focused on smaller fringe worlds so they frequently clash. Their legion name is the Sons of the Lamb, with their original name before being found by their primarch was the Sons of Silence. Their original color scheme was gold and red, similar to the sisters of silence, but upon being reunited with their primarch he changed the colors to white and gold, since he thought using gold as the primary color was too excessive. The color of their right shoulder pad depends on what company they are in. First company uses light blue, second uses red, third uses purple, and fourth uses black.

Well this gave me the motivates I needed to finish my homebrew chapter.

I've got two, but my favorite are the Blood Roses, which are basically my attempt at making Pretty Marines Canon. Geneseed: Cursed founding, officially Blood Angels but some come out of the geneseed process having white hair and occasionally purple eyes. Their Chapter Master, prior to being interred into a dreadnought, is said to have looked startlingly like remembrancer depictions of Fulgrim. Anyways, to stop beating around the bush, their geneseed is a somehow functional but cursed attempt at combining the geneseed of the Emperor's Children and the Blood Angels to create the perfect Loyalists. There's one problem: The Inquisition fucking knows and their days are numbered unless they get the right Inquisitors on their side and fucking quickly. They themselves also know of their cursed lineage, and do everything they can to avoid becoming like the Emperor's Children, including to killing anybody amongst their ranks who gets multiple scars on their face (Lucius, anyone?)

Would love to see this kind of video for all the factions. Make your own kabal, Necron dynasty, forge world, etc.

Just have fun. Make your own people.

I have to say some of this actually applies to Loyalist Guard regiments too. Now time to give an incredibly brief lore dump about my own Guard Regiment real quick. I think their lore could be improved as I write it more as reports and events than individual character stories. I'll even split it into the segments of lineage, tropes, goals and characters. *Lineage (?)* The Tripuran Guard Regiments hail from the planet of Tripura II, the second planet from the star in the Tripuran system. The planet was brought into the Imperium sometime after the Emperor found Guilliman, but all other information about the period has been lost. Sometime during millennium 38 the planet was invaded by orks which were dealt with by a Cadian regiment sent to the planet. The Orks became a permanent problem, mandating the creation of a permanent regiment other than the local PDF. *Tropes* Defiance and toxic stoicism. Even in the face of loss after loss in a hopeless situation, they will refuse to retreat. Occasionally this is due to the strategic importance of the area, other times the cultural value, however the majority of the time they simply keep fighting because they refuse to let the enemy claim total victory. Even if they are slaughtered to a man. They would prefer to die and give a traitorous Marine a bloody nose, then to live to fight another day. *Goal* The current goal of the Tripuran regiments are to push the various xeno forces off their planet. Unfortunately, if this war for their home world ends in victory, they will likely become another asset for (OC) Inquisitor Cocceia Maxima. Therefore, they will likely be torn from their own home to fight against hive fleet Behemoth, despite the more immediate threat to their home of hive fleet Leviathan. *Characters, (Quick-fire round.)* Guardsman/Plasma Gunner/Sergeant/Platoon Commander/Captain Lewys 'The Invincible' - A Guardsman who climbed through the ranks due to his seeming ability to avoid death. Between Necron flayers, surviving a direct hit from the spear of a Golden Giant, A Traitorous(yet surprisingly honourable) Nurgle knight, the Deamonettes of Slaanesh, and even an odd trickster Necron Lord who stole his arm. Field Marshal Martinus Lovernius - A commander who thinks in large sweeping manoeuvres and decisive battles. Lovernius is a strategist first and foremost, reorganising the practical militia force that made up the bulk of the Tripuran Guard into a crack group of Infantry and Armoured Regiments. Through his orders and ideas, the disorganised and homeless Tripuran Guard have begun to retake their home. The Governor General - The original civilian and military leader of Tripura. He is a man too easily overwhelmed by multiple threats, one who fell into potential distractions too easily and spread his forces out to try and hold the line everywhere at once. His primary success was organising the evacuation of civilians, however while doing so the Tripuran Guard regiments were sacrificed and only a fifth of their original collective strength remained. Therefore, he started the large scale mobilisation of conscript/militia regiments. He was at the very least somewhat self-aware and passed military leadership to Martinus Lovernius while continuing oversight on the now limited civilian matters.

I liked this a lot and the Chapter in a sentence stuff is how a few of my own homebrews start as well. While Space Marine specific I do think it can be applied to a lot of other factions as well.

