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Let's get it out of the way first: I have a problem with the Chaos Space Marine lore. I love Chaos as a broad concept, I love Marines, I love the Legions and their respective feel and such, but I can't help but feel that the fluff is written in a botched way that doesn't follow any sort of general design (which is fitting for Chaos, but even Chaos Daemons seem more organized than the Marines themselves!), and is written in a way that makes some Legions into the arch-villians they were supposed to be from the start, while others are just swept under the table as mercenaries or broken up warbands, who are no better than a small WAAAGH in strength. How am I supposed to fear that? How can that be what was left after the Horus Heresy, the happening that basically rocked the galaxy in a way only the Necrons have ever been close to doing?

What I basically ask is this: Is it something that bothers Chaos Space Marine fans, that the Legions are so broken up, or left as simple Cult units, rather than fluffed up as full-scale Legion forces, with their own tactics, akin to Chapter Tactics? Would you want a fluff rewrite, like the one below here?

Ideas for Legion Fluff Rewrite:

*All Legions still exist as Legions, but aren't necessarily working as a Legion: As in, the broken up nature of the current Legion Fluff is the norm, with each Warband having their own take on their parent Legion. Some Legions might still co-operate closely (Word Bearers), while others are as much enemies with each other as they are the Imperium (Emperor's Children), but the Legion often still keep a culture close to the original Legion. All Legions works like this, even Thousand Sons - Rubrics, Cults and whatnot are still in, but are more akin to special units within the Legion rather than what the entire Legion is made up off.
*Cults originated in their respective Legion, but the Cults are not all Legion: So, like the current fluff, but the entire Legion didn't go Merc. For example, the Plague Marines originated in the Death Guard, but took off from them and began working as a seperate unit apart from the Legion, as they dedicate themselves fully to their respective God now. Some might stay in a Legion Warband, others go pirate, or merc around with other Warbands. So Cult =/= Legion.
*Legions are compromised of regular Chaos Marines for the most part: Though the size and feeling of unity in the Legions vary, they have still retained their average Marines at their core. How these guys behave is up to the individual Legions, keeping much of their personality from before the Heresy, but with enough wiggle room to let each Warband have their own cultures (so like the Blood Angels and Blood Tearers are from the same original Legion, but has few similarities in their ideals and ways of waging war): No Legion is made up entirely by Cults or other unique units.

small note:

In the current fluff the greatest danger the CSM pose is NOT their military strength as combat units. Although the fluff indicates that there could be as many as a million CSM (inclusive of spawn) that are still around in 40k.

The danger that the CSM pose is that by the nature of their superhuman constitutions, they are able to survive prolonged warp exposure in the Eye of Terror, which allows them to serve as conduits for Chaos Demons. Normally Chaos Demons are insubstantial, and while potent in combat and moreso in strategic physchological capacity, they lack "staying power" in the materium. The CSM, however, as physical mortals are firmly rooted in the materium and can act as a beacon to Chaos Demons wherever they are.

It is the ability of the CSM to summon Chaos Demons, and the corrupting nature of those Demons on the Imperium's citizens, that make the CSM such a grave threat; not so much their ability to invade and conquer the imperium conventionally. In fact, they can't do so, and never could, even during the Heresy. The only "win" scenaio for CSM is to cause sufficient disruption to the Imperium's logistics that its ability to reinforce its frontline worlds with endless guardsmen falls apart and is corrupted to chaos world by world.

Just a sidenote.

As far as legions: It appears in the Fluff that there ARE warbands that are "core" legion warbands, specifically those that are close to their demon prince primarchs. But, they don't do much since the primarchs don't do much. After all, Chaos' war with the Imperium is a small portion of the greater war that the chaos gods fight amongst each other. The CSM just see the war as more important because they are still unhappy about the outcome of the Horus Heresy.

In short: The current fluff doesnt have chaos as a unified front against the imperium, even on a legion by legion basis, because that already happened in the Heresy and failed because it was doomed to fail for logistical reasons. The only way for CSM to "win" is as described above, by corrupting the Imperium to chaos and disrupting and disunifying its logistics of guardsmen reinforcement, which is literally the only thing the Imperium has going for it at this point.

