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Ok, after going through a bidfest on ebay and getting all of my marines together, it's time to crack out the brushes. Naturally, this got me thinking of what I was going to paint them as, and then I decided I wanted my own chapter because then I could be creative, which I find to be a major benefit to this hobby. So here goes my first draft on the "Sons of Animus".
The Sons of Animus were formed a bit after the Horus Heresy. When the Emperor was confined to the Golden Throne, his thirst for life could only be quenched by that of psychic minds.
This is where the beginnings of the Sons of Animus can first be traced to, to their home planet of Emerio IV. Originally bare and desolate, the first inhabitants of Emerio IV settled there by total mischance. After experiencing terrible malfunctions with their spacecraft, an ore-carrier named the Famulus, and barely surviving a forced entry through the planet's blistering cold skies. The freezing conditions of the season and extremely low atmospheric pressure made it nearly impossible to survive, and the crew of the Famulus dug deep underground, near the planet's core, searching for warmth. What they found proved to be much more valuable.
Within the core of Emerio IV lay a noxious gas, which escaped through cracks in its surrounding crust, only a mile or so below the new home of the Famulus. It was dense and thick enough to reduce visibility to mere meters when the crew left the spaceship. The crew thought it was steam and decided to venture out together to explore and find resources that could possibly get the ship running. This exploratory party left and despite warnings from the ship's defensive systems operator, choked to death only seconds after leaving the ship. The remaining crew members, the defensive systems operator, whom we know only as "Tempestas", and a few dozen young children used for manual transportation of the ship's ore, were the only remaining survivors.
Within 30 years, the crew had learned to work together to survive. They learned to deal with the mysterious gas, which could be refined into the gases necessary to live in the ship with some of the ship's processing equipment. Exploration was made possible with basic insulated mining suits, which gave them about 2 hours of air per trip. They constantly made surveillance trips to the Emerio IV's surface, learning that the planet was occasionally inhabited by spontaneous life and went through rapid seasonal changes. One of the young boys, Visum, observed the cycles and determined that the planet's life evolved from single-celled creatures to primitive wildlife in a matter of only 10 years, at which point some of the mysterious gray gas escaped to the crust and spread like a virus. Taking advantage of this knowledge, they often sent hunting parties up to the surface to capture as much food as they could bring back, transported through tall chutes made from the ore the Famulus was carrying. The party was surviving, but would surely die off.
Roughly the time of the infamous duel between Horus and the Emperor, a strange series of events occured on the Famulus, which had recently been expanded with metals found closer to the surface on Emerio IV. At one point, the system reported a breach and there were a series of lockdowns due to the computers' detection of potential gas leaks. Upon investigation, none of the crew members detected any gas or found any leaks. A week or so later, Visum randomly fell off of his chair at the dinner table, writhing on the floor, chanting and screaming in a tongue heard never before. Within another month Tempestas made the connection and realized that something was affecting the other crew members, and began to walk around in an exploration suit all the time. When questioned, he merely said he wanted to grow comfortable with it.
After another year, everyone else had fallen ill with the same symptoms as Visum. Tempestas was disheartened, because he did not know how to help these men and had survived because of their commitment. He put each of the 24 men in a separate room, so that their disharmonic screams didn't disturb eachother. One day, however, Tempestas heard rumbling. Afraid that it was a seismic shift in Emerio IV, he was less comforted when he saw dust coming down the chutes to the surface. Tempestas gathered the supplies necessary: extra air, preserved food, small arms and munitions. Prepared to escape before things got any worse, he abandoned the Famulus and made his way up the chutes, wiping away the tears for his 24 lost men.
Near the top of the chute, Tempestas was frightened to see that the top was closed off. He pulled on the cords to slow the elevator to a stop, and realized that something was actually stuck in the hole of the chute. It appeared to be another vehicle! He climbed to the top of the elevator and scraped away the rocks that had seemed to get stuck around the vehicle's base and it slowly pulled free. Tempestas climbed out and saw men standing outside the rover, enjoying the warm weather and rejoicing that it was saved. Tempestas began babbling his story, and as he began to calm down, he noticed the Imperial Eagle on the back of the vehicle.
Tempestas was taken to the men's orbital craft, being rewarded for his minor deeds for the Imperium by a ceremonial Laspistol. Apparently the vehicle belonged to a scout crew that had gone missing. When the commanders of the ship were told of his story and the symptoms of his men, who were presumably still down there, they instantly recognized them as that of developing psychics. Through a bit of intuition, they decided the mysterious caused a mutation, which was the source of such symptoms. Soon research was conducted near the core of Emerio IV and the gas was found to be the perpetrator. The symptoms, however, were also explored and turned out to be those of developing psychics. Through a series of tests and trials, the sector realized it had one of the most valuable resources in all of the Imperium: the seeds that planted the sustenance of the Emperor himself.
Naturally, Tempestas was soon given more reward than a ceremonial laspistol. His superior defensive knowledge and survival skills, as well as his knowledge of Emerio IV, naturally made him the prime candidate for the guardian of the planet. Since then, the Imperium has colonized the interior of Emerio IV, calculating the optimal exposure to the human body for most successful psychic development. Emerio IV grew as a planet, its inhabitants living midway between the surface and the core. Humans were grown and bred specifically for such exposure, and such became a trade on Emerio IV: the psychic trade.
Realizing the value of the planet and its potential, the Imperium came down fast on Emerio IV. To avoid the probably turning of the psychic minds, a planetary defense and control force was established. Tempestas, the head of the force, was father to what we know now as a chapter of Space Marines. The Sons of Animus were formed, to protect the psychic potential of Emerio IV.
Battle Doctrine:
The inhabitants of Emerio IV treat humans as a crop, and as such, have very little regard for human life. The Sons of Animus are influenced by this as well, often taking advantage of any opportunity to skirmish with Imperial Guard forces that encroach onto their territory. They have been on the strictest orders to bring hell upon anyone that lands on Emerio IV ever since their founding.
Due to their mass production of psychics and valuable resources, the Sons of Animus are treated generously by the Imperium, as an understatement. Producing millions of psychics each year, they are rewarded with the fastest, hardest, and least merciful weapons the Emperor can offer. Their combat typically involves intercepting a force that lands on Emerio IV as soon as possible, requiring fast deployment interceptors more than massive long-ranged bombardments. Any Sons of Animus force may use no spacecraft, as spacecraft is regarded as sacred by Tempestas, due to his experience with the Famulus.
The chapter contains 25 Officers, one dedicated to each of the late psychic crew members of the Famulus, and Tempestas himself.
This is the 3k list led by the Librarian dedicated to Visum:
-Tactical Detachment (6 TLC Razorbacks, Hunter) - 525 points
-Tactical Detachment (3 Rhinos) - 300 points
-Tactical Detachment (3 Rhinos) - 300 points
-Bike Detachment (Captain) - 250 points
-Bike Detachment - 200 points
-Terminator Detachment - 325 points
-Whirlwind Detachment (Hunter) - 375 points
-Devastator Detachment (Librarian) - 350 points
-Assault Detachment (Captain) - 175 points
-Thunderhawk Detachment - 200 points
Total: 3k points, 10 formations, 59 units
Assaults/Devastators ride in Thunderhawk, which will unleash a nasty assault/firefight combination on any target unit.
Any comments/criticisms/suggestions? Would anyone like to contribute and make lists with some of the other 24 Officers in my chapter?
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I didn't fully catch the part about battle doctrine, though.