If you think a Space Marine Chapter is complicated, try a Mechanicus Forge World. I've been slowly piecing together one for the better part of two years, and I'm still not done. It's hard because you have to do homebrews within homebrews, usually ones that can be entirely separate things. Does the FW have a Titan Legion? If so, what's their culture? How many Engines do they have? What's their specialization and weakness? What nasty things do they have leftover from [INSERT IMPORTANT TIME PERIOD HERE], if at all? Did they lose them if not, or is the FW still relatively new? What's their Skitarii Legion like? What culture do they have? Are they basically Servitors, or are they closer to Guardsmen with fancy toys? What's their specialty? What're their failings? It's stuff like this that makes it a daunting task. Wouldn't have it any other way.

I want to thank you for this video! As someone who’s fairly new to the franchise, this has helped a lot with the “creation” of my own chapter and the nuisances there in. I sincerely appreciate this upload!

I made a home brew chapter and ended up making a chaos force for them to fight ultimately getting knights houses (home brew) for each side culminating in the tyranids attacking both of them. Keep working at it and you can build your own mini universe a corner of the ip to yourself

Homebrew EVERYTHING. Sisters? Homebrew. Forge world? Homebrew. Hivefleet? Homebrew. Tau Sept? Homebrew. Chaos warband? Homebrew. It's not just for the classics Space Marines and Imperial Guard.

The nutshell test works for guard too! For example, space Condotierri who go around plugging gaps in the imperium’s defenses so that the guard can fight elsewhere.

Woo george abalayan here haha nice to contribute to the homebrew scene

This is a great guide, dude, and one I'm definitely going to keep in mind as I continue writing my own custom chapter, The Crimson Host. I actually have something similar to what you spoke about with Kharn with my Chapter Master, Vicram Evicarus. While fighting a World Eater Warband on the hive world of Calixan Secundus with the Scions of Baal (another homebrew BA successor), Vicram, Kharn, and the Champion of the Scions Inarel, were split off from the Host's First Company and Kharm's warband by a collapsing building, and nobody saw them for three solar days. When Vicram re-emerged, he was barely scratched, and immediately withdrew from the planet. Nobody knows what happened, but now the Host avoids the World Eaters like the plague, and Vicram has become obsessed with becoming a martyr to the point where his First Captain needs to actively hold him back from directly engaging in battle out of fear he'll straight up kill himself. The unsaid reason? Kharn split Inarel, in his Terminator armor, in half with one hit of Gorechild, so Vicram decided that discretion is the better part of valor and *ran like hell*.

I took different approach. I found Dark Angels Succesors Chapter that I liked collor scheme, but information about them is almost nothing. We only know where they are. So I decided to make some lore myself. Chapter master was one of the BladeGuards from original Dark Angels Chapter, but he and 3 other blade guards were send to guide and to lead them. After some time one of the bladeguards was mortally wounded, so they put him into Dreadnought. If someone want to know, they are called Cowled Wardens and they are probably from ultima founding

I've been struggling so much where to start for my own homebrew since homebrew seems to be seen so poorly where I've looked, so this is SO HELPFUL! Now the hardest part, finding other homebrews to make interconnected lore with lol😂

Chaos fist please this was helpful

ooo a guid how to make your own chapter alright.

I'd say go renegade chapter then chaos warband it creates a nice through line showing how a chapter may misalign with the imperium and eventually fall into chaos.

I'm gonna make my own chapter! Sentinels of the Watch.

I have a general idea for what I wanna do for my Chapter, but I wasn't sure what to do as far as the lore and stuff. I'll definitely take some notes and do some reading lol. Maybe I'll submit my chapter for your series, to get some constructive criticism. I'm new to the table top stuff, so I wanna try and get it right lol

In a nutshell my homebrew is loyalists naive night lords.... Did i do it right?

Making a successor chapter was the thing that got me so invested into the hobby. I’m still working on the finer points of mine months after I started. Mine’s called The Hellbenders. They are a Salamanders successor chapter and named after the hellbender, the largest salamander in North America. They specialize in vehicles and heat-based weaponry such as plasma, flamers, and melta. The broad theme of the chapter has changed as I go along, and so has the paint scheme, but the current version is a combination of a Mesoamerican theme and an ice world meant to mirror Nocturne. I really like the dragon theme of the Salamanders and I feel that it’s an under-utilized aspect of their design. I really like kitbashing and proxy models so I use a dragon mini as a proxy for a Brutalis Dreadnought. I’ve named it Xol, which is a reference to the Aztec god Xolotl who wasn’t depicted as a dragon or even a serpent but he is the source of the name axolotl which is both one of my favourite animals and a member of the salamander species, so I felt it fits pretty well.