I think you have pretty much described the Night Lords as written by ADB aside from the numbers you seem to be looking for.

I realise that the current fluffy reason that the Chaos Marines are this weak is because they can only win through corruption. My question is: Why? Why are we harmstringing the arch-villians to this degree? The Necrons, the Tyranids, even the fething Tau Empire seem more threatening than the occassional raid from some old lunies from Hell.

I would, in fact, be awesome if the different Legions could take space in the Materium. Not something that happens often, mind you, but if the Orks can have entire empires around, why shouldn't the Chaos Marines, who have freaking Chaos on its side, be able to? This would force the region of space to live under the leadership of the Chaos Marines (which could serve to some other ends, nefairous ones), and would create a foothold for further expansion out into the stars, and closer to the heart of the Imperium.

Like, there's NOTHING that stops it, apart from weird fluff reasoning to keep the Chaos Marines hampered. It would make a hell of a lot of sense for the Iron Warriors to create tough-as-nails Fortress worlds, as would it for the Word Bearers to create large areas where their rule, and faith, is law. It would allow the Legions much of those resources they haven't got for some reason, it would make it easier to attack the Imperium... Basically, it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't even need to be a retcon - Just say that the goal of the 13th Black Crusade was to open up the Cadian Gate and break the Necron's hold of the region, allowing for the Legions to pour out big time and take hold in the Materium. Boosting the fluffy strength of the Legions and advancing the story in one fell swoop? It's so good it should be illegal.

The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

 Harriticus wrote:
The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

I know that's the case. My question isn't: "What are the Legions like", but rather "Why don't we change it?"

 The Wise Dane wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

I know that's the case. My question isn't: "What are the Legions like", but rather "Why don't we change it?"

Why change what isn't broken?

It makes sense that the Legions would shatter. Following the Scouring, chains of command were broken and warbands rallied around their commanders. These commanders all wanted different things, to see the Imperium burn, to gain power, to devote their lives to Chaos, etc. Therefore, only the most centralised Legions (Black Legion through fear, Word Bearers through faith and Iron Warriors through command) would remain together.
Many Legions still do have a centralised Legion heart, consisting of typical Chaos Marines that remain true first to the Primarch and Legion, but the chaos of the Scouring (no pun intended) allowed rebel groups to create their own warbands and seize power.
The World Eaters were always fractured, and Skalathrax broke them apart.
The Emperor's Children seek perfection in different ways, resulting in no command structure.
The Night Lords were always murderers and cutthroats, I can't imagine them ever regrouping save for Kurze.

Having the Legions the way they are serves several reasons:
1. It adds credibility to Abbadon, who is the only other leader than Horus to unite the traitors, only for a time.
2. It allows individuality to Chaos Warbands, allowing for greater forging of the narrative.
3. It keeps the galaxy at a stalemate. If Chaos were what they were, they would probably have taken Terra at this point. They still are a galactic threat, but it isn't the same one it was during the Heresy. Chaos failed their coup, but remain as an insidious corrupting presence, forcing the Imperium to remain vigilant, instead of being a blunt invasive force like Nids or Orks. Chaos corrupts and waits for the perfect time to strike.

As to why Chaos can't have worlds outside the EoT? They all fled to the safest place they had during the Scouring. Any hope of building Fortress Worlds or creating havens was lost in this. I can imagine that any forces which did try to were destroyed by the savage Imperial pursuit, led by the Wolves and Ultramarines who hadn't really taken any losses in the Siege of Terra.

Also, with regards to Cult =/= Legion, this is canon. The entire World Eaters Legion are not Berzekers, but there are some Black Legion Berzerkers as well. Cult troops have more or less severed Legion ties to become one with their patron God.

