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I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for the most important and vital scenarios. If he doesnt feel right about using his men, he will send cultists instead.

Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.

After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.

After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.

So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:
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...

Haha, noobs!

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for important and vital scenarios.

Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.

After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.

After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.

So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.

Depends on the warband.

Some may have largely recognizable systems of training, reserves, and recruitment.

Others simply throw in anyone who seems strong enough through the process and then goes slaughtering.

Warsmith Honsou didn't even bother with any sort of recruitment process beyond throwing pubescent boys into the Daemonculabba, then sticking skin onto them and slapping on some armor and weapons and telling them they're Iron Warriors now, here's your squad; your aspiring champion will train you.

The Word Bearers, thanks to their unity and discipline; seem to have largely standardized organizations, recruiting processes, and the likes.

The Black Legion; while united under abaddon; seems to mostly point the grand companies in the right direction and let them loose unless the objective has Abaddon's personal interest. I'd say their recruiting process depends on the Chaos Lord your grand company serves under, with whomever leading the forces of Chaos in Ultramarines probably having hired up a bunch of roided scrubs and dressed them in paper mache replicas of power armor.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:

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...

I wouldn't say "basic" CSM.

Most Chaos Space marines are not veterans of the horus heresy. Those would be the units you put veterans of the long war on.

The reason is simple attrition accrued over years of warring with the Imperium and the Xenos and with themselves. Most of the CSMs who fought in the Heresy simply died in battle or in power struggles or accidents.

I'd say about 20-10% of the CSMs are veterans of the long war these days.

 Kain wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for important and vital scenarios.

Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.

After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.

After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.

So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.

Depends on the warband.

Some may have largely recognizable systems of training, reserves, and recruitment.

Others simply throw in anyone who seems strong enough through the process and then goes slaughtering.

Warsmith Honsou didn't even bother with any sort of recruitment process beyond throwing pubescent boys into the Daemonculabba, then sticking skin onto them and slapping on some armor and weapons and telling them they're Iron Warriors now, here's your squad; your aspiring champion will train you.

The Word Bearers, thanks to their unity and discipline; seem to have largely standardized organizations, recruiting processes, and the likes.

The Black Legion; while united under abaddon; seems to mostly point the grand companies in the right direction and let them loose unless the objective has Abaddon's personal interest. I'd say their recruiting process depends on the Chaos Lord your grand company serves under, with whomever leading the forces of Chaos in Ultramarines probably having hired up a bunch of roided scrubs and dressed them in paper mache replicas of power armor.

 Veteran of The Long War wrote:

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...

I wouldn't say "basic" CSM.

Most Chaos Space marines are not veterans of the horus heresy. Those would be the units you put veterans of the long war on.

The reason is simple attrition accrued over years of warring with the Imperium and the Xenos and with themselves. Most of the CSMs who fought in the Heresy simply died in battle or in power struggles or accidents.

I'd say about 20-10% of the CSMs are veterans of the long war these days.

You're right, it depends on who the lord is, but what I stated was simply the normal and most well known method. And to your point of veterans of the long war, not all of them, or even most of them aren't HH survivors. Veterans can range from 500 to 10,000 years old, so there actually are a lot of veterans. Usually lords and champs are the survivors of the horus heresy.

Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.

I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.

The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.

Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.

 herpguy wrote:
Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.

I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.

The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.

I'm pretty sure I murdered several companies worth of the Chosen of Nemeroth in space marine.

And that the Blood Ravens wiped out an entire grand company (1k+ marines) of the Black Legion with a few squads, and then proceeded to wipe out several companies of the alpha legion in Retribution, which according to Deathwatch is canon (though how canon is Diomedes being impervious to small arms fire because he heals too fast to be hurt by bolters, regenerates every time he smacks something, and tears apart the earth with a charge before smacking open a dreadnought in three hits is unknown )

Or Chaos Space Marines who show up in most anything of Abnett's; especially Gaunts Ghosts where guardsmen take down traitor Astartes like chumps to the point you wonder why Chaos even bothers making any.

 herpguy wrote:
Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.

I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.

The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.

Exactly. I wanna read the Blood Gorgons, their warband seems pretty interesting. Which by the way, the only reason Honsou was wasting away his men was because he relied to heavily on the productions from the Daemonculabba. He could just spawn some more and dress them in ceramite and they were good to go. However, he was the only lord that possessed the Daemonculabba and now it's destroyed. The Blood Gorgons by the way recruited exactly like a SM chapter because they were once exactly that. They figured they wouldn't stop when they turned traitor.

