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I assume they have corrupted some more marines that were lost in the eye of terror during campaigns and they replenish their equipment through seizing space marine supplies. But the space marines themselves....wouldnt they be harder to come by?

Not quite. It's actually rather unreliable. Step one, the warp doesn't make sense. Step two, 40k fluff is often contradictory and doesn't make sense. Many marines have been corrupted over time. Besides that, CSM have conducted raids to steal genesead whilst others go about their way creating their own (look up Fabius Bile or the Iron Warrior Daemonculi or whatever nonsense it is called as excamples).

As per equipment, it varies. Looting, scavenging, raiding, and their own personal "forge worlds" which, although not as reliable to stay your friends, can make some glorious and horrific contraptions and creations.

Yeah, they can still make their own. Traitors tend to bring their gene-seed supplies with them when they flip over to chaos. Any failure of being separated from the exact official way to make a space marine can easily be waved away by saying that warp power buffs the rest.

Plus, there are still a lot of new traitors. Space marines, companies, and chapters flip all the time. They have a steady stream of new recruits. Recruits that are less likely to die of old age, or waste time fighting things other than space marines.

Great Space Marine Chapters that flip all the time? Sheesh, I thought Space Marines would be more resilient against chaos.

See below:

Within the Eye the Traitor Legions fight constant wars amongst themselves for gene-seed, slaves, resources, or martial honour. New Chaos Space Marines are recruited from the most dangerous heretics that are drawn into the Eye by the lure of Chaos, or else selected from the masses of slave-warriors who fight eternal battles for the amusement of the Dark Gods. The implantation of recruits is a brutal affair, quite unlike the carefully measured program of development used by Imperial Space Marines. Whether the candidate lives or dies is left to the will of the Chaos Gods. Initiation rites are similarly debased and savage, ensuring that only the toughest initiates ever survive.

p. 19, 2nd edition Chaos Codex.

Harvesting geneseed from fallen brethren is probably the most common way of replenishment. But ocassionally you get a gift of marines from the gods, whether it's just some Geneseed, resurrected marines, or whatever. They also get some recruits from recent traitors and raids.

Graham McNeil wrote on this. An Iron Warriors band captured a geneseed bank, managing to acquire enough geneseed that a tithe of it was paid to Abbadon, and there was still enough left over that other warbands went to war with this one, throwing away thousands of marines, to acquire it.

They would then use battlefield captives and grow them into new marines. Some would take, others would turn into grotesque monsters that got flushed.

Dax415 wrote:
Great Space Marine Chapters that flip all the time? Sheesh, I thought Space Marines would be more resilient against chaos.

If half the Primarchs weren't, why would their degraded genetic off-spring, 10,000 years later, be any more resilient?

There's also the odd raid that chaos does specifically for gene-seed SM monastery worlds.. Or equipment/ SCT tech from forgeworlds..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dax415 wrote:
Great Space Marine Chapters that flip all the time? Sheesh, I thought Space Marines would be more resilient against chaos.

Also it's rare that marines just 'flip out' it's more that in hundreds if not thousands of years service its only a matter of time until they have a really bad campaign or the imperium that they believe should treat them as Demi-gods for their unfailing loyalty treat them like hrud-gak.. Tats hen they have doubts..
Doubts lead to anger- anger leads to rage- rage leads to KIRBY.. Oh wait.. No KIRBY leads to rage.. Maya Culpa

 Psienesis wrote:

Dax415 wrote:
Great Space Marine Chapters that flip all the time? Sheesh, I thought Space Marines would be more resilient against chaos.

If half the Primarchs weren't, why would their degraded genetic off-spring, 10,000 years later, be any more resilient?

Because their offspring don't have to be brought up by the Emperor?

None of the Primarchs were brought up by the Emperor, either.

But they were pretty messed up by him and Horus was brought up by him for a bit as I recall.

Let's try this the other way.

Provide at least one bit of fluff that says that the space marines of today are any more resilient to chaos than they were 10,000 years previous.