My own collection of CSM models are painted up in different Legions, chapters, and God devotions, and I like it that way. It becomes the A-Team of evil legions, a Death Guard Plague Lord, a Night Lords Sorcerer, Crimson Slaughter bikers, Black Legion Havocs, Iron Warriors war machines, Posessed painted as one of each God, plus the Champ as a Word Bearer... Makes for fantastic conversion pieces and NARRATIVES FORGED!

Chaos IS Chaos. The Warband thing just works for them.

I never said anything about there not being Warbands - That's one of the greatest parts of the Chaos lore, to be honest, and they mirror the Chapters as a more anarchic and might-is-right movement that the mentioned. The Warbands should be the way they are. What I dissagree with is that most of them just sort of went "Well screw all this loyality and warfare and manifest destiny and gak, let's go be pirates". That some Warbands and the Cults do that make sense, but I don't see why that's supposed to be the norm. Why can't the "standard" Warband be a self-serving band of Marines, Cultists, other warriors and such, who are still sort of dedicated to their Legion, but do it their own way, and having the basic Legion culture intact, with the rest of the Warbands created of the Legions being all sort of different things.

Word Bearers and Black Legion would be much the same as it is now of course, but regarding the other Legions: Emperors Children would be very little unified, and would propably hate each other, but be able to band together when some big things need clobbering (the Iron Hands or Eldar being good contestants), as Fulgrim is more of a Noise Marine Cult kind of guy than a Legion kind of guy now. Thousand Sons would generally be few and far between, but be unified in their goal of psyking up the galaxy, just-as-planning around the place and give out knowledge to the masses. The core of the original Legion is absent (having been made into pissed off dust), but the Sorcerers are still there, and can direct new Legionnaries to do the bidding of Magnus the Red. The Iron Warriors strike me as one of the more unified Legions, propably being divided into massive invasion fleets who attack different parts of Imperial Space and try to appease Perturabo, so he won't smash them open for being complete fukken idiots.

When I write this, and am asking for the reason to the broken-up fluff for the Legions, it's not the actual reason I'm asking for, but the reason for the meta-plot to be laid out like that. Why does it suit the Chaos Space Marines as a faction, and how does it fit the general concept the Marines are trying to emulate? Tau are the "Reasonable Army", Marines are the "Knight Fantasy Army", Imperial Guard are the "Real Military/Human Army", but what are the Chaos Marines? "Villian's to-be-beat-'cause-they-never-have-enough-forces Army"? Some would say "Corrupting Army", but isn't that what the Daemons do? And what about the Legions who don't do Chaos?

 The Wise Dane wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

I know that's the case. My question isn't: "What are the Legions like", but rather "Why don't we change it?"

The real answer is GW wants the 40k game (which the fluff was simply developed to support) customizeable, so they want players to be able to make their own CSM warbands. It's the same reason we have SM Chapters, Necron Dynasties, lesser Craftworlds, and Dark Eldar Kabals.

I feel that what you're attempting to do is something that a good number in the community fight against, which is the simplification of the factions into bite-sized statements. It feels like you're looking at factions from a marketing perspective rather than thinking about them as entities, whose depth we simply aren't exposed to. To refer to Tau as, "The Reasonable Army" or Chaos Marines as "The Corrupting Army" does a huge disservice to both of those factions.

However, a solution that I feel gets overlooked is the solution of scale. To say anything about what, "the average" is a meaningless statement when dealing with such massive factions and institutions. But if you were to zoom in to a single sector, or several sectors, or even a sub-sector, a lot more can be defined. There could be whole sectors that exist entirely under the control of chaos marines and their minions. They could be simply chalked up as lost causes and the information on them redacted by the Inquisition. Or if they're a sub-sector, the Sector Governor may have decided it was best to excise and isolate that sub-sector, removing it from the sector's borders, because there isn't the political or military backing available to open up a new front. Just because we don't hear about it, doesn't mean they don't exist. Usually it's because when planets are taken, they're either absorbed into existing stable warp storms or they're the birth of a new one. See the worlds surrounding the Eye of Terror, the Screaming Vortex, the Hadex Anomaly, the Crow's Eye, and many others. This is not just corruption. This is outright conquest.

