Chaos Marines professionalism

[minigun762]

Reading the discussion about whether or not Night Lords are the equivalent of Blood Angels and the nature of the Chaos warband got me thinking.

 

Overall, how highly would you rank the professionalism of the various traitor marine factions? Loyalists are almost always incredibly focused, determinded, aware etc etc which in my mind are the traits one would expect from a professional soldier but so often Chaos marines are shown as crazed psychopaths or insane cultists where that sense of being a "true" warrior is lost but is that really the case?

 

I can think of examples of this being both true and untrue and often the difference seems to be whether or not the marine is a cult trooper or falls under the "Chaos Undivided" banner but that seems like too simple of a distinction to make.

 

Anyway, its food for thought so I wanted to toss it out there and see what the group thinks.

[Legatus]

Every Marine has undergone years of drill and indoctrination, even the traitor ones, so even a perceived "crazy" Chaos Marine will have the experience to make tactical decisions when neccessary, and be it only out of pure conditioning. And even among loyalists there are Chapters that could be seen as less "professional", but I will not name any, so as to not start an off topic discussion.

 

Personally I see the Black Legion, the Iron Warriors and the Alpha Legion as still being very military goal focused, so would see these as the more professional of the traitor Legions. The Iron Warriors and the Alpha Legion are very good at what they do, but they focus entirely on one particular aspect of warfare, while the Black legion is usually diverse and adaptable and employs every tactical option.

 

The Word Bearers, Thousand Sons and Death Guard are acting out their patron's agendas, which usually involves fighting, but they are not as hell bent on achieving a military victory over a sworn enemy as the three Legions above are. The Thousand Sons probably less so than the other two, as they are mostly Sorcerer guided units that are used to achieve the Sorcerer's goal.

 

The Night Lords, World Eaters and Emperor's Children fight mainly for their own enjoyment, so could probably be seen as less professional. Of the three, the Night Lords are probably still more reliant on classical combat doctrine, but they purposefully seek out weak targets, as they are not interested in a challenge but only in prey.

 

 

My personal ranking would probably go something like this:

 

1. Black Legion

 

2. Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion

 

3. Night Lords*

 

4. Word Bearers*, Death Guard*

 

5. Thousand Sons*

 

6. World Eaters, Emperor's Children

 

 

*Not really sure about these, but that would be how I currently see it.

[Lord Tharand]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you think evil beings can truly trust one another enough to have the bonds of camaraderie and professionalism of a loyalist type soldier. Personally, I don’t, and I look at like the AD&D alignment system (which I grew up playing so it sticks out in my mind). Chaos marines run the range of evils from Lawful evil to Chaotic evil. And by its nature evil is selfish, power hungry and always looking to better oneself over his peers. This won’t stop them from banding together for mutual goals (obviously) but it doesn’t create a true environment for a professional soldier. Fear (if a marine could feel it) and distrust are rampant in evil organizations.

 

I think evil beings can have some sort of warped sense of marshal honor and professional pride and can/do follows rules or codes of honor (I.E. Lawful Evil) they’re still ultimately selfish and will make choices for the betterment of themselves and not the warband. For example a chaos marine might just let leave his wounded brother behind to die even though he could save him. A loyalist would never leave him behind and in fact give his own life to save his battle brother.

 

The Black Library novels reinforce this idea time and again in the various chaos type novels I’ve read. In the Dark Disciple trilogy we see constant backstabbing. Be it the Jarulek really planning to allow Kol Badar to murder Marduk or Burias really only hitching his star to Marduk because he thought it would help his chances of advancement. Even in A-D-B’s Soul Hunter we see similar actions especially between The Exalted and Talos. We see in these books that double-crossing is expected and murder is a common form of advancement. Hardly professional!

 

Really, I don’t think they’re all crazy blood-thirsty berserkers like chaos is often portrayed from a loyalist standpoint. After all, the original legions spend years crusading together and did form deep bonds of brotherhood and years of combat doctrine were drilled into their heads. But, they also threw it away in a moments notice when they turned their back and went traitor. Ultimately by the nature of evil, and Chaos evil of the 40k universe is doubly worse, they just won’t be nearly like their loyalist counterparts.

 

Now all that being said, Chaos marines are just cool!

 

P.S. If any of you have read/played AD&D over the years I imagine CSM of a more professional nature might operate like the Drow society…minus the pointy ears of course!

