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I know it's possible for them to initiate new recruits as heretic Astartes, but without the resources of the IOM is it really possible for them to create the same numbers as Loyalist chapters?
I mean all this recruiting criminals/scum from hive worlds and turning them into Chaos Marines, that can't be more efficient than the IOM's mass-production (ish) of marines, can it?
Also, possibly stupid question that seems like it's probably been done to death before, but how many traitor marines are there left? Can't be many now.
I always imagine them less as warriors, more like inspiring zeal in other heretics and generally respected amongst the forces of chaos.

Chaos works in mysterious ways....to generate more marines
1. Converts and Renegades
2. Stealing geeneseed and using that
3. The Iron Warriors tried some weird cloning stuff once
4. Magic of time travel

Lightcavalier wrote:Chaos works in mysterious ways....to generate more marines
1. Converts and Renegades
2. Stealing geeneseed and using that
3. The Iron Warriors tried some weird cloning stuff once
4. Magic of time travel

Was it not the emperors children and fabius bile that were responsible for the cloning? Assuming your talking about the cloning of glorious Lupercal

But no tit for tat CSM can not numerically keep up with the IOM's production rate but they have the benefit of countless daemons and heretucs to back them up

Well by the Heresy Series, the Alpha Legion can create as many Marines as they like after a certain incident with another legion...

Even the Black Legion lacks the resources to create a force comparable to the loyalist Astartes. The Black Legion is described as being 10 times larger then the #2, Word Bearers, and at max I put the Blackies at ~50,000 total.

I doubt they have the resources to match the Adeptus Astartes marine for marine, but CSM are more experienced warriors across the board than the majority of the current Astartes Chapters, since they're usually veterans of older chapters. Newer chapters will have had marines fall to Chaos, but a lot of the current Chaos Marines have underwear older than some Astartes chapters.

Well aren't the bulk of the CSM older (as in thousands of years) members of the Legions, meaning there are are more or less than 10,000 marines?

Also have to remeber that the CSM Lords are blessed with Chaotic goodness!!! Making them tougher then the norm SM leaders and whatever advantages come along with those mutations!!

Chaos marines also have the benfit of experience. Due to living in the Eye of Terror they live much longer lives than your average Marine.

Plus they access to Daemonic tech and sorcerery that Marines shy away from.

"What's that? Us chaos marines cant have a Thunderfire cannon? Oh Noes!!!! Oh look, Obliterators."

I believe I picked up somewhere (DoW2 perhaps), that they can be brought back to life as well.

i think, fluff wise, if the Chaos gods find them useful or entertaingin enough they have been known to bring them back to life (Kharn springs to mind) or even make them immortal (Demon Prince or Lucius for example).

Thousand Sons get resealed into their armour after they "die".

Most traitor warbands still harvest geneseed from their fallen, and the logical implication is that they're planning to use it for its intended purpose, even it's not going to happen immediately. Some go so far as to harvest their enemies' geneseed.

The even more ambitious warlords (i.e Huron or Honsou) can even stage raids against Imperial forces to secure further geneseed.

As for suitable candidates, there are mentions of raids specifically targeted towards young males or pregnant women. Plus, there's bound to be no shortage of volunteers... After all, for a young child, being transformed into a marine is probably the best way to get out of the nightmarish existence of slavery to Traitor Astartes...

IGdude354 wrote:Well aren't the bulk of the CSM older (as in thousands of years) members of the Legions, meaning there are are more or less than 10,000 marines?

They've also been fighting for centuries.
Attrition rate of 0.1% a year over 10,000 years gives us 4.5 alive by the 41st Millenium.

Thousand Sons just summon and bind the spirits of lost warriors into new suits of armour, so they can replace their losses as fast as they can forge new armour.

Joey wrote:

IGdude354 wrote:Well aren't the bulk of the CSM older (as in thousands of years) members of the Legions, meaning there are are more or less than 10,000 marines?

They've also been fighting for centuries.
Attrition rate of 0.1% a year over 10,000 years gives us 4.5 alive by the 41st Millenium.

Bearing in mind that it is possible for the gods to revive them, that reduces the attrition rate significantly (possibly to zero unless Khorne just didn't like Marine Bob very much.

Anyway, there is already a guaranteedly considerable amount greater than 4.5 left alive. There's six heresy era characters.

Has the forces of chaos(as in manipulation by chaos god and/or magics) ever played a role in helping increase the ranks of their warband representatives or increasing the chances of the process to create astartes?

The very nature of chaos, corruption , decreases the chances of the process to create new legionaires.
The moment one sides with chaos the road to damnation and ruin is tread on.
Those exposed to chaos become corrupted and twisted , their descendants rather mutants than humans.
Chaos doesn't care to grow a line of successors, they just find another victim to lure into their service.
The 'forces of chaos' may keep their favorite playthings 'alive' but they won't help anyone to expand the ranks of his warband with mortal or in this case enhanced now possibly immortal teammates. At best they offer their demonic minions as temporary support.

