Chaos chain of command: how does it work?

[Eviscerator]

The IOM has Inquisitors and Commissars to take care of Morale and straighten out kinks in the COC (chain of command), but what about the Ruinous Powers?

There are instances where
Ship's captain disregards orders and says "we follow Grandfather Nurgle"
The whole conflict in Dead Sky Black Sun where 2 Iron Warrior warbands go against each other.
also recently the whole Sons Of Sek affair in Gaunt's Ghosts of active plotting by one warlord against another.
gotta be some others that i cant recall offhand.

What im asking, who really is in charge of the whole shebang? Can for example any of the CSM Codex characters show up in a warzone and say i have the favour of (insert chaos god here) and all your base are belong to me?
How about a Daemonhost which is possesed by a high ranking demon doing the same?
What are the Daemon Primarchs doing and why didn't Peturabo step in to stop them killing each other?

[Elheru Aran]

Ultimately: the Chaos Gods, of course.

Realistically: The leader with the most power takes precedence. Hence Honsou, Forrix and Kroeger submitting to the Warsmith in 'Storm of Iron', as the Warsmith had enough personal power that he was about to become a Daemon Prince, pending victory of course. This doesn't stop underlings from scheming to reach the top, of course; vanquishing your leaders is more or less how you get promoted among the Chaos Marines and such.

Abaddon, I suppose, has enough clout that he's able to unify most of the Legions every now and then for a Black Crusade, but this is mainly because a.) he's got seniority and b.) the Gods are backing him, less so than they did Horus, but still, then c.) cross him and he's liable to just rip your gizzard out.

Not sure what's going on with the Primarchs, but for the most part they're concerned with their own Legion or dead, as is definitely the case with Horus, Night Haunter and possibly with Alpharius. Angron and Magnus are the more actively aggressive Primarchs (see First War for Armageddon and the attack upon the Fang). Pertuabo seems content to sit pretty upon Medrengard, and Fulgrim... other than the fight in which he crippled Guilliman, who knows? So the great majority of the Legions' leadership is in their captains.

[Khaat]

Chaos forces tend to serve the closest, strongest personality. A suitably impressive personality may be able to "hammer out" (quite literally) a loose congregation of armies/warbands/whatever, but never for long. CSM have their own powerful cults (much like SM), so the in-fighting is more limited there than among renegade IG units, f'rinstance. Replace Commissars with chaos priests, done. Fear keeps the underlings in line.

"A small mind is easily filled by faith."

[Eviscerator]

Still why did Peturabo or any other Chaos God not step in to stop the conflict when losses likely were in the region of a couple companies of CSM and other assets when the whole battle was over non-submission of geneseed?

Surely a Primarch would have been made aware of the battle like "My lord Peturabo, two Grand Companies are warring and losses are quite heavy?"

[Elheru Aran]

Still why did Peturabo or any other Chaos God not step in to stop the conflict when losses likely were in the region of a couple companies of CSM and other assets when the whole battle was over non-submission of geneseed?

Surely a Primarch would have been made aware of the battle like "My lord Peturabo, two Grand Companies are warring and losses are quite heavy?"

It's Chaos. Logic doesn't often apply to the situation.

And remember that the Chaos Legions are huge compared to the current Space Marine Chapters; one CSM Company can be as big as a single Chapter. A few hundred CSM might fall, but it's not as great a loss to Chaos as it would be to the Space Marines.

That said, if Pertuabo even noticed (he's often portrayed, AFAIK, as mainly navel-gazing after the Heresy), he would've basically said 'okay, so whatever, the boys can work it out between themselves, now leave me alone' and let Darwin do his work. There's a reason the Daemon-Primarchs rarely ever appear in post-Heresy tales, after all.

[Black Admiral]

The majority of senior Chaos warlords, and this includes the Chaotic Primarchs, don't really give a damn about infighting among their minions, provided that they don't take it too far. In fact, they consider it something of good thing in moderation, weeding out the incompetent and/or weak among their subordinates (plus it keeps them too busy plotting against each other to think about assassinating their boss).

