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Transformers

2017-04-07T06:58:28Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB:

[[File:Generation 1 by DonFig.jpg|850px|thumbnail|right|And these are just your characters from G1!]]
'''Transformers''' is a series of Robot Toys created by [[Hasbro]] and Takara Tomy that typically turn into cars and other vehicles. Robots are cool, cars are cool and so they became popular. In 1984 they made some comics and a cartoon show. The comics show created a lot of toy sales and the toys kept the shows and comics popular. Over the years they changed things up to sell more toys and new series were made, some worked quite well (Beast Wars, Prime) others did not (Armada, Energon, Cybertron).

Why does this have no tabletop or role playing game? Only [[/co/|comics, cartoons,]] [[/a/|anime,]] [[/v/|and finally video games.]] So much potential. Seriously, it's a setting about sentient, shapeshifting robots fighting a war that spans motivations from political to racial to theological. Hasbro owns [[Magic: The Gathering]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons]] via [[Wizards of the Coast]], so it's not like they've never done tabletop stuff before. How the fuck has nobody realised the money-making potential there?

==Main Guys==
As the series come and go, a certain bevvy of characters seem to be archetypal to the Transformers. Not helped by the fact that, ever since the flop of ''Beast Machines'' and the riotous financial successes of the Bay, Hasbro seems to only ever stick with recycling Generation One, with some other characters jumping continuities. These are the Transformers who appear in some form or another in every iteration of the setting.

*'''Optimus Prime''': Leader of the Autobots, [[Lawful Good]] to the computer-core, the Big Red Hero-bot himself. There's always an Optimus leading the Autobots, and he usually turns into some kind of red truck or hauler. His name is the Latin words for "best" and "first", and he really is both. In the original show (and in the Michael Bay movies -- one of the decent things about them -- and Transformers Prime and the Cybertron games), he was voiced by Peter Cullen, whose awesome deep voice you probably hear in your head whenever you read any of his dialogue. Check it out: ''"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."'' Also has the record of dying the most times out of anyone ever, making one wonder how the hell the GM lets him get away with it each time. Might be because he always goes out fighting, never like a punk.

*'''Megatron''': If there's an Optimus Prime, there's always a Megatron, the Evil (of some flavor, depending on the series) to his Lawful Good. Megsy remains pretty consistent throughout his appearances, usually varying only in what level of honor he has (which usually depends on his backstory; sometimes he started as a charismatic gladiator turned freedom fighter against the corrupt Cybertronian government -- [[Angron]], anyone? -- but sometimes he's just nuts) and/or how much of a cold-blooded psychopath he is. He used to turn into a gun (which could inexplicably shrink down to be small enough to be wielded by another Decepticon or even the occasional ''human''), with the <s>barrel</s> scope giving him a wicked arm cannon in robot mode, but nowadays he usually turns into a tank or a jet. He was first voiced by Frank Welker, whose versatile voice was also used for just about every other Decepticon except for Starscream (and probably at least one role in just about every cartoon ever made), though David Kaye also did a bang-up job in Beast Wars, ''yeeesss''.
**'''Galvatron''':Whenever there is a Megatron there is a Galvatron. He's everything you love about the M taken up to eleven. This guy is seriously bad news, he's probably insane and violent enough to give Doombreed pause and he's probably the strongest non-God transformer there is in G1 comics it takes a friggin' time vortex to finally put him down. Originally voiced by Leonard Nimoy (that's right, Spock voiced this psycho) after a dying Megatron had a lovely chat with Unicron. He had a pretty new identity forced onto him. Didn't work for long though; Galvy kind of went off the reservation pretty quickly.

*'''Bumblebee''': The yellow kid-friendly one, he's usually the main one to interact with the resident token humans. He usually turns into a sports car. Can be surprisingly badass in some adaptations -- his ''Beast Wars'' counterpart, Cheetor, went on to basically take Optimus Primal's place as leader of the Maximals in ''Beast Machines''. However, thanks to the abominations of Michael Bay, he will probably never speak again. Not that his VA was good or anything, mind, but that "mute who talks only in radio quotes/beeps and boops like a 60s robot" shit just gets ANNOYING.

*'''Grimlock''': A fuckmothering [[AWESOME|robot Tyrannosaurus]] that usually breathes fire. He also has a pack of other robot dinosaurs called the '''Dinobots'''. He's not exactly smart (well sometimes, he's either a stupid beast or a no nonsense leader with a speech problem), but who cares about that? HE'LL FUCKING EAT YOU. No seriously he once ripped Shockwave's arm off and ate it.

*'''Starscream''': Megatron's loud-mouthed, whiny, scheming, sneaky, backstabbing second-in-command who always wants to lead the Decepticons, but is neither strong enough to bump Megsy off and take his place, [[Sindri Myr|smart enough to trick him to his death]], or [[Eliphas|charismatic enough to persuade others he wouldn't be as bad a boss]]. Sometimes Megatron himself wonders why he keeps Starscream around, but (when the writers remember) he is actually an extremely competent air commander who just happens to have a bunch of recolored clones, including a [[Rule 63]] one. He usually turns into the latest and greatest fighter jet (unless he's turning into some Cybertronian future-jet) -- historically an F-15, F-16, or F-22. In the original cartoon, his catchphrase (delivered in the classic 80s-villain screech -- in fact, his first voice actor also voiced the similarly screechy Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe) was probably ''"Decepticons, RETREEEAT!"'' Was also voiced by fucking Tom ''"Spongebob Squarepants"'' Kenny in Animated; man, is that a blow to your dignity. Nowadays, though, he's more consistently competent (and given a more menacing voice by [[Steve Blum]] in Transformers Prime). Is such a total backstabbing traitor that "The Starscream" has entered pop-culture as a term to describe someone who seems more dedicated to fucking his own team over in ostensible pursuit of power than to actually beating the guys he's supposed to fight.

*'''Soundwave''' A major character for the Decepticons as Megatron's legitimately loyal number two. Is also the biggest source of nostalgia because he turns into a fucking tapedeck.<strike>Even though he lacks a personality</strike>'''SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR; PAGE WRITER INFERIOR''', he manages to be awesome merely through dogged determination and because he's the one guy who'll never give anyone any bullshit. He has a bunch of minions who turn into cassettes (or goddamn guitars in Animated's case), but the main ones are '''Rumble''' (Whose arms turn into piledrivers so he can cause earthquakes), '''Frenzy''' (Who has a sonic scream), '''Ravage''' (A fucking robot jaguar who turns into a cassette), '''Laserbeak''' and '''Buzzsaw''' (robot birds), and '''Ratbat''' (a robot bat). The IDW comic gave him an origin about how he used to be homeless due to his mind reading powers until Laserbeak and Ravage found him and helped him control them.

*'''Shockwave''': The real mad scientist of the Decepticons, whose arm is a gun and also turned into a gun in G1 (a giant flying gun). While he's also pretty loyal to Megatron, he's nowhere near Soundwave levels because his true loyalty is to pure logic. Most series has him have some involvement with the Dinobots, either by creating them, or just they have major beef with him (he doesn't give a shit as he has better things to do). He's another guy who happened to be blessed by [[Steve Blum]] in the Cybertron series. The IDW comics gave him an origin about how he used to be an idealistic Noblebright senator (and Optimus BFF) until he got unpersoned and mutilated. Ouch.

*'''Unicron''': Unicron was originally introduced as the big bad for the '86 movie, a planet-sized, planet-eating bringer of doom (basically, if Galactus was the Death Star), voiced by ''the'' Orson Welles in his last role. The third season episode "Call of the Primitives" revealed his original, long since abandoned, origin as a planet-destroying creation of an alien mad scientist. Later media, beginning with the Marvel comics, changed his origin to Transformers Satan, a god-like destroyer tricked into trapping himself inside a planet, but learned how to possess the world and reshape it into his own image. That fucking anime trilogy not only pulled this interpretation back, but made it "official", saying there's only one Unicron in the entire multiverse - at least, they tried. The comics pay more attention to it, but the shows tend to avoid it; witness Prime, where Unicron is actually sleeping at the heart of Earth instead of running around eating planets.

*'''Primus''': The Emprah to Unicron's Chaos God, except he's an actual god... who actually transformed into a planet and fell asleep for a fuckton of years. In this form, he became Cybertron and created the Cybertronian race. Like Satan!Unicron, he hails from the 80's comics and didn't make an appearance on screen (other than references to a pseudo-Bible named the "Covenant of Primus" in ''Beast Wars'') until the Energon Trilogy, which is where he's stayed.

==Generation One==
The original, the alpha iteration, the place where it all to began. At the time, it was just called "The Transformers", with a cartoon by the same name for three seasons (and two more seasons in Japan) from 1984-87 and the animated film "The Transformers: The Movie" in 1986. The movie's soundtrack is awesomely 80's, and it features the amazing song "The Touch" when Optimus Prime fights Megatron. Quite literally, this movie shit all over Bay's multi-million crappers. Issue was that the movie was so good that it marked the peak for the young franchise and it began a downhill slide from there, with the show scrambling to cope with all the losses (yeah, lots of people died here. Even Optimus), while the toys began getting gimmickier without getting better.

The "Generation One" title was applied retroactively after Hasbro released the "Generation 2" line in 1993. By the way, G2 was the reason Transformers was considered dead for most of the 90's. The comic was that cheap sort of "gritty for no real reason" the 90's was infamous for and the toys had pretty much burned themselves out and no gimmick could really help them on that. There was also a shortl-ived "Transformers G2" show, but it was just G1 with new CGI openings/endings and scene changes, so it only lasted a few episodes before flopping.

Of note is that if you want to experience G1 without having to dig up the eps from some torrent or Netflix, you can get ''Transformers Devastation'', which is essentially a G1 ep in vidya form produced by Platinum Studios, the guys responsible for balls-to-the-walls hypefests like ''Metal Gear Rising'', ''Bayonetta'', and ''The Wonderful 101'' (aka /m/ the game). Most of the actors are present, there's murderfests and speed, and big bosses. Also you get to run idiots over (but no pedestrians). Only letdown is the short length of the game and the lack of a Decepticon story and Abominus.

==Beast Wars==
The first Western-released sequel to G1 (there were two Japanese-only continuations to G1 that never got released outside of Japan and the G2 comic mentioned above), a CGI show created by Mainframe (also responsible for [[Reboot]] and [[War Planets]]). Set up as a "loose sequel" to G1, it involves new transformer races called "Maximals" (Autobots) and "Predacons" (Decepticons).

