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Hello my friends, I have another interesting dilemma. I was wondering how Chaos Marines organize themselves, or if they have any real organization. I would have to argue that they would need some level of it, especially the more of them there are in a warband/legion. My Chaos Marines are legion, throughout their history they have been as little as under 1,000 to over 60,000. Legions are typically this way, and when they start exceeding 20,000 I always wonder how the heck they organize, how each Marine knows where he belongs beyond his squad. Do they still operate with companies? Or something close? Maybe something else entirely? Maybe....not at all? Maybe, certain guys in the legion follow a certain champion and that's just the way it is. Aspiring Champions are Chaos Marines who are aspiring to be champions, they are "aspiring" Champions. Exalted Champions have already achieved status and have been rewarded by their lord. That's the difference between the 2 but I still don't understand how aspiring champions get their warriors, and I don't understand where exactly exalted champions belong in the legion hierarchy and who they have command over and if they have command of a certain unit or formation within the legion. I think I read somewhere that chaos Marines just chose to follow a certain aspiring champion so some poor bas**** will only have 5 guys following him while Mr. Paparazzi over there has 18. But what if they hit 20? The chaos Lord specifically comes out to the champion to let him know he's hit his limit and can't accept anymore? Any insight you gents can offer I'll take. I'll just create my own organizational structure if I have to, but by the Dark Gods these sorry sods will be disciplined and regimented by the end.


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The way I have them organized for now is by companies, of between 100 to 200 Marines led by an exalted champion.

Firstly and most importantly, Game =/= Background. The 40k Game is made in a way that works in a generic sense rather than catering to every single possibility within the Background.
With that out of the way lets dig in a little.

Chaos Warbands are a generic term for a gathering of CSM and their associated mooks. The actual term will vary from each Warband. The former Legions often stick to Heresy-Era designations such as Hosts, Companies, or Harrows, whereas the more ragtag groups such as God dedicated Warbands or Renegade Chapters will just be Warbands.
Chaos Warbands are based around power. This can manifest in many ways from physical might to tactical skills, or excellent oratory ability. Depending on which Legion a Warband is drawn from, other factors also heavily influence where the power lies. The Word Bearers, for example, are generally led by Dark Apostles who are the commanders of the entire Host (Company), their First Acolytes, and a Coryphaus who deals with the tactical deployment of the Warband's assets. This is not a rule, however, and Word Bearers Warbands can be led by Sorcerers or regular Chaos Lords.

As for ranks, Aspiring Champion is essentially just a catch-all term for a squad leader. The Word Bearers use the term due to their religious nature but an Iron Warrior would likely be referred to as Sergeant, as their Legion follows military doctrine very closely. Same for Chaos Lords who often use honourifics or titles just like Loyalist Chapters.
If you want a background reason for squad size limits, look at it like this. You are a Chaos Lord and your senior Champion is gathering a large number of followers in the Warband. Say your forces total compliment is 60 Astartes and this Champion has amassed 20 followers. What's to stop him from killing another squad leader and taking their warriors as well? Now he commands half of the Warband and could easily overthrow you or simply break off on his own. Either way, the balance of power is now not in your hands. So you keep him from killing his fellow champions and prevent him from taking too many warriors.

I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

But 5is is good for you as the player. YIUR guys can have whatever organisation or lack of that you want. The vast majority of chaos armies have abandoned the old structures of the legions and warbands of followers lead by champions, troops naturally drawn to a charismatic or powerfully leader.

Andykp wrote:
I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

* glances nervously at organisational charts in Codex: Death Guard *

Andykp wrote:
I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

Considering many of the chaos legions are more organized than some of the loyalists, this is a weird take.
GW's strictly restricts and regiments chaos with a lot fewer choices and options, and that extends to the background as well.

Andykp wrote:
I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

But 5is is good for you as the player. YIUR guys can have whatever organisation or lack of that you want. The vast majority of chaos armies have abandoned the old structures of the legions and warbands of followers lead by champions, troops naturally drawn to a charismatic or powerfully leader.