1hadhq wrote:1.The very nature of chaos, corruption , decreases the chances of the process to create new legionaires.

2.Those exposed to chaos become corrupted and twisted , their descendants rather mutants than humans.

1. Legionaires come from the time of the Great Crusade, when there was no ritual involved in the creation of space marines and when there was a massive scale operation involved in creating new marines. Due to this it is massively unlikely that any chaos legionaire, bar the newest recruit would have mature progeniod glands within them. This is why new chaos marines are either turned or are created from geneseed stock stolen from vaults, both of which are limited.
2. As space marines (chaos or otherwise) are niether human or can breed, the point does not matter. Chaos marines whould use corrupted genestock to make grotesque shock troopers but for actual marines they use the above methods, most of the time going through Fabius Bile.

I apologise for my niavety but where is this number of 10,000 traitor legionaires coming from. As far as I know there wasn't 90% losses after the Siege of Terra...

Every Space Marine Legion had 10,000 space marines??
Meaning that there were 100,000 Traitor Legionnaires
Yes many would have died but with the constant stream of discontent marines and millions of cultists and demons I would hardly say they had any problems with numbers...

Against the entire Imperium though with the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Sororitas and Adeptus Custodes they may be a bit pushed but with they're millenia of experience and innumerable demons and cultists then numbers are not much of a problem but the majority would only be cannon fodder

Just to point this out... but when the Chaos Marines went into the Eye of Terror they brought with them 1/2 of the Adeptus Mechanicus and significant number of captured factory ships that had been used to support the moving front lines of the Great Crusades. So they do have tech, its just the Dark Mechanicum aren't necessarily as cooperative.

The Eye of Terror is actually home to a Forge World that's churning out stuff even more advanced then the Imperium, as the Dark Mechanicus aren't limited by dogma.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Xana_II#.T6gxTsUiyG4

This is more or less the Wallmart of every Chaos Lord. Chaos weaponry that's been developed since the Heresy (aircraft in particular) originate from Xana II. I imagine Planetkiller was designed there as well.

Yeah, and that's not the only Forge World in the Eye of Terror (though its probably the largest).

I'd guess the real limitation to what tech a chaos lord can get and how much they have is a matter of how much they have to trade with the dark mechanic um.

I don't even think that would be a limitation, personally.

It would be more likely that the Dark Mechanicus would give some of their crazier tech away just to see if it works.

Cloning, the ability of random cultists to take power armor as spoils of war and be mutated into Chaos Marines by the Dark Gods, maybe some of them have contracts with Dark Eldar Haemonculi that they be regrown when killed? Who knows? Maybe the Chaos Gods have a blanket resurrection policy on Chaos Marines because they think it'd be funny.

Harriticus wrote:The Eye of Terror is actually home to a Forge World that's churning out stuff even more advanced then the Imperium, as the Dark Mechanicus aren't limited by dogma.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Xana_II#.T6gxTsUiyG4

This is more or less the Wallmart of every Chaos Lord. Chaos weaponry that's been developed since the Heresy (aircraft in particular) originate from Xana II. I imagine Planetkiller was designed there as well.

There's also Kai, though that one got kind of wiped out.

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

Lightcavalier wrote:Chaos works in mysterious ways....to generate more marines
1. Converts and Renegades
2. Stealing geeneseed and using that
3. The Iron Warriors tried some weird cloning stuff once
4. Magic of time travel

Was it not the emperors children and fabius bile that were responsible for the cloning? Assuming your talking about the cloning of glorious Lupercal

But no tit for tat CSM can not numerically keep up with the IOM's production rate but they have the benefit of countless daemons and heretucs to back them up

No, the Iron Warriors looted one of the two major depositories of gene-seed held by the Mechanicus, supposedly enough to make "legions" of Space Marines. The bulk of them went to Abaddon, who has yet to utilize them. The rest went to Honsou, who used it to create the Daemonculaba.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Typhon the Storm Giant wrote:Every Space Marine Legion had 10,000 space marines??
Meaning that there were 100,000 Traitor Legionnaires

The Legions had no set number. Some were a few thousand, others 100,000.

Durza wrote:

Harriticus wrote:The Eye of Terror is actually home to a Forge World that's churning out stuff even more advanced then the Imperium, as the Dark Mechanicus aren't limited by dogma.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Xana_II#.T6gxTsUiyG4

This is more or less the Wallmart of every Chaos Lord. Chaos weaponry that's been developed since the Heresy (aircraft in particular) originate from Xana II. I imagine Planetkiller was designed there as well.

There's also Kai, though that one got kind of wiped out.

And then there's the Word Bearers' Ghalmek.