Space Sharks

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This is what some believe the Space Sharks look like.

Space Sharks/Carcharadon Astra
Battle Cry	"From the void we come - darkness there, and nothing more" Alternatively: [1]
Founding	Either 2nd (according to a GW article) or 23rd (according to FFG)
Successors of	Either the Raven Guard, Night Lords or World Eaters
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Believed to be Tyberos the Red Wake
Primarch	Probably Corax, Konrad Curze or Angron
Homeworld	Fleet Based
Strength	1000 (ish)
Specialty	Operating out of the Imperium's Borders. Brutal close combat. Scorched earth policy.
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Grey, with black pauldrons and white helmet faces (and the occasional blood splatter)

This is what they really look like.

This is what happened when someone from Games Workshop watched Street Sharks and thought "there oughta be some spess mehrens like that." These guys call themselves Carcharadons" (Carcharadon, pronounced "car-care-uh-dawn" is the scientific name for a family of big sharks), or Carcharadon Astra if they are being extra formal, but everyone calls them by their low gothic name, the Space Sharks, because that is a fucking awesome name . They have light-grey skin and black eyes like sharks, and according to FFG they increase the resemblance by filing their teeth to be shark teeth. Their chapter logo is a white shark on its side and their colours are grey with black/dark grey shoulders. Once upon a time, they were light grey with a red stripe down the middle of their helmets and their logo was a stupid looking cartoon of a black shark with red eyes. Luckily, IA10 broomed that silliness under a rug and gave us what we have right now.

They're as mad as hell, even the Angry Marines might wanna think twice before cutting in front of them in line (perhaps this anger stems from their recruitment practices, see below). They're described as sneaking into place before going batshit insane with killer rage. But, their rage is always controlled and stuff. So they're like Khorne Berzerkers (though maybe the pre-Angron War Hounds are a better comparison) mixed with the SAS. They also like to cover their armour with Polynesian looking tattoos (hunting sharks was a major rite of passage in some Polynesian societies). Also they try to stay quiet in combat, because they think it makes them cool sharks can't talk, however they do tend to roar loudly when charging. Their specialty seems to be committing indiscriminate genocide, sparing only children they can enslave into being Chapter serfs or turn into more Carcharadons (said children have to fight each other to the death). They also like to wear Heresy-era armour to give people more incentive to buy from Forge World.

The Carcharadons come up in the Badab War, where it's kinda hinted that they're Raven Guard mutants or descended from those other deranged genocidal space marines - the Night Lords. Anywho, they're deployed to Afghanistan in space to fight the space Taliban and they solve the problem that the Fire Angels had been having by killing everybody to root out teh terrorists. Grimdark. Then they go over to Badab and blow the place up, ending the Badab War. Then they go back to the ashes of space Afghanistan and make a bunch of boys kill each other to become the next generation of Carcharadons before heading back out to smash someone else's planet. Also, according to rumor, they helped to trash Failbaddon's 7th Black Crusade.

Their leader is Tyberos the Red Wake, a terminator who couldn't decide if he liked lightning claws or chainfists better, so he made Lightning Chainclaws...IN SPAAAAAACE! He can destroy just about anything in the game in close combat. His Scent of Blood rule makes him and and any Carcharodon unit subject to Rage +1 strength for the rest of the game. He is reasonable enough to wear helmet and do not carry banner and shitton of flashy trinkets on his armour, unlike most other chapter masters, whose wargear just screams "Shoot me down, sniper!" Also, allows you to take a unit of lightning claw equipped assault terminators as troops; and he and any unit he joins have preferred enemy (infantry). Why aren't you taking him again? He's never explicitly said to be Chapter Master, but its a forgone conclusion since he's got the same stats as one.

Not as cool as the Saharduin, who are actually sharks from space. They do, however, share the same battle cry.

Their beakies look fucking amazing.

Organization

The Sharks are assumed to be a fleet based chapter. They follow the battle half of the codex but ignore everything else about organization. Cruising around in the void between beyond the galaxies edge can be nasty business. Years without resupply or any kind of constant reliable resources means they must be resourceful. Because of this each company practices high self-reliance, salvaging, repairing and re-purposing stuff to make sure it lasts as long as possible. This is why they sport so much working heresy-era stuff. They also don't use reserve companies (realizing that having 100 of the finest warriors sitting around doing nothing is fucking stupid). Each company is thought to be a self-contained force, with their own scouts and veterans, ensuring they've got guys for every situation on hand. This has drawbacks of course as they can't simply ask for reinforcements from a reserve company and must make do. At the same time it means that they've got all their companies actively doing stuff.

