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Malal

2016-08-06T03:09:15Z

2602:306:CEFF:E4E0:D82F:AFF4:3DF4:91C0:

[[File:Malal-symbol.gif|center]]
[[File:Lord_malal_by_morporg-d78ectd.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The greatest trick Malal ever pulled was convincing the Galaxy he didn't exist.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em">404 ERROR! PAGE NOT FOUND! THE PAGE YOU WERE LOOKING FOR WAS EITHER DELETED OR MISSING! - The Script of Malal on Himself'''</div>

:''"... and he that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Malal did turn his heart against them and flee into the chambers of space... And no man looked to Malal then, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for the damned. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Malal, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful, and the laughter of the Outcast God fills the tomb of space..."
:-- from '''The Great Book of Despair.'''

''"There is no greater evil than anarchy."'' 
-Sophocles

{{heresy}}

=="Chaos Divided"==
===Malal===
[[File:Malal.jpg|300px|right|thumb|What Malal ''might'' look like...if he actually wants us to believe that he exists in the first place.]]
The character Malal was created in [[The Citadel Journal]] for second edition [[Warhammer Fantasy]] by John Wagner and Alan Grant as the patron of the [[Warriors of Chaos]] character Kaleb Daark, who allied with the forces of good to fight Chaos while pursuing his own goals by confronting Khornates and Skaven using his soul-drinking magic axe. He was sent by Malal to assassinate one of the [[Chaos God of Law]] Arianka to prove himself worthy, a story which continued in three chapters. In 1986 Kaleb and his mount were given stats in Journal and his miniature was advertised, and it along with the fourth chapter were never released for unknown reasons ("creative differences" is all that was ever revealed). Malal was referenced in several other Games Workshop works, with the [[Ogre Kingdoms]] character Skrag the Slaughterer originally being a worshiper of him (later retconned to [[Great Maw]] instead) who was cast out from his tribe for stealing an axe made of "starmetal" (later retconned to cooking his chief's favorite [[Gnoblar]]), escaping to a [[Chaos Dwarf]] hold to force them to forge him armor before slaughtering all of them, followed up by a skirmish scenario called "The Crude, the Mad and the Rusty" where the surviving Chaos Dwarf plus two Goblin Fanatics and a golem against him. The first edition of [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] states he is a rogue Chaos God who wants to destroy the Four, a Champion of Malal is killed by the protagonist in a short story found in the [[Ignorant Armies]] short story novels, and the [[Chaos Marauders]] cardgame had a card which depicted [[Beastmen]] preparing to fight other Chaos beings.

All in all, Malal was designed as an antihero side to Chaos who is beneficial to the side of Order but is too Chaotic Evil for any being to trust, and actively drains both friend and enemy of energy to feed himself. Serving him is advancing oblivion, fighting him is to be annihilated. Any infighting on the part of Chaos resulted in Malal growing in power, essentially introducing the concept of total war to the Warp entities. Only by cooperating and shifting their attention to the mortal realm could the other Chaos Gods escape his influence, where they found his minions waiting for them.

During the year 1987 Wagner and Grant experienced a falling out over several comics they were producing at the time including Judge Dredd and work for DC Comics as well as several works for smaller publishers. This was followed by a sudden scramble for rights earned by them during their time creating for different companies and resulted in them suing Games Workshop for total ownership of Kaleb and Malal. Games Workshop had hired them for freelance work rather than as actual employees meaning they technically owned the characters they created. If Games Workshop ever used Malal again, they would either have to pay a royalty fee or enter into a lawsuit over the ownership of the character, which they surprisingly never did. Malal was only used once more, in the [[The Dying of the Light]] campaign where a Chaos sorcerer of [[Tzeentch]] named Heinrich Bors switches to Malal in order to have control over his own fate again.
[[File:Malal and Kaleb.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Malal's (only) "canon" appearance.]]
Although Wagner and Grant technically own Malal and Kaleb, neither have done anything with the characters as Wagner continues to mostly write Judge Dredd while Grant now works on zombie-related stories.

Zuvassin the Undoer and Necoho the Doubter were created by Games Workshop to replace Malal in the "The Enemy Within" adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay during the "Something Rotten In Kislev" campaign.

Zuvassin and Necoho together represent the same thing that Malal did, the concept of Chaos destroying itself and Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, and Nurgle plus the Chaos Gods of Order each falling prey to the primordial nothingness they emerged from in the same way the mortals do into them.
[[File:Kaleb_Daark_CJ86.jpg|thumb|right|300px| Kaleb Daark in all his "glory." Yes, he's a brooding, basically albinistic bad-guy-who-fights-evil in the name of Chaos using a demonic sword and therefore just Elric.]]
Zuvassin and Necoho were only given a second mention, listed as Chaos Gods in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement "Tome Of Salvation".

===Zuvassin===
Zuvassin is a rogue Chaos God who undoes the plans of any being, Chaos or not, including Tzeentch. He accepts all followers for all reasons and doesn't issue instructions since his followers should technically be working to subvert them, so that anything Zuvassin gets involved in becomes a complete mess where nothing can be predicted and everything goes wrong for everyone to varying degrees making him the only Chaos God who embodies the concept of "Chaos".
Any time you could make a list of possible outcomes for any given thing then draw in Zuvassin, the "INCONCEIVABLE" result will occur; a coin will fall through a portal into another dimension and land on all surfaces at once, a six-sided dice will crack in half while being rolled and reveal a 7 and 8 inside results, both factions in a battle will actually somehow end the day with more soldiers than they began with.

