Chaos Space Marines

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
-Revelation 6:8

Chaos up in this motherfucker.

Chaos Space Marines are, simply enough, Space Marines that have fallen to, or were inducted to, Chaos. They are also one of the main factions in Warhammer 40,000. The first Chaos Marines were born during the Horus Heresy from the nine Traitor Legions. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full Chapters) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a fluff distinction, as the Codex does not differentiate between the two. Oh, there was a time when there was a crunch distinction that was worth a damn, but those days may never return.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of Chaos warp stuff from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, daemons because they are aligned with Chaos and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium treats its subjects like steampunk condoms.

Overview

Birds have never been so scary.

Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is Heresy. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (Largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to Erebus of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently emotionally discouraged Primarch Lorgar to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather 7 more of his distraught brother primarchs to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion against the Imperium, resulting in the Horus Heresy. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel, most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

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 only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. 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. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10 000 years, such as Razorbacks, Centurion suits, assault cannons or grav guns, and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them) their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The later reason is also why Chaos marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech, like Land Speeder variants, or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.

The eternal war rages on.

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them 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. Although, more organized legions like the Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, and Black Legion do still remain much more of a competent military force than most of the other traitor legions.

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 wasn't 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 were the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the space elves, That one angry viking dreadnought, who's about their age, the Tomb King expys and maybe a few of the Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four Chaos Gods, becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a horrific beast that should not be named, whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a Daemon Prince.

• Khornate Champions: Those who worship Khorne (such as the World Eaters Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called Khorne Berzerkers, after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom Kharn (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the chainaxe and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!!"

• Nurglic Champions: These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as Chaos Cultists). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite 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 fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

• Slaaneshi Champions: The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies start to produce them normally. And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. Doomrider is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the Emperor's Children, the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; Lucius the Eternal, on the other hand, is.

• Tzeentchian Champions: All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful psykers (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into Chaos Spawn, squa-GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR
  • Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The Thousand Sons Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, Ahriman, is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

• Undivided: Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The Word Bearers were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has 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. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers do have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the Death Guard and World Eaters did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either...well except Failbaddon, who for some reason does not seem to get that his position as the "Most powerful champion of Chaos" is an ironic joke. Also, 5th Chaos God Malice, there is a raging debate as to whether Malice is the weakest or the strongest of the gods. And no, its not another incarnation of Tzeentch as was thought many, many millennia ago…

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The Alpha Legion, for instance, are closet loyalists (or not, or double heretics, or triple heretics, or Brotha's doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the Night Lords Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the Soul Drinkers, a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the Imperium of Man (they fight for the Emperor's ideals… don't ask, it's complicated), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

• Malice: Way back when, Warhammer Fantasy Battle had a minor Chaos God named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, Games Workshop had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the Sons of Malice that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

The Traitor Legions

When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.

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 getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. possibly still a painting 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 cannons sonic 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 second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perurabo himself, who on his part don't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. 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 (well, at least the "loyalist" warbands, the current bigger one is lead by an actual Daemon Prince, which is pretty contradictory). They're also pretty much the only Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch (except Black Legion), 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. 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). Currently on their way to fuck up the Fenris Furries.

• 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 cool actually 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). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

• 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 fucking enemies brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overcomplicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact their fallback fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a misinformation, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a misinformation.

Renegades

The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, nor are they even the largest source. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time - most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes it goes so far to entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics. The new renegades then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the Relictors. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bring their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruiniious Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense, if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, which, when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about, makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the Word Bearers, and most modern day Marines are at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives- centuries- to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly, many Space Marines resent this on some level (those who treat mortals with respect are probably in the minority) and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants...

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent, to the point that they could actually outnumber the old legions.

A "Meta-History" of Sorts

I suppose we should start at the beginning? So, back in the day, Chaos was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. In those ancient times, apparently the Emperor ascended the golden throne not because of a mortal wound from Horus and a war that nearly destroyed everything he worked for, but because the administrative burden of running an empire was too much for him to do as a walking, talking dude. Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection. It gets really confusing from there so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades all rolled into one.

2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass

Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, everything could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a Bloodthirster would use an Avatar as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar. Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as chaos armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 3+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as Troops (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take a special character Nurgle daemon prince with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into Awesome

Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved Obliterators, Possessed and Raptors and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced Tau and Necrons, breaking the game with Fish of Fury and just simply existing, respectively. In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life, cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. That enemy crab thing gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you bought as opposed to rolled for the powers your possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the sonic dreadnought... and predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding traitor legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly captoored by chaoz.

