Minotaurs

Minotaurs
Battle Cry	Moooooo!!! (Presumably)
Number	N/A
Founding	21st Founding (Supposedly)
Successors of	+++Classified by order of the High Lords+++ (The original Minotaurs are unknown; the new Minotaurs are all but confirmed to use Iron Warriors geneseed. Hints that one of the two are chimeric, money's on the unstable psychopaths)
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Asterion Moloc
Primarch	Unknown
Homeworld	Fleet Based
Strength	1000 (Officially)
Specialty	(Old) Being psychotic Leeroy Jenkins; (New) Beating the shit out of other Space Marines, taking their stuff, pissing off the Ultramarines, siege warfare, and being the High Lords' personal army.
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	(old) Ketchup & Mustard stripes; (new) Bronze with a little Red.

If you are looking for the bull-headed beastmen from Greek mythology, see Minotaur.

Out with the old...

The Minotaurs were a Chapter of Space Marines and massive dicks. They were formed in the Cursed Founding as psychopathic berzerkers and were possibly successors to more stab-happy legions, like the Blood Angels (looking at you Sanguine Berzerkers) or World Eaters. They first appeared in White Dwarf as one of the playable Chapters for the Chapter Approved Cursed founding article where they were also mentioned to have beaten the shit out of the Lamenters during the Badab War, because the Lamenters chose the wrong side and the Minotaurs wanted an excuse to RIP AND TEAR. Then they disappeared. (to everyone's relief). Their color scheme was also fucking atrocious.

...and in with the new

The Minotaurs have many suits of MKVIII "errant" pattern Power Armor.

The Minotaurs later popped up in Imperial Armour Volume 10 and had their lore (and thankfully colour scheme) overhauled. They're still massive dicks though. Now the psycho-Minotaurs apparently disappeared thousands of years before the Badab War, instead its these cunts who stomp stomp the poor Lamenters (and also take their stuff). They now dress like ancient Greeks and their Chapter Master, one Asterion Moloc, appears to have pilfered the prop department from 300 for his outfit. They no longer maintain the "psychopathic berzerkers' flavour; instead (while still liking melee combat) they make and execute detailed battle plans focusing on siege and attrition warfare, being brooding, paranoid about security protocols, and very pragmatic. Example of that last trait being in Imperial Armour Volume 12 here they let a good chunk of the Imperial Navy fight and die before they stepped in to give themselves a better chance against the Necrons (what assholes). They are essentially Greek-ier Iron Warriors, who steal shit like the Blood Ravens (but instead of hijacking your stuff when you aren't looking, they will just mug you and take it). This better explains why they stole the Lamenters' stuff like the school bully shaking down the class nerd for his lunch money, once the old fight between the Lamenters and Minotaurs was retconned to have happened with these Minotaurs instead.

They now have vast stores of incredibly rare wargear, which includes: shittons of Arkonak and Tartaros-pattern Terminator armour, Mk8 power armor, loads of Dreadnoughts (including rare Contemptor-pattern), their very own Storm Eagle variant, and at least one power spear/lascannon combo that might have been jacked gifted from the Adeptus Custodes). With their sugar daddies on Terra and taking the good wargear from Chapters they beat down, they have no shortage of the best toys available to the Astartes.

They also act as the High Lords' attack dogs now, only acting on orders from the High Lords themselves, telling anyone in their way to piss off. Oh, and the Administratum records are sealed (under direct order of the High Lords), so that not even Inquisitors can easily (if at all) access them. Which implies something about them (gee, wonder what?) has at least some Inquisitors worried.

One of their Brother-Captains insulted Marneus Calgar right in front of an Ultramarines descendant, and the chapter later tore the Inceptors chapter apart and stole all their stuff, pissing off all the other Ultramarines successors. They also may or may not have shot down a Grey Knight strike cruiser in order to take down a renegade Chapter they were supposed to destroy together. Essentially they've told both of Matt Ward's special snowflakes to go raw dog a plasma gun.

Needless to say, /tg/ thinks they're pretty cool (and they are still massive dicks).

