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In the Imperial forces, the Imperial Guard vastly outnumber the Space Marines and other Imperial fighting groups, and probably fight the bulk of the Imperium's wars. If not for them, the Imperium would have likely fallen a long time ago. Within the Chaos ranks, is it the same? From what I know, in terms of numbers, the majority of (mortal) Chaos followers are cultists, and without them, Chaos Marines would probably not made half the progress that they have. What about Traitor Guardsmen? Do they make up the bulk of the Chaos armies like what we see in the Imperium? We don't hear about them nearly that much as we do the Astra Militarum, but the Chaos Legions and warbands would probably still largely be locked in the Eye of Terror if they had to face the entirety of the Imperial armed forces largely by themselves. Do daemons and cultists mostly fill the roll that Guardsmen play in the Imperium, or are there massive Traitor Guardsmen armies on the prowl, fighting wars that we haven't heard about yet?

Hard to tell. Especially since Cultists and Traitor Guardsmen are sometimes hard to differentiate. The Alpha Legion is known to support highly professional Cultists that are basically like an organized Regiment. Then there are mutant rabbles and all kinds of "lost and the damnned" that fill the lines of renegade armies. So, Traitor Guardsmen and Cultists definitely are the backbone of Chaos armies (until Daemons arrive), but how many there are is impossible to tell, just like with the Imperium the fluff concentrates mainly on the small number of CSM that form the speartip of Chaos assaults.

There are also large formations from Chaos worlds that could be considered cultist PDF. They are not as well armed as IG but they function as organized combat troop formations.

Remember "chaos" is any world that the IoM doesn't control. So that ranges from tentacled mustache twirling chaos, to normal human worlds that don't cotton to follow the IoM banner. Earth would be considered a renegade "chaos" world.

There are multiple Traitor Guard armies mentioned in the fluff. The one that really stands out to me is Blood Pact, the BSF TG models made me think of it recently.

That said, when you read through the old Imperial Armor books, it gives the impression Traitor Guard are mostly operate on specific planets and sectors. I don't get the impression Traitor Guard escaping to the Eye of Terror was ever really a thing.

Traitor guard, is distinct imo, due to the conotation of beeing turncoats (which incidentally a formation exists). Bound by beeing former IG, so they will have organisation similar to IG units and formations. (IA 13, counts those lots in with proffesional armies, and warlords /pirates, and represented them via the bloody handed reaver, which was either a former officer of the IoM or warlord/ pirate with real trained and standardized units under the command especially in terms of equipment. Further these armies had access to Grenadier elite infantry formations which goes to show that they are probably more in lieu of a turncoat officer / warlord , raiding and relying on Military force of rule solely.)

Then there are Militarized or Paramilitary forces of cults / political parties, including but not limited to the bloodpact, WHICH ARE NOT organised like their counterpart (e.g. Mixed formations, access to interstelar travel aswell as groundforces) These are formations like the bloodpact, which also draw in deserters however also controll regions or coreterritories themselves. (they are often god devoted, and have sometimes rivalries)

Then there is AL. Technically the AL does not only stoke the flames of rebellion but also fields a lot of non astartes operatives. (which sadly are not represented).

Then there are just regular cults, which infiltrate societies and attempt to gain political influence, relying upon the "normal"institutions of planets like PDF forces. Sometimes they are launching coups and generally they have somewher a hard core of militarized personel (R&H lists represent these via enforcers, Disciples, and formerly with the Archheretic revolutionary trait.)

Mutants / workers rebellions, which get counted toghether probably have less chaos and more Renegade nature, relying on masses of unhappy untrained workers and inspired by demagogues to start burning things. (formerly represented via master of the horde or mutant overlord)

Lastly, there were ofcourse techno-heretical cults, arround what is called an Arch heretek magos, consisting of modified humans, daemonengines, and other shenanigans inbetween.
Most of them start out by fixing an toaster and get damned for their ways of not praying until it once again works.

Due to their nature of course they vary massively in seize:
The Cults like bloodpact with controll over assets planetary and vessels can be gigantic. (mini empires all in their own right)
Local paramilitarie relying cults and their PDF depend on the planet.
Reavers and their elite formations often are disgruntled IG formations and generally are smaller and often get wiped out easily due to the IG formation type system.
Heretek magoses are smaller and rarer aswell due to the nature of mechanicum, exemption to those that have setup shop in the eye of terror, which are powerplayers and power brokers in their own right. (Hellblade and helltalon producing world f.e. is one of the more powerfull player in the warp.

Traitor does have the specific connotation of the soldiers having once been ACTUAL Guardsmen. I would agree with the majority of folks here and say actual former Guardsmen is rare. I imagine they would be a hardened wing of a Chaos army/Crusade. I don't think many of their new comrades would think well of them though. These soldiers once worshipped the Enemy. It would be difficult for them to earn the trust of their new comrades and therefore rise to positions of power without the help of a powerful patron. If they had the endorsement of Nurgle or Abbadon they could become a warlord.

 Red Marine wrote:
Traitor does have the specific connotation of the soldiers having once been ACTUAL Guardsmen. I would agree with the majority of folks here and say actual former Guardsmen is rare. I imagine they would be a hardened wing of a Chaos army/Crusade. I don't think many of their new comrades would think well of them though. These soldiers once worshipped the Enemy. It would be difficult for them to earn the trust of their new comrades and therefore rise to positions of power without the help of a powerful patron. If they had the endorsement of Nurgle or Abbadon they could become a warlord.

However these dudes are calling the shots in the R&H army, due to A beeing more powerfull due to training, B beeing more convinced because the other dudes still just can state that they got forcefully conscripted and C because they got working modern equipment.

First off there needs to be distinguished between truly Chaos worshipping former Guardsmen and those "renegade" forces that really are just non-Imperial, which could mean separatists.

Any rebelling regiments would first have to get rid of their commissars. If they are a popular rebellion by the troops, then many of the officers may also be purged in the process of rebelling. If it is an officer instigated rebellion, any troops that don't go along would also need to be purged. This means that already any successfully rebelling regiment will have taken some losses. If they are true Chaos worshippers, over time the influence of the mystical and religious aspects of Chaos worship break down the original structure of the regiment. For example, squads might start to re-size themselves to match the sacred numbers of one of the Chaos gods. The "might makes right" philosophy of Chaos means that leaders will have challengers and will only hold on to power if they can maintain it through defeating challengers, rather than through expectation of adherence to a rank structure. This can promote fragmentation of the regiment into warbands. So over time a Chaos worshipping regiment may start to resemble a cult force.

Furthering this disintegration is the general neglect shown by the CSM, who generally seem to treat these forces as human shields or cannon fodder. So the CSM will likely not really care what these regiments or cults get up to, so long as they are available when needed to hurl themselves at the enemy. An example of this neglect is shown in the BFG rulebook, where the entry on Chaos transport ships said basically they were ill-maintained and poorly crewed likely because logistics and supply duties were looked down upon as offering little chance for glory.

There are a lot more chaos guardsmen / pdf / cultists than marines, iirc.

Most of the chaos forces the Imperium fight consist of human cultists, I believe. Chaos Marines are often relatively rare and are found in a command role of these heretical forces.
When a heretical chapter does make their move, its usually a big deal.