It could be theorized that part of the scorched earth campaign the chapter did during the Badab War was in fact them violently restocking their inventory after having spent so long outside known space. Filling up on ammo, weapons, supplies, and grabbing anything and everything that could be useful, before they inevitably returned there. We do know that they claimed a bunch of recruits post-Badab, and they probably do this after all their big campaigns (maybe every time they come back into contact with the Imperium).

Gene-Seed Speculation

Initially, many fa/tg/uys speculated that the Carcharadons were of Raven Guard or Night Lord descent, or possibly a loyalist remnant. A minority also speculated that they might be World Eater remnants, though since that seems to be the old Minotaurs' schtick it's probably not true. Moreover, given that they are believed to have been founded by M32 and most of their wargear appears to be Heresy-era, they are most likely of the Second Founding or a product of the Heresy.

Most of the evidence for these theories is based on their military tactics and the few descriptions we had of the one Marine to be seen outside his armor, Tyberos the Red Wake.

Their favored tactics, relying heavily on stealth and surprise, would seem to fall in line with the Raven Guard's combat doctrines. However, their preference for close-combat, total slaughter, and the strategic use of terror put them at odds with the "tacticool operator" style of the modern Raven Guard. Their method of war is closer to the pre-Heresy Night Lords, if substantially higher in body count, or the World Eaters, if they were a little more subtle.

Physically, Tyberos displayed pale white skin and black eyes with black sclera. These were uncommon traits of people living upon Lycaeus and Nostramo, the homeworlds of Corvus Corax and Konrad Curze, respectively. While the modern Raven Guard exhibit these traits as a result of mutations within their gene-seed, Imperial Armour states that the Space Shark's gene-seed is unusually pure, i.e. stable, and that these traits are unlikely to be the result of mutation. This makes their appearance all the more unusual as the Carcharadon's are known to take recruits from the worlds they conquer, meaning there is no universal genetic basis that could explain its development other than their gene-seed. It also indicates that they most likely are directly decended from a Legion, as it probably wasn't passed down a generation or two as they haven't developed mutations or side-effects. Notably, Corvus Corax was noted for his snow-white skin, and Konrad Curze for his black eyes.

Raven Guard?

Following the publication of Imperial Armour 10, new evidence was published to support the Raven Guard theory by Games Workshop's licensors. Presumably the idea that every Traitor Legion has a secret Loyalist Successor was too much for them.

Fantasy Flight Games' Deathwatch RPG included rules for playing the Carcharadons. Among the fluff, it is stated that Deathwatch Apothecaries have occasionally had the chance to analyze the gene-seed of Carcharadon's slain in the service of the Deathwatch, and that they bear certain genetic markers unique to the Raven Guard. Of course, this being the Imperium of Man, you can never be certain what they're actually finding or if the records are accurate.

More definitively, Forgeworld's Horus Heresy Book 3 included a bunch of new information on the Raven Guard, and their predecessor Legion, the Pale Nomads. The Pale Nomads were noted for being the Emperor's preferred operators, often stealthing their way into enemy fortresses and armies to slay their leaders should they refuse surrender, and adopting multi-angle strike-and-fade tactics if the enemy continued to fight on. The latter is a favored tactic of the Carcharadons on the battlefield. The Pale Nomads were known for crushing any hint of resistance, which some have equated to the Space Sharks decimating entire star systems in order to sow terror. Their tactics evidenced a disdain for humans that the Raven Lord couldn't stomach, which is similar to the attitude adopted by the Space Sharks during the Badab War when they Exterminatus'd Badab and hundreds of Loyalist Space Marines along with it. The Pale Nomads were also slavers, who would take children from defeated worlds to raise as Legionnaires, a practice that the Space Sharks have adopted. Most importanlty, the Xeric tribesmen from which the Pale Nomads recruited had a tradition of tattooing their bodies and armor.

Additionally, the Raven Guard were revealed to suffer from a gene-seed defect known as the Ash Blind or Sable Brand. Similar to the Black Rage, this defect caused otherwise normal Space Marines to charge into battle seeking only to destroy all trace of their foes, whether they lived or died. Those afflicted would develop eyes of solid black, and would neither speak nor reason until the condition passed.