A Predacon terrorist leader styling himself after the original Megatron, including taking his name, hijacks an artifact with a mysterious connection to Megatron the first and goes on the run into deep space with a band of terrorists, planning on restarting the Great War and this time causing a Predacon victory. A Maximal deep-space exploration vessel commanded by Optimus Primal attempts to intercept, and both vessels end up stranded on a mysterious alien world, where an overabundance of raw energon forces them to adopt the forms of local fauna to preserve themselves. The two forces promptly start trying to wipe each other out and then escape the planet. There's also a sideplot involving an ancient alien civilization that ends itself just before the Season 3 finale.

They would eventually find out that this strange world was actually Earth, which was where Megatron II was trying to get all along, and they find the wreckage of the Ark of the original series, when new Megatron decides to headshot Prime in order to change the future for his benefit. It kinda flops when new Optimus takes part of old Optimus's soul, gets another upgrade, and becomes sorta-truck. It inspires Megatron II to try the same trick with his namesake, turning himself into a huge firebreathing dragon-bot.

Though Hasbro would mostly consign this story to oblivion after Beast Machines, the characters of Blackarachnia (sexy spider-bot who changes from evil to good thanks to love) and Waspinator (the walking punching bag who the heroes almost invariably blow up only to be fixed later), along with the concept of the Spark (essentially, Transformers' souls) would be re-used in later eras. More importantly, this show saved the franchise after Generation 2 almost killed it.

==Beast Machines==
Sequel series to ''Beast Wars''. On returning to Cybertron, our heroes are attacked by armies of transforming cookie-cutter drones. It eventually turns out that Megatron broke free from the Maximals' prison and flew back to Cybertron before them; he infected the entire planet with a cyber-virus that put them all into comas, ripped out their hearts/souls and stashed them in some hidden bunker, and melted down their bodies to rebuild them into mindless robot slaves.

Awesomely grimdark concept, but hampered by two huge flaws. Firstly, a super-annoying green aesop, which was very clumsily handled because this is a planet of talking robots, not nature. More importantly, major character derailment -- it was made by a different team to ''Beast Wars'', and they weren't even allowed to watch the first series to familiarize themselves with how the Maximals were supposed to behave, so it'd be "more accessible".

Probably why Hasbro only recycles G1 instead of trying to do its own thing with new shows, the way these two shows did. Even though it was their own damn fault because they ''made'' this series into what it turned out being. Time has been kinder to it, though, after the initial rage and denouncement.

==Robots in Disguise==
An obscure anime that came out roughly a few months before ''Armada''. Best known for its gag dub and general comedic focus that makes it surprisingly laughable, and certainly more fun to watch than any of the ''Energon Trilogy''. Usually forgotten about, except for the fact that Megatron here has six fucking modes of transformation (ten after upgrading to Galvatron). General consensus is that is far from the best or worst series, it's just "meh."

Funnily enough, there is also another series that got the same name in 2015, this one being a bit more notable, if only because this time Prime's relegated to the Obi-Wan, while Bumblebee (once again with a voice) has to take command of an ex-con, a stickler, and slightly-smarter Grimlock in helping some kid and his dad's junkyard and detaining runaway Decepticon inmates, all of whom aren't related to the main bads, so some originality there. There was a 'con in it called Slapper. That is all.

==Energon Trilogy==
Comprised of the shows ''Armada'', ''Energon'', and ''Cybertron'', which are also called the ''Unicron Trilogy'' due to the antagonist's return to the spotlight after being virtually nonexistent since The Movie. Anime reinterpretation of G1, decaying from "poor but watchable" to "completely unwatchable drek" for all the reasons people hate [[/a/]]: bad dubbing, overly lengthy scenes of nothing, a shift to crappy CGI, and a plot that is so terribly paced and search-questy that you'd be praying for your GM to be railroading this. On the plus-side: competent badass Starscream (who unfortunately inspired a whole generation of Linkin Park listening wannabes). On the downside: far too much focus on humans and not enough on giant robots trying to kill each other. Kicker, from the later series, is considered one of the worst human sidekicks the Transformers have ever had.

It has been said that, for all the failings of ''Beast Machines'', at least it's better than this trilogy. That at least had the mercy of ending in two half-sized seasons instead of three full-sized ones.

==Michael Bay Films==
The dark force known as Michael Bay bought Transformers back as a series of live-action + CGI movies. Considered the [[Matt Ward]] of the Transformers universe, Bay's movies are rage-inducing [[fail]]s that have far too much focus on annoying human characters and on lowbrow humor. Seriously, in the first movie, we don't get to see an Autobot for, like, thirty minutes while dealing with very bland characters who get billed way too much, and we have to facepalm our way through an awful gag about Bumblebee basically ''pissing on a guy''. The second one is no better with two black/redneck stereotypes as ''heroes'', a gag about balls, and a two-for-one gag about farting/incontinence - from a Transformer, no less. Real classy, Bay.

About the only shallow redeeming qualities it has is that the CGI Transformers look amazing (even if some neckbeards have cracked up over how they're "not accurate" to the G1 character modes), the fight scenes are suitably glorious for giant alien death-machines ripping each other to pieces, and most importantly is it has introduced Transformers to a whole new generation of fans, who can hopefully be shown the good stuff instead of thinking this garbage is the true representative of the setting.

After the trilogy Bay made a fourth movie which actually manages to make some considerable improvements (not that it was that hard), like a lot more of focus on Optimus Prime, killing the scrappy comic relief during the first part of the movie and more consistent fighting scenes, plus DINOBOTS! charging the enemy. There is also more grimdark as Optimus finally decides enough is enough after having tried to protect mankind for more than five years while having his whole team slaughtered by those he sworn to protect and pulls a gun against a human frakker who was teaming up with the mercenary Lockdown to kill Autobots and use their remains to make their own giant robots that turn into cars (Except this time it's like the T-1000 where they turn into nanobot swarms). On the downside, though, the humans are still pointless tagalongs (though this is a new set of humans, no Shia Lebouf to be found here), pointless stereotypes (Like Weeaboo Samurai-bot Drift, Crosshairs, who for some reason gets a fucking trenchcoat when he transforms, and Hound, who somehow has a cigar and a wire-beard), and the ridiculous need to hammer in the "us vs. them" mentality between the humans making their own Transformers and Lockdown trying to kill Optimus because he's betrayed their makers by siding with the humans.

==Animated==
G1 inspired series with notoriously unusual but smooth animation. This time, Optimus Prime and his crew are lowly space janitors who stumble across a superweapon from the Great War and have to defend it against Megatron ('''GIVING HIM A GODDAMN ENGLISH ACCENT FUCK YES'''), who seeks to use it to restart the war and this time ensure Decepticon victory. This version's Optimus is much younger and less experienced than usual; funnily enough, he was voiced by the actor who voiced Megatron in Beast Wars. Generally noted for having the best human sidekick (who turns out to really be part-transformer anyways). The other Autobots also tend to have some interesting characterizations from "Complete dumb muscle who actually knows everything about building [[Webway|Space Bridges]]" Bulkhead to "[[Weeaboo]] Robo-Ninja" Prowl to "MY EGO IS AS BIG AS MY CHIN AND MY ASSHOLEITUDE IS EVEN BIGGER!" Sentinel Prime. The Decepticons sometimes do better vis ze German schizophrenic Blitzwing, the [[Lorgar|borderline-religiously loyal]] Lugnut, and badass robo-Clint Eastwood Lockdown.

The series was weird in that alongside the Decepticons were also some gimmicky human villains from a Shakespearean Robin Hood knockoff to a cute little girl who's a mad scientist to another mad scientist who rips off Transformer heads to replicate an old G1 gimmick. These villains were a bit ridiculous, but it helped break up the monotony of the constant 'con fighting, especially when Megatron was reduced to a state worse than [[Abaddon]] as a head. The creators came up with the idea to emphasize just how dangerous the 'cons are, compared to their Autobot opponents; when ''one'' 'con shows up, it's an emergency that takes the whole team to try and pull out a win. Hell, ''Starscream'' could beat up the entire Autobot team in his first few appearances before they figured out how to handle him.

==Cybertron Series==
There were many, MANY, video games made for every part of the Transformers, but most of them ranged from forgettable to utter shit. The closest these guys got to a good original game series (so no whining about the Movie-Games) were the games ''War for Cybertron'' and ''Fall of Cybertron'', both made by High Moon Studios.

These games act as the [[Horus Heresy]] to G1's 40K by explaining how Optimus became a leader and how Megatron became a dictator while their war and its demand eventually destroyed their homeworld. While the gameplay itself isn't much more than a basic third-person shooter, the vast amount of references to the rest of the series and the rather well-written story and characters make it stand out, ''Fall of Cybertron'' may be considered the most grimdark setting of the whole series while not being as totally ham-handed like Beast Machines. It also helps that the second game gave some bonus variety in some segments by giving you a level as a FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR named Grimlock, and another where you get to play as a combiner (who has an awesome helicopter-arm, but is otherwise not very memorable besides being huge) (Ah come on man don't be down on Bruticus, it's not his fault he's a dumbass). Overall great fights, no crappy human sidekicks, awesome OST and all the grimdarkness needed to make any neckbeard enjoy it quite much, also ESCALATION mode will ensure you endless hours of good bloodless carnage.

There is a third game -sorta- called ''Rise of the Dark Spark'', which decides to make the stupid decision of merging this series to the Bayformers continuity. It was released as tie in game with fourth movie and has less of budget, clearly shown with its number of glitches, lack of variety in levels (mostly just enemies till the game lets you move on) and downright ugly environments for the levels set on Earth. The only thing to remember is that the Cybertron segments are still awesome, while later parts will just shoehorn you with mutebee and Drift (who at least has an awesome special attack), with one level playing as Grimlock again and lacking any Decepticon plot post-Cybertron.

==Prime==
G1 inspired CGI series that somehow salvages the fairly decent elements of Michael Bay's crapfest movies (e.g. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their respective roles, artstyle, some character elements/background lore, [[Rip and Tear]]) and crafts an awesome show out of it. Animation is fucking amazing, with fight scenes that rival if not trump the Michael Bay films. Very dark and gritty as well, where one of the Autobots [[Awesome|(voiced by the Rock himself, mind you)]], gets whacked in ''the first episode.'' Also, [[what|blue energon as blood.]] A few other things of note; this is where the funny "Steve the Vehicon" meme originated from and this series is known to poke fun as the old G1 series (most notably Starscream's null ray and a joke about the Dinobots).

Biggest major problem is Miko, who is tied with Kicker (from the abovementioned ''Energon Trilogy'') for the title "worst human sidekick in a Transformers show, ever!" Obnoxiously gungho and always charging off into danger, even when told not to, invariably making things worse for the Autobots in the process. Still, this series easily has some of the best human characters, most notably Agent Fowler, who trolls Starscream while getting tortured by him.

