Games Workshop - not to be relied upon

Like many other 40Kers I have spent the last few days pouring over the new Space Marine codex. One of the things that got changed is that all Space Marines now have Chapter Tactics (flavor of your choice). So for example, if you want to play Salamander flavor, you get some benefits with flame attacks and some master-crafting. If you are White Scar flavored, you get better on bikes, etc. If you want to know specifically, you can look at the book.

Now, for whatever other reason, I have never felt any attachment to Ultramarines or Imperial Fists (including their descendants). I just don't want to play them though both armies look great when painted and laid out on a table-top. I prefer trying to find the lesser path to such an extent that if an army or build I play suddenly gets popular, I tend to drop it. As you may have noticed, I play (up until this point anyway) White Templars and Disciples of Caliban (and Dark Eldar), all partly because they just are not popular enough to be seen on the table top.

I also seem to have a strong aversion to "doing it wrong". Thus, if I were to play, for example, the Imperial Fists, I'd work very hard to get their color and their markings as accurate as I can. When things aren't right, it bothers me like an itch on the bottom of your foot that you can't scratch. Case in point: my Disciples of Caliban use Snot Green instead of Dark Angel Green because I like the higher contrast, yet at the same time it bugs the hell out of me and I am always apologizing for it. At least this was in my control.

Anyway, one reason I chose to make my "vanilla" marines White Templars aside from the fact that you don't see many and you also don't see many marines painted in mostly white, was because they were a chapter without a declared descent. In my mental fluff for them, I had their gene-seed pulled from another chapter with no named parentage and left it at that. I don't run special characters so they were solidly vanilla... until the new Codex. Now they have to pick a tactics flavor, which I somewhat resent.

So I look at the tactics stuff: I discard Ultramarines out of hand. No reason other than it is the Ultramarines. This may be illogical of me. I also discard the Imperial Fists. Partly this is because they are THE Imperial Fists and partly because their tactic looks like one a lot of people will go for and I like the road less traveled. The White Scars stuff is cool, but I have a bike army on the Dark Angel side and I want to keep this army with a different flavor. I also reject the Black Templars because I got tired long ago of having people assume that as White Templars, we must be descended from Black Templars. I like the Salamanders stuff, but the Salamanders and I divorced when GW decided they were drow elves in power armor. Still, that list is tempting because there is a lot of stuff I really like about the Salamanders fluff-wise, even if I'm not into flamer tactics. I looked at my White Templar fluff notes and decide the fit is really not there for the Iron Hand. I'm not into weak flesh and bionics (and I suspect the Iron Hand tactics will be chosen by many people based on the effect). That leaves me with the Raven Guard. I've never been into assault based armies much, but with everyone disparaging assault in 6th Ed., the contrarian in me is itching to give that a go. I'm leaning towards Raven Guard tactics.

So A day or two into this process, I'm noodling around the Interwebs and I discover (via Lexicanum I think) that the White Templars are listed as an Imperial Fist successor. Apparently, GW published a novel last year called Legion of the Damned in which in chapter 3, page 80, it apparently says the White Templars are descended from Dorn. This really pisses me off, so I go look at my new Codex and find an explicit statement (just over a year after the novel) that the White Templars are one of those chapters who goes to great lengths to hide who they are descended from. (To the extent that makes sense when so many chapters have visible genetic traits such as looking like drow.) So... which is correct? Are the Templars descentants of the Imperial Fists or are they undecided? GW isn't that big of a company so it's not like they could not keep track of what they've published. Are they just too lazy to do so? Why have fluff at all if you treat it like it doesn't matter? Is it that hard for them to keep a 40k "Bible"?

Regardless, I don't want to be a Son of Dorn, nor do I want to "do it wrong." So I may be chapter shopping again. I guess it is a good thing that I did not spend more than oh all of last year painting my extremely expensive little plastic men. If I do opt to change, it will probably not be to a chapter that GW has ever named because I simply cannot rely on them to be consistent. I do have a list of potential chapter names that I am going to be pulling out though. I'm tempted to say they are Black Guard because a lot of the body of those guys is white. Of course, if I do that then I'll be suceptable to GW changing their mind again in 15 months and deciding the Blakc Guard is all purple. It might be best to pick something that is all white and simply black out my pauldrons and put on new insignia. The only hard parts will be the interior shoulders of the Land Speeder crews. Even better do a complete DIY chapter. It still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth though. I feel like GW just threw my last year and a half worth of painting and modeling work out the window. the last time they did that, I stopped playing for eight years.

This also has got me thinking I'll make what I've been calling the "Disciples of Caliban" into a DIY Dark Angel chapter just so GW can't do this to them.

So, I realize that I'm over-reacting here, and that's because I'm ticked off. Still, I'm curious what the Internet world thinks:

• Which fluff is the more correct fluff? The book that says the White Templars are Dorn's get, or the 'Dex that says the White Templars are undetermined?
• Should I get while the getting's good? In other words, before I paint another White Templar or Disciple, change their markings and exit stage left into pure DIY land?
• How wrong would it be to have White Templars be Corax's descendants? (Especially since this is a VISIBLY obvious descent.)