Chaos Space Marine Creation and training

[The Last Lamenter]

A few questions to the experts:

Any mention of Chaos Space Marine scouts in any of the published material?

I see that most Imperial fighters have a dark version for chaos but what about scouts?

Is there any work within the black library that shows, in detail, the creation and training process of a chaos space marine?

The process of creating an astartes is covered extensively in BB pieces and GW fluff, but it's only gloosed over for their chaos counterparts; have I missed something here?

[Denzark]

I can't think of a canon reference off the top of my head. There is an implied difference between Traitor Legionnaires ie the original first founding traitors, who I have always thought to be at legion strength and slowly losing their manpower without any sign of gaining new, and Chaos Marines, ie second+ founding marines who go over to chaos.

In the early days they would probably have structures such as scouts intact - this would especially apply to 'rebels' rather than 'traitors' ie Lamenters who came back to the Imperial side.

It could be that, as with the Red Corsairs, fully grown traitors go over - no scouts - and due to space marine longevity combined with the power of chaos this is sufficient to keep them at fighting strength. It may also be that when you turn to chaos priorities change and a logisitics/recruiting programee to keep you at chapter strength is far from your warp crazed mind. So in that scenario you start as a chapter and soon dwindle to a warband.

And then it is not unforseeable that such a warband, who had fought under a significant warlord from a traitor legion, could probably be subsumed by the legion as a reward. Clearly depending on god worshipped there will be structure changes- Your chaplains will all be purged in most cases, and Khorne worshippers Librarians renounce their psychic powers and retian their responsibility for chapter comms.

[Psychosplodge]

The ultramarines series depicts "new" chaos marines being inducted straight into power armour, though the success rate is far smaller.
I think a new marine is mentioned in the nightlords series too?

And I think there's something out there with fabius bile talking about the process being more selective by a factor of ten compared to the loyalist processes.

[Cpt Codpiece]

fabius had the tainted gene samples from corax's research (deliverance lost), so the scout process will have been skipped as it fast forwards a large step of the gene growth and mutation process.

plus his own tinkering and messing with the gene-seed for 10 millennia will have brought the 'new man' project further, just a shame he was only left with hon-su's gene seed after the imperial fist (and lucius) had his/their way :) (all that was left of fabius' gene theft were honourable soulaka's genes, the rest were purged.)

[bfmusashi]

You don't see Chaos Scouts because they aren't allowed out until they can rock the bass so hard the stars go blind.

[Daemonette666]

Don't forget the Iron Warriors, or Space Marine novel which involves Iron Warriors and a Daemon world in the Eye of Terror, that has stolen Imperial Gene Seed used to Maturate/ grow Chaos Legoinnaires from combining the stolen "pure" geneseed, and young untainted teenage candidates, captured or found on the Chaos owned worlds, and grown in a Daemons belly/womb. They come out as full grown Legionnaires. The success rate is very low, but it is quick, with the failures being sent down a giant mincer. Those that survived, rebelled and joined the loyal, but shamed spacemarines (out on a death march quest or something like that), and that Chaos Legionnaire growing centre was destroyed. There could be more out there.

Also back in the days when Marine were creating their forces the old way, the cycle of genetic implants, muscle growth, and training was reduced to something like 6 months or so (reference the Dark Angel and Raven Guard HH novels). They trained on their home world, and once they were ready, only then did they get the full black carapace, and a full set of armour, and were sent off to the front lines. Maybe Chaos Marines still use this method, but with their gene pools getting corrupted more and more the longer they are in the warp, and the Legions having less and less resources and equipment to carry out the process, the number would be far less than the loyalists can produce.

The Night Lords novels talks about using the geneseed of their fallen to create new legionnaires, and even mentions whole claws (squads) of warriors who were created only recently (within the last 20 years or so - their local time), so the process is being done, but not on the scale the loyalist do it.

I think scout armour was not as popular in many of the renegade legions, as their scouts in the 30K time period wore full powered armour - see Horus heresy books.

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah that was in the Ultramarine series wasn't it?

[DrLove42]

One of the rule books (maybe 5th ed rulebook) talked of the Red Corsairs stealing Gene Seed from a loyalist chapter, so there must be some use for it.

But then the Corsairs are a traitor warband, not a original traitor legion

[Cpt Codpiece]

since 2nd ed chaos dex, fabius has been the 'primogenitor' the dude who was making all of the new marines.

it secured the emp children saftey for a time but when the wars broke out (in the EoT, for his work) he left the emp children to be a lone agent.
so gene seed is still important, and the methods of its cultivation are still probably the same but with a little demonic intervention, remember the gods were used in the creation of the primarchs, so its no secret to them.

[Nabterayl]

It's not really represented in the current codex, but remember that in the last codex Chosen could get Infiltrate. I think that suggests that most Chaos marines treat the "scout" role similarly to the way the Space Wolves do - as something that is reserved only for the elite.

I think this makes sense if you consider that most Chaos marines (i) probably have a harder time making fresh marines than most loyalists, and (ii) receive an appreciable number of "recruits" as full-fledged space marines turned renegade. Renegades won't need to be taught the basics of marine-craft, having already learned it in their "parent" chapters, and fresh Chaos marines are probably too valuable for most warbands to risk in a scout role.

[The Last Lamenter]

I wasn't aware that the rate of betrayal was that high for loyalists, that makes sense about the HH legions not using scouts in the 41st mil. way since csm would most likely adopt the battle doctrine of the original legions. Very good point. You just wouldn't think that the rate of betrayal would be enough to field the number of marines required for a black crusade. What's the current strength thereabouts of the total marines in the imperium, I know what lexicanum says but does any body have another figure?

[Nabterayl]

I don't think anybody has a figure other than "about a million." If they do, I'd love to hear about it.

Black Crusades, as far as I know, include virtually no Chaos marines by percentage. I don't see how they could. Everything I've ever read suggests that finding even a single Chaos space marine in a Chaos army is about as rare as finding a loyalist space marine. The Thirteenth Black Crusade may have been the biggest gathering of Chaos marines in a very long while, and a very large number of space marines may have responded (roughly 20,000, counting companies), but virtually all of the fighting must have been done by ordinary men and women who probably never even saw a space marine on either side.

As long as you accept the hypothesis that the role and military capabilities of a space marine do not fundamentally change depending on which side of the family tree they're on, the betrayal rate can be high or low. I don't think we can posit numbers for that rate, but the 4th edition CSM codex did a good job, I thought, of pointing out that loyalist marines must and do defect on a regular basis (even if not in large numbers).