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 Sillycybin wrote:


What purpose is there to this accumulation of resources? There is no community that these warbands are providing for to share in their wealth, and if there is one, they will be rather weak and susceptible to destruction by the various alien forces of the galaxy if not the very demons they are suppose to be allies with.

This has me thinking however of Slaanesh and Tzeentch warbands, and chaos warbands in general. If I were to become immersed in the setting, the preying on the imperium of man makes little sense to me as there are larger threats in the galaxy. At this point with the way the warp becomes a home to most traitor legions, why would they ever fight Orks or Tyranids? I can see them fighting Tau or Necrons to acquire technology and Eldar as an offering to Slaanesh. But the tyranids and orks offer nothing of value to them. If it is simply to fight then the members of a chaos warband simply wish to be born an Ork.

Accumulating resources is accumulating power. Every Chaos warlord wants more power. They are warlords afterall, so they are heading out trying to become stronger.
Their primary enemy might always be the IoM but their is always something the other side has that Chaos might want. Some chaos artefact that orks have stumbled upon. Necrons seek to actively seal the warp off from the material realm, sounds like a pretty good point of conflict for chaos marines. Tyranids and Tau might be a stretch for Chaos Marines IN the EoT, but not all Chaos marines are in the EoT

 Sillycybin wrote:

Once one considers the Word Bearers goals to simply spread chaos, the goals become self defeating. It is as if chaos space marines just want to wipe out the human race and ultimately cut off their own forces from any sort of reinforcements or community.

Chaos isnt about wiping out the human race. Its about freeing them. Freeing them from the tyranny of the IoM. It's about revealing truth, the truth that there are gods in this world. Making a world where nothing is "forbidden." It's about getting rid of a corrupt system and instituting a new form of government, a Meritocracy where the capable rule.

The Word Bearers spread the truth, and increase worship of the gods that exist. They might consider some of their cultists to be meat shields, but only to achieve an end.

 Exergy wrote:
Chaos isnt about wiping out the human race. Its about freeing them. Freeing them from the tyranny of the IoM. It's about revealing truth, the truth that there are gods in this world. Making a world where nothing is "forbidden." It's about getting rid of a corrupt system and instituting a new form of government, a Meritocracy where the capable rule.

The Word Bearers spread the truth, and increase worship of the gods that exist. They might consider some of their cultists to be meat shields, but only to achieve an end.

That's a pretty interesting point of view and certainly a much better spot to begin crafting a personal and specific warband's fluff than just "we are chaos and do things for the evulz".

My CSM warband, The Rancorous, worships Malal/Malice (ingame I represent that via Chaos undivided, that means no specific marks). For the most part, they consist of formerly loyal space marines who deserted due to a variety of reasons, but mostly from feelings of oppression - both themselves feeling oppressed by the rigid doctrine of the Codex Astartes and also resenting how the IoM oppresses the very peoples they're supposed to protect. Marines who murdered their too authoritarian superior officers and fled, marines whose indoctrination actually failed on the long run, marines turned renegade after certain specific events, etc. They have reasons to feel rancor towards loyalist marines and as such all of them have the VotLG rule (something I gladly pay for). It's more an amalgam of renegade marines coming from diverse legions, chapters and backgrounds than a "heretical chapter" in itself, and the presence of pre-heresy equipment (heavy weapons specially) implies they've been around for a while, as the stream of potential new recruits never ends - I've even crafted not very competitive lists which include blobs of 20 or so non-veteran marines, as they're meant to be recent recruits being tested by the 'chapter' (if they survive the test, they're in).

The ultimate goal of the Rancorous is the destruction of the IoM and its tyrannical emperor - they don't even deny the godlike nature of the emperor, they simply consider him an all-powerful evil tyrant that ultimately hinders humanity. This doesn't mean they are specially friendly towards other chaos space marines, and - in the same vein of the sons of malice - may attack other heretics and renegades if it suits them. At the same time they may cooperate with other renegades at specific moments (this is mostly because in the future I'd like to create a small slaaneshi warband called the Booty Hunters, and having them both over the table while respecting the fluff would be nice). Overall they consider Abbadon a glorified thug, a great warrior but a mediocre leader, and unworthy of leading any kind of serious great-scale campaign. The fact that the four main chaos gods seem to be backing him is even a bigger reason to (covertly) oppose and hinder his efforts as much as possible.

