So, what are Chaos Armies, really?

[D3athduo]

Okay, so I have a strange question. I've been looking into playing WH40k (Space Marines!!! FTW!) and I've created a space marine chapter, painted a small army (about 20 troops and a tanks w/dreadnought), and im getting the rulebooks the end of this month, just to give you an idea of my experience...

 

What are Chaos armies made up of? Space Marines have Chapters, Imperial Guard have Regiments, what about Chaos? What's their organization and how'd you come up with fluff for a DIY army? Anything on other races' armies? Thanks.

-"long live the Emperor!"

[ashrog]

Either legions or warbands. Before the heresy, all marines were organized into legions, some of which numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A few Chaos legions still operate as cohesive forces. Mainly Word Bearers, but I believe Iron Warriors fall into this category as well.

 

The vast majority of chaos armies are warbands: a leader and the forces that are loyal to him, personally. For example, the Skulltakers and the Foresworn are both warbands that originate from the World Eaters legion. Yet they have no loyalty to one another, only to the leader of their warband. It would be possible for them to team up, but probably not for any long amount of time.

 

Rejoice, brother. Your slavery to the false emperor ends today...

[Dosjetka]

A good post from A D-B to give you an idea of how Chaos Space Marines work (linky dinky)

 

Ludovic

[Rain]

Essentially each Chaos force is by definition a Chaos Lord of some kind and whoever he can get to follow him. Occasionally a really powerful Lord will have several lesser Lords as his underlings and he might send them out on various missions on his behalf, there used to actually be an HQ choice called a Lieutenant and earlier a Mighty Champion to represent this, but no longer.

 

Also many Traitor Legion warbands will still identify themselves by the Company that their members belonged to pre-Heresy, so a warband might call itself "The 7th Grand Company of the Iron Warriors" or the "5th Great Company of the Death Guard" or whatever, but really it's still a Lord and his flunkies, they are just trying to hold onto their heritage. In fact, in many such cases the leader of the given warband will not have been the original leader of the company, who is either dead or leading some separate warband both of which might still use the old company designation to refer to themselves.

 

Other warbands break off and create new names and personas for themselves almost like successor chapters, though usually not as divergent, and unlike successors there are not new marines but just legionnaires putting on airs. Examples include The Flawless Host who are an Emperor's Children warband, the Sanctified, who are Word Bearers that quite unusually for Word Bearers worship a single god (Khorne) and the Steel Brethren, who are Iron Warriors.

 

Hope this helps!

[Brother Ambroz]

-"long live the Emperor!"

 

Might want to keep this part to yourself next time. At least in this part of the forum.... ;)

[minigun762]

It isn't something that our codex really represents but all most all of the major warbands include mortal elements, for Alpha Legion they're usually trained operatives, for Word Bearers they can be raving cultists, for others its armies of slaves as builders or cannon fodder or maybe its a force of mutants and abhumans.

 

In many ways Chaos warbands are similar to Ork armies, built around a central powerful leader who is striving to maintain dominance over others who seek to lead.

[A D-B]

Either legions or warbands.

 

Not quite. Any Chaos Marine force is a warband. A lot of warbands are, however, warbands derived from one Legion. A Night Lord warband, f'rex. The misunderstandings arise when people start to think "warband" is a separate concept from "Legion", when really "warband" is a catch-all term. A warband of a Legion can be "The Iron Warriors' 4th Grand Company" or "The Skulltakers" or whatever else. "Warband" in that usage is no different from a Chapter being divided into Companies.

[A D-B]

A good post from A D-B to give you an idea of how Chaos Space Marines work (linky dinky) :sweat:

 

Ludovic

 

I should add, that link was almost 2 years ago, when I was still knee-deep in the meetings and essays and Q&As that framed my perspectives. In trying to show the variety in that post, it made too many people think the Legions were dissolved, rather than "various degrees of disorganised", and I've done longer (tsk...) and more recent posts on the topic, with a bunch of other peeps - which I totally can't find now.

 

Essentially each Chaos force is by definition a Chaos Lord of some kind and whoever he can get to follow him. Occasionally a really powerful Lord will have several lesser Lords as his underlings and he might send them out on various missions on his behalf, there used to actually be an HQ choice called a Lieutenant and earlier a Mighty Champion to represent this, but no longer.

