Age of Chaos Marines

[Askari]

Ok, so I used to think that most chaos marines were still veterans of the Horus heresy and that there were just a very few chaos marines (less than 100,000) but Dominion of Fire over 50,000 berzerkers followed Angron into battle. Now, assuming that that wasn't all the berzerkers in the galaxy and knowing that although they're the most common cult troop, berzerkers can't comprise more than a 4th at the very most of all the chaos marines in the galaxy. plus since at the end of the horus heresy the World eaters had less than 20,000 marines that means that the number of world eaters has about tripled. that mean that in total all chaos marines have probably seen their numbers at least triple and possibly quadruple or quintuple since the end of the heresy.

 

That would mean that most of the marines living now aren't thousands of years old since most of the older marines would have died in 10,00 years of warfare. The average age of a loyalist space marine is less than a hundred years and considering how selfish and ambitious chaos marines are it doesn't make much sense that any of the 10,00 year vets would still be simple grunts taking orders and throwing away their lives and i doubt that they would have much respect for seniority since after 10,000 years that 50 years difference in experience starts to become very trivial.

 

It seems to me that by now most of the chaos space marines are about the same age as their loyalist cousins and that only the leaders and dreadnoughts are 10,000 year vets.

 

This makes sense and is also a reason for the equality of stats between csm's and loyalist marines. so to everyone that complains about CSMs not having better stats than regular marines, here's your reason why.

[Fury_of_Fenris]

i reckon that its fair that DEATH GAURD, EMPERORS CHILDREN, WORLD EATERS AND TZENECH hve better stats and that cause they are the original marine sbut obviusoly 10000 years of constant warfare would have them stats like this

 

WS BS S T W I A SV

6 5 4 4 2 5 3 3+

 

PLUS 5+ INVULNERABLE SAVE

 

but of course uts hard to put all of this into game terms

[Askari]

Except for the Thousand sons all would have kept recruiting and the thousand sons can't get any stronger becuase the rubric keeps them from growing and evolving.

 

The stats you gave would be the leaders (though really if we were trying to give all marines the stats indicated by fluff they'd be broken and cost as much as temries if not more)

 

The tendencies of the world eaters and Emperor's children as well as the fact they long ago broke into hundreds of warbands means it's more likely for them to have taken a lot of casualties and replenished their ranks with newer recurits or clone or other renegades that had similar attitudes as them.

 

While Plague marines are hard to make the fluff never said that death guard weren't taking new recruits. Indeed, it said that anyone that wants to become a plague marine will have to join the death guard o talk to the few sorceror's under Abbadon's employ that know how to make PM's. This would indicate that they had a steady supply of new recruits since anyone wanting to become a plague marine has to join them, which could quickly lead to them having a higher proportion of "younger" marines than veterans of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

[Paradigm]

I think it was a misprint, because 50,000 is a ridiculous high number. Chaos marines are far far less common than your standard marine, and there just isn't enough renegades out there to fill in that many berserkers, thats 50 chapters worth of marines.

 

40k is always terrible with numbers due to their constant retcons.

 

Best bet, use the "so basically" approach: Whenever they give a huge number, they are either exaggerating a little, or exaggerating a lot. You hear/read 50,000 berserkers, in your head you go "So basically this just means "a hella thick, grip of berserkers"

 

This keeps you sane from trying to somehow reconcile all the numbers gw throws around.

[Askari]

But why couldn't there be 2-300,000 chaos marines? They spend most of their time inside the eye of terror fighting each other plus they're mostly divided into a bunch of independent warbands except for a few legions so that would explain why they haven't overrun the cadian gate yet. Plus the eye of terror is an infinitely big place so there could be some warbands that never leave it and they also hang out in the maelstrom and a few other warp anomalies.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Indeed, the Legions were much, much larger than the current Chapters. Even with the years of attrition, there's still lots of Legionnaires out there.

[Silent Shadow]

I think some people discussed the size of the legions and in the end they decided that whatever GW suggests as the size of the legion just add a zero on the end, I think they worked out that the ultramarines, largest of the legions, had somewhere in the region of 250'000-300'000 marines. So 50'000 bezerkers is a possibilty.

