How successful are the Traitor Guard?

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**DemetriDominov**

Arguably the most underdog faction in the IP, are there any accounts of a Planetary Governor/ Reveler selling their souls to Chaos to outlast the the inevitable conflict that so often kills them? Are there any accounts of the lowly followers of Chaos getting away with murder and living out the rest of their days in a manner they wanted to, or are they really just the largest meat shield in the 40k Universe?

**Pilau Rice**

Check out Deacon Mamon from the Siege of Vraks. Actually just check out the siege of Vraks, it's awesome.

**CDK**

In the Gaunt's Ghost stories, the worlds that they are trying to take back from chaos have been so for hundreds of years and are populated by some sort of chaos populations. Other than Abnett's books they make it seem that chaos takes over and destroys the whole world and eventually they cave in on themselves. Why fight them if they are only going to destroy themselves anyway?

**DemetriDominov**

I've read a few of Guant's Ghosts novels. I think the one I'm really thinking of is called Traitor General and it pretty much epitomizes the whole, Chaos guy gets shot by Imperial guy that runs rampant through the general fluff, especially that of the Rule book.

I'll have to check out the Siege of Vrakk though. Anything to break the monotony of classic "Good over evil"/ (Order over Destruction) that's somewhat prevalent in the 40k universe. (Since you can't really classify the Imperium as *Good*.

**ArbitorIan**

Yeah, you have to bear in mind the timescale. The implication is that any seceding world is ALWAYS brought back into the Imperium eventually, but this might take tens, hundreds or thousands of years.

So, there must be a good few secessionists who build a Chaos world that lasts generations, and at least outlives them.

**Veteran Sergeant**

You have to keep in mind that Chaos has no incentive to create long lasting societies, only to sow disorder (hence Chaos).

The viability of their corrupted planets is of only a minor concern to them.

**Pilau Rice**

Veteran Sergeant wrote:You have to keep in mind that Chaos has no incentive to create long lasting societies, only to sow disorder (hence Chaos).
.

Was this always the case though? A society established on Chaos worship is a constant source of what the Chaos Gods need. Nurth, Laeran and Davin seem to be places where Chaos Worshipers lived without being tormented everyday. Things definitely changed after the Great Crusade though and it's the way you put it now for sure.

**CuddlySquig**

So far it seems the most successful traitor guard are the Blood Pact. But it seems more to Dan Abnett's style. He likes to write in more realistic tones than some BL authors. For the most part, Traitor Guard are enemies to be killed by our heroes when they're fighting chaos. Bodies to make it so that the chaos space marines aren't totally wiped out in a single war. Think of them as a literary device, not an actual 40k faction and you'll stop wondering how successful they are.
Hey, some traitor guards really are successful. While most of them stop lasgun blasts, a precious few of them stop sacred bolter rounds.

**baseballclu**

DemetriDominov wrote:I'll have to check out the Siege of Vrakk though. Anything to break the monotony of classic "Good over evil"/ (Order over Destruction) that's somewhat prevalent in the 40k universe. (Since you can't really classify the Imperium as *Good*.

Good from who's point of view? To an imperial citizen the Imperium is all mighty and their crusades and such are just. Yet to other races ie eldar, or chaos they are an abomination of the universe. And the necrons they see them as parasitical life form that desocrates their worlds with complete disregard. The whole good guy, bad guy thing is all just a point of view for as cliche as it sounds.

**Formosa**

I could easily imagine a chaos world being a total utopia with no pain, no strife the perfect society.... what god would want that ?

**Kain**

Formosa wrote:I could easily imagine a chaos world being a total utopia with no pain, no strife the perfect society.... what god would want that ?

None, because people tend to not be very spiritual when they live in a great deal of comfort.

**Formosa**

Kain wrote:
Formosa wrote:I could easily imagine a chaos world being a total utopia with no pain, no strife the perfect society.... what god would want that ?