This has helped a lot guys! Thank you so much I’ll probably submit my fan chapter for y’all’s series. And I’ll try to make ‘em great for everyone to enjoy!

This is exactly what I needed man. Thank you so much

The point made at 13:00 is completely true. Over the last year I collaborated with a friend to create a self-contained but connected homebrew “setting” with WAY too much lore.

Ive been making a homebrew chapter idea with my partner, in which a successor that is involved in many mercy missions and defense of hive worlds has developed a very interesting reading of the Imperial Creed and Imperial Truth, interpreting the imperium and the emperor as entities or concepts that cannot be seperated from one another in any definable sense, and that to love the imperium and its citizens are more noble than to love the emperor

I got one called the Corpse Eaters, who thought they were Blood Angels successors and favored the brutality of the black rage, until they eventually learnt that they were actually World Eaters descendants where their "black rage" was just heightened anger from their lineage and the Blood Angels immediately cut all contact with them. They are ashamed of what they are and they take every opportunity to do suicidal missions for Imperium in hopes to redeem themselves in the eyes of Sanguinius. They were almost dead when they came upon the Indomitus crusade and threw their entire chapter in the fray to help Guilliman, who then gave them their Primaris reinforcement. Their chapter master is actually really close to Angron, being forces to be self-contained in a room where he focuses on painting (poorly) until they either send a recruit in to see if they survive the manic anger of him or they need him in the fray. He despise himself and the only thing keeping him sane is his entombed dreadnought brethern who guards his door that he talks to for advice as they can't be easily killed by his bouts of rage.

Thanks this really helps a lot!!! i was trying to create a night lord loyalist chapter and this has set some awesome guidelines for me!

This was such a wonderful help. I eagerly look forward to the next videos in this series 😁

I had an idea for a dark angels successor chapter culturally based off of the Normans. In combat they'd focus on a combat style similar to the White Scars with the speed and mounted combat, but also a huge focus on sword fighting. In terms of galactic doctrine they'd have a homeworld but also have detachments and companies spread all over the galaxy similar to the norman adventurers.

This video is amazing! I went through several ideas for successor chapters and characters until I settled on what I liked. It took me nearly a year to figure out what you explained in 14 minutes, bravo!

Homebrew imperial Guard is a thing i was focusing on first...

This has helped me a lot, as I’ve recently gotten back into Warhammer and decided to make my own homebrew. I always loved the Space Marines but none of the official chapters really appealed to me. I love seeing all of the creative comments!

do a video on the strongest legion based on strategies and tactics

I needed this

- raises hand - I have a homebrew chapter called the Redeemed. They're made up of former chaos and traitor marines from all different legions who turned away from Chaos. Their main shtick is being pretty much immune to Chaos and warp stuff after having been exposed to it for so long, and they hunt daemons and chaos servants. They're not very well liked in the Imperium but they're very dedicated anyway, seeing it as a way to redeem themselves of their pasts serving the dark gods. Some notable members include -The chapter master, an ex Thousand Sons marine who, thanks to an unfortunate encounter with a Slaaneshi witch is now a "living" crystal statue -The chief apothecary, who made a deal with Isha to cure his Nurgle induced corruption and now has flowers growing out of his flesh -Their only techmarine, a perpetually grumpy former Iron Warrior who commits tech heresy like he gets paid for it and probably hasn't smiled in 10k+ years, but who still ended up adopting the first infant he rescued from a daemon.

Very good video! Looking forward to the chaos warband video!

Holy shit+ you used my chapter master commission by Adrian Art at 7:04

Amazing video! This has been a massive help whilst I’ve been creating my custom chapter! Just working out who they are the successor of as I have 3 Primarchs I love but everything else I’ve sorted 👍

I have several custom space marine chapters, but my favorite are by far the Crimson Hounds. They’re a World Eaters chapter that is semi-codex compliant and constantly struggle with their inner violent nature, and unfortunately for them, a certain Ordo Hereticus Lord Inquisitor knows their origin, and holds that knowledge over their heads, basically using them as her personal attack dogs, sending them on campaigns they’d prefer to not fight. Also their 2nd Company Captain has a giant sword made out of the armor plate of a warship. They’re basically trying to fight against their dark fate, trying to protect civilians and do “good”, but their inquisitor handler constantly gives them shitty postings, basically trying to get them to fall, but they’ve persevered through it.