Then there's Predacons Rising; the made-for-tv movie meant to serve as a series finale... it was questionable at best. Plot holes everywhere, very little focus on the actual Predacons in the title, and characters doing stupid and random things to simply fit the plot. It was basically a segue into the next series; Robots in Disguise.

== See Also ==
While no official roleplaying or tabletop games exist, the idea of "giant robots turning into vehicles" is so cool that lots of homebrew and independent mecha RPGs include mechas or characters that are ''totally NOT the Transformers, we swear!'' For example:

* [[Giant Guardian Generation]]
* [[Horizon]] - Mechamorphosis is literally "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off, done by way of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.5".
* [[Mechagenasis]] - Another "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off" game, this time done for [[True20]].
* [[Battlechangers]] - Blatantly Transformers-based RPG, in both an original version and a [[Pathfinder]] version (Battlechangers Ironworks).
* [[Mekton]] - Extremely flexible with what it can do: the rules for transforming are simple (as far as Mekton goes anyway) and adapting to a Transformers setting is as easy as actually reading up on them, but the game's hilariously broken.
* [[Rifts]] - Some homebrew stuff floating around on the net for playing Transformers exists. Pity it relies on the godawful RIFTS mechanics...
* [[Codex: Transformers]] - A case of 1d4chan getting shit done, adapting Transformers into yet another [[Warhammer 40000]] faction.
* [[Setting:Transformers]] - A tie-in article to the above trying to develop the lore to explain why Codex: Transformers is a thing.

== External Links ==
* [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page TFWiki.net], a wiki dedicated to all things Transformers. They take a pretty laid-back, humorous approach to their material that will be familiar to readers of this wiki (although usually not so profane).

[[Category:Not related]]

Transformers

2017-04-07T06:53:41Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB: /* Main Guys */

[[File:Generation 1 by DonFig.jpg|850px|thumbnail|right|And these are just your characters from G1!]]
'''Transformers''' is a series of Robot Toys created by [[Hasbro]] and Takara Tomy that typically turn into cars and other vehicles. Robots are cool, cars are cool and so they became popular. In 1984 they made some comics and a cartoon show. The comics show created a lot of toy sales and the toys kept the shows and comics popular. Over the years they changed things up to sell more toys and new series were made, some worked quite well (Beast Wars, Prime) others did not (Armada, Energon, Cybertron).

Why does this have no tabletop or role playing game? Only [[/co/|comics, cartoons,]] [[/a/|anime,]] [[/v/|and finally video games.]] So much potential. Seriously, it's a setting about sentient, shapeshifting robots fighting a war that spans motivations from political to racial to theological. Hasbro owns [[Magic: The Gathering]] and [[Dungeons & Dragons]] via [[Wizards of the Coast]], so it's not like they've never done tabletop stuff before. How the fuck has nobody realised the money-making potential there?

==Main Guys==
As the series come and go, a certain bevvy of characters seem to be archetypal to the Transformers. Not helped by the fact that, ever since the flop of ''Beast Machines'' and the riotous financial successes of the Bay, Hasbro seems to only ever stick with recycling Generation One, with some other characters jumping continuities. These are the Transformers who appear in some form or another in every iteration of the setting.

*'''Optimus Prime''': Leader of the Autobots, [[Lawful Good]] to the computer-core, the Big Red Hero-bot himself. There's always an Optimus leading the Autobots, and he usually turns into some kind of red truck or hauler. His name is the Latin words for "best" and "first", and he really is both. In the original show (and in the Michael Bay movies -- one of the decent things about them -- and Transformers Prime and the Cybertron games), he was voiced by Peter Cullen, whose awesome deep voice you probably hear in your head whenever you read any of his dialogue. Check it out: ''"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."'' Also has the record of dying the most times out of anyone ever, making one wonder how the hell the GM lets him get away with it each time. Might be because he always goes out fighting, never like a punk.

*'''Megatron''': If there's an Optimus Prime, there's always a Megatron, the Evil (of some flavor, depending on the series) to his Lawful Good. Megsy remains pretty consistent throughout his appearances, usually varying only in what level of honor he has (which usually depends on his backstory; sometimes he started as a charismatic gladiator turned freedom fighter against the corrupt Cybertronian government -- [[Angron]], anyone? -- but sometimes he's just nuts) and/or how much of a cold-blooded psychopath he is. He used to turn into a gun (which could inexplicably shrink down to be small enough to be wielded by another Decepticon or even the occasional ''human''), with the <s>barrel</s> scope giving him a wicked arm cannon in robot mode, but nowadays he usually turns into a tank or a jet. He was first voiced by Frank Welker, whose versatile voice was also used for just about every other Decepticon except for Starscream (and probably at least one role in just about every cartoon ever made), though David Kaye also did a bang-up job in Beast Wars, ''yeeesss''.
**'''Galvatron''':Whenever there is a Megatron there is a Galvatron. He's everything you love about the M taken up to eleven. This guy is seriously bad news, he's probably insane and violent enough to give Doombreed pause and he's probably the strongest non-God transformer there is in G1 comics it takes a friggin' time vortex to finally put him down. Originally voiced by Leonard Nimoy (that's right, Spock voiced this psycho) after a dying Megatron had a lovely chat with Unicron. He had a pretty new identity forced onto him. Didn't work for long though; Galvy kind of went off the reservation pretty quickly.

*'''Bumblebee''': The yellow kid-friendly one, he's usually the main one to interact with the resident token humans. He usually turns into a sports car. Can be surprisingly badass in some adaptations -- his ''Beast Wars'' counterpart, Cheetor, went on to basically take Optimus Primal's place as leader of the Maximals in ''Beast Machines''. However, thanks to the abominations of Michael Bay, he will probably never speak again. Not that his VA was good or anything, mind, but that "mute who talks only in radio quotes/beeps and boops like a 60s robot" shit just gets ANNOYING.

*'''Grimlock''': A fuckmothering [[AWESOME|robot Tyrannosaurus]] that usually breathes fire. He also has a pack of other robot dinosaurs called the '''Dinobots'''. He's not exactly smart (well sometimes, he's either a stupid beast or a no nonsense leader with a speech problem), but who cares about that? HE'LL FUCKING EAT YOU. No seriously he once ripped Shockwave's arm off and ate it.

*'''Starscream''': Megatron's loud-mouthed, whiny, scheming, sneaky, backstabbing second-in-command who always wants to lead the Decepticons, but is neither strong enough to bump Megsy off and take his place, [[Sindri Myr|smart enough to trick him to his death]], or [[Eliphas|charismatic enough to persuade others he wouldn't be as bad a boss]]. Sometimes Megatron himself wonders why he keeps Starscream around, but (when the writers remember) he is actually an extremely competent air commander who just happens to have a bunch of recolored clones, including a [[Rule 63]] one. He usually turns into the latest and greatest fighter jet (unless he's turning into some Cybertronian future-jet) -- historically an F-15, F-16, or F-22. In the original cartoon, his catchphrase (delivered in the classic 80s-villain screech -- in fact, his first voice actor also voiced the similarly screechy Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe) was probably ''"Decepticons, RETREEEAT!"'' Was also voiced by fucking Tom ''"Spongebob Squarepants"'' Kenny in Animated; man, is that a blow to your dignity. Nowadays, though, he's more consistently competent (and given a more menacing voice by [[Steve Blum]] in Transformers Prime). Is such a total backstabbing traitor that "The Starscream" has entered pop-culture as a term to describe someone who seems more dedicated to fucking his own team over in ostensible pursuit of power than to actually beating the guys he's supposed to fight.

*'''Soundwave''' A major character for the Decepticons as Megatron's legitimately loyal number two. Is also the biggest source of nostalgia because he turns into a fucking tapedeck.<strike>Even though he lacks a personality</strike>'''SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR; PAGE WRITER INFERIOR''', he manages to be awesome merely through dogged determination and because he's the one guy who'll never give anyone any bullshit. He has a bunch of minions who turn into cassettes (or goddamn guitars in Animated's case), but the main ones are '''Rumble''' (Whose arms turn into piledrivers so he can cause earthquakes), '''Frenzy''' (Who has a sonic scream), '''Ravage''' (A fucking robot jaguar who turns into a cassette), '''Laserbeak''' and '''Buzzsaw''' (robot birds), and '''Ratbat''' (a robot bat). The IDW comic gave him an origin about how he used to be homeless due to his mind reading powers until Laserbeak and Ravage found him and helped him control them.

*'''Shockwave''': The real mad scientist of the Decepticons, whose arm is a gun and also turned into a gun in G1 (a giant flying gun). While he's also pretty loyal to Megatron, he's nowhere near Soundwave levels because his true loyalty is to pure logic. Most series has him have some involvement with the Dinobots, either by creating them, or just they have major beef with him (he doesn't give a shit as he has better things to do). He's another guy who happened to be blessed by [[Steve Blum]] in the Cybertron series. The IDW comics gave him an origin about how he used to be an idealistic Noblebright senator (and Optimus BFF) until he got mutilated and unpersoned. Ouch.

*'''Unicron''': Unicron was originally introduced as the big bad for the '86 movie, a planet-sized, planet-eating bringer of doom (basically, if Galactus was the Death Star), voiced by ''the'' Orson Welles in his last role. The third season episode "Call of the Primitives" revealed his original, long since abandoned, origin as a planet-destroying creation of an alien mad scientist. Later media, beginning with the Marvel comics, changed his origin to Transformers Satan, a god-like destroyer tricked into trapping himself inside a planet, but learned how to possess the world and reshape it into his own image. That fucking anime trilogy not only pulled this interpretation back, but made it "official", saying there's only one Unicron in the entire multiverse - at least, they tried. The comics pay more attention to it, but the shows tend to avoid it; witness Prime, where Unicron is actually sleeping at the heart of Earth instead of running around eating planets.

*'''Primus''': The Emprah to Unicron's Chaos God, except he's an actual god... who actually transformed into a planet and fell asleep for a fuckton of years. In this form, he became Cybertron and created the Cybertronian race. Like Satan!Unicron, he hails from the 80's comics and didn't make an appearance on screen (other than references to a pseudo-Bible named the "Covenant of Primus" in ''Beast Wars'') until the Energon Trilogy, which is where he's stayed.

==Generation One==
The original, the alpha iteration, the place where it all to began. At the time, it was just called "The Transformers", with a cartoon by the same name for three seasons (and two more seasons in Japan) from 1984-87 and the animated film "The Transformers: The Movie" in 1986. The movie's soundtrack is awesomely 80's, and it features the amazing song "The Touch" when Optimus Prime fights Megatron. Quite literally, this movie shit all over Bay's multi-million crappers. Issue was that the movie was so good that it marked the peak for the young franchise and it began a downhill slide from there, with the show scrambling to cope with all the losses (yeah, lots of people died here. Even Optimus), while the toys began getting gimmickier without getting better.

