Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Plot armor. The good guys always win.

It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor. And if the bad guys somehow manage to get to the good guys, they fare even worse. Then, to make it even more heroic, the writer informs the reader that the bad guys are using far better armor and weapons. And a Daemon Prince appears only to be killed with a knife. And so on for hundreds of pages.

Most of the recent Black Library books and the background sections in the rules (ie, the Tyranid dataslates) are like this. And I think it is getting worse. They are targeting younger players. And they want them to play marines.

"Storm of Iron" is a good example of how a book about 40k should be written. And Dawn of War did a really good job at depicting the universe. Far better than the tabletop game, which is sad.

 koooaei wrote:
Actually, fluffwise most regular chaos space marines don't get any extra 'bonuses' over space marines. And at the same time they have worse and more irregular maintainance and outdated gear. They do get 'freedom' and enormous ambitions. Chaos rewards those who prove themselves worthy and not everyone who says: "Aha, i'm a bad guy now! Chaos, reward me pls". So, you can expect a chaos champion, sorcerror, apostle and aspiring champions to be much more powerful than their loyalist's counterpart. And the ones who are explictly blessed by Chaos Gods - resented by plague marines, berserkers, noize marines, 1000 sons(blessed?). Also those who has mutated or accepted some sort of daemonhood - possessed, obliterators, daemon princes.

But regular CSM spend most of their lives in warband's affairs. They're usually not trained in the manner loyalists are. Their equipment is outdated and worse maintained. They're more barbaric overall.

Outdated gear is actually wrong. During the HH, the plotting Chaos legions were the first to be issued all the newest and strongest gear, such as mark IV armour. The loyalists had been purposely left with the older mark II armour. And mark 7 was created durng the HH (Auila armour as it is most commonly known) and if you know about the fall of luna, then you know the traitors had access to this mark, so gear isn't exactly a major issue. And I don't believe Chaos Marines are stupid enough to not give their gear maintenance. Never have and never will believe that.

And Chaos Marines are still super human and the fact that "brutality" is a common trait, they're now weak and inferior? How about the sons of Russ? Are they not barbaric? The fact is irrelevant.

Most Chaos Marines DO actually get a small mark of some kind. Especially with how old most of them are.

The fact of this matter is, no matter what faults you wanna put on Chaos Marines, they should still be a bigger challenge then what they are now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 da001 wrote:
Plot armor. The good guys always win.

It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor. And if the bad guys somehow manage to get to the good guys, they fare even worse. Then, to make it even more heroic, the writer informs the reader that the bad guys are using far better armor and weapons. And a Daemon Prince appears only to be killed with a knife. And so on for hundreds of pages.

Most of the recent Black Library books and the background sections in the rules (ie, the Tyranid dataslates) are like this. And I think it is getting worse. They are targeting younger players. And they want them to play marines.

"Storm of Iron" is a good example of how a book about 40k should be written. And Dawn of War did a really good job at depicting the universe. Far better than the tabletop game, which is sad.

Yes, perfect. I read "know no fear" so I know exactly what your talking about. Its the most ridiculous thing ever. I do like book though despite it. Dawn of war is actually the best at depicting the epic duels of good vs evil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
And what exactly are those gifts that every chaos marine possesses?

It depends on each individual Chaos Marine.

I think the whole Grimdark setting has just twisted itself out of proportion. No new factions come in that aids the imperium. Because we systematically try to wipe them out for not being human. The setting just gets worse and worse for mankind. As a result the Loyalist marines have had to become better and better to get the imperium out of whatever gak-storm it is currently being assailed by. If chaos marines had parity, the imperium's continued existence would make even less sense than it currently does.

In all honesty it probably comes down to money. Would more people buy a book where Ultramar or Dark Angels win against impossible odds or would more people by a book where Chaos slaughters loyalist marine chapters. On a personal not I agree with a comment that was made earlier. A chaos space marine that hasn't lost its mind and become a ravening pawn of his chaos god should be much more powerful than a stock standard loyalist.

 Imperious wrote:
I think the whole Grimdark setting has just twisted itself out of proportion. No new factions come in that aids the imperium. Because we systematically try to wipe them out for not being human. The setting just gets worse and worse for mankind. As a result the Loyalist marines have had to become better and better to get the imperium out of whatever gak-storm it is currently being assailed by. If chaos marines had parity, the imperium's continued existence would make even less sense than it currently does.