===Necoho===
Necoho is the god of contradictions and paradoxes, and represents the "Chicken or the Egg" question where the supernatural exists and doesn't. He fights against the concept of belief and faith and as a result is the enemy of all spiritual creatures and faithful worshipers. He only ever actually appears as a simple mortal being and counts everyone and nobody to be his followers.
Necoho will one day bring about the end of the Chaos Gods when nothing left will worship them and they will cease to be.

===Legacy of Malal===
Both players and Eavy Metal painters alike continued to use Malal even if he had gone without a mention, and was still considered to be canon. The early days of the Warhammer forums had the discovery of Malal as something of a rite of passage for Chaos players as well. Malal paintjobs continued to show up in many [[Golden Demon]] competitions and Eavy Metal showcases alike.

===[[Be'lakor]]===
with the introduction of [[Mordheim]], the Cult of Chaos faction revolved around a character called the "Shadowlord" who was a Chaos God of some kind and had caused the ruin of the city. Many players believed him to be the return of Malal, and many early paintjobs for the Cult were in Malal's white and black skull motif. The story was later revealed to actually be a plot by Be'lakor, a mere [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Chaos Undivided]] who had wanted to escape the control of the Four and had made the ruined city his domain before realizing he had only traded one cage for a much smaller one, and slunk back to the laughter of the Four with his tail between his legs and a revisionist version of the story already in his head. In many ways Be'lakor was intended to replace Malal as the non-Four alternative to Chaos, although Games Workshop writers by this point had [[Skub|made Chaos the Mary Sue faction for so long that the concept of anything being a danger to them was laughable]] so the "Chaos outsider" became just a whiny petulant part of Chaos that managed to wreak great destruction in the mortal world while attempting, and failing, to give a black eye to his masters.

===Malice===
Malice was created for 3rd edition [[Warhammer 40000]] in the [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex. An axe identical to Kaleb Daark's is described which was created to kill other beings of Chaos, and a Chaos Space Marine Chapter in Malal's colors was shown under the name "[[Sons of Malice]]". They later got a short story in [[White Dwarf]] where a Sister of Battle discovers they were a loyalist Chapter who had fallen to Chaos while still fighting for the Imperium, exalting in cannibalism and blood rituals while praising Malice as the god of anarchy and fear. They then proceeded to cannibalize the Sister and her group, and were exiled from the Imperium for their heresy, and they continue fighting against the other forces of Chaos. But once again, Malice was never mentioned again although his color scheme was repeated in subsequent works.

===Canon/Archaon===
Malal/Zuvassin/Necoho/Malice have existed in a sort of limbo in canon for quite a long time. Technically they were never retconned, and "non-canon by exclusion" is a weak accusation as that would mean every character and every event must be mentioned every edition for them to remain canon. Many statements have been given saying the Chaos Gods only exist in the Four, although this was said both before and after each "Chaos God of Piss Off" was written meaning the statement has always been a false one anyway (this isn't even going into the huge clusterfuck that [[Age of Sigmar]] has made in trying to figure out who actually matters in Chaos, not counting [[Khorne|the one who gets all the new models]]).
Some people have taken on the perspective that the "Chaos God of Go Fuck Yourself" is a continually shifting being, more in flux than Tzeentch and that each incarnation is comparable to [[Doctor Who]] incarnations. In this interpretation, Malal is Zuvassin is Necoho is Malice, and there's more to come still (of course [[Skub|the best one is the one who wears a bow tie - BLAM HERESY!]]).

[[End Times]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] for [[Warhammer Fantasy]] both suggest that the concept of a fifth Chaos God is over with as in the leadup to the event Be'lakor snarked that the Chaos Gods of Law never existed and that only the Four exist, with everything belonging to them in the end. But his truthfulness is in doubt partially because even though he is the character who "never lies", this is only stated once in the 40k universe and that the reason he never lies is "because its boring", so as a result he's never been proven to really be a reliable narrator. It is also dubious because of the proven disconnect between [[Black Library]] and the actual army books evidenced during the massive contradictions during the event and the casual attitude of the writers, meaning that anything in said books must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Regardless, during the event when every character (that Games Workshop remembered existed) played a part, no fifth Chaos God other than [[Horned Rat]] did anything which means he and his other selves may truly be non-canon.

In Age of Sigmar, [[Archaon]] is promoted to a Chaos God (remember that Fantasy and 40k share the same Warp which exists outside of time, so Archaon is now a Chaos God by technicality in 40k as well) representing the combined strength of the other Chaos Gods as the embodiment of [[Chaos Undivided]] (with the exception of Slaanesh's replacement in the Great Game, Horned Rat, whom he rejects) and his Black Library novel life goal is to destroy all gods and kings to let men control their own destiny and exalt in their own achievements in a spectacularly Ayn Rand way. Due to his rejection of the pretender [[Keepers of Secrets]] trying to take Slaanesh's position, Archaon himself wound up being the target of worship by former Slaaneshi who in turn are empowered by him as if Slaanesh was still around (which is not gameplay/story segregation as they still have their powers in the narrative as well) meaning that he's 1/4 of the way to his goal.
Although the actual army books state he is loyal to Chaos, the Black Library goals fall very much in line with Malal and in an accidental bit of meta his contradiction in goal even fits into Necoho's sphere. Beyond that Be'lakor (who states himself as Archaon's creator and father) is the one who manipulated Archaon's life, from a Warrior of Chaos raping his Empire mother to him becoming a devout priest of [[Sigmar]] to him losing his faith and becoming a being of pure evil who rejects both Sigmar's light and Be'lakor's blackness. This blend of light and dark fits quite well into Malal's scheme.

So it may be possible that Archaon is the latest incarnation of the Malal concept, albeit as a German rapeviking this time rather than a giant boar...thing or a fat old <strike>fedora</strike>trilby-tipper.