Current Events

After Big Bobby G woke up from his 10,000 year power nap, he had many of the High Lords of Terra purged and retook his place as Lord Commander. The Minotaurs don't seem to have cared, since they joined in the Indomitus Crusade and got to fight the Thousand Sons. Guilliman is a High Lord, after all.

Later, the Death Guard directly besieged their space-borne Fortress-Monastery and poisoned their gene stocks beyond repair, so as of now they're racing towards Terra to restock their gene-vaults. While they're currently out of the fight, hopefully their trip to Terra will cause some revelations on their origins.

Chapter and Geneseed Confusion

There is a significant amount of DERP surrounding who their daddy is, how long they've been around, or if these are even all the same group of dicks. While there is not really another example of two chapters sharing the same name, even the sourcebooks point out that the Cursed Founding Minotaurs and the bronzy Minotaurs are so different that it's a possibility there are multiple chapters who have the same name. There isn't much of a question around only "a" Minotaurs chapter being made during the Cursed Founding in M36, the same books leaves it ambiguous by alluding to there having been different Minotaurs chapters (essentially keeping the ketchup-mustard-psycho Minotaurs canon alongside the "new" Minotaurs). Pulling things like having records of the "Minotaurs" being around as far back as back in M32 (tag teaming a bunch of Chaos-spark rebellions with some other Chapters, and noticably not just wiping their asses with the battle plans before bolting hell-for-leather into melee range), even tho psycho "Minotaurs" chapter is listed as M36 Cursed Founding; pointing out that "chimeric" geneseed Astartes (especially from the Cursed Founding) tend to be mentally/physically unstable, but the "new" Minotaurs are about as stable as you can get (the "old" Minotaurs tho....yeah); and highlighting the difference in behavior, look, and combat doctrines of the bronze colored Minotaurs compared to records of the yellow/red Minotaurs.

Given the yellow/red Minotaurs tendencies to absolutely annihilate whatever is in their way, completely forgo any sort of intel gathering or battle plans, and a psychotic need to just rage rush the enemy to get their stabby-stab on, it's certainly possible for them be successors to one (or more) of the more bloodthirsty legions such as the Blood Angels or World Eaters. A chimeric blend with another gene-line would certainly make sense with their Cursed Founding origins (and batshit insanity).

The bronze Minotaurs being the chimeric ones makes markedly less sense, since they are pretty much free of any mutations and have in fact one of the highest gene-seed acceptance rates of any Chapter. Given their "brooding, maligned, paranoid, and pragmantic" behaviors; obsessive and meticulous data-analysis; noted mastery of siege and attrition warfare (with a secondary preference for close range combat); and heavy ancient Greek theme, they are a near 1-1 match of the Iron Warriors. Their 5th/6th/7th edition chapter tactics are even the same as the 30k Iron Warriors Legiones Astartes rules. This makes sense, given their depiction in the Imperial Armour books basically being Iron Warriors with a bronze color scheme.

If the bronzy Minotaurs are Iron Warriors successors, it would go a long way in explaining why the High Lords keep their records well and far away from the Ordo Hereticus.

According to Eadwin Brown, one of the developers of the Badab War: The current incarnation of the Minotaurs was formed by a garrison of Iron Warriors who were allowed to rejoin the Imperium (but put on a short leash by the High Lords) back during the Great Scouring. The reason for their lack of/confusing history (including a different chapter getting the same name) being a mix of deliberate actions of the High Lords (who don't want to lose their personal pet Astartes) and the difficulty of the (pretty shit anyway) Administratium's record keeping.

Other Information

Terminator Sergeant Ixthalion of the Minotaurs in Tartaros pattern armor.

While the Minotaurs are strict followers of the Codex Astartes, they're almost never seen as small groups or even individual companies. Every time they're deployed its always been at full Chapter strength. Their incredible effectiveness just goes to prove the Codex is awesome at a Chapter level and above. It isn’t like Guilliman didn’t study his brothers’ tactics, too. They fight in only one war zone at a time with the entire chapter fighting together. This makes them essentially a massive fucking beatstick that the High Lords call upon when shit hits the fan. They also have an unusual preference for killing other Space Marines, which made them feel right at home during the Badab War. Given their fancy new gear, their borderline omnicidal tendencies, and always operating as a full chapter, it would seem that the job of the "Emperor's Executioners" no longer falls upon the Space Wolves (so the "High Lords' Executioners"?). They were probably created for fighting Chaos and renegade Marines and just sorta turned out pretty handy for forcing idiot Chapters into line.

