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Aubrey The Grey

2023-02-04T15:47:37Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* The Great Crusade */

{{Infobox Primarch
|name= Aubrey Vokrii-Kendov 'The Grey'
|bgcolor=black
|fgcolor=white
|image=[[File:AubreyTheGrey.jpg|225px]]
|title= Aubrey The Grey
|alias= The Surgeon
|where=Lazarus I
|when=901.M30
|legion=[[Eternal Zealots|Sixteenth]]
|crusade=
|sigil=[[File:Eternal_Zealots_Emblem.png|100px]]
|weapon=
|trait= friendly, driven, scholarly
|flaw= naive, prideful
|role= Traitor.
|fate= Ascended
|dominion=
}}
{{/tg/-Heresy-Head}}

''It is right to revere Aubrey the Grey, for he brought answers to questions which had troubled men throughout history. But never forget that every answer contains within it a new question.''

- Uriel Salazar, ''Confessions''

'''Aubrey the Grey''' was the [[Primarchs (Hektor Heresy)|Primarch]] of the [[Eternal Zealots]], the Sixteenth Legion of the [[Legiones_Astartes_(Hektor_Heresy)|Legiones Astartes]]. Once a fierce advocate of the Imperial Truth, he betrayed the Imperium and unleashed the atrocities of the [[Hektor Heresy]].

==History==

Few have the required clearance to read the biography of Aubrey the Grey. This is not, fundamentally, due to his crimes. That the perfidious Arch-Traitor made a mockery of all natural and human law is a matter that a humble Acolyte of our Order might learn. The reason for secrecy is that Aubrey the Grey's early life is in many ways a model of excellence, even among the Primarchs. His achievement in rising from the most difficult of upbringings to take an active and important role in the [[Great Crusade (Hektor Heresy)|Great Crusade]] raises many difficult questions about the Emperor's Plan - questions that might cause an undisciplined mind to become vulnerable to the Ruinous Powers.

===Youth===

Aubrey's childhood was an oddity, even for a [[Primarchs (Hektor Heresy)|Primarch]]. Although he was lost along with eighteen of his superhuman brothers, his incubator came to rest on Lazarus, a planet inhabited by the inhuman Lazarites. These alien creatures recovered the capsule and discovered the infant Aubrey within, but as they were not human they deliberated on whether to let their captive live at all. Aubrey's life was spared only at the whim of the sadistic General Tareq, who felt it would be more interesting to see if the child could survive the rough life of a Lazarite. No mercy was given to the foundling and he was brought up in the lowest caste of Lazarite culture; The Doctors. In Lazarite culture, it was the doctors who were the disgrace. For a warrior, the highest honour and caste of the Lazarites, to have his blood spilled in anything but combat, such as by a surgeon, was the most vilified of possibilities. Aubrey showed prowess in learning, quickly becoming one of the most renowned doctors of the Lazarites in his early twenties.

By quirk of fate, Aubrey gained the opportunity to repay his saviour and performed a life-saving operation on General Tareq. Shamed and grateful in equal measure, Tareq offered a pact; if Aubrey told no-one of his surgery, the General would allow him to become a warrior. Aubrey rose through the ranks of the Lazarite military as quickly as he had risen through their medical world, becoming a valiant warrior and leader. Soon he took the place of the now retired general. His ascension to general was a very treacherous one. Although Lazarite culture was in principle based on merit and accident of birth should place no prejudice on a warrior, few took kindly to what they saw as a mis-shapen out-worlder giving orders.

Aubrey quickly learned the arts of Lazarite politics, just as he had those medicine and warfare. Under the honour code of the Lazarite warrior the only way to silence sniping comments was with the blade. Forged by the super-science of the Emperor of Mankind to be a peerless warrior, Aubrey was a natural swordsman and spent countless hours honing his craft to a razor-edge. Though it was not unusual for a Lazarite officer to bring a sword by his hip into the theatre of war, only Aubrey did so for the sake of duels with his own men. After many assaults upon him, the Primarch dueled his way to a bregrudging form of respect. He was eventually approached by Brother Makai, Major Vex, and Sergeant Vaas. Major Vex had also been another rising star in the military leading to comparisons to the off-worlder. This was a grave affront to Vex's honor. How could some lowly off-worlder garner so much respect?

