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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Marines gained ATSKNF right after the HH was resolved, because Codex Astartes introduced the hypnotic indoctrination.

But the hypnotic indoctrination has been proven time and time in the fluff not to work!

 Wyzilla wrote:
You still have not provided evidence, meaning your entire point is voided.

What exactly do you want me to provide you with evidence of? I can only provide dozens of examples of marines falling to chaos for specious reasons. Sorry, that is all I can do. Can you show me many examples of them resisting to a lot of stress to turn to Chaos? Because else, my side is much more supported by the fluff than yours: Marines fall to Chaos super-easily.

Please stop.
You are constantly derailing this thread. It's not about it's effectiveness, it's about why/how/when it was introduced.

And it was introduced as a part of the Codex Astartes. And it seems to have worked, since there hasn't been another Horus Heresy.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Marines gained ATSKNF right after the HH was resolved, because Codex Astartes introduced the hypnotic indoctrination.

But the hypnotic indoctrination has been proven time and time in the fluff not to work!

 Wyzilla wrote:
You still have not provided evidence, meaning your entire point is voided.

What exactly do you want me to provide you with evidence of? I can only provide dozens of examples of marines falling to chaos for specious reasons. Sorry, that is all I can do. Can you show me many examples of them resisting to a lot of stress to turn to Chaos? Because else, my side is much more supported by the fluff than yours: Marines fall to Chaos super-easily.

Please stop.
You are constantly derailing this thread. It's not about it's effectiveness, it's about why/how/when it was introduced.

It was introduced:

To prevent another Heresy.
By hypno-indoctrination and discipline.
After the Heresy around the second founding.

/thread....


....unless you want to talk about other things now?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
ATSKNF isn't about fearlessness. It's about discipline. The traitor legions don't have loyalist discipline. If they did, they wouldn't have gone turncoat.

Sisters have the marines discipline and then some more.

Sororitas have faith, not discipline. They have Acts of Faith and some other assorted goodies instead of ATSKNF.

 j31c3n wrote:
Sororitas have faith, not discipline.

They have faith and discipline. Have you read anything about them? The smallest disobedience is extremely harshly punished.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
Sororitas have faith, not discipline.

They have faith and discipline. Have you read anything about them? The smallest disobedience is extremely harshly punished.

Well, then why don't they have ATSKNF?

Because GW don't like SoB, as evident by their old metal models and digital only codex.

As someone said earlier, every other army has the short straw compared to the attention GW gives the Loyalist Marine factions (well, besides DA...) and Craftworld Eldar (who even then don't get the same amount of attention), it just so happens that CSMs ans SoB drew the shortest ones...

Okay, it's beyond argument that the Sisters are the most neglected faction... but Chaos? Please. They're the primary antagonist of the story. There's an entire wheelbarrow full of novels about the time Chaos and the Imperium duked it out over Terra. Maybe you've heard of it, it's called something like "the Horrace Heiress" or something. I dunno, it's pretty obscure.

Ultimately, ATSKNF is not a fluffy thing. It's a game mechanic thing. That's the inherent problem with this whole thread.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Ultimately, ATSKNF is not a fluffy thing. It's a game mechanic thing. That's the inherent problem with this whole thread.

Regarding game mechanics, it would certainly be interesting to see VotLW buffed a bit in the next release to be "on par" with ATSKNF. I'd love to see the Sisters get something similar as well (the only thing that's stopped me from building a Sororitas force is the lack of Astartes-style multi-part plastic kits - I love taking the time to individually model all of my minis).

But regardless, I think ATSKNF represents the discipline and singleminded purpose of the Astartes. Chaos Marines don't have that laser focus on duty, and Sororitas, while certainly discipined, have other purposes besides simply serving as the Emperor's angels of death.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Because Sisters are still just regular humans, taught in a school by psychotic nuns. They're not hypno-conditioned, biologically altered post-humans.

The marines are hypno-conditioned, biologically altered post-humans. As a result, they turn to Chaos at the slightest breeze, unlike Sisters. And then, they loose ATSKNF. Makes sense? Not to me.