To the High Lord’s credit, the Minotaurs seem to not be an abuse of power. The Chapters they beat up are let go if they flee or surrender early instead of digging in. Those that keep fighting are curbstomped, but not exterminated. And when they beat on Marines, it’s hard to argue that the receivers of said beating didn’t deserve it (save in very specific instances).

Unlike most Chapters, the Minotaurs appear to be able to replenish their numbers at an accelerated rate, to the point that they could recover from losses in a fraction of the time it would take other Chapters a century or two to fully recover from. This allows them to quickly rebuild their force to full Chapter strength, even after suffering what would normally be unsustainable causalities. Imperial observers during the Antigonis campaign theorized that this may have something to do with the heavy use of hypnotherapy and neuro-cerebral therapy used in the training of neophytes and frequently "refreshed" with the help of Apothecaries in the Chapter. This has proven to have some unpleasant side-effects- the Minotaurs are highly xenophobic and paranoid, even by the high standards of the Imperium.

There's also a good chance that they recruit from Terra itself thanks to their connections with the High Lords, giving them a massive recruit pool, as the Imperial Fists are also able to replenish losses equally fast thanks to having billions of potential candidates. This is mostly due to the Imperial Fists building recruitment posts on every world they rescue from invasion. Even then they request permission first as Dorn said he "...want recruits, not vassals". The Black Templars also do this and benefit greatly from this method. And since the Minotaurs gene-seed tithes are locked away nice and tight, no one is sure who their progenitors are.

Aside from the hideous old ketchup-and-mustard motherfuckers and the Greek muggers, there are also a pair of Chapters called the Brazen Minotaurs (looks like the Minotaurs wearing the Taurans' chapter badge) and White Minotaurs (looks like the Minotaurs but with a white Tauran bullhead badge). There isn't much fluff on them.