[AekoldHelbrass]

I think it depends on legion and concrete warrior. Some of warriors are 10 000 years old, in constant fighting each other. They do not need discipline or something, they have more experience than full loyal marines chapter. But there are some who were recruited not long ago, and without good warband/legion organization they cannot get proper training like space marines scouts. So they are mostly dead meat, one of 1000 will survive and become a veteran who will be really better than space marines again.

[Requiemnex]

I sort of agree with the idea behind the D&D chart.. I feel like it is much different from one marine to the next. Cypher although labeled as chaos is rumored to be trying to spread "the word of the Emperor". Not all "chaos" are actually filled with evil and believe that the eye of terror is the place to be.. They just have their own agenda that do not fit the ideal brain washed devout space marine.

 

I think a charecter like Honsu is a really good example of a Marine with his own agenda. Backstabbing and thwarting good and evil alike to better himself. Meanwhile you have "renegades" such as Vaans who did evil but inside he knew that what he was doing was wrong and showed guilt for his behavior. He held true to his chapter even after being condemned to death by his battlebrothers.

 

If you look at all of our special chars in our current codex... With the exception of maybe Bile and "Abadbad" most of them are meat puppets to the gods..

 

Legions like the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion do things like you see in the Storm of Iron book.. Kroguer and Forrix never really had any hostility between one another but would frequently poke at honsu for being a halfbreed.

 

I do not feel like they lose their professionalism or duty. It is just worked differently. Its no longer about the squad or the chapter. it is about themselves and how far their current road will take them.

[minigun762]

P.S. If any of you have read/played AD&D over the years I imagine CSM of a more professional nature might operate like the Drow society…minus the pointy ears of course!

 

It was forever ago so I might have gotten something wrong but I thought the basic premise was much more like the Dark Eldar (go figure...) then Chaos.

 

That being said, both Chaos Marines and Dark Eldar seem to be focused on a "the strong survive, the weak perish" philosophy. There is backstabbing and plotting but if you're good enough to lead, you're good enough to protect your position.

 

Though, that starts to sound more like a royal court's intrigue rather then combat soldiers but that might be fitting considering that many traitors are more interested in carving our their own domains then just battling.

[DaanofWar]

I'd say that the proffesionalism of any give chaos warband/legion depends most heavilly on the proffesionalism of it's leader(s).

 

Chaos generals keep their troops in line and force them to obey to orders through fear and intimidation. If a chaos general demands his minions to be so, depending on his relative scariness, he may very well be able to create a force that is more proffesional than even the most diciplined loyalist marines. Fear is a powerful motivator and a marine who carries out orders because he's afraid of what will happen if he doesn't is as likely to be succesful as a marine who does it out of proffesionalism. If a chaos general is powerful enough he might even coerce his followers into proffesionalism by sheer admiration or devotion to the cause.

 

As far as the proffesionalism of the Legions goes I think Legatus sums it up pretty well and it's fun to note that the proffesionalism in which he rates the legions themselves highly relates to the military proffesionalism of their respective primarchs. I guess a primarch's ascent to Daemonhood probably doesn't help the proffesionalism of the legion though. Even though those primarchs may have technically gotten more powerful, their desire to have their legion wage proffesional war against the imperium seems to have been lessened considerably. ... That's probably why it's a good thing for chaos that abby's still refusing the offer of daemonhood.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I don't see a problem at all with an evil faction exhibiting a rigid organizational discipline and professional implementation of tactical doctrine. First, they are Space Marines. Traitor Space Marines, but still Space Marines, and still bred to thrive on such a system. Second, the reason that such discipline and unit coherency arose in the first place is because it works. So whether they're evil=extremely selfish or evil=doing bad things just to be bad, maintaining a disciplined combat doctrine goes hand in hand with furthering the goals of 1.staying alive and 2. maximizing the efficiency of your capability to commit evil.

 

For a real world example, think about the German S.S. Ultimately evil, and ultimately professional in their organization and tactics.

 

I think there's room enough in the Eye of Terror or Maelstrom (and mysterious points beyond) for highly organized and disciplined units to exist alongside gaggles of dangerous madmen.

 

Personally, I prefer the idea of professional soldiering in my Chaos warband, and that's how I'm writing my DIY fluff. If you have a bunch of lunatics with chainswords who are always trying to kill everyone around them, how in the world do they get from planet to planet to fight the False Emperor?