Archaon's endgame in Age is to somehow remove the new pantheon of Order (which includes Death and Destruction by technicality) from their Realms, which is very difficult because the "near infinite" planets that are the Realms are literally made of the old Winds of Magic (making them very chaotic and only really willing to obey the will of beings of a similar nature) with the very souls of those new gods at the cores. As a result Archaon is facing an uphill battle of trying to eliminate their armies (an all civilians, because this is Lord Edgemaster after all) then trap them and figure out a way to remove them without destroying the Realm itself all while battling against the rest of Chaos which periodically tries to backstab him despite them being his only supporters. If he achieves his goal, he will rule over all of reality (including whatever the fuck the Warp can fairly be called) itself as the sole being of any concept of power.

===Malign===
[[Tony Ackland]] was one of the artists employed by early Games Workshop to create the illustrations for their supplements and books, and they tasked him to design the Daemons that would be the models for Malal's eventual inclusion into Warhammer Fantasy as an army. The Wagner/Grant debacle left Malal in limbo with Games Workshop having never produced a model, and as a result Ackland was technically the owner of the designs he created since just like Wagner and Grant he was only a freelancer who owned what he made.

Not knowing about the boar appearance decided on in the comics nor the white/black color scheme, Ackland's idea for Malal combined insects with a general Chaos mutant themes (as he was the artist to quite a bit of the original Chaos Mutant and [[Chaos Spawn]] images) to produce extremely surrealist combinations of man and beast in a lean and segmented nature, featuring skeletal motifs coincidentally.

He eventually released his designs to the public (seen below in the Gallery section), then created new versions which he assigned to an unknown being called "Malign" in order to have them produced by third-party companies for sale.

According to Ackland, his version of Malal was going to be very similar to Khorne in that the two were extremely violent and focused mainly on sending warriors into combat rather than any politicking. But his version of Malal was much more elite and fanatical than Khorne, describing Khorne as the Wehrmacht (German army) and Malal as the Nazi SS. Yes you read that right, Malal's troops would basically be [[Commissar|BLAMMMING]] [[Bloodletters]] for cowardice or harboring Elves.

===Malice (Pantheon Of Chaos)===
Ackland has proceeded to partner with various people including sculptor Diego Serrate Pinilla to create a new model range and eventual wargame, [[Pantheon Of Chaos]], which brings not only all of the Malal Daemons into productoin, but also all of Ackland's Warhammer Fantasy artwork he has ownership of.
Malal is known as Malice (because that's a public domain name), and is exactly as originally imagined.

So players who for years have wanted their very own Malal army now can have exactly that.

==/tg/ Fluff==

Followers of Malal are kind of like [[Chaos]] Agnostics. They doubt that anything exists, including the [[Emperor]], Chaos itself, and you. ''Especially '''you'''''. The Chaos Space Marines chapter known as the "Sons of Malice", with their alternating black/white colour scheme are as likely to kill Chaos Forces as anyone else on the field, except for each other.

Malal, when he was actually canon, was the Chaos God of Fear, Darkness, Anarchy, and batshit loony self-destructive urges; Chaos battling Chaos. This also made him the God of paradoxes, radical Inquisitors and the like trying to turn Chaos against itself, and the outcast god since he was trying to buttfuck every other Chaos God and their followers. The thing about Malal was that even though he was one of the biggest personifications of Chaos there could be, he constantly tried to destroy Chaos and if he were ever successful in ending Chaos he could be destroyed as well. Not that this pants-on head crazy a-hole cared, as suicidal tendencies and teamkilling just became part of his portfolio instead. When Malal gets involved, the [[Great Game]] turns from [[Risk]] to [[Call of Cthulhu]] with [[Old Man Henderson]] as the head cultist.

Since Malal was supposed to be the antitheses of Chaos he had only a few champions, all of whom were supposed to be [[Cheese|STUPIDLY]] powerful and would go around bitch-slapping other Chaos champions with their anti-daemon daemon-axes of doom while wearing warp-resistant warp armor. The servants of Malal fight in utter silence, but that makes them way more badass than the rest of chaos. So yeah. They work with the forces of Order, but are fairly likely to engage in teamkilling to the degree that [[Orks]] are shocked by their sudden but inevitable betrayals.
Because of this followers of Malal have to already be balls to the wall nuts and have superhuman will. Malal's trademarks were black and white bisecting armor and a horned skull equally bisected black and white. His sacred number was 11. His signature weapon was the Dreadaxe which was a daemon weapon made out of a [[derp|Daemon that hates Daemons]], and it looked like a pterodactyl head on a stick. You can still find examples of this weapon in the CSM 3.5 dex and in Your [[Matt Ward|Spiritual Liege]]'s wonderful fluff assassin of a Codex: [[Grey Knights]].

Malal has a fortress in the Chaos Wastes in Warhammer Fantasy where he captures and [[trolls]] Greater Daemons by trapping them for all eternity unable to do whatever it is that they embody. This one [[Keeper of Secrets]] he has, for example, is caught in a field that nullifies all sensation so it can't indulge in cocaine fueled sex parties with [[Doomrider]], thus eternally pissing off said daemon forever in the only way that works. He also put a [[Great Unclean One]] in a vat of Febreze; blinded and binded a [[Lord of Change]] and put him in a stasis-field; and locked a [[Bloodthirster]] in an indestructible zen garden.

Unlike his brother gods he is capable of entering the materium/Warhammer World through demonic possession if his followers had enough sacrifices, but since his followers rarely manage to not kill each other long enough to make headway towards any particular goal it mostly falls to his Champions to get shit done.

