Possible stupid question

[happe]

So, lately I have been doing alot of reading on 40k. and something has been bugging me. Do the original chaos legions still recruit?

 

I'm just wondering how they are able to continue to be a threat. sure i understand that there are cultist uprisings, traitor guard, etc. etc. but i just havnt seen any type of literature that suggests that the chaos SMs recruit or bolster their numbers in any way.

[jmlee]

I believe they do make new csms out of worthy individuals on their planets in the eye of terror and of cultists. They do fight over gene seed, and they will use gene seed from fallen space marines as well.

[Clewz]

codex mentions they recruit slaves. Nightfall by Peter Fehervari sees a night Lord warband recruiting. Also I'm sure sure there was some mention of Fabious Bile supplying clones somewhere

[Kable]

Iron Warriors recruit during the novel 'Dead Sky Black Sun' and their methods are vastly different from there loyal brethren and i would think that the original traitor legions would recruit from all sources whether that be newly formed renegade chapters, cults, planets, pirates and even other chaos warbands themselves. The Red Corsairs even though not a founding legions activated recruit from a wide source renegades.

I would have to see the original chaos space marines from the Horus Heresy as more grizzled champions and leaders and the newer or younger basic chaos marine in the standard squads. If i were i wouldn't want to stay in a chaos space marine squad for ten thousand years. I'd go nuts without promotion!

[IronWinds]

They recruit in various ways.

 

Recruit new ex-marines.

IWs and Black Legion, possibly others, use stolen geneseed to create more marines.

Then there is always fabius bile.

 

And have you seen a big mutant? They are huge, you would think a medium sized mutant would be about the size of a marine and could wear power armor. In other words the gods could always turn normal humans into beings with the stature and capabilities of marines.

[Dark Mechanicum]

Storm of Iron talks about how the Iron Warriors use geneseed, a part of their own mixed with other loyalist geneseed to create Iron Warriors.

[Mr. Sandbot]

The CSM codex talks about Ahriman stealing promising young psykers, so from that you can infer that both halves of the Thousand Sons recruit as well. As for the dustbuckets themselves I'm standing by the idea that they summon them into existence in suits of empty power armor or through cultists.

[Lay]

The Traitor Legions have retained their old Chapters, now dedicated to the service of the Chaos Powers rather than the Imperium. They have also maintained the ancient technology of gene-seeding and adaptive surgery. The children needed to become new Legionnaires have been bred from slave stock and a variety of Humans captured on Legion raids into the Imperium

Within the Eye the Traitor Legions fight constant wars amongst themselves for gene-seed, slaves, resources or martial honor. New Chaos Space Marines are recruited from the most dangerous heretics that are drawn into the Eye by the lure of Chaos, or else selected from the masses of slave-warriors who fight eternal battles for the amusement of the Dark Gods. The implantation of recruits is a brutal affair, quite unlike the carefully measured program of development used by Imperial Space Marines. Whether the candidate lives or dies is left to the will of the Chaos Gods. Initiation rites are similarly debased and savage, ensuring that only the toughest initiates ever survive.

Each of the Legions has now nominated aspirants seeking to throw themselves upon our mercy in the vain hope that we may deem them worthy to join our ranks. Those loyal to the shrunken corpse on Terra still cling to their own processes by which perhaps one in a hundred neophytes may survive to become a battle brother. The methods I have developed over the last millennia are more stringent, for we must be pure in our hatred and hard of heart, body and soul. Fewer than one in every thousand survive, and I strive each day to lengthen these odds still further.

 

~ Fabius Bile