[Hellios]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you think evil beings can truly trust one another enough to have the bonds of camaraderie and professionalism of a loyalist type soldier. Personally, I don’t, and I look at like the AD&D alignment system (which I grew up playing so it sticks out in my mind). Chaos marines run the range of evils from Lawful evil to Chaotic evil. And by its nature evil is selfish, power hungry and always looking to better oneself over his peers. This won’t stop them from banding together for mutual goals (obviously) but it doesn’t create a true environment for a professional soldier. Fear (if a marine could feel it) and distrust are rampant in evil organizations.

 

I don't mean this as a political point so please don't take it as such... but are all the people who served in the Nazi warmachine evil? Are all those who fight and kill in the name of [insert god here] evil (I don't mean the people in charge but the pawns)? Many Chaos marines are no doubt just following orders although I guess more and more of them fall into dark ways as time passes.

[Bulwyf]

I think if we take GW saying that the Legions are essentially nothing more than warbands ranging from a few guys to a Chapter-ish sized force that some of them will be "disciplined". You have renegade Chapters who still maintain a pretty solid "up top" leadership dynamic and some of the Legion warbands could be focused if their leader is forceful enough to instill it in them still.

 

I do think that most of the Chaos warbands are more interested in selfish desires and fulfilling their individual god's agenda than focusing on larger goals.

[Lord Tharand]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you think evil beings can truly trust one another enough to have the bonds of camaraderie and professionalism of a loyalist type soldier. Personally, I don’t, and I look at like the AD&D alignment system (which I grew up playing so it sticks out in my mind). Chaos marines run the range of evils from Lawful evil to Chaotic evil. And by its nature evil is selfish, power hungry and always looking to better oneself over his peers. This won’t stop them from banding together for mutual goals (obviously) but it doesn’t create a true environment for a professional soldier. Fear (if a marine could feel it) and distrust are rampant in evil organizations.

 

I don't mean this as a political point so please don't take it as such... but are all the people who served in the Nazi warmachine evil? Are all those who fight and kill in the name of [insert god here] evil (I don't mean the people in charge but the pawns)? Many Chaos marines are no doubt just following orders although I guess more and more of them fall into dark ways as time passes.

 

Obviously they weren't. Most were just fighting for their country much like any other service member from another nation. But we aren't talking about real world people here. Seems to me that very few people (comparatively) in the world really are fully and truly evil. Yes we do selfish things and we might do things that are morally ambiguous but we aren't off murdering our boss so we become an aspiring champion or sacrificing massive amounts of people to use their blood to turn a world into a daemon world either. Our little fantasy chaos marines are in fact cold blooded, ruthless, and fully corrupted by the powers of chaos. Yes, there are degrees of corruption as Legatus points out and I agree with that.

 

For the record I feel like chaos marines are perfectly capable of being well drilled and disciplined under fire or trying to carry out some mission. Their training as space marines says as much. It's more about them choosing themselves above the mission/squad mates/whatever and doing the "right" thing (whatever the right thing is at the time).

 

This is a pretty interesting topic I think.

[Lord Tharand]

P.S. If any of you have read/played AD&D over the years I imagine CSM of a more professional nature might operate like the Drow society…minus the pointy ears of course!

 

It was forever ago so I might have gotten something wrong but I thought the basic premise was much more like the Dark Eldar (go figure...) then Chaos.

 

That being said, both Chaos Marines and Dark Eldar seem to be focused on a "the strong survive, the weak perish" philosophy. There is backstabbing and plotting but if you're good enough to lead, you're good enough to protect your position.

 

Though, that starts to sound more like a royal court's intrigue rather then combat soldiers but that might be fitting considering that many traitors are more interested in carving our their own domains then just battling.

 

haha Yeah, I think the Drow are really Dark Eldar but sort of the morals and backstabbing show up in various chaos warbands/legions. Maybe look at the Skaven as well for examples too. They really represent what is worst about humans anyway.

[Hellios]

Obviously they weren't. Most were just fighting for their country much like any other service member from another nation. But we aren't talking about real world people here. Seems to me that very few people (comparatively) in the world really are fully and truly evil. Yes we do selfish things and we might do things that are morally ambiguous but we aren't off murdering our boss so we become an aspiring champion or sacrificing massive amounts of people to use their blood to turn a world into a daemon world either. Our little fantasy chaos marines are in fact cold blooded, ruthless, and fully corrupted by the powers of chaos. Yes, there are degrees of corruption as Legatus points out and I agree with that.

