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Age of the Imperium > The Forces of the Imperium > Codex: Legio Astartes



Title: Codex: Legio Astartes


Horus Aximand - October 24, 2007 05:15 PM (GMT)
QUOTE
The Legio Astartes were the backbone of the Emperor's fighting force sin the Great Crusade. Forged from the genetic details of the primarchs, the Legions were each formed in the commander's image. Hundreds of thousands of space marines swept across the galaxy from Terra like wildfire, claiming worlds for the Emperor's domain. Each had its own traits but each bided by the basic organisation of the Legions the Emperor set down two hundred years before his return to Terra from Ullannor.

HQ
HERO OF THE LEGION
Many Legions have their own upper echelons of command, each tailored to fit their Primarch's designs. The Luna Wolves have the Mournival, the four most revered captains acting as advisors to the Warmaster, but many other legions have their own "high commanders". The majority of those are the Chapter Masters, or in the case of the Emperor's Children, the Lord Commanders. Each commands the Legion at battlefronts the Primarch cannot reach and will command multiple companies at a time.
MASTER OF THE COMPANY
The basic leader of the Astartes Company is the Captain. He leads his warriors from the front but many Legions have their own ranks due to beliefs or battle-doctrines. The Word Bearers have their Chaplains who will lead companies instead of Captains or even alongside them, whilst the Thousand Sons have their Librarian-commanders who replace Captains in their entirety.

ELITES
FIRST COMPANY VETERANS
Heroes of the Legion and victors of a hundred battles, these warriors often go to war in the new Tactical Dreadnought, or Terminator, armour. They know skills that can turn the tide of victory in the Legion's favour and excel at a chosen form of battle; combat or ranged.
TERMIANTOR SQUAD
New additions to the Legions, Terminators are the shock troops of the Adeptus Astartes. Although not as skilled as the warriors of the elite First Company, Terminators are the veterans of the other companies, skilled in the art of war. Taking powerful weapons into combat they are the bane of most enemies of Terra.
DREADNOUGHT
A dreadnought is the fallen warrior who is kept from the cold embrace of death by the powers of a sarcophagus. He fights onwards as a revered Ancient of the Legion and are often known to be advisors to their Primarch. Originally a weapons testing platform, the dreadnoughts have access to the more uncommon weapons of the Legios; autocannons, twin heavy bolters, plasma cannons, and even the experimental assault cannon.
RECON SQUAD
Those Astartes who develop a natural taste for infiltration and sabotage are often banded together to form the Recon Squads. Numbering less then five warriors they are lightly armed but relatively heavily armoured but still manage to sneak into enemy emplacements with ease. Entire conflicts can be over and done with by the acts of the scouts of the Legios.

TROOPS
TACTICAL SQUAD
Even the most basic of Astartes are superhuman and equal to almost a dozen mortal warriors in strength and battle prowess. These Tactical Squads form the backbone of the companies and are more then a match for even the elite warriors of their foes.
> TACTICAL SUPPORT SQUAD
> Used in unison with tactical squads, the three-man support squads are usually found equipped with heavy of specialist weapons to deal with the foes even the Tactical Squads have difficulties with.

FAST ATTACK
ASSAULT SQUAD
Fast moving, and well armed, Assault Squads are often the first into the fray. Equipped with close combat weaponry and short ranged pistols, the jump packs of the Astartes allow them to close the distance between their foe almost instantaneously before the enemy is ripped to shreds by the blades.
ASTARTES BIKE SQUAD
Often seen spearheading the Astartes assault, the assault bike is heavily armoured to protect it from even the most strongest of weapons. The bike pilots are most commonly equipped with pistols or combat weaponry but others are occasionally seen with special weapons to lend support to the hail of gunfire their bike-mounted bolters lay down.
> JETBIKE SQUADS
> Jetbikes are granted to the veteran Bike Squads of the Legions. An old, old technology the Jetbikes are hard to maintain and are sorely lost. They allow the usage of the heavy weapons needed at the tip of the assault
LAND SPEEDER SQUADRON
Land Speeders are a discovery found by the famous Techpriest Land. They utilise anti gravity technology to provide anti-infantry support from its hull mounted heavy bolter and can easily be used to harry the flanks of the foes.

