The Mallus Compliance (Space Marines in Warhammer Fantasy - Chapter Master/Empire Building)

Introduction 2

The alarms continue to sound but you look back, feeling a looming presence behind you.

"There." A booming voice sounds, pointing to the pict-screen and the rapidly approaching planet. The Angel of Death stares down at you and you see your own mortality reflected in his visor.

He towers over you, even though you sit atop the dais of your command throne. Even with your three centuries of command experience, to be in the presence of one of the Adeptus Astartes is harrowing. Nevertheless, to command an Astartes Battle Barge and be Fleetmaster of one of their forces is a great honour indeed!

Since your birth you have served as a chapter-serf of the Emperor's Angels, in particular the:

Choose 1:

[ ] Blood Ravens
This chapter of unknown origins are drawn to the pursuit and acquisition of ancient lore. They possess an unusually high number of Librarians amongst its ranks, and have established your original mission to
gather knowledge and relics for their already impressive armouries.

[ ] Brazen Claws
Successors of the noble Iron Hands Legion, the Brazen Claws' home of Talus IV was destroyed and left in ruins, and the now battered but resolute chapter seeks a new world to build their fortress-monastery.

[ ] Celestial Lions
The Astartes of this chapter maintain all the nobility and fibre of their progenitor, Rogal Dorn, yet in recent years they seem to have fallen on hard times, and now seek a new life away from the politics of the Imperium.

[ ] Dragon Lords
Pursuing a force of the perfidious Hrud, the Dragon Lords have set themselves on a fearsome mission. What will they do now this has been so disrupted?

[ ] Howling Griffons
The Howling Griffons take a special pride in their oaths, seeing each as the promise of an unending effort until the deed sworn in the oath is accomplished. One such oath now compels them to this new crusade.

[ ] Sword Brothers
All Space Marines descend from the Primarchs, the twenty demigod sons of the Emperor. While most Astartes therefore revere the Emperor, few adopt the strictures of the Imperial Cult and Ministorum as closely as the Sword Brothers.

"Yes my lord." you acknowledge, relaying the instruction through your umbilical to the ship.

The Space Marine points to a wide plain on the continent that's rapidly taking up more space on the pict-screen. On one side is that curious long range of mountains, on the other a large bay. In the north there's a desert, in the south a jungle. It's suitable enough and you swiftly feel the change in the engines as the Battle Barge's Machine Spirit bends to action.

"How many others are too damaged to maintain orbit?" the Marine asks.

"Half at the least, my lord." you report at once, thinking back to how you got into this situation. You had been stricken by:

Choose 1:

[ ] Battle Damage
While the fleet were valiant indeed, a bout you'd gotten into had proven too much and the emergency Warp-Jump away from the battlefield had led you to this position plummeting into an unknown world's gravity well.

[ ] Navigational Incident
The Sea of Souls is perilous indeed to navigate, it was only a moment's distraction on the part of your Navigator and you emerged too early.

[ ] Sabotage
Whether traitors or xenos, the enemy came from within and has plunged a dagger into the heart of your ship.

You bring yourself back to the present, a hundred thousand souls rely upon your handling, and a million more in the other vessels of the fleet.

"Master of the Vox! Relay our vector and landing coordinates, all ships to follow us as best they can."

But then something seems to wash over the vessel. Whispers echo in your mind and you frantically call for a report on the ship's Gellar Fields, the arcane devices which create a protective bubble of realspace around the ship as it passes through the Immaterium.

"Breaches detected in the Navigator's Seclusiuam!" someone shouts.

Colours blur before your eyes as you sense the congealed wrongness as daemonic incursion alarms blare.

The Helmsman twitches, his shoulder tight, but a crack sounds and his head explodes, the Space Marine beside you lowering his bolt pistol, lenses surveying the bridge crew.

"Choir-Master, continuous broadcast to fleet: 'Emperor protect me from my enemies while they pound and howl!'"

And then it's gone. The alarms shut off and the damage indicators buzz through your bones as you take in the status of the ship.

You feel the growing gravity of the planet through the ship's sensors, you feel the deceleration and the drag of the thin atmosphere. The heat and fire blaze all around you as a glowing corona surrounds the ship.

There's a click from beside you as the Space Marine's magnetic boots activate and lock.

But then the fire clears and you see the continent laid out before you, plain to your eyes as well as the sensors of the ship relaying information directly to your brain.

"Lord Captain," The Engineseer-Prime announces, "This vessel's entry has stabilised, altitude eighty kilometres, void shields recovering, Gellar Fields strong."