The "Generation One" title was applied retroactively after Hasbro released the "Generation 2" line in 1993. By the way, G2 was the reason Transformers was considered dead for most of the 90's. The comic was that cheap sort of "gritty for no real reason" the 90's was infamous for and the toys had pretty much burned themselves out and no gimmick could really help them on that. There was also a shortl-ived "Transformers G2" show, but it was just G1 with new CGI openings/endings and scene changes, so it only lasted a few episodes before flopping.

Of note is that if you want to experience G1 without having to dig up the eps from some torrent or Netflix, you can get ''Transformers Devastation'', which is essentially a G1 ep in vidya form produced by Platinum Studios, the guys responsible for balls-to-the-walls hypefests like ''Metal Gear Rising'', ''Bayonetta'', and ''The Wonderful 101'' (aka /m/ the game). Most of the actors are present, there's murderfests and speed, and big bosses. Also you get to run idiots over (but no pedestrians). Only letdown is the short length of the game and the lack of a Decepticon story and Abominus.

==Beast Wars==
The first Western-released sequel to G1 (there were two Japanese-only continuations to G1 that never got released outside of Japan and the G2 comic mentioned above), a CGI show created by Mainframe (also responsible for [[Reboot]] and [[War Planets]]). Set up as a "loose sequel" to G1, it involves new transformer races called "Maximals" (Autobots) and "Predacons" (Decepticons).

A Predacon terrorist leader styling himself after the original Megatron, including taking his name, hijacks an artifact with a mysterious connection to Megatron the first and goes on the run into deep space with a band of terrorists, planning on restarting the Great War and this time causing a Predacon victory. A Maximal deep-space exploration vessel commanded by Optimus Primal attempts to intercept, and both vessels end up stranded on a mysterious alien world, where an overabundance of raw energon forces them to adopt the forms of local fauna to preserve themselves. The two forces promptly start trying to wipe each other out and then escape the planet. There's also a sideplot involving an ancient alien civilization that ends itself just before the Season 3 finale.

They would eventually find out that this strange world was actually Earth, which was where Megatron II was trying to get all along, and they find the wreckage of the Ark of the original series, when new Megatron decides to headshot Prime in order to change the future for his benefit. It kinda flops when new Optimus takes part of old Optimus's soul, gets another upgrade, and becomes sorta-truck. It inspires Megatron II to try the same trick with his namesake, turning himself into a huge firebreathing dragon-bot.

Though Hasbro would mostly consign this story to oblivion after Beast Machines, the characters of Blackarachnia (sexy spider-bot who changes from evil to good thanks to love) and Waspinator (the walking punching bag who the heroes almost invariably blow up only to be fixed later), along with the concept of the Spark (essentially, Transformers' souls) would be re-used in later eras. More importantly, this show saved the franchise after Generation 2 almost killed it.

==Beast Machines==
Sequel series to ''Beast Wars''. On returning to Cybertron, our heroes are attacked by armies of transforming cookie-cutter drones. It eventually turns out that Megatron broke free from the Maximals' prison and flew back to Cybertron before them; he infected the entire planet with a cyber-virus that put them all into comas, ripped out their hearts/souls and stashed them in some hidden bunker, and melted down their bodies to rebuild them into mindless robot slaves.

Awesomely grimdark concept, but hampered by two huge flaws. Firstly, a super-annoying green aesop, which was very clumsily handled because this is a planet of talking robots, not nature. More importantly, major character derailment -- it was made by a different team to ''Beast Wars'', and they weren't even allowed to watch the first series to familiarize themselves with how the Maximals were supposed to behave, so it'd be "more accessible".

Probably why Hasbro only recycles G1 instead of trying to do its own thing with new shows, the way these two shows did. Even though it was their own damn fault because they ''made'' this series into what it turned out being. Time has been kinder to it, though, after the initial rage and denouncement.

==Robots in Disguise==
An obscure anime that came out roughly a few months before ''Armada''. Best known for its gag dub and general comedic focus that makes it surprisingly laughable, and certainly more fun to watch than any of the ''Energon Trilogy''. Usually forgotten about, except for the fact that Megatron here has six fucking modes of transformation (ten after upgrading to Galvatron). General consensus is that is far from the best or worst series, it's just "meh."

Funnily enough, there is also another series that got the same name in 2015, this one being a bit more notable, if only because this time Prime's relegated to the Obi-Wan, while Bumblebee (once again with a voice) has to take command of an ex-con, a stickler, and slightly-smarter Grimlock in helping some kid and his dad's junkyard and detaining runaway Decepticon inmates, all of whom aren't related to the main bads, so some originality there. There was a 'con in it called Slapper. That is all.

==Energon Trilogy==
Comprised of the shows ''Armada'', ''Energon'', and ''Cybertron'', which are also called the ''Unicron Trilogy'' due to the antagonist's return to the spotlight after being virtually nonexistent since The Movie. Anime reinterpretation of G1, decaying from "poor but watchable" to "completely unwatchable drek" for all the reasons people hate [[/a/]]: bad dubbing, overly lengthy scenes of nothing, a shift to crappy CGI, and a plot that is so terribly paced and search-questy that you'd be praying for your GM to be railroading this. On the plus-side: competent badass Starscream (who unfortunately inspired a whole generation of Linkin Park listening wannabes). On the downside: far too much focus on humans and not enough on giant robots trying to kill each other. Kicker, from the later series, is considered one of the worst human sidekicks the Transformers have ever had.

It has been said that, for all the failings of ''Beast Machines'', at least it's better than this trilogy. That at least had the mercy of ending in two half-sized seasons instead of three full-sized ones.

==Michael Bay Films==
The dark force known as Michael Bay bought Transformers back as a series of live-action + CGI movies. Considered the [[Matt Ward]] of the Transformers universe, Bay's movies are rage-inducing [[fail]]s that have far too much focus on annoying human characters and on lowbrow humor. Seriously, in the first movie, we don't get to see an Autobot for, like, thirty minutes while dealing with very bland characters who get billed way too much, and we have to facepalm our way through an awful gag about Bumblebee basically ''pissing on a guy''. The second one is no better with two black/redneck stereotypes as ''heroes'', a gag about balls, and a two-for-one gag about farting/incontinence - from a Transformer, no less. Real classy, Bay.

About the only shallow redeeming qualities it has is that the CGI Transformers look amazing (even if some neckbeards have cracked up over how they're "not accurate" to the G1 character modes), the fight scenes are suitably glorious for giant alien death-machines ripping each other to pieces, and most importantly is it has introduced Transformers to a whole new generation of fans, who can hopefully be shown the good stuff instead of thinking this garbage is the true representative of the setting.

After the trilogy Bay made a fourth movie which actually manages to make some considerable improvements (not that it was that hard), like a lot more of focus on Optimus Prime, killing the scrappy comic relief during the first part of the movie and more consistent fighting scenes, plus DINOBOTS! charging the enemy. There is also more grimdark as Optimus finally decides enough is enough after having tried to protect mankind for more than five years while having his whole team slaughtered by those he sworn to protect and pulls a gun against a human frakker who was teaming up with the mercenary Lockdown to kill Autobots and use their remains to make their own giant robots that turn into cars (Except this time it's like the T-1000 where they turn into nanobot swarms). On the downside, though, the humans are still pointless tagalongs (though this is a new set of humans, no Shia Lebouf to be found here), pointless stereotypes (Like Weeaboo Samurai-bot Drift, Crosshairs, who for some reason gets a fucking trenchcoat when he transforms, and Hound, who somehow has a cigar and a wire-beard), and the ridiculous need to hammer in the "us vs. them" mentality between the humans making their own Transformers and Lockdown trying to kill Optimus because he's betrayed their makers by siding with the humans.

==Animated==
G1 inspired series with notoriously unusual but smooth animation. This time, Optimus Prime and his crew are lowly space janitors who stumble across a superweapon from the Great War and have to defend it against Megatron ('''GIVING HIM A GODDAMN ENGLISH ACCENT FUCK YES'''), who seeks to use it to restart the war and this time ensure Decepticon victory. This version's Optimus is much younger and less experienced than usual; funnily enough, he was voiced by the actor who voiced Megatron in Beast Wars. Generally noted for having the best human sidekick (who turns out to really be part-transformer anyways). The other Autobots also tend to have some interesting characterizations from "Complete dumb muscle who actually knows everything about building [[Webway|Space Bridges]]" Bulkhead to "[[Weeaboo]] Robo-Ninja" Prowl to "MY EGO IS AS BIG AS MY CHIN AND MY ASSHOLEITUDE IS EVEN BIGGER!" Sentinel Prime. The Decepticons sometimes do better vis ze German schizophrenic Blitzwing, the [[Lorgar|borderline-religiously loyal]] Lugnut, and badass robo-Clint Eastwood Lockdown.

The series was weird in that alongside the Decepticons were also some gimmicky human villains from a Shakespearean Robin Hood knockoff to a cute little girl who's a mad scientist to another mad scientist who rips off Transformer heads to replicate an old G1 gimmick. These villains were a bit ridiculous, but it helped break up the monotony of the constant 'con fighting, especially when Megatron was reduced to a state worse than [[Abaddon]] as a head. The creators came up with the idea to emphasize just how dangerous the 'cons are, compared to their Autobot opponents; when ''one'' 'con shows up, it's an emergency that takes the whole team to try and pull out a win. Hell, ''Starscream'' could beat up the entire Autobot team in his first few appearances before they figured out how to handle him.

==Cybertron Series==
There were many, MANY, video games made for every part of the Transformers, but most of them ranged from forgettable to utter shit. The closest these guys got to a good original game series (so no whining about the Movie-Games) were the games ''War for Cybertron'' and ''Fall of Cybertron'', both made by High Moon Studios.

These games act as the [[Horus Heresy]] to G1's 40K by explaining how Optimus became a leader and how Megatron became a dictator while their war and its demand eventually destroyed their homeworld. While the gameplay itself isn't much more than a basic third-person shooter, the vast amount of references to the rest of the series and the rather well-written story and characters make it stand out, ''Fall of Cybertron'' may be considered the most grimdark setting of the whole series while not being as totally ham-handed like Beast Machines. It also helps that the second game gave some bonus variety in some segments by giving you a level as a FUCKING ROBOT DINOSAUR named Grimlock, and another where you get to play as a combiner (who has an awesome helicopter-arm, but is otherwise not very memorable besides being huge) (Ah come on man don't be down on Bruticus, it's not his fault he's a dumbass). Overall great fights, no crappy human sidekicks, awesome OST and all the grimdarkness needed to make any neckbeard enjoy it quite much, also ESCALATION mode will ensure you endless hours of good bloodless carnage.