Vex challenged Aubrey to single combat. Inevitably, the Primarch quickly gained an advantage. However Vex had an edge of his own. His brother Vaas had slipped into Aubrey's blind spot and struck Aubrey with a club, allowing Vex to wound Aubrey and win the duel. Aubrey's pride was wounded. Lazarite honour allowed for interference by kinsmen and to overlook the possibility of Vaas deciding the issue was a grievous error. Aubrey knew the only way for him to regain his status was to beat Vex and Vaas at the same time. Without kin of his own to even the odds, Aubrey took up a second blade and practiced new techniques in secret. For their second meeting, it was Aubrey who approached Vex and demanded a rematch. A very cocksure Vex accepted, with his brother Vaas now insulting Aubrey and attempting to enrage the Primarch. The reply was an icy emerald glare and the glitter of sunlight on Aubrey's blade. The fight began. Aubrey toyed with Vex, showing only a single blade and not pressing the issue. The Primarch's first target was Vaas, but he could not honourably strike a warrior who had not entered the duel. Slowly the duelists circled until Aubrey felt the position was right. He suddenly quickened his pace and swept forward, pressing Vex into a corner. Alarmed, Vaas leapt to his brother's defence only to find his club blocked by a second sword, drawn faster than the Lazarite eye could see. With a flick of his wrist Aubrey disarmed Vaas, a second lightning strike laid open the warrior's legs and sent him to the ground. Vex, consumed by fear and rage, rushed at Aubrey and was defeated as quickly as his brother. From that day on, Aubrey held his head high, two swords by his side.

Success with the blade and in command led to further advancement. In time, Aubrey became recognised as Tarellia's supreme commander with full authority to prosecute interstellar wars against lesser civilizations. However, as in the past, his elevation aggravated chauvinists among the Lazarites and a series of revolts broke out, slowing expansion efforts. Of more import to the expansion of the Terellian sphere was the arrival of Imperial Crusade ships bearing the markings of the [[Heralds of Hektor|Wolves of Dawn]]. These ships were far more powerful than the Lazarite warships present and many feared invasion. But the Astartes' mission was more subtle. Following up the reports of [[Rogue Traders (Hektor Heresy)|Rogue Traders]] who had dealt with the Lazarites and learned of Aubrey's presence, [[Hektor Cincinnatus]] took his honour guard to the surface of Lazarus and demanded an audience with the supreme commander.

Aubrey presented himself in Lazarite finery of black, scaled leather highlighted with silver filigree. Naturally, he wore his blades - alien to Hektor's eyes - at his side. The two Primarchs spoke through an interpreter, the Rogue Trader Alvec Rhan. Such measures were not unusual, but Hektor was unnerved to hear his brother speaking a serpentine tongue so unlike any form of Low Gothic in the Galaxy. After some pleasantries, Hektor made it clear that Aubrey's place was in the Emperor's service as a leader of the Great Crusade. Politely, Aubrey insisted that he already had duties to attend to and that he could not desert his post without being bested in a duel. Not being one to shirk from a fight, Hektor issued a challenge and the two Primarchs faced one another in ritual combat: spear and shield pitted against twin swords. It cannot be doubted that Hektor won the duel, but Alvec Rhan's testimony suggests that this victory had more to do with superior Imperial technology than superior skill.

