Blood Ravens Force Commander
The Force Commander, also known as Force Commander Hairgel or FC; was a newly promoted officer from the Bladh Ravens who is sent to Sub-sector Aurelia to help Davian Cool with a mess caused by the orks. Later he also has to fight some pesky Eldar, a splinter Hive fleet, a Black Legion warband (led by the supreme badasses Araghast and Eliphas) and the worst of them all: Imperial bureaucracy, against which even Angelos wishes good luck.
In all seriousness, despite his evident hairesy he is somewhat awesome, turning the tides of the campaigns with merely a handful of marines: a tactical squad, an assault squad, a devastator squad, some scouts and a badass dreadnought in “against all odds, success or death” missions, like assaulting a main hive with no support than a few guardsmen, defending a desert city from waves and waves of orks, assault, later defend, and then re-assault again Angel Forge (twice!) against Tyranids, Orks, Eldar and Chaos Space Marines, and winning! Showing that, despite the odds, he gets the fucking shit done.
He is also a quiet dude and gives no fuck to rushing at the enemy shouting loud litanies, curses or anything; he just runs to the enemy. In fact, throughout the campaign he says NOTHING, even though he has an animated conversational portrait in the files, but since he is a player avatar, he stays silent and the responses of other squads are to his orders. Nevertheless, he does bellow some things as he attacks the enemy, the most famed of which is SHOW ME WHAT PASSES FOR FURY AMONG YOUR MISBEGOTTEN KIND! ALIEN BEANS!!
Like almost any squad in Chaos Rising (save Thule, but he’s too awesome for that), he can turn to heresy with tainted equipment and foul deeds. His fate depends of how corrupted he becomes. If he remained pure, he is promoted to Captain of the Fourth Company, or is branded a renegade alongside Gabriel. If he was corrupted, he might get banished to the Eye of Terror for a century, executed, or become a Chaos Champion.
You can name him if you wish. In the novels his name is Aramus, but the tie-in novel, (written by Paul Roberson, a noted science fiction author - not C. S. Goto, for a change, Emprah be praised) is, like everything else from Black Library, of questionable canon. Though as far as names go, it's pretty decent as a short hand for the guy.
Dawn of War II[edit]
FC is the main PC in Dawn of War 2, so the plot of the game is also his story, at the beginning of his history as a commander. The campaign itself starts pretty well. On Calderis he has to aid Davian Thule to protect the population from an Ork Waaagh, killing the aforementioned orks by the hundreds, rescuing his squad leaders, and do what marines are made to do: show the enemies of the Emprah the color of their guts while they are still living. This is the point when strange things start to happen. Everyone thought that the Eldar were behind the attacks, but Spike Spiegel Cyrus suspected that something worse was behind it all... too bad he was right.
From that point on, shit hit the fan quickly. Davian Cool got poisoned and had to be interred in a Dreadnought, a cold bitch called Elena Derosa seems to get the hots for FC each time he saves her planet, an Eldar Farseer who didn't get laid in centuries tries to save her Craftworld by destroying your planets(blame Relic), Gabriel Angelos is ripping off the smurf plan of Tarsis Ultra to help you deal with the 'nids in the sub-sector and LOTS of "gifted" wargear. And pauldrons. EGSCBAWKS-HUEG pauldrons all the time.
It ended in an awesome final battle, when FC, his friends, Merrick, and some guardsmen had to poison the Hive fleet itself. After that, they prepared for a final resistance, because FC's personal strike cruiser sacrificed itself to cover the ground team, so they had no place to retreat. What did they do? They went forth to destroy as many 'nids as they could; the heroic bastards. Luckily for them, Gabe came just in time to save their asses, so that they can destroy the Hive Tyrant Alpha together, and put an end to the war in the sub-sector. This earned him and his men the title "Heroes of Typhon".
Dawn of War II: CHAOS RISING[edit]
Hairgel returns leading his fellas again one year after the Tyranid mess. Attending a Blood Raven distress signal in the recently reappeared planet Aurelia (once a proud and civilized world, now a sterile lifeless rock, or so it seems... ) he along with Tarkus, Avitus and Cyrus were ambushed by forces of House Vandis. The bastard didn't take the takeover of Derosa too well, so he turned to heresy and called the Black Legion to take over the Aurelia sub-sector. A sterling plan.
Anyway, even with Gabe at his side, FC had to do the bulk of the efforts, like defending the Angel Forge again (seriously, what's up with the forge?) where he found Eliphas, and attack the Black Legion's base in Aurelia where he finds that the warband was lead by the too awesome Chaos Lord Araghast the Pillager, Master of hounds and Lash of the Black Legion. Also that there was a traitor double-crossing the Blood Ravens with the Black Legion. Looks like you can't be a proper Blood Raven commander without facing betrayal at least once, even if you are a dreadnought...
