Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Space Marines (along with the Lost and the Damned and the Chaos Daemons) are arguably the main antagonists in the Warhammer 40K universe and the 40K equivalent to these Viking motherfuckers. Basically Space Marines who have channeled their Faith in the Emperor to something more worthy of worship, like say, a Chaos God. The majority of them are the 10,000+ year old Veterans who stood by the Emperor during the formation of the Imperium. Now, they want nothing more than to tear it down. Why? For the lulz, of course, particularly due to the fact that a great deal of them can't even remember why they rebelled in the first place.
Seeing as how they're basically very experienced and potent Veteran marines further enhanced by the Powers of Chaos, Chaos Space Marines are generally stronger combatants than their loyalist brethren. Basically they exist to show that Space Marines aren't complete Mary Sues. They come in 8 exciting flavors;
- Khorne: Close quarters badasses full of RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE!. Best dedicated melee fighters in the setting, second to NONE. Insane, ruthless, barbaric and continually lusting after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE. Khorne's dedicated marines are known as Berzerkers and are famed for their revolutionary use of the Chainaxe, which is basically a
evisceratorchainsword on steroids and reforged into an axe, and fucktastically fearless charges. Kharn is a fine example of a Khornate Marine and the World Eaters legion is the most famous Chaos legion dedicated to Khorne. They also get the best speeches. "Blood for the blood god!!!! Skulls for the skull throne!!!!!! LET THE GALAXY BURNNNNNN!!!!!"
- Tzeentch: Tricky, conniving psykers. Unlike Khorne, who hates magic users 'cause they're un-manly skirt wearers who can't take a punch' (though it should be noted that Khorne has no problem with using magic to summon Daemons, do rituals, or enhance weapons, armor, and physical abilities; it's hurling fire balls and doombolts that pisses him off. This is exactly why Khorne's action on the Warp Storm table in Codex: Chaos Daemons inspires unfathomable heights of neckbeard rage. He "hurls brass skulls at his foes?!" THAT'S A FORM OF RANGED COMBAT, YOU FUCKPOT. Not only does this sum up an incredibly hilarious image of Khorne stepping up to some sort of warpy baseball plate to pitch, but it goes against everything that Khorne is about. And also because a Tzeentchian Chaos Sorcerer can hurt pretty bad. Tzeentch is something of an equal opportunity employer among the Great Gods though he has a noted preference for ranged combat and majyyk. And has no qualms with physical brutality and tremendous strength and combat skill when it can suit him. So his warriors, though not nearly the equals of Khornate Berzerkers, are quite fine in a good 'ol scrap. Although in setting, warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or magyycks that would turn heroes into Chaos Spawns, squa-GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR
- Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into a puddle of molten goo, that or basically they screw their brains so bad that the poor sap is mindfucked in 5 whole different levels. The Thousand Sons is the most famous Chaos legion dedicated to Tzeentch.
- Slaanesh: What you get when Space Marines start going after hookers and blow, they wanna get higher than high while banging an absurd amount of chicks... while being high. Slaaneshi marines are looking for the next high and have more drugs in their system than... pretty much every junkie in the world. Combined. With that, they get penis fingers to give them the extra edge and guy-on-speedballx20-like awareness, which is kinda like being able to see bullets flying at you and actually evade them. Doomrider is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions and the Emperor's Children is the best known Slaanesh-following legion.
- Nurgle:Rotting, diseased, decaying racks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. Something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned. They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite them looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The Death Guard is the most famous legion dedicated to Nurgle.
- Malal: Possibly the best contender for the grand title of "Most Batshit Insane" in all of the forces of chaos (which is REALLY saying something concerning the likes of the chaos space marines), these chaos space marines follow the renegade chaos god, Malal, the chaos god of all destruction, especially self-destruction. Because of this, these guys spend their free time royally screwing over both the likes of the imperium and the other forces of chaos. They often adorn themselves with warp-resistant warp armor, wield daemon-possessed weapons that hate daemons, and, to top it all off, enslave the lesser and even some of the greater daemons of other chaos gods to do their bidding. Even Bloodthirsters. The "Sons of Malice" are the best known (and currently, only canon) warband devoted to Malal.
- Undivided: Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshipping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The Word Bearers were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it have been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods (such as Failbaddon). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled.
- Unaligned: Not really undivided, this is for those who aren't really supporting Chaos and are only really lumped in with the Chaos Space Marines because they still oppose the Emperor. Most of the Night Lords fall into this group due to their intense loathing of Chaos and the Daemonic, which is so strong that they choose to stay in the materium instead of the eye of terror despite the fact that this makes them a thousand times more vulnerable to imperial attack and allows them to age normally. The idiots. Then again, no one is quite sure how long a Space Marine can live, they usually are killed in battle before reaching their first millennium. The Horus Heresy books say that Space Marines do not age at all, but 40k-level loyalists tend to age after half a millennium, becoming slower and weaker, with only Blood Angels being safe from age (Say that to Logan Grimnar's face). That may be due to a fucked up gene-seed implanting process, because during the Heresy the AdMech lost the full manual "How To Properly Create A Space Marine In 20 Simple Steps". That's why "properly" made Night Lords Heresy veterans are still alive and kicking after ten millenia of nonstop grimdark Halloween-fest massacres.