 

As for the age, they are 10'000 years to the people outside the eye of terror but inside the eye of terror time moves differently as I think it was stated somewhere that some marines think the heresy only happened yesturday/a few weeks ago, so it can all get confusing depending on how fast time moves in the EoT.

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

That's the way it works with GW numbers. Most times you need to add a zero, sometimes you need to add more. On occasion you need to take one away. But in terms of the numbers of armies, it usually makes more sense to add one or two zeros.

[TheDarkApostle]

The average life time for a loyalist marine also is about 300-400 years IIRC. ;)

 

And we need to remember that the Imperium is supposed to have 1000 chapters of 1000 (More like 1100) marines giving some 1 100 000 marines employed by the Imperium.

 

If the Imperium has been able to do that with basic introduction-> train for a century -> deploy then it's not to far fetched to believe the Chaos Legions could have attained an equal number of astartes with the help of daemonic mutations, cloning, and the simple fact they aren't as picky with safety and quality of the original specimen :)

 

TDA

[Brother Nihm]

Time flows differently in the Warp.

[kharn_the_betrayer]

The average life time for a loyalist marine also is about 300-400 years IIRC. ;)

 

And we need to remember that the Imperium is supposed to have 1000 chapters of 1000 (More like 1100) marines giving some 1 100 000 marines employed by the Imperium.

 

If the Imperium has been able to do that with basic introduction-> train for a century -> deploy then it's not to far fetched to believe the Chaos Legions could have attained an equal number of astartes with the help of daemonic mutations, cloning, and the simple fact they aren't as picky with safety and quality of the original specimen :)

 

TDA

They really don't have go make sure the candidate is corruption-proof/taint free. Given that fact alone think about all the bonus recruits they get just starting. Seriously I don't think they are as picky when picking people out of the populous as they can just train them harder.

[TheDarkApostle]

They really don't have go make sure the candidate is corruption-proof/taint free. Given that fact alone think about all the bonus recruits they get just starting. Seriously I don't think they are as picky when picking people out of the populous as they can just train them harder.

Exactly, and if they continue to be weak the Gods can always give them a boost to put them on par if needed. <_<

 

TDA

[Askari]

The gods wouldn't do that, they'd sacrifice them and the strong ones would survie and get their gifts and atention. their lack of scrutiny when recruiting would cause them to have a buynch f mutations and failed implantations that would make their success rate much lower than loyalists.

 

NA about average ifetime of a Sm: how can it be abut 3-40 years? Most captains are about 150-200 years old. And before you can be a captain you have to become a veteran and then a sergeant. And since most marines don't live to be promoted to vetereans or sergeants that must mean that most loyalist marines are below 150.

[Sheff]

The gods wouldn't do that, they'd sacrifice them and the strong ones would survie and get their gifts and atention. their lack of scrutiny when recruiting would cause them to have a buynch f mutations and failed implantations that would make their success rate much lower than loyalists.

 

NA about average ifetime of a Sm: how can it be abut 3-40 years? Most captains are about 150-200 years old. And before you can be a captain you have to become a veteran and then a sergeant. And since most marines don't live to be promoted to vetereans or sergeants that must mean that most loyalist marines are below 150.

 

Most marines may be less than 150 years old, but that does not mean that they do not live beyond that. Not all marines are in active companies and so will not become veterans, I'd also imagine that some will not have the required leadership abilities to become sergeants etc.

[TheDarkApostle]

The gods wouldn't do that, they'd sacrifice them and the strong ones would survie and get their gifts and atention. their lack of scrutiny when recruiting would cause them to have a buynch f mutations and failed implantations that would make their success rate much lower than loyalists.

 

NA about average ifetime of a Sm: how can it be abut 3-40 years? Most captains are about 150-200 years old. And before you can be a captain you have to become a veteran and then a sergeant. And since most marines don't live to be promoted to vetereans or sergeants that must mean that most loyalist marines are below 150.

 

Most marines may be less than 150 years old, but that does not mean that they do not live beyond that. Not all marines are in active companies and so will not become veterans, I'd also imagine that some will not have the required leadership abilities to become sergeants etc.

And some might not be promoted due to a simple lack of open spots.