It was the armour you know. Space Marine vessels are notoriously well protected due to their rather rougher roles in the Imperium's war machine. But the others in the fleet didn't have such luxuries. But what had the sudden Immaterium breach been? You hadn't passed into the Warp, you'd certainly given no such order.

"Status of the others?"

The Engineseer pauses a moment in his calculations, "38% of assets following our path in, remaining assets unknown."

Discussion breaks out among the other crew members, "I saw the Hammer explode, and His Wrath was drifting with another cruiser."

"It was the Cardinal of Nuvia." another officer reports, "They weren't responding to hails."

Then the vox crackles, "Thunderchild to Fleetmaster, we have lost all auspex, request vector beacon Rho-Ix."

With a thought you perceived the trail you'd come in on, the atmosphere still roiling from the entry of your massive craft. The Thunderchild was a cruiser of the Adeptus Mechanicus attached to your force and your heart soared to see that the ship had survived.

A burst of vox sounds and more hails come in, the Gothic-class cruiser Adamant, the Dauntless light cruiser Uziel or the frigates Demios and Montfried. Each has been as badly damaged as your own ship, reserves exhausted, capacitors expended, needing to land desperately.

Just as you're looking over the initial landing zone through the ship's sensors an explosion shakes the ship! Of the starboard bow a cruiser trails smoke, debris flying through the air, one engine soaring to the side and striking an evading Cobra-class destroyer out of the sky even as it took evasive action. As you watch you see the escape pods firing from the ruins of the ship, heading toward the jungles below, three Thunderhawk gunships surging out the dying ship's hangar, their pilots trying to ignite the engines even as the pneumatic catapults throw them to the dubious safety of the outside.

"I estimate 31% of assets will reach the dropsite. Based on current data only 25% will survive the landing without significant damage." the Engineseer-Primus tells you in a burst of binary chitters that the ship translates.

None of the larger craft were designed for ground landing, and if they were they required specialised cradles. It would be all you could to prevent the Battle Barge from digging into the ground and carving its own such cradle. At least you weren't landing in the mountains off to the west…

Adamant reported further system damage and began to drop steadily, her void shields flaring a moment before the cruiser hit the earth, no doubt an attempt by her captain to limit the damage. The resulting explosion was smaller than it should have been, the capacitors rather than the reactor exploding.

You considered the assets of the fleet in the remaining minutes before your controlled crash…

Of the fleet you commanded eight vessels were following your flightpath. Your own Battle Barge was the largest by far, then the two Strike Cruisers, one of which had just crashed. More vessels were confirmed to still be orbiting the planet, presumably permanently disabled, with others like the great battlecruiser Kingmaker you had no idea of the status of. The supplies of the crusade were dispersed through the fleet, your own ship with the majority of them and three companies of Astartes, while other ships carried more of your forces or of those of other Imperial organisations who'd accompanied you, the Mechanicus Cruisder Thunderchild being notable among the later. You'll have to wait till you land and can make a proper inventory before you start making decisions, but for now you go through a mental inventory:

You will now 'buy' the supplies and personnel which comprise the fleet. The fleet's total capacity is 31 cargo units (CU), however some of this is taken up by the living quarters of personnel, machinery, armaments and normal supplies like food.

Some of it is already allocated to particular things, for example, the Admech cruiser has a capacity of 3CU, of which only 2 are available for allocation because the Admech are using the remainder for Admech things.

Some of these assets have already been damaged, or might be on crash landing, such as the crash of the cruiser above. Following this point you'll have to manage the resources you have. Consider this when picking choices, for example, some missiles might indeed be very powerful but they'd be very difficult to make. Due to the size of your fleet you currently have various manufacturing capabilities such as a promethium refinery.

You have 19CU to spend.

Gained for free:
Basic Manufacturing Equipment
The Battle Barge maintains the capacity to manufacture basic items and maintain more complex ones without difficulty, such as supplying the various the warriors and vehicles of the chapter with normal munitions and fuel.

Space Marines
Between the Battle Barge and the Strike Cruisers, your chapter has committed several companies of Space Marines to the voyage, including relevant equipment, strike craft, support vehicles and chapter-serfs.

Mechanicus Battle Maniple
The typical Skitarii maniple is a combined arms unit composing the various augmented warriors of the Admech.

Astartes (Must equal at least 5)
Each Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is divided into 10 Companies, with 10 Squads each. Some Companies specialise in particular tasks, but generally each Company will maintain 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Devastators, and 2 Assault, the latter two specialised toward heavy weapons and close quarters respectively. Such is the power and might of the Space Marines that Chapters are generally forbidden to maintain more than 1000 warriors, though in practice some ignore this limit, or have modified the Codex Astartes in other ways.