- Closet Loyalists:Marines who pretend to be with the forces of Chaos but are in reality working to help the Emperor. Due to the highly corrupting nature of chaos this is rare in every legion except one; the Alpha Legion; who are made up of nothing but closet loyalists. Though they were amongst the legions that turned against the Imperium in the Horus Heresy, this is really just a front for their other activities which are ultimately meant to harm Chaos in the long run. The faggots. They're just being manipulated by the last of the Old Ones trying to free his/her/it's kind from the Enslavers (think warp version of the flood... yeah, they're that scary).
Overview
Basically SPESS MEHREENS who, for whatever non-reason, decided they were too cool and edgy for the Imperium of Man, so they redirected their homolust for the Emprah to something else... like a Chaos god. During the height of the Horus Heresy, they went all evil and did a lot of nasty on their former comrades until they were forced to retreat to the Eye of Terror due to Smurfs. Who were not on the other side of the galaxy when this occurs. disregard that, the Smurfs didn't even participate in the defense of Terra.
Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines, except on average they are stronger, more experienced and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as bolters and the ever useful Space Marine plot armor, which would explain why they didn't fist fuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror or why they would follow the lead of a particular Saturday morning cartoon villain. Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic, giving themselves penis fingers for that extra edge in combat. (Daemon steroids for Khorne's followers, for example.)
For all their powers from Chaos, however, they are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive marines insane, causing them to usually lose much of the useful tactics they had when they were loyalists. Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts, infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard off, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the Eye of Terror to hide in and the Imperium was so idiot ball prone it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.
They're the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the homosexual faggots, That one angry viking dreadnought, who's about their age, the Emo Tomb King expys and maybe a few of the Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards. Because of this, they irritably refer to the Loyalists as 'Pups', 'An army of Children' and 'little brothers'. Frequently mocking their methods of Warfare as un-manly, and shouting such phrases as "PUPS! YOU CALL THIS WAR?!" and "WAR WAS BETTER IN MY DAY!". Except when they meet Bjorn the Fell Handed, then they just crap themselves, or in the case of Khornates, they scream, "TEAR THE LOYALIST FROM HIS SHELL!" Of course, even the Khornates still get their shit fucked up by Bjorn, who slaughtered a shit ton of them in the first War for Armageddon.
As of 6th edition, they'll be getting a giant dragon that's designed to troll a Dread Knight. Praise the Gods. Many lulz were had when /tg/ discovered that said dragon thing possessed several engine exhaust ports in the shape and colour of anal orifices. "Gaze into the eye of terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.
On the tabletop, Chaos Space Marines play similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus a bunch of unique stuff. They have many of the same strengths and weaknesses, powerful units and expensive units, are often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play more aggressively. Their ranking amongst armies has varied from in the 3rd edition, where their codex was considered so overpowered it needed to actually be replaced (overpowered units and stuff like nasty Slaanesh psykic power that kept the caster from being shot, it's just as broken as it sounds), after which they fell somewhat in decline due to progressively weaker books. As of 6E, they're badass again. Supremely badass.
When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of Grimdark, claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful.
The Traitor Legions
When the Horus Heresy struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the Emprah. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the Eye of Terror with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a certain armless failure), the Legion's primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:
- Emperor's Children: Also known as the Pretty Marines, their Primarch is Fulgrim, who is now a painting (or something). They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because Kharn kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attentions of Slaanesh, and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the Noise Marines, which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool)
bass cannonssonic cannons.
- Iron Warriors: The evil twins of the Imperial Fists, they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is Perturabo. They're generally the most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers. Also, they probably created the Obliterator Virus, seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take Basilisks and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the Warpsmith (not to be confused with a Warsmith, which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is Honsou, a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."
- Night Lords: Their Primarch was Konrad Curze (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. They're also pretty much the only Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Konrad Curze's desire to go down like an emo to rebel against daddy.
- World Eaters: Angron- Dissolved after Kharn turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as Cadia. The only legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.
- Death Guard: Mortarion - Don't show up much in the fluff, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common of the one-deity dedicated units. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Blight Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies.
- Thousand Sons: Magnus the Red - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and rubric marines don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for Ahriman; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few Inquisitors who think that not killing the Harlequins who guard the Labyrinth that contains all the secrets of the universe is a good thing. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and majicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely).
- Black Legion: Horus - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus. Unites every now and then when Failbaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's a miracle they're still surviving with Abaddon's incompetent leadership and numerous failed black crusades, which should have probably left them extremely undermanned. However, their ranks are quickly filled by the
millions of volunteers who sign up because god damn that paint job looks coolactually its because Failbaddon keeps stealing other legion's troops or 'buying' them and daemons with big promises he can't keep. Basically he is like a compulsive gambler who has borrowed money from every money lender in existence, some of whom are gods. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one. They have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon, being the failure that he is, can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterwards.
- Word Bearers: Lorgar - The Only Legion to have retained its Chaplains in the form of Dark Apostles, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). Second most coherent after the Iron Warriors.
Alpha Legion: Alpharius/Omegon- No such legion or primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is heresy and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is HERESY. Also masters of sneaking around undetected. Bonus points for doing it while 8 feet tall and wearing 500 pounds of armor.
See Also
- Warriors of Chaos: The much more competent counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy
- Tactics/Chaos Space Marines
Gallery
<gallery> File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded Night Lords preparing an ambush File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can hurt. File:Lcw.jpg|They think that corpse on a throne is a god!