Sure, if a "stiff breeze" means a failure rate around 1% according to the lore, sure.

The biggest chunk of Marines turning to Chaos came after some guy in a giant pope hat sent them into the Eye of Terror, and that's just over half the total number of Chapters that have turned renegade in 10,000 years.

In the end, turns out that decades of hypno-therapy works better than prayar beads and lashings. but that's kind of the whole point of the Ecclesiarchy. That it's all a big lie. An institution that is riddled with corruption and agendas and oppression. When their morale breaks, the Sisters have seen the big lie and realize all the Hail Empys in the galaxy won't save them.

Space Marines can break. Hence why there are Chaos Marines. The bar is just higher, and the results more drastic. When a Sister of Battle breaks, the threshhold is much lower, so they just give her a ball gag, a Leeloo outfit and a giant chainsaw.


And no, the Acts of Faith are the cleric powers. I know not which book you speak of, though if it's from FFG's mediocre 40KRPG series, I'm probably not familiar. The Sisters used to have the power to get really angry and hate everybody. Now they have the power to make bullets hurt more or go through walls, or they gain the power to run faster. Rites of Battle were cool and fluffy rules for implacable religious fanatics. Acts of Faith are just D&D Cleric powers, or worse, MMORPG party buffs, lol.

@j31c3n

Sororitas have the rule stubborn and high leadership score to represent their iron discipline. Chaos Space Marines have the option for increase leadership that gives them squad leader with Ld 10 and hatred to represent their ferocious and cold hearted nature. In designing a game, one must at least make minimal effort for everyone to be a bit special. And They Shall Know No Fear is a loyalist Space Marine trademark. Fluff wise, it's generaly accepted that this represent the greater discipline, faith and sense of sacrifice of the already supernaturaly brave Space Marines compare to their fallen brothers who despite their courage lack the sense of selflessness necessary to truly know no fear.

Game wise, Space Marines are the poster boys of GW, it's most valuable asset and their greatest selling brands. That's why they have such a large collection of models of great quality, so many special characters and usually rather good rules updated regularly. They are also supposed to be very beginner friendly that's why they come off has Jack of all trades and masters of none and are very forgiving when it comes to mistake. They also provide great benefit for costumisation. Chaos Marines are more of a subfaction of Space Marines than an army of their own. They may continue to evolve into their own unique army like they are doing now, And They Shall Know No Fear, is a clever rule to make an elite army with few models more forgiving without being completly unfair. Plus, it gives a sentation of power and awesomeness much better than the selling pitch for let say Sisters of Battle who, in my opinion, probably have the worst one.

@Veteran Sergeant

1% of a million represent 10 000 marines. If that number is true it's 9999 more marines that turned to Chaos vs Sisters of Batlle (officially) and if we count the Horus Heresy (and we should) that turn into around 50% of all marines. Repentia haven't lost their faith in the Emperor at all. They even are more zealous than your average Sister. It's also a self imposed punishment in most cases and a concequences for failure or disobediance in the other, not heresy, blasphemy or trahison. The punishment for that is death, or transformation in a servitor just like for Marines. The ritual for a Siser to become a repentia involve that specific sister renouncing her life, title, rank, name and sense of self to atone of her sins. Space Marines also have their equivalent of repentia: the censor (a marine who has lost his honor and must fight in the worst combat to regain it). I think you need to see this once and for all. Space Marines are very loyal and strong willed much more than most humen, but not has much has the Sisters of Battle. It's the whole point of the Adeptus Astartes. They are giant superhment warriors with apparently no weakness expect their pride, tribalism, isolationism, egoism, lust for power and reconnaissance not counting their own specific brand of obscurantism. They are like their Primarchs, invicible in appereance but full of holes where you can strike if you want them to join you. Chaos Space Marines aren't usually broken marines most of the time they are like Constantinus. Frustrated, self-centered, brutal warriors who can't recognise their own failure or respect their orders and think they deserve more because they are Space Marines.