4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal

That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, Gav Thorpe raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were pissed at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!

And then this happened. GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. Dawn of War had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, especially the Eldar but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and maybe a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag du jour. Many were the old guard who left in disgust.

6th Ed: A New Hope? A New NOPE!

Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, it's been three years now since that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was a new flyer with a *AHEM* "gigantic exhaust port." "Gaze into the eye of terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions. Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed? Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book. Speaking to the former, Mutilators and Warp Talons were just laughably useless. On top of that, random tables plagued the book (though nowhere near as much as the Chaos Daemons), troops were of questionable value and utility and the army played like Space Marines, but with too many goddamn cuts to it.

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. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even

On today's tabletop, Chaos Space Marines play similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a vain attempt to play up the RIP AND TEAR side. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions.

As of the 7E, they are still weak due to having a half-assed, unbalanced 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them.

The Obvious Question

Gamers in 40K are rather slavishly devoted to the core canon so it stands to ask, in the face of the rampant Emprah-praising and progressive downgrading why do some people even bother with CSM? Think of it this way: the army played can tell you something about the player. Let's say playing Space Marines means the player wants to fit in and excel amongst his peers pretending he's just as much a super human as any other, while the Dark Eldar player fancies himself a special snowflake that wants to pretend he's a sexy goth elf that fights and fucks at the same time. In that case, then (traditionally at least) CSM was the army of bitter, envious nerd rage, for that aspie spurned by his peers and forced to hang out with the other weird kids for reasons beyond his comprehension. Playing CSM was that chance to take vengeance upon all who dared wrong you, to burn the earth beneath in concentrated dark anger, born aloft on wings of vengeance. This is the army of lashing out at your bullies publicly, the ersatz school shooting scorched earth approach. This is incidentally what makes a compelling villain - a casual link to the hero, but thrust onto a different path paved with resent and loathing, on a collision course with destiny. This is also what draws people to CSM, that chance to say "fuck it," to give into your anger, lashing out at your enemies. Do keep in mind, this is primarily why people didn't like CSM players that much; the OP rules and sperglords acting out was too much to take for more well-adjusted players especially in the face of a growing, hot market segment that was 40K in the run-up to the 2010s.

However, in reigning in the spurned nerd we've lost something important to this hobby - we lost that compelling villain, the character you take seriously because if you ignore him this time--if you dare underestimate him again--it just might be your last. There's no urgency anymore as we perpetually slide in shorter and shorter increments towards the event horizon of 40K's never-coming future. There's no fear that a CSM player might show up and, with a good turn (not an incredibly unlikely or lucky one - just a decent turn), table you out of fucking nowhere because you got complacent. Because of this, we are poorer for our loss. Instead we tell the spurned that any other army is just as capable of reflecting their bitterness, but those ones have the canonical backing of empires, making the players punch down or across as opposed to up at the power structure that has so hurtfully neglected them. Oh sure, you can lie to yourself and pretend that you're the Emperor's favoured son for a fleeting moment of escapism, but deep down you know the Matrix isn't real; at some point you're gonna look in the mirror and realize no one likes you. You're gonna have to do it yourself, accompanied only by your seething anger and a little luck from the gods themselves and you will show them all that NOBODY fucks with you! And that right there is another important point: the Chaos Space Marines' goals are overwhelmingly personal. Even "bad guy" factions are to a much greater degree serving someone or something else's agenda: Chaos Daemons are bound largely to the will of their patron deity (or the pantheon), Deldar serve their Kabal/Kult/Coven, Orks are pretty much slaves to the urges hard-wired into them, Necrons are trying to resurrect the glory of their old empire and the Tyranids don't need an explanation! No, CSM serve themselves occasionally paying tribute to a specific deity for the power and resources to fulfill their goals and further themselves in the grand scheme of things.

We need those angry neckbeards back to stop 40K falling into total irrelevance through non-stop fanboy-service, that attempt at appealing to everyone which inevitably appeals to no one. If you must, look at it this way: if GW can get away with this level of ass-mongery with the central villain--that although was hard to like, was otherwise a prominent part of the canon and game--what makes you think your favoured faction is so safe? What happens, say, if market trends shift attracting a huge number weeaboo Japanophiles such that the Tau became the dominant faction contributing the most to sales regardless of what gets released? Just imagine it, every release cycle includes some sort of Tau supplement to reassure Tau players that they are the preferred customers, just like with Space Marines right now. Games Workshop, being the corporation they are, would basically turn their attention solely towards making the Tau unstoppably good through sheer volume of releases, granting them the entirety of the spotlight with multiple factions and splat books. What tune would you be singing then?

