The worst way for a space marine company to die

[Valkyrion]

Not worst as in gruesome or torturous or even just being riddled by bullets...I'm looking for the most ignominious way, the least honourable, most shameful, the death that none of them want kind of death.

Not just one marine being suckerpunched by a tau, which would be pretty bad, but I'm talking company or even chapter level - the worst way a chapter loses a strike force or bunch of marines.

Generic, not like Blood Angels going all red thirsty, or World Eaters being butchers nailed - something that could happen to anyone.

 

Examples being - lost in the warp, victims of exterminatus whilst still on the planet etc.

 

[Scribe]

I think how the Celestial Lions went out. Pretty rough.

[Bung]

Read the lore of the Lamenters chapter.

[WarriorFish]

Sent home and demobbed, to die of old age? So useless the Imperium won't even waste resources Inquisitioning you and would rather you shuffled around somewhere out of the way, watching reruns on Netflicus

[Tyriks]

Anything out of combat would be pretty bad.  So, shipwrecks, going missing, reactor meltdown in the fortress.  

 

A chapter that mistakenly fires on itself and does enough damage to doom the chapter would be humiliating.  So if the machine spirits are corrupted, or something.  I guess you could also have the machine spirits in their armor rebel against them for some reason so they're frozen in place as an enemy executes them leisurely while they fight against their own armor.

[Firedrake Cordova]

The Crimson Fist's "missile mishap" has to be quite up there (missile fired from Rynn's World at Ork space craft malfunctioned, hit the fortress monastery, detonated the arsenal, and destroyed six full companies, with 16 survivors)

 

++EDIT: The entire Fire Hawks chapter got lost in the warp (although, as with the Celestial Lions, there were rumours of Inquisition involvement), with the survivors being believed to be the Legion of the Damned.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Firedrake Cordova

[Dr. Clock]

... as traitors?

 

SM know no fear of death, so long as it is in the Emperor's name. In fact they are kind of psycho-programmed to SEEK death, and therefore it's their own motivations and mindset at the point of death that matter more than the ultimate circumstances or cause of death... in theory.

 

I kind of think of Traitor Astartes as having their original identities 'die' much like Jedi... and in the Salamanders novels by Nick Kyme the main baddie at the start is a group of Salamanders who turned traitor and changed their names.

 

This is definitely a place one may hang some extreme hilarity upon: the idea that Chaos is so terrible that a marine would rather their whole Chapter died alone of asphyxiation in the depths of the void because the atomic fuel they were supplied was of poor quality rather than make a deal with a daemon.

 

Essentially this idea is at the core of Death Guard and 1k Sons, who both made infernal bargains to essentially save their Marines from ignominious ends.

 

So it's Chaos. For marines, the worst thing is always Chaos (which is taken to mean anything that is not Imperial).

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[MARK0SIAN]

Any death not in service to the emperor. So even things like being lost in the warp or exterminatus victims would probably still be classed as in service.

 

It would probably be a long, lingering death as a ‘retired’ marine. One too wounded to continue serving in combat but not enough to be interred in a dread. The Blood Angel in Master of Mankind is sent as an ambassador to Terra because he’s too injured to serve and sees this as an ignominious end.

 

Ragnar Blackmane pities his former sergeant when he is brain damaged but not killed by a bolter round saying death would’ve been better.

 

A death not in service would be the worst but that’s a lot easier to do for individuals rather than a whole company.

[MegaVolt87]

Sent home and demobbed, to die of old age? So useless the Imperium won't even waste resources Inquisitioning you and would rather you shuffled around somewhere out of the way, watching reruns on Netflicus :P

Getting a gut, grilling grox steaks and drinking beer all day while complaing about the later founding chapters as being too soft, not like back in the day sounds hilarious haha.

[Wulf Vengis]

 

Sent home and demobbed, to die of old age? So useless the Imperium won't even waste resources Inquisitioning you and would rather you shuffled around somewhere out of the way, watching reruns on Netflicus :P

Getting a gut, grilling grox steaks and drinking beer all day while complaing about the later founding chapters as being too soft, not like back in the day sounds hilarious haha.

Welcome to the fang brother. Mjod and haunches for all.

 

Worst way for a space marine company: I'd have to second the Rynn's world incident.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Wulf Vengis

[mel_danes]

In the story "Avenging Son"

a warp core breached on a capitol class cruiser, it wiped out everything in 900 miles, approx. In that range was a troop ship with hundreds of White Consuls Primaris marines, vaporized instantly.

That's a terrible loss of manpower, equipment, and potential deeds done in the Emperors name. Edited August 19, 2021 by Brother Tyler
Spoiler tags added

[Ragnar69]

Being eaten by Tyranids. The geneseed is not only lost but used by the enemy.

[battle captain corpus]

Soul Drinkers…being screwed over royally by the Admech -wince-

 

BCC

[VanDutch]

In the latest Blood Angels book, Darkness in the blood, a relatively new space marine brother is annoyed/upset, though not afraid, when it looks like he’s going to die a ignominious death by floating around in a vacuum for the rest of his natural life.

[Kenzaburo]

I immediately thought Scythes of the Emperor firstborn - the chapter serfs and part of their battlebrothers seem to have been  infiltrated by genestealer cults which then resulted in the loss of about 800 battlebrothers through treachery. 

[BrainFireBob]

Degradation of the gene-seed and rampant mutation.

[Wulf Vengis]

Oo, perhaps the MOST ignoble way to go in 40k for a space marine chapter is the end of the II and XI legions. So ignoble in fact the GW still won't tell us.

[MARK0SIAN]

Soul Drinkers…being screwed over royally by the Admech -wince-

 

BCC

Soul Drinkers are a good shout, add in the fact they were being manipulated by and unknowingly aiding Tzeentch as well and that’s a pretty poor end. However they were redeemed/vindicated in the end so they weren’t a total write off.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I think it would either be being lost in warp, or being allied with a traitor.

 

As an example in the badab war (which if you haven't read about... you should lol).

The Executioners go crazy after finding out that Astral Claws are stealing gene seed. They don't try to join up with the loyalist chapters and even fight them because the only way to get their honor back is killing Astral Claws.

 

The genestealer cult infestation that was mentioned earlier was pretty bad too. That said I don't know how much of the chapter was aware of it, so its more a stain on the chapter leadership than the companies themselves.

[grailkeeper]

Being mistaken for another chapter that has gone renegade and being destroyed for the sins of another.

 

Bonus points of their destruction is their ship being blown up by surprise and they get vented into space or the warp or something.

[Berzul]

Being eaten by Tyranids. The geneseed is not only lost but used by the enemy.

I used to play a DA successor chapter that I retired (and repainted) after a narrative series of games against a Tyranid friend from my closest gaming group.

 

The narrative we made for the whole series of games had my Astartes coming to defend an imperial planet, only to find an unknown hive of Tyranids conducting weird experimental weapon testing on the population.

 

In the end, the Chapter got devoured to the last man. Their genetic makeup adding to the hive fleet. They saved large number of imperial inhabitants, but died in the process.

 

This exact horrible ending you describe.

 

... Damned Tyranids.

[Montuhotep]

I think the most inventively ignoble is the one meted out to the Mantis Warriors chapter master after Badab.

 

Under examination after the events concluded, he wished just punishment for him, not his chapter and for the Conclave to show no mercy.

He thought that would mean being executed.

 

 It actually meant him being locked away in the middle of an asteroid for the rest of his life.

[conscriptboris]

To be wiped out to a man by earthquakes.. looking at you imperial fists..