In Age of Sigmar, Malal actually controls the space between the Realms and decides when the Realmgates will function and when they will not, plucking those he desires from the space between spaces and doing with them as he wills. Since Chaos no longer fights itself he has weakened to a degree, and must now rely on his plan to turn Archaon to his will and take the massive powers the Four invested in him which will mark the beginning of the end of Chaos.

(''In 40k, Malal is actually THE ELEVENTH PRIMARCH!! Think about it: Malal's sacred number is 11, the Renegade warband [[Sons of Malice]] worship the god Malal, and the Sons of Malice also center their rituals and trophies around the number XI. And what is the number of one of the missing legions? ELEVEN. And their warband contain a large amount of unknown (Read: ANCIENT) suits of Power Armour that predate even the [[Great Crusade]].
This could mean that The [[Sons of Malice]] are actually serious possibilities as candidates of the XI Legion! '''*Mind Blown*''''')

At one point in the 36th Millennium (though of course time is a nebulous concept in the warp), the other four gods got really sick of Malal's constant interference in their plans. While Malal was at the time the strongest individual god, the other four knew that he couldn't deal with them all at once. [[Elder Scrolls|So Tzeentch gathered the other gods and]] [[Just As Planned|formulated a plan]] [[Elder Scrolls|to deal with Malal once and for all.]] So one day Nurgle knocked on Malal's door and asked Malal to step outside, at this point Tzeentch signaled the others to attack and the other Chaos Gods jumped out from behind their cover and beat Malal to death. It required about a century of constant beating, but eventually Malal died. Upon his death the other Four Chaos gods celebrated for one thousand years now that the cheese lord was out of the way.
Sadly Malal's bastard offspring Malice and Zuvassin managed to slip away.
'''However, it might be possible that Malal/Malice may just be an Alias for the Emperor, working incognito, looking into ways he can ultimately end the four-fold scourge of the Warp. It might be possible he would use "Malal/Malice", using the powers of the Dark Gods against them. That includes using the Sons of Malice(Grey Knights?). Just as soon as Kaldor stops sniffin' Warp Dust.'''
A final theory is that he's become a sneaky git and painted himself purple to wait out until the time is right to hit the big four just hard enough to finish them (considering the current state of Daemons on the tabletop, that might not be too far off), and in the meantime manipulates Orks into fighting each other by pretending to be Gork, then Mork (or Mork then Gork?) to draw them into arguments while causing the Imperium to weaken itself by BLAMMING everyone capable of uplifting the condition of man. He probably got the idea sometime after he left a giant sword for Farsight to eventually find, but before he altered Macha's biochemistry to amp up her hormone output.
In fact, the truth is much more terrifying. Malal in fact managed to travel back through time to the present, where he is now trying to manifest. This is the source of the Zalgo legends across the internet.

In Warhammer Fantasy he still exists, and is secretly sponsoring [[Nagash|Nagash's]] recent [[The End Times|rise to power]]. He hasn't been seen or mentioned because he's been crashing on the [[Horned Rat|Horned Rat's]] couch after burning his own house down.

===Getting Malal on the Table===
As Games Workshop have proven themselves to be a bunch of IP abusing faggots, it once again falls to /tg/ [[/tg/ gets shit done|to get anything done.]]
====Humans====
To field rapevikings of Malal in Warhammer Fantasy, run Warriors of Chaos models on Skaven bases. Nothing like blowing yourself AND the enemy up to say "It doesn't matter".
Ironically (or appropriately depending on how you look at it) one of the best ways to represent 40k Malal dedicated Chaos Marines would be to use the Grey Knights codex. Think about it; elite marine units with sick powers and a plethora of daemon killing hardware, small army sizes, and more. Take an Unbound Dreadknight spam list and use Chaos bitz for a nasty Chaos smashing elite warband of Malal followers and lolstomp your opponents into the ground. Alternatively you can use C:CSM if you aren't a cheesed-out 12 year old or Daemonhunters vet.

====Daemons of Malal====
Have you ever lamented how you always wanted to put together a Malal themed army, but you didn't, because it wouldn't be worth it without the proper daemons? Well, now you no longer have a fucking excuse. Grown mightily indignant at Malal's lack of presence on the tabletop, several anons conspired together to bring you this. [http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%2028mm%20Night%20Terrors%20Demons.htm We even found models for it]; they're at the bottom, listed as Hook Horrors. Play-testing would be very much appreciated.

Alternatively, modification to existing Daemon models using their original stats is fine too (a popular idea for example is a gleeful white and black Daemon Prince tearing itself in half along the color separation).

====Malal Homebrew====
Due to the fact that there is little concrete information about Malal content, especially in 40k where he has almost no presence, there are a number of ways to interpret the lore into a whole. Here is the link to the fan-created rule set: [[Malal Daemonkin]]

===Dirges of Malal===
Take the rot, to make it flesh. 
Take the skull, the soul to rest. 
Take their mind and give them peace. 
Take their will. Sensations cease. 
--------------------
"We shall deny Nurgle their flesh to fester and rot" 
"We shall deny Khorne their blood and skulls" 
"We shall deny Tzeentch their destinies and fates" 
"We shall deny Slaanesh their pleasure and pain" 
"Death to the Dark Gods" 
"For the Renegade God" 
"Let the galaxy burn!" 
--------------------
To the Skin, Ice 
To the Rot, Fire 
To the Skull, Steel 
To the Mind, Night 
--------------------
"We are the flames that scorch the garden of rot." 
"We are the waves that erode the mountain of skulls." 
"We are the quakes that shatter the labyrinth of lies." 
"We are the storms that rend the palace of perfection." 
"We are Malice." 

