Editing Salamanders (Chapter) (section)

==Organization==
Unlike many followers of the Codex Astartes, the Salamanders have actually adopted a different organization for their army: the Salamanders organize themselves in Great Companies rather than the typical codex companies, with 6 companies of 120+ warriors each in addition to a smaller scout "company" of roughly 60 men and their officers. Of the six companies, the first is a veteran company, the second through fourth are battle companies, and the fifth and sixth are reserve companies. The reason they do so is because these seven companies represent the seven ruling houses of Nocturne, a manner akin to the [[Iron Hands]] naming each company after the ten founding clans of [[Medusa]].

===Recruitment===
Unlike other [[Space Marine]]s, the Salamanders' method of recruitment is almost as [[Noblebright]] as it gets - befitting their slow and methodical approach to life, Salamander aspirants start their training at around the age of six or seven as an apprentice to a full Salamander. They won't have to do life-and-death tests like how other Space Marine aspirants start out, no siree, they will spend their time ''smithing'' - clearly reinforcing the Salamanders' sympathies for the common people (since they worked like one and recruit by literally teaching children) and predilection for creating wargear (because they actually smithed, duh). As we don't know the criteria by which the aspirants are chosen (and there's probably not a lot of metrics by which seven-year-olds can be clearly distinguished from one another anyway), we can only assume the Salamanders are perfectly open to accepting awestruck boys who've said they want to be like the Salamanders when they grow up to give them a chance to achieve their dreams or let them serve their heroes as [[Chapter Serf]]s even if they fail. This also [[Fail|probably means that any Salamander who has trained an apprentice is a better parental figure than]] [[The Emperor]].

The smithing practice continues until they reach the age to begin the gene-seed implantation process, after which they are judged by Chaplains and Apothecaries as to whether they are worthy to become [[Space Marine]]s and, as an obvious show of care from the Salamanders, whether they would actually survive the gene-seed implantation. After being cleared at this point, the aspirants will have succeed at a number of trials based on what [[The Emperor]] and [[Vulkan]] did in their contests before [[Vulkan]] swore loyalty to him (which are mostly presumed to be far less lethal to the washouts than other prospective Marines from what we know about the two's competition), until eventually they are required to climb up Cindara Plateau as well as go to Mount Deathfire and slay a Fire Drake (these ones are obviously lethally dangerous).

===The Dark Imperium and 8th Edition===
The Chapter organization was tweaked ''slightly'' (or given more detail, depending on who you ask) with the coming of 8th Edition. Each Company now patterns itself after the seven warrior Houses of the original Salamanders Legion, which were in turn influenced by the great settlements of Nocturne.

The First Company (or Great House now) is still composed of the Chapter Veterans and led by their Chapter Master, while the seventh is still primarily composed of neophytes, but the second to sixth Great Houses are now all considered "battle" or "line" companies, each featuring their own complement of battleline and fire support squads. Only the second to fourth Great Houses have close-support squads though. The total manpower of each Great House is no longer mentioned, but one can assume that if totaled together, the number of Marines would still approximate the size of a "codex" chapter (meaning 1000 marines plus auxiliaries and officers). This means the Salamanders accidentally applied common sense and didn't get executed for it. Because they now don't have reserves sitting oh say a few months or years away while only half their Chapter is doing anything in the galaxy. ~~And yes, that means that by and large, only half of the Space Marines in the galaxy are actually deployed on missions while the rest do nothing but wait for someone to die in a battle company.~~ Except squads from the reserve companies are often seconded out as needed and attached to other strike forces for other conflicts.

The other peculiarity is that the position of Master of the Forge is jointly shared between three Techmarines. It's unknown why this is, but it's possible the three have different roles.

As part of the revisions done by [[Roboute Guilliman]] to the [[Codex Astartes]] upon his return, the Salamanders now feature Lieutenants, whose role in the Chapter (aside from commanding demi-companies) is to serve as bodyguards to their Company Captain. One now wonders why said Captains don't have their [[Command Squad]]s for that role instead...