 

For the record I feel like chaos marines are perfectly capable of being well drilled and disciplined under fire or trying to carry out some mission. Their training as space marines says as much. It's more about them choosing themselves above the mission/squad mates/whatever and doing the "right" thing (whatever the right thing is at the time).

 

This is a pretty interesting topic I think.

 

Except normal people are not trained and brought up to think that commiting mass murder is right... many Marines (loyalist ones included) however would have little problems with killing many many people for little reason.... and not all chaos marines are as you describe them... some are rather sad figures who know they are wrong but also know they cannot turn back and have nowhere else to go... Chaos isn't simple... thats why people go mad trying to understand it...

[Requiemnex]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you think evil beings can truly trust one another enough to have the bonds of camaraderie and professionalism of a loyalist type soldier. Personally, I don’t, and I look at like the AD&D alignment system (which I grew up playing so it sticks out in my mind). Chaos marines run the range of evils from Lawful evil to Chaotic evil. And by its nature evil is selfish, power hungry and always looking to better oneself over his peers. This won’t stop them from banding together for mutual goals (obviously) but it doesn’t create a true environment for a professional soldier. Fear (if a marine could feel it) and distrust are rampant in evil organizations.

 

I don't mean this as a political point so please don't take it as such... but are all the people who served in the Nazi warmachine evil? Are all those who fight and kill in the name of [insert god here] evil (I don't mean the people in charge but the pawns)? Many Chaos marines are no doubt just following orders although I guess more and more of them fall into dark ways as time passes.

 

Obviously they weren't. Most were just fighting for their country much like any other service member from another nation. But we aren't talking about real world people here. Seems to me that very few people (comparatively) in the world really are fully and truly evil. Yes we do selfish things and we might do things that are morally ambiguous but we aren't off murdering our boss so we become an aspiring champion or sacrificing massive amounts of people to use their blood to turn a world into a daemon world either. Our little fantasy chaos marines are in fact cold blooded, ruthless, and fully corrupted by the powers of chaos. Yes, there are degrees of corruption as Legatus points out and I agree with that.

 

For the record I feel like chaos marines are perfectly capable of being well drilled and disciplined under fire or trying to carry out some mission. Their training as space marines says as much. It's more about them choosing themselves above the mission/squad mates/whatever and doing the "right" thing (whatever the right thing is at the time).

 

This is a pretty interesting topic I think.

 

 

You kind of helped me re-think this. I believe you to be right on the button with this but now we are talking about ethics and does professionalism really fall into ethics. I mean the morality and playing your role as intended allows you to present professionalism but are your actions ethical. In the idea of marines and their role in the world to murder, in cold blood if needed anyone who stands in the way of the might of the Emperor. The Chaos Space Marine - Generally to better ones self and to take any meathod required to do so. I think the difference is the emotion that is almost like a concience in the loyal space marine and not really present in the chaos space marine. Again you can debate some chapters one way or the other such as blood angels red thirst or the space wolves mutated appearance. Or the world eaters meathod of labotamy. Or the Iron Warriors will to do their own thing. So in the end to the definition of Can a Chaos Space Marine present professionalism ie brotherhood.. I would say no. Does a Chaos Space Marine have ethical beliefs or act on ethics... Not really. Are they all stark raving mad? No. It is that lack of fitting in or that question in the back of their minds that drives them to chaos. It is almost a satanic / christian battle between the two forces with the space marine's devout faith in something most of them have never seen and the chaos space marine's question as to why do we follow this force? What is in it for me? Why should I sacrafice myself for this cause.

 

ETHICS

1.(used with a singular or plural verb) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture.

2.the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.

3.moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence.

4.(usually used with a singular verb) that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

 

Professionalism

–noun

1.professional character, spirit, or methods.

2.the standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.

[Hellios]

The thing is some chaos marines would always choose to kill everyone else to save themselves or to give themselves some benefit...

 

The other side of the story you have chaos marines who will kill themselves if ordered to by what ever authority they listen to thats goes beyond the faith and devotion shown by most loyalist chapters...

[minigun762]

This topic has really picked up, which makes me happy that people have such good thoughts.

