Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I don't understand how or even if chaos space marines recruit/make new soldiers, is it really that they don't and all chaos space marines are 10k years old from the 30k crusaders? I think I remember hearing that world eaters space marines were having like a super low percentage of recruits surviving the gene-seed upgrade process, but not sure if that was before their official transition to chaos

Chaos recruits from a variety of sources:

-some take in renegade space marines. The Black Legion is known for taking basically any marine that'll follow Abaddon. So they don't need to worry about the geneseed implantation process as much.

-cloning. Fabius Bile will freelance grow some new marines for anyone for the right price. He might even throw in some experimental add-ons of dubious usefulness.

-demon magic. Honsou of the Iron Warriors basically had some horrifying twisted demon wombs that he would throw a kid and some geneseed into and the result would be a new marine.

-the old fashioned way. Some Chaos warbands still have apothecaries and staff who can take harvested geneseed and implant it into new recruits. Usually this would be particularly promising cultists/crew or their offspring.

The fluff generally shows a lot of elitism from the 'old guard' CSM who have been around since the Heresy, but given their attrition eventually all warbands/legions will need to get new recruits somehow.

'the old fashioned way' also includes stealing loyalist geneseed and using that for recruits. Chaos marine geneseed is often corrupted past the point of use.

Fabius provides apothecary services for the traitor legions via tentative truces. He can clone CSM, he can clone anyone but when you clone someone you tend to get an exact copy of that person not just a body with a fresh mind. So the old fashioned way is used and Fabius runs the “service” of implanting the geenseed in new recruits and teaching the few willing renegades how to perform the role of apothecary.

Geneseed from CSM that have lived in the Eye for a while becomes useless as it mutates. Fabius has access to a vast amount of pre heresy 3rd legion geneseed which he recovered from Trazyn the infinite. He sometimes uses this to provide new recruits to the black legion but I think no one knows how much geneseed he actually has stashed away.

He also gifted a decent amount to abbadon so his army could make new soldiers

Voss wrote:
'the old fashioned way' also includes stealing loyalist geneseed and using that for recruits. Chaos marine geneseed is often corrupted past the point of use.

This is far less true for Legions that avoid the temptations of the Chaos Gods:

The gene-seed of the Night Lords seems to be surprisingly pure. In fact, of all the Chaos Space Marine Legions, the Night Lords seem to bear the least evidence of mutation. This is perhaps due to a stable gene-seed stock, perhaps due to the fact they rarely associate themselves to a particular Chaos power for any length of time.

Index Astartes: Volume II, page 27

There are some advantages to being the least "Chaos" of the Chaos Space Marine Legions.

This is unfounded, and isn't sourced, but more theoretical. Any marine with daemonic taint, is effectively a servant of that god. Now, whilst not a daemon prince, or ascended to daemon hood, possessed etc, they are linked. Now we know other than specific circumstances where a powerful person can actually destroy a daemon, not just banish them, daemons are almost functionally immortal, they can regenerate in the warp and after a while be able to enter real space again.

Maybe the same can happen for demonically tainted marines. Their gods show them favour by regenerating them, and well, we know at times this does happen, Khan has been brought back to life I think multiple times at this point, and he hasn't ascended.

I'm not suggesting this happens a lot, or even is common, but it may happen enough to make an impact.

The other point I'd like to make is, that legions entered the eye of terror, some potentially still in the 100k strong after the siege, that is a lot of CSM, some may not have even been back out of the eye of terror yet.

mrFickle wrote:
Fabius provides apothecary services for the traitor legions via tentative truces. He can clone CSM, he can clone anyone but when you clone someone you tend to get an exact copy of that person not just a body with a fresh mind. So the old fashioned way is used and Fabius runs the “service” of implanting the geenseed in new recruits and teaching the few willing renegades how to perform the role of apothecary.

Geneseed from CSM that have lived in the Eye for a while becomes useless as it mutates. Fabius has access to a vast amount of pre heresy 3rd legion geneseed which he recovered from Trazyn the infinite. He sometimes uses this to provide new recruits to the black legion but I think no one knows how much geneseed he actually has stashed away.

He also gifted a decent amount to abbadon so his army could make new soldiers

Fabius is far from the only fleshcrafter in the Eye, he's just the best one (and the 11 or so other clones at the same time are of the same proficiency. ).

