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An inversion of the regular "who are the most evil loyalist Space Marines" (Carcharodons, Minotaurs, etc)

Not including non-Chaos renegades, as that's too easy. You don't have to be bad to secede from the Imperium - quite often your secession could be because you are too nice for them. With actual Chaos worshippers, you have people who are nominally bad by definition. So which ones are the least bad?

Arguments can be made for the Night Lords (don't really worship Chaos, are just psychopaths), the Alpha Legion (possibly still loyal, though cause unnecessary suffering in their tactics), the Death Guard (Nurgle does what he does out of love, apparently) or even inadvertently the Sons of Malice due to mainly fighting against Chaos, while still worshipping an aspect of it.

Any more?

I'm not sure if I'd fully consider the Death Guard the nicest. Typhus seems like a bitter dark bundle of contempt. If they all follow Pappa Nurgle's attitude then sure, in some way they're definitely the nicest guys.

I may be a little biased, but I've always found the Thousand Sons more... agreeable. I'm not sure if they're on an endless ruthless quest for knowledge and power of if they're mostly outright trying to destroy the Imperium as well... but I think of them as messed up scholars at best at the end of the day.

I'd actually say Red Corsairs. Sure they take slaves, and sure there's nothing stopping them from killing their slaves with wanton abandon, but Huron still runs an Empire of Chaos in the Maelstrom which does require some semblance of normal life just by definition. Honestly not very different than the Imperium other than the blood sports and random Corsair killing sprees. The Tyrant doesn't care about the people but neither does the Imperium.

Even on an invading planet, the primary purpose is a set goal, not just to expand territory, slaughter Imperials and wreck gak. Kill the enemy, get out. Don't stick around to torture or leave diseases or make mountains of corpses. Or whatever Tzeentch folks do... Watch paint dry to see the color change or whatever.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Or whatever Tzeentch folks do... Watch paint dry to see the color change or whatever.

I hate that I was staring at your icon before I started reading your response.

That being said, to be honest I like the Red Corsairs too though for that reason. There's at lease some form of unity or a means to an end... I don't know much about their lore so I don't know how devoted they are to spreading the will of the Dark Gods, but it's hard to avoid the evil in that.

I think it's hard to define a real "nice" Chaos Space Marine... they're mostly the embodiment of true evil. No matter what they're all still going to exterminate worlds to achieve their ends. Not too far from the Imperium in a lot of ways.

Probably the Ahrimanite Thousand Sons. If you don't have some specific piece of knowledge or particular artefact they actually want, they'll pretty much leave you alone.

Most of them who aren't actively fething gak up to be honest, they just sort of do there own thing and sometimes they even pay for things when they visit a world for supplies. Not like those damn loyalist marines who just shoot you if they think you might have seen a demon or anything else they don't want you to know about.

Huron's forces are more renegade that full on chaos marines for the most part.

The 'nice' scale in 40K pretty much goes from:

We'll kill you, take your supplies and subjugate the population

-to-

We'll do the same but in the name of the Dark Gods. And maybe some weird Slaneeshi stuff.

I'd say the Thousand Sons.
They don't generally seem so actively malicious for the sake of it.

I guess The Thousand Sons would have my vote. Pretty tough question.

Hierophant wrote:


Arguments can be made for the Night Lords

nope.jpg

They flay people alive and mutilate entire populations to cause mass hysteria and terror.

The Night Lords are probably the most evil of all the Chaos Space Marines. They act as they wish and serve no master.

 PhillyT wrote:
Huron's forces are more renegade that full on chaos marines for the most part.

How do you figure that when everything in his fluff says he bargained with each of the Chaos Gods to live, his forces are run by Champions that are always corrupted by one god or another, a Plague Marine on Pythos, a Khorne Champion in the Gildar Rift, Champions of Slannesh fought in the Skull Harvest but lost to an Iron Warrior, the latest short story has him working with Tzeentch Sorcerers cults. He has a daemon of the warp granted to him by the Maelstrom. His forces are a mess of devout worshipers and renegades but that would be like saying Black Legion are Renegades are not Chaos Marines because Abbadon and the last of the Justaerin aren't rotted, bright pink, Egyptian or wear bunny ears.

Plus the Corsairs fled into the Maelstrom, didn't they? The mini-Eye? They're warped as feth.

Though the nicest of the CSM is probably the Space Wolves. They fell millennia ago and don't even realize it... but, well, dabble in sorcery and the veneration of pagan gods, that's what you get.

 Psienesis wrote:
Plus the Corsairs fled into the Maelstrom, didn't they? The mini-Eye? They're warped as feth.