 

Also many Traitor Legion warbands will still identify themselves by the Company that their members belonged to pre-Heresy, so a warband might call itself "The 7th Grand Company of the Iron Warriors" or the "5th Great Company of the Death Guard" or whatever, but really it's still a Lord and his flunkies, they are just trying to hold onto their heritage. In fact, in many such cases the leader of the given warband will not have been the original leader of the company, who is either dead or leading some separate warband both of which might still use the old company designation to refer to themselves.

 

Other warbands break off and create new names and personas for themselves almost like successor chapters, though usually not as divergent, and unlike successors there are not new marines but just legionnaires putting on airs. Examples include The Flawless Host who are an Emperor's Children warband, the Sanctified, who are Word Bearers that quite unusually for Word Bearers worship a single god (Khorne) and the Steel Brethren, who are Iron Warriors.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Very wise, dude/dudette.

[Excessus]

-"long live the Emperor!"

 

Might want to keep this part to yourself next time. At least in this part of the forum.... ^_^

Heeeey, don't be like that. After all, the Alpha Legion's warcry is "For the Emperor!"...haha, make those loyalist nuts confused about who they should be fighting! :sweat:

[D3athduo]

-"long live the Emperor!"

 

Might want to keep this part to yourself next time. At least in this part of the forum.... :D

 

Hehe, figured someone would say something about that XD

[Brother Ambroz]

Hey well someones gotta! I've never played a loyalist army and hopefully never will haha :wub:

[darknightdrako]

I play both because Imperial or not all are followers of chaos in one form or another. :D :( (list prbly exludes necrons, nids, orks and tau)

[Watch Commander Danek]

Not quite. Any Chaos Marine force is a warband. A lot of warbands are, however, warbands derived from one Legion. A Night Lord warband, f'rex. The misunderstandings arise when people start to think "warband" is a separate concept from "Legion", when really "warband" is a catch-all term. A warband of a Legion can be "The Iron Warriors' 4th Grand Company" or "The Skulltakers" or whatever else. "Warband" in that usage is no different from a Chapter being divided into Companies.

 

This whole quote was so deceptively simple and yet on the button, that if I were you I'd copy and paste it into any discussion about such things as your default answer. I reckon you'd no doubt save yourself later headaches if you did. <_<

[ashrog]

Either legions or warbands.

 

Not quite. Any Chaos Marine force is a warband. A lot of warbands are, however, warbands derived from one Legion. A Night Lord warband, f'rex. The misunderstandings arise when people start to think "warband" is a separate concept from "Legion", when really "warband" is a catch-all term. A warband of a Legion can be "The Iron Warriors' 4th Grand Company" or "The Skulltakers" or whatever else. "Warband" in that usage is no different from a Chapter being divided into Companies.

 

 

I should clarify my earlier statements. I did not mean to imply that "legion" and "warband" are mutually exclusive terms. My meaning was that one of those two is the highest level of organization that an individual chaos marine owes loyalty to. All chaos marines are loyal (well, loyal-ish) to their individual warband. Sometimes (not always) this loyalty goes higher up the chain of command, to Legion level. This is not usual, though. Even though Legions like the World Eaters and Emperor's Children are still around in name, they no longer exist as coherent Legions. Just because there is a warband called "The Emperor's Children, 15th Company" doesn't mean that they are automatically on the same page as every other Emperor's Children warband, nor does it mean they will follow orders from Lord Commander So-and-so just because he was their superior officer back in the pre-heresy days. These groups ONLY operate on warband level.

 

Other groups, like the Word Bearers, are still split into warbands. These warbands may even have squabbles and skirmishes amongst themselves (they are still Chaos Marines, after all). But ultimately, they do still work together to further the collective schemes of the entire Legion. They still follow the chain of command and report to a central commanding body. They operate on warband level, but also on Legion level.

 

I guess another way to think of it would be that "Legion" Chaos marines are a subset of "warband" Chaos marines: All Legions are made up of warbands, but not all warbands are part of a Legion.

 

I would also argue that a typical warband is more analogous to a Successor Chapter rather than a Company.