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Ok, so how in the Emperor's name are the forces of Chaos not reduced down to a paltry band?

Their fleet is made up of mostly older ships. Some of the raiders are new builds/stolen imperial designs, but most of the rest are older ships. After 10 millenia and the 12th Black Crusade (where I understand they took some serious losses), they're still a sizable fighting force constantly engaging the fleets of all of the other races?

The various Chaos Space Marines are mostly veterans of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. They took severe losses during and immediately after the Heresy, have also been fighting across the galaxy for 10 millenia, and are still able to gather in enough forces to be the bulwark of the 13th Black Crusade?

I mean, sure they tend to use Cultists as meatshields in their battles, but the Inquisition seems to be pretty good about stopping most recruitment efforts (mainly by Exterminatus on any planet with more than a dozen discovered cultists). I would estimate that there wouldn't be anymore than about 10-20 million cultists across the galaxy at any given time (spitballling the numbers).

Daemons seem like they would have the numbers necessary, what with being able to regenerate/spawn in the warp and all, but most 40k media and stories I've been exposed to point to Marines and Cultists as being the main forces during campaigns and invasions with Daemons helping out as support units.

So with the serious losses Chaos has endured over the millenia, how on Earth are they able to muster the strength to engage in a 13th crusade and still have the forces leftover to handle other stuff across the galaxy? How are they replenishing their forces?

Time is fucky in the warp. A lot of them haven't experienced the full 10 millennia. They can also create new marines just fine.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Time is fucky in the warp. A lot of them haven't experienced the full 10 millennia. They can also create new marines just fine.

I thought they didn't have access to their geneseed stock, or at least couldn't make more....

Also ship-wise, is the forgeworld they control able to produce enough more cruisers? Or does its shipyards just build new Raiders?

Arcanis161 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Time is fucky in the warp. A lot of them haven't experienced the full 10 millennia. They can also create new marines just fine.

I thought they didn't have access to their geneseed stock, or at least couldn't make more....

Also ship-wise, is the forgeworld they control able to produce enough more cruisers? Or does its shipyards just build new Raiders?

The majority of warbands are either capable of producing more marines themselves, or have a connection to another faction/warband who could produce new marines for them. The results may not meet Imperial standards, but they're good enough for most warbands. Or, depending on the type of lore a warband has access to, their marine creation process may not require geneseed at all, instead being an entirely sorcerous procedure. There is no standardization amongst warbands.

Most chaos space marine vessels that we know of aren't from the Heresy. They're designs from M32-M36 and are the result of flaws warp drives and gellar fields ending in the ships being either lost in the warp, having their crew turn insane, or otherwise falling to chaos and being hijacked by a warband.

In addition, there were dozens of fallen forge worlds and Mechanicum personel, who either fled to the Eye of Terror or hid themselves away throughout the galaxy. Plenty of them have built shipyards capable of making starships on a large-scale. Some will have exclusivity agreements with particular warbands, while others may be willing to work with any warband that approaches them, but there's certainly enough to continue supplying chaos space marine fleets.

Arcanis161 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Time is fucky in the warp. A lot of them haven't experienced the full 10 millennia. They can also create new marines just fine.

I thought they didn't have access to their geneseed stock, or at least couldn't make more....

Also ship-wise, is the forgeworld they control able to produce enough more cruisers? Or does its shipyards just build new Raiders?

Some warbands still have their original geneseed, others steal loyalist geneseed, some use chaos shenanigans to create new marines and some, like the TS, can't die and are just put into new suits of armour when the old one is destroyed. Cultists are mainly taken from renegade worlds/Daemon worlds although some Legions (like the AL and WB) will set the seeds of corruption and create cults on planets which are about to be invaded. Not sure about ships but I do know that the Daemonforges are capable of creating all manner of crazy things and over short periods of time with a great enough warp source.

Chaos wizards did it.

Time shenanigans + raided geneseed stockpiles + functional immortality + the continual stream of companies and/or chapters going traitor says 'stop poking holes in the 4th wall already.'