1st Company (1.5CP)
The 1st Company of the Chapter represents the leadership and veterans, as well as the Venerable Dreadnaughts of the Chapter, mortally wounded warriors entombed forever in their metal shells.

Battle Company (1CP)
A battle company is a generalist formation, specialising in no particular capacity.

Devastator Company (1CP)
A Devastator Company may maintain the Chapter's artillery or heavy weapons to strike the enemy from afar and destroy their fortifications.

Assault Company (1CP)
Assault Marines use equipment including attack bikes, jump packs and land speeders to

Scout Company (0.5CP)
Composed of the Chapter's neophytes, the Scout Company performs support roles while the young Marines receive their training.

Armoury (0.25CP)
The Techmarines and Master of the Forge maintain the vehicles and equipment of the Chapter, as well as the various battle-servitors assigned to the Companies and some of the Chapter's relics.

Reclusiam (0.25CP)
Chaplains are the warrior-priests that minister to the spiritual and psychological well-being of their fellow battle-brothers, instilling in them the values and beliefs of the Chapter.

Librarius (0.25CP)
Librarians are the psykers of the Space Marines and are able bend the powers of the Warp to their will for the benefit of the Chapter. They also maintain the records and lore of the Chapter.

Apothecarion (0.25CP)
Apothecaries are the physicians and medical researchers of the Chapter. They tend injuries but also monitor the process of implanting the 19 additional organs that make an Astartes superhuman.

Mechanicus (Must equal at least 2)
The Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus have joined your forces, and offer many wonders.

Battle Maniple (1CP)
Forge World Tech Guard are a formidable force, primarily focusing on long range and firepower, never the less the Skitarii Legions also employ close quarters forces and armoured support.

Divisio Fabricator (2CP)
The Thunderchild maintains advanced manufactorums which can be adapted to all manner of equipment such as armoured vehicles and or replacements for armour pieces or boltguns. (Unlocks advanced manufacturing)

Divisio Artisan (3CP)
The Forge Lords of the Mechanicus maintain some of the most elaborate and exotic machinery and patters of their kind. (Unlocks exotic manufacturing, requires Divisio Fabricator)

Divisio Biologis (2CP)
Genetors probe the mysteries of the biological, creating ever stranger cyborgs or slaughtering xenos beyond number in order to excise yet more secrets of their alien metabolisms.

Questor Mechanicus Knights (1.5CP)
Through mutual oaths and unbreakable vows, the Adeptus Mechanicus have forged alliances with many Knight Houses. While Knights are less powerful than even the smallest class of Titan, a squadron of these powerful robotic walkers is still a deadly foe.

Ordo Reductor (2CP)
The Auxillia Myrmidon maintain the most powerful and terrible siege weapons of the Mechanicus.

Other Assets
There are many and varied formations and organisation in the Imperium, and no doubt some of them have come along as well.

Here you can specify or ask about particular capabilities or formations. Usually a military formation will cost 1CP, where a support group might cost between 1 and 0.1CP. Though some things will cost the same the quality or numbers involved will differ. For example 1CP worth of Imperial Guard will have tens of thousands of soldiers, whereas 1CP worth of Space Marines represents only 100 of them. I'm very much open to write ins here.




Broadly speaking, the further you go into any organisation the better equipment you'll get. This can be explained though narrative as the Chapter trusting a force made up mainly of Space Marines more than they would a force of other troops, and therefore offering more relics or special equipment. Write ins permitted for Astartes and Admech stuff too. Ask me for the point cost if you're thinking of something. Assets can be brought multiple times if logical, but you can't buy 19 Companies of Space Marines. you could by 10 if you wanted to bring another chapter perhaps. Depends really. If you wanted to save some CP you could potentially use it to buy a relic from the Chapter's reliquary later and not have to decide now.

Please vote in the following manner for ease of counting:

[ ] Chapter Choice
[ ] Damage Choice
[ ] Plan X
Asset Choice 1
Asset Choice 2
Asset Choice 3

That is, the first two choices are separate from the further ones. I've not offered any first founding Chapters because I've decided they're probably busy with various commitments and wouldn't be funding a large fleet to go anywhere. I'm also inclined against write ins there because I've chosen each chapter for thematic reasons, the Griffons are indeed a reflection of the Dawi etc.



Ask me if unsure of anything, I might have forgotten something. Reasoning is required for posts proposing CP plans initially. Reasoning isn't required if you're voting for someone else's plans. If you just want to vote for the Chapter and damage then you can do that without reasoning. Discussion is encouraged.