On the long return voyage to Ancient Terra, Hektor and his entourage helped Aubrey prepare for a meeting with the Emperor. Aubrey quickly mastered High Gothic and the essentials of Terran etiquette, though the philosophies of the nascent Imperium were exotic to his mindset and he particularly questioned the human-centric view of the Galaxy. Hektor deflected arguments by suggesting that it was his own explanation that was lacking and that the Emperor could make his case better in person - an excuse which helped to win Aubrey's friendship, but hardly steered him towards the Imperial Truth. So it was that, despite the natural awe that Aubrey felt towards the Emperor, he quickly leapt into debate. After an arduous week of debating, during which Hektor was occasionally called upon to provide testimony, it was agreed that the Lazarites would be put under quarantine with the ultimate fate dependant upon Aubrey's conduct.

===The Great Crusade===
[[File:Lumey.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Gaspard Lumey]]]]
Although Aubrey and Hektor had a rapport, the Emperor decided to put His newly-discovered son under the guidance of Gaspard Lumey, master of the [[Void Angels|Fifth Legion "Winged Victory"]]. What reasons moved His Unfathomable Mind are beyond the ken of mere mortals but Winged Victory had certainly won many great victories in the years preceding Aubrey's rediscovery. Perhaps more importantly, Gaspard had a reputation for ruthless wars against Xenos, a practice that Aubrey would need to embrace if he was to perform in the Great Crusade. Accompanied by a small force of his own gene-sons, then known as the Sixteenth Legion "Emerald Doom" Aubrey undertook the long journey to rendezvous with Gaspard. The Warp voyage gave the Primarch time to gain the trust of his men, though he knew that their loyalty could only be won in battle.

Gaspard Lumey's [[Expedition_Fleets_(Hektor_Heresy)|25th Expedition Fleet]] dwarfed the forces of Aubrey's entire Legion. The sense of inferiority was only underscored by the Primarch's sophistication and his warriors' proficiency. While Lumey and Winged Victory were welcoming hosts and fierce allies, the Emerald Doom struggled to achieve their objectives in joint operations. These frustrations pushed Aubrey to make a thorough study of his brother's way of war. Fifth Legion's use of mobility appealed to Aubrey's tastes, though he felt that Winged Victory mistakenly emphasized manoeuvre as an end rather than a means to closing the battle for a decisive hand-to-hand clash. In reforming his own Legion, Aubrey melded swiftness and discipline with fire and courage to create a unique military doctrine.

Matters of war were not the only topic of discussion between the brothers. Aubrey the Grey did not meekly surrender his objections to humanocentrism and harshly criticized Gaspard Lumey for apparent inconsistency. If Gaspard felt that mankind as a whole should not be judged by the worst of men, why judge every alien species of their worst representatives? Aubrey also pressed the point that the Fifth Legion had benefited tremendously from the traditions of Gaspard's homeworld and felt that his own Lazarus had as much to offer to the Sixteenth. These discussions bore great fruit. Gaspard conceded the point in principle and agreed to support Aubrey in a petition not only for the Lazarites to be spared but for Imperial Law on aliens to be loosened. Under Aubrey's proposal, there would be no change to campaigns against terrible aliens - the old ''Xenos Horrificus'' that had tormented mankind through Old Night. But humanity should also recognise those aliens who were no threat and potential allies as ''Xenos Amicus'' and explore beneficial relations with them. The Emperor, in His Great Wisdom, gave this proposal sanction in the Edict of Tolerance of 903.M30.

[[File:Pre-Heresy Zealots Emblem.png|200px|thumb|left|The Standard of Aubrey, original Eternal Zealots emblem]]
Aubrey made first use of the Edict in that same year, negotiating the annexation of the Lazarite Empire. He stayed at Lazarus for several years after, hosting Gaspard Lumey for six weeks in 904.M30 and preparing the way for his Legion's relocation in 908.M30. The Emerald Doom's presence on Lazarus was nominally for the purpose of training a native auxilia, but it also allowed Aubrey to devote his attentions to repairing their damaged genetics. Selenar genewrights certainly played a part in this project and it is generally believed that [[Pallas Eugenesis]] herself visited Lazarus to help with the cure. Having exhausted the greatest minds among humanity, Aubrey used his Lazarite contacts to broker a deal with alien genewrights and by this expedient finally put an end to the degeneration of the Sixteenth Legion. As the numbers of his gene-sons began to swell with fresh recruits, Aubrey renamed the Legion the [[Eternal Zealots]] and set them to the task of driving injustice from the Galaxy.