@j31c3n

Exactly, and because they are the primary antagonist, GW neglects them (not BL, GW main) so that Loyalists look much better.

Seriously, rules-wise CSMs get dumped on, and all the good fluff is just the Heresy, the rest is "hey, here's a paragraph on the original legions, a paragraph for some of the less-obscures monogod warbands, and hey, Abysal Crusades! (..which ends with the remaining Loyalists from the crusade as being heroes by killing a corrupt saint. Heroes... in the Chaos codex... ) See, these loyalists turned traitor! Ooh, and look, 4 pages on a CSM timeline! (one of which is about the time some Sergeant denounced the Imperium and was shot for the trouble by an assassin)" .

Compared to C: SM where a few pages are left aside for the making of marines and heraldry, then the rest of the fluff pages are for the main chapters and how awesome they are (each getting more than a paragraph about them) and then having pages upon pages of times marines won battles and f'ed the other races up.



@Sergeant

which lore states only 1% have turned to Chaos? You mean the fact that a Lexicanum article only has ~80-90 warbands listed? Well, if that's the reason then only 250 Loyalists exists, as that's how many are in the Loyalist Chapter list on the same site.

And when you have chaos warbands that are the size of the original legions, when they started off as just 1/5 of a whole SM chapter (Red Corsairs), there's more than you might think.

There's more than you think, I believe; at least 10 Legions-Worth of marines, plus ~ 50 Chapters worth (while 80 are in the list, I'm guessing most weren't whole chapters).

100 000 (average legion size, since I'm included all the warbands from the original legions) *10 (No. of Legions + Red Corsairs) = 1000000... before we add the remaining ~80 warbands from the article 1000^2 = 1000000, so there's a similar number of SMs and CSMs if we only include RCs and the Legions.

Considering everyone loves to point out most of the marines in the legions aren't the original marines, that means a lot of 'loyalist' marines have gone traitor to fill their ranks.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Exactly, and because they are the primary antagonist, GW neglects them (not BL, GW main) so that Loyalists look much better.

The crux of your argument seems to be "Chaos Marines have less fluff than Loyalist Marines."

That is undeniably true.

However, that doesn't make Chaos Space Marines as underrepresented as Sisters of Battle. They are just as underrepresented as every other faction besides the Sisters, who are at the bottom of the barrel. I think this is pretty woeful, but that's just the way it is. I, too, would love to see more stories exploring everyone BUT the Astartes. A "hero" is only as interesting as its "villains," as the old saw goes.

I don't think Chaos really gets "dumped on" from a mechanical perspective. They just suffer from unfortunate design errors. I honestly doubt the intention was to fill their codex with bad units. That doesn't make any sense from a sales perspective. If you design a crap unit, nobody will buy the kit. That's the whole point of GW: buy new kits.

I wish all the Codices were as big and interesting and (relatively) balanced as C:SM.

I suppose I'm just really annoyed that one of my favourite armies isn't really as awesome on the tabletop or (41st Millenium) background as it should be...

And yes, it would be awesome if every faction recieved the same attention as C: SM, which honestly is the way it should be. Hands down it is the best codex GW has made.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I suppose I'm just really annoyed that one of my favourite armies isn't really as awesome on the tabletop as it should be...

And yes, it would be awesome if every faction recieved the same attention as C: SM, which honestly is the way it should be. Hands down it is the best codex GW has made.

In my local gaming group, I am notorious for pointing out and complaining about (what I think are) minor mechanical flaws and design errors. The latest C:SM is the recordholder for "least complaints" from me - only one. I still miss the trait tables from 4th edition. :(

Buuuuut anyways. I still contend that fluffwise, ATSKNF represents the duty and focus instilled in a Marine by their daily devotions and adherence to the Codex Astartes (even the non-Codex chapters like the Space Wolves and the Black Templars would be pretty idiotic to not at least consult the book from time to time for tactical or spiritual advice) and/or that chapter's equivalent tradition.

