This is my 1,000-ish point Lamenters army originally for a Badab War narrative campaign. It’s also my first time doing a “canon” army, and there is actually surprisingly little out there about the Lamenters, so I tried to go with an interesting interpretation rather that is still supported within the text of what is there. They’re on the sympathetic and less-evil-than-they-could-be end of the space fascist living weapon spectrum, but they’re still space fascists.
Im not going to recite the whole history of the Badab Wars but it’s probably the most interesting 40K event space marines have ever been majorly involved in, rivaling the Horus Heresy. Space marines can be interesting! In summary a trio of space marine chapters, the Astral Claws, the Mantis Warriors, and the Lamenters, were assigned to protect the Badab Sector from all sorts of shit coming out of a giant warp portal. The leader of the Astral Claws repeatedly requested that a handful more space marine chapters be sent over so that they could go on the offensive and finally lock this place down for good instead of having three chapters stationed there permanently on the defensive. These requests were repeatedly denied.
Eventually, in a letter cosigned by the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors, the Astral Claws declared that they were going to stop paying taxes and also seize outgoing shipments from the Badab Sector because they need these resources to do their jobs and lock down the sector against threats. That got the rest of the Imperium’s attention and suddenly they had like a dozen more space marine chapters available to send to the Badab Sector, not to defend it, but to make them pay taxes.
This is interesting because it’s loyalist vs loyalist space marines and over, like, more directly relevant politics than just fighting because they’re sworn enemies. Also because all the chapters involved had various histories with each other and would refuse to fight or go easy on each other at various points leading to the imperium having to continually withdraw and replace forces who would, like, pretend not to see each other rather than attack because the chapter they were supposed to attack had rescued them from a losing situation a century earlier or something.
Eventually it was revealed to “everyone”’s surprise that the Astral Claws were also doing some shady shit with geneseeds and trying to grow their number way beyond the 1,000 normally allowed by the Codex Astartes, and we’re trying to revive the idea of Space Marine Legions of like millions of space marines as seen in the original Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.
After the defeat of the Badab chapters, the Astral Claws were marked for death and fled to later become the Red Corsairs, while the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors were crushed but allowed to do penance instead of being exterminated because they swore they had no idea the Astral Claws were doing that.
Common fan interpretation is that the Lamenters, famously unfortunate and always in the worst positions, genuinely didn’t know how ‘heretical’ their allies were being, but I don’t buy it. Like, they co-signed the letter and all that shit, do you expect me to believe that they just, like, didn’t otherwise communicate with the Astral Claws at all? They may not have known everything but there’s no way they didn’t know they were trying to grow their numbers beyond what’s allowed. In fact, I think it’s much more likely, and a lot more interesting, that the Lamenters were totally on board with that.
They’re considered “cursed” by other space marine chapters and shunned, ending up in the worst situations with no support and always taking major losses, which just snowballs their “cursed” reputation. If anyone would want to “show up” other chapters by “retvrning” to the idealized past glory days of the space marine legions, it would be the downtrodden Lamenters with limited connections with other chapters and a not-indefensible victim complex. This makes them the perfect chapter in the perfect position to be useful idiots for the Astral Claws’ plans. They’re Reddit-loser-to-alt-right pipeline space marines.
I play them using Blood Angels rules since they’re descended from the Blood Angels, but those of you who actually play 40K might notice that this is an absolutely terrible Blood Angels list. I’m aware and I’m working on that, but in the beginning I had to make do with what I could get my hands on and also what units I think are cool are not always the best units for the tactics the army rules encourage.
I have managed to get my hands on some drop pods to get my guys closer, some jump pack assault marines, etc..
Every battle I have played with these guys has all gone hilariously appropriately for Lamenters, almost exclusively ending in draws with nobody coming out on top.
In a battle against the Red Scorpions over the wreckage of a crashed Astral Claws transport, by the final round the score was tied and there was literally only one space marine standing on either side.
In a set of three Kill Team matches wherein the Lamenters tried to board and capture a rogue trader under the protection of the Howling Griffons who was trying to break the trade embargo, the Lamenters captured her but failed to get her back to the ship before they themselves were captured and imprisoned, but were then able to escape imprisonment and slip out right under the Howling Griffons’ noses. It was an embarrassment for both chapters.