This was really helpful. I have been having trouble with where to start and what to do exactly with the idea for a kriegsmen inspired chapter and this helped a lot so thanks

I want to mention a slight caveat to this as well. Make your marines (or the bulk of them at least) part of the same battle company in an established chapter. The is pretty much no chapter in lore that actually fleshes out who is in the say third or fourth company with only a few exception (Uriel Ventris, etc). This gives a tone of flexibility to build out personality, victories, traditions, and lore while never really impacting canon and you still get all the support of playing an established chapter, if that is something that appeals to you. Obviously this means you want be able to make your own chapter master and Terminators and the like will be from the first company, but this can sort of be a "light" version of building your own chapter from scratch.

Im beyond exited for the warband video. Ive been working working on my own warband consisting of marines from all the Trefoil legions. Having started as an alpha legion warband that follows the vision of their captain, turned demon prince. To bring the forces of the 3 headed hydra togerher, by bringing the trefoil legions together. Their first true success in this was in late m35 when when they gained access to Salamanders geneseed through a plot put in motion during early m32. By hypno conditioning large numbers of would be aspirants on different recruitment worlds for a salamanders successor chapter. They turned would be marines into sleeper agents before their induction into the ranks of the chapter. Once it was finally time to collect on their hard work the warband descend on the chapters small fleet over one of the recruitment world. Broadcasting a single ancient song across the vox activated their sleepers who joined the song on their own secured vox network. Activating any remaining sleepers not wakened by the initial broadcast. A brief but decisively destructive battle insued between the still loyal sons of vulkan and the traitors. After this operation the warbands original name was forgotten, christening themselves the Awakened Sons. A remnant of the salamanders successor chapter was left to roam and seemingly continue their duties as normal. With the exception of a single ritual added to their customs. A pilgrimage to be undertaken by those few sons deemed capable by the chapters chaplains and apothecaries. Sending those chosen either alone or in groups of no more than 3, into the void on a mission known only to them. Ensuring the Awakened Sons a steady supply of new members for eternity as they see it. The ritual of Jormungandr (the serpent eating its own tail) being deemed a success a much more elaborate version of it was deployed against a space wolves successor chapter. Fulfilling the warbands vision and finally allowing them to embark on their true mission. What ever that ends up being.

I know this is a bit weird, but what or how, would you do approaching a custom Space Marine legion? I've got an idea and narrative set up already, but I was wondering whether it would be a better idea to crunch that down to a chapter.

I actually had the idea of a chapter hailing from the 'Cursed Founding'. They would be the result of an experiment to mix Imperial Fist- and Raven Guard-Geneseed, which created Space Marines specialised in defensive guerrilla warfare. As they are 'cursed', half of them would turn renegade after being accused of treacherous actions, and the loyalists would lose track of them. But about the time of th Opening of the Great Rift a loyalist company would find the renegades fighting alongside an Imperial Guard Regiment and three Knight Freeblades against a large Chaos Warband, and seeing they are still loyalist, would join them in the fight, driving the traitors back but losing the world to the Rift with just a few Marines, guardsmen and one Freeblade escaping.

I've been working on a successor chapter from the space wolves called the saber wolves. They are often ridiculed but other wolves for taking in traits and tactics from other chapters, one example is a judicar assisting a squad of blood angels. The idea of these golden death masks to strike fear into their opponents so he did the same just with a golden wolf mask

What is your opinion on if the emperor had a tts device?

Yep, this raven guard is gonna go well.

Idea: a space-born chapter renowned for their diaspora across the galaxy and rumored to be over 1000 Marines (BT set-up). Now subvert; due to the modi operandis of the chapter it IS true they have over a thousand as each group replenishes forces while on campaign. But make it a problemnthey care about. Every 50 years or something the chapter gathers to take on the "Tithing Campaign". The number of marines the chapter (couple dozen or over a hundred) over isnsent on crusade to die. Sacrifice for the Imperium in Wild Space. Decent trope but controls the chapter’s overall power.