In all honesty it probably comes down to money. Would more people buy a book where Ultramar or Dark Angels win against impossible odds or would more people by a book where Chaos slaughters loyalist marine chapters. On a personal not I agree with a comment that was made earlier. A chaos space marine that hasn't lost its mind and become a ravening pawn of his chaos god should be much more powerful than a stock standard loyalist.

Loyalists should not be slaughtering Chaos Marines and Chaos Marines should not be slaughtering SM chapters. It should be a balanced fight, because both sides have their own fair share of ups and downs.

I would that without any support on both side, and with equal numbers on both sides, the Chaos marines would have a small edge. Nothing definitive, but they should be just slightly better.

Books about CSM aren't a more balanced perspective, it's just the same from the other side. It all really just boils down to who is supposed to win the battle in the book.

The way I see it is that CSM are slightly better individual warriors, but loyalists are better at the tactical level. If the battle begins to turn against chaos however, I imagine that some of the individual warriors would just decide that it's not worth their time and they're better off without these idiots who got them into this mess in the first place. Loyalists don't think like that, except in rare cases, they fight as a cohesive unit, making up for their relative lack of experience. That's not to say CSM are incapable of tactics, far from it, but their individual nature hampers them somewhat.

This is why I say the grim dark setting has twisted story telling a bit. If Chaos and loyalist had parity the imperium wouldn't exist. Chaos has no restrictions on how many marines they can produce. You could just remake your legions and stomp your way through to Terra. The universe couldn't stand against space marines when they fought for the emperor and the Primarchs. If you had parity right now and with all the gifts your heinous gods could offer you. The emperor would be Slanesh's blow up doll right now. Because everything is so grim dark, mankind has to fight against Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Tau and lets not forget the Orks. There is no real credible way the Imperium should really be standing at all. I think writers have over-compensated with Loyalist Space marines coming to the rescue and as a result everything's a bit more skewed than it was.

Not defending it at all just putting it out there.

Loyalists tend to work together a bit more, with less of the whole 'wellstabyouinthebackassoonasit'sOKto' vibe.
That, logistics and greater organisation and discipline is what tends to favour SM

And plot armour.
A good heaping of that.

 Imperious wrote:
This is why I say the grim dark setting has twisted story telling a bit. If Chaos and loyalist had parity the imperium wouldn't exist. Chaos has no restrictions on how many marines they can produce. You could just remake your legions and stomp your way through to Terra. The universe couldn't stand against space marines when they fought for the emperor and the Primarchs. If you had parity right now and with all the gifts your heinous gods could offer you. The emperor would be Slanesh's blow up doll right now. Because everything is so grim dark, mankind has to fight against Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Tau and lets not forget the Orks. There is no real credible way the Imperium should really be standing at all. I think writers have over-compensated with Loyalist Space marines coming to the rescue and as a result everything's a bit more skewed than it was.

Not defending it at all just putting it out there.

Being quite frank, the Imperium can capitalize on certain fortunate situations thus preserve the life of humanity. To be honest, most of the races you stated fight among themselves all the time, especially the Tyranids. Those bugs eat anything that moves (or doesn't move anyway, yikes!) so everybody has to put up with them. Tau...young and less experienced then every single race hence would not have a complete idea of how to destroy the imerium. Well, we actually manage to barter and negotiate with them, so its not that bad. Eldar too, they're reasoned with sometimes. Orks, a bunch of block heads that run around screaming WAAGHHH! until a bolt round strikes them in the face. Necrons, a lot of grumpy metal undead a-holes that literally woke up on the wrong side of the galaxy (haha). I do understand what your saying though. Humanity is close to the edge of a very deep hole, and their inching ever closer to it with every passing day...or at least they should be.

I don't see why a chaos marine would be far superior to a regular loyalist marine at all. Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords which you are right, are substantially better then their regular marine counter parts, oddly on par with their lord/captain choice counter parts though, as they should be.

You have to understand that chaos is constantly turning and corrupting people to maintain their numbers they are NOT the same people that turned at the very beginning.

Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.

Don't forget the marks of chaos also give them an advantage, perhaps to replace the more tactical aspects of a space marine.