None, because people tend to not be very spiritual when they live in a great deal of comfort.

Mwah hahahah you fell into my trap, yes on the surface its a great deal of comfort but tis a rotton world to the core, come play imperial pigs!!

**Kain**

Formosa wrote:
Kain wrote:
Formosa wrote:I could easily imagine a chaos world being a total utopia with no pain, no strife the perfect society.... what god would want that ?

None, because people tend to not be very spiritual when they live in a great deal of comfort.

Mwah hahahah you fell into my trap, yes on the surface its a great deal of comfort but tis a rotton world to the core, come play imperial pigs!!

Well I guess Slaanesh would sponsor any hedonist world. Khorne would find such a world being dedicated to him so offensive that he'd likely get off the skull throne to personally destroy the affront to him.

**Buttons**

Kain wrote:
Formosa wrote:I could easily imagine a chaos world being a total utopia with no pain, no strife the perfect society.... what god would want that ?

None, because people tend to not be very spiritual when they live in a great deal of comfort.

Chaos doesn't need direct worship however. Slaanesh might benefit from a utopia since there would always be enough food, money, and other resources for excessive vices to exist like gluttony and extreme promiscuity. Hell the whole reason the Eldar created Slaanesh is because they didn't have to work hard and spent all their time doing NSFW stuff.

**Harriticus**

Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

**Bobthehero**

Well it seems that most traitor ''guard'' is actually cultists and civilian renegades, not all of them are going to have a weapon, in some case, also, they lack most of their training and a stable chain of command and on top of that they generally have bad morale, so routing them and then shooting them in the back, tricking them with stuff a normal soldier would see coming, all of that is a lot easier agaisn't these guys.

**DemetriDominov**

baseballclu wrote:
DemetriDominov wrote:I'll have to check out the Siege of Vrakk though. Anything to break the monotony of classic "Good over evil"/ (Order over Destruction) that's somewhat prevalent in the 40k universe. (Since you can't really classify the Imperium as *Good*.

Good from who's point of view? To an imperial citizen the Imperium is all mighty and their crusades and such are just. Yet to other races ie eldar, or chaos they are an abomination of the universe. And the necrons they see them as parasitical life form that desocrates their worlds with complete disregard. The whole good guy, bad guy thing is all just a point of view for as cliche as it sounds.

I'm really tired right now, but I'm not really sure if you understood what I wrote, it's basically the exact same thing.

Anyway, good thread, it just goes to show i have more reading to do...

**Blaggard**

In one of Commisar Cain's books he seems to say they are as good as IG, but as fanatical as Chaos.
However the guys he fights are all mind controlled, but they still be traitor.

**Kain**

Actual traitor guard or guard like units tend to be vastly outnumbered by cultist rabble. In the sabbat world crusade the bulk of Chaos forces were made up of such undisciplined rabble, there were maybe a million or so sons of sek and blood pact in total and maybe another million traitor guard. Less than one percent of the Chaos force there. Chaos Guard tend to lack the primary advantage of the Imperial Guard, numbers, and usually have to make do with inferior equipment.

**KingDeath**

Harriticus wrote:Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

The Fail Pact isn't much better than most other chaos cults.
"Oh look, we are the bestest cultists ever, we act like a real army and stuff...well, except when we face Gaunt's Sues, then we act like blithering idiots"..

**Testify**

KingDeath wrote:
Harriticus wrote:Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

The Fail Pact isn't much better than most other chaos cults.
"Oh look, we are the bestest cultists ever, we act like a real army and stuff...well, except when we face Gaunt's Sues, then we act like blithering idiots"..

Whut? Have you even read any of the Blood Pact books?
Also...Blood Pact aren't traitor guard, they're cultists, so somewhat off topic.

**Hlaine Larkin mk2**

Testify wrote:
KingDeath wrote:
Harriticus wrote:Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

The Fail Pact isn't much better than most other chaos cults.
"Oh look, we are the bestest cultists ever, we act like a real army and stuff...well, except when we face Gaunt's Sues, then we act like blithering idiots"..