Grey knights excepted, of course.

Dax415 wrote:
I assume they have corrupted some more marines that were lost in the eye of terror during campaigns and they replenish their equipment through seizing space marine supplies. But the space marines themselves....wouldnt they be harder to come by?

Read "Treacheries of the Space Marines"....several of the stories have some allusions to how the CSM gain recruits...

-STS

 Ailaros wrote:
Let's try this the other way.

Provide at least one bit of fluff that says that the space marines of today are any more resilient to chaos than they were 10,000 years previous.

Grey knights excepted, of course.

Codex Space Marines wrote:The Horus Heresy had also revealed weaknesses in the gene-seed of several Space Marine Legions. These defects had been exacerbated by the accelerated gene-seed cultivation techniques needed to keep the huge Space Marine Legions up to strength. Guilliman believed that the Chaos Powers were able to exploit the resultant physical and mental corruption to turn Horus’ troops against the Emperor.
One of the key objectives of the new Codex Astartes was to recognise and expunge these genetic weaknesses. As a result, the Codex Astartes decreed that Space Marines would forever more be created and trained slowly. The genetic banks used to create Astartes implants would be carefully monitored and scrutinised for any defects. Cultivated organs would be subject to the most stringent tests of purity. Young initiates would undergo trials of suitability before they were accepted, and only those of the very sternest character would be chosen.

It seems to have worked pretty well, since then approximately fifty Chapters are believed to have fallen to Chaos. There are currently about one thousand Marine Chapters and probably hundreds more through history. So you end up with a pretty small percentage of Marines falling to Chaos compared to the ~50% of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy Era.

they plant the geneseeds, forming geneorchards, from which they can harvest the genefruit. Which, everyone knows, can then be dissected for more geneseeds

 Psienesis wrote:

Dax415 wrote:
Great Space Marine Chapters that flip all the time? Sheesh, I thought Space Marines would be more resilient against chaos.

If half the Primarchs weren't, why would their degraded genetic off-spring, 10,000 years later, be any more resilient?

I'm still reading up on the background of space marines....but werent the primarchs stolen by chaos? I would imagine they did something to the primarchs on purpose before letting them be discovered by the Emperor again, hence their subjugation to chaos. The remaining space marines were not tainted so I thought they would be harder to convert compared to traitior guardsmen.

They were scattered but none were actually tainted by that they just ended up on random planets. They were tainted more as a result of their experiences.

Chaos Marines do actually have somewhat useful means of creating and training new Chaos Marines. It's actually an ongoing process.

As we should all know, CSM's remove geneseed from their fallen.

Slaves are very abundant in Chaos warbands. They are forced to live in the worst conditions a mortal could possibly live in. The children are very important to the Chaos Marine champions. They are hardly ever fed, hardly ever given water, clothing, or any other items essential to everyday life. This forces children to fight and to kill other children for what they want. They do so until they are cold blooded killers. Only the strongest can prevail, while the weaker ones suffer terrible and gruesome fates. They are closely examined by Chaos Marine slavers and when a child is deemed ready for life as a heartless Chaos Marine, they are implanted with geneseed.

After which, they will be assigned to raiding parties. Don't listen to what anybody tells you, new CSM's are not thrown into enemy grinders. Geneseed is to valuable for such reckless tactics. They will be led by a proven Chaos Champion in raids on imperial worlds. Normally, these objectives are quite simple. Gather as many children and supplies as you possibly can before SM's show up. It's all down-hill from there if they do because PDF forces are usually easy to deal with if the leader of the raid has a proven battle record, which they always do.

They will perform these raids until the champion believes they are ready for the destruction of the Imperium, in which they will be led into battle and continue the Long War by their Chaos lord.. Then, this process will be repeated with the slaves the previous generation had caught.

This is of course more theory, but it is the most logical. Others have their own interpretations as to how they create and train more marines. In the end, you believe in whatever you wanna believe.