There is a third game -sorta- called ''Rise of the Dark Spark'', which decides to make the stupid decision of merging this series to the Bayformers continuity. It was released as tie in game with fourth movie and has less of budget, clearly shown with its number of glitches, lack of variety in levels (mostly just enemies till the game lets you move on) and downright ugly environments for the levels set on Earth. The only thing to remember is that the Cybertron segments are still awesome, while later parts will just shoehorn you with mutebee and Drift (who at least has an awesome special attack), with one level playing as Grimlock again and lacking any Decepticon plot post-Cybertron.

==Prime==
G1 inspired CGI series that somehow salvages the fairly decent elements of Michael Bay's crapfest movies (e.g. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their respective roles, artstyle, some character elements/background lore, [[Rip and Tear]]) and crafts an awesome show out of it. Animation is fucking amazing, with fight scenes that rival if not trump the Michael Bay films. Very dark and gritty as well, where one of the Autobots [[Awesome|(voiced by the Rock himself, mind you)]], gets whacked in ''the first episode.'' Also, [[what|blue energon as blood.]] A few other things of note; this is where the funny "Steve the Vehicon" meme originated from and this series is known to poke fun as the old G1 series (most notably Starscream's null ray and a joke about the Dinobots).

Biggest major problem is Miko, who is tied with Kicker (from the abovementioned ''Energon Trilogy'') for the title "worst human sidekick in a Transformers show, ever!" Obnoxiously gungho and always charging off into danger, even when told not to, invariably making things worse for the Autobots in the process. Still, this series easily has some of the best human characters, most notably Agent Fowler, who trolls Starscream while getting tortured by him.

Then there's Predacons Rising; the made-for-tv movie meant to serve as a series finale... it was questionable at best. Plot holes everywhere, very little focus on the actual Predacons in the title, and characters doing stupid and random things to simply fit the plot. It was basically a segue into the next series; Robots in Disguise.

== See Also ==
While no official roleplaying or tabletop games exist, the idea of "giant robots turning into vehicles" is so cool that lots of homebrew and independent mecha RPGs include mechas or characters that are ''totally NOT the Transformers, we swear!'' For example:

* [[Giant Guardian Generation]]
* [[Horizon]] - Mechamorphosis is literally "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off, done by way of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 3.5".
* [[Mechagenasis]] - Another "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off" game, this time done for [[True20]].
* [[Battlechangers]] - Blatantly Transformers-based RPG, in both an original version and a [[Pathfinder]] version (Battlechangers Ironworks).
* [[Mekton]] - Extremely flexible with what it can do: the rules for transforming are simple (as far as Mekton goes anyway) and adapting to a Transformers setting is as easy as actually reading up on them, but the game's hilariously broken.
* [[Rifts]] - Some homebrew stuff floating around on the net for playing Transformers exists. Pity it relies on the godawful RIFTS mechanics...
* [[Codex: Transformers]] - A case of 1d4chan getting shit done, adapting Transformers into yet another [[Warhammer 40000]] faction.
* [[Setting:Transformers]] - A tie-in article to the above trying to develop the lore to explain why Codex: Transformers is a thing.

== External Links ==
* [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page TFWiki.net], a wiki dedicated to all things Transformers. They take a pretty laid-back, humorous approach to their material that will be familiar to readers of this wiki (although usually not so profane).

[[Category:Not related]]

Word Bearers

2017-04-07T06:31:50Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB: /* Chaos */ Ferrus Manus has something he'd like to-- oh...

{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = Word Bearers
|Heraldry = [[Image:Post-Heresy Daemon Head.jpg|250px]]
|Battle Cry = Verses from the Book of Lorgar
|Original Name = Imperial Heralds
|Number = XVII
|Primarch = [[Lorgar]]
|Original Homeworld = Colchis
|Current Homeworld = Sicarus
|Champion = [[Erebus]], [[Kor Phaeron]]
|Specialty = Zealotry, use of [[Daemon]]s, spreading Chaos
|Strength = More or less Legion strength
|Allegiance = [[Chaos Undivided]]
|Colours = Dark crimson and steel
}}
''"By its very nature, theology tends - and under certain conditions, must always tend - to become demonology."''

— Thomas Mann, "Doctor Faustus"

''"All I ever wanted was the Truth."''

— Opening Line of the "Book of Lorgar", First Canticle of Chaos

''"If a man speaks about religion and religious institutions too much, he has some shit going on."''

— Kemal Tahir "Women's Ward"

The Word Bearers are a legion of [[Chaos Space Marines]]. Their [[Primarch]] is [[Lorgar]].

==History==
There is a phenomenon of psychology that some people are prone to zealotry. It does not matter what they believe in, they believe in it with all their heart. This type of individual who is likely to end up becoming a fanatical member to a certain ideology will if they somehow become disillusioned with it, often find it easier to adopt an opposing or opposite ideology and be just as fanatical to said new cause rather than simply moderating their commitment to their first ideology as needed and making caveats and exceptions to its general principles (for example, Freedom of Speech is great, but yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded building to start a panic is being an asshole). The Word Bearers are this phenomenon at its most extreme.
===Early History===
[[File:Dark_apostle_by_kunkka.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Why hello there unbeliever. Would you mind a small theological chat?]]
The Emperor used the genetic templates of the Primarchs to create the Legiones Astartes after the powers of Chaos stole the gestating Primarchs. Those who received gene-seed from template number seventeen stood apart from their brother Astartes in duty and outlook. They fought with utter devotion and a fanatical zeal. Their original recruits were drawn from the sons of defeated enemies, raised to know the crimes of their fathers and the price of the Emperor's forgiveness. Thus while the other Legions went to war with righteousness, the XVIIth fought with the cold fury that only the condemned and redeemed could know. While other Legions took some time to acquire formal names, the XVIIth was named the Imperial Heralds almost immediately after their founding. This was due to their early role: to deliver the Emperor's ultimatum of submission or destruction.
Upon defeating an enemy, the Imperial Heralds would empty their libraries and records of any contents deemed heretical or sorcerous. Condemned works, individuals, and buildings would be destroyed in the name of the Imperial Truth (though they also tended to exterminate the entire population of the places they conquered; see Antarctica). The Imperial Heralds repeated this process all across Terra during the Unification Wars. This gave the Imperial Heralds a rarely-spoken nickname among the greater Imperium: the Iconoclasts.

===Great Crusade===

[[File:Daemon world by majesticchicken.jpg|thumb|right|350px|Okay, so the Imperial Cult might not exactly be hot chickenwings with thousand island sauce, but worshipping Chaos might not be the best alternative.]]

The planet Colchis was full of people that worshipped a watered down version of chaos. Primarch XVII was adopted by Kor Phaeron, one of the chief priests, and given the name Lorgar. Lorgar received a vision of the Emperor and formed a religion around him, leading to a six-year religious civil war that Lorgar's faction eventually won, shortly before the Emperor came to Colchis. During the Great Crusade, they bore the word of the Emperor to new worlds, wiping out any traces of dissenting faiths as they assimilated cultures into the Imperial way of life, including enforcing the worship of the God-Emperor.

Their thorough attention to this kept them far behind the pace of other expeditionary fleets and drew the ire of the Emperor. He repeatedly made it clear that he did not consider himself a god and wanted Lorgar to knock it off and catch up with the other fleets. Lorgar responded by penning the original Lectitio Divinitatus, which would much later form the core of the beliefs of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. Finally, the Emperor had enough and ordered the Ultramarines to make an example of him. They torched the world of Khur and called the entire Word Bearers legion to kneel in its ashes before Guilliman, Malcador, and the Emperor.

To say Lorgar was devastated would be an understatement. He spent an entire month in seclusion, taking only the advice of Kor Phaeron and First Chaplain Erebus. They revealed to him that they had kept the old faith alive and that many worlds appeared to have religions that aligned with it, suggesting a more primal truth than worship of the God-Emperor. They convinced Lorgar that the primordial truth was truer than the Imperial Truth and he took his legion on a pilgrimage to the Eye of Terror to learn more about Chaos.

===Chaos===

They were the guys who used to be really, really, really loyal to the [[Emprah]]. Like, these guys used to be the Church of the Emprah. After the [[Horus Heresy]], they became the complete opposite. Now they go around fucking up the Emprah's sepulchre planets, relic worlds, and cardinal worlds, setting up cathedrals to the [[Chaos Gods]] in their places. They are also notable for being the one [[Chaos]] legion to still have [[Chaplain]]s, known as [[Dark Apostle]]s, which is probably because they invented the idea of Space Marine preachers and no other traitor Legions wanted them after the Horus Heresy was over, because there is little sense in having morale officer in Chaos force. Unlike the other Chaos legions and renegade chapters, [[Red Corsairs]] notwithstanding, these guys actually managed to sort of keep their shit together rather than having everyone with a slightly fancier costume take his ball and go home. They're sorta like [[grimdark]] Chaos <s>Taliban</s> <s>Al-Qaeda</s> ISIS. Except the Word Bearers make <s>the Taliban</s> <s>Al-Qaeda</s> ISIS look like peace-loving atheists in comparison.

Their hobbies include human sacrifice, prayers to the [[Chaos Gods]], [[daemon]] summoning, and occult study.

First Chaplain Erebus was actually pretty much the driving force behind Horus turning to Chaos. At the climax of ''Horus Rising'', Erebus steals a weapon from the [[Interex]], which caused them to get all butthurt and blame [[Horus]] and the Luna Wolves for the theft. In the next book, ''False Gods'', Horus and the merry Luna Wolves take a trip to Davin IV on Erebus's advice, during which all hell breaks loose and Horus takes some wounds and comes as close as a [[primarch]] can to a near-death experience (he basically took a nap). [[Abaddon]], having as many daddy issues as Horus, decided it'd be a good idea to follow the advice of Erebus and take Horus to a local temple run by the serpent-worshiping locals, where it was said he could be healed. Erebus sent Horus into a trance and basically whispered sweet nothings about [[Chaos]] into his ear the entire time, planting the very first seed of corruption.

==Organization==
Yeah, we know what you're thinking: organization? Of a Traitor Legion? While it may surprise you, the Word Bearers still function as an organized Legion (though much looser than the Legiones Astartes). Ironically, their uttermost commitment to Chaos as a religion gives them a semblance of order (DOUBLE HERESY?) As such, they have a clearly designated hierarchy and command structure. While Lorgar remains the ultimate master of the Word Bearers, in reality he has allowed command to fall as such:

*'''Master of the Faith''': The de facto head of the Word Bearers in Lorgar's absence, currently held by First Captain [[Kor Phaeron]].

*'''Chief Dark Apostle''': The head of the priesthood, currently held by [[Erebus]].

*'''Dark Council''': A collection of Dark Apostles who oversee the overall actions of the Legion, and confirm the ascension of other Dark Apostles.