(In)famous Campaigns

• Solar Rebellion - The Chapter is listed among the Imperial Forces tasked with bulldozing a Chaos-sparked rebellion within the Segmentium Solar. The interesting part is, this was in M32...the Cursed Founding was in M36..
• Macharian Heresy - The Chapter is called to deal with the petty star empires created by the former generals of Lord Solar Macharius. They crush one after the other, following all of the High Lord's orders without question, and causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.
• Euxine Incident - The action that earned the Chapter their reputation. Still during the Macharian Heresy, the Inceptors Chapter got involved in a fight with the Doom Warriors. They were supposedly drinking buddies before-hand but their friendship was broken over matters of "honor". The Imperium, not wanting more bullshit, sent in the Minotaurs to beat some sense into them. The Minotaurs, in their usual style, hit both chapters at once. The Doom Warriors, having some sense gained from this initial strike, left the Euxine system. The Inceptors did not leave. Instead they dug in and fought the Minotaurs like men. They lost, and the 100 surviving Inceptors were forced to surrender at barrel point. After they surrendered, the Minotaurs robbed their relics, jacked Battle-Barge, and left. The Ultramarines, seeing at how one of their own second founding successors got treated like shit, declared that the Minotaurs were permabanned from Ultramar.
• Defense of Hermetica - The heavily-fortified capital of a sector located in the Segmentum Solar finds itself overwhelmed when the Word Bearers suddenly dropped from a warp rift in a motherfucking Space Hulk filled to the brim with Mutants. The Minotaurs are the first imperial force to respond: they track the Dark Apostle into the main cathedral, and decide to blast their way in with orbital bombardement and tanks regardless of civilian casualties. Asterion Moloc and his Terminators slaugther their way into the catacombs, but the Dark Apostle escapes before he can be dealt the killing blow.
• Badab War - You know this one: Lugft Huron declares independance from the High Lords of Terra, and a fuckton of chapters are sent his way to remind him why that is not a thing. The Minotaurs gained several important victories during this time, but would be more infamously remembered for the shit they did to the poor Lamenters. (The same thing they did to the Inceptors) Suffice to say, if anyone had any doubts on their behavior before, those doubts were quickly dispelled after that.
• Battle of Rynn's World - The Minotaurs saw action on Rynn's World during the attempt to reclaim the Crimson Fists' homeworld from the Orks. Surprisingly, they didn't attempt anything like scavenging he ruins of the Crimson Fists Fortress-Monastery.
• Harrowing of the Night Reapers The aforementionned Chapter had been sent on penitent crusade to the a dengerous backwater nebula as punishment for abandoning a Shrine World to the forces of Chaos. They went radio silent after a while, and steadly started to deviate from Codex doctrine, tactics, and equipment. Six years after last contact and many suspicious raids in the area, irrefutable proof of their attack on a Rogue Trader vessel earned them an Excommunicate Traitoris. Four companies of the Avenging Sons went after them, but that chapter can't do anything right and got ambushed by the Night Reapers, who captured one of their Star Cruisers and mauled another. They blamed their humilliating defeat on "Warp flame weapons" that bypassed Void shields, so the High Lords had to send someone who could actually get shit done: The Minotaurs and the Red Hunters. (now we're talking) The two Chapters fought the Night Reapers and their heretekal Xeno-tech across a dozen star systems until they cornered them at a pre-human space wreck so massive it had it's own athmosphere and ecosystem. The Night Reapers were searching for a weapon that they beleived would allow them to defeat the Imperials, when a Grey Knights ship showed up demanding all Imperial forces to pull back. The Minotaurs, naturally, didn't give a fuck and kept fighting. The Knights of Titan had to launch their teleport assault in the midst of the battle. Shortly after, something happened that caused everyone to get BTFO to kingdom come: Minotaurs, Night Reapers, and Grey Knights alike. Asterion Moloc was the only survivor.
• Orphean War - Karma finally starts catching up to the Chapter's douchebaggery when they have to face the Necrons of the Maynarkh Dynasty. They lose their stolen ships in the desperate assault against the necron fleet over Amarah Prime, and take many casualties that would be sorely felt later in their race back to Terra. Moloc almost dies again, this time by achieving a mutual KO against the Maynarkh Overlord.

Daily Rituals

04:00 Wake Up: The Minotaurs arise from their beds (each Minotaur has their own king-sized bed with luxury mattress and comforter). They make sure to beat up a dummy space marine before leaving.

05:00 Morning Prayer: The Minotaurs gather in the chapel to praise the Emperor. They also praise the High Lords of Terra. Any battle brother who prays to not have to kill other space marines is put in the "patience chamber".

06:00 Morning Firing Rituals: The Minotaurs pull live space marines from the "patience chamber" to practice firing upon. Any battle brother whose shot kills the space marine instantly is put into the "patience chamber".

08:00 Morning Battle Practice: The Minotaurs release captured prisoners within the "patience chamber." Imprisoned members include failed Minotaurs, rebellious Ultramarines (and successors), Lamenters, Marines Malevolent, Fallen, and Grey Knights. The victims participants are then forced to fight the entire chapter with substandard equipment.

10:00 Morning Tactical Indoctrination: The Minotaurs finish off the last of their prisoners and gather together in the Great Hall to discuss strategy. Common tactics involve marching right through enemy fire, throwing allied units into enemy fire THEN marching through whats left, missile strikes on engaged melee units, and techniques to kill other space marines. Any battle brother who points out the faults in these tactics is put in the "patience chamber" (any actual faults are noted for later tactical refinement).

11:00 Afternoon Prayer: The Minotaurs give thanks to the High Lords of Terra for allowing them to be such dicks. In a sacred ritual, each battle brother is required to kiss the butt of golden statues honoring the High Lords Of Terra. Any battle brother who claims this is gay is sent to the "patience chamber".

12:00 Afternoon Meal: The Minotaurs gather to feast upon fine meats and food provided by their besties: the High Lords. Serfs rush quickly to ensure that each marine is fed to his heart's content.

