Cyrus

In fact a cunningly camouflaged wheel of cheese.

"I know no fear, Avitus, but I am no fool!"

– Cyrus, explaining his character in one sentence

Cyrus was a Scout Sergeant of the Blood Ravens, who debuted in Dawn of War II. Surprisingly, he previously served in Was stolen from the Deathwatch, from where he gets good knowledge about various aliens. Much like Avitus is capable of displaying only the emotion of rage, Cyrus provides the squad with a mix of bitching, morbidity, and cynicism, which causes him to play rather badly with the naive Thaddeus, and also causes Tarkus to call him out, forever demonstrating that the tactical marine sergeant is the bringer of all that is good. On the other hand, Cyrus's outlook does play well with Avitus's, who is angry and morbid, instead of just morbid. In short, Cyrus is more or less the direct opposite of most of Steve Blum's other roles. He's also notably hair-etical, like the majority of your strike force, and is distinguished even from Commander Vanilla Ice and Gabe Angelos in having a beard. However, he does call Indrick Boreale incompetent, which means that he can't be all that bad.

Dawn of War II

Cyrus, along with Tarkus and Avitus, accompanies you on the first mission and for the rest of the game. He tends to advocate pragmatism and is the main source of information you have about the Tyranids, having acquired information about them while serving in the Deathwatch. Thaddeus doesn't like him very much on account of his morbid whining, and Tarkus also has some conflicting interactions with him because Cyrus doesn't know when to back off. This is the game where he has his finest moment, highlighting the failure of Indrick Boreale and by extension the eye-bursting fail that was Soulstorm.

Chaos Rising

"For once, be quiet and listen. The chapter expects us to be perfect, obedient instruments of its leaders. Leaders who are barely worthy of life, much less respect. Captain Boreale, who walked three companies into the slaughter of Kaurava. Captain Angelos, who lapped up the credit for our victories against the Tyranids. Even Captain Thule, who chose to sulk on Calderis after the Kronus debacle. These are our leaders? The people we are supposed to obey without question? No, these are cowards and imbeciles, every bit as worthless as Governor Vandis and all the others. These incompetents learned nothing from my teachings. I owe them no loyalty."

– Cyrus' parting message if he's the traitor

Cyrus goes Angry Marine on the ass of a sorcerer who's stealing his scouts, and gains corruption if not brought along to kick the pansy faggot's ass. Given that it's a bunch of soft targets, with a few camped in cover, against missile-toting plague marines and chaos dreadnoughts, it generally goes about as well as you'd expect, which is to say on any difficulty worse than hard, every single initiate gets totaled. He also gives you intel on the forces of chaos that turns out to be complete bullshit, as Tarkus aptly points out. If he does go traitor, he cites the incompetence of Indrick Boreale, Eliphas the Inheritor, Azariah Kyras and Gabriel Angelos for fucking up the sector and the Blood Ravens in particular, and decides to ally with Ulkair to remake the sector to his liking. This indeed proves that he doesn't know what he's talking about, as disparaging the two best characters of the entire Dawn of War series and a man cunning enough to become a double daemon prince is BALD and FEWLISH. There's also the fact that a scout sergeant tries to take on three terminator squads and a dreadnought, fully expecting to win, although given that Cyrus is fully capable of completing entire missions on his own, him taking down 3 squishy terminator squads and a dreadnought isn't that too far off his set of skills. Of course, anything trying to take down a tag-team of Davian Thule and Tarkus loses, no discussion. When fighting him, he'll use the very same invisible mine-spamming cheese that you know and love against you.

Cyrus is also quite possibly one of the greatest Bloody Magpies ever. Other Blood Raves only managed to be "gifted" with singular pieces of wargear and such. Cyrus? He managed to convince Eliphas to "gift" him an entire Black Legion strike force.

Retribution

Cyrus returns in Retribution as a companion to Apollo Diomedes on the quest to shitkick Azariah Kyras. For once, his bitching is appreciably useful, as it plays some role in helping Diomedes overcome his pride and recognize Kyras as a traitor. It may also have something to do with the fact that he's bitching at Boreale 2.0 instead of an avatar of the player, and he overall is just less of a whiny emo when he does it. He's usually the one who does the mission briefings, since he's the only one who can really scout. On the whole, he remains almost exactly like he was previously, and continues to be useful on the field while contributing nothing of value otherwise. (So he scouts, provides tactical briefings and performs well in battle? What more should he do, climb out of your computer screen and cook you dinner?)

His incessant bitching about his experience and his bitter temperament makes you want to punch the hormonal douche in his ovaries. On the other hand, he can remain infiltrated indefinitely if you max out his will stat and gets a new trick that lets him fire a whole bunch of sniper shots at once, so he's still pretty useful. That said, his Honor Guard replacement is the only source of Assault Terminators you get in the campaign, so it's not a 100% necessity to bring him to every mission.