Finally, it is stated that Corvax would divest the Raven Guard of the surviving Terran-born Pale Nomads, whom he found too similar to the cruel lords he overthrew on Deliverance. One of the many branches of Raven Guard he sent off on isolated, never-ending crusades contained the Battle Barge Nicor, later to be found in the fleet of Space Sharks who ended the Badab War. There is no evidence that these exiles were recalled during the Horus Heresy, and they could simply have been designated a new Chapter following the end of the civil war.

Loyalist Traitors

Contradicting the Raven Guard theory are some logical inconsistencies, the issue of their battle tactics, and recently published material from Horus Heresy Book 6.

If the Carcharadons were descended from a long-lost fleet of pre-Heresy Pale Nomads, why would they have Heresy-era gear? They would've been one of the Space Marine forces that didn't return during the Heresy, and would've had much older marks of arms and armor. Moreover, while the Carcharadons are believed to possess mostly Mark V armor, the Raven Guard adopted Mark VI armor pretty much en masse before the Horus Heresy.

Moreover, while Horus Heresy Book 3 implies that the Raven Guard adopted (or reverted to) Carcharadon-like tactics during the fight to survive Istvaan V, that would imply that Corax exiled the Pale Nomads AFTER Istvaan, during the throes of the Heresy, as if that massacre hadn't weakened his Legion enough. If the Space Sharks were founded during the Second Founding, you'd expect them to have Mark VI armor. This points to the Space Sharks resupplying during the throes of the Heresy, meaning they either had access to modern armories or were supplied after the Heresy with new armor produced during it.

The Space Shark's preferred tactics are bloody and brutal, far more so than expected from any pre-Heresy Space Marine Legion besides the Night Lords and the World Eaters. During the Badab War they had no qualms about using the exterminations of worlds and systems loyal to the Mantis Warriors to draw them into battle by the scale of their horror, and they would use the shattered survivors of their bloody attacks to demoralize and weaken rebel forces.

The fact that the Carcharadon's adhere to a known pattern of crusading behavior, the "Nomad-Predation Pattern," would seem to indicate that their "recruiting" practices aren't unique to any Legion or Chapter, but an established Space Marine tactic for dealing with long crusades beyond the supply lines of the Imperium. Rather than being a relic of Xeric nomads recruited by the Emperor, it seems likely that the Space Sharks are only unique in that they utilize this pattern exclusively, obeying the order to "harry the enemies of the Emperor" in the darkness beyond the galactic plane.

The history, as known, of the Space Sharks point to their being present during the Second Founding. Whether the Raven Guard exiles were recalled or returned on their own, or if they were a Loyalist remnant of the Night Lords, or more unlikely the World Eaters, and were given the chance to forge a new life and history, it seems odd that they would've been dispatched to such distant battlefields if they weren't regarded with mistrust by the High Lords of Terra.

In Horus Heresy Book 6 it is revealed that at least one of the band of Terrans exiled by Corvax from the Raven Guard turned full renegade, abandoning the Imperium to build their own Imperium Secundus in the Segmentum Tempestus. With no contact from the Imperium, no support from the Emperor, and no reward for their loyalty, it seems likely that other Raven Guard exiles could have turned. Interestingly, this band of exiles raided the fortress worlds of the Night Lords for supplies before returning to the darkness beyond the Imperium.

Yet another possibility may be World Eaters, since Space Sharks are silent and brooding outside of battle but go absolutely batshit crazy when in battle, no questions asked and they seem to have a preference for Chain-axes, which is somewhat unusual among Space Marines. It's even seen that way in the Deathwatch RPG.

On the Tabletop

Carchadons Chapter tactics gives all Space Marines models Fear, and allows Tactical marines to replace their bolters with a chainsword or keep it and buy an additional close combat weapon for 1pt each. In addition they gain Rage after destroying or forcing an infantry unit to fallback in close combat, however they must consolidate towards the nearest unit they can hurt (after all, the rape train has no brakes!). You can only ally with Imperial Forces and all of those are bumped down to Desperate Allies. All this means that, with them, you play Horus Heresy World Eaters with Fear and all the shiny new toys of the 40k arsenal of Space Marines.