Now on the issue of "legion cohesion", I personally feel that all that means is when a big shot in the legion puts out the call, which could be a primarch, a champion, or someone else we've never heard of, what percent of those who still consider themselves "of the legion" are actually going to answer them? For the Word Bearers and the Black Legion, this is probably pretty high, but certainly nowhere close to 100%. Outside of those occurrences, I consider all of the legions to no longer exist.

Addition: Since almost all the traitor legions have a "core" warband, which uses the legion name and organization, albeit only the size of a warband (ie: generally the ones who are under their Primarch), for your own fluff uses you can just use them, as they could be larger than any tabletop FOC.

Prime candidates would be:

Black Legion (still a legion, just with others as auxiliaries and mercenaries)
Iron Warriors (any company, since they are generally cohesive as a legion, but lacking in direct top-down heiarchy above the company level)
Word Bearers (basically still a legion)
Night Lords (Any particularly large company remnant)
Emperor's Children (the guys still with Fulgrim)
Thousand Sons (the guys still with Magnus)
edit: Death Guard (Either Typhon's or Mortarion's group)

not so prime:
World Eaters
Alpha Legion

NumberZero wrote:
Addition: Since almost all the traitor legions have a "core" warband, which uses the legion name and organization, albeit only the size of a warband (ie: generally the ones who are under their Primarch), for your own fluff uses you can just use them, as they could be larger than any tabletop FOC.

Prime candidates would be:

Black Legion (still a legion, just with others as auxiliaries and mercenaries)
Iron Warriors (any company, since they are generally cohesive as a legion, but lacking in direct top-down heiarchy above the company level)
Word Bearers (basically still a legion)
Night Lords (Any particularly large company remnant)
Emperor's Children (the guys still with Fulgrim)
Thousand Sons (the guys still with Magnus)
edit: Death Guard (Either Typhon's or Mortarion's group)

not so prime:
World Eaters
Alpha Legion

I dont think any Emperor's Children are still with Fulgrim. Fulgrim abandoned them for a Slaanesh planet of unending pleasure that not even his own CSM can find.

 Harriticus wrote:

I dont think any Emperor's Children are still with Fulgrim. Fulgrim abandoned them for a Slaanesh planet of unending pleasure that not even his own CSM can find.

scratch that one then. I was thinking it was sort of how it is with Lorgar. Guess not.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 The Wise Dane wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

I know that's the case. My question isn't: "What are the Legions like", but rather "Why don't we change it?"

Why change what isn't broken?

It makes sense that the Legions would shatter. Following the Scouring, chains of command were broken and warbands rallied around their commanders. These commanders all wanted different things, to see the Imperium burn, to gain power, to devote their lives to Chaos, etc. Therefore, only the most centralised Legions (Black Legion through fear, Word Bearers through faith and Iron Warriors through command) would remain together.
Many Legions still do have a centralised Legion heart, consisting of typical Chaos Marines that remain true first to the Primarch and Legion, but the chaos of the Scouring (no pun intended) allowed rebel groups to create their own warbands and seize power.
The World Eaters were always fractured, and Skalathrax broke them apart.
The Emperor's Children seek perfection in different ways, resulting in no command structure.
The Night Lords were always murderers and cutthroats, I can't imagine them ever regrouping save for Kurze.

Having the Legions the way they are serves several reasons:
1. It adds credibility to Abbadon, who is the only other leader than Horus to unite the traitors, only for a time.
2. It allows individuality to Chaos Warbands, allowing for greater forging of the narrative.
3. It keeps the galaxy at a stalemate. If Chaos were what they were, they would probably have taken Terra at this point. They still are a galactic threat, but it isn't the same one it was during the Heresy. Chaos failed their coup, but remain as an insidious corrupting presence, forcing the Imperium to remain vigilant, instead of being a blunt invasive force like Nids or Orks. Chaos corrupts and waits for the perfect time to strike.