===Followers of Malal===
The [[Sons of Malice]]

Kaleb Daark

<s>The Alpha Legion and their two primarch</s> {{BLAM|No such legion nor primarchs exist!}}

Scottish Koreans

Jumbo shrimp

Tau assault units([[Farsight]])

<s>You</s>

<s>Me</s>

Anarchists

Hypocrites

Atheist preachers

Your Girlfriend

[[Lofn|Domesticated Tyranids]]

Tall midgets

Black albinos

Grey Knights

Billy Mays

Honest politicians

Gabe Newell

C.S.Gotohell

[[Chris-chan|Chris-chan's]] long-lost perfect, popular brother

Josef Fritzl

Eldar units that aren't utterly overpowered

Screaming Mimes

Uncle Ruckus

Assurances that don't leave Lord Bale cold

Vladimir Putin's estranged twin brother that isn't a complete <strike> badass </strike> [[God-Emperor of Mankind|bigoted imperialist asshole]]

Irreligious Word Bearers

Ronald McDonald

Ultramarines that deserve to live

Vegemonster

[[Sorcerers of Khorne|Khornate Sorcerers]]

Tzeentch Berserkers

Bill Gates

Tyranid allies (7th edition anyone)

Ork mathematicians (a.k.a. Mathboyz)

Matt ward Fans (Newfags)

Chaos centurions and knights (Forge world made them.)

Pacifist Marines

Black Templar Librarians

Celibate and Sober Slaanesh Daemon (The 5th deamonette creation)

Cheap GW models

Egalitarian Eldar

Asexual and Altruistic Dark Eldar

Industrial Exodites

Germophobic Plaguebearers

Ahzek Ahriman {{BLAM|DOUBLEHERESY!}}{{BLAM}}

Two-Face

Mikhail Bakunin

Justin Bieber's popular twin brother

Pacifist army ants

Abstinent Daemonettes

Commissars that don't {{BLAM}} their own troops.

Virgin Bards

[[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|People who don't worship Malal]]

[[Everyone Is John|John]]

DC Comics editorial and writer staff

Kid friendly Lovecraftian authors

Safe for work pornography photographers

Carnivorous gorillas

Manly douches

Half-necron organisms

Eskimo cactus farmers

Vegan sharks

Jewish Nazis

/m/ after 2013

==Dungeons The Dragoning==

For those of you who want to roleplay with Malal, [[Dungeons: the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition]] has Malal as a Chaos God, because of course it does. In DtD, he's the Chaos God of Teamkilling Fucktards; nobody gets along with him or his followers.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Lesser_Daemon_of_Malal.jpg|One of Malal's canon Daemon designs from Tony Ackland.This would either be a Lesser or Greater Daemon.
Image:Malal Daemon Sale.jpg|This model was actually produced by a third party company called [[C-P Models]] and is available for sale [http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%2028mm%20Night%20Terrors%20Demons.htm here.]
Image:Greater_Daemon_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. This would have either been a Lesser or Greater Daemon.
Image:Beast_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. Ackland said this would have been one of Malal's monsters.
Image:Steed_of_Malal.jpg|Another Ackland Malal Daemon. Identified as what would have been a mount.
Image:Son of malice.png|A Son of Malice.
Image:Malal Hipster Cultistchan.jpg
Image:Malal Warriors.jpg|Prototypes for mortal worshipers of Malal, created in cooperation with Ackland which will be eventually available [http://easternfront-studios.net/ here.]
Image:Malal Lesser New.jpg|Ackland's newer rendition, which he called a "Lesser Daemon of Malign".
Image:Malal Greater New.jpg|Ackland's "Greater Daemon of Malign".
Image:Malal Chaos Steed 1.jpg|Ackland's "Steed of Malign".
Image:Malal Chaos Steed 2.jpg|Ackland's second version of a "Steed of Malign".
Image:Kaleb Daark Battle.gif|Kaleb Daark single-handedly slaughters an entire Khornate warband on the hour before its otherwise assured victory over Praag.
Image:Malalette.png|Because /tg/.
</gallery>

{{Template:ChaosGods}}
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]]

Battlefleet Gothic Armada

2016-05-30T15:37:29Z

2602:306:CEFF:E4E0:D82F:AFF4:3DF4:91C0:

{{stub}}{{/vg/}}

Developed by Tindalos Studios and published by [[Focus Home Interactive]] (the same guys behind [[Awesome|Blood Bowl, Mordheim, and Space Hulk Deathwing]]), this game recreates the old specialist tabletop, pitting the different factions of Warhammer 40,000 in brutal space warfare.

==Plot==
[[File:Spire gets torture.png|thumb|This is you, Captain Spire, a rookie admiral who is about to go though unimaginable pain just to go fisticuffs with a demonic possessed super human......in a spaceship battle!]]
Basically the retelling of the Gothic War AKA Failbaddon's 12th Black Crusade, just a rookie admiral fighting Failbaddon's attempts to get the Blackstone fortresses. When you discover the plot unfolding and run to tell the Imperial Navy about the looming Chaos tsunami, the Inquisition immediately shocks your balls to be certain of Heresy-free before you're promoted to sector fleet command with more promises of continued balls-shocking if you feth up. Grimdark abounds.
[[File:The old crone or not.png|200px|thumb|right|not even the champion of chaos is safe....]]
Extra fluff was <strike>added apparently</strike> ported over from the [[Graham McNeill|Iron Warriors novella]], like Abaddon got the information about the Blackstone fortresses from some old crone (according to the intro movie). But if you pay attention to the crone's shadow, it looks like the shape of the deceiver, which is bullshit since their meeting took place inside the warp and C'tan can't enter the immaterium. (Because it couldn't possibly be Cegorach, the Eldar Trickster God or anything, that has a similar silhouette) Skub aside, it is possible the meeting took place in some random planet despite the video showing it was zoomed in the warp for some reason (probably the old hag using her warp magic or something, despite being C'tan and all), on the other hand, the Eye of Terror still holds pockets of relatively stable real-space, besides, the Black Legion supplement talks about Abaddon's quest (the official one, not the one from the boards) where he finds some golden guy who gives him his sword, so all in all it may not be that non-canonical.

