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I'm not actually much into the respective fluff but I'd really like it if the Dark Angels were actually the traitors of the HH and Cypher and the Fallen the loyalists. Not saying DA still ARE traitors but that their big secret is that the chapter actually turned - and then turned back later on. I know HH made it pretty clear that it's not the case but I'd like that. And it would actually be a big secret to keep, not what they're actually trying to hide right now in official fluff. (Wow, there are Fallen Dark Angels, just like every other legion had, what a secret!)

Speaking of the "1000 Marine Myth", here is a blast from the past that is still relevant today.

https://maws40k.blogspot.com/2011/08/1000-marines.html

TL;DR A full strength chapter theoretically has anywhere from 1500-2000 fully functional Astartes when you factor in support roles, vehicle crews, dreadnoughts and command structure, along with an undetermined number of Scouts and menial staff.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Speaking of the "1000 Marine Myth", here is a blast from the past that is still relevant today.

https://maws40k.blogspot.com/2011/08/1000-marines.html

TL;DR A full strength chapter theoretically has anywhere from 1500-2000 fully functional Astartes when you factor in support roles, vehicle crews, dreadnoughts and command structure, along with an undetermined number of Scouts and menial staff.

My interpretation has always been +/- 1000 Marine "grunts" actively deployed. So not support staff, not trainers, not even tankers/aviators, not guys on leave, not guys in convalescence, not even guys who are stationed on a planet that isn't a combat zone currently. I'd even say Chapter Masters and the other command structures don't count, So probably closer to 15-20k. Not as many as the Imperium will need, sure, but it is fantasy.

The new codexes make it clear that pilots and drivers are already counted, usually from the 6th and 7th companies or as Techmarines. They are not additional marines strictly for that purpose.

jareddm wrote:
The new codexes make it clear that pilots and drivers are already counted, usually from the 6th and 7th companies or as Techmarines. They are not additional marines strictly for that purpose.

Which is insane and why I have my head cannon.

Even doubling chapter size is woefully insufficient to address the issue. Hell even my personal x10 is insufficient but I think a more appropriate 50k or 100k marines per chapter is too optimistic, whereas I can convince myself to hope marines will one day be ret-conned to 10k per chapter.

I think the 1k narrative worked ok when there were only, really, infantry Marines with a handful of of transport vehicles, or the occasional transport-with-heavy-weapons. With the explosion of different roles they now have models for there is no way a Marine chapter can be 1000 people if you include pilots, tankers, Medics, Librarians, Tech-Marines, Chaplains, various Blade Guard/other elites, Dreadnoughts, Centurions, heck the Scouts would need to be much bigger than the other companies.

In just a fully mechanized company you're down from 100 fighting Marines to just 90 with 10 taxi drivers. That's 10% of your company.

Throw in a Thunder hawk drop ship each has a crew of 2, but can carry 2 Rhino, so another 10 Marines to transport them, from 90 to 80. Soon you'll end up with zero fighting Marines

Khorne was not awakened during the Middle Ages. It is ludicrous that the actions of the denizens of one primitive planet could have brought to life such a powerful cosmic force. Instead, I believe that during the Middle Ages, all of the warfare and destruction caused Khorne to 'level up' and then to turn his gaze towards humanity like he hadn't before.

The daemons in the warp and the chaos gods aren’t actually sentient beings with motivation and desires, they are forces of nature caused by the emotions of the materium. There is no more bargaining with chaos gods than there is with a hurricane.

Whatever consciousness is perceived is a reflection of the person interacting with it, our only fears are the ones we bring with us. The warp and its daemons are poorly understood, but they can be harnessed but almost always with terrifying consequences, not through a diabolical sentience, rather than just be because the warp creatures will follow their nature.

This doesn’t make the warp less dangerous, if anything it is even more dangerous, and the false belief that it can be bargained with makes it even more so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The daemons in the warp and the chaos gods aren’t actually sentient beings with motivation and desires, they are forces of nature caused by the emotions of the materium. There is no more bargaining with chaos gods than there is with a hurricane.

Whatever consciousness is perceived is a reflection of the person interacting with it, our only fears are the ones we bring with us. The warp and its daemons are poorly understood, but they can be harnessed but almost always with terrifying consequences, not through a diabolical sentience, rather than just be because the warp creatures will follow their nature.