13:00 Afternoon Battle Practice: The Minotaurs descend to any number of worlds in order to hone their space marine killing skills. The Lamenters are the most frequent target, but Baal and Ultramar are also popular destinations. A number of the the targeted space marines are captured and put in the "patience chamber". The food stocks of enemy forces are taken for Evening Meal.

15:00 Afternoon Firing Rites: The Minotaurs practice shooting at cutouts for once. These cutouts are usually painted blue, yellow, or grey.

16:00 Enhanced Tactical Indoctrine: The Minotaurs learn how to most effectively teamkill each army in the Imperium. During this time, they also will use artillery and vehicle simulators in order to practice causing the most possible destruction upon space marines fortifications such as: driving tanks straight through walls and orbital strikes on Astartes medical station.

18:00 Evening Meal: The Minotaurs feast once again, devouring the food stocks taken during Afternoon Battle Practice, infront of the survivors of who they took it from. Any brother who feels guilty about this is sent to the "patience chamber".

17:00 Recruitment: Slaves Fresh recruits arrive from Terra. These are forced to either serve as serfs for the chapter, or begin the Minotaurs' forced reprogramming training process. Imperial Officials are ordered to turn a blind eye to this process, causing the Salamanders to RAGE.

20:00 Propaganda: The Minotaurs gather in the Great Hall to listen to the brilliant, enlightened, sophisticated, and productive conversations that the High Lords partake in. Any battle brother who dozes off or claims the High Lords are full of shit is sent to the "patience chamber".

22:00 Free time: The Minotaurs are granted free time. This mostly involves reading the excessive number of manuals on how to kill space marines, beating each other up as practice, and repainting wargear taken from other Chapters.

23:00 Bed Time: The Minotaurs retire to their quarters for the evening. Before falling asleep, they beat up the space marine dummy again.

Tabletop

Chapter Approved

When the first Minotaurs were introduced as one of the Cursed Founding chapters, for +10 points per model, or +20 per dreadnought (on top of the regular costs) you could give your entire army Fearless and +1 Attack though they had to move towards and assault the nearest enemy they could (even if they had no chance of hurting it) and had to sweep advance, but nobody did it because painting them WAS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE. Both because they had the most annoying colour scheme (worse than the quarter ones like the Howling Griffons) and because their colours made them look fucking ugly.

5th Edition/Imperial Armour

Their revamped rules from the Imperial Armour books essentially make them play as 40k version Heresy-Era Iron Warriors, being all about Siege Siege Siege!

7th Edition

With the updates they got their own Chapter Tactics. Minotaurs Chapter Tactics models don't take morale checks from shooting attacks, and can re-roll failed pinning tests. In addition they have crusader USR, and +1 to charge distance when in the enemy deployment zone. Overall one of the worst Chapter Tactics. Crusader certainly is nice to have, but ATSKNF makes re-rolling pinning and no morale checks from shooting pretty redundant. If you're gonna play Minotaurs you're gonna have to bring Moloc, who is a fucking monster in CC while gaining a VP per character executed in a challenge and giving your guys Prefered Enemy (Space Marines). So if you didn't get the memo, Minotaurs are meant to be run with Moloc as your Warlord against other Space Marine armies. If a friend of yours is running a really annoying Space Marine army, especially if he has Smashfucker, sic these guys on him and watch him cry.

8th Edition

How 8th Edition treated Forge World chapters is an issue of intense debate. Sure, you can choose whatever tactic you want, but it still feels like an afterthought on the part of Games Workshop. That aside, Moloc and Aiakos came out of the update relatively unscathed, still being hard nuts to crack and very lethal overall, but with loss of initiative, and Moloc has lost the main thing he was taken for - the godsent army-wide Preferred enemy: Space Marines. Instead he can "do the wulfen" now. Ivanus, however, has lost all of his utility and is just an overpriced Chaplain with attacks and wounds of a captain, and no longer gains an extra attack from having two specialist weapons. Kraatos also no longer exists as of the FAQ, with Forge World telling you to just use him as a regular devastator marine. ROC pattern Storm Eagle still rocks though.

Gallery

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  Their original scheme, just try and paint an entire Chapter of them.

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  Stylized red markings are used to identify Veteran Squads...

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  ...And sergeants