 Grimtuff wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Fabius provides apothecary services for the traitor legions via tentative truces. He can clone CSM, he can clone anyone but when you clone someone you tend to get an exact copy of that person not just a body with a fresh mind. So the old fashioned way is used and Fabius runs the “service” of implanting the geenseed in new recruits and teaching the few willing renegades how to perform the role of apothecary.

Geneseed from CSM that have lived in the Eye for a while becomes useless as it mutates. Fabius has access to a vast amount of pre heresy 3rd legion geneseed which he recovered from Trazyn the infinite. He sometimes uses this to provide new recruits to the black legion but I think no one knows how much geneseed he actually has stashed away.

He also gifted a decent amount to abbadon so his army could make new soldiers

Fabius is far from the only fleshcrafter in the Eye, he's just the best one (and the 11 or so other clones at the same time are of the same proficiency. ).

Absolutely, who you go to depends if you want a space marine or a chaos mutated monstrosity


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
This is unfounded, and isn't sourced, but more theoretical. Any marine with daemonic taint, is effectively a servant of that god. Now, whilst not a daemon prince, or ascended to daemon hood, possessed etc, they are linked. Now we know other than specific circumstances where a powerful person can actually destroy a daemon, not just banish them, daemons are almost functionally immortal, they can regenerate in the warp and after a while be able to enter real space again.

Maybe the same can happen for demonically tainted marines. Their gods show them favour by regenerating them, and well, we know at times this does happen, Khan has been brought back to life I think multiple times at this point, and he hasn't ascended.

I'm not suggesting this happens a lot, or even is common, but it may happen enough to make an impact.

The other point I'd like to make is, that legions entered the eye of terror, some potentially still in the 100k strong after the siege, that is a lot of CSM, some may not have even been back out of the eye of terror yet.

Lucius is also protected from death. There are huge numbers of CSM from the heresy and each one is worth 100 loyalists. Except in the actual game ha

mrFickle wrote:
There are huge numbers of CSM from the heresy and each one is worth 100 loyalists.

That's just a lie they tell themselves as they hide in the Eye.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Voss wrote:
'the old fashioned way' also includes stealing loyalist geneseed and using that for recruits. Chaos marine geneseed is often corrupted past the point of use.

This is far less true for Legions that avoid the temptations of the Chaos Gods:

The gene-seed of the Night Lords seems to be surprisingly pure. In fact, of all the Chaos Space Marine Legions, the Night Lords seem to bear the least evidence of mutation. This is perhaps due to a stable gene-seed stock, perhaps due to the fact they rarely associate themselves to a particular Chaos power for any length of time.

Index Astartes: Volume II, page 27

There are some advantages to being the least "Chaos" of the Chaos Space Marine Legions.

Yep. I'm sure all those raptors and warp talons are as pure as pure can be. Not chaos tainted at all.

Voss wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Voss wrote:
'the old fashioned way' also includes stealing loyalist geneseed and using that for recruits. Chaos marine geneseed is often corrupted past the point of use.

This is far less true for Legions that avoid the temptations of the Chaos Gods:

The gene-seed of the Night Lords seems to be surprisingly pure. In fact, of all the Chaos Space Marine Legions, the Night Lords seem to bear the least evidence of mutation. This is perhaps due to a stable gene-seed stock, perhaps due to the fact they rarely associate themselves to a particular Chaos power for any length of time.

Index Astartes: Volume II, page 27

There are some advantages to being the least "Chaos" of the Chaos Space Marine Legions.

Yep. I'm sure all those raptors and warp talons are as pure as pure can be. Not chaos tainted at all.

Of course they have some Chaos taint (especially the Warp Talons), but Night Lords as a whole are less corrupted than the other Legions, and their geneseed is usually still useable, and not "corrupted past the point of use". Probably not the Raptors and Warp Talons though.

raptors are probably worshiping a minor chaos entity.

Not Online!!! wrote:
raptors are probably worshiping a minor chaos entity.

Right. The whole "Raptor Cult" thing. I imagine that's why they could only be Undivided when first introduced in 3.5, and couldn't be used in any of the God aligned Legions. Warp Talons are Raptors that have gone further into the Cult, and therefore become more transformed by Chaos. At least that's my headcannon for them. YMMV.

A lot of CSM join the Death Guard because they want power and toughness.

I also expect that the Night Lords and the Alpha Legion are also more likely to spend time in realspace than the rest, so that probably helps, some.

It would be insane if somehow a daemon prince's gene seed were to be harvested, cloned, and then reimplanted in other CSM. That could create some incredibly powerful individuals.