Marines lose ATSKNF when they defect because they are no longer limited to that austere and spartan lifestyle. Their newfound freedom blunts their focus and adherence to duty.

@j31c3n

I think there is very few debate about your last statement. The only thing left really to determine is what is the greatest source of inspiration that Space Marines have and their traitors counterparts don't.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Ultimately, ATSKNF is not a fluffy thing. It's a game mechanic thing. That's the inherent problem with this whole thread.

Very close.

ATSKNF is only 10% fluff IMHO.

It has a quote and the emperor in this, so assumptions are made it is pre-heresy.
Maybe.
The Legions of Imperial Space Marines weren't meant to run away too easy. Because military disclipline.
The Adeptus Astartes was the Thunder Warrior replacement. So if fearless crazed berserkers was not the goal set in Big E's mind....its all about controlled violence.

He didn't create 20 identical copies of 1 template either. But in M40, loyalists generally have ATSKNF. One could think it is a in-game-mechanic to represent the MO of the loyalists.
CSM aren't ISM anymore. Different army - different rules and playstyle.

epronovost wrote:
@j31c3n

I think there is very few debate about your last statement. The only thing left really to determine is what is the greatest source of inspiration that Space Marines have and their traitors counterparts don't.

It must be Land Speeders.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Sure, if a "stiff breeze" means a failure rate around 1% according to the lore, sure.

I think a source has already been asked .

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
In the end, turns out that decades of hypno-therapy works better than prayar beads and lashings.

Obviously, no. That is why there is no “Chaos Sisters of Battle” codex. Or models in another codex. Or mentions in the fluff. Or…

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
When their morale breaks, the Sisters have seen the big lie and realize all the Hail Empys in the galaxy won't save them.

Uh, any reference to that in the fluff? Because there are none. And certainly not the Repentia, which explicitly believe the Emperor can save them and they can be redeemed, up to becoming a living saint.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Space Marines can break. Hence why there are Chaos Marines. The bar is just higher, and the results more drastic. When a Sister of Battle breaks, the threshhold is much lower, so they just give her a ball gag, a Leeloo outfit and a giant chainsaw.

When a marine breaks, he starts fighting for the worse threat to humanity, and their previous sworn enemy. When a sister “breaks”, she fights even harder for her previous ideal. Yeah, that is indeed quite different .

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
And no, the Acts of Faith are the cleric powers.

The acts of faith are them fighting harder because of their zeal. Except for Celestine. But I would hardly call that “cleric powers”.

I think Living Saints are magical girls. And that is awesome.

 j31c3n wrote:

Marines lose ATSKNF when they defect because they are no longer limited to that austere and spartan lifestyle. Their newfound freedom blunts their focus and adherence to duty.

Why do Space Wolves have ATSKNF?

They seem pretty free, non-spartan, non-austere and unfocused to me.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

Marines lose ATSKNF when they defect because they are no longer limited to that austere and spartan lifestyle. Their newfound freedom blunts their focus and adherence to duty.

Why do Space Wolves have ATSKNF?

They seem pretty free, non-spartan, non-austere and unfocused to me.

Space Wolves are "free" in the same sense that Salamanders are. Both chapters are "free" to leave the monastery and consort with the community.

Space Wolves are also very individualistic and enjoy going against Imperial authority whenever possible (in fact, they are notorious for their disrespect for authority).

That does not sound like that soulless brainwashed ATSKNF people are talking about.

I've never mentioned brainwashing in my explanations. I never liked the idea of brainwashed Space Marines (except for the REALLY CRAZY chapters like Minotaurs). My personal snowflake chapter doesn't use it.

I think ATSKNF is less about psycho-conditioning and brainwashing and more about stuff like daily rituals and the general monastic lifestyle of Space Marines. Even the "aberrant" chapters like Space Wolves or Dark Angels or Black Templars still have that monkish flavor, in my opinion.

Sororitas have a similarly cloistered lifestyle, but I think that is manifested in crunch terms as Acts of Faith, due to the religious nature of their devotion, whereas the Astartes are generally areligious.

