Chaos Lord
- I see fear in their eyes, right before they die. I see shock as they realise too late what it is to pit their pitiful strength against true power! - Kranon the Relentless, Chaos Lord of the Crimson Slaughter.
An HQ choice for the Chaos Space Marines, in the game of Warhammer 40,000. They are basically like the traitor counterpart to a Space Marine captain or Chapter Master. They are very powerful, but they want more.
Types of Lords
The Chaos lords usually worship a god whether he(or he-she in the case of Slaanesh) be Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh.
Here are the following lords of the Chaos gods.
Lord of Khorne: A crazed maniac who drinks blood, and eats whatever he just killed. Raw. They like using ECKSBAWKS HUEG battle-axes and swords and mauls and all that shit, and are generally the most savage and physically strongest Chaos Lords. Ironically though, they secretly love kitty cats. Kharn is the craziest motherfucker of all Khorne Lords, who'll kill you in his psychotic blood-lusting rage, but damn is he a great guy.
Lord of Tzeentch: A sorcerer who got his first magic-tricks set for Christmas from Tzeentch. A notable Lord of Tzeentch is Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand Sons. Usually spellcasters who ignores armor and cover, causing much BAW.
Lord of Nurgle: Some disease filled piece of flesh (Asbestos Astartes). Better not give him a hug, or have any physical contact whatsoever, because you'll probably get some disease worse than AIDS (like an incurable version of Syphilis.) They're also nigh-indestructible. Typhus is a notable Lord of Nurgle.
Lord of Slaanesh: Slaanesh's boy toy. The guy is most certainly a drug-addicted pedophile omniphile, not unlike the Dark Eldar. Perks include the biggest drug stash and a stable full of sexually insatiable and adventurous men and women who are clusterfucking the shit out of each other. Lucius the Eternal is a Slaanesh Lord.
Lord of Chaos Undivided: Some wannabe guy who has yet to be hired by a Ruinous Power or can't make up his god damned mind. The most famous Undivided lord has no arms.
Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers: A Chaplain who has fallen to Chaos. The most notable Dark Apostles are Erebus (the architect of the Horus Heresy) and Eliphas the Inheritor, the most goddamn sexy voice since Sindri (until they fucked up in DoWII) Steve Blum > you.
Chaos Terminator Lord: Chaos Lords of any alignment of Chaos wearing Terminator Armor. This makes them even more powerful and more badass.
Warsmith: Chaos lord, Iron Warriors style. Unsurprisingly, likes starting sieges against things. They tend not to like chaos very much and replace their mutated bits with bionics.
Warhammer Fantasy's Types of Chaos Lords
It should be noted that the average Chaos Lord in Warhammer Fantasy has +1S and +1T over his 40K cousins. So essentially, these normal (though quite Norse) men empowered by the Chaos Gods are stronger and tougher than the aforementioned genetically engineered superhuman demigod warriors empowered by Chaos. Just goes to show how tough people in Warhammer Fantasy are, eh?
Except no, because +1T in Fantasy does not equal +1T in 40k. +1T in Fantasy is the difference between being hit with a spear from infantry, and being hit by a spear from cavalry. +1T in 40k is the difference between being hurt by a 12 gauge, and being hurt by .75 caliber rocket-propelled explosive rounds.
Lords of Khorne: A ten foot tall, four foot broad Viking warlord in inch-thick plate armour with a serious fucking anger management problem. Will fuck up your shit up from Norsca straight to the Golden Shithouse. Tends to favor fuckhuge battle-axes, swords, hammers and, in the case of one helluva woman, a giant fuck-big spear. Primarily enjoy raiding, pillaging, burning, and getting into fights with huge fuck-big monsters and then killing them and ripping out their skulls. Also, if there's one thing Lords of Khorne amongst the Norscans love almost as much as spilling blood, it's boasting about how much blood they've spilled. Valkia the Bloody is a fine example of a Khornate Chaos Lord and is essentially a crazy Valkyrie who carries the souls of the valorous dead into the halls of Chaos Valhalla, because the Warriors of Chaos are motherfucking Vikings.
Champions/Exalted Champions of Tzeentch: Sorcerers, just like the ones in 40k, but the main difference is that they wear XBAWX HUEG ARMOR (although Sorcerers in 40k wear your typical pauldrons, so there really is not much difference between these Sorcerers and those Sorcerers). Funny thing, is that in some of the older rules, champions of Tzeentch could only be fielded as Chaos Lords, not as Sorcerers.
Champions/Exalted Champions of Nurgle: Just like the ones from 40k. The only difference is that they have difficulty getting into their armor on account of their festering, huge, disgusting bellies. They will go out of their ways to hug you. An example would be Festus the Leechlord.
Champions/Exalted Champions of Slaanesh: Same as 40k but the horrors of Slaanesh seem to have deadened their fear, they will never break, and they are also described as very vain in the fantasy universe. An example would be Sigvald the Magnificent.
Champions/Exalted Champions of Chaos Undivided: See above.
Chaos Lords in DoW II
Since Chaos only came in during DoW II's first expansion, the only unique Chaos Lord featured thus far is a Black Legion champion named Araghast the Pillager, who is by far the biggest slice of chaotic awesome to break the previous DoW Chaos Lords' streak of awkward dialogue and meme production.
