Red Scorpions

Red Scorpions
Battle Cry	Strength in Purity!
Founding	Unknown, believed to be pre-35th Millennium
Successors of	Unknown (possibly Emperor's Children)
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Carab Culln
Primarch	Unknown (possibly Fulgrim)
Homeworld	Battle Station Vigil
Strength	1000
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Dark Grey with Yellow Pauldron trim

The 'Red Scorpions are a Codex Astartes-compliant crusading Chapter who value genetic purity above all else and really, really hate Mutants and Xenos (a lot!).

About the Red Scorpions

There are Codex compliant chapters, then there are the Ultramarines, and then several orders of magnitude more compliant than even the most obsessive son of Matt Ward I MEAN THE WORST OF THE PRIMARCHSGrandfather Smurf we have the Red Scorpions; these guys consider the Codex Astartes to be a religious scripture of divine importance (much like your Spiritual Liege then) and follow its teachings to the letter (this is what their fluff states, at least; in practice, having apothecaries attached to tactical squads, having the chief librarian accompanied by honour guard, having the Chief Apothecary as second in command to the chapter master, blinging out their veterans gear, having a reduced scout company and sticking a helios launcher to a Land Raider chassis suggest they may not be THAT Codex compliant after all).

In addition to being even more Codex compliant than the Ultramarines, it appears that the Chapter is also unique in that its gene-seed is even purer than that of the Smurf's and their successor chapters. In fact, they attach Apothecaries to many of their Tactical Squads, so they can be extra sure that their fallen brothers' gene-seed gets collected before anything happens to it.

Their isolationism and obsession with purity raises some interesting questions because the reason that so many Chapters are successors of the Ultramarines is because theirs is the purest geneseed of any of the loyalist Chapters (or at the very least tied with Lion El'Jonson of the Dark Angels). The only geneseed purer than Guilliman's is that of (pre-Heresy) Fulgrim, but he isn't exactly the most reliable choice of Primarch because of that whole getting-possessed-by-a-Greater Daemon, falling-to-Chaos, killing-a-brother-Primarch-and-fatally-wounding-aforementioned-leader-of-/tg/'s-favourite-Chapter thing, so if he indeed was the Red Scorpions Primarch, they would probably want to keep it on the down low. Did I mention that coincidentally, the Red Scorpions are very secretive about their origins and even refuse to submit to genetic sampling by the Inquisition, instead insisting that they report directly to the Emprah himself? Just as planned. One of these days Fabius Bile is going to fuck with their gene-seed... and then they will RAGE harder than even Angry Marines ever could. In fact, they probably would become Angry Marines.

Anyway, this Chapter would be of little note were it not for Forge World having a colossal hard-on for them, so if you live in the UK and don't mind selling a kidney to bankroll it then you too can be the proud owner of an army of Space Nazis (they have dark grey uniforms, are obsessed with genetic purity, really hate mutants, are a crusading [i.e. warlike] chapter hiding a dark secret -- come on, somebody had to make the comparison).

Also, they have access to all the best gear (probably because Forge World wanted to give them prettier models) and they have a Mk IV Power Armour fetish. And quite possibly the best special characters of any chapter, interestingly, they have SIX (though three are the same dude), edging out ahead of everyone but the ultrasmurfs, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels.

• Space Wolves: 12
• Blood Angels: 8 (10 counting the other characters who can use their codex)
• Ultramarines: 6 (10 if you count other characters who can use Ultramarine chapter tactics)
• Red Scorpions: 6
• Dark Angels: 5
• Salamanders: 4
• Astral Claws: 4
• Minotaurs: 4

Significant Characters

• Carab Culln: Became their chapter master during the Badab War when their previous one was killed. Led the Loyalist forces against the Tyrant's Legion. Is also Awesome in game terms for a few reasons, one being that he is actually THREE different characters
  • The Sergeant rules were from the Siege of Vraks, where he was a 2-wound sergeant for a Vanguard Veteran squad
  • The most recent (and therefore best rules) are in the Anphelion Project where he's a Terminator Captain, gets access to the sweet new Tears of the Scorpion which allow him to cause Instant Death and gives himself and his squad Counter-Attack and Stubborn.
  • As a Chapter Master in the Badab War campaign he finally gets Eternal Warrior but trades his "Tear of the Scorpion" for the "Blade of the Scorpion", which gives him Smash (therefore AP2). He also traded his squad upgrade for giving the whole army his Leadership score.

• Sevrin Loth: Their Chief Librarian. Respected enough that he gets his own honour guard, and the rest of the Red Scorpions sought his advice when trying to select their new chapter master after their previous one was slain. He is perhaps most famous for being the cheese Librarian with ML3 who pick his powers manually from one psychic discipline instead of rolling them and has a warp-charge-fueled 2++ save. Which no longer works. Curse you 7th Ed!

• Veteran Sergeant Haas: Awesome sergeant with a bionic armour and the bitchinest armour around. He's the only man you will ever see leading a Sternguard Veteran squad, with artificer armour and giving them Relentless. Pretty much the perfect example of how the Red Scorpions love to give their veterans awesome equipment that even captains sometimes lack.

• Dreadnought-Brother Halar: A notable dreadnought for some reason, despite not being a venerable dreadnought. His first "death" was during an action alongside the Raptors chapter where they decided to throw clever tactics out of the windo and charge head-first into the enemy army, losing the majority of their battle force in the process, but the Red Scorpions still look at it as one of their finest achievements, meanwhile the Raptors just facepalm. Halars special rules give him +1 WS/A and if he dies but doesn't explode, he hangs around for another turn before finally succumbing. He dies properly in the Anphelion Project, and dies so hard that the Techmarines can't even repair his sarcophagus for another occupant.