This doesn’t make the warp less dangerous, if anything it is even more dangerous, and the false belief that it can be bargained with makes it even more so.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Khorne was not awakened during the Middle Ages. It is ludicrous that the actions of the denizens of one primitive planet could have brought to life such a powerful cosmic force. Instead, I believe that during the Middle Ages, all of the warfare and destruction caused Khorne to 'level up' and then to turn his gaze towards humanity like he hadn't before.

The way I see it, whenever one of the Big Four gets disproportionally more powerful, his presence is felt more strongly in real space throughout the galaxy. Whever there has been an age of plagues and disease on Earth, there is also one on many other planets becaue it's the consequence of Nurgle's increased influence. Whenever there is massive conflict, it shows that Khorne is currently the strongest etc. These time periods can either last millenia or less then a heartbeat, because time means nothing in the Warp.

I like to lean into “well meaning, but utterly insane” aspects of the Chaos Gods as sort of presented in Realm of Chaos.

The powers themselves aren’t actually malevolent as we understand it. Khorne craves bloodshed because he comprehends nothing else. Nurgle wants to see life flourish, but whether that life is sentient matters not - just that it thrives, and so on.

The powers simply cannot perceive anyone being opposed to their actions, or being ungrateful in any way.

The gifts they bestow? They’re also all equal. Because whilst Bob might get something beneficial (Iron hard skin, Daemon weapon etc), Poor Davey might wind up with a Duck’s Bum instead of eyes. Because the bestowing God is so utterly insane, it can’t differentiate between beneficial and detrimental. All that matters is that though that were pleasing are rewarded.

Not to be crass, not least because it’s on both sides of my family, but consider someone in the grips of later stage dementia doling out gifts. You might get an out of date jar of jam. You might get a jumper from the 60’s. Or you might get a bar of solid gold. All gifts are equal in their eyes, as they’ve lost the ability to reason in that way.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Khorne was not awakened during the Middle Ages. It is ludicrous that the actions of the denizens of one primitive planet could have brought to life such a powerful cosmic force. Instead, I believe that during the Middle Ages, all of the warfare and destruction caused Khorne to 'level up' and then to turn his gaze towards humanity like he hadn't before.

The Middle Ages thing is a bit of a misreading of RoC tbh. Nurgle was apparently awakened during the Black Death, but Tzeentch was when the first civilisations started (so even Earth centric that’s thousands of years BC) and Khorne even earlier.

As Esmer said, I am pretty sure its the god awakening causing the historical events not the historical events causing the god to awaken.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
As Esmer said, I am pretty sure its the god awakening causing the historical events not the historical events causing the god to awaken.

Probably yeah, but the Middle Ages thing is a personal bugbear...

It's a misreading of RoC, which I have.

Khorne awoke during the first organized warfare between people. Tzeentch with the rise of more complex civilization and societies, circa Bronze Age I think, which saw the rise of a whole new scale of intrigue and plotting. Nurgle was said to have fully awoken by the time of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, so strictly speaking it doesn't say the Black Death was the trigger for waking.

Nowhere is it said that these 3 Chaos gods had to have been vast and powerful from the moment they woke. They were the parochial gods of a small planet-bound species. They would have only grown fat and powerful with the spread of humanity across the stars and the growth in population.

We see that it is a function of both population and individual soul strength that seems to determine the power of the gods. That is why Gork and Mork are so powerful, because the Orks are so widespread across the galaxy, and virtually indestructible as a species.

Slaanesh rocketed to the big tier in one go, through consumption of its parent species in one go like a person winning the jackpot in a lottery, whereas Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle grew over time. That explains somewhat Slaanesh's parvenu status among the Chaos gods. Slaanesh is the outsider to the club because Slaanesh arose from the Eldar, and essentially "pantheon jumped" from the Eldar to humanity as its main source of power now since the Eldar are too few now to be a stable power base for Slaanesh. Sort of like how an Egyptian goddess like Isis gained popularity among Romans

I think the growth in power came first, then the awakening. Slaanesh didn't wake up weak then gain strength, Slaanesh was full god by the time of awakening. It was the sheer immensity of accumulated emotional baggage that allowed for the Chaos Gods to awaken as distinct entities, and it was the War in Heaven that really kickstarted the whole thing.