"Well, I had gotten this far. I figured I'd just keep going." -Forest Gump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JubbJubbz wrote:
Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.

Yes, the Champion of Chaos rule was designed to make us Chaos players writhe in agony at the fact we have to feed our champions to things like Lysanders and Marneus Calgars. Nothing we can do but accept it. To make up for this I can't upgrade my champs cuz they'll end up challenging something they have no chance against anyway.

I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?

TiamatRoar wrote:
I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?

Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?

Imo it's the Worf effect.

 lyrken wrote:
Imo it's the Worf effect.

What's the worf effect?

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 lyrken wrote:
Imo it's the Worf effect.

What's the worf effect?

It's a term coined by TV tropes that refers to when a strong character is beaten up by someone else to establish that guy as a threat. It also extends to factions or no-selling traditionally very formidable attacks.

It refers to how in Star Trek; Worf was built up to be a badass warrior but was repeatedly thrown across the room by just about every villain of the week to immediately establish his credentials.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?

Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?

I meant Fluff-wise. Though it's just as stupid crunch-wise too, as you've pointed out.

The whole point of Tzeentch (well, one point of Tzeentch) is that you do things from the sidelines and from behind the scenes. Issuing and accepting challenges is rather contrary to that.

To a lesser extent, one aspect of Nurgle is supposed to be about humility. Another despair. Both of which would make one try to AVOID challenges, I'd think.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?

Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?

I meant Fluff-wise. Though it's just as stupid crunch-wise too, as you've pointed out.

The whole point of Tzeentch (well, one point of Tzeentch) is that you do things from the sidelines and from behind the scenes. Issuing and accepting challenges is rather contrary to that.

To a lesser extent, one aspect of Nurgle is supposed to be about humility. Another despair. Both of which would make one try to AVOID challenges, I'd think.

Oh, yea, Tzeentch champs would be the last to do such a thing. All Chaos champs are a bit cocky but their not dumb either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 lyrken wrote:
Imo it's the Worf effect.

What's the worf effect?

It's a term coined by TV tropes that refers to when a strong character is beaten up by someone else to establish that guy as a threat. It also extends to factions or no-selling traditionally very formidable attacks.

It refers to how in Star Trek; Worf was built up to be a badass warrior but was repeatedly thrown across the room by just about every villain of the week to immediately establish his credentials.

Fascinating. That makes a bit of sense then

In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
BotF: The 1KSons were shown to be backbiting, mere shadows of themselves. They had lost their fire, their courage and their mutual trust. They knew they were going to be destroyed, their goal was to destroy the SW's at the same time. Also, the SW had home world advantage and a pre-heresy fortress that was supposed to be second only to Terra.
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.

 MWHistorian wrote:
In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
BotF: The 1KSons were shown to be backbiting, mere shadows of themselves. They had lost their fire, their courage and their mutual trust. They knew they were going to be destroyed, their goal was to destroy the SW's at the same time. Also, the SW had home world advantage and a pre-heresy fortress that was supposed to be second only to Terra.
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.

I suppose you're right. I don't know about BftF but I did read KNF, which was a great book. WB marines had the upper hand at first because they took the element of surprise by making things look like a terrible misake but it was over as soon as Guilliman found out. He removed the gloves and poof, bye bye Lorgar. There is just something about Dan Abnett and how he writes about the ineptitude of Chaos Marines.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 herpguy wrote:
Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.
(...)

Exactly. I wanna read the Blood Gorgons, their warband seems pretty interesting.

It is.
I really liked that book. One of the best Chaos-related novel I have read.

What's the worf effect?

What Kain said.
Here is a link if you are interested: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect
Warning: that place is somehow like Dakka: your spare time will be sucked out.

JubbJubbz wrote:
Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.

^This.
The current rules depict the CSM as clearly inferior to SM in most senses. And really dumb.

 MWHistorian wrote:
In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
(...)
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.

Yeah, that totally explain the Bolter rounds bouncing off the loyalist armour, the loyal Bolter rounds going through "superior" traitor´s armor like nothing, the Greater Daemon being killed on the spot with a knife before doing anything noteworthy and so on.
Ultramarines are better at fighting than most Astartes. WB are worse at fighting than most Astartes. I´m OK with that. But many writers take it too far. It gets silly really fast if you stop and think about it for a while. We are not talking about 6 UMs taking on 10 WB, it is one or two against countless. Over and over again. It is like the Rambo movie.