[Cykeisme]

Chaos warbands work more like barbarian tribes, or something to that effect. It's usually the sheer power and charisma of their leader (and being blessed by one or more Chaos gods) that allows him to maintain his leadership for the duration of his tenure.
For practical purposes, most Chaos-worshipping traitor Astartes from the Great Crusade era temper this with knowledge of how a military organization should work.
The general term for such a leader (that is not always actually used) is "Chaos Lord".

Thus, unless a leader had enough kickassery or a grand enough reputation, it's unlikely that he could take command of an otherwise hostile warband.

[starfury]

Chaos warbands work more like barbarian tribes, or something to that effect. It's usually the sheer power and charisma of their leader (and being blessed by one or more Chaos gods) that allows him to maintain his leadership for the duration of his tenure.
For practical purposes, most Chaos-worshipping traitor Astartes from the Great Crusade era temper this with knowledge of how a military organization should work.
The general term for such a leader (that is not always actually used) is "Chaos Lord".

Thus, unless a leader had enough kickassery or a grand enough reputation, it's unlikely that he could take command of an otherwise hostile warband.

So they are essentially human versions of Ork Wagghs or Clans, which was even more directly based on sheer brute power and strength, no wonder Khornate Chaos marines were often called Orks with better armor and weapons. Even Warhammer Fantasy was like this, I think with Chaos and Orks both loving close quarter combat, the main difference being that Orks can suffer heavy losses far more easily.

[dragon]

About the only time the leader would step in to stop the fight is if their are about to launch a massive invasion and they will need all they can assemble.
It's actually a good thing they fight amongst themselves, otherwise they might have conquered the Imperium if they cooperated with each other.

[Vendetta]

I believe there's a clue there in the name

So they are essentially human versions of Ork Wagghs or Clans, which was even more directly based on sheer brute power and strength, no wonder Khornate Chaos marines were often called Orks with better armor and weapons.

For a Khornate horde, certainly. Though obviously they might just have been manipulated all along by a sorcerer of Tzeentch.

[Simon_Jester]

So... seems to me, the short answer is: "It doesn't."

At the least, what people are talking about here isn't a chain of command in the classic sense that civilized armies know it, with generals passing orders to colonels who organize majors... and so on down to the guy with the pointy stick at the bottom of the chain. You're probably looking at broad spans of command (one superior has many inferiors), and shallow organizational structure to go with that.

The wide span of command has the obvious consequence that a given person has too many direct subordinates to manage closely, sort of the way a platoon leader might be without sergeants and corporals under him. Instead, he herds them in the general direction of the enemy, possibly giving detailed instructions to the few most trusted and competent subordinates and hoping they can lead the rest by example. As a result, no one subordinate gets much management. In the rank and file of Chaos this probably cuts their effectiveness per soldier down badly; in the Chaos Marines it may matter less because individual Marines have a better idea what to do. Maybe.

[Darth Fanboy]

The Word Bearers seem to have a much different method of organization than any other CSM Chapter. I've got my copy of Dark Apostle on hand if anyone wants me to browse through it for them.

[white_rabbit]

Like everything involving chaos, and to a lesser extent the Imperium and 40k in general, theres about a zillion different interpretations.

Plus, we don't always get to see the intricacies of the Chaos command setup beyond some charismatic Demagogue being the guy in charge, with a few minions, and the rest of them are mooks.

Gaunts Ghosts gives the best look at an organised, highly structured Opposing Force. The chaotic forces of the Sabbat Worlds basically ape Imperial command structure, even before Gaur becomes Archon, with powerful Cultist leaders taking the positions of Lord Generals, subordinate to the Archon and his court.

The Cultist leaders forces ranged from screaming nutcases like the guys Nokad the smiling had, mass-conscript zealots with IG style organisation and equipment like the Zoicans, to guys like the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek, who might give the Cadian shock a run for their money, with well connected chains of command, officers, NCO equivalents etc. I.e. Mr General speaks to his command staff, who then speak to the commanders of smaller formations, etc etc.