That is in terms of causality. Chronologically they could intersect with the material galaxy in any which way, even at different times in different places. For humanity Nurgle may have awoken during the black death, another millennia entirely for some alien species, and yet both simultaneous in the warp. At least as we would comprehend it.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think the growth in power came first, then the awakening. Slaanesh didn't wake up weak then gain strength, Slaanesh was full god by the time of awakening. It was the sheer immensity of accumulated emotional baggage that allowed for the Chaos Gods to awaken as distinct entities, and it was the War in Heaven that really kickstarted the whole thing.

That is in terms of causality. Chronologically they could intersect with the material galaxy in any which way, even at different times in different places. For humanity Nurgle may have awoken during the black death, another millennia entirely for some alien species, and yet both simultaneous in the warp. At least as we would comprehend it.

The existence of minor Chaos gods shows that power is not a pre-condition for awakening. Slaanesh was a giant slumbering nascent entity, through accumulating Eldar souls that would have otherwise reincarnated. Its awakening was simultaneously its consumption of the vast majority of the remaining Eldar. That's how it arose and was among the top tier of gods already, as the pre-Fall Eldar were both numerous and each soul was individually powerful.

One of the Tau stories, shows the Tau on board a ship of the 4th expansion stuck in the warp discovering their auxiliary subjects may be creating inadvertently creating a new warp god, that of the Greater Good, and this warp god however weak seems to at least be aware enough to help the Tau out by safely guiding them out of the warp. Though a seemingly benign god (at least to the Tau), they still regard it as an abomination.

Hmm, I think we would need to have a better definition of exactly what "awakening" means to really get into specifics.

Which is to say I don't totally agree, but don't so much disagree either.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hmm, I think we would need to have a better definition of exactly what "awakening" means to really get into specifics.

Which is to say I don't totally agree, but don't so much disagree either.

The 2nd edition Eldar Codex descibes how increasingly decadent Eldar souls didn't reincarnate and instead started sticking together and over time forming a giant gestalt (i.e. implying there was nothing there before). This entity's dreams further served to promote decadence among the Eldar and creating a sort of feedback loop, as this would increase the flow of decadent souls to the slumbering Slaanesh. Eventually a critical point was reached and Slaanesh awoke, and it is described that its first divine breath was also the instantaneous draining of nearly the entire Eldar race.

In the same way, Ynnead is described as sleeping, only stirring just enough to empower Yvraine.

A slumbering warp god seems to be thus incapable of conscious action, though their unconscious dreams or power may induce others to act in ways that align with the god's ideals/stance.

That doesn't illuminate the specifics of what 'awakening' is supposed to mean for Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle though.

The Chaos gods were always there, mankind isn't important enough to influence the cosmos that much.

I take that comment about the births of the other 3 gods as the human reflections of the universal emotions of rage, hope and despair.

Every sapient species generates these basic emotions, but they're all different colours.

Khorne is the human flavour of rage, khaine the Eldar flavour of rage.

So when it says khorne awoke, it means the human reflection of rage arose amidst the vortex of rage in the warp. Over the next 40000 years it rose to become the predominant face of rage.

When the Eldar controlled the galaxy, their emotions were dominant and weren't as destructive as humanity until the formation of slannesh.

At that point and the death of Eldar gods, what little grasp they had left on the power of the warp was broken and the 3 human reflections became the main powers of rage, despair and hope.

Slannesh has begun taking on more human traits over the last 10k years as the Same thing is happening, except it had an entire population of eldar at it's core sustaining it.

Esmer wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Khorne was not awakened during the Middle Ages. It is ludicrous that the actions of the denizens of one primitive planet could have brought to life such a powerful cosmic force. Instead, I believe that during the Middle Ages, all of the warfare and destruction caused Khorne to 'level up' and then to turn his gaze towards humanity like he hadn't before.

The way I see it, whenever one of the Big Four gets disproportionally more powerful, his presence is felt more strongly in real space throughout the galaxy. Whever there has been an age of plagues and disease on Earth, there is also one on many other planets becaue it's the consequence of Nurgle's increased influence. Whenever there is massive conflict, it shows that Khorne is currently the strongest etc. These time periods can either last millenia or less then a heartbeat, because time means nothing in the Warp.

That's an interesting way of seeing it. I have actually thought about it like that, that when a particular god is in the ascendancy, their aspects are reflected in the real world.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Khorne was not awakened during the Middle Ages. It is ludicrous that the actions of the denizens of one primitive planet could have brought to life such a powerful cosmic force. Instead, I believe that during the Middle Ages, all of the warfare and destruction caused Khorne to 'level up' and then to turn his gaze towards humanity like he hadn't before.