*'''Dark Apostle''': spiritual leader of a Host, the primary organization of the Word Bearers following the Horus Heresy. Dark Apostles are confirmed by the Dark Council and in turn make the decisions of the rank and advancement for the Host.

*'''Coryphaus''': The senior military commander of a host, comparable to a [[Chapter Master]] or [[First Captain]]. The Coryphaus leads the Host's returns during religious ceremonies (and trust us, the Word Bearers have a lot of religious ceremonies) and makes all tactical decisions during actual combat, freeing up the Dark Apostle to better commune with the Chaos Gods.

*'''Icon Bearers''': A Word Bearer charged with carrying the Icon of the XVII Legion in battle, similar to a Company Standard Bearer in a [[Space Marine Chapter]].

*'''Champion''': The leader of Word Bearer squads, know as coteries. Comparable to a Squad Captain from the Legiones Astartes.

*'''Aspiring Champion''': Another Squad leader, comparable to a [[Brother-Sergeant|Sergeant]].

*'''Anointed''': The [[Terminator]]s of a Host.

*'''Gal Vorbak''': The [[Possessed Marine]]s of a Host.

*'''Warrior-Brother''': The rank and file soldiers of a host.

==Daily Rituals==

*04:00: Morning Prayer: The Word Bearers are roused from their cells to begin the day with sermons from the Book of Lorgar read by the Dark Apostle. Prayer lasts four hours, one dedicated to each of the Chaos Gods.
*08:00: Morning Firing Rites: The Word Bearers engage in target practice. Often using human slaves captured during raids.
*09:00: Battle Practice: The Word Bearers descend to the practice cages for training.
*12:00: Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the Legion Serfs. Cooking the meal improperly will often see the Legion Serf become the next meal.
*12:30: Tactical Indoctrination: The Word Bearers gather for a tactical briefing, showing which planets they will be invading, and locations of cathedrals to the False Emperor which must be destroyed.
*14:00: Evening Firing Rites: The Word Bearers gather for target practice.
*15:00: Evening Prayer: The Word Bearers gather for the Dark Apostle to lead them in prayer. Daemonic pacts are often made during Evening Prayer, and Marines may be blessed with possession.
*19:00: Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the Legion Serfs. Sometimes Legion Serfs are on the menu.
*20:00: Evening Maintenance: Word Bearers will be stripped of their [[Power Armour]] (assuming they can still remove it) for repairs to be completed. Sometimes Warrior-Brothers will see the Apothecary to check on the status of mutations.
*00:00: Rest Period: The Word Bearers retire to their cells for rest.

==Famous Word Bearers==
In [[Dawn of War|Dark Crusade,]] the Dark Apostle [[Eliphas]] leads a warband of Word Bearers to take over Kronus. [[Awesome]] ensues.

In the videogame [[Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate]], an ENTIRE Word Bearers ARMY OF 10,000 MARINES is lead by the Chaos LORD Zymran, who is the main antagonist of the game. Apart from sounding MANLY, he does nothing but taunt the Ultramarines like a saturday mourning cartoon villain (''Seriously all he needs is that large mustache to twirl and he'll be as contrived as the [[Abbadon|Warmaster]] himself''). Ultimately somewhat forgettable.

There's also some faggot named Marduk, from the book series, as well as his awesome terminator Coryphaus, Kol Badar.

Amongst [[/tg/]], the most famous Word Bearer would be [[Dranon]].

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]]

Word Bearers

2017-04-07T06:27:10Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB: /* Great Crusade */

{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = Word Bearers
|Heraldry = [[Image:Post-Heresy Daemon Head.jpg|250px]]
|Battle Cry = Verses from the Book of Lorgar
|Original Name = Imperial Heralds
|Number = XVII
|Primarch = [[Lorgar]]
|Original Homeworld = Colchis
|Current Homeworld = Sicarus
|Champion = [[Erebus]], [[Kor Phaeron]]
|Specialty = Zealotry, use of [[Daemon]]s, spreading Chaos
|Strength = More or less Legion strength
|Allegiance = [[Chaos Undivided]]
|Colours = Dark crimson and steel
}}
''"By its very nature, theology tends - and under certain conditions, must always tend - to become demonology."''

— Thomas Mann, "Doctor Faustus"

''"All I ever wanted was the Truth."''

— Opening Line of the "Book of Lorgar", First Canticle of Chaos

''"If a man speaks about religion and religious institutions too much, he has some shit going on."''

— Kemal Tahir "Women's Ward"

The Word Bearers are a legion of [[Chaos Space Marines]]. Their [[Primarch]] is [[Lorgar]].

==History==
There is a phenomenon of psychology that some people are prone to zealotry. It does not matter what they believe in, they believe in it with all their heart. This type of individual who is likely to end up becoming a fanatical member to a certain ideology will if they somehow become disillusioned with it, often find it easier to adopt an opposing or opposite ideology and be just as fanatical to said new cause rather than simply moderating their commitment to their first ideology as needed and making caveats and exceptions to its general principles (for example, Freedom of Speech is great, but yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded building to start a panic is being an asshole). The Word Bearers are this phenomenon at its most extreme.
===Early History===
[[File:Dark_apostle_by_kunkka.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Why hello there unbeliever. Would you mind a small theological chat?]]
The Emperor used the genetic templates of the Primarchs to create the Legiones Astartes after the powers of Chaos stole the gestating Primarchs. Those who received gene-seed from template number seventeen stood apart from their brother Astartes in duty and outlook. They fought with utter devotion and a fanatical zeal. Their original recruits were drawn from the sons of defeated enemies, raised to know the crimes of their fathers and the price of the Emperor's forgiveness. Thus while the other Legions went to war with righteousness, the XVIIth fought with the cold fury that only the condemned and redeemed could know. While other Legions took some time to acquire formal names, the XVIIth was named the Imperial Heralds almost immediately after their founding. This was due to their early role: to deliver the Emperor's ultimatum of submission or destruction.
Upon defeating an enemy, the Imperial Heralds would empty their libraries and records of any contents deemed heretical or sorcerous. Condemned works, individuals, and buildings would be destroyed in the name of the Imperial Truth (though they also tended to exterminate the entire population of the places they conquered; see Antarctica). The Imperial Heralds repeated this process all across Terra during the Unification Wars. This gave the Imperial Heralds a rarely-spoken nickname among the greater Imperium: the Iconoclasts.

===Great Crusade===

[[File:Daemon world by majesticchicken.jpg|thumb|right|350px|Okay, so the Imperial Cult might not exactly be hot chickenwings with thousand island sauce, but worshipping Chaos might not be the best alternative.]]

The planet Colchis was full of people that worshipped a watered down version of chaos. Primarch XVII was adopted by Kor Phaeron, one of the chief priests, and given the name Lorgar. Lorgar received a vision of the Emperor and formed a religion around him, leading to a six-year religious civil war that Lorgar's faction eventually won, shortly before the Emperor came to Colchis. During the Great Crusade, they bore the word of the Emperor to new worlds, wiping out any traces of dissenting faiths as they assimilated cultures into the Imperial way of life, including enforcing the worship of the God-Emperor.

Their thorough attention to this kept them far behind the pace of other expeditionary fleets and drew the ire of the Emperor. He repeatedly made it clear that he did not consider himself a god and wanted Lorgar to knock it off and catch up with the other fleets. Lorgar responded by penning the original Lectitio Divinitatus, which would much later form the core of the beliefs of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor. Finally, the Emperor had enough and ordered the Ultramarines to make an example of him. They torched the world of Khur and called the entire Word Bearers legion to kneel in its ashes before Guilliman, Malcador, and the Emperor.

To say Lorgar was devastated would be an understatement. He spent an entire month in seclusion, taking only the advice of Kor Phaeron and First Chaplain Erebus. They revealed to him that they had kept the old faith alive and that many worlds appeared to have religions that aligned with it, suggesting a more primal truth than worship of the God-Emperor. They convinced Lorgar that the primordial truth was truer than the Imperial Truth and he took his legion on a pilgrimage to the Eye of Terror to learn more about Chaos.

===Chaos===

They were the guys who used to be really, really, really loyal to the [[Emprah]]. Like, these guys used to be the Church of the Emprah. After the [[Horus Heresy]], they became the complete opposite. Now they go around fucking up the Emprah's sepulchre planets, relic worlds, and cardinal worlds, setting up cathedrals to the [[Chaos Gods]] in their places. They are also notable for being the one [[Chaos]] legion to still have [[Chaplain]]s, known as [[Dark Apostle]]s, which is probably because they invented the idea of Space Marine preachers and no other traitor Legions wanted them after the Horus Heresy was over, because there is little sense in having morale officer in Chaos force. Unlike the other Chaos legions and renegade chapters, [[Red Corsairs]] notwithstanding, these guys actually managed to sort of keep their shit together rather than having everyone with a slightly fancier costume take his ball and go home. They're sorta like [[grimdark]] Chaos <s>Taliban</s> <s>Al-Qaeda</s> ISIS. Except the Word Bearers make <s>the Taliban</s> <s>Al-Qaeda</s> ISIS look like peace-loving atheists in comparison.

Their hobbies include human sacrifice, prayers to the [[Chaos Gods]], [[daemon]] summoning, and occult study.

First Chaplain Erebus was actually pretty much the driving force behind Horus turning to Chaos. At the climax of ''Horus Rising'', Erebus steals a weapon from the [[Interex]], which caused them to get all butthurt and blame [[Horus]] and the Luna Wolves for the theft. In the next book, ''False Gods'', Horus and the merry Luna Wolves take a trip to Davin IV on Erebus's advice, during which all hell breaks loose and Horus takes some wounds and comes as close as a [[primarch]] can to dying (he basically took a nap). [[Abaddon]], having as many daddy issues as Horus, decided it'd be a good idea to follow the advice of Erebus and take Horus to a local temple run by the serpent-worshiping locals, where it was said he could be healed. Erebus sent Horus into a trance and basically whispered sweet nothings about [[Chaos]] into his ear the entire time, planting the very first seed of corruption.

==Organization==
Yeah, we know what you're thinking: organization? Of a Traitor Legion? While it may surprise you, the Word Bearers still function as an organized Legion (though much looser than the Legiones Astartes). Ironically, their uttermost commitment to Chaos as a religion gives them a semblance of order (DOUBLE HERESY?) As such, they have a clearly designated hierarchy and command structure. While Lorgar remains the ultimate master of the Word Bearers, in reality he has allowed command to fall as such:

*'''Master of the Faith''': The de facto head of the Word Bearers in Lorgar's absence, currently held by First Captain [[Kor Phaeron]].

*'''Chief Dark Apostle''': The head of the priesthood, currently held by [[Erebus]].