Things go to hell again, Meridian is in constant siege to the point that Derosa can't hold it without help, Apollo Diomedes and the honor guard show up to steal kills and tell Gabe, FC and all Ravens stationed in the sub-sector to GTFO by Azariah Kyras's orders, and the traitor keeps informing your enemies. On the very small upside, you find Martellus, who was thought dead after Tyranids blew his Thunderhawk out of the sky. Hooray. After you rescue him he repairs your Terminator armor (which is wonderful mediocre due to being thoroughly outclassed) and has an idea to how to discover the traitor (looks like Martellus got extra archaeotech that Christmas Sanguinala). Then, if you're loyal, he proceeds to fuck your shit up with a predator.
The bad thing about the plan it is that he needs a logic engine deep inside the Judgement of Carrion, a space hulk infested by Tyranids, because the logic engine of a fucking Strike Cruiser is not enough. Either the traitor is smart enough to out-think a techie, or Martellus is the worst techmarine of all time... Anyway, FC and friends got to the space hulk (and gained an Achievement if you only deploy units in Terminator armour mirroring the famous game) and after some engaging with tyranids they found the logic engine Martellus was fapping talking about. While the logic engine was working, FC was informed that shit hit the fan... again. Murphy's law in action.
Abaldo has declared Gabe Gabriel MOTHERFUCKING Angelos a renegade and traitor and you are most like the next in the list, Araghast was challenging FC to a duel in an awesome way and the Imperial palace in Meridian was under heavy siege. And I mean HEAVY SIEGE, just bring along Tarkus, Cyrus, and Davian Thule and you'll actually have to click more than a few times to win.
Dawn of War II: RETRIBUTION[edit]
He doesn't appear in Retribution, but he's mentioned in a piece of wargear called "The Hammer of the Nameless". An interesting thing to point out, is that while it is implied that he used a hammer to defeat Ulkair, the best unmanly weapon for the purpose would have been "The Blade of the Unrelenting", a Power Sword. Savvier players will bring along Skarbrand's maul for a slight touch of corruption and a heavy touch of breaking faces (or Worldbreaker, which sadly isn't the weapon of the same name once wielded by Horus).
Gameplay[edit]
Hair-gel is able to use just about every weapon in the game, and is one of your two units that starts out with the ability to wear Terminator Armor. He's a bit better in melee than he is at range, although that's balanced out by the fact that you'll be taking a lot more damage up close. He's also the only one able to take commander items like drop pod and orbital bombardment beacons, unique jump packs and teleporters, as well as chapter banners. He's also the only one who can carry two-handed, non-termie thunder hammers, if that's how you like to roll.
He's a decent beatstick with any weapon loadout, and can offer some nice buffs. Since he's mandatory for every mission, he's not very broken barring some bugs, so deciding what to do with him really depends on how the other members of the squad are specced. That said, he's best off in melee since unlike Thaddeus he can actually survive being in close combat on higher difficulties.
He is quite the beast if you know how to use him properly; for example (in the original dawn of war 2), boost his melee to the max, spend the rest in heath points, give the man Isador's folly, the sunhammer and any iron halo as well as some scroll to boost his health and take orbital bombardment (it's even better if you get the ability that allows you to get a double one): it's OP as fuck and as long as you remain under fire your commander will get health back; for more giggles try charging any carnifex or heavy unit with this and shower the commander with that orbital bombardment, it never, NEVER fails and the commander actually GAINS health back.
Canon conflicts between the games and the novels[edit]
Firstly, the book was written by someone more or less unaware of the lore of the game, so the canon of the book is questionable at best. With that said, let's go through how much rape he has delivered to canon. (Feel free to include any which I may have missed!) But on the bright side, at least the books don't involve Space Marines with Multilasers or backflipping Terminators.
- In the books, he's from Meridian (and from the wealthy, soft upper-hive too boot!) , which is bullshit, because this contradicts the explicitly clear canon statement that the only Blood Ravens recruit from Meridian in centuries is Thaddeus.
- The reason for his early promotion differs in the novel; FC earned his promotion fighting the Tyranids on Prosperon to protect a sacred scroll from falling into the hands of the xenos, despite Tyranids being notoriously illiterate, and the Imperium being notoriously stubborn about not making sacred scrolls out of bacon. See this Lexicanum page for reference.
- It's also said that he's from the Fifth Company. Also bullshit, because even his initial armour shows the number of the fourth company. Take this with a grain of salt, because ALL the marines (even the multiplayer ones) shows the number of the fourth. Granted, there is the possibility that he was transferred from the 5th Company to aid the 4th, while Thule was on leave training the initiates. And after being interred in a Dreadnought, Hairgel would be the de facto commander of the 4th until a full promotion to Captain was made
(Bloody magpies be stealing even their own promotions!)STEAL RAIN.