Oh sorry about my curiosity bro, don't let it baffle you too hard. Just wanting to know how thousands of military personnel are supposed to have any success on the battlefield without any organization or tactical doctrines whatsoever. And that's not what Chaos is at all, sorry. It just isn't. Chaos is the Immaterium, which is a separate dimension with totally different rules to our own. Chaos. Chaos Marines. Understand? good. Keep your ego away from my posts buddy.


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 Gert wrote:
Firstly and most importantly, Game =/= Background. The 40k Game is made in a way that works in a generic sense rather than catering to every single possibility within the Background.
With that out of the way lets dig in a little.

Chaos Warbands are a generic term for a gathering of CSM and their associated mooks. The actual term will vary from each Warband. The former Legions often stick to Heresy-Era designations such as Hosts, Companies, or Harrows, whereas the more ragtag groups such as God dedicated Warbands or Renegade Chapters will just be Warbands.
Chaos Warbands are based around power. This can manifest in many ways from physical might to tactical skills, or excellent oratory ability. Depending on which Legion a Warband is drawn from, other factors also heavily influence where the power lies. The Word Bearers, for example, are generally led by Dark Apostles who are the commanders of the entire Host (Company), their First Acolytes, and a Coryphaus who deals with the tactical deployment of the Warband's assets. This is not a rule, however, and Word Bearers Warbands can be led by Sorcerers or regular Chaos Lords.

As for ranks, Aspiring Champion is essentially just a catch-all term for a squad leader. The Word Bearers use the term due to their religious nature but an Iron Warrior would likely be referred to as Sergeant, as their Legion follows military doctrine very closely. Same for Chaos Lords who often use honourifics or titles just like Loyalist Chapters.
If you want a background reason for squad size limits, look at it like this. You are a Chaos Lord and your senior Champion is gathering a large number of followers in the Warband. Say your forces total compliment is 60 Astartes and this Champion has amassed 20 followers. What's to stop him from killing another squad leader and taking their warriors as well? Now he commands half of the Warband and could easily overthrow you or simply break off on his own. Either way, the balance of power is now not in your hands. So you keep him from killing his fellow champions and prevent him from taking too many warriors.

Oh I didn't know they still use sergeant and loyalist ranks. So who are exalted champions then? They seem like they are a kind of lieutenant or captain to me, and in all my years of playing this game and learning the fluff, I didn't find out about these guys until a few years ago.

Andykp wrote:
I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

This is a "Yes but No" situation because it isn't as clear-cut as that.
There are a lot of Warbands but the Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Thousand Sons and Death Guard are all fairly centralised and organised Legions.
When we push out a bit the Emperor's Children also has a ruling body, the Phoenix Conclave, where they marshall resources and gather warriors for dedicated campaigns. The Black Legion is also said to be the most organised of all the Traitor Legions and the various Warbands only operate by Abbadon's permission and command rather than any fracturing of loyalties.
The two Legions that truly operate without any sort of command structure or central power base are the Night Lords and World Eaters, the former being a bunch of liars and cowards unwilling to work together for longer than single engagments, and the latter being broken on Skalathrax by Kharn and their general inability to not just kill each other all the time when things get a bit boring.
The Alpha Legion is a mystery.



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 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Oh I didn't know they still use sergeant and loyalist ranks. So who are exalted champions then? They seem like they are a kind of lieutenant or captain to me, and in all my years of playing this game and learning the fluff, I didn't find out about these guys until a few years ago.

It's once again a catch-all term for secondary leadership of a Warband. If we were to break it down into the Crusade Era Legion structure, the Principia Belicosa, it would very roughly be like this:
Legion - Legion/Renegade Chapter.
Chapter - Warband or similar e.g. Grand Company, Plague Company, Thrallband. *NOTE* Multiple Warbands will be contained in the more traditional Chapter/Company system as seen with the Death Guard and Iron Warriors especially.
Chapter/Company Command (Chapter Master, Captain) - Chaos Lord.
Chapter/Company Consuls (Librarian, Chaplain, etc.) - Sorcerers, Dark Apostles, etc.
Company Officers (Lieutenants, Equierries) - Exalted Champion.
Line Officers (Sergeants) - Aspiring Champion/Sorcerer.

The ranking system is no longer purely about military rank.