HEAVY SUPPORT
DEVASTATOR SQUAD
Either armed with heavy weapons or special weapons, Devastator Squads are used for the sole purpose of fire support. Either tooled out with anti-tank or anti-infantry weaponry the Devastators lend support that no other squad and grant.
> RAVAGER SQUAD
> Ravager, or Despoiler as they are known in many Legions, are veteran Devastators armed with the experimental, multi-barrelled assault cannon. A weapon very dangerous to the infantry of the enemy and the firer, the assault cannon can kill even the toughest of foes in a few rounds.
PREDATOR BATTLE-TANK
The Predator battle tank is a design based upon the Rhino APC which mounts a turret mounted autocannon with sponson heavy bolters or lascannons. It provides mobile fire support and can withstand even powerful anti-tank weapons.
LAND RAIDER ARMOURED BATTLE TANK
Able to deploy a force of Astartes into the very heart of the foe, the Land Raider is one of the toughest vehicles available to the Crusade Forces. Even the strongest of anti-tank weaponry will have difficulties against the vehicle's thick armour whilst the Land Raider lays down an unrelenting hail of lascannon and heavy bolter rounds into the foe.


This is my Codex post from the Pre-Heresy Forums after the fall of Codex: Great Crusade. It was an idea spawned during the painstaking process of converting and painting Saul Tarvitz, Loken, Torgaddon, Lucius and Ehren Gakin a fit of insanity for a mega battle I was running a few weeks later (Isstvan 3).
Basically, it would be a proper, 80-page codex, with a layout similar to the latest.

QUOTE
Background
> The Emperor and Terra
> The Primarchs
> The Unification Wars
> The Alliance of Mars and Terra
> The Great Crusade
> > Ullannor and Horus' promotion
> > The Warmaster's Fall
> The Horus Heresy
> > Isstvan Incidents
> > Burning of Prospero
> > Assault on Calth
> > Siege of Terra
Unit Descriptions:
Basically a page for each unit described in the first post, but grouping the relevent ones together, EG: Basic Astartes (Tac sqd, Tac sprt sqd, ass sqg, dev sqd, Ravager sqd, etc. etc.), Bikes (bikes and jetbikes), Rhino variants (Rhino, Predator), Veterans (termis and 1st comp) and Commanders (Heros and Masters)
Colours of the Legio
Some hobby articles with images and WIP and tutorials from around the forums, all colour pages
Codex Astartes
The basic army list. It will contain the details for selecting the army but all unit specific rules will be in their descriptions. So it's on a similar layout to the Elder, DA and Chaos books.
Legio Astartes
Legion specific rules and background for the 18 Legios. Information on each individual Primarch and his battle tactics. No Primarch rules though (thank the Emperor!)


Ultimately, the list was devised to allow the use of Pre Heresy space marines without the fumbling of looking for Traits, deciding which Codex to use or even, what army to do!
So, I was wondering, what do you people think?

~Aximand

MutantMaggot - October 25, 2007 09:54 AM (GMT)
That looks really good. :)

Constantin Valdor - October 25, 2007 12:26 PM (GMT)
if you want i could write the legion rules for the Blood Angels and the White Scars and are we going to include the custodes in this endeavour?

Horus Aximand - October 25, 2007 02:06 PM (GMT)
The Codex will contain only the basic Astartes rules to start with. Once playtesting is complete we can begin to work on the Legion Specific ruleset and expand from there.

Custodes may be a Special Character/Unit at the back of the book, like the original Codecis. They will only be useable in games of Apocalyptic sizes, for example, and will have very powerfull statlines and abilities to represent their battle prowess.

MutantMaggot - October 25, 2007 03:14 PM (GMT)
Battle prowess? Shouldn't this be more 'holy' rules, as well?

Looks good :)

MM




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