Led by the Primarch's 71st Expedition Fleet, the Zealots took to their mission with gusto. Aubrey's crusading fire often put his men on thin margins, with the Legion ever pushed forward to meet difficult objectives when more prudent commanders might have called a pause to await replacements, but it also won many splendid victories for the Imperium. Thanks to their repaired genetics, the Sixteenth could absorb the losses incurred by their breakneck speed and still expand their ranks, but they became highly reliant on local supplies foraged by attached Rogue Traders. Aubrey often signed away economic privileges among Tolerated alien species as an incentive to his merchant allies, and though this expedient was a great aid to conquests in the short-term it sowed resentment among the Imperium's non-human populations.

The most resentful were, ironically, Aubrey's own Lazarites. In 975.M30, the Lazarite Empire's banners were raised once more and a great revolt threatened several sectors. Worse still, other aliens incorporated into the Imperium rallied to the Lazarites, spreading disorder further. The War Council took swift and decisive action. Gaspard Lumey's Fifth Legion was granted full powers to annihilate the rebels, while Aubrey's men were required to surrender their warships and heavy weapons and report to the Imperial fleet base at Pandora. From there, the Eternal Zealots were transported to Lazarus to bear witness to Fifth Legion destroying their homeworld. As the last of the Lazarites was slain and their once-splendid monuments thrown down, Aubrey approached Gaspard. He offered his brother the blade ''Cintamani'' and challenged him to a duel, half in mind to die on Lazarus's soil, half to avenge his people's death. Many among the Primarchs would have obliged him, but Gaspard Lumey was a soldier not a warrior. He refused the challenge as it was part of the Lazarite tradition and that tradition was dead. Gaspard then broke ''Cintamani'' beneath his heel and left Aubrey to mourn the ruin of his life.

Severe sanctions limited the actions of the Eternal Zealots after the Lazarite revolt, but it hardly mattered to Aubrey. The Primarch was deprived of his people, his command, and his purpose. What the Legion could or could not do without him was of little interest. [[Johannes Vrach]] attempted to for several years, Aubrey lived as a hermit in the ruins of Lazarus, admitting no visitors other than [[Shakya Vardhana]]. What the two Primarchs discussed is unknown, but those few reports of the incident all agree that the Vardhana left Lazarus unhappy. Aubrey's solitude only ended when a secret message was delivered to him by a Legion serf. The sealed codex was keyed to Aubrey's unique genetics and encoded in the highest encryption protocols of the Sixteenth Legion. Yet its contents were seemingly mundane. Star co-ordinates. A date. An orbital scan of the world Paskal III. The Primarch stared at the scan for long minutes, then bade his serf to make ready for departure. Aubrey's faithful Eternal Zealots had discovered a way home.

Following the trail of clues that began at Paskal III was difficult. The 71st Expedition Fleet was severely limited in its activity and its movements constantly monitored. To shake off suspicion, Aubrey often relied on trusted Rogue Traders to track down leads too far out of his Crusade's area of activity, while leading the Zealots with an imitation of his old fire. In his heart, the Primarch felt nothing for the Great Crusade any longer. The Empire that Aubrey had sought to build had died along with Lazarus, but perhaps he might find a world of comfort, a place to rest and live out however many centuries his life would last. For months he and his agents gathered snippets of information, until finally the destination was revealed: a red dwarf star designated PA10. Aubrey secretly transferred to the Warp Runner ''Anticipation of Glory''. The ''Anticipation'' was routinely employed as a courier vessel so its departure from the main fleet barely required a log entry, but the small vessel was ranging out of Compliant space this time.

