Editing Iron Snakes (section)

==Culture==
The Iron Snakes restrict their forces to the one thousand Astartes the Codex Astartes dictates, but they ignore the company structuring, instead basing their organization into a hundred ten-man squads that function somewhat autonomously. This means that the squads contain battle-brothers of all levels of expertise, pairing veterans with novices. If a squad is wiped out to the last man, that squad will be reformed under the same name and with new Astartes from other squads. Each squad also has its own standard-bearer, as well as an special weapons bearer, and apparently all squads also have their own Apothecary, leading to the Chapter having a much higher number of Apothecaries than usual. On the tabletop, they are probably best represented with [[Red Scorpions]] chapter tactics, as they have a similar apothecary fetish.

Despite the loose organization, they still have a hierarchy which includes captains. Dreadnoughts and the recruiting and training of neophytes are left to the command staff, though squads are usually assigned to help out training once in a while. Neophytes are combat trained and turned into Astartes right on Ithaka, those who complete the transformation are given their power armor and become full Astartes, so no Scouts and no neophytes in the field.

Though they're as much about teamwork and brotherhood as any Astartes, Iron Snakes also place a value on their troops being able to act alone if necessary, as they recognize any supersoldier worth his power armour should be able to kick some ass on his own. Given this, Iron Snakes will sometimes deploy a new Astartes to solve minor issues to see if he can act reliably independently, or veterans to conduct harassing maneuvers on enemies.

It seems their Chapter Master inherits the name of the previous one (or there are only like, 4 names on Ithaka), as their current Chapter Master is the eighteenth to bear the name Seydon (it is also possible they cycle [[Chapter Master]]s more often than other chapters potentially by not waiting on the current one to die). The current Seydon is an ancient and seasoned Astartes, pretty friendly too. He always wears a hood, so we don't get to see his face beyond the beard and jawline. He's also fucking hueg, noted for being a meter taller than a line Astartes.

For some reason, possibly because everyone in the Reef is so low tech, the Iron Snakes seem to fight with less sophistication than most chapters. The Iron Snakes see fit to fight using ancient Greek phalanx tactics, complete with spear and shield line formations with assistants behind them to carry a half dozen spears and reload the Boltguns. Even more puzzling is that they seem to use these tactics without any real armor support when fighting an Ork Waaagh of all things. Nevertheless, Iron Snakes do have war machines and do use them from time to time, while they still have a large enough fleet to have an effective presence across the sector, so who can say why they use such primitive tactics. Although, Orks would happily bumrush your spear line and the Dark Eldar they used it against were within large structure which gave the aliens the option to either futilely shoot the living tanks with crystal shards or get speared. They died like bitches, of course.