Salamanders (Chapter)
| Salamanders | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Battle Cry | "Into the fires of battle, unto the anvil of war!" and "For the Emperor and His people!" | |
| Number | XVIII | |
| Founding | First Founding | |
| Successors of | N/A | |
| Successor Chapters | Storm Giants and Black Dragons are suspected | |
| Chapter Master | Tu'Shan | |
| Primarch | Vulkan | |
| Homeworld | Nocturne | |
| Strength | 940 (1 Veteran Company, 6 Battle Companies, 1 Scout Company)* confirmed in novel "Rebirth" | |
| Specialty | Close quarters shooting | |
| Allegiance | Imperium of Man | |
| Colours | Green, black, gold | |
The Salamanders are one of the First Founding Space Marine Chapters in Warhammer 40,000. They are known for their love of flamer and melta weapons, preference for close-quarters combat, complete unwillingness to retreat or surrender and being fairly nice guys by space marine standards. They are also arguably the most shit-upon Chapter fluff-wise, besides the Lamenters, Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The chapter is named after the mythological fire-lizard of the same name.
Salamanders in WH40K
The Salamanders is a Space Marine chapter based on the Death World Nocturne. Nocturne is a volcanic planet with some truly ridiculous shifting gravity. As such, its people developed a slow, methodical approach to life, coupled with a healthy respect/fetish for fire. Salamanders have somewhat slower reaction time compared to other Astartes (but still blindingly fast compared to humans). In the fluff, this is said to be a result of Salamanders being almost universally cautions and methodical in their thinking, rather than a geneseed malfunction. The planet's only other 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 tough, hard-to-break units and for giving every man and his servo-skull a flamer or melta gun.(Put a couple of C'tan with the Lord of Fire power in your necron army for the lulz.) They are also well known for making almost all of their own equipment personally, with each man held responsible for making and maintaining his own wargear. They import the few things they cannot manufacture on their home world directly from the Adeptus Mechanicus, who likes them more than the ungrateful dicks who keep using up all their ammunition on drills and "practice fights". The rest of their wargear is made by the Chapter artificers and Techmarines and they produce some of the best armor and weapons of any marine chapter, because they're not busy repairing every scratch on the armor of the other 940 (1 Veteran Company, 6 Battle Companies, 1 Scout Company). The result is that each marine is equipped with practically master-crafted weapons and wears near-artificer level armor. For comparison, Artificer armor is basically equal to terminator armor in capabilities. Their entire chapter is like that.
The Salamanders
The Salamanders themselves are perhaps the most bro-tier of all Space Marine chapters, the Space Wolves coming in a close second. 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, many actually living normal lives among the people as chieftains or wandering the planet as hermits when not on active combat duty.
In terms of tactics, the Salamanders 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 all twin-linked. The fact that each man repairs and maintains his own armor ensures that their chapter Artificers can be free to make truly awesome stuff. They field almost exclusively treaded vehicles, as the gravitic antics of Nocturne's moon Prometheus (really more of a planet) tend to cause anti-grav plating to freak the fuck out.
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 chi- *BLAM!* DISCRIMINATION AND STEREOTYPING AGAINST THE EMPEROR'S DEFENDERS OF HUMANITY BECAUSE OF THEIR SKIN COLOR IS HERESY! . This is because, due to genetic radiation protection, all Salamanders are black. We're not talking coal black or African-descent black, we're talking blackhole pitch black, hexadecimal code #000000, the missing word in the phrase "...as the void of space." That kind of black. With glowing red eyes.
And if that wasn't enough, the ally matrix in ForgeWorld's Horus Heresy spinoff demonstrates that the Salamanders were the most liked of all the legions. Seriously, the only factions rivaling them for good ties are the Imperial army and the Mechanicum (whom everyone kisses up to anyway). Hilariously, one of the 3 chapters they dislike (though not enough to put them on red terms with anyone) are the Ultramarines. They weren't fans of the Word Bearers either, even before the whole Heresy and ritual murder-torture thing.
Gallery
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Sorry Sarge, but your Thunderhammer is Epic Fail. -
If at first you don't succeed. Twin-linked goodness. -
Kill it with FIRE! Always! -
Even in death, I still Burn Shit Up! -
In all honesty though, they're pretty nice guys... -
They're even great with children! -
Vulkan He'stan's artificer suit -
The chapter's most closely guarded secret