Really, the possibilities are endless. It's up to you.

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 Sillycybin wrote:
@Korinov I enjoy this idea aswell.. Does this mean your chapter would fight against the tyranids on an occasion to protect a human planet in need/ they deemed worthy?

Do they justify fighting loyalist chapters to acquire more wargear?

I can get the sense of a newly founded spacemarine chapter feeling held back through being lorded over by the inquisiton or highlords.

They would fight against tyranids (and virtually, against anyone else) if they deem the potential reward is worth the hassle and danger. It's unlikely (not impossible) they would fight to protect a human planet. But they would try to hamper and contain a tyranid invasion if said planet had something that really caught their interest. Once such item/goal had been adquired/reached succesfully, they would likely get their asses out of there quickly, leaving the plantet to its fate. Considering the warband is not too big in numbers, it would have to be a very important item/asset for them to make a stand in the wake of a tyranid invasion (at least, coming from a decently sized hive fleet).

Loyalist chapters are servants of the massively corrupt IoM who revere a godlike tyrant. Any excuse will be ok in order to attack them (getting some new and shiny wargear being as good as any other reason, although the warband puts special effort into keeping the old timey equipment in proper condition, their warpsmith Antonio is good at it). When fighting loyalist forces bigger than themselves, the Rancorous will usually resort to hit and run tactics (the warband makes good and extensive use of raptors and bikes). If they outnumber the opposition, they will probably try to capture more than kill, as noone truly knows how many potential recruits may lie waiting in a so so so so loyalist chapter. It's rumoured a few current members of the warband actually contacted with the Rancorous by their own free will. Such actions have usually led to the complete destruction/abduction of small detachments of loyalist marines.

There are many, many space marines in the IoM. Even a very small percentage feeling mistreated, abused and/or oppressed by superior officers, their chapter's or the inquisition's hierarchy, or even by the IoM as a whole, may mean a huge number of potential recruits. Better for those potential recruits to serve a focused and higher cause than to turn into mere pirates or aimless renegades.

My personal warband is based of the Alpha Legion as a group who simply acquires resources (traitor armies, legionnaires, demon allies, artifacts) to support the activities of other Alpha legion cells. My warlord seeks an answer for immortality. Overall this feels like something of a cop-out as the Alpha legion''s goals usually boil down to: "No one knows why they do anything". I really just enjoy the fact that they are the only traitor legion that still has a non-demonprince primarch that may actually give a care about the state of their legion.

This is only a given pre heresy... After the heresy more things are possible. Even though they have alpha legion heritage doesnt mean chaos/ the heresy hasn't changed them. It wouldn't feel right to think of alpha legion as a united legion / coherent force anymore. Just like with the rest of the legions, things have come apart over time. There are coherent elements, but not on a huge scale anymore. Quest for invincibility sounds like a start.... If they reject to follow a certain god, they may strive to gain it otherwise, so they can continue their war to bring down the corpse emperor. Maybe they heard a prophecy from some kind of hidden twisted daemon oracle they found somewhere.
Also, beeing a chaos warband... you have to prove yourself against other chaos warbands repeatedly, because only the strongest will grow.

Maybe your warband chief wants to find and unite more of the alpha legion cells? That's a pretty big goal if you ask me.
As a chaos warband you have to fight for supplies all the time. If you can secure planets/outposts that's a big achievement - and you might wanna hold them. Against Orks/Tyranids as well. I wouldn't think chaos would actively engage orks/tyranids unless they are definitely in the way to their crucial objective.

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I'd imagine that if chaos defeats IoM the chaos gods / warp will be stronger/ maybe expand... maybe even swallow a large part of the galaxy
After all, the prophecy was that if chaos wins/the emperor dies, man-kind will go extinct shortly after.

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 Sillycybin wrote:
So then most chaos space marines are hoping to ascend to demons at that point?

Not everyone necessarily wants to ascend to a daemon, as there is at least one drawback I can think of. As a daemon, you aren't really matter anymore, but energy in a way. With that in mind, it is much harder to lead an army when you can't always be in their universe. Look at daemon prince primarchs, they kinda stopped caring for their legions and turned to their own work.