Oh, and it seems they got the same voice filter they used in Retribution to make Abby sound like himself, as well as [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Alfa Legion animation style]] combined with some beautiful 3D graphics which of course is gonna be highly exploitable for Youtube videos and whatnot. These campaign cutscenes provide bits of fanservice such as[[Daemonette|lesser]] and [[Keeper of Secrets|greater]] daemons of [[Slaanesh]] and [[Squig|colossal squigs]] making their first video game appearances.

Anyway. Rookie Spire quickly proves himself to be a highly capable Admiral running from flashpoint to flashpoint across the sub-sectors that make up the Gothic Sector in a giant game of whack-a-mole. Dealing with Heretics with extreme '''BLAM''', Ork boyz eager to get in on the fights -up to and including taking on their space hulk and warboss- and of course those pointy eared xenos assholes known as the Eldar who seem to help and hinder you at the same time. With rarely enough resources to tackle all the problems each turn - so Tuesday for the Imperial Navy.

The main campaign is divided into three sub-campaigns.

First is the Prologue, which doubles as the tutorial. Based around the historical raids of the Chaos fleets looking for the 'Eye of Night' and 'Hand of Darkness'. Artifacts which in canon Failbaddon seized and was able to use eventually to turn on the Blackstone Fortresses because the Eldar are giant dicks leaving this stuff around. I mean this isn't a remote control you lost behind the couch for the TV here, but the keys to the ancient Eldars WMDs. Nice work fellas! Anyway, Spire CAN with some excellent work keep the artifacts safely out of the hands of Chaos and place them into the theoretically safer hands of the Inquisition, who get them out of the sector to safety. The game however defines them not as the remote controls, but as artifacts that would dramatically increase the power of warp storms and make warp travel harder. Which will have a very big multiplier effect when...

The second campaign is called, appropriately enough, the 12th <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Black Crusade. The Chaos attacks kick up in tempo and you're going to have to start making decisions on what missions to take and which ones to leave. Worlds can now be lost forever as Abby starts to nick those Blackstones and turn them against planets and eventually entire stars, something that isn't entirely clear to the Imperium at first, being distracted by his OTHER WMD; the aptly named Planet Killer. Which does give a sweet cutscene of it doing exactly what the name implies. Worlds that fall to the enemy strengthen them and weaken you in terms of keeping your fleet intact and supplied. Certain missions earn you 'favors' from factions within the Imperium consisting of the Navy, the Inquisistion, the Space Marines ([[Imperial Fists]] chapter), or the Cult Mechanicus which can be redeemed for bling for your battleships. Priority missions are tied to the fluff of the crusade and ignoring them can quickly lead to Bad Ends. The Ork threat reaches its peak here where, if you play your cards right, things will end with a typically hilarious showdown with the Ork Boss on a mobile Space Hulk in an asteroid field. Eliminate it and the Ork threat is neutralized.

[[File:Eldar-bfg-hieronymushoefer.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Don't expect too much tactical genius from your Eldar allies.]]The pointy eared annoyances can be turned to your side if you choose to do so and save them a few times which, at the least, free up resources and occasionally even bring them onto the field as an allied force (See image to know how [[Dawn of War 2|advanced and resourceful is the AI player]]). Even as Failbaddon raises the stakes by blowing up star systems. OR you can wipe out the Xenos scum, destroy their webway gate and make sure that they know now and forever that the stars belong to the Imperium alone.

The final campaign, 'The Imperium Resurgent' has the Warp Storms as in canon dissipate and Imperial reinforcements start to arrive, leading to a final showdown. If you have done well, the space lanes should have mostly been cleaned at this point, with a few lost worlds that had to die by canon but otherwise a glut of resources to hammer down on any nails that stick up. If you have done poorly, then between Abbadon blasting planets, capturing planets and the Inquisition cheerfully burning worlds that remained captured too long, lose more of the Blackstones; in short, the Gothic sector will start to look increasingly empty if you fuck up that badly.

Either way, finally you will face down the Blackstones and Planet Killer at the historical Battle of Schindelgheist (with Eldar help if you chose to spare them). Where Captain Abridal on board the ''Flame of Purity'' (who had tagged along with you in a few battles as a support ship) makes his historical sacrifice in a cool cutscene and rams his ship into the convergence point of the three Blackstone warp cannons, causing the energy to feedback and shut them down. While you deal with the Planet Killer and <strike>blow it to all hell</strike> cripple it to the point that it escapes to show up a thousand years later in the 13th temper tantrum, along with two of the Blackstones that retreat.

One Blackstone is boarded, but Abbadon promptly hits the Self Destruct button causing it to shatter a short time later into a million pieces ... as the Deceivers silhouette looks on with no doubt a smug look on its face at the outcome. Just as planned!