TL;DR: fluff is important and we need compelling villains, but it can only happen with decent crunch for them. Players should take notice and demand a better class of villain in their game, voting with their wallets least the same fate befalls them and their favourite faction.

Oh Gods how do we fix this?

The good news is that Matt Ward has left GW; bad news is first because of the reason why (Death threats, you guys?) and second is that GW is still making terrible decisions with their intellectual property... which is more or less someone else's IP, but whatev. Regardless, just look at the gimped releases for the non-marine/guard/craftworld armies and you'll get an easy sense of how inept they are. HOWEVER, GW does apparently read the criticism they get on the internets and they do take it seriously. And that's what we're here for!

Right, so the first, most brutally obvious thing needed to fix CSM is to figure out WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE AND HOW THEY DO! Now reader, you might think this a "duh," but you'd be giving Games Workshop too much credit; the Daemonkin books (just you wait, Tzeentch is allegedly next) and the supplements have demonstrated that GW's write-staff--whoever they are--don't understand what the CSM are or how they're supposed to work. We should talk about what the Chaos Space Marines aren't:

• Randomness because Chaos, guys! - NO! Let's throw out this idea that they need numerous random tables to generate abilities. Yes there should most certainly be elements of risk in how they play, but it should be more in the idea of investing heavily in units that ought to deliver a massive reward. Save the random shit and quirky oddball stuff for Daemons and Orks respectively, CSM need punch and it needs to be unique to them. We can keep the Champ table at the least but narrow down the results to like 8 instead of fucking 20!
• Daemon Marines: Alright, we get it! CSM are BB with Daemons now can we please stop with the fucking Daemonkin books already? It's 7E - if we want to have Chaos Daemons in our Chaos Space Marines army, we can ally. Throwing a book at us with a list filled with good units and bad units leaves us no better off than where we started. If you really want to smooth things over, just make it so CSM characters can join Daemon units and we can all go home happy.
• LOL INSANE: read What it's like to find out why this needs to go away. For much the same reason as why CSM aren't random because they're aligned with Chaos, neither are they totally insane. They do what they must in order to survive.
• Eeeeeevil Marines: one of the overarching themes of 40K is that no one faction are unambiguously the "good guys." Therefore, making CSM into a faction that is evil for the sake of being evil is rather one-dimensional and can lead us into design traps, like a predisposition for losing in order to bolster the (prevailing) good guys, which happen to be whoever is dominating sales at the moment. The inverse is true as well - the arbitrarily declared "bad guys" will always get the short end of the stick come release time. This needs to stop, preferably before players are driven away in droves by moody codex authors. And for the record, many Chaos Marine warbands could be seen as Tragic Villains; examples include the Thousand Sons legion, many of The Judged chapters sent out to the Eye of Terror for the Abyssal Crusade.
• Spiky Mary Sues: This one is goddamn hard to get over because it's right in their name - the CSM are definitively Space Marines, but trying to make an army out of them from Codex: Space Marines is necessarily the wrong approach. They have different motivations and paths before them, which means they need stuff unique to them while retaining some aspects of the overall space marine sci-fi trope.

With that out of the way, the musings written above should give us a pretty good idea of what the CSM are, boiled down into a number a points:

• Bitterness through Hardship: They're Space Marines pushed to their breaking point such that they have given into the dark side, turning on their former comrades and everything they knew, becoming self-serving pawns of the dark gods but mostly for the buffs so that they can survive. This ties back into that idea of a compelling villain, one that makes the both the antagonists' and protagonists' more rewarding to play and explore. Instead of happy endings and working toward the betterment of themselves and their allies, their entire motivation centers around getting back at who wronged them and the brutal endurance required to survive the shit the galaxy throws them in the 41st millennium. Speaking of...
• Reckless, yet Brutal: This isn't an easy thing to do in the 41st millennium, what with that sort of behaviour painting a big target on you, so in order for them to survive CSM should be pretty fucking hardcore. After all, a dead servant of the gods is a useless servant of the gods. Simply put, CSM should be a little OP compared to Space Marines, way fewer in number and expensive, like they used to be. Unlike their loyalist counterparts, Chaos Space Marines should encourage the player to make reckless decisions, adding actual power to that vengeful power fantasy. Their units will be excellent, but have very little synergy with other units; that is the price paid for the CSM player - their shit does a lot, but it has to.
• Veterans and Newbies United: It's kinda weird, but there is a strange reflection in the meta here with old players vs. new players. Unfortunately, this seems to be straining the direction of the CSM in two and the worst part is that it doesn't have to. We needn't necessarily choose between recent traitors and the veterans of the long war; a well written codex should accommodate both as the new and the old have common themes to them - bitterness and rebellion. Turning to the past, 3E got it right with veteran skills; more skills per unit reflect a seasoned group of individuals while less are certainly cheaper but not as potent.
• Personal: Lastly, their units should have a high degree of customization to reflect both the fluff of the units storied tales of grim survival and adaptation to weather horrific odds and the meta of the CSM's personal goals over shared values. Stylistically, they need units and wargear that are as brutal and unsubtle as they are costly to the player and the victim. Fluff wise, they don't have an Adeptus Mechanicus telling them what they can and can't build plus the Gods' "generous" gifts, so let your imagination run wild codex writers!

The rest is just wishlisting. The opinions expressed hereafter are not those of qualified game developers or testers; this is not speculation on the next codex.

• The force org slots need a cleanup. The easiest thing to do would be to shift cult marines back into troops like in 4E, the single most useful thing out of the 4E book.
  • Radical Opinion: TSons in Elites, Plagues in Troops, Zerkers in FA and Noise in HS. A Lord with the right mark can make the others troops and it spreads out units as opposed to lumping them all into one slot. When it comes to Plague Marines, throw in limitations like (say) taking a transport makes them elites or FA, which can be removed with a Nurgle marked Lord. Otherwise, it wasn't like you were using Zerkers to score objectives or sons to speed up to a point, were you? Because if you were, you were certainly doing something wrong.
    • Oh hey, if we're gonna make Zerkers FA, how about an option to give them jump packs? How cool does that sound? GW can sell new kits with jump-pack equipped Berzerkers so it's win-win. bikes. Bikes are better
• Bring back certain things from 3E, like veteran skills and cult terminators - especially cult terminators! We probably won't see the legion lists again, but can we at least have some means of approximating them?
  • Radical Opinion: make cult terminators and bikers an upgrade for cult troops that necessarily makes them an elites or fast attack unit respectively regardless of who the warlord is.
• Get rid of or improve Mutilators, Possessed, Warp Talons and Helbrutes. Seriously!
  • Radical Opinion: merge warp talons with Raptors, making them Daemons like they were in 3.5E. Then, make warp talons a melee weapon that grants rending (and other stuff maybe) that can be purchased by Raptors. They get to keep their grenades and get a bitchin' melee weapon.
    • Better idea: make jump packs an upgrade for Possessed.
  • Do the same with mutilators and obliterators, granting oblits melee weapons while freeing up most of their heavy weapons for Helbrutes and Havocs.
  • Speaking of Helbrutes, there's a video floating around the nets regarding how the designers of DV and the last CSM book wanted to make "a dreadnought but not a dreadnought." How about this: make Helbrutes an S/T 5 3-wound MC with flesh-metal? All the other upgrades for the brutes stand plus a havoc missile launcher and maybe those warp talons.
  • Might as well slam the Forge Fiend and Maulerfiend together. There, now you can have an FF with a 12" move ignoring cover and a Maulerfiend with guns
  • Stop fucking around and just give possessed rending attacks already! These random power shenanigans have to stop. The last time they were any good was 3E when you bought Daemonic Talons for them.
• CSM are "space marines," right? Both in the 40K sense (power armoured super humans), but what about the rapid-deployment-from-space sense? Would it not make sense for them to have some sort of means to rapidly deploy from space? It shouldn't be that big of a stretch, considering they already deep-strike terminators in the exact same way as loyalists.
• Can we get vehicle dedication back already? Please? Forgeworld slings it all over the place. Would be nice if we could do that in the Codex.
• Man-portable CSM-only weapons. Melee, ranged, special and heavy for undivided as well as for marked and dedicated units.
  • The other bright spot from 4E, the Chaos Lord's Daemon weapon, is more or less the template here.
• Psychic powers: 3 spells per magic god? Are you shitting us?! Can we at least bring back some of the 3.5 powers with a debuff (y'know, cuz they were nuts)? If not, can we maybe get access to Daemon Lore if the psyker in question is a daemon?
• Marks: remember how different units had different benefits from marks? Can we do that again, please? Also, the idea that CSM units that were also daemons got both Mark and Daemon of Khorne in KDK was pretty cool - let's run with that.
  • Also, let marked characters join daemons of that mark's god, FFS.
• Cultists need more weapon options and maybe some sneaky abilities. Remember how back in the day they could infiltrate, outflank or meltabomb? Let's give that another try.
  • Let's also mix possessed cultists into the unit as an upgrade - would make for a hilarious and expensive surprise.
  • What if there was a Cultist Commando Unit? Given that the CSM are hardcore, there's bound to be some equally hardcore Cultists out there.
• Radical Opinion: Chosen as an upgrade for CSM, Terminator and biker units (but not cult termies) as a one per army deal. The unit gets access to a gift at a price per unit and individual models get access to melee and ranged weapons. Then, buff Havocs by allowing any model to change out their gun with a special weapon plus 4 heavy weapons per unit.
• Gifts of the Gods: we have fallen a long way from the last gifts list back in 3rd, wherein we currently contend with gifts that are carry-overs from the pre-Age of Sigmar Warriors of Chaos book. These can be alternatively viewed as wargear shamelessly stolen from other codices that doesn't fit with CSM at all (I'm looking at you Ichor Blood and Warrior Familiar). Enough cheap stupid shit - make it pricey
  • What's really sad is the last Codex had a good idea hiding in plain sight: Flesh Metal. How about instead of 2+ armour save it becomes "+1 to armour save to max of 2+ and gain IWND"?
  • As mentioned before, bring back Daemonic Talons! Let's call them Warp Talons; they use two hands, model can't use any other weapons, S-user AP-nothing and "Rend Reality," which confers rending, forces successful invul save re-rolls plus any model with this rule that also has smash and makes a smash attack resolves it at D-strength. Oh what's that Papa Smurf/Pissy Pants/Stupid Ward Shit? You have EW conveniently stolen from the thing in our 4E book that made it so wonderful? EAT A MOUNTAIN OF FUCK!
• Ahem, speaking of DP's, why did you have to take EW from them? Why? If they're gonna be a fire magnet (which they should be at their current price) they gotta survive somehow. Yes, I know they can be FMC's, but that shouldn't be the only play style available to them, especially when that one severely limits their le versus their abilities and cost!