 

As far as I know most loyalist marines goes through a training period of about a century, so I'd wager that most of the are a bit older than that. :D

 

TDA

[Master Of Malfeasance X]

I don't think training is nearly as long as a century. I would be surprised if it was more than a year or so. Catachans have better weapon skill that blood claws and UM scouts, and the average conscripted Catachan is probably in his late teens. Considering that space marines are recruited around 10-13 means that even if training and implantation took a decade (which it probably doesn't), that's still a 20- maybe 30-something year old marine that the average 19 year old Catachan can hit on a 3+. Sad.

 

Even so, if the only difference between a scout and a veteran battle brother is +1WS, +1 BS, then I seriously doubt that they train for a century. that would mean it would take 100 years to replace a single marine. Even by hyperbolic fluff standards, that's a long time.

[Ubermensch Commander]

Average age? Same as a loyalist, really. This whole "they are all veterans of forever!" doesn't really hold up.

A) Time passes differently in the Warp. Ok...so to be alive that long it would mean time has SLOWED DOWN in the warp, thus limiting the amount of time the Traitors have spent fighting

B ) The Chaos scum LOST the Heresy. Not to mention sizable chunks of the World Eaters, Emperors Children, and the Death Guard stayed loyalist and fought a bloody brutal intercine conflict. That means ALOT of dead Chaos space marines. The siege of Terra? The rout at the palace? Ouch. And the THousand Sons....well...their recruitment methods still have not be explicitly explained.

C) Many of the surviving old school Legionaries around have moved on beyond basic (which is scary in its own right) marine status and are now aspiring champs, chosen, Daemonesque things of one sort or another.

D) Most recruits come from newly turned chapters and renegades or newly recruited marines. The Legions have a legacy stretching back to the Crusade....the individual Legionnaires do not.

E) Attrition. Not just from clashes with loyalists and xenos but from inter Chaos fighting within the Eye of Terror itself.

 

This combines for making a pretty diverse spread o ages, comparable to the loyalist legions/chapters. Both have their badarse vets, both have their new blood.

 

PS-Lifespan of your average marine? Dunno. Contradicting fluff. Theoretically nigh eternal. Truthfully....war takes a hefty toll and all marines are warriors. Eternal conflict means you are gonna bite the bullet eventually, whether through a slip up, betrayal, or just plain bad luck.

[Reichsiege]

From what I understand, the Chaos gods can easily revive their followers. In the Space Wolf series it mentions that the Thousand Sons are simply brought back to life by their primarch... and if a simple primarch can revive the souls of dead marines, think about what the chaos gods and even just powerful Daemons could do.

[Askari]

Chaps gods only revive their greatest cahampions like Khârn or lucius the Eternal. they could care less about everyone else, in fact when their followers die their souls are absorbed by their patron god so the gods have no reason to revive a marine unless they'd be able to cause enough death and damage to make the god stronger than it would be if the god had simply absorbed the marine's soul.

 

The thousand suns were able to be revived because they are no longer alive. A bunch of sorcerors cast a spell to try and stop the mutations running through the legion and accidentally made all of the non-pyskers in the legion lose their bodies an just become souls trapped in armor. That's why they can be revived but no other marines can be revived at will outside of the warp.

 

Inside the wrp, daemon princes can have the power to revive people that die on their daemon world. The ork codex talks about a Waaagh! that attacked the warp and destroyed a bunch of demons worlds before coming to a daemon world ruled by a DP of khoe and all dying. but the daemon Prince liked the fight so much he revives the orks every day and fights and kills them again. The orks don't have a problem with this because they live to fight.

[brew city envoy]

the statlines are kept the same for equality reasons.

 

If you read the books then you will see.

 

 

Also, there were millions of world eaters before the heresy, they split into thousnds after and chaos not at all!

[Belfast]

Average age? Same as a loyalist, really. This whole "they are all veterans of forever!" doesn't really hold up.

A) Time passes differently in the Warp. Ok...so to be alive that long it would mean time has SLOWED DOWN in the warp, thus limiting the amount of time the Traitors have spent fighting

B ) The Chaos scum LOST the Heresy. Not to mention sizable chunks of the World Eaters, Emperors Children, and the Death Guard stayed loyalist and fought a bloody brutal intercine conflict. That means ALOT of dead Chaos space marines. The siege of Terra? The rout at the palace? Ouch. And the THousand Sons....well...their recruitment methods still have not be explicitly explained.