The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub,

Again to raise this point, the 'young scrubs' of the space marines are more susceptible to being turned to chaos then the ones that have resisted it for centuries I find it difficult not to stress enough the fact that the chaos that turned at Hersey aren't the same ones here today and again if they are they are chaos lords by now or chosen.

Yeah, games workshop writers have the literary sophistication of a six year old. The good guys go "pew pew" and the bad guys fall over to much high-fiving by the victorious.

Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.

...Why do people think Chaos = stupid? They do use formations, practice, training.

 Sasa0mg wrote:
I don't see why a chaos marine would be far superior to a regular loyalist marine at all. Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords which you are right, are substantially better then their regular marine counter parts, oddly on par with their lord/captain choice counter parts though, as they should be.

You have to understand that chaos is constantly turning and corrupting people to maintain their numbers they are NOT the same people that turned at the very beginning.

Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.

Don't forget the marks of chaos also give them an advantage, perhaps to replace the more tactical aspects of a space marine.

The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub,

Again to raise this point, the 'young scrubs' of the space marines are more susceptible to being turned to chaos then the ones that have resisted it for centuries I find it difficult not to stress enough the fact that the chaos that turned at Hersey aren't the same ones here today and again if they are they are chaos lords by now or chosen.

What you said about Chaos Marines running around like hulligans screaming praise to their dark gods hoping for carnage sounds illogical to the extreme, even for a barbaric Chaos Marine. Sounds like Khorne Berzerkers but thats it. Chaos Marines do have tactics and strategy. For instance, the Black Legion attacks their enemy command structure to kill their leaders, leaving a confused and leaderless force to play with. Iron Warriors, we all know them. They'll take you out with their expert seigecraft. All Chaos Marines have strategy and militaristic understanding of how to win battles. Its more than just "carnage," though that is their main point in life.

Iron Warriors are a great example. They have practiced their craft for ten thousand years. Newcomers like DKoK are like fumbling children next to IW expertise.

I mean really, if you read Dead Sky, Black Sun or Storm of Iron...

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Iron Warriors are a great example. They have practiced their craft for ten thousand years. Newcomers like DKoK are like fumbling children next to IW expertise.

I mean really, if you read Dead Sky, Black Sun or Storm of Iron...

Yes. Thats the whole reason the Iron Warriors went to Chaos was the fierce and bitter rivalry they had with their Imperial Fists brothers. They perfected such tactics.

 Sasa0mg wrote:
Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords

No, they end up… marines with the VotLW rule. Which are not really stronger than regular rank-and-file marines…

If you want to see some loyalist get their butts kicked, armor stolen, skulls cracked, and be constantly look like self-centered-over-heroic-people, read ADB's Night Lord series.

Lucarikx

 koooaei wrote:
And what exactly are those gifts that every chaos marine possesses?

Spikes!

I can see why a traitor astartes chapter of more recent times that did not betray the imperium following right after the heresy would be equal. But some of the first legions that have Astartes that are 10,000 years old they should be wiping the floor with these 300 year old or younger Astartes in the current loyalist chapters.
Just my opinion, even though they are psychopathic and are often self centered individuals (which im guessing makes them less likely to stick together as a group.) But for one on one combat you would think Chaos Space Marines from the HH era would be far more skilled.

Gjd123 wrote:
I have always thought the difference was about logistics - that loyalists had the entire Imperium backing them - and the traitors whilst their heroes have access to powerful weapons bought by either dark promises or piracy the average CSM is cut off from a good regular supply chain and has to make do - hence the difference ... They may be more experienced, harder warriors but when push comes to shove the quartermasters really matter.

This is true for some legions and many renegade chapters, but the Dark Mechanicus have their own forgeworlds in the Eye that are quite capable of keeping huge armies very well equipped. The Iron Warriors' new homeworld is basically one giant factory that produces everything they need.

GravityPriest wrote:
But some of the first legions that have Astartes that are 10,000 years old they should be wiping the floor with these 300 year old or younger Astartes in the current loyalist chapters.
Just my opinion, even though they are psychopathic and are often self centered individuals (which im guessing makes them less likely to stick together as a group.) But for one on one combat you would think Chaos Space Marines from the HH era would be far more skilled.