“In a nutshell my homebrew SM are the real sons of the Phoenix, but they are both 3rd and 7th hybrid legion geneseed with expanded AU* lore.” Kinda wanted to test out the last part of the video. I think mine works!

Is there a similar idea with traitor legions? Like a splinter of thousand sons or word bearers?

So, I feel it is very important to include a unique flaw in your home brew chapters alongside unique beneficial traits. Extra credit if you can tie their greatest strengths to their greatest weaknesses in this regard.

I'm currently still fleshing out mine, but I have a pretty good idea of who they are. I named mine the "Mariana Casetellans". They are a former fleet-based chapter of Imperial Fist stock who centuries ago were gifted the Ocean World "Mariana" as a reward in their efforts to stop an Ork Waaagh. from destroying the system. They have completely adopted the world as their own and care incredibly deeply for it and its people. They are expert borders and siege breakers/breakthrough makers, as well as having the unique task of often occupying conquered worlds until greater administrative presence can be established (they are good at this due to dealing with smugglers and pirates). Think space riot cops/swat/ mixed with that animation of the Iron Warriors fucking up Dukhari. They also, while being close range, prefer ranged weaponry to melee if possible, though will use the two as needed. Their focus on breakthroughs, boarding actions, and policing means they tend to prefer more compact weapons, which means that any melee they do use tends to be things like power swords, fists, and the like, things that can be used in relatively tight corridors. When their chapter was created, they managed to find an old imperial stockpile that included large amounts of siege weapons, specifically grav guns and close range weapons, alongside old Siege Shields. These shields have been modified to fit the needs of the chapter, increasing or decreasing in size and protection as needed These play a large element into their fighting style and it is uncommon to see one of them without some sort of shield on their person, though it is not always in use and brought out more when needed. They work best in close to medium range combat, but struggle with longer range engagements. They also are unique in that they will never work alone if they can help it. This includes fights. They do not get in duels solo, with two marines joining each other to fight together. They also do not have one chapter master, but two who communicate with a council made up of their company captains. The masters hold equal authority most of the time, but during large scale crusades or deployments where the entire chapter is needed, one will be given overall command for the duration to simplify orders. Part of the culture of the chapter is "shared glory." This does not mean that they don't encourage individuals to gain glory, they do, but they believe that the best kind of glory is that which is gained with others. These can include their battle brothers, but also other imperials including guardsmen. Essentially, work to ensure that not only you do great, but the guys next to, behind, and in front of you do great as well. They recruit from Mariana, and the process is actually similar to the Ultramarines (due to the planet being right on the borders with ultramar and a trade hub), having various academies and military schools that they look over to pick the cream of the crop. Keeps their initiate numbers well stocked. Though they do have a fall with their gene seed that means it doesn't always form in a marine, which means that their stock is relatively limited. Their casualty rates are rather low despite their specialization, but every marine killed is a major blow both to the morale of the chapter as well as its physical resources, so its apothecaries try ESPECIALLY hard to keep marines alive and functioning. I also had it so that they have a very close relationship to the Void Tridents due to sharing a specialization with them and living nearby. Though they admit that the Void Tridents are the superior boarders, while the tridents respect their siege abilities.

I've been trying to make a Space Marine chapter for ages now, and while I've had lots of ideas I've never been able to make something I've been happy with, so I keep ending up back at the drawing board. Incidentally, back during 9ths custom sub-faction days I randomly rolled some traits and a lineage, then thought up a name and made a small lore blurb for them, they're not super fleshed out but if you wanted them for your homebrew chapters series, both because I'm curious how you would expand on their basic ideas, and maybe to sorta put them up for “adoptation” amongst yalls viewers I'd love to share them.

You could probably do a homebrew series. I would like to see an Admech homebrew.

When I made my Dark Angel's successor chapter, I basically boiled them down the same way "Dark Angels who don't care as much about the fallen." Something like that can really springboard you to something more evolved. My homebrew cares about the Fallen, but they simply refuse to completely abandon a campaign because of them. I decided to give them a prejudice against the Iron Hands (just because they're my least favorite loyalists) that evolved to despising the mechanicus and refusing to use techmarines, making their equipment outdated and relying on my nearby homebrew knight house to provide them with materiels under the table. They also have more than 1000 marines, BUT thats only because a marine missing a limb can't fight, so they take up the duties of maintaining their fortress and equipment. So they aren't technically part of the chapter anymore, plus Dark Angels are really good at keeping their secrets.