If for whatever reason a Chaos god favors someone lower rank, for example someone who used to be Sergeant rank with more gifts than he will become effectively a greater champion than a lieutenant that is less favored and thus lead to a leadership challenge or splintering of a warband.

Of course this in itself is IMO a big factor why the World Eaters splintered, with Kharn's actions just being the most iconic example. The very traits needed for leading and commanding a cohesive military force, such as patience and restraint, are not valued by Khorne. Khorne favors the one that can kill the most and shed the most skulls. Now obviously some minimum level of organization and restraint is needed else they would never even make it to a target world, but beyond a certain threshold, Khorne seems content to then favor who can be greatest frothing mad serial killer.

Gert made all my points for me. Basically, "warband" is a catch-all term. One warband might be ruled by a council consisting of everyone with at least 10 dudes that have sworn direct loyalty to them. Another warband might have a strict top-to-bottom hierarchy where everyone's rank and responsibilities are explicit. Another might value their sorcerers or dark apostles more highly than their chaos lords. Another might basically be a tumultuous free-for-all only barely held together by whomever happens to be on top at the moment.

The Alpha Legion is a mystery.

Quick note on this: we get to see a bit of how various AL warbands interact and cooperate/betray each other in one of the BL novels. It seems like it varies quite a bit for them too. There's no central authority, but groups of AL may be willing to band together into a larger body that is organized enough to pull off some pretty elaborate plans.

But it seems like leadership among the AL is at least partially a matter of consent. A cell of AL marines might decide to throw in with a squad leader who in turn might decide to throw in with some chaos lord or whatever, but you'd be hard-pressed to keep an AL marine from sneaking off and doing their own thing if they lose faith in you.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I am always baffled when people want to know the organisation behind “CHAOS” armies. The clues in the name. Organisation and rules aren’t really their thing.

But 5is is good for you as the player. YIUR guys can have whatever organisation or lack of that you want. The vast majority of chaos armies have abandoned the old structures of the legions and warbands of followers lead by champions, troops naturally drawn to a charismatic or powerfully leader.

Oh sorry about my curiosity bro, don't let it baffle you too hard. Just wanting to know how thousands of military personnel are supposed to have any success on the battlefield without any organization or tactical doctrines whatsoever. And that's not what Chaos is at all, sorry. It just isn't. Chaos is the Immaterium, which is a separate dimension with totally different rules to our own. Chaos. Chaos Marines. Understand? good. Keep your ego away from my posts buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
Firstly and most importantly, Game =/= Background. The 40k Game is made in a way that works in a generic sense rather than catering to every single possibility within the Background.
With that out of the way lets dig in a little.

Chaos Warbands are a generic term for a gathering of CSM and their associated mooks. The actual term will vary from each Warband. The former Legions often stick to Heresy-Era designations such as Hosts, Companies, or Harrows, whereas the more ragtag groups such as God dedicated Warbands or Renegade Chapters will just be Warbands.
Chaos Warbands are based around power. This can manifest in many ways from physical might to tactical skills, or excellent oratory ability. Depending on which Legion a Warband is drawn from, other factors also heavily influence where the power lies. The Word Bearers, for example, are generally led by Dark Apostles who are the commanders of the entire Host (Company), their First Acolytes, and a Coryphaus who deals with the tactical deployment of the Warband's assets. This is not a rule, however, and Word Bearers Warbands can be led by Sorcerers or regular Chaos Lords.

As for ranks, Aspiring Champion is essentially just a catch-all term for a squad leader. The Word Bearers use the term due to their religious nature but an Iron Warrior would likely be referred to as Sergeant, as their Legion follows military doctrine very closely. Same for Chaos Lords who often use honourifics or titles just like Loyalist Chapters.
If you want a background reason for squad size limits, look at it like this. You are a Chaos Lord and your senior Champion is gathering a large number of followers in the Warband. Say your forces total compliment is 60 Astartes and this Champion has amassed 20 followers. What's to stop him from killing another squad leader and taking their warriors as well? Now he commands half of the Warband and could easily overthrow you or simply break off on his own. Either way, the balance of power is now not in your hands. So you keep him from killing his fellow champions and prevent him from taking too many warriors.

