Chapter: The Silver Pack

Origins

Like all extant Space Wolf successors, the Silver Pack is a Primaris chapter founded after the Indomitus Crusade. The founding brothers were noted to have worked closely with other genelines while part of the Unnumbered Sons, particularly for Sons of Russ. Their time as 'Greyshields' likely influenced their choice of chapter name

Homeworld

Imperial records showed the planet Windtooth as an icy Feral World, not as violent a Death World as Fenris but sharing a number of characteristics like its transistory ice continents and supra-year seasonal cycle, though it owed them to a destabilizing moon rather than an eccentric orbit. It was deemed an excellent homeworld for Sons of Russ, and when the Crusade ended and the Unnumbered Sons were divided, one of the Greyshield chapter foundings was directed to Windtooth.

However, they found that Windtooth had been sieged by Chaos cultists, and they weren't the first Imperials present - missionaries-militant had found its people and taught them to build strong walled towns and better weapons, which had been sufficient to resist the corrupted invaders and those tribes they had managed to turn to their dark service. The arrival of the new chapter cleansed the taint, and advanced the technology of the inhabitants yet more.

Judging it still a harsh world, but one which had been tamed, though not domesticated, by civilization, they renamed their home Vanaheim and submitted a reclassification to Feudal World. The many fortified towns held both farmers and fishers, most of whom were also militiamen, rallying to their town's defense on demand. This produced a hearty and strong, but unified and Emperor-fearing, people, which serve as an excellent source of recruits for the chapter.

Combat Doctrine

While the Silver Pack experience the Canis Helix as acutely as the Vlka Fenryka, and preserve a number of features of the Fenrisian response, such as the Blood Claw units replacing Scouts as the early stage of training, the experience of their founders and the culture of their world alter them significantly. The Silver Pack never field Blood Claws alone; every squad has at least one veteran officer, and usually multiple. How advanced a Blood Claw squad is in its training can be seen at a glance - new squads will have a dozen bare heads, while ones ready to transition to Silver Hunters will all have helmets matching their veterans. The Wolf Guard formations guarding Wolf Lords also do not exist in the Silver Pack. The veterans are arranged along traditional lines, and command squads and honor guard are based on seniority and records of skill, tactical awareness, and strategic coordination ability, rather than an individualistic notion of glory or reckless feats of strength.

The Silver Pack are not, however, a strictly codex chapter. While they tame their instincts and fight in large, ordered squads, they still have a thirst for combat and field half their Intercessors in Assault configuration. They also vie competitively for assignment to Reiver squads (Hounds of the Black) and chainsword-bearing Incursors (Blue Fangs), and field their 'Inceptors' in a completely nonstandard pattern, equipping them with twin bolt pistols mounted underneath lightning claws as Skywolves. Like the Hounds and Blue Fangs, these fight in disciplined formation - it's just that the formation only gleefully dives into melee in unison, never individually.

Organization

In the Reserve Companies and Battle Companies, the Silver Pack have roughly double the usual allotment of assault specialists and half the usual number of gun-line, though they make some effort to keep the numbers closer to standard tolerances across the Codex-specified Battleline/Close Support/Fire Support distinctions. Scouts are of course well under-strength; only the very earliest and most obviously-fragile recruits can be coerced to remain at a distance, and quickly switch to Blood Claws; when there isn't an unusual demand for neophytes, there are usually only two squads of Scouts in the whole chapter. Given the Vanguard formations they inherited at full strength from the Greyshields, they see no need to make up the numbers with veterans like Fenris's Wolf Scouts.

Due to the strong emphasis on fighting as a pack, squads are usually fielded higher strength than by other chapters - ten-man squads or occasionally twelve, rarely subdividing into pairs of five. Blood Claws are usually in squads of twenty, with two to four of them seasoned Silver Hunters reining them in. Of other specialist formations of their progenitor chapter, Rune Priests, Wolf Priests, and Iron Priests are omitted, replaced with the codex equivalents (though Librarians are named Soulcallers), though the Techmarines are often accompanied by cyberwolves. Thunderwolves are unknown on Vanaheim, and so the fast-attack units must use Outrider bikes instead. However, curiously, emissaries from the Silver Pack Apothecaries and Chaplaincy have been seen visiting Fenris asking the Space Wolves about their thunderwolf training programs.

Beliefs

The ethos of the Silver Pack was encapsulated by their first Master of Sanctity: "The coward dies. The lone wolf dies. Only the pack endures." They are wolves and savages at heart, but believe very strongly in the need to fight together, their successes and shames as a company or chapter, not as lone wolves who die unsupported. This sense of brotherhood and collective responsibility is not limited to the astartes, either; they embrace those who fight beside them, whether Imperial Guard, Adepta Sororitas, or Adeptus Mechanicus, as part of the pack. They are known to close ranks to protect these adopted packmates, as well; they've never been known to disobey a direct order, but minor offenses which might merit disciplinary action will have Silver Pack astartes claiming implausible misfires and auspex malfunctions that would prevent the offense from being invesitgated or ruled definitely a fault. The general deference given to astartes is wielded as a shield, trusting that almost no commander will dare to question even obvious falsehoods when spoken levelly and matter-of-factly by a space marine.

Geneseed

Like other Primaris descendants of Leman Russ, the Silver Pack displays the fangs, claws, and changes in coloration typical of the Space Wolves, but has not been known to develop wulfen or display the other mutant features of the Wolf Brothers.

Battlecry

"Strength of the wolf!"

Seventh in my intermittent series of successor chapters which play substantially against their progenitor's stereotypes. At least from a certain point of view.