The Middle Ages thing is a bit of a misreading of RoC tbh. Nurgle was apparently awakened during the Black Death, but Tzeentch was when the first civilisations started (so even Earth centric that’s thousands of years BC) and Khorne even earlier.

I hadn't known that, but that makes sense. The daemon sword Drachnyen was created by the first murder, and could in fact be something of a proto Chaos god.

As to Khorne, I personally love to see a CSM warband that only fights armed combatants in seemingly honorable combat, hardly ever killing civilians, and have them be juxtaposed against groups like the World Eaters and the Hounds of Abaddon.

Korgin and the World Reavers (from the RPGs) are a good example:


When the warlord arrives over a world, he offers one chance to surrender unconditionally. Should the cowering populace accept, Korgin honours their surrender. Though a devotee to the Blood God, he believes only the skulls of worthy adversaries should be sent to the throne of his master. Those who surrender are certainly not that, and he and his band merely plunder valuables, supplies, and slaves to fill their hold and leave. However, Korgin makes it a point to take something of great value from the world he plunders, whether an ancient artefact, a beloved leader as a slave, or even a famous document held in high regard. He does this in hopes of goading that world to fight the next time he arrives.

CorwinB wrote:
My headcannon (probably inspired from playing Epic often in my youth) is that the whole "SM Chapters are 1000 men strong" is just imperial propaganda. All Chapters are much, much more numerous than that, and all the stories about the recruitement rates, the supposed near-invincibility of Marines... are Imperial propaganda designed to keep Marines an inspiration to lower-end Imperial troops such as IG (and also to keep would-be rebels in their place).

I like it!

Most of the "Marines are so OP a handful could take over a planet" is just Imperial propaganda to overhype them. Yes they're incredibly powerful but not at the level they're made out to be.

Similar to the guy above, there are far more than 1000 Chapters of 1000 Marines.

Lasguns are actually more powerful than the memes make them out to be. I've always pictured them to be as powerful as today's standard equipment such as the M16, SA80 and AK47. The lack of power in the memes comes from what they have to go up against.

"Impossibly rare relics" such as Terminator Armour are actually much, much more common than let on, and their reverence comes more from what the armour represents than it's actual quantity.

The II and XI Primarchs never existed. The numbers were deliberately left vacant and the Emperor created a psychic imprint on the remaining Primarchs' minds to keep them in line (albeit unsuccessfully).

One I heard from a GW staff member which I don't particularly believe, but I thought was pretty good: Sanguinius never helped the Emperor defeat Horus. He turned heretic on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit and the Emperor had to slay them both. The Black Rage are visions of this betrayal that drives the BA to seek redemption.

Oh dam THAT would be a twist!

 Valkyrie wrote:

One I heard from a GW staff member which I don't particularly believe, but I thought was pretty good: Sanguinius never helped the Emperor defeat Horus. He turned heretic on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit and the Emperor had to slay them both. The Black Rage are visions of this betrayal that drives the BA to seek redemption.

So GW teased that the final duel in the Siege of Terra series would "not quite happen as currently understood", implying some kind of a twist.

My suspicion of this twist was that Horus would kill the Emperor, Oll would kill Horus using some new found powers, and then take the Emperor's place, deliberately using his powers to setup a cult of the Emperor to eventually resurrect him in the warp.

But now I'm torn between my idea and this one as being the "twist".

Arcanis161 wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:

One I heard from a GW staff member which I don't particularly believe, but I thought was pretty good: Sanguinius never helped the Emperor defeat Horus. He turned heretic on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit and the Emperor had to slay them both. The Black Rage are visions of this betrayal that drives the BA to seek redemption.

So GW teased that the final duel in the Siege of Terra series would "not quite happen as currently understood", implying some kind of a twist.

My suspicion of this twist was that Horus would kill the Emperor, Oll would kill Horus using some new found powers, and then take the Emperor's place, deliberately using his powers to setup a cult of the Emperor to eventually resurrect him in the warp.

But now I'm torn between my idea and this one as being the "twist".

I have a feeling we may get some kind of 'just as planned' trope for the Emperor at the end. I'd like to be wrong though.

Ugh that would be awful.