As to why Chaos can't have worlds outside the EoT? They all fled to the safest place they had during the Scouring. Any hope of building Fortress Worlds or creating havens was lost in this. I can imagine that any forces which did try to were destroyed by the savage Imperial pursuit, led by the Wolves and Ultramarines who hadn't really taken any losses in the Siege of Terra.

Also, with regards to Cult =/= Legion, this is canon. The entire World Eaters Legion are not Berzekers, but there are some Black Legion Berzerkers as well. Cult troops have more or less severed Legion ties to become one with their patron God.

The wolves and Ultramarines had however been decimated prior to the siege of Terra..

 Reality-Torrent wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 The Wise Dane wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
The only 2 CSM legions that are still unified in any way are Black Legion and Word Bearers, and even they have warbands.

Iron Warriors and Death Guard have some loose cohesion.

Emperor's Children/World Eaters/Thousand Sons/Night Lords have none

Lord knows what's up with Alpha Legion

I know that's the case. My question isn't: "What are the Legions like", but rather "Why don't we change it?"

Why change what isn't broken?

It makes sense that the Legions would shatter. Following the Scouring, chains of command were broken and warbands rallied around their commanders. These commanders all wanted different things, to see the Imperium burn, to gain power, to devote their lives to Chaos, etc. Therefore, only the most centralised Legions (Black Legion through fear, Word Bearers through faith and Iron Warriors through command) would remain together.
Many Legions still do have a centralised Legion heart, consisting of typical Chaos Marines that remain true first to the Primarch and Legion, but the chaos of the Scouring (no pun intended) allowed rebel groups to create their own warbands and seize power.
The World Eaters were always fractured, and Skalathrax broke them apart.
The Emperor's Children seek perfection in different ways, resulting in no command structure.
The Night Lords were always murderers and cutthroats, I can't imagine them ever regrouping save for Kurze.

Having the Legions the way they are serves several reasons:
1. It adds credibility to Abbadon, who is the only other leader than Horus to unite the traitors, only for a time.
2. It allows individuality to Chaos Warbands, allowing for greater forging of the narrative.
3. It keeps the galaxy at a stalemate. If Chaos were what they were, they would probably have taken Terra at this point. They still are a galactic threat, but it isn't the same one it was during the Heresy. Chaos failed their coup, but remain as an insidious corrupting presence, forcing the Imperium to remain vigilant, instead of being a blunt invasive force like Nids or Orks. Chaos corrupts and waits for the perfect time to strike.

As to why Chaos can't have worlds outside the EoT? They all fled to the safest place they had during the Scouring. Any hope of building Fortress Worlds or creating havens was lost in this. I can imagine that any forces which did try to were destroyed by the savage Imperial pursuit, led by the Wolves and Ultramarines who hadn't really taken any losses in the Siege of Terra.

Also, with regards to Cult =/= Legion, this is canon. The entire World Eaters Legion are not Berzekers, but there are some Black Legion Berzerkers as well. Cult troops have more or less severed Legion ties to become one with their patron God.

The wolves and Ultramarines had however been decimated prior to the siege of Terra..

Quoted from the 5th Ed Space Marine codex (I think)

The Ultramarines were a major factor in the success of the Imperium owing to their not taking part in the Siege of Terra due to fighting in the galactic east. Roboute Guilliman was the greatest military strategist alive and rallied the other Space Marine Legions to act as a bulwark against all enemies of the Imperium. The days following the Heresy were to be some of the darkest seen since the Emperor rose to power. Guilliman was said to have been everywhere during this period, rallying forces and reinforcing them with his Ultramarines before moving on to the next battle zone. Never once did the Space Marines take a step back, so strong was their faith in the Imperium and Guilliman's tactics.

Excuse the Ultramarines fanboyisms here, but it seems that the UM were pretty much leading the counter-offensive here. Also, even if the UM were decimated in a literal sense, they would still have more men than the other legions.

Indeed. Assuming a pre-Heresy strength of 250,000, HH5: Tempest makes it exactingly clear that the Ultramarines still had 100,000 marines following Calth.