Araghast, Eliphas, and all other generic Chaos Lords (who are actually Eliphas) in skirmish are dedicated to Khorne, so that pretty much makes them a close-quarters monster. With goddamn health regeneration. At level one, with no wargear, he can easily take down anything short of a Howling Banshee squad. Give him his Lightning Claws and the Harness of Rage (restores energy whenever he hits something) and Dark Halo (causes energy to take damage first before health, very good if you kept getting hit), or Icon of Khorne (restores health with each attack) he'll become, without exception, the most lethal melee commander unit in the game. Srsly, he'll outdamage the Warboss and Hive Tyrant. This combined with his immunity to suppression from the get go, his fucktons of health (srsly, only the Hive Tyrant has more, and that only by a hairs breadth, though a Warboss with 'Eavy Armor or a Force Commander with Terminator armor will have a lot more health than he can have with any armor loadout. Though I guess that's off-set by the fact that those two have paper thin armor, and the CL was pretty durable, until they replaced his super-heavy armor with regular hero armor. Fuck it.) and his aforementioned health draining (Kill the Weak!) makes him one of the best/if not the best, commanders in the game.
Okay, he does have drawbacks. He is exceedingly vulnerable to just getting shot to death while tar pitted, and his ranged damage sucks and both his melee options take away his ability to gun. Since he's in Terminator Armor, he's slower than most other commanders, and Chaos' lack of transports means he has trouble fleeing if things go south. The guard can mob him with cheap soldiers while meltaguns chew through his healthbar like nothing or the commissar separates his head from his body with a las pistol execution, orks can tie him up with sluggas and then dakka him to death, the eldar can tie him down with banshees to let wraithguard rape him, and tyranids can spam hormagaunts to let venom cannons shoot him apart. So don't send him without support! Though that rely applies to all commanders in the game
Prior to Retribution, while he slaughtered infantry, he sucked against vehicles as none of his upgrades gave him much damage against them, up until somebody realized that nobody was using the Blood Maul since all it offered compare the Lightning Claws was a better special ability, so it was turned into AV weapon.
His other global ability, Malignant Blindness is generally useless, it reduces enemies to 1/10 of their line of sight, sounds great on paper, but in practice it doesn't do much since they can still see an enemy that's shooting them, so your hoping to nail heavy weapon squad, they will still chew up your units when you start shooting them.
One other drawback is the ability picking him gives the least useful worship ability to the Heretic squads. The Chaos Sorcerer's worship Tzeentch infiltrates nearby units (i.e makes them invisible) and the Plague Champion's worship Nurgle speeds up health regeneration (which stacks with the healing aura granted by the HQ building, the ability is considered one of the Plague Champion's main strengths). Worship Khorne, makes units move faster. That might sound good, but keep in mind while Heretics are using their worship ability, they can't move, and the AOE for it isn't very big, so this ability will only give a very temporary speed boost before the units its affecting more out of its range. It's not completely useless, but it is situational while the other two abilities are pretty easy to find uses for.
Notable Chaos lords
- Abaddon the Despoiler (aka Failbaddon the Armless) - Chaos Lord of the Black Legion and Warmaster of Chaos. Spends his time trying to conquer Cadia, and losing to Creed. On his 13th Black Crusade right now.
- Kharn the Betrayer (Pretty fun guy) - Chaos Lord of a World Eaters Warband. Spends most of his time killing everything in sight, including some of his fellow World Eaters. Reportedly has a hilarious sense of humor.
- Typhus the Traveler - Chaos Lord of a Death Guard Warband. Few can survive him in combat. Fewer still can live stand the smell long enough to try and fight him.
- Lord Bale (SSSSSSIIIIINNNNNDDDRRRRRIIII!!!) - Was a Chaos Lord of an invading Alpha Legion Warband on the planet of Tartarus. Got Sindri'd by the trope namer Sindri Myr.
- Crull (BLOOD FOR TEH BLOOD GAWD!!!) - Was the Chaos Lord of a World Eaters Warband on Lorn V. Failed.
- Eliphas The Inheritor - Formerly a Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers and a bootlick of Araghast, he then betrayed him and is now a Chaos Terminator Lord of the Black Legion.
- Firaeveus Carron (METHUL BAWXES!!!) - Was a Chaos lord of the invading Alpha Legion Warband on Kaurava.
- Araghast the Pillager (Face me, if you dare!) - Was a Chaos Terminator Lord of the Invading Chaos Warband on Aurelia. Got Sindri'd by Eliphas.
- Nemeroth - Was a Chaos Terminator Sorcerer Lord of the Chosen of Nemeroth invading the forgeworld of Graia. He is noted in being the first Chaos Sorcerer in a Relic game with the use of Terminator Armour (With Araghast having the honor of being the first Chaos Terminator Lord of the Dawn of War series and Eliphas being the second Chaos Terminator Lord).
- Lugft Huron - Was formerly Chapter master of the Astral Claws chapter, then decided that looting and pillaging would be more fun and renamed his chapter the Red Corsairs. Is probably the second most powerful Chaos Lord after Abaddon (and is much less of a failure).
- Honsou, warsmith and maker of sick shit.