Plus, the Inquisition's only going to tell us when they succeed at preventing a world falling to Chaos. I wonder how many times they fail and it gets blanked off the map as 'uncharted territory'...

Chaos forces are able to make more marines (in limited numbers) they also take in renegades.

The cultist estimates are waaaaaay off. That would be an underestimate for imperial world's, but there are plenty of chaos aligned world's and daemon world's which would have billions of cultists.

Pretty much exactly what the OP said.
Chaos Marines are spread thinner then their loyalist counterparts. It's common to have a chaos marine commanding armies of cultists. This is overepresented in novels but underrepresented on the tavletop. They also use deamons as meatshields, as to not suffer losses themselves. Finally any marine that rises to deamonhood will be effectively immortal, and a KO'd chaos marine can be healed easier with sorcery then a loyal astartes would. Some chaos legions can breed astartes through various horrifying means, creating what would look like an astartes but has a mutated non human mind. I guess they're better at turning tail and running as well. This used to be represented by them not having atsknf. I suppose they're more considerate about not dying then a loyal astartes would be (who's far to happy to throw their life away for the Emperor).

But even for all theese reasons I'd agree. Chaos Marines should have gone extinct long ago.

 Nerak wrote:
Pretty much exactly what the OP said.
Chaos Marines are spread thinner then their loyalist counterparts. It's common to have a chaos marine commanding armies of cultists. This is overepresented in novels but underrepresented on the tavletop. They also use deamons as meatshields, as to not suffer losses themselves. Finally any marine that rises to deamonhood will be effectively immortal, and a KO'd chaos marine can be healed easier with sorcery then a loyal astartes would. Some chaos legions can breed astartes through various horrifying means, creating what would look like an astartes but has a mutated non human mind. I guess they're better at turning tail and running as well. This used to be represented by them not having atsknf. I suppose they're more considerate about not dying then a loyal astartes would be (who's far to happy to throw their life away for the Emperor).

But even for all theese reasons I'd agree. Chaos Marines should have gone extinct long ago.

Now that sounds like the start of a kickass conspiracy. If CSM should by all rights have gone extinct...they must be receiving support from somewhere within the Imperium...

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
Pretty much exactly what the OP said.
Chaos Marines are spread thinner then their loyalist counterparts. It's common to have a chaos marine commanding armies of cultists. This is overepresented in novels but underrepresented on the tavletop. They also use deamons as meatshields, as to not suffer losses themselves. Finally any marine that rises to deamonhood will be effectively immortal, and a KO'd chaos marine can be healed easier with sorcery then a loyal astartes would. Some chaos legions can breed astartes through various horrifying means, creating what would look like an astartes but has a mutated non human mind. I guess they're better at turning tail and running as well. This used to be represented by them not having atsknf. I suppose they're more considerate about not dying then a loyal astartes would be (who's far to happy to throw their life away for the Emperor).

But even for all theese reasons I'd agree. Chaos Marines should have gone extinct long ago.

Now that sounds like the start of a kickass conspiracy. If CSM should by all rights have gone extinct...they must be receiving support from somewhere within the Imperium...

Wouldnt be a surprise at all if some imperial head was funneling geneseed to the traitor legions

- They can produce new marines there is a lot o fluff out there on it, the storm of ion novel series has a big thing on geneseed

- 10-20 million cultists... lol way off, in the scale of 40k that could be the size of a chaos cult on one city on one world

- remember there were 'a lot' of marines when they were in legions during the HH

- renegade marines are a thing, whole chapters can turn and takeup the colours of many of the traitor legions

- old ships in 40k are because of the post apoc nature quite often 'better' ships. Even then ships in 40k can be salvaged and repaired

- the warp does a lot to help chaos, daemon engines and the such can fuel factories that would be impossible by the laws of realspace.

- time in the warp has no meaning. In theory (they dont go this far in the fluff) a chaos lord could spend a million realspace years building an innumerable army of doom and it only seem like seconds passed in realspace. I guess you have to fluff this away with the fact chaos tends to have infighting and no one would let such a force come into being