I’ve thought about what I’d do if I made a Space Marine chapter. To use the “in a nutshell” format: Iron Hands successor with more Cult Mechanicus influence (so, for example, their Chapter Chaplain preaches doctrine more in line with the Tech-Priests of Mars than the Adeptus Ministorum).

I have a customs space marine chapter that is a successor of the Luna Wolves. They’re very much based on the brotherhood and the almost frat boy esc nature of them. All of their initiation rituals are very much hazing rituals that are preformed by the veterans to break the neophytes. Though unlike university, these hazing rituals involve being stripped, strapped to a table and having your blood slowly drained while powerful poisons and hallucinogenic drugs and pumped into their body. Or after victory, the Chapter has a massive celebration, and all of them drink/eat a stew made from the corpses of dead marines and high ranking militarum officers. Think of it like the Winner’s Cup that you see sports teams engage in. They also train their neophytes in 1 on 1 methods, with a veteran teaching, and basically raising the neophyte. Very much like a “big brother” type system. All these together work to create a incredibly strong brotherhood that fights viscously but not ruthlessly. They aim to win as swiftly and effectively as possible, usually through direct, and selective strikes of overwhelming force. Once victorious, the Chapter will recover all the weapons and armour on the battlefield, unless tainted by chaos, and will honour this equipment. Additionally they practice gilding of the skulls of their enemies. Usually as both a status symbol, intimidation tactic, and trophy.

I've got an idea for a home-brew chapter. An Astartes chapter descended from the Black Shields(space marines who scoured all heraldry from there armor and left their legion. They could be loyalist, they could traitor, or any mix of ideals thereof.) I like this Idea not only because it gives you the basis for a insanely old chapter, with the potential for any mix of lineage and battle doctrine, as well as not much surrounding lore, but just enough to make a sound foundation for a story. Any thoughts?

I made a successor chapter! They are called the Aegis Valorant(or The Shields of Valor), and they are a Dark Angels successor that was heavily influenced by the Salamanders when they were still figuring themselves out. They believe preserving the citizens of the imperium is the point of their existance, and they very much agree with what Guilliman said to Dante during the devastation of Baal. The Aegis Valorant have a knightly aesthetic, and they are a rapid response force that prioritizes battlefields where they can (loudly) distract foes and enable their allies to rally. The Aegis Valorants Apothecarium is much more robust than most chapters, and they even deploy human combat medics from their home world to aid any needful allies or civilians in the theater of battle.

I have an entire homebrew trio of space marine chapters that all work together to guard a region of space called the Hartham Expanse. The thunder mammoths, a white scars successor who favor heavy armor and siege assaults. The crimson seraphs, an Ultima blood angel successor who drink the blood of their enemies to learn their plans. And the venom drakes, a cursed founding chapter rumored to be a chimeric geneseed of salamander and death guard who possess a mutation that causes their betchers glands to produce larger quantities of acidic saliva as well as spit it considerably farther than normal. The thunder mammoths were once the sole protectors of the Hartham Expanse, but have since been reinforced by their brother chapters and now the three seek to reclaim the region for the impeirum in the wake of the great rift opening. I love writing homebrew lore. Have several imperial guard regiments too and 2 other space marine chapters unrelated to the three mentioned.

When I started 40k I got a bunch of firstborn with a firstborn captain. When I gradually transitioned to primaris I made a point to recreate him in primaris. The only problem was their was no option for chapter master with power fist and power sword so the old chapter master was now in a dreadnought and the new chapter master carried on with his specific war gear. Sometimes the modeling journey defines the story of your chapter.

I created a homebrew of Loyalists that supposedly hailed from the Iron Warriors. They were created to serve in an area that is juuuust beyond the light of the Astronomican and act as an early warning for any extra-galactic threats (i.e. Tyranids). Due to being so far from Imperial command and resupply, they are often scavenging whatever they can find that is useful and have become adept at exploring and clearing Space Hulks due to the presence of an anomaly in their region of space called Dead Star Reef (a supermassive black hole that can literally pull space hulks and other void craft out of the warp because of its high gravity). The chapter also had to create their own armies to support the out of the planets that they protect (very similar to the Tyrant's Legion made by the Astral Claws) and secured the help of a wandering Mechanicus Archmagos and his Forge Ship after saving him from an Iron Warriors raiding group.