TL;DR:players bitching about how their army is not OP, while taking for granted they aren't as bad as orks/nids/sisters and should be grateful for that fact.

See Also

• Warriors of Chaos: The much more competent useful less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar really takes hold.
• Tactics/Chaos Space Marines
• What it's like: A needlessly elaborate and dysfunctional take on the subject. Seriously, they'd get fuck all accomplished if they were as described. (As if they aren't getting fuck all accomplished already)

Gallery

• 

  The Typical Chaos Space Marine

• 

  The dreaded Night Lords preparing an ambush

• 

  Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can hurt.

• 

  They think that corpse on a throne is a god!

• 

  Change we can believe in!

The Traitor Legions and Warbands of Chaos
Chaos Legions:	Alpha Legion - Black Legion - Death Guard Emperor's Children - Iron Warriors - Night Lords Thousand Sons - Word Bearers - World Eaters
Legion Offshoots:	Apostles of Contagion - Bloodborn - Broken Aquila Foresworn - Mouldering Claw - Plague Fleet - Prodigal Sons The Consortium - Warband of Subsector Aurelia
Fallen Chapters (Including Judged):	Adharon's Reavers - Blood Gorgons - Company of Misery Corpus Brethren - Crimson Slaughter - Deathmongers Death Shadows - Invocators - Lords of Decay Oracles of Change - Red Corsairs - Shriven The Brazen Beasts - The Flawless Host - The Scourged Skyrar's Dark Wolves - Steel Cobras - Voidrippers
Unknown/ Other:	Apostles of Minthras - Claws of Lorek - Disciples of Destruction Dragon Warriors - Extinction Angels - Hakanor's Reavers - Punishers The Cleaved - The Purge - The Pyre - Sons of Malice - Sons of Vengeance The Reborn - Violators - Warp Ghosts - Bleak Brotherhood