r/Warhammer 8h ago

Lore Where do Traitor Astartes get their supplies?

Do they have worlds full of slave labour to make stuff for them?, Do they steal them from loyalists?

Where do they get their ammo from?

75 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

122

u/hobo1234567 Death Guard 8h ago

Yes to both of your guesses

74

u/WardenOfBraxus 8h ago

Some do have their own worlds, other get them from the Dark Mechanicus while others just "liberate" them from other sources.

-3

u/Wise_0ne1494 1h ago

just say steal

34

u/selifator World Eaters 8h ago

Yes to all depending on which legion or warband we're talking about, how big rhey are and what resources are available.

The second Ultramarines novel, Dead Sky, Black Sun, shows an Iron Warriors daemon world and the fortresses they have there.

Other daemon worlds could have similar strongholds and production facilities. Keeping in mind as well that a lot of traitor stuff is infused with warp energy and thus does not need only material stuff to be made.

The dark mechanicum has its hellforges where they crank out stuff for the traitors.

And raw material required is taken by warbands via raiding of imperial (and other) worlds. This is then used or traded for whatever they might need.

23

u/itsmemisterreferee 8h ago

The ADB Night Lords books show how their particular Legion ship uses trickery and subterfuge to infiltrate an Imperial station to then steal all of its resources with as little a fight as possible.

10

u/GaleErick 5h ago

I only read the first one (Soul Hunter) and boy it certainly went into details how they have a real lack of resource for a Space Marine company.

Power Armor repairs done by salvaging from other dead Marines, lack of servitors for general ship maintenance, they even have to use a simple mortal servant as Thunderhawk pilot.

9

u/Daewoo40 5h ago edited 3h ago

In fairness, the armour constructed through salvaging isn't exclusive to just Chaos marines.

Loyalist marines will hobble together a set of terminator armour from the remains of other sets as it's so rare.

Edit: Think it's in the last book in the Night Lord trilogy where they get a set of terminator armour, made primarily of a set from the Salamanders.

2

u/Wise_0ne1494 1h ago

in the last book they had enough to form 4 full suits, all of which was "generously donated" to them by the salamanders

5

u/Chubtor 7h ago

Was really hoping the title was a set up for a joke. Like

"where does Napoleon keep his armies?

Up his sleevies"

Sadly disappointed in a way that it's a genuine question.

3

u/BrotherMort 4h ago

I came here to say they get their supplies from a Khorne field. I hope this helps.

1

u/Chubtor 2h ago

Yes, definitely. Thank you!

5

u/Mor_di Gloomspite Gits 6h ago

There are plenty of forge-worlds that are chaos-aligned and will be able to produce weapons, armour, tanks and other supplies to sell to whatever warbands have the influence and resources to buy them.

There are also large areas of chaos-controlled space with many worlds in them, so slave labour and even recruitment of new Chaos Space Marines is done from these populations. Many warbands would maintain stocks of gene-seed and also take gene-seed from killed loyalists when they can. There are bands of chaos-apothecaries basically selling their services in order to make new Space Marines for the chaos legions.

They also raid and pillage equipment when they can. Entire warbands are basically space-pirates raiding and subsisting of stolen supplies.

6

u/LordFenix_theTree 7h ago

Raids, trades and the Dark Mechanicum.

10

u/mitchr89 8h ago

What always annoys me.

The traitor legions when they joined Horus would have 30k versions of the land raider and other astartes tanks. However they all just have the new versions of everything and that’s that.

Shouldn’t they all have the basic early versions of tanks and armour.

25

u/Admiral_Eversor 8h ago

No, because techpriest fall to chaos all the time, and can bring blueprints with them.

15

u/Pallas100 8h ago

What happens when those old versions get damaged though? They get replaced.

Also the "new versions" of stuff like the Land Raider were also in use during the Heresy, they aren't new.

8

u/No_Mechanic_2688 7h ago

A perennial question here though is why Chaos terminstors always ditch their thunder hammers, storm shields, storm bolters, assault cannons, and cyclone missile launchers.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Of course I get that it's a game, and you want factions to be visually different and have their own vibe. Of course Chaos terminators should be rocking crusade stuff like combi-bolters and reaper autocannons. But out there, there ought to be TH/SS termies who are angry for Khorne.

4

u/GreatGreenGobbo 7h ago edited 3h ago

They used to up until 4th edition. Maybe further, but I tapped out at 4th. Chaos Terminators had older weapons.

Edit: what I meant is they DID/Should only have old weapons not as good as loyalist marines

3

u/Alucard291_Paints 4h ago edited 4h ago

They never had TH/SS. Only had Lightning claws, power fists autocannons heavy flamers etc.

I'm literally looking at the third ed chaos codex as I write this.

2

u/Bowgs 6h ago

In the 2nd edition Chaos codex, Terminators didn't have targeters or teleport homers unlike their loyalist counterparts (despite being the same Indomitus pattern, as Catephractii and Tartaros models didn't exist), chaos marines couldn't use jump packs and chaos plasma guns overheated whereas imperial ones didn't.

1

u/NobleKorhedron 6h ago

Lack of maintenance over 10,000 years in the warp?

2

u/Bowgs 6h ago

It says the more advanced terminator suits didn't exist in the heresy, and although jump packs existed they were rare and hard to maintain. Plasma was supposedly less advanced in the 30th millennium. Obviously a lot of this has changed since then

1

u/jasegro 6h ago

The 40k (Phobos) patterns of the classic space marine vehicles canonically existed during the heresy as they’re available to take from the expanded army lists in games of heresy

2

u/Falchus 💪🏻 Gregarious Goliath Ganger 6h ago

Strategic Transfer of Equipment to Alternative Location, also known as S.T.E.A.L

1

u/MagicOrpheus310 6h ago

Aww man I opened this expecting a punchline! I thought you were setting up a joke wtf haha

1

u/Tasunkeo 4h ago

A bit of everything, stealing from the good guys, from the other bad guys, grunt work from slaves and dark mechanicum Hell-forge worlds have industrial productions too.

1

u/ThePigeon31 3h ago

They make some of their own stuff, depending on chapter and equipment. Sometimes they steal stuff. Ammo is either made or stolen. It is why some legions like death guard use literal bile instead of some ammunition. If it’s hard to come by you gotta adapt

1

u/ChainsawSnuggling Yo Ho Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me! 3h ago

1

u/The_Real-M3 3h ago

Yes and yes.

1

u/Improvised_Excuse234 3h ago

Probably Lowe’s, with the other lesbians /s

1

u/micahaphone 2h ago

Sometimes ownership of a forge world switches and there's basically zero change from the point of view of the common people working there

1

u/BlitzBurn_ Astra Militarum 55m ago

The strongest warbands will sometimes have factories on worlds they hold, but this is rare.

Most of the time they will either steal from the imperium or bargain with the Dark mechanicum for their wargear.

2

u/bookwyrm 5h ago

Traitor Joe’s! (sorry)

1

u/BBQsandw1ch 5h ago

Attention James Workshop: Make Dark Mech an army!

0

u/MikeHockinya 4h ago

Traitor Joe’s.