First of all, pleasure of a video to watch with some really helpful points, but made me remember how when I first made my marines, a key detail is how their homeworld was ravaged by tyranids and nearly wiped out the chapter because it was based on my first game of 40k (technically kill team) where I was left with one lone marine to win the match

Fresh new point of viewing the chapters creation is a good thing. For whole three years my main chapter was under construction, and now its slowly getting its last details finished. A couple of things said here will help with a couple of those details.

I got a Chapter of Iron Hands; The Iron Crowns, that met with the Imperial Fists and various other Chapters during a sizeable Ork Purge. There was one particular character whom their Chapter Master met; Maximmion Voss. Given Voss's unusual features, the Chapter Master basically thought "What is this defective Astarte doing here?". But upon seeing how badass and STRONG Voss was, he was immediately humbled. Being Iron Hands, they were adherents to the ideas of "The Flesh is Weak" but after encountering Voss, their outlook changed. "The Flesh is Weak? Make it Stronger!" The Iron Crowns now push themselves with rigorous physical training, they are the swollest Astartes in the Sector. Their preferred enemy is Orks Funny Fact, you know how Voss had to constantly have his armor refitted cuz he was bulking too much? The Crowns found a solution, whenever a group of em get too big for their armor, they line up according to size and switch to the set that's one size above like a bunch of Hermit Crabs.

I've got 2 custom chapters. (So far) The Stormspear Sentinels are an Imperial Fists successor that is basically space Rohan, with a historical inspiration from Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture. Created to guard against horrors from the Halo Stars in the western side of the galaxy. The other, the Gorgons Resplendent, are a fleet-based Iron Hands successor that flips the hatred of weakness thing, only hating those who choose weakness. "The Flesh Is Weak, but it can be made strong." Their chapter master's name is also Klaus.

Would you guy's be willing to post a good place for the more character sheet-y building parts of the chapters? Like a template for the leg work? Pretty new to 40k but it might be fun to have a side project to mess around with on paper along with lore making. Thanks, love the video.

Solid advice. Putting together the ‘Hearts of Oak’ chapter. Ta.

I really like the idea of choosing three characters to dump all of the chapter's powercreep into.

I am very, very new to Warhammer (Like, I genuinely know extremely little but I still love it) and I want to make Scottish Salamanders, in a nutshell. Going with the vague cheatcode, they honestly dont know who their geneseed comes from, but it could be Ferrus Manus, Vulkan, or both, or neither, they really have no way of knowing. They will commonly rebuild themselves as much as possible to continue fighting, focusing more on juggernauts than tanks, because want to see the whites of their enemies eyes as they die. So to speak. There is a heavy focus on cybernetics, enough that they are relatively dependent on the AdMech, and have more Mech Marines than most chapters. Their particular bugbear is Nurgle, and they will go out of their way to fight off his forces, ignoring orders if they must, whenever they arrive. They hold great feasts on their Battle-Monastery, which is the ship they fly from place to place, since they have no homeworld to call their own.

Thank you for this, I've started work on a Marine Company myself that in a nutshell are all platoon leaders. their numbers were reduce vastly in an early battle in their history and they've been forced to rely on a lot of chapter serfs for combat positions. This eventually spiralled into a culture where marines are leading full blown platoons of serfs and when fighting side by side with guardsman, any strays they find. They're a fleet based chapter who's method of recruiting involves poaching cadet regiments of promising officer recruits and putting them through the test to see if they have the stuff it takes. Its created a really interested dynamic of semi-immortal warriors leading young men into battle and balancing their safety against the completion of the mission, and it becomes real notable when the marine dies leaving his platoon leaderless.

Loving the long videos. I'm hyped to make my own chapter now, I'm definitely going full knight style with a badass chapter master. What is a good color scheme that has not been used by cannon legions?

Making marines is not hard as a color scheme and which successors they are, but the lore is the hardest part. I have like 10 custom chapters, and have only done the barest lore for just 1 of them, it is that difficult, but this video helped.

I recently committed to a chapter that in a nutshell are honorbound World Eaters, called the Blood Hounds, founded sometime in M35th or M36th (Dark Founding) with a Knightly esthetic and germanic/greekish culture, they are dedicated to swift and deadly attacks to end engagements quickly, and often act as shocktroops to the imperial guard. I chose the World Eaters because I really like Angrons tragedy and he is one of if not my favorite traitor Primarch. Ps. This is one of the more helpful videos for chapter creation in my opinion keep it up guys!

