The Excessionists: An Introduction
While my re-entry into miniature gaming and painting started with the Space Wolves, I’d long harbored a desire to do a vanilla Space Marine force. Sixth edition provided me the perfect opportunity, not only in the ally rules making a small side force much more doable, but also because the Seattle Battle Bunker was having a 1,000 point hobby challenge based around making an army with an ally detachment. It gave me the chance to get the Marines started, while adding a handful of Wolf models to fill out some holes.
There was one, issue, however: what Chapter? Or: what colors? I had been thinking of doing Ultramarines for a while, but I realized I wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge with this, so I decided for a split color scheme. That was the easy part! The hard one was coming up with the colors to use: ones I wanted to paint, and that looked good together. None of the established halved scheme Chapters were speaking to me. I hadn’t done green yet, and a metallic complement would be striking. Gold, maybe – wait! Copper, there’s a color that doesn’t get much love. And so the color was established.
Then I needed some background. One of my favorite authors, sadly passed on, is Iain M. Banks. In one of his novels, he described the idea of the Outside Context Problem – and of anything the Imperium can toss at a problem, a bunch of Astartes ready to purge and cleanse would fit that bill. So I took the name of that novel – Excession – and the Excessionists were born.
There is more inspiration drawn from the OCP concept, however. The Excessionists specialize in new, unusual, unexpected, or just plain outlandish strategies. They are a Codex Chapter in their organization, but not in their doctrines. Astartes are, at their core, about asymmetrical warfare, and the Excessionists embrace that whole-heartedly.
You wouldn’t tell from talking to one, though. As a Successor of the Imperial Fists, the geneline of Dorn is strong in them. Even as he engages in a strategy that would make an Ultramarine blanch or perform aerial maneuvers that would make a Hawk Lord queasy, an Excessionist maintains as calm and stoic a demeanor as he would during pre-battle rites or while field-striping his boltgun.
With a homeworld located in the northern reaches of the Segmentum Obscurus, the Chapter finds itself often assisting in pushing back against Chaos incursions from the Eye of Terror, as well as being a staunch line of defense against the myriad xenos strains that haunt the further expanses of the galaxy. They often are seen in battle alongside Space Wolf Great Companies, with a camaraderie between the Chapters that seems unusual to outsiders. They also regularly have a dozen or more Battle-Brothers seconded to the Deathwatch – yet are also willing to work with the Eldar and other races against threats such as Chaos and the Necrons.
The initial army was a 1,000 point force, with the Fifth Company Captain, a Tactical Squad, a Scout Squad, 5 TH/SS Terminators, and a Stormtalon, with a side of a Wolf Guard Battle Leader and five Grey Hunters. Since then, I’ve added a second Tactical Squad, an Ironclad Dreadnought (the Ancient Yan Banx), and a Drop Pod. With about 1,100 painted, I’m looking at expansions to take them to 1,500 as a stand alone force. I’m considering three Centurions and a Stormraven. Clip the Ironclad on, come screaming in, either dropping Devastator Centurions in along the way to shot something up, or pack Assault Centurions to set up the dump and charge the following turn.
Wild Weasel Painting 
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