Praeterfactors

"Disgusting is the heretics excuse. None is above the Emperor's word."

- A Battle Brother of the Praeterfactors

The Praeterfactors are a 19th Founding chapter of the Imperial Fists gene-stock. Generally looked down upon by most modern chapters for their disregard of the Codex Astartes and their unorthodox combat method. However, they are known to be fanatically loyal to the Imperium and the Emperor, sometimes even to the point of extremism.

History
The Praeterfactors are a furiously active chapter, with at least 4 companies out on campaigns at all times. This has led to a long history of battles in the Emperor's name all across the galaxy.

Notable Chapters
M37.889. Babylonia Ignis Campaign (Babylonia Incident)

The Praeterfactors are sent to quell an uprising of citizens denying the existance of the Emperor. Their arrival is said to have brought about new zeal in the populace, but an entire Hive was cleansed in the coming slaughter. The Praeterfactors where chastised for this act.

M37.894. Salaundih Slaughter

The Praeterfactors are deployed to defeat a Greenskin Waaaagh! The shock assault tactics of the Praeterfactors turns out to their favor as the Greenskins fail in their attempts to catch the Space Marines in one place. The Praeterfactors are officially forgiven for the Babylonia Incident.

M37.914. The Failure

A company of the Praeterfactors are lost as a Space Hulk collides with the Battle Barge and ignites the two juggernaughts Plasma Cores, destroying everything in close proximity and scouring a nearby Asteroid mining base clean of life. The Praetefactors observe this as a punishment from the Emperor for their laxity.

M37.915. Assault on Merida IV

In the following days of the Space Hulk incident dubbed "The Failure", the Praetefactors send all of their available companies on multiple pennance crusades. The 6th Company lands on the Dark Eldar infested Merida IV, cleansing the planet of their filth by letting the Xeno's have a taste of their own medicin as Land Speeders, Tactical Assault Squads and Thunderhawks destroys hordes of the aliens with rapid Shock and Awe strikes.

M37.915. Scouring of Valen

The 4th Company deploys its full force to the renegade planet of Valen. The desert planet is heavily fortified, and the company suffers heavy casualties. After two hard weeks of little to no progress, the 4th Company engages the Ground-to-Orbit batteries at high cost, and then withdraw to their Strike Cruisers. The Strike Cruisers proceed to destroy the planet with focused beams of Orbital Bombardment.

M37.915. Holding of the Keep

The Starfortress MTF6556354, designated as the Keep, is assaulted by Chaos forces. The 7th Company is at the time resupplying and a Chaos Warband came upon the seemingly easy target. The Strike Cruisers where scattered, but the Traitors were faced with grim opposition from the well armed Astartes, who drove them out with bolter and holy promethium. The Astartes managed to pave a way to the control chamber and take out the Warbands ships.

M37.915. Defence of Avaktis

The planet of Avaktis were under siege by Tau forces. The Praetefactors 2nd and 3rd Company joins forces to push the Xeno's away. The battles are fierce and the collateral damage is extensive, with much of the population drafted into forced militas under the orders of Captain Incaradine.

M37.915. To the depths

On the planet of Enrangar V, the Imperial settlement was under attack by Greenskins. The Praeterfactors proceed to fight the Greenskins on the floating bastions, but are slowly loosing ground. In a desperate attempt, the Astartes send the whole settlement to the depths of the Aquatic World. As the water kills off all but the most heavily armed Greenskins, the Space Marines find themselves awaiting aid. However, something hostile awaits them in the depth in the form of an unknown Xeno of humongous size. The Marines fight it with all their power, fending off its vast tentacles. The captain leads two squads into the gaping mouth of the beast armed with Chainswords and melta-charges. Dying in the blast, the two squads manage to destroy the leviathan from inside out.

M38.405. Purging of the Pretender

An unknown Imperial planet is cast into a civil war between imperial Loyalists and renegades. The Loyalists don fake armor to make them appear as Space Marines, winning the war through deciet and fear. The Praeterfactors land on the planet and purge the people known to have donned the fake armor in anger over the mockery made of the Emperor's Chosen.

M38.537. The 9th Black Crusade.

The Praeterfactors partook in the 9th Black Crusade, holding off enemy warbands from a sector for enough time to evacuate the important resources.

M41.999. The 13th Black Crusade

The Praeterfactors partook in the 13th Black Crusade.

Council of Captains
The Praeterfactors have shunned the rank of Chapter Master for a council of captains. This allows all companies to act individually, with a holographic chamber where the captains "meet" on their homeworld, operated by a Chapter Serf.

Company Organisation
Each Company is designed to be as a 100-man Chapter in itself, equipped with armored divisions, specialist ranks and a Battle Barge. As such, there is no mechanised company or assault company. Everything is divided equally.

Combat Doctrine
The Praeterfactors favor fast-assault strikes, and as such they have a unique rank called the Tactical Assault Squad. This replaces their standard Tactical squads, but the difference is only the lack of heavy weapons and the addition of Jump Packs. These squads are meant to optimise the rapid response tactics of the Praeterfactors.

Chapter Recruitment
The neophytes who are accepted for recruitment are put through gruelling tests on the various planets of the Valaton system to show how tough they are. When initiated, they are added as Auxillias to the company. an Auxillia squad is commanded by a Sternguard brother, and they are all equipted to deal with the situation at hand.

Chapter Armories and Weaponry
The Praeterfactors focus, more than anything, on independant survivability. Every Brother is given molecular bonding studs to patch his armor up with fallen pieces of armor. While most of the equipment is repaired afterwards, many battle brothers have the pieces of scrap bound to their armor, either as trophies or in memory of a fallen Brother. As such, the Praeterfactors fear factor is increased as they go into battle looking like scrapheap nightmares.

In adition, all battle brothers are given mono-molecular weaponry. While these blades can take the form of axe, cleaver, falchion or sword, one thing that all have in common is their wicked looking edges, jagged with curved metal teeth.

Appearance and Badge
The Praeterfactors are clad in armor of boltgun metallic color with brass trimmings and decorations. The chapter badge is a green eagle's head filled with serrated teeth.

Relations
The Praeterfactors is highly disliked by many of the more humane chapters, such as the Salamanders, for their, not only lack of care for any collateral damage, but also for their tendancies to use the civilians of a world as cannon fodder.

However, they are much liked by the Ecclesiarchy for their unyielding faith in the God Emperor.