I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines

Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.

That's my opinion.

 Bane-.- wrote:
I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines

Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.

That's my opinion.

There are plenty of Chaos Space Marines who couldn't give two damns about Chaos as a religion or honoring the gods any further than is beneficial for them; namely the Iron Warriors, Red Corsairs, and Night Lords

Which I find cool about the Iron Warriors. They'd be hard pressed to care less for the gods outside of their own benefit and prefer to put their trust in big guns, iron discipline, and clanking war machines over prayer, sorcery, and daemons.

 Bane-.- wrote:
I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines

Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.

That's my opinion.

It is to the detriment of the setting that Space Marines (or anyone, really) is viewed as a "good guy". Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Bane-.- wrote:
I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines

Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.

That's my opinion.

It is to the detriment of the setting that Space Marines (or anyone, really) is viewed as a "good guy". Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.

"Less bad-guy-ish on average" works for Space Marines compared to Chaos Space Marines, though.

That said, most novels and stories portray Space Marines as good guys. In a light that's not very different from any other story with "good guys".

All the books are written from the viewpoint of the Imperium, and part of the Imperium is that they are blind to reality. I mean, think about how long 10,000 years is. We're only 2000 years removed from the death of Christ in real-time and look at how different the world is. The 40k universe? It hasn't changed in any significant meaningful way in 10,000 years and people still worship the Emperor and the Primarchs as literal Gods.

So basically, the Chaos Marines win I'm sure all the time but we never hear about it.

Who cares about the Ultramarines. Alpha Legion are about to Crimson Consul them. What with the 55th Alphic Hydras.

Loyalists have a monster logisitical advantage over CSM. Especially since the SM will run into the CSM usually at the tail end of a raid, when the traitors are low on ammo and somewhat banged up anyway. There is a ton of churn in the NCO ranks for the traitors too, which is really, really bad from an overall war perspective, since that's the most critical rank bracket.

Plus, I get the impression the SM are really trained and optimized to go after the hardest targets, things the Guard can't take down. CSM are more optimized to do the most damage possible in the shortest amount of time, typically to soft targets. Both are legitimate taskings, but in a paper-scissors rock matchup, you can see how SM might have the advantage.

And the time dilation of the warp probably hurts more than it helps the traitors. Aside from time in transit, a few weeks or months between campaigns, SM are perpetually in combat, 24/7. CSM might experience centuries between campaigns for their skills to atrophy, even though outside only a few days have passed.

It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.

But yeah, plot armour. The good guys need to win. And the only real way for the storyline to stay stagnant is to maintain the status quo. That means killing off the hundreds of Chaos Marines that just pop out of the woodwork when ever we turn our backs.

 Bane-.- wrote:
Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.

50 shades?

 Wyzilla wrote:
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, the veteran should win the fight as he holds the advantage of experience, which is the only variable between the two. The "young" warrior should only be winning by logistics or random luck, loyalists should only have a logistical advantage over CSM's, nothing else.

mathematically CSM MUST have a better kill ratio than the loyalists. Half the legions defected and they cannot make more space marines. The other half stayed loyal, and have been refreshed constantly with more men as they are killed. Today, 10,000 years later there are still nearly as many CSM as there are loyal marines, thus the CSM must kill more than they lose virtually every engagement.

The only way the Loyalists would have a better kill ratio is if somehow, with the huge resources of the entire galaxy and uncorrupted gene seeds they were able to produce less fighting men than the forces of chaos.


We simply don't have enough books about Chaos winning, likely because the imperium only writes about it's successes.

... They do make more Chaos Space Marines. They raid the Imperium for supplies of gene-seed, steal it from fallen Loyalists, and Fabius Bile has more-or-less figured out how to make it.

Plus defectors. Which is why the imperium doesn't do the obvious thing and put space marines into full rate production again.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Plus defectors. Which is why the imperium doesn't do the obvious thing and put space marines into full rate production again.

Lost technology and whatnot.

While I do see plot armor in books and the UM movie overall, I'd argue that its far from one side and more of a grim dark stalemate. There are amazing loyalist wins and crushing defeats. Heck, I recently read a book where AL destroyed an entire chapter with no losses. As per one on one combat and skill, I'd think of it as special ops vs mercenaries. It can go both ways but chances are special ops wins more often. My .02 anyway