Can for example any of the CSM Codex characters show up in a warzone and say i have the favour of (insert chaos god here) and all your base are belong to me?

If their balls are big enough, and they've got the muscle, then sure. Abaddon for example, despite being a bit of a tard, has got the muscle. Fabius Bile would probably turn up and offer his services, while fucking about for his own reasons, and god knows what Ahriman would do.

How about a Daemonhost which is possesed by a high ranking demon doing the same?

High ranking daemons don't tend to have the same set of goals as more mortal characters, a high ranking daemon might turn up and wreak havoc, or co-opt the nearest group for its own gribbly ends.

What are the Daemon Primarchs doing and why didn't Peturabo step in to stop them killing each other?

Navel gazing is the best way to put it I've seen. Mortarion is lounging around on a world he's transformed into the image of his former homeworld, leaving Typhus as the most senior remaining member of the Deathguard we know about. Angron was the last one to actively go out and kick ass, but GW haven't done anything with him since.

Fuck knows what Alpharius/Omegon are doing, given their tendency for super secret bullfuckery. Fulgrim is probably jerking off, Peturabo is being depressed, Lorgar is probably giving regular masses and scribbling more lunatic prose, and Magnus is likely scheming to get more of his dudes back/murder some Space puppies.


Chaos marine organisation ranges again from the fucking deranged, to the heavily regimented. A rule of thumb is that it vaguely resembles that of loyalist marines, with champions subbing in for the Sergeants and other officers.

[Simon_Jester]

Gaunts Ghosts gives the best look at an organised, highly structured Opposing Force. The chaotic forces of the Sabbat Worlds basically ape Imperial command structure, even before Gaur becomes Archon, with powerful Cultist leaders taking the positions of Lord Generals, subordinate to the Archon and his court.

The Cultist leaders forces ranged from screaming nutcases like the guys Nokad the smiling had, mass-conscript zealots with IG style organisation and equipment like the Zoicans, to guys like the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek, who might give the Cadian shock a run for their money, with well connected chains of command, officers, NCO equivalents etc. I.e. Mr General speaks to his command staff, who then speak to the commanders of smaller formations, etc etc.

I've only read the first three Ghosts novels.

At least one of the cases where you see a well organized Chaos force (the Zoicans) seems to be the product of recent Chaos corruption of organized Imperial forces. That may be a result of the sociological effects of a Chaos-theology not having had time to fully set in; Asphodel corrupted everyone at once and just used the command structure he already had instead of creating his own. I can't speak for the Blood Pact or Sons of Sek, though, since I don't know anything about them.

[white_rabbit]

At least one of the cases where you see a well organized Chaos force (the Zoicans) seems to be the product of recent Chaos corruption of organized Imperial forces.

If you read Necropolis, the conclusion they come to is that the Zoicans are actually recruited directly from the population of Zoica, man, woman and child, i.e. the entire population, which is why they could field so many troops.

[NecronLord]

According to Dark Creed, Lorgar sealed himself into some crypt thousands of years ago and is writing a new set of books. Navel Gazing par excellance.

[Simon_Jester]

If you read Necropolis, the conclusion they come to is that the Zoicans are actually recruited directly from the population of Zoica, man, woman and child, i.e. the entire population, which is why they could field so many troops.

Oh, absolutely, but that doesn't mean Heritor Asphodel didn't use the existing social structure as a framework to build his army on. That's the basis of my speculation: the Zoicans are organized more like a traditional human army because Asphodel moved in, drove everyone insane with loyalty to him, and then commanded them all to form an army in short order. He didn't have time to reorganize everything along suitably Chaotic lines, because he was in a hurry.

The people who were already in the existing Zoican army might well respond to his orders by trying to incorporate everyone else into something resembling their old command structure. I can't prove it would happen, but I think it's at least a viable explanation.

[NecronLord]

By the way, Eviscreator, there is a perfectly good 40K Q&A thread you can put these questions in. Please don't start a new thread just for that.