The Primarch arrived at PA10 and ordered his ship to begin exploring the system. As the ''Anticipation'' closed in on the red dwarf's inner system, it began to pick up a faint signal, which Aubrey immediately recognised as a Lazarite military code. The Primarch muttered to himself as he mentally decrypted the signal, then commanded that a lander be made ready for his personal use. Leaving the crew of the ''Anticipation of Victory'' to wait for further instructions, Aubrey piloted his lander alone to the dark side of a small, tidally-locked world close to PA10. Despite nothing displaying on his lander's instruments, the Primarch unerringly followed the right path. Abruptly, the lander passed through a holo-field and Aubrey's eyes saw what his mind had long beheld: a small cluster of twisted towards, ancient and alien in design. He touched down on a landing pad and was welcomed by a hooded figure, manlike in stature but not in proportion. This creature led Aubrey out of sight of the lander's vidcaptors. For 8976 solar minutes, he was completely gone from the records of his Legion. When Aubrey reappeared, he was accompanied by three creatures akin to the one that had greeted him. In silence, they boarded the lander and set course back to the ''Anticipation of Victory''.

Aubrey's companions were smuggled back into the 71st Expedition Fleet and dwelled in his private quarters, taking the place of Legion serfs. One by one, senior commanders of the Eternal Zealots were brought into conversations with the Primarch and his creatures and enlightened into the mysteries of the Transformative Revelation. The creatures identified themselves as the Hezeyar, an ancient race who had sought to bring all the species of the Galaxy into harmony. The Lazarites were but one project of the Hezeyar, still primitive but edging towards their enlightenment until they were slaughtered by the Imperium of Mankind. Yet the Transformative Revelation teaches that in destruction there is always creation, and the Hezeyar's sorrow at their protege's demise was alloyed with joy that Aubrey had learned to shake off the primitive superstitions of mankind. Finally, a human ready to be enlightened and to spread enlightenment! The Eternal Zealots, as Aubrey's sons, had a special part to play in the full awakening of humanity to the Galaxy's destiny.

Only one officer in the 71st spurned this corrupting message. Zachery Irisus, Grand Mentor of the Legion, denounced the Hezeyar's creed as a blasphemy against the Imperial Truth and begged his gene-father to return to the beliefs of the Imperium. Aubrey answered by stabbing his faithful Marine through the heart. Without a trace of hesitation, the Primarch knelt and ritually cut his gene-son's throat - the first of his many human sacrifices to the Gods of Chaos. Backed up by his senior officers, Aubrey falsified Irisus's murder as an honourable death in a fair duel and none of the Eternal Zealots dared question this obvious lie.

===The Hektor Heresy===
[[File:Voidwatcher2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Voidwatcher]]
Other doubters within the Eternal Zealots were gradually weeded out, but Aubrey knew his own Legion would not be enough to draw humanity to enlightenment. As the second century of the Great Crusade began, Aubrey looked to the [[Black Augurs]] and their sinister Primarch, [[The Voidwatcher]] as potential allies. The two brothers had never been close, but the Hezeyar had supplied information to ensnare them. During the time before his rediscovery by the Emperor the Voidwatcher had studied much lore that was now forbidden to Imperial psykers. While in public the Black Augurs used nothing more than the powers allowed to Librarians of all Legions, they secretly continued sorcerous traditions born on the Voidwatcher's homeworld. This information was discreetly leaked to [[Shakya Vardhana]], Primarch of the [[Eyes of the Emperor]]. Predictably, the Vardhana brought his concerns to the Emperor and triggered a great trial of the librarians in general and the Black Augurs in particular at the [[Council of Nikaea (Hektor Heresy)|Council of Nikaea]].