*'''Dark Council''': A collection of Dark Apostles who oversee the overall actions of the Legion, and confirm the ascension of other Dark Apostles.

*'''Dark Apostle''': spiritual leader of a Host, the primary organization of the Word Bearers following the Horus Heresy. Dark Apostles are confirmed by the Dark Council and in turn make the decisions of the rank and advancement for the Host.

*'''Coryphaus''': The senior military commander of a host, comparable to a [[Chapter Master]] or [[First Captain]]. The Coryphaus leads the Host's returns during religious ceremonies (and trust us, the Word Bearers have a lot of religious ceremonies) and makes all tactical decisions during actual combat, freeing up the Dark Apostle to better commune with the Chaos Gods.

*'''Icon Bearers''': A Word Bearer charged with carrying the Icon of the XVII Legion in battle, similar to a Company Standard Bearer in a [[Space Marine Chapter]].

*'''Champion''': The leader of Word Bearer squads, know as coteries. Comparable to a Squad Captain from the Legiones Astartes.

*'''Aspiring Champion''': Another Squad leader, comparable to a [[Brother-Sergeant|Sergeant]].

*'''Anointed''': The [[Terminator]]s of a Host.

*'''Gal Vorbak''': The [[Possessed Marine]]s of a Host.

*'''Warrior-Brother''': The rank and file soldiers of a host.

==Daily Rituals==

*04:00: Morning Prayer: The Word Bearers are roused from their cells to begin the day with sermons from the Book of Lorgar read by the Dark Apostle. Prayer lasts four hours, one dedicated to each of the Chaos Gods.
*08:00: Morning Firing Rites: The Word Bearers engage in target practice. Often using human slaves captured during raids.
*09:00: Battle Practice: The Word Bearers descend to the practice cages for training.
*12:00: Midday Meal: A light meal is prepared by the Legion Serfs. Cooking the meal improperly will often see the Legion Serf become the next meal.
*12:30: Tactical Indoctrination: The Word Bearers gather for a tactical briefing, showing which planets they will be invading, and locations of cathedrals to the False Emperor which must be destroyed.
*14:00: Evening Firing Rites: The Word Bearers gather for target practice.
*15:00: Evening Prayer: The Word Bearers gather for the Dark Apostle to lead them in prayer. Daemonic pacts are often made during Evening Prayer, and Marines may be blessed with possession.
*19:00: Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the Legion Serfs. Sometimes Legion Serfs are on the menu.
*20:00: Evening Maintenance: Word Bearers will be stripped of their [[Power Armour]] (assuming they can still remove it) for repairs to be completed. Sometimes Warrior-Brothers will see the Apothecary to check on the status of mutations.
*00:00: Rest Period: The Word Bearers retire to their cells for rest.

==Famous Word Bearers==
In [[Dawn of War|Dark Crusade,]] the Dark Apostle [[Eliphas]] leads a warband of Word Bearers to take over Kronus. [[Awesome]] ensues.

In the videogame [[Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate]], an ENTIRE Word Bearers ARMY OF 10,000 MARINES is lead by the Chaos LORD Zymran, who is the main antagonist of the game. Apart from sounding MANLY, he does nothing but taunt the Ultramarines like a saturday mourning cartoon villain (''Seriously all he needs is that large mustache to twirl and he'll be as contrived as the [[Abbadon|Warmaster]] himself''). Ultimately somewhat forgettable.

There's also some faggot named Marduk, from the book series, as well as his awesome terminator Coryphaus, Kol Badar.

Amongst [[/tg/]], the most famous Word Bearer would be [[Dranon]].

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]]

Apostles of Contagion

2017-04-07T06:21:22Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB:

{{Wh40k-stub}}
Formerly of the [[Death Guard]] chaos marine legion, the Apostles of Contagion are a warband of demented Nurglites following their rotting master, the Chaos Lord Necrosius (an apothecary turned sorcerer), who believes that Grandfather [[Nurgle]]'s gift of eternal life must be freely given to all in the galaxy; of course, this form of eternal life is as an unwashed zombie, but then what did you expect from a gang of deranged pusbags?

Having broken off from their former brothers, the Apostles follow only the will of the putrid god to whom they bend their arthritic knees. Because Nurgle's gift is for all to share, they don't care if they infect Imperials or their fellow chaos worshippers with the zombie plague, leading them to have quite a few enemies.

They bear a hatred for [[Typhus]], the Herald of Nurgle, and his band of chaos marines, because Typhus initially betrayed the legion to Nurgle. Since the Apostles seem to enjoy their damnation now, it appears this hatred has evolved into the typical rivalry between champions of Chaos.

The Apostles were responsible for the widespread zombie plague outbreaks that occurred on Vraks Prime and so are partly responsible for the corruption and fall of that world.

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]][[Category:Stubs]]

Apostles of Contagion

2017-04-07T06:20:46Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB:

{{Wh40k-stub}}
Formerly of the [[Death Guard]] chaos marine legion, the Apostles of Contagion are a warband of demented Nurglites following their rotting master, the Chaos Lord Necrosius (an apothecary turned sorcerer), who believes that Grandfather [[Nurgle]]'s gift of eternal life must be freely given to all in the galaxy; of course, this form of eternal life is as an unwashed zombie, but then what did you expect from a gang of deranged pusbags?

Having broken off from their former brothers, the Apostles follow only the will of the putrid god to whom they bend their arthritic knees. Because Nurgle's gift is for all to share, they don't care if they infect Imperials or their fellow chaos worshippers with the zombie plague, leading them to have quite a few enemies.

They bear a hatred for [[Typhus]], the Herald of Nurgle, and his band of chaos marines, because Typhus initially betrayed the legion to Nurgle. Since the Apostles seem to enjoy their damnation now, it appears this hatred has evolved into the typical rivalry between champions of Chaos.

The Apostles were responsible for the widespread zombie plague outbreaks that occurred on Vraks Prime and are so partly responsible for the corruption and fall of that world.

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]][[Category:Stubs]]

Iron Warriors

2017-04-07T06:17:50Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:61E4:B12D:284E:90AB: /* Daily Routines */

{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = Iron Warriors
|Heraldry = [[File:Ironwarriorslogo.png|250px]]
|Battle Cry = <strike>"Iron Within, Iron Without!"</strike> <strike>'''EVEN I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET INSIDE THIS ONE!'''</strike> '''COME AND FIST ME, ROGAL!!!'''
|Number = IV
|Primarch = [[Perturabo]]
|Original Homeworld = Olympia
|Current Homeworld = Medrengard
|Champion = Possibly [[Honsou]] But most likely [[Shon'tu]]
|Specialty = Artillery and offensive siege warfare
|Strength =
|Allegiance = [[Chaos Undivided]]
|Colours = Black, gold, silver
}}

''"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."''<br>
- <s>Joseph Stalin</s> Erich Maria Remarque 'The Black Obelisk'. Although Stalin did still also say this. <that's apocryphal

The '''Iron Warriors''' are a bunch of badass pricks, who are also robotic. They enjoy torturing, maiming, and burning down their old shit. Nobody at [[games Workshop|GW]] can decide on how they want to portray the Legion, like we care what they think anyway. They also have a fetish for hazard stripes, which they make liberal use of in their colour scheme. It is as though they wish to say "do not use the side of my bolter as a step" or "touching my pauldron may result in crushed fingers." Then again, [[Chaos|considering who these guys are]], these would actually be good warnings to heed.

==Combat Tactics==
A [[Chaos]] [[Space Marines|Legion]] specializing in breaking sieges (as in, taking a fortified location, though logically this should mean that they can do this ''and'' break out of a siege) which is shown in their love of artillery and greater focus on ranged combat, which stands in contrast to the other Chaos Space Marine legions who are [[Rip and tear|far more disposed to melee combat]] (that doesn't mean that Iron Warriors won't punch a few skulls out, though!). Their troops are excellent close-range fighters and close-quarters combatants, and they often make use of special weaponry.

Iron Warriors are also fond of using hordes of human conscripts as cannon fodder, no doubt recruited from conquered worlds and slave populations on Medrengard. The conscripts are described as wearing red uniforms and bits of black armor, and armed with assorted bolt action rifles, lasguns, and autoguns. The Iron Warriors basically zerg-rush thousands of them at enemy strongholds to play fun games such as "find the minefield", "absorb the gunfire" and "reveal the artillery emplacements". They are one of the few Chaos legions that do take prisoners, but only to send then in the first wave instead of their conscripted slaves, who are considered to be slightly more valuable due to their ability to dig decent trenches and mines.

They also have a lot of [[Obliterators]], which are a bunch of muscle blobs armed to the teeth on top of their heads (being Chaos guys, they have shit like that). Literally. They themselves are a walking arsenal, because they can '''MAKE WEAPONS OUT OF THEIR BODIES!'''

Iron Warriors are also the batshit insane sickfucks behind the [[Daemonculaba]]. They're the only [[Chaos Space Marines]] who don't break down in maniacal laughter constantly, as they see this as a sign of weakness. They're not terribly fond of Daemons (like the [[Word Bearers]] or the [[Black Legion]] are), though they will make use of them (unlike the [[Night Lords]] who don't even like Chaos), and they aren't [[Alpharius|closet loyalists]] like the [[Alpha Legion]].

[[File:Iwdread.jpg|450px|left|thumb|What do you mean I've shot the wrong spot!?]]

==History==
Back in the old pre-Heresy days, no legion ever got shit on more than them. It started promising for a tiny bit at the start when Emps led them, but when Horus took over they got assigned all the [[Death Korps of Krieg|dirty, exhausting trench and ditch fighting]], and got no respect for it. There is a passage when, whilst shoveling up earthworks in preparation for the Drop Site Massacre, one of the Sons of Horus literally turns to one of the Emperor's Children and asks, "Hey, why aren't the Iron Warriors doing this."

Even when they were rejoined by their [[Perturabo|Primarch]], it didn't get any better. In fact, it was that moment things started going downhill. When united with his legion for the first time, he looked upon them and saw that they were not [[Ultramarines|all they could be]] and so he decided that they needed a bout of [[Blam|decimation]] to motivate them properly. So he had 10% of his entire legion [[grimdark|beaten to death]] without honour.

This actually worked and changed the character of the legion from "work-horse" legion to "meat grinder" legion; Perturabo's trick taught them that casualties do not matter, only victory does. They became a legion of [[neckbeards|mathematicians]], where battle strategies could be determined using formula based on available weaponry and expected attrition rates. Fortunately for them, Perturabo was expertly skilled with [[Roboute Guilliman|numbers and logistics]] and organised his legion extremely efficiently, therefore his legion was able to absorb such losses due to maintaining very high numbers, second only to the [[Ultramarines|XIIIth Legion]]. In fact they could have possibly overtaken any other legion in numbers if they did not continually suffer such high casualty rates.