C) Many of the surviving old school Legionaries around have moved on beyond basic (which is scary in its own right) marine status and are now aspiring champs, chosen, Daemonesque things of one sort or another.

D) Most recruits come from newly turned chapters and renegades or newly recruited marines. The Legions have a legacy stretching back to the Crusade....the individual Legionnaires do not.

E) Attrition. Not just from clashes with loyalists and xenos but from inter Chaos fighting within the Eye of Terror itself.

 

This combines for making a pretty diverse spread o ages, comparable to the loyalist legions/chapters. Both have their badarse vets, both have their new blood.

 

PS-Lifespan of your average marine? Dunno. Contradicting fluff. Theoretically nigh eternal. Truthfully....war takes a hefty toll and all marines are warriors. Eternal conflict means you are gonna bite the bullet eventually, whether through a slip up, betrayal, or just plain bad luck.

 

the only thing I would add to this would be that you really have to take into consideration that time moves slower in the warp than it does outside the eye.

 

The best way to describe what I'm trying to explain would be to quantify it. lets just say for a rough estimate, every thousand years out side the eye equals roughly one year in the eye. Now lets just say that every 100 years, the majority of a marine chapter will have swelled with new recruits (lets say a change of 400 marines for the sake of argument) thus changing the membership of the chapter considerably. Multiply that by 1,000 for the "1,000" chapters then we have 40,000 marines inducted every 100 years and 400,000 total in a 1,000 year period.

 

Now lets say that chaos recruits half as many marines in a 100 year period as does SM's (20,000 CSM) and that half of them will die in training or while in the warp (10,000 CSM), then we end up with 100,000 CSM recruits within a 1,000 year period recruited.

 

The big but is that most of those CSM will still be alive since only a year has passed in the warp. Since theres only 1 Mil marines at any time, given a 10,000 year period (10 warp years) there could easily be just as many CSM as SM.

 

Just remember, my numbers were just for the sake of an example and they are most definitely wrong, but given the expansive time frame of the of the 40k universe, chaos could and probably does out number normal SM's by an extremely large margin.

[Sons of Horus]

to emphasize the point, TIME FLOWS DIFFERENTLY IN THE WARP! chaos space marines can live indefinitely as long as they are not killed. im not sure if the same is for space marines. and there are still a lot of veterans around. just look at most terminators and most chosen.

[Cornelias]

aside from all that we know of several times the geneseed banks have been raided (storm of iron, angels of darkness to name just 2) and you have Bile who is constantly making new chaos marines for anyone willing to pay a price.

 

remember Honsou, spat upon and looked down on by many of the "old" iron warriors for being of imperial fists seed then eventually rising to be warsmith of thousands of chaos marines.

 

not all chaos marines are from the heresy, even some of the more powerful ones...........

[Askari]

Time flows DIFFERENTLY in the warp. not slower. Differently. That means in some spots it flows much faster in some spots it flows much slower and in some spots its close to the same with a million degrees of difference. So while in some spots only a hundred years have passed since the heresy in others a million years have passed and all the veterans inhabiting that portion have killed each other.

[x_beowolf_x1]

@Cornelias: Ah yes, good book :)

 

Time flows DIFFERENTLY in the warp. not slower. Differently. That means in some spots it flows much faster in some spots it flows much slower and in some spots its close to the same with a million degrees of difference. So while in some spots only a hundred years have passed since the heresy in others a million years have passed and all the veterans inhabiting that portion have killed each other.

 

I wonder if you can even categorize it like that. It flows so differently that there's no way to even comprehend how different or in what places time changes. Its just a swirling mass of emotions, so obviously time can change on a whim, no matter where you are in the warp.

 

Just thought to clear this up, dunno if someone already said this, but Thousand sons basically get reincarnated into their old suits of armor. If one dies, his soul goes back into the warp, and when it gains enough power, it comes back and fills the armor again.

 

Just to say, even though the age of chaos marines might be different than marines, being older or younger, i think its safe to say that MOST chaos marines have centuries more battle experience than the normal marine. This makes them all the more potent when fighting their loyalist brethren.