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Yeah, then they will probably ascend, and if someone is strong enough to take down the throne, their patron god will probably make them a daemon just to keep them around, for further use. Or they kill of the champion, as he did his job and is too strong to keep around. I can see tzeentch doing that.

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Yeah, some are in it for the ride of power, but it is pretty pointless. Even if the gods do mix the materium with the warp, it will kill off most of humanity and drive the rest to insanity, rendering them useless for worship for the most part. For the greater good is what I have to say about it all.

Sort of the very definition of chaos, or insanity. You'll just keep trying to acquire things. Power, material possessions, etc, but in the end it doesn't matter. Chaos cannot exist without order, and vice versa. It's just a never ending struggle to obtain the unobtainable...

 Sillycybin wrote:
I mean end game, if Abbadon Conquers terra, and the human race goes extinct, the warband leaders must either want to become demons or find some other way to be immortal?

but why is the human race going extinct? The chaos gods have a huge stake in WANTING there to be lots of humans running around.

 Exergy wrote:

 Sillycybin wrote:
I mean end game, if Abbadon Conquers terra, and the human race goes extinct, the warband leaders must either want to become demons or find some other way to be immortal?

but why is the human race going extinct? The chaos gods have a huge stake in WANTING there to be lots of humans running around.

If chaos gods successfully integrate themselves into the real world, it will basically recreate the warp, killing humans outright and driving the rest to insanity. Basically like Slaneesh's birth but with every chaos god and countless daemons following in their wake. Big piece of irony, as the chaos gods want to do that to have direct control over humanity, but it will either kill the chaos gods or cripple them, as they lose their biggest source of power.

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Solves the problems for other races. Eldar has a good start to reclaim their territory, but then again, the 'nids are a lot closer to eating everyone with the two factions gone.

 Sillycybin wrote:
Which is what the Cabal was getting at in Legion I believe. Ultimately this makes the Alpha Legion's goals peculiar as the destruction of humanity to get rid of chaos doesn't really solve any problems.

The prophecy was given before the heresy. To save humanity from centuries of warfare and suffering... the idea was to kill it outright. They failed however, so nobody knows what will happen if terra falls now... also, it's just a prophecy - not a fact. Besides, there are worlds within the warp with humans in it (mostly slaves but hey). So i'm not really buying the excinction thing. Certainly not with a snap of the finger, maybe it will take a long time. Also, the existance of mankind can be defined differently. If they are just slaves and insane, are they truly human anymore? Not really if you ask me.

You know the world eaters don't just kill for the sake of killing, those who have the butchers nails embedded in their heads are essentially empty inside while theyre not at war. The nails bite into their brains until they get whipped into a frenzy. They kill because that's the only way their can get peace, if only for a second. Hence why they kill A LOT.

As a player of 40k since 2nd edition, I feel like the motivations of Chaos space marines, and how they live and operate, has changed considerably.

When I first got into 40k, the general understanding was that the traitor forces left after the Heresy fled into the Eye of Terror. There, time had no meaning, and consequently the traitors in the eye never really understood that the Heresy was over. When a legion army came spilling out to attack an Imperial world in the 41st millenium, my understanding is that it was comprised of the same marines who had fought ten thousand years before, using the same vehicles and weapons of that long ago age, albeit now warped by the forces of chaos. To the perspective of the marines fighting, they're still engaged in the same war, with the same goal - the eventual murder of the Emperor.

Today, numerous sources state that Chaos has forge worlds, and makes new vehicles and equipment to supplement a steady influx from post-heresy traitor chapters. The idea of a concerted anti-Imperial motivation is undermined by repeated reinforcement that the Legions are split asunder, and now fight as piratical raiders in tiny little warbands. There's discussion of geneseed theft, to allow the creation of new recruits... all around, the magical nature of the warp has been diluted from a fluff perspective, and Chaos has been burdened with mundane logistical concerns. Now we also have fluff in Daemonkin that implies that large portions of the traitor marine forces could care less about the Imperium, and just roam about without purpose, killing for the sake of it.

