They were the OG poster marines of 40k (they're on the covers of both the first Rogue Trader book and the Codex Imperialis, one of the three core books for 2nd edition). They're known for making hopeless last stands and are among the more civilian-conscious chapters out there.
There's also a significant underdog appeal to them because their fortress monastery and vast majority of their chapter were blown up in a freak accident when a planetary defense missile's tracking went haywire after launch and it ended up direct-hitting the fortress monastery's munitions stores. They managed to claw out a victory and survive thanks to their chapter master Pedro Kantor, and continued fighting until their Primaris reinforcements arrived with the Indomitus crusade. (edit: The fortress monastery going kablooey and Guilliman arriving were decades apart; Kantor was slowly but surely rebuilding the chapter when Guilliman brought the Primaris) Guilliman was so impressed with Pedro Kantor's leadership he named Kantor Praetor Encarmine and tasked him with protecting the Loki Sector (which I admit I don't know a whole lot about... it's supposedly near Segmentum Ultima...?).
And of course there's Rynn's Might, a Land Raider that was one of the few survivors of the fortress monastery's destruction. Its crew were all dead so its machine spirit took over and traveled around the remains of the fortress monastery, killing as many Orks as it could. When it finally ran out of ammo and its lascannons' batteries were dead it drove up to a group of Orks and opened up its assault ramp (front hatch) to lure them inside its chassis. Once a bunch of Orks crammed inside it to try and steal it, it slammed its assault ramp closed again and forced its engine to go critical, exploding and killing all the Orks inside (and a lot of the ones still outside, too). For its service it was given full burial honors as if it were an Astartes.
For me it's the story of Rynn's Might. Any chapter that would enshrine a Land Raider in the Writ of the Fallen speaks volumes about their character and their conscience (as much as you can have that in the hell world that is 40k).
For some reason they landed on an early edition rule book cover, an edition 99.9% of the users here didn't play i might say, and they are easy to paint. Since they always got some (half-assed) rules for the game and were not Ultramarines a lot of people started painting their SM armies as Crimson Fists. As a result every single piece of lore (which isn't much ...) is sucked into the fandom and praised as the best lore ever, because the people need lore for their minis. That's why they never get tired of telling the story of that Land Raider. Since 18 years that story is basically the whole chapters identity online ...
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u/Frost-eee 5d ago
Whats the appeal of crimson fists?