I decided to enter this chapter instead of my Blood Dragons mainly because the Blood Dragons are a much more personal chapter, so I spent some time putting this one together which had already been floating around in my head a for a while.


Chapter: Sons of the Snake

Founding: 5th

Founding legion/chapter: Ravenguard, this much the chapter does not hide, it is also clear in their over all strategy of covert ops, that much of their founding chapters doctrines have rubbed off on them.



Chapter symbol and colour scheme: Faded green armour with red trim, and dull yellow Aquilla on chest plate, often display the chapter symbol, a coiled red snake, on their left shoulder pad.



Home world: Unknown, its possible they are a spaceborne chapter, but as with so much else about the chapter this remains unclear. They are known to control and operate out of several small basses amongst asteroid fields near the maelstrom. And also currently have forces deployed on Armageddon

Doctrines/combat style: Covert ops and strategic small scale strikes before pinpoint ambushes culminating in full scale assaults. Its also unclear to the exact combat numbers of the sons of the snakes as they have been reported in combat actions across the Imperium from actions against the Tau and Tyranids in and near the realm of Ultramar, to striking against covert bases of the Alpha Legion in the Gothic Sector.

Background: It is a difficult task to track the history of this secluded chapter, their forces have been seen to operate in every Segmentum of the galaxy, at some point within the last 8 millennia. They do not appear to have a single base or area of operation and their fleet seems to only include Astartes commissioned vessels something usual only seen amongst the Dark Angel's and their successors. Their combat record is almost the only way to track a chapter which operates as the Sons of the Snake do, looking at the record shows that their first actions seem to have taken place around the Maelstrom, and indeed it is clear they maintain a small facility amongst the asteroid fields in the now uninhibited Kato system, their operations seem to have to focused on the area till the 35th millennium and Goge Vandire's reign of Blood.

Treacherous High Lord Goge Vandire's Reign of Blood had lasted for 70 years before the appearance of St. Sebastian Thor, a man whose name was to become legend, rallied the people of his home world and through off the chains of the Treacherous High Lord and started his pilgrimage to Terra to overthrow Vandire. Vandire's attempts to prevent Thor and his confederacy advance are well known, the most famous was the loss of his biggest war fleet on transit to intercept Thor and his Confederation of Light. It was during one such attempt that the Sons of the Snakes began making their presence felt outside the area of the Maelstrom and Ultima Segmentum. The Sons of the Snakes had already earned the reputation to carrying out the missions often with radio silence and not notifying other imperial authorities or forces, and this was no different. They had been observing the High Lord's Reign for some time since his genocidal destruction of the planet Jhanna, which lay with in a region of space they operated in. So it was, that the Animus Anguineus, a Son's of the Snake Strike Cruiser and its escort of Gladius Class frigates, dropped into the wake left by Thor's fleet, shadowing it on its way to Earth.

It was after a month of travelling that the Sons were to reveal themselves, a navy contingent loyal to Vandire had received orders to attack the Confederacy flotilla, the Sons of the Snakes had intercepted these orders. The Navy ships were to drop down onto the confederacy's fleet from high orbit to cause as much panic in them as possible and eliminate Thor on his ship. The Navy vessels carried out their plan, however, when they cam in on the ow vector out of a nebula they found that Thor's fleet had already passed them, there sensors be confused by fake signals being produced by what appeared to be a pirate freighter. As the Navy vessels were trying to work out what had happen they detected the Animus Anguineus coming up fast. Turning to face this upcoming threat the navy vessels left their flanks open to the nebula. AS the Animus Anguineus closed, with them and opened up with its lance batteries its 5 Gladius Class escorts sped out from the depths of the nebula the Navy vessels had been hiding in, the battle was quick and bloody, although the Marines were outnumbered their ambush had had the desired affect in confusing the navy vessels and with in the opening minutes of the engagement the majority of the navy escorts had been eliminated. The 2 of the 3 navy cruisers were then crippled with combined fire of both the escorts and the Animus Auguineus herself.