Though the nicest of the CSM is probably the Space Wolves. They fell millennia ago and don't even realize it... but, well, dabble in sorcery and the veneration of pagan gods, that's what you get.

Lies! We at least dont go around murdering millions of innocent people, for simply catching a glipms of a silver clad lunatic.

Dead ones.

Joyron and the World Huggers.

 Trondheim wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Plus the Corsairs fled into the Maelstrom, didn't they? The mini-Eye? They're warped as feth.

Though the nicest of the CSM is probably the Space Wolves. They fell millennia ago and don't even realize it... but, well, dabble in sorcery and the veneration of pagan gods, that's what you get.

Lies! We at least dont go around murdering millions of innocent people, for simply catching a glipms of a silver clad lunatic.

Like I said, "the nicest Chaos Marines". Of course, being lumberjacks, pretty sure the glimpse of a silver-clad lunatic drove some kind of lunacy... though maybe it wasn't exactly murderous.

Well, The Purge just want to destroy Chaos, by the Alpha Legion Method, which means killing everybody, you could say they aren't bad.
The Company of Misery are just depressed as feth, and it was mostly the fault of the Imperium.
Blood Gorgons are apparently nicer than the rest of Chaos.
Word Bearers? I mean, there is all the human sacrifice and murder, but their ultimate end is the betterment of humanity through communion with the Primordial Truth of Chaos, that or obtaining millions through their "Monarchia 2.0" chain of Thematic Demon World Parks.
All Slaanesh? After all, the only thing they want is to have a good time.

Thousand Sons for sure.

Magnus lot on Planet of the Sorcerors and Ahrimans little outcast crew.

Soul Drinkers? Or did they get pardoned and welcomed back into the fold?

Probably thousand sons.

Death Guard. Will probably kill you in some horrible zombie plague.
World Eaters, chainaxe target practice.
Night Lords? Good luck.
Word Bearers? Build a cathedral in the same of chaos. Then impale you alive to power it.
Black Legion? Slaves for abandons fleet. Those guns won't reload themselves.
Don't even ask about the Emperors Children.
Iron warriors. They'll use you to test the range on the enemy artillery (your old allies)
The Alpha Legion are definitely not chaos. Long live the Emperor!

Emperor's Children. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The Cleaved are pretty cool guys. Saves rebels from the Imperium and doesn't afraid of anything.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Cleaved

They're all extremely brutal. Red Corsairs will accept just about anything though

 Medium of Death wrote:
The Night Lords are probably the most evil of all the Chaos Space Marines. They act as they wish and serve no master.

I'd say Sons of Malal/Malice.
Every hundred years they throw a party. You do not want to be invited.

At least they're quiet. though.

Certain Fallen Angels, Relictors, and maybe Alpha Legion.

Thousands Sons here.

The space wolves, Dohohoho.

 ChazSexington wrote:
Certain Fallen Angels, Relictors, and maybe Alpha Legion.

Chaos marines only, bro. The Relictors haven't fallen to Chaos. Yet.
The Fallen do probably deserve a mention. Cypher will throw you to wolves if it furthers his goals, but other than that he seems pretty chill. Same with the Alpha Legion and the Thousand Sons (heck, the Alpha Legion treats their cultists pretty well, giving them actual equipment and training instead of treating them as cannon fodder and sacrifices). And like I said earlier, The Cleaved seem like a pretty chill gang of Nurgle worshipers to have around, especially when the Imperium is about to purge you.

Well, form an imperial aligned human perspective, probably the Thousand Sons, as they don't really do a lot, and thus aren't that bad.

From a chaos aligned human, probably Death Guard, as they are a jovial bunch, and they give you great gifts like black plague and small pox.

Corsairs aren't really a chaos faction even though the are in the book. They are bad guy pirate marines with a few chaos blessed dudes tossed in. In the old chaos books they could even have Imperial equipment if they paid slightly extra for it.

If you had to be a serf for a Legion, I hate to say it but Night Lords or Alpha Legion might be the safest if not the nicest. They do actually value the serfs under them working in jobs they do not want to do or simply do not have the man power. Plus AL actually trains its serfs and converts to be special ops people.
World Eaters are likely to go nuts at a moments notice and just kill people during the roid rage.
Death Guard... Nurgle may be a nice guy but his troops are not and you will get sick and die.
Word Bearers so hows that job being a sacrifice to the dark gods treating you.
Emperors Children so hows that job of getting your organs cut out to be turned into new and interesting drugs treating you. Oh one decided to use your blood to try a new paint scheme on the deck of a ship?
Black Legion- might be ok, too many members of the different cults around to be really secure though. But someone needs to drive the ships.
Iron Warriors- so do you like digging trenches and getting fed to war machines.