==Gameplay==

So far it looks like a mix between Star Wars: Empire at War and Sins of a Solar Empire (Fitting, as there have been Battlefleet Gothic mods made for both). The game allows you to customize different ship classes with upgrades, which allows for limited personalization of fleets and specialization into different styles of naval warfare. With Tindalos announcing this has been quite a success support for the game and new features are ensured and while there are still some heavy concerns like the need to patch the eldar (the lead developer, AKA Admiral Ravensburg has recognized they need to be tuned) things look bright for the community, with the Space Marines coming in a first DLC (which is free for those of us who participated in the beta and gave our confidence to Tindalos) and then a second with the Tau, the possibility of adding later the Tyranids and the Necrons have been suggested.

Remember [[Chapter Master]]? Warp travel in the campaign is handled in much the same way as Chapter Master did it.

==Tactics==

Depending on the chosen faction, gameplay will encourage a certain tactical doctrine based on archetypal strengths and weaknesses, with the Imperial Navy being heavy tanks designed for medium to close combat brawls, Chaos having great long range attack capability, Orks being very assault oriented and Eldar favouring hit-and-run tactics and stealth.

Since changing ships and upgrade/skill loadouts consume limited in-game resources, players will most likely have to commit to a certain 'fleet build' in all game modes, with the leveling of new admirals and different builds within the same faction a likely time sink.

In the TT game, ship collision required a Ramming special order and was not automatic. In BFG: Armada ship collision is automatic and there is a maneuver resource that allows even very large (Imperial and Chaos, Orks and Eldar do not have this ability) capital ships to quickly turn and accelerate, making ramming a highly effective (albeit limited use) damage-dealer.

Point defense turrets are the default defense mechanism against torpedoes, bombers, and boarding craft. As ships take damage, they lose defense turrets in proportion to their health. This limits the effectiveness of the aforementioned tactics, especially at extreme ranges or against massed, undamaged ships. Late-game, however, when formations have likely broken up and as ships sustain damage, these become powerful offensives. While underestimated escorts can deal extremely heavy damage, with particular upgrades becoming highly effective against Eldar and Chaos harassers.

Most ships have a damage threshold which, when crossed, may force your ship to warp-out (or in the Eldar's case jump to the web-way, Tindalos thinks on everything), you can execute your captain to avoid the ship to flee, although you must be careful as sometimes running away is the best tactic and a ship heavily damage or destroyed won't be available for 1 or 2 turns respectively. Ships can also be lost in the warp, you can deny this by upgrading your navigator/equivalent.

===Imperial Navy===

Love Nova Cannons? Certain cruisers can be fit with these murder guns, allowing you to mass enough firepower from very far away to wreck minor ships with coordinated volleys, although being highly inaccurate you may need a few of them to land some decent damage. That aside, Imperial weaponry is high-alpha but low-medium ranged and heavily favors broadsides. Heavy armor but no special resistance to being boarded (aside from limited Ratlings crew and Space Marines favour upgrades) means that Imperial ships prefer close-ranged shootouts but may struggle against dedicated assault fleets. Favours (specializations) include Imperial Navy (immune to insubordination and you can summon a ''Cobra''), Inquisition (1 free bonus level for each crew member and you can reveal one enemy ship), Mechanicus (1 additional upgrade and skill slot), and Astartes(extra lighting action and boarding defense).

Your escorts can be effective in squadrons if you upgrade them properly. ''Sword-class Frigates'' benefit greatly from the armor-piercing macrocannon upgrade, while ''Firestorm''s can make good use of the lance range, anti-shield and crit upgrades. The turret upgrades also help in combating strike craft-based strategies. ''Cobras'' are fast and can be summoned as reinforcements with the Imperial Navy favour, making them pretty decent disposable firepower if you upgrade their macrocannons or engines, although their torpedos may feel a bit lack-lusting.

Torpedoes should be fired right of the bat. Their spread makes them difficult to dodge at long range and can deal fairly significant damage/force the enemy to maneuver and thus be revealed. The skill reload lets you fire on average 3 full salvoes per ship before the engagement proper begins. Melta torpedoes are very good later in the game when emergency repairs are on cooldown.

Your light cruiser options are currently limited to ''Dauntless'' with Lances and ''Dauntless MkII'' with Torpedoes. Go for the lanceboat, although the case could be made for combining torpedos with micro warp jump (short range teleportation upgrade).

While [[Nova Cannon|Nova Cannons can be tempting]] they may be tricky to use, in previous versions they were quite broken, but Tindalos tuned them down, they are still fairly useful against incoming blobs of enemies but not that accurate as they may end up firing in empty areas and achieving pretty much nothing.

For those of you who like battleships, you may go for the Retribution Class, while this ship is terribly slow you could make an interesting build comboing maneuvering thrusters, fuel gauge, armour-piercing macro-cannons and a stasis bomb in order to get as close as possible to an enemy ship, keep it quiet, unleash a salvo of torpedoes and then finish them with your broadsides at close range, as with nearly other tactic in this game is not an automatic win but it may work decently for games such killing the transport ships or the Space Station where your victory conditions can't be sabotaged by a warp jump, you may also want to upgrade the Retribution with a power ram, while hard to pull this out, if you manage to get close enough for melee then you can throw a bunch of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnbq7f2CcxE Consecutive Normal Punches] by quickly turning on and off your thrusters to destroy anything short of another battleship in short order.

If you are feeling particularly manly today, get some Angry Marines favor on your light cruisers for extra effectiveness on boarding and lightning strikes as well as defense (they make your ships yellow as a free bonus), buy the light cruisers maneuvering thrusters, gauge, macro-cannon armor-piercing and then some hull upgrades, and send them in mass supported by yet another Angry Marine cruiser with the same configuration, be sure to write "FUUUUUUU---" when rushing as close as possible on the enemy for extra-lulz.