Astartes are highly religious, they just don't subscribe to the Imperial Cult, preferring their own chapter cults.

As far as the Space Wolves go, I'm afraid you're wrong. They spend their down time sitting around drinking mjod and telling fishermans' stories around wood fires... according to every Space Wolf novel ever published.

By contrast, the Sisters lead a strictly regimented life of prayer, self-denial, penitence rituals and weapons training. The weapons training is also prayer, by the way, and sometimes penitence as well.

Acts of Faith are the Sisters' mechanical equivalent to ATSKNF and Chapter Tactics, true. That doesn't really change the fact that if ATSKNF was really a result of a strict monastic lifestyle, the Sororitas would get it... and if it was really the result of heavy indoctrination and genemods, the CSM would get it...

I guess it must be a random artifact of combining both in a single entity.

Maybe Space Wolves get it from devotion to drink, women, and WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF.

And they will wolf no wolf.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
And they will wolf no wolf.

Exalted.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Astartes are highly religious, they just don't subscribe to the Imperial Cult, preferring their own chapter cults.

I thought the latest fluff stated that only an extreme minority of SM chapters (maybe just the Black Templars) religiously worshiped the Emperor?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
@j31c3n

Exactly, and because they are the primary antagonist, GW neglects them (not BL, GW main) so that Loyalists look much better.

Seriously, rules-wise CSMs get dumped on, and all the good fluff is just the Heresy, the rest is "hey, here's a paragraph on the original legions, a paragraph for some of the less-obscures monogod warbands, and hey, Abysal Crusades! (..which ends with the remaining Loyalists from the crusade as being heroes by killing a corrupt saint. Heroes... in the Chaos codex... ) See, these loyalists turned traitor! Ooh, and look, 4 pages on a CSM timeline! (one of which is about the time some Sergeant denounced the Imperium and was shot for the trouble by an assassin)" .

Compared to C: SM where a few pages are left aside for the making of marines and heraldry, then the rest of the fluff pages are for the main chapters and how awesome they are (each getting more than a paragraph about them) and then having pages upon pages of times marines won battles and f'ed the other races up.



@Sergeant

which lore states only 1% have turned to Chaos? You mean the fact that a Lexicanum article only has ~80-90 warbands listed? Well, if that's the reason then only 250 Loyalists exists, as that's how many are in the Loyalist Chapter list on the same site.

And when you have chaos warbands that are the size of the original legions, when they started off as just 1/5 of a whole SM chapter (Red Corsairs), there's more than you might think.

There's more than you think, I believe; at least 10 Legions-Worth of marines, plus ~ 50 Chapters worth (while 80 are in the list, I'm guessing most weren't whole chapters).

100 000 (average legion size, since I'm included all the warbands from the original legions) *10 (No. of Legions + Red Corsairs) = 1000000... before we add the remaining ~80 warbands from the article 1000^2 = 1000000, so there's a similar number of SMs and CSMs if we only include RCs and the Legions.

Considering everyone loves to point out most of the marines in the legions aren't the original marines, that means a lot of 'loyalist' marines have gone traitor to fill their ranks.

The lexicanum lists 250 known Chapters out of the total 1,000 Chapters. However, we only know that there are around 91 individual Chaos Space Marine Warbands, total, across the entire ten millennia. We don't have a total number of Warbands, and thus it can only be concluded that there are 91 Warbands over the entire course of ten millennia to the best of our knowledge.

 Wyzilla wrote:
The lexicanum lists 250 known Chapters out of the total 1,000 Chapters. However, we only know that there are around 91 individual Chaos Space Marine Warbands, total, across the entire ten millennia. We don't have a total number of Warbands, and thus it can only be concluded that there are 91 Warbands over the entire course of ten millennia to the best of our knowledge.

Keep in mind as well, a warband isn't necessarily comparable in size to a chapter. Could be larger or smaller. In my opinion, smaller is more likely, in general. Though I think the Red Corsairs are supposed to be "legion sized."