Oh I didn't know they still use sergeant and loyalist ranks. So who are exalted champions then? They seem like they are a kind of lieutenant or captain to me, and in all my years of playing this game and learning the fluff, I didn't find out about these guys until a few years ago.

Chill out mate, just saying. No agro here. I am a big fan of the older fluff, realm of chaos books for example. They outline the way chaos army’s work, lots of warbands lead by champions all vying for the favour of the gods.

My point was some will be organised in very strict military ways, others in much more lawless and anarchic fashion you do it your way. Even in an army like the death guard where they demand loyalty and have a structure there’s nothing to stop you have a band of deathguard who have gone their own way and do what they like, or emperors children who don’t give a damn about command structure. It’s also as likely there would be some, due to the nature of the warp when time in the legion seems like yesterday and still adhere strictly to it.

An example I liked was some iron warriors book I read, forget it’s name. They were trying to pretend to be sticking to an iron warriors command structure but really being a feral bunch of loons all vying for power. They try and hide their gifts and blessings but all secretly embrace those that give them more influence and power. Summed up the dichotomy of chaos troops trying to remain ordered.

As for the chaos is “chaos marines” coming from a different definition of chaos, there is a reason the designers chose that word.

Out of the main chaos legions:

Death Guard, Iron Warriors have stayed the most organized under their Primarchs pre-Heresy style

Thousand Sons, Word Bearers, and Black Legion are also quite organized but perhaps slightly more prone to smaller organizations

World Eaters are totally fractured down into warbands, same is true with I believe Emperor's Children, and maybe Night Lords?

Alpha Legion is of course the ?? factor. They probably have some over-arching organization that nobody actually realizes is going on, or they have a bunch of splinter cells that nobody realizes exists.

There's a problem in general with the writing of Chaos as a whole and CSM warbands.

The thing is, CSM without leaders end up killing each other and most go insane because of Chaos corruption.

The warbands are just meh, especially when it comes to EC, WE and NL. The most organized legions are the BL, WB, IW, DG and TS.

And IDK about the AL because nobody knows what they're doing.

Chaos and CSM are sick as a concept however they're executed poorly. Especially when it comes to EC and WE and Primarchs such as Angron and Fulgrim.

I would honestly like to see an organized WE and EC legion under a newly written Angron an Fulgrim instead of brain dead berzerkers and screeching noise marines.

The World Eaters don't really exist anymore and it's kind of important to their story that they stay that way. It's part of their tragedy that they went from violent but honourable War Hounds to the rabid beasts they are now. The Legion being broken into wandering bands of maniacs is what makes Kharn important as well. Not all of the forces serving the Dark Gods need to be as organised as the Iron Warriors or Death Guard, some work perfectly well as opportunistic raiders or essentially swarms of nigh-unstoppable blood-thirsty killing machines.

unironically look toward how Fantasy warbands are organized for slaves to darkness, thats more accurate to how CSM organize.

So then regarding legions, where is the place of the the terminators, or the scouts? A SM chapter will have all its terminators in the 1st company and scouts in the 10th, so is a legion literally chopped into chapters? So, the 1st, 11th, 21st, and so on and so on are all veteran companies?

Terminators are just Veterans of the Warband and Scouts don't exist. Chaos Warbands just implant kids and turn their new warriors loose to kill.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
So then regarding legions, where is the place of the the terminators, or the scouts? A SM chapter will have all its terminators in the 1st company and scouts in the 10th, so is a legion literally chopped into chapters? So, the 1st, 11th, 21st, and so on and so on are all veteran companies?

This really depends on the Legion. Word Bearers had chapters before it was cool, but I don't know if even these had a structure similar to what Guilliman made up later on.

The Legions I've read about all did their own thing, Mortarion for example had his fetish with 7s everywhere even before falling to Nurgle, so the DG was supposed to have 490000 Marines in the end (they never reached that number).

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
So then regarding legions, where is the place of the the terminators, or the scouts? A SM chapter will have all its terminators in the 1st company and scouts in the 10th, so is a legion literally chopped into chapters? So, the 1st, 11th, 21st, and so on and so on are all veteran companies?

This really depends on the Legion. Word Bearers had chapters before it was cool, but I don't know if even these had a structure similar to what Guilliman made up later on.