That is the common thread here. People assume just because these marines have lasted 10k years it confers some tactical advantage. But my somewhat humorous post earlier in the thread is that the Heresy era marines have not been constantly training. Given the fickle time in the warp, few have been active the entire 10k years, and the most powerful and skilled manage to elevate themselves to demon prince status. Even for those who are active, they are often very narrowly focused on one specific aspect of warcraft, and likely unhinged to some extent. This of course benefits them in the warp, in chaos vs. chaos battles, but insanity has limited advantages outside the warp, and outside the loyalists would have a larger tactical advantage. As a chaos marine's experience approaches infinity, he either gets demonhood or spawndom. This means that you don't have a large contingent of very experienced chaos marines running around from the early days. The few left over are special characters.

You also have to factor in that mutations/blessings granted by the Chaos Gods are not always beneficial and in some cases can even be a hindrance or a drawback. How else would Chaos Spawn exist?


When it comes to replacing their losses they don't have a great selection when it comes to recruits since either they are mass-manufactured like the Daemoncubla for the Iron Warriors or taken from slaves. They don't have the luxury of choosing the cream of the crop or have carte blanche on what worlds they can recruit from unlike loyalists and often have to settle for less especially training wise. They may be hard-bitten through conflict but discipline-wise I would expect them to be generally inferior to the more rigid doctrines of the loyalist Astartes.

Why do people always imply that 10k years in the warp isn't 10k years in the materium, it's not wrong, but it's not necessarily less thank 10k either. It could be 100k, 1,000,000 etc

Because time is a concept of physical reality, and doesn't exist in the Warp. All time is "Now" in the Warp, which is how a being like Slaanesh has a "birthday" and, also, has always existed.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because time is a concept of physical reality, and doesn't exist in the Warp. All time is "Now" in the Warp, which is how a being like Slaanesh has a "birthday" and, also, has always existed.

Time exists in the warp, it's just that the Warp does bad things to time and physics and makes them go cry in the corner for a while.

It exists in that those who live within the Warp recognize it as a "cute concept", and daemons that didn't exist until just now have always existed and always will.

In truth I doubt that there is much practical difference between the combat experience of a Loyalist and a traitor. Warp time shenanigans aside you can only sharpen the knife so much before it all becomes academic. CSM are just that little bit more experienced, which is accurately represented by Veterans of the Long War.

The biggest problem here is that too many people don't realize: the tabletop game =/= the background.

Also don't say that CSM are weaker than Loyalists because you only read books centered around loyalists. I mean anyway in loyalist books the CSM are portrayed as outclassing a loyalist marine.

In the Eisenhorn books there is 1 regular Chaos Marine who is a central villain all by himself.

In the Soul Drinkers Ombinus there is one case where they come across a CSM squad and the CSM squad takes out a bunch of the loyalists due to having 10,000 years of discipline/training. The loyalists try to charge them and they just stay in their position without flinching and shoot down a bunch of the loyalists.

The Antagonist's role in a story is to oppose the protagonist, and generally speaking; ultimately end up failing to stop the protagonist.

The Imperium is very blatantly the protagonist of 40k.

For a less meta-explanation: Chaos has a much smaller industrial and manpower base to draw from, much of it is gibbering at the mouth insane, they generally miss out on some of the newer things the Imperium has developed, and the forces of Chaos have less quality control in most cases for making marines and in many cases; quite blatantly put much less effort into training them.

Those Chaos Space Marines who are not veterans of the long war are also essentially treated and handled like more expensive cannon fodder than cultists and traitor guard, but ultimately disrespected cannon fodder nontheless. I wouldn't be surprised if the older marines hogged all the best gear and left the newbies to pick through whatever they felt wasn't good enough for them.

So you have things like 7000 Word bearers; mostly veterans of the horus heresy; holding quite well against 14 billion guardsmen (to be fair they had a titan demi-legion, space superiority, and brought boat-loads of cultists), but at the same time Captain Titus or Diomedes can single handedly slaughter hundreds if not thousands of Chaos Space marines who are presumably much newer to the whole chaos thing, given worse gear and training, and flat out made by corner cutting processes (and also lacking plot shields) in spectacular fashion.

Or of course; five chaos space marines getting butchered by musket and blowdart wielding primitives and a handful of the tanith first and only or marine after marine getting stuck like a pig on Gaunt's power sword.

Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was playing a game at a GW store when a kid told me that my Thousand Sons were unfluffy because it had Space Wolf marine bodies as basing. Sigh...