This casual attitude towards attrition unfortunately created an atmosphere of paranoia amongst the officer cadre, where the only way to guarantee survival is to get promoted into a position of usefulness. Therefore their officers suffered incredible [[Nerdrage]] whenever things did not go according to plan and [[That Guy|scrambled over each other]] attempting to gain the attention of their superiors.

Also, their reputation suffered amongst the allied Imperial Army auxilia, who gave the Iron Warriors the nickname ''Corpse Grinders'', as units that were assigned to them tended to get used as cannon fodder for softening up the enemy. This tendency eventually led to the [[Administratum|Council of Terra]] to only assign the Iron Warriors support from penal brigades of poor quality expendable troops, causing the reputation of the Legion to spiral further downwards.

This new-and-improved attitude still didn't endear them to their brother legions, it was this complete lack of anything remotely resembling respect from anyone at all that was the final factor in [[Perturabo|their primarch flipping his lid]].

===Iron Cage===
Taking inspiration from their primarch, they display great facility in setting traps. The most notable of which was the "Iron Cage incident" where the Iron Warriors built a twenty square kilometer fortress on Sebastus IV at the close of the [[Horus Heresy]], with a massive fortified bunker at the center. They leaked information that allowed the [[Imperial Fists]] to track them there and [[Rogal Dorn]] himself promised to bring back Perturabo in "an iron cage". The Fists assaulted the fortress, taking huge casualties in doing so as the Iron Warriors fell back to split their advance and draw them into kill zones. Eventually the Fists expended all their ammunition and resorted to knife-fighting. When the Fists finally broke through to the central bunker, they discovered it empty save for the numerous inward-pointing guns designed to kill anyone who breached it. The entire purpose of the fortress was just to bait and exhaust the Imperial Fists' forces, turning their own legendary determination into a liability that lead to their own deaths and the humiliation of their legion (albeit one that would have required the death of Perturabo to completely wipe them out, if you believe those corpsefuckers' propaganda). [[Just As Planned]]. While the Iron Cage incident was the most notable, the Iron Warriors do plenty of other things like that, but on a smaller scale, such as firing fixed position guns into civilian habitation blocks to bait the enemy into counter-attacking, then evacuating through underground trenches and detonating pre-rigged explosives when the opposing forces reach the fixed gun emplacements.

===The War of the Beast===
This little incident that made the Ullanor Crusade look like a skirmish brought out some unusual behavior from the Iron Warriors. First of all, the threat posed by the orks against the galaxy was so great, that the Iron Warriors allied with the Imperial Fists, of all people. If that weren't out of character enough for them, they also found the orks' use of humans as literal cattle [[what|disgusting]]. Maybe the whole Daemonculaba thing was also too disgusting for them since Honsou hadn't been around at the time, maybe even the Iron Warriors have standards when it comes to human experimentation...or maybe the [[C.S. Goto|writer just didn't know jack shit about the Iron Warrior's character]]. It's probably that last one.

Honsou wasn't around at the time and Warsmith Kalkator, the leader of the Grand Company, was a firm anti-Chaos Warsmith- so he would have also been disgusted at the daemonculaba. It should also be noted Warsmith Kalkator's Grand Company operated away from the other Iron Warriors in the Eye of Terror and kept his own 'mini empire.' It wasn't like he isn't above doing horrible shit, as he was introduced gunning down his own human forces as they were being overrun by the orks. Aka how Iron Warriors SHOULD be- stone cold pragmatics.

Also he would be the first person to get a space Marine chapter to turn traitor since the Heresy

==The Unbreakable Litany==
The Iron Warriors have the coolest chants in 40k too.
*'''From Iron, cometh Strength.'''
*'''From Strength, cometh Will.'''
*'''From Will, cometh Faith.'''
*'''From Faith, cometh Honour.'''
*'''From Honour, cometh Iron.'''

==Iron Warriors Today==

[[File:A0e8a4e378bf013aade7393f60d8b20a.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Iron Within... You. 'Cause I shot you with my big ass [[Autocannon]]. (Look at his tiny hands, though. Aw)]]

They used to be incredibly badass with special rules for having more heavy weapon options including tanks and artillery but [[Gav_Thorpe|Gav Thorpe]] (who's basically [[Matt_Ward|Matt Ward's husband]]) decided that spikey marines should be inferior to loyalists in every way possible.

The Iron Warriors have been one of the more popular legions in fluff over the past few years. While some have put this down to them being 'grittier' or more realistic than the others, the truth is probably more functional then fanciful: The Iron Warriors are for the most part ''not'' gibbering madmen. This might seem a dumb reason but it's actually important. To write a good character they need to make sense to the reader, even when we don't agree with them we need to understand why they want to do it. The other legions kinda lack that. Why did you attack that planet? 'Because it turns me on' doesn't really make for an interesting character, nor does being told to by demons, wanting to kill everything all the time or just really digging dead stuff. So that leaves the Iron Warriors as being just about the only generally sane legion who do things for reasons normal people can understand.

[[Graham McNeill]] wrote a book that was mostly about them. Called 'Storm of Iron', surprisingly, and it featured a boatload of Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors (surprisingly) and a whole load of dickery, including traitorous techpriests, countless rows of geneseed (not being used to make more Speehs Mehreens, unsurprisingly. <--- Why WH40K's so [[Grimdark]]), and a daemon prince. To cap it all off, this is where [[Honsou]] gets his start. Last but not least, countless Imperial Guard and Titans.
...Tell me again why the Imperials lost? There was a traitor on the inside, and about fifty thousand tons of badass at the gates. Baaaad combination. (McNeill then wrote a [[Horus Heresy]] prequel called 'Angel Exterminatus', featuring Fulgrim being an even bigger dick than usual and an Iron Hands Professor Farnsworth.)

Even Ward seems to think they're cool, as he has Warsmith [[Shon'tu]] one-up both Honsou and Abaddon. How? He Invades Terra! He teams up with Be’lakor (yeah, the same guy from Fantasy battles) and use Phalanx's warp door (yeah remember that from the Soul Drinkers book) to invade it hoping to take it over and bomb the Emperor's palaces. Even the combined plot armor of the Imperial Fists AND the [[Legion of the Damned]] is still just barely enough to force a stalemate.

John French, on the other hand, doesn't seem to like them much at all. This is a shame since they tend to be his go-to antagonists.

Anyway, here is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ghs6p8inY their theme], done by [[HMKids]], which includes in the lyrics quotes from Dawn of War Chaos Space Marines for extra-flavour! They are METAL indeed!

The German Death Metal band "Debauchery" also wrote a song and video here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dqkmPI2JlM], and it is badass.

==Iron Warriors Character==

Personality-wise, the Iron Warriors are one of the most…unpleasant Traitor Legions. Their sense of humanity is eroded down to next to nothing, no longer valuing brotherhood, honor, nor even material gain; they only value their hatred and the opportunities to express it, and they only attach as much value to somebody or something as much as it can give them the opportunity to express it. Humans are slaves, expendable soldiers, breeding stock, and ultimately something to be fed into the Iron Warriors's war apparatus, making their lives a living, nightmarish hell beforehand. Fellow Iron Warriors are, at best, meant to serve as long as possible before becoming a statistic, at best, and a potential rival at worst. Warsmiths ally and deal with each other only to stave off the next battle so they can go to war on more hated targets, but if they smell weakness among their ranks, or a slight directed at one of them, they might decide your soldiers and your fort would be better off under their leadership, no matter the cost to get it. [[Grimdark]].

When the Iron Warriors go to war, everyone is expendable. Eve-ry-one. Back in the days of the Great Crusade they spent Astartes lives like bolter rounds, human lives like <s>lasbolts</s> autogun bullets, and they haven’t got better with time. Their pure, unadulterated contempt for life is such that, in the Siege of Castellax, they refer to their mortal servants simply as “flesh,” and place orders for more like fast food (battalions 3-5 were wiped out today. I’ll have four more, to go, and hold the pickles). Speaking of food, when rations started to get low, the Iron Warriors started feeding their people [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green the rendered down remains of the dead]. It's not like Imperium does not do the same on the regular basis.

The Iron Warriors are basically the very epitome of the bad boss trope. The Night Lords may send the populations of entire worlds to the skinning pits just for shits and giggles (and record it all for future shits and giggles), but even they usually respect their valuable servants, enough to even sometimes exchange friendly banter with them.

==Daily Routines==
04:00 - The Iron Warriors emerge from their artillery batteries and siege tanks.

04:20 - Morning Maintenance Rituals. The Iron Warriors ensure their instruments of war are in tip top shape. A slave is turned into a servitor for every warhead that fails to detonate.

05:00 - Morning Prayers. The Iron Warriors begin to pray to all four Chaos Gods. They are shorter than the Word Bearers and Black Legion as they view Chaos only as a weapon they can use, thus each prayer to each God lasts only 30 minutes.

07:00 - Morning Firing Rites. The Iron Warriors test fire their artillery and siege weaponry at captured civilians or even other Iron Warriors who have been disgraced.

10:00 - Battle Practice. The Iron Warriors descends in a cage to fight. Servitors are used as normal people are too squishy and slow for the Iron Warriors to effectively fight.

12:00 - Tactical Indoctrination. The Iron Warriors gather to discuss which fortifications to destroy or which monument of [[Rogal Dorn]] to defile.

13:00 - Afternoon Wargames. The Iron Warriors set up [[Miniatures|miniature pieces representing their forces on an open table with complex rules and dices to test each others grasp of strategy.]] [[Perturabo]] sometimes joins in on the fun. An ancient Terran snack known as 'The Doritos' are brought by the truckload and are complemented by an equally ancient Terran beverage known as 'Mountain Dew'. Those who consume 'The Doritos' are not allowed to touch field operation manuals until they ritually cleanse and scrape their fingers. Anyone failing to do so is forced to place their hands [[Rip and Tear|inside of heavy machinery]].

14:00 - First Evening Meal. A feast is prepared by the legion serfs. Due to long hours without eating, some Iron Warriors may have already begun to eat bits off their slaves.

15:00 - Evening Firing Rites.

18:00 - Close Combat Practice.

20:00 - Second Evening Meal. Another feast is prepared by legion slaves. Those slaves who have parts of their bodies eaten by hungry Iron Warriors are gifted bionic implants to make them useful again.

21:00 - Evening Wargames.

22:00 - Bitching about the Imperial Fists. A period is held for the Iron Warriors to bitch and moan about the [[Imperial Fists]] and why they can't wait to tear down Rogal Dorn's statue on Terra. Sometimes [[Perturabo]] joins in the bitching.

23:00 - Evening Maintenance Rituals.

24:00 - Rest Period. The Iron Warriors rest inside their artillery and siege vehicles.

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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]]