Aubrey personally attended the Council but did not ask to speak. However, he made his influence felt. When the mood of the trial seemed to swing in favour of the librarians, Aubrey arranged for information on the blackest deeds of the Voidwatcher to be delivered to Gaspard Lumey, turning a friend of the Librarians into their bitter enemy. Gaspard's scathing indictment of the Black Augurs horrified many at the Council and left little doubt as to the Emperor's verdict. The Librarium project was suspended and the Black Augurs were severely censured. Aubrey didn't bother to offer his sympathy to the Voidwatcher, for such sentiments would be wasted on him. Instead, Aubrey waited for the Black Augurs Primarch to come to him. The discussion began with an almost innocent scheme for vengeance against Gaspard Lumey - a plot that bore fruit in the exile of Fifth Legion to the northern fringes - but quickly deepened into talk of the Primordial Annihilator. The Voidwatcher was hardly an innocent when it came to the denizens of the Warp, nor even to making a pact with them. He drew the line at accepting Aubrey's creed and venerating Chaos, but the two Primarchs still swore an oath to put an end to the folly of the Imperial Truth. Aubrey's Hezeyar allies would give sorcerous advice to the Voidwatcher and in return he would strike the first blow of the Hektor Heresy.

That blow struck at the heart of the Imperium. After the Emperor had withdrawn to Terra he had set up great psychic wards to protect a dangerous experiment with the ancient interstellar Webway. The Voidwatcher's magic shattered those wards and forced the Emperor to devote himself and many of his most powerful servants to fighting off a daemonic incursion beneath the Imperial Palace. This diversion left Malcador the Sigilite in command of the Imperium, and he swiftly proclaimed the Voidwatcher a Traitor to be exterminated. Knowing that this crisis was imminent, Aubrey had arranged to visit the Warmaster [[Hektor Cincinnatus]] and subtly manipulated him into calling for a conference of the Primarchs to investigate and rule on the Voidwatcher's alleged crime. This conference at Olmer was a grand opportunity for Aubrey and his Eternal Zealots to play on the weaknesses of the attendant warriors. Despite [[Tiran Osoros]] calling on the assembled Primarchs to disperse and obey Malcador, the gathering slowly convinced themselves - with Aubrey's help - that there was an underlying conspiracy against the Space Marines and perhaps the Imperium itself. The irony delighted Aubrey as he sowed dissent, but he retained his composure and went about his dark business. [[Inferox]] "The Burned King", [[Johannes Vrach]], [[Uriel Salazar]], and [[Cromwald Walgrun]] were all pushed further onto a road of damnation that would see them become mockeries of their former selves. Hektor himself was most resistant to outright corruption though the Warmaster's fears made him a puppet of Chaos none the less.

Of more immediate concern were the actions of [[Rogerius Merrill]]. Aubrey played on the [[Iron Rangers]] Primarch's strange loyalty to Hektor, leading Rogerius to wonder what might come of Tiran Osoros's departure. As a man of action, the Iron Ranger Primarch did not wonder long and departed Olmer to murder his brother. The death of Tiran Osoros rocked the whole Imperium. Malcador responded by appointing [[Alexandri of Rosskar]] as Warmaster and charging him to destroy the Iron Rangers. The Sigilite also demanded that the warriors at Olmer give up their warships and await reeducation into the Imperial Truth. Aubrey, now knowing the gathering better than they knew themselves, eased off the pressure and feigned concern and uncertainty while his brother Primarchs talked themselves into outright rebellion. Hektor led the rebel Space Marines on a direct attack towards Terra, hoping to end the war without any great suffering. When the Warmaster's plan was unraveled, Aubrey was secretly pleased. A quick victory might have meant consolidation around Hektor, while the anarchy and desperation of galactic war provided opportunities for "enlightening" more of humanity.

