Salamanders (Chapter)
Salamanders are the little red/orange bits of a fire that separate from the main blaze and briefly burn on their own before going out. It's also the name for little amphibious lizards, and people often confuse the two, which makes for lizard-shaped fire elementals. In the grim darkness of the future, mankind has a thing for naming their fighting forces after mythical animals, so when you have some super soldiers that have a fetish for flame throwers... well.
Salamanders in WH40K
The Salamanders are a Space Marine chapter based on the Death World Nocturne. Nocturne is a volcanic planet with some truly ridiculous gravity. As such, its people developed a slow, methodical approach to life, coupled with a healthy respect/fetish for fire. The planet's only reason for continued settlement is its rich mineral deposits, making metalworking an important profession to the point of bordering on a priesthood. These traits carried over to the Salamanders, who are known amongst other things for fielding very small numbers of faster units (Landspeeders, Assault Marines, etc.) and for giving every man and his servo-skull a flamer or melta gun. They are also well known for making almost all of their own equipment by hand, importing the few things they cannot manufacture on their home world directly from the Adeptus Mechanicus, with whom they share a less strained relationship than some other chapters.
How It All Began
The primarch of the Salamanders legion was Vulkan. Rather than be dumped in a volcano for being a bad omen, as is the fate of many small children who crash on feudal death worlds in space pods, Vulkan grew up the adopted son of a blacksmith, from whom he learned the basics of metallurgy. Of course, being a super-special snowflake just like his brothers, he quickly started teaching the smith and all his buddies about advanced alloys and such. Presumably he had it burned into his brain by the Emprah before he got shot into space. Whatever.
Anyway, Vulkan lived out his life more or less as normal for a super-strong genius blacksmith, until the Dark Eldar came to town. Nocturne, it turns out, was a favorite raiding destination for a group of Dark Eldar pirates. The populace, who had advanced to about the iron age, generally tended to hide from the guys with shuriken catapults and psychic powers, but Vulkan didn't share their good sense. Instead, the first time they came, he grabbed a pair of blacksmith's hammers and went to town on the aliens. He eventually won, driving them off the world never to return, and if this sounds suspiciously familiar then congratulations, you're paying attention.
Shortly after Valt-- I mean Vulkan drove off the raiders, his settlement threw a bigass competition to see who had the biggest man-parts. Amongst the events were to be anvil-lifting, weapon-forging, and bigass fire-breathing dragon-thing slaying. Or something like that. A stranger ended up intruding on the ceremony, and proved himself Vulkan's equal in every contest except the salamander slaying, which Vulkan won by virtue of his own thick-headedness and the stranger saving his sorry ass. Vulkan pledged his loyalty to the stranger immediately after being declared the victor (what an ass), and with insufferable predictability the stranger revealed himself to be the Emprah.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The Salamanders
The Salamanders themselves are perhaps the second most bro-tier of all Space Marine chapters, second only to the Space Wolves. They regularly act in thankless rearguard or civilian defense actions, as seen on Armageddon, and rather than spend their free time in their super-awesome orbital fortress monastery, they hang out on the planet's surface chilling with the locals.
In terms of tactics, the Salamaders are one of the simpler chapters; "Wait for it...", "Burn that shit", and "Never say die" are about the sum of their tactics. The number of heat-based weapons they can field is truly alarming, as is a certain special character of theirs who can make them twin-linked. The fact that each man makes and maintain his own armor ensures that their chapter Artificers can be free to make truly awesome stuff. They field few if any vehicles, and those they do field tend to be big mobile blocks of armor rather than zippy little flyers.
Of course, if you ask a fa/tg/uy what comes to mind first when they hear the word "Salamanders," you're likely to be answered with a racial slur and/or a number of pictures showing fried chicken and watermelons. This is because, due to some fuckup in their gene-seed, all Salamanders are black. And not that pussy brown that certain varieties of normal human favor, fuck no. We're talking coal black, pitch black, hexidecimal code #000000, the missing word in the phrase "...as the void of space." That kind of black. With glowing red eyes.
Did I mention they're big on chicken? Fried, extra-crispy, jerk, spicy, BBQ, and especially hot wings.
They're the only known black people in the universe, is what we're trying to say here.
Organization
Unlike many followers of the Codex Astartes, the Salamanders have actually adopted different naming for their army:
1) First Founding Chapter:
Like many Space Marines chapters, the Salamanders were broken down to several second and third founding chapters. These chapters refer to the Salamander as the OGs.
2) Battle Companies:
Each marine is distributed throughout these companies of 100 marines each, but are called "Home boys" instead of companies, save for the 1st company who took the title "Originalus Gangstium".
3) Battle Brothers:
Battle Brothers are normally referred to as Homies or gangstas or "niggus", they stick together no matter how dire the situation is and are punished with social alienation when they fail to stick together. They also follow a strict code from the Book of Vulcan called "Broz before Hoez" and "Salamanders fo' life". They are also marked with the symbol of their chapter at a body part of the brother's choice, which is applied in a similar manner how the early humans marked their skin in a ritual called "tattoo".
4) Battle Barges:
The Salamanders often travel through Fleets that they normally referred to as Yachts, "big mama in the house" normally means "commence Exterminatus".
5) Land Raiders:
The Salamander Land Raiders are normal landraiders but fitted with unnecessary but fashionable accessories. The treads of the Land Raider are lined up with a lustrous creamite finish, the hull sporting a compartment for large speakers with the suspensions interchanged with hydraulic springs that are capable of lifting all sides of the tank at a maximum height of 24 inches. They are known to entirely rely upon the sponsors and are known to fit their transports with firing slits for their famed assault tactic called the "Drive By". When off battle, they use their Land Raiders to pick up off-duty Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guardwomen, which they later give credits for their services.
Their Rhino transports are also fitted with the same attachments, albeit on a smaller scale, for the same purpose stated above.
6) Bolt Weaponry:
Because the majority of the Salamander's weaponry are flamers, Salamander marines often find it difficult to procure automatic bolt guns. The chapter's Techmarines are known to retrofit bolt pistols to fire at an automatic pace but this practice is forbidden by the Adeptus Mechanicus and these Techmarines could face imprisonment on Mars if they are caught performing these weapons.
Hard Working niggah.