Whut? Have you even read any of the Blood Pact books?
Also...Blood Pact aren't traitor guard, they're cultists, so somewhat off topic.

They're a mix of cultists and traitor guardsmen, now Sons of Sek. They are a military outfit in their own right

**KingDeath**

Testify wrote:
KingDeath wrote:
Harriticus wrote:Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

The Fail Pact isn't much better than most other chaos cults.
"Oh look, we are the bestest cultists ever, we act like a real army and stuff...well, except when we face Gaunt's Sues, then we act like blithering idiots"..

Whut? Have you even read any of the Blood Pact books?
Also...Blood Pact aren't traitor guard, they're cultists, so somewhat off topic.

Sure i did. In fact i read all of them except the very latest. Every single time the Bloodpact was, despite it's suposed skill, utterly incompetent and died in droves.

**baxter123**

Traitor Guard to me really are just worlds that reject the Emperor's rule for the Chaos, the Greater Good or just like to imagine themselves as a Republic. The traitor guard are arguably both. Sometimes things work out like in the GG series and sometimes they don't like the Horus Heresy and the 3rd War for Armageddon (The govenor switched to the Orks side).
So the question is: Are you talking about the Chaos traitors, Tau traitors, break-away planets or just some other wierd system (Above is an example) or just people that like aliens?

**CDK**

I agree. Traitor does not equal chaos. They might just be wanting to throw off the oppression of the imperium! They could have some wack job inquisitor who virus bombed their home planet, or just got sick of Commissars shooting them when they tried to make a tactical retreat.

**Formosa**

non chaos traitor guard are identical to the imp guard, some are outright great at what they do, some are literaly barbarians given lasguns and told to kill some bad (good) guys.

Now Chaos ones are even more random

**SpankHammer III**

Testify wrote:
KingDeath wrote:
Harriticus wrote:
Not very. Chaos as a whole is the whipping boy in the franchise, and the Traitor Guard/Cultists are the lowest of the low.

The only one that comes off as worth a damn are the Blood Pact.

The Fail Pact isn't much better than most other chaos cults.
"Oh look, we are the bestest cultists ever, we act like a real army and stuff...well, except when we face Gaunt's Sues, then we act like blithering idiots"..

Whut? Have you even read any of the Blood Pact books?
Also...Blood Pact aren't traitor guard, they're cultists, so somewhat off topic.

Sure i did. In fact i read all of them except the very latest. Every single time the Bloodpact was, despite it's suposed skill, utterly incompetent and died in droves.

erm sounds like the guard to me.

**Kain**

Except that the Tanith and any other regiment that was focused upon made a mockery out of the Blood Pact in every encounter. And keep in mind there was less than a million blood pact members and over a billion loyalist guardsmen. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure those are terribly good odds. Of course, there is a reason why Chaos is noted to have lost the sabbat worlds crusade within twenty or so years, remarkably quickly for a war over a hundred planets.

**SpankHammer III**

Where are you getting 1,000,000 blood pack from?

I don't remember numbers were ever given, I thought there would be a lot as they are the whole reason Urlock gaur (sorry spelling) is in power.

I recall them actually doing quite well against most units except the tanith, and even then they do a hell of a lot of damage. Admittedly there are some instances were they arn't brillaint, think it's in straight silver a whole regiment is held up by one squad in a house.

They slaughter the urdeshi regiments in guns of Tanith.

If you can think/recall specific instance where they have sucked it might help.

**Kain**

The blood pact was noted as being about three quarters of a million strong, which meant that they were a very tiny core of an army made mostly out of ill disciplined rabble. And every time they go up against the Tanith they suffer loss ratios in the ball park of 50:1. That is not the mark of an elite army, that is the mark of a bunch of idiots.