 

My initial thinking about "professionalism" was in light of the professional soldier. So often Chaos Marines are portrayed in the "kill maim burn" light that one might think thats all there is too them but I don't think that all traitors are that way. Taking that a step further, I don't want that to be the case, at least not with all of them. The threat of the Chaos Marine seems diminished if they are reduced to Orks in power armor.

[Lord Tharand]

Well, I think it comes down to whether you think evil beings can truly trust one another enough to have the bonds of camaraderie and professionalism of a loyalist type soldier. Personally, I don’t, and I look at like the AD&D alignment system (which I grew up playing so it sticks out in my mind). Chaos marines run the range of evils from Lawful evil to Chaotic evil. And by its nature evil is selfish, power hungry and always looking to better oneself over his peers. This won’t stop them from banding together for mutual goals (obviously) but it doesn’t create a true environment for a professional soldier. Fear (if a marine could feel it) and distrust are rampant in evil organizations.

 

I don't mean this as a political point so please don't take it as such... but are all the people who served in the Nazi warmachine evil? Are all those who fight and kill in the name of [insert god here] evil (I don't mean the people in charge but the pawns)? Many Chaos marines are no doubt just following orders although I guess more and more of them fall into dark ways as time passes.

 

Obviously they weren't. Most were just fighting for their country much like any other service member from another nation. But we aren't talking about real world people here. Seems to me that very few people (comparatively) in the world really are fully and truly evil. Yes we do selfish things and we might do things that are morally ambiguous but we aren't off murdering our boss so we become an aspiring champion or sacrificing massive amounts of people to use their blood to turn a world into a daemon world either. Our little fantasy chaos marines are in fact cold blooded, ruthless, and fully corrupted by the powers of chaos. Yes, there are degrees of corruption as Legatus points out and I agree with that.

 

For the record I feel like chaos marines are perfectly capable of being well drilled and disciplined under fire or trying to carry out some mission. Their training as space marines says as much. It's more about them choosing themselves above the mission/squad mates/whatever and doing the "right" thing (whatever the right thing is at the time).

 

This is a pretty interesting topic I think.

 

 

You kind of helped me re-think this. I believe you to be right on the button with this but now we are talking about ethics and does professionalism really fall into ethics. I mean the morality and playing your role as intended allows you to present professionalism but are your actions ethical. In the idea of marines and their role in the world to murder, in cold blood if needed anyone who stands in the way of the might of the Emperor. The Chaos Space Marine - Generally to better ones self and to take any meathod required to do so. I think the difference is the emotion that is almost like a concience in the loyal space marine and not really present in the chaos space marine. Again you can debate some chapters one way or the other such as blood angels red thirst or the space wolves mutated appearance. Or the world eaters meathod of labotamy. Or the Iron Warriors will to do their own thing. So in the end to the definition of Can a Chaos Space Marine present professionalism ie brotherhood.. I would say no. Does a Chaos Space Marine have ethical beliefs or act on ethics... Not really. Are they all stark raving mad? No. It is that lack of fitting in or that question in the back of their minds that drives them to chaos. It is almost a satanic / christian battle between the two forces with the space marine's devout faith in something most of them have never seen and the chaos space marine's question as to why do we follow this force? What is in it for me? Why should I sacrafice myself for this cause.

 

ETHICS

1.(used with a singular or plural verb) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture.

2.the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.

3.moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence.

4.(usually used with a singular verb) that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

 

Professionalism

–noun

1.professional character, spirit, or methods.

2.the standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.

 

Requiemnex that is exactly what I'm trying to say! I agree 100%. :(

[Lord Tharand]

This topic has really picked up, which makes me happy that people have such good thoughts.

 

My initial thinking about "professionalism" was in light of the professional soldier. So often Chaos Marines are portrayed in the "kill maim burn" light that one might think thats all there is too them but I don't think that all traitors are that way. Taking that a step further, I don't want that to be the case, at least not with all of them. The threat of the Chaos Marine seems diminished if they are reduced to Orks in power armor.

 

I certainly don't think they're orks in power armour. Chaos marines are totally calculating in their wars against themselves and the Imperium.