I can appreciate that they want something new, but I do feel like more and more the motivation of the Chaos forces becomes murky and less satisfying. Like Dark Eldar, Orks, or any of a number of other 40k races, GW appears to feel most comfortable with the idea that the enemies of man are small and poorly motivated raiding forces, which are incapable of working together or coordinating toward a common goal bigger than the destruction of a few planets now and again.

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2BlackJack1 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Sillycybin wrote:
I mean end game, if Abbadon Conquers terra, and the human race goes extinct, the warband leaders must either want to become demons or find some other way to be immortal?

but why is the human race going extinct? The chaos gods have a huge stake in WANTING there to be lots of humans running around.

If chaos gods successfully integrate themselves into the real world, it will basically recreate the warp, killing humans outright and driving the rest to insanity. Basically like Slaneesh's birth but with every chaos god and countless daemons following in their wake. Big piece of irony, as the chaos gods want to do that to have direct control over humanity, but it will either kill the chaos gods or cripple them, as they lose their biggest source of power.

The warp isn't posion to humans. There are billions of humans living in the EoT right now who have been there for 10,000 years.

Slanesh's BIRTH created a lot of destruction, not his growth, but the huge release upon his birth. Release is also kind of slaneesh's thing.

But, if the chaos gods did come into the material universe, essentially it is a new birth to them, so at the very least it would do what happened at Slaneesh's birth.

 Exergy wrote:


The warp isn't posion to humans. There are billions of humans living in the EoT right now who have been there for 10,000 years.

Have you ever heard of Chaos Spawn? To much warp dust can do crazy stuff to you.

Now a slightly off track concept is that the Chaos gods/deamons don't care in the slightest about the corruption of the IoM or the state of humanity. The Chaos gods are exactly that, Rampant balls of energy that have the principle concern that everything is "chaos..y" and disordered, as that is exactly what is normal and right in their eyes. Now on the other end, the IoM represents everything the Emperor stood for, opposition to the Chaos Gods (debated the vary reason for his existence) and the opposition to chaos/disorder is order. That is what the IoM is at this point, order in the galaxy, even if its very unstable, which that itself is thanks to the chaos gods fighting against it. Chaos wants order out of the way so it can run rampant.

So with that stated, do to it being difficult for them to interfer directly with the universe for the same reason as deamon princes, they need humanity to act as a proxy for their will. Wanting to "Free humanity" could be a form of gathering more followers, to the chaos gods humanity (and the csm for that matter) are nothing more than tools to the destruction of the IoM, so pretty much any reasoning chaos space marines have, if they are truely following chaos instead of just being renegades, would revolve around them wanting to take out the imperium and emps

Does Chaos need to have a goal? If they had a goal, they would have been Evil or Renegade Space Marines rather than Chaos Space Marines, no?
Defeating the Imperium and the Emperor is still the goal of some of them, they still carry grudges from the time of the Heresy (Abaddon most notably), but most CSM fight simply to please their Dark Gods and gain greater power, so that one day they may ascend to deamonhood and become immortal. Their actions will usually not have any clear goal or plan beyond sowing disorder and destruction just for the fun of it. They will attempt to create a disruption big enough for the Dark Gods to notice for even a split second (because 99.99% of time, the Chaos Gods have no interest at all in the material universe, being occupied with the Great Game, which like Chaos itself, is without goals or purpose.)

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The World Eaters may have put them in, but once they were in its not like they could have taken them out again. Doing so would kill them, during the events of Betrayer most of the World Eaters actually hate the implants they had hammered into their skulls?

 Sillycybin wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Does Chaos need to have a goal?

Well I would like to be immersed in the warhammer universe. The way it feels right now is just like a round of call of duty. That is to say, Chaos Space Marines kill simply for the purpose of killing. But then this wouldn't explain why they wouldn't just dwindle and die out as they would have no reason to be concerned about recruiting without a greater purpose.

I imagine a CSM Warlord would be very interested in gathering more followers, as this would enable him to do more crazy gak in the hopes of getting the gods' attention. That would be the main 'greater purpose' they would try to recruit for. CSM are not at all a unified whole, they do not have a goal as an organisation or a group, they only care about themselves and their individual goals. An individual CSM doesn't care that the CSM will dwindle and die out, as long as he himself can achieve deamonhood. The only exceptions here are the Word Bearers and Alpha Legion, who have managed to stay more or less united as a legion.