The Navy strike force lead ship an Avenger Class Grand Cruiser by the name of The Constas, was to be far more difficult task, the avenger class is designed to excel at close quarters fighting and had managed to manoeuvre far closer to the Animus Anguineus, than it had been expected to, the open battle between the Space Marine Strike cruiser and Navy Grand Cruiser, were destructive for both vessels. The Snakes however had one surprise left for the navy, one of the Gladius class escorts suddenly stopped its attack on the last operational cruise and closed in on the Constas, with it shields down it was vulnerable to boarding actions, Gladius class frigates usually do not carry many marine or either the ability to engage in boarding actions a role usually left to the Strike cruises and battle barges of the marine fleets, however this particular frigate had centuries ago been equipped with the ancient technologies of a teleportation device. The commander of the Sons of the Snakes had deployed about 50 marines to the frigate, and they now teleported onto the Constas,in small groups although over the ship. Soon its great guns fell silent and within 1 hour the last cruiser surrender and with in 3 the Constas itself surrendered, its crew unable to deal with the small guerilla groups of Space Marines causing havoc within their ship.

By this time a small group of ships from Thor's fleet had broken off to come and investigate the weapons discharges they had been detecting. Upon reaching the scene many of the ships were hesitant, Space Marine forces engaging navy forces was a dangerous precedent. However the ships were hailed with the simple audio message simply stating 'Thor may continue' and with that the Sons of the Snake appear to have departed, whether they actually did or not is a different matter.

Since this incident the Sons of the Snake seem to have pushed their operations much further out from their original area of operation why exactly this is, is unclear, but since then their forces have been spotted to be operating through the Imperium, most recently amongst the carnage of the 13th Black Crusade in which they appear to have spent much of their time pouncing on Renegade transports in space and also renegade convoys on the ground for the first time in a very long while coordinating many of their attacks with other marine forces most notably the White Scars, in wastes on Cadia itself. The Sons of the Snake have also been active on Armageddon since the 3rd War.

The Sons of the snake 4th and 5th companies along with elements of the 1st, 9th, and 10th companies, led by Chaplain Sevrin and Captian Thraxan of the 4thcompany , had spent 20 years before the 3rd war of Armageddon harassing and eliminating forces of the ork warlord Gorsnik Magush Overfiend of Octarius. When Gorsnik joined Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka's Waaagh! Captain Thraxan simply ordered his forces to pursue Gorsnik's which led them ultimately to Armageddon. The Sons of the Snake however were not to make the journey as easily as the orks, their passage through the warp was long and difficult and when they reached Armageddon the fighting had already been going on for almost 2 months. Their first actions were unclear as they ignored all imperial radio traffic save to simply say 'They were on the Emperor's work'.

Their Thunderhawk Gunships were detected by Imperial monitoring stations, landing in the area of Cerbera Base, the main base of the Armageddon Ork Hunters. The Sons of the Snake, not only reinforced Cerbera Base, or Hell Town as it was known to the guardsmen who got stationed there. They made it their base of operations and began carrying out missions deep into the Jungle designed to give the beleguard Ork Hunters regiements time to redeploy and rest, their exceptional kwoledge of ambush fighting and covert opportunities offered by jungle terrain soon gained them huge respect from Ork hunters. There was some tension between the Sons of the Snake and the Raptors Chapter of Space Marines who were also serving in the equatorial jungles. While their war in the jungle was being relatively successful, the war across the rest of Armageddon was not going as well. At Hive Helsreach and Hive Tempastora, were attacked by ork landings via huge submersibles launched from the Deadlands and the Fire wastes. Both hives came under surprise attacks, Tempastora fell within hours, Helsreach held, although the imperial forces lost control of much of the hive.

The Imperial forces at Helsreach were in dire need of help and more and more Orks were pouring in via the submersibles. It was not until the Storm giants combined with covert support from the Sons of the Snakes halted many of these operations. During one of the last base raid the Sons of the Snake were able to capture on of the ork submersibles in tact and the closest ork machines come to working order. This was the bases of possibly one of the most daring raids in the Sons history. Four days after the raid another ork submersible was seen to have surfaced and docked in the ork held port at Helsreach. The news was extremely disheartening to the beleaguered imperial troops, however reports soon came in that the orks were being attacked frm the flanks, and that Space marines had been seen fighting their way up from the docks. The Imperial forces already in the Hive made quick use of this new opportunity and quickly launched a counter-attack against the ork forces. Within days the Sons of the Snake had rendezvoused with the rest of the Imperial forces and secured the majority of the hive, although fighting would still continue throughout the Hive for many months.


Anyway guys hope you enjoyed this Index Astartes Article on the Sons of the Snake,