Thank you for the guide dude this is awesome as i had an idea for a homebrew chapter but had no idea where to start. The chapter i have an idea on is called Sons of Damnation, founded sometime in the 36th millennia and supposedly a descendant of the Imperial Fists but analysis shown the gene to be a chimaeric one with unknown geneseed as a base and a little sprinkle of Imperial Fists. A semi fleet based chapter with their main bastion, the Hall of Repentance mostly sit in the Kraevi system with the 2 inhabited worlds in the system used as recruiting ground and it was made using a captured space hulk

I have an idea of a chapter of “blood angels” but their gene seed is world eaters and the chapter master somewhat get gets the primarch power despite having the nails but at an extreme cost to his health, just like talos from the night lords, and it goes to a passing of a torch of him dying and looking upon the new chapter master of his choosing who doesn’t know of their gene seed origins and fully believes that their a blood angel chapter and the old master passes on dying with that knowledge and his rage that burdened him will die with him and he’s satisfied with the possible future of this chapter being far different then his original legion

I've been thinking about making my own marine chapter and this is a good recomendation.

I have a primaris Iron Hands fleet chapter called the "Rust Knights" who are obsessed with archeotech and uncovering the past and are waaaaay to cordial with the mechanicus.

I’ve just recently started tackling the idea of a custom chapter. I’m currently going with a successor of the imperial fist who faced heavy losses earlier on and blamed the stagnate fighting style they inherited. To address this they put their fortifications on their backs and started specializing in centurions, terminators, and all manner of tanks

My own homebrew took a good chunk of inspiration from King Arthur's mythology with a few changes here and there for obvious reasons. In the chapter history they were originally non codex compliant but stuff happend which has left them desperate for redemption so now they cling to codex like its their sole life line

My homebrew went missing in the warp and came out years later. Lost majority of the chapter which were firstborn but only survived with a few squads. When they came out of the warp the instantly got a call for help from a near by planet. After helping and proving they actually survived the warp they got new primaris troops. That's about what I got so far 😂.

I've been playing since 2004 and since then I've fleshed out a Chaos warband, a space marine chapter, a traitor guard regiment and a sisters of battle order. The recent Arks of Omen arc has provided a great opportunity to gel these groups together into a single story.

Back in the day before Covid and my local GW was in a bigger store, as a joke I started painting my Marines in the colors of Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony; majority purple body with dark-blue shoulders, knees and elbows, silver trim (except Captains and the 1st Company, they have gold trim), green eye-lenses and specks of pink (mostly for star-shaped insignia). I called them the Stars of Twilight. At the time I didn't have any concrete lore for them, but over the last 2-3 years I've come up with some details that have been sticking with me (which I really should write down). So far I've come up with the following: They were one of the original First Founding Legions, the 11th Legion specifically, with a Primarch that loved outlandish weapons and armor (the kind you find in Souls-bourne games or Google-ing "fantasy weapons/armor") and believed anyone who could effectively use either was a cut above the rest. Their track record for bringing worlds under Compliance was largely unremarkable, other than having a near equal number of Compliances through diplomacy as they did through conquest in favor of the latter. In regards to sentient xeno races, both Primarch and Legion believed that hostile xenos should be wiped out, but that peaceful/harmless races could and should be integrated into the Imperium, even if the most likely/best case scenario would be as second-class citizens and largely confined the their homeworlds. They took part in the Rangdan Xenocides and suffered heavy casualties, including their Primarch. Garrison forces on multiple worlds and reserves kept in their home system prevented the survivors being absorbed into the Ultramarines. Warp Storms and assaults from Night Lords, Word Bearers and Alpha Legion prevented the diminished and uninformed Stars of Twilight from participating in the Horus Heresy. Instead of a singular planet, the Stars of Twilight call an entire star system in the Segmentum Obscurus home and recruit from most of its worlds. The only planets they don't recruit from are a Mechanicus Forge World and an Ecclesiarchal Shrine World located in the equivalent positions of Saturn and Mars respectively. Primary recruiting comes from a mineral rich European-style Feudal World, a Civilized World (modern Earth with Imperial tech) and a Hive World, the former two located within the "Goldilocks Zone" of the system's sun (roughly where Earth is). There's more to add but I'll stop it here for now until either people want to know more or I write everything down somewhere and make sure I'm consistent and get it all right.