The Legions I've read about all did their own thing, Mortarion for example had his fetish with 7s everywhere even before falling to Nurgle, so the DG was supposed to have 490000 Marines in the end (they never reached that number).

I'd go as far as to generalize, based on the warbands that have a large enough quantity of terminators, they tend to have a bigger role in non-combat unit coherency as well. The Annointed, the Atromentar (sp?), etc are the respective leaders' fist and maintain his leadership. Which is rather different than a loyalist organization where terminators may be respected veterans but don't really have that level of influence on chapters.

It would be interesting to see if the legions are still using the lodge type rituals to boost cohesion.

I'm bigger and tougher than you can only go so far when everyone is an Astartes.

Depending on the Legion/Chapter, it's not just strenght but also loyalty to ideals and individuals. Abbadon is the Warmaster but he doesn't just beat his allies into submission rather he makes sure they are equals in all endeavors to foster unity and brotherhood. It doesn't always work but the Black Legion is so unified and successful because regardless of where an Astartes came from, he is a brother in the Legion, an equal to all. Leaders aren't chosen because they're bootlickers or goons, they're chosen because they have skill and the respect of their warriors.

 Gert wrote:
Depending on the Legion/Chapter, it's not just strenght but also loyalty to ideals and individuals. Abbadon is the Warmaster but he doesn't just beat his allies into submission rather he makes sure they are equals in all endeavors to foster unity and brotherhood. It doesn't always work but the Black Legion is so unified and successful because regardless of where an Astartes came from, he is a brother in the Legion, an equal to all. Leaders aren't chosen because they're bootlickers or goons, they're chosen because they have skill and the respect of their warriors.

The Black Legion is one of the better organized Legions, but outside of loyalty to Abbadon, there is just as much infighting as there is in any other Legion/warband. The same can be said for the Death Guard, who are organized into vectoriums but who still often fight each other.

 Gert wrote:
Depending on the Legion/Chapter, it's not just strenght but also loyalty to ideals and individuals. Abbadon is the Warmaster but he doesn't just beat his allies into submission rather he makes sure they are equals in all endeavors to foster unity and brotherhood. It doesn't always work but the Black Legion is so unified and successful because regardless of where an Astartes came from, he is a brother in the Legion, an equal to all. Leaders aren't chosen because they're bootlickers or goons, they're chosen because they have skill and the respect of their warriors.

I'd say it's also the inertia of success (insert Abaddon joke here) - if a warband is having decent success in whatever they're doing it's going to be a lot harder for any upset in leadership to happen. If you're getting slaves/geneseed/whatever you're after and getting a share of the loot why would you let the upstart in the warband rock the boat?

I expect that, for the veterans of the long war, there has been a loss of respect and trust for leaders and people in a position of authority. By then end of the heresy most legions were totally disillusioned with their primarchs choices and still despised the emperor.

Therefore anyone wanting to be in charge has to work extra hard to retain their position

 ScarletRose wrote:
I'd say it's also the inertia of success (insert Abaddon joke here) - if a warband is having decent success in whatever they're doing it's going to be a lot harder for any upset in leadership to happen. If you're getting slaves/geneseed/whatever you're after and getting a share of the loot why would you let the upstart in the warband rock the boat?

In the case of the Black Legion, not as much. Even in the early days of the First Black Crusade when Abaddon had a rival in the form of Daravek of the Death Guard, those who followed Abaddon did so out of respect and from a sense of new brotherhood away from the Legions of old, despite the repeated losses the Legion took against Daraveks larger Legion Host. Abaddon always gave enemies a chance to join his ranks with all previous grievances dropped. Even during an honour duel between Iskandar Khayon and one of Daravek's champions, after Khayon wins the duel he offers the champion a place in the Black Legion citing the bonds of brotherhood and a united purpose in bringing down the Imperium. Daravek kills his own champion rather than risk another loss to Abaddon, trying to maintain his rule through fear.
We don't really get this in Codex or campaign stuff because we never get the up-close look in the same way BL fiction does it. The Codex tends to only use the "these are the main baddies and they do speartip assaults but also allow all the Gods worshipped" bit of the Black Legion background.