===Chaos===

What is this? Marks other than Khorne and Nurgle?! EXTRAHERESY! Ships aren't as tough as their Imperial counterparts but are faster, have longer range, and more powerful lances. Standard tactics basically involve playing keep-away and throwing out Deathclaws every 90 seconds to take advantage of the game's critical hit system, which can cripple an Imperial player with bad RNG, bombers are great too for dealing extensive damage, and against dedicated close combat factions such as the Orks and the Eldar refractor fields are life-savers. Alternatively, you'll want to really improve your lances and hit enemy ships from outside their sensor range, this can be tricky as you will need to get the enemy ships revealed, a work your escorts can do decently.

Don't forget to buy the micro-jump upgrade, as you need to stay away and be ready to maneuver yourself out of close combat heavy ordinance.

When it comes to marks, Nurgle is considered the best one as its area of effect means anyone who closes in with you will receive continuously damage, giving you a much needed buff against the other close-range oriented factions as well as additional resistance against boarding actions.

Khorne too gives some buffers to your boarding defenses and a bonus action when using lightning strikes, improving your chances of dealing critical damage to your opponents.

Slaanesh mark may be okayish when dealing with Orks as it breaks their morale, this being one of their weak points, it also has a power which blocks enemies from using special abilities, which may be helpful in order to shut some Eldar pulsar weaponry but that's it.

Tzeentch mark is situational too as it generates a very evident cloud which hides your ship an any close allies, you can also throw a false-signature beacon and switch place with it if you so want, but don't expect really much from it, with that said, it turns your ship into a magical flying castle which may be a fancy compensation.

===Orks===

Rest easy, because now your one stop shop for ramming and assault entertainment has arrived. All of your ships have a few "Kustom Points" that allow you to change out the basic build for something that is almost the same. Your options (at the time of this writing) are: 1) Lotz of Gunz, where you have, you know... a lot of small caliber gunz. Not that hard. This is the base option. 2) 'Evy Kannons, which are short range with a low RoF but pack a punch. If you take these, take the Macro-cannon range upgrade. 3) Hangars. What does it say on the god damn tin? Grab the extra teleporta upgrade to drop 3 assault actions at once on some poor squishy fool. Prow options: 1) Grot Prow Gunz. Not awful, but not world beating either. They're free if nothing else. 2) Mega Zzap gunz. They don't miss, but I never notice them actually doing damage either. Fore weapons: 1) Torps. Whats that bitching about torpedoes not being any good? Well, you're kinda right. BUT Orks get Boardin Torpz! Because cramming a bunch of Boyz into a tube and lobbing them at the enemy has never gone wrong in the history of ever, also, you can set them in auto with right-click, as the Boardin' torpedoz don't deal friendly damage. 2) Mega Kannonz. 90* forward arc lovin with good damage but Orky accuracy. Probably better than torpedoes if you having problems with manouvering your ships front on to the enemy.

For favors, half of the upgrades are crappy or just basic utility (extra upgrade slot and Grot Shokk attack gun for long range teleporation for the Bad Moons, a highly inaccurate Nova Kannon which can explode and Kommando training for running silent for the Blood Axes). For the more suicidal among us, you can choose some Goff action. It provides you with a flat boost to Troops (for and against assault actions) and then straps a giant can opener to the front of your ship to provide +50% ramming damage. If you can time your Big Red Button right, you can ram escorts to death in one shot, The downside is that you lose your fancy rust-and-red paint in favor of Black on black. The Red Sunz favor is actually great when combined with the Big Red Button as it gives your ship a traktor beam, use it to force enemies into the path of a bullrushing ship, extra-win if that ship has the Goff upgrade, accept no substitutes for catching scurry space elves.

===Eldar===

The last race to be implemented pre-release, and the archetypal glass-cannons, while eldar ships are extremely fragile (read, they can be easily killed by multiple simultaneous and devastating, offensive normal rams or boarding action) they are very difficult to catch as they move extremely fast, have great turning rates and holofields based on evasion, also their pulsar weapons are capable to destroy an enemy light cruiser in a couple of shots.

To further elaborate Eldar's shields decrease the accuracy of enemies weapons, which has make them more vulnerable at close range. Lance weapons always hit them so they act by giving a permanent negation percentage.

Tactics? Just keep moving, as the Aces High song says, run, live to fly, fly to live, do or die, fire your pulsars at convenient rates or get ships with launch bays so you don't have to maneuver your ships to target the enemy. Don't let yourself get caught or you are done. Remember to keep mashing the solar sails button, and that you don't have high energy turns or broadside weapons- so feel free to sail right past the enemy ships, and turn around in their rear arc before playing chicken over and over again. Don't get hit.

Eldar have their weaknesses and it will be good to consider them so you know what you have to deal with. Bombers and Lightning Strikes ignore holofields, so having a bunch of fighters escorting your ships may be a good upgrade, Nova Cannons and plasma bombs/stasis bombs, etc will pulverize you so avoid getting in their path. Make sure to target the generators since without it's holofields an Eldar ship will crumple with a few shots from any weapon. Eldar ships have an upgrade to give them a free fighter squadron to make up for their painful vulnerability to bombers, be careful of torpedoes which may draw those fighters. Eldar suffer crits at a much greater rate than other races, and sheer weight of fire can and will get through your holofields eventually. People will target your generators all times so you may do well to buy anti-critical upgrades. Eldar ships are paper and will just crumple up on the side of any colliding ships while barely scratching the paint so never ever ram.

==Links==

*[http://www.bfgawiki.com/wiki/Battlefleet_Gothic:_Armada_Wiki The wiki, currently under construction, help is welcome!]
*[http://forum.battlefleetgothic-armada.com/ The official forums, feel free to fill it with complains about how your fav faction needs insane buffs.]