While some ponies have a natural talent for war (as indicated by their cutie marks, usually), for the most part equines are hesitant, tactically inept, and easily confused by standard battlefield technologies and the bedlam of combat. Training them is a tiresome chore and the results of the trained units are well below what would be considered acceptable for active warriors, but the ponies remain inexplicably... popular among Chaos troopers, and are treated with a degree of leniency unheard of in the fleet.