[Requiemnex]

As much as I hate to admit it... They sort of are orks in power armor... With a higher BS... :(

 

 

The biggest and strongest calls them all under one flag and then they hit something really hard. Maybe a little more precise than orks but mini, you have read the chapter is due... Big strong guy follows the bigger stronger guy only to betray legion members and save his hide. HOWEVER........ the exception lies in those who are not traitors at all but are created from corrupt geneseed stolen from other chapters.. The duty and loyalty is very much a part of the geneseed as seen with the space wolves prior to the blasphamy written into the 4th ed codex. These guys drink from a cup and embrace the geneseed and become guys that would do ANYTHING for Russ...

 

On the other end of the spectrum you have the Flesh Tearers that are questionable at best for giving in to the thirst and slaughtering thousands of innocence without thinking twice about it.

 

Then for Chaos

 

You have guys like Kharne who pretty much doesnt give a flying mother lover who he kills as long as blood is spilled.

 

On the other end you have the Emperor's Children who pretty much just followed their Primarch to corruption without even thinking twice about it. They have a level of brotherhood among them.

 

From one perspective you could look at the inquisition coming in and cleaning out corrupt marines the same way a Chaos Lord would terminate members of his legion for planning against him.

 

Could every CSM be a raving sociopath? Doubtful.. There are renegades that are not really "chaos" they just dont follow the Emperor..

[Hellios]

I certainly don't think they're orks in power armour. Chaos marines are totally calculating in their (wars) righteous crusades against the Imperium.

[Supreme Overlord]

Some very interesting posts here.

 

The thing is some chaos marines would always choose to kill everyone else to save themselves or to give themselves some benefit...

 

The other side of the story you have chaos marines who will kill themselves if ordered to by what ever authority they listen to thats goes beyond the faith and devotion shown by most loyalist chapters...

 

Some might say that is the difference between the various Legions and Renegade Chapters, but I think its the difference between individuals. Some Chaos Marines are 100% selfish creatures who will do anything if it advances their position. Others fervently believe in their cause, whatever that may be (fulfilling the objectives of their patron God, or tearing down the Imperium, etc). An example being Word bearers. At first glance, one could say they are the most faithful and most dedicated Chaos Marines around. But looking between the lines, there are still some amongst them who are selfish, be it secretly or openly, and do not act to further the goals of the Legion or the Gods but simply for themselves.

 

Just a thought.

 

EDIT: On the topic of professionalism in Chaos forces, I like to think that when not fighting, my Word Bearers are religous fanatics who obey the will of the Dark Apostle, and pray, sacrifice etc. However, when in the heat of battle, although their faith carries them on, they act as any professional soldier would and obey the commands of their Coryphaes (I've spelt that wrong ;) ), perhaps whispering a prayer to themselves or chanting a verse from the Book of Lorgar every now and then. But then, loyalists do that too, only in a different way.

[Hiro_Protagonist]

The thing is some chaos marines would always choose to kill everyone else to save themselves or to give themselves some benefit...

 

The other side of the story you have chaos marines who will kill themselves if ordered to by what ever authority they listen to thats goes beyond the faith and devotion shown by most loyalist chapters...

 

The same could be said about the loyalist marines though...although in their case it seems to be more of a "let people die/be killed" rather than killing them themselves.

 

I think that the Chaos Marines have to be professional, at least on some level, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to maintain themselves over the millenia. They don't have the manpower of the orks or tyranids, or the high technology of the eldar races or tau. They would need structure in order to remain a viable threat.

 

Chaos' religious zealotry shouldn't cloud how they act as a military force. Why they do the things they do, shouldn't negate the skill and ability with which they do it.

[Supreme Overlord]

Chaos' religious zealotry shouldn't cloud how they act as a military force.

 

If anything, this religous zealotry should be used to our advantage, if possible. While the Chaos Marine's faith in the Emperor may have been shattered, it has been replaced by a dark faith in the Chaos Gods and for some of them, a faith in our cause (destroying the Imperium). Nurture this faith with millenia of resentment and hate, and we have quite the motivated military force. Not to mention they are Space Marines, too.

[TheDarkApostle]

Could every CSM be a raving sociopath? Doubtful..

Just to point out that being a Sociopath =/= being a violent madman.

 

A Sociopath is someone who has no empathy and is largely antisocial/socially inadequate.

 

Now that most "known" Sociopaths also seem to suffer from violence problems as well is another regard entirely. ;)

 

TDA

[Grey Mage]

Thats because polite sociopaths are not usually noticed for what they truely are.

 

And a True sociopath is rare- most are psychopaths instead.