Gameplay

Surprisingly, the amount of irritation Cyrus evokes in most players is directly proportional to the amount of Cheese and explosives-based attacks that he brings to your force. Simply put, in both Vanilla DOW II and Chaos Rising, Cyrus is almost always a necessary addition to any force, capable of ravaging just about everything with copious use of demolition charges, remote-detonated bombs, cluster mines, and sniper fire. All of this can be done without breaking infiltration, making him equally capable at reviving fellow squad leaders, killing hordes, and picking off high-value targets. He's also one of the most resource-efficient ways to level enemy bases, solo whole levels, and kill tough vehicles, since refills for his explosives are scattered everywhere on the map. Only missions that dropped you straight into an enemy camp tended to cause any trouble for him, as do auto-detecting bosses like Bonesmasha and the Avatar of Khaine.

While Cyrus was a hefty slice of cheese in Vanilla, Chaos Rising turned him into a colossal, all-annihilating wheel of dairy. With a relatively simple upgrade, explosives become energy-based instead of limited items, meaning that patience is literally the one thing that's required to kill everything, everywhere, ever. As if that was not enough, the upgrade also makes explosives more potent, letting you toss out clusters of mines that one-shot infantry, walkers, and tanks, and let you easily win defense missions by creating minefields to rival Vraks. Most everyone on your force gets something similar, so at least Cyrus is slightly more balanced with his comrades; however, most of his comrades can't pull off their tricks while invisible. If you play a mostly non-heretical run, the cheese gets even MORE compounded as his full-purity skill allows him to make stimulants cost energy, making every battle now amount to battles of attrition if you also use Hairgel's Warcry or Venerable Davian Thule to boost his energy. Conveniently, this makes all other healing skills, like Jonah's, absolutely useless. Taking him along with Tarkus and Davian Thule/Jonah Orion is tantamount to instant victory.

He retains the majority of his skillset in Retribution, the most notable enhancement coming in a further buff to his infiltration skills, as he can now regenerate energy while invisible and prance around maps without taking a break to refill his energy reserves, along with the ability to slow down time so he can snipe an entire squad to death in a matter of moments. However, since all explosives and equipment are energy-cost instead of limited use now, he has lost the massive advantage he had in previous installments, and ceded the coveted cheese-throne to Eliphas and Commissar-LORD Bernn. Furthermore, with the honor guard that replaces him being assault terminators, it's now a valid choice to leave him out of battle, especially when he's underleveled.

Codex Cyrus

Now you can take Cyrus as a expensive upgrade (even more so than Torias Telion) for your Veteran Scout Sergeant. Beware however...for fielding him will result in apocalyptic amounts of RAGE and Cheese.

	Pts	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Sergeant Cyrus	100	4	5	4	4	2	5	2	10	4+

Unit Type:

• Infantry (Character)

Unit Composition:

• 1 Unique

Wargear:

• Mark of Exitus: May be replaced with Bringer of Hope or Fury of Mars and Terra for 20 pts, or The Merciful Judge for free.
• Scout Armour: May be replaced with the Pride of the Techpriests for 20 pts.
• Camo Cloak: See Codex Space Marines.
• Frag Grenades
• Krak Grenades
• Blind Grenades: See Defensive Grenades.
• Cluster Mines
• Demolition Charge Pack
• Remote Detonation Pack (Apocalypse Only)
• Recovery Stimulant Kit
• Rites of Repair

Special Rules:

• And They Shall Know No Fear
• Chapter Tactics (Blood Ravens):As per the rules for all Chapters who do not know their primogenitor Chapter, the Blood Ravens do not have a unique Chapter Tactic. Instead, the player can elect to use any existing Chapter Tactics from Codex: Space Marines and any Forge World supplements.
• Stealth Superiority: Cyrus is unmatched when it comes to skills in stealth. Cyrus and the Scout Squad he leads gain the Scout, Stealth, Infiltrate, Acute Senses, Move Through Cover and Outflank USR.
• Master Marksman: When it comes to terminating his targets from any distance, Cyrus will do so with surgical precision. No enemy of the Emperor can escape, nor find any safe haven from the scout sergeant's watchful eye. Cyrus's successful To Hit ranged attacks count as having the Precision Shots and Ignores Cover USR (excluding Snap Shots). Additionally enemy characters suffer a -2 penalty to their Look Out, Sir! tests against any Wounds inflicted by Cyrus.
• Mark Target (Mark of Exitus and The Merciful Judge Only): Instead of normally shooting a model, Cyrus may instead mark an enemy from long distance, making the target more visible for allies. The range at which he marks his targets depends on the range of the weapon he currently carries. All models that shoot at the enemy model/squad that was marked by Cyrus gain a +1 to BS and the Rending USR.
• Protective Mentor: It does not matter if he leads scouts that he trained personally or not, Cyrus is known to be protective of those under his command, and reacts badly when they are hurt or killed. Enemy models that manage to successfully hit any model in a squad led by Cyrus causes him to return fire. If an enemy model manages to kill a model in Cyrus's squad, then he gains the Hatred USR against that model/squad.
• Plant Charges: Before the game starts, choose two elements of the battlefield (Cluster Mines), or one element (Demolition Charge Pack or Remote Detonation Pack) that are/is outside both player deployment zones. These places are rigged with potent explosives. Any enemy model that will move through such areas will be affected by the explosives Cyrus will choose to use and count as Dangerous Terrain. If an enemy model fails his Dangerous Terrain rolls, then that model triggers the explosives Cyrus planted. The explosives have the following stats:

Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type
Cluster Mines	-	5	5	Blast, Ignores Cover
Demolition Charge Pack	-	8	1	Blast, Armourbane, One Use Only
Remote Detonation Pack	-	10	1	Large Blast, One Use Only

• Recovery Stimulant Kit: A set of specialized medical substances and items that serve to keep fellow squadmates alive if there are no Apothecaries in the vicinity. Grants the Feel No Pain USR to the whole squad.
• Rites of Repair: A set of tools and instructions on how to use them in order to repair vehicles when there are no Techmarines in the vicinity. Grants Cyrus the Blessing of The Omnissiah SR and thus the ability to repair vehicles. See Techmarine or Master of The Forge.

Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type
Mark of Exitus	48	X	2	Heavy 1, Sniper, Death From Afar

• Mark of Exitus: Only the dreaded assassins of the Vindicare Temple wield Exitus Rifles. However, a veteran scout sergeant of the Blood Ravens found himself fighting alongside one of these deathdealers at the height of the Walsh Uprising. One year later, this modified Astartes Sniper Rifle appeared among his gear.
  • Death From Afar: Successful To Wound rolls on a 6 result in Instant Death.

Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type
The Merciful Judge	48	X	5	Heavy 1, Sniper, Fleshbane, JUDGEMENT

• The Merciful Judge: "There is no heretic more fortunate than he who draws my eye. His final moments are not the fury of battle nor the agony of interrogation...he sits upon his liar's throne and dreams his liar's dreams, and then he simply ends." - Scout Sergeant Kuzminski. The Merciful Judge is a Sniper Rifle.
  • JUDGEMENT: Enemies hit by this weapon must pass a Toughness test with a -1 modifier. If failed, put a blast marker over the model that failed its Toughness test. That model is affected by the Instant Death USR and all enemy models inside the blast marker suffer D3 S6 AP4 attacks.

Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type
Bringer of Hope	36	5	5	Salvo 2/4, Pinning, Blast, Undying Hope

• Bringer of Hope: In the darkest hours of the Blood Ravens crusade across Tartarus, a grim fatalism gripped the Third Company. Their trusted Librarian had sold his soul to the powers of Chaos, and it seemed the entire planet's population had fallen to heresy. Just before their march to Llouvre Mar, however, a young novice of the Sisters Hospitaller dared step before them and issue a simple blessing, laying her hands on the boltgun of the nearest battle brother. In that one instant, the grim Space Marines saw that this was a planet worth saving.
  • Undying Hope: All allied units within 12" gain the Shrouded USR and a +1 to BS.

Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type
Fury of Mars and Terra	12	6	3	Assault 3, Shred, Powered Shot

• Fury of Mars and Terra: Techmarine Davos Gibban wielded this weapon on Mars during the Necron incursion into the heart of the great forge world. Gibban succumbed only after felling five Tomb Spyders and a dozen other xenos obscenities. The Ecclesiarchy and Techpriests both blessed his remains.
  • Powered Shot: Instead of a normal shot, Cyrus may execute a single, much more powerful shot. The Powered Shot is Heavy 1, but it becomes S8 AP1.

• Pride of the Techpriests: Within the forges of Mars itself, three generations of master artificers toiled on this set of light armor. Reportedly the result of a boast to the Lords of Terra from the Fabricator-General himself, this near-perfect suit grants unparalleled protection and inspired all Space Marines who see it. The Pride of the Techpriests is a Scout Armour that grants a 4+ Sv and a 5+ Inv Save. In addition, it allows allied models within 12" to use Cyrus's Ld value.

External Links

Cyrus tells it like it is. Cyrus insults yet ANOTHER Blood Raven far better than him. Cyrus infiltrates his way to Chaos. Cyrus takes his dickery to the next level and betray the Blood Ravens.

Gallery

• 

  Cyrus' deadliest weapon isn't his stealth. It's his dashing good looks.

• 

  A rare situation when he's not wearing his Scout Armor. As if the dashing good look wasn't enough...