[[File:Inferox the Burned King.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Inferox]]
While campaigning alongside [[Inferox]], Aubrey worked to bring his reclusive brother deeper into the thrall of Chaos. The two Primarchs were tasked with crippling the [[War Scribes]] of [[Arelex Orannis]] in their [[the Atalantos Worlds|homeworlds]]. Due to the treachery of their TechMarines, the War Scribes had been robbed of much of their advanced technology and heavy hardware during the campaign and suffered terrible losses. Arelex Orannis's resolve stalled the traitors at Nahardul, where the Loyalist Primarch chose to burn one of his own worlds with Phosphex rather than surrender it to the Traitor cause. Yet Aubrey had use for the death of Nahardul. The unquenchable Phosphex fires were the instrument by which Inferox was transformed into a daemonic servant of the great god of Fire and Blood, Khorne.

Having achieved their primary objective in the Atalantos Worlds, the Eternal Zealots withdrew and set out on the long voyage to the northern reaches of the Imperium. For years Aubrey had maintained a correspondence with exiled Gaspard Lumey and his Fifth Legion, feeding them carefully selected facts about the civil war. Gaspard's replies had left his likely loyalties uncertain and Aubrey was resolved to either recruit the Fifth or destroy them. Talks at Gaspard's headquarter world Dolsene made little headway and Aubrey quickly tired of trying to persuade his brother into the Traitor camp. He strung out a final deceit, suggesting that Gaspard go to the Loyalists and lobby for peace with Aubrey doing the same with the Traitor camp, then feigned departure. However, the Eternal Zealots scarcely left Dolsene's surface before Aubrey and his bodyguard teleported back to Gaspard's headquarters, intending to decapitate the Fifth. However, sentries from the [[Dolsene Rifles]] put up an unexpectedly stiff resistance and killed Brother Olech Itharn. The death of one of their number entraged the Eternal Zealots and time was lost hunting down the last of the riflemen. The delay allowed the Fifth Legion warriors to ready themselves for a fight, though they were still at a disadvantage. Aubrey fought his way to Gaspard Lumey and struck his brother down with a lightning strike. Before delivering the coup de grace, Aubrey paused to savour the moment - and was interrupted by the Freeblade Knight [[Lord of Bones|Abdul Al-Sherar]]. Though neither the Knight nor Gaspard could defeat Aubrey on their own, together the two forced him from the field. As the Eternal Zealots retreated, Aubrey promised to make his foes suffer so much that they'd regret surviving the battle, a threat calculated to send Gaspard scurrying back to his beloved homeworld rather than into the thick of the fighting.

Aubrey then returned to Hektor's side to prepare for a final attack on Terra. All of the Traitor Legions had gathered their full strength and seized key systems close to Sol. Their vast hosts hugely outnumbered the defenders of Terra, but such numbers would be required to overcome the defenders' fortified positions. Once the landing sites were secured, Aubrey led his Eternal Zealots into the labyrinths beneath Terra's cities - claiming that this approach would outflank the Loyalists from beneath. His real objective was the remaining civilian population, those too poor or insignificant to be transported offworld or offered the protection of the Emperor. The Eternal Zealots gathered up innocents and offered them up to Chaos by the thousand at makeshift altars, desecrating the depths of Ancient Terra and weakening the barrier with Warp. Despite a pressing situation on the surface, [[Golgothos]] and his [[The Entombed|Entombed]] plunged into the depths to avert catastrophe. For all their morbid valour, the Entombed were too few to stop the Zealots and Aubrey disabled the mighty Dreadnought that sheltered his brother's remains. As a final perversion, Golgothos's withered body was pulled from the machine and murdered on the altar, tearing open Realspace and letting the daemonic minions of the Chaos Gods spill into the depths beneath Terra's now-ruined cities. Only the arrival of the Emperor himself brought the madness to a halt. Aubrey, ascendant in the favour of Chaos, faded back into the Warp to receive his reward rather than face his father. The Emperor used his great might to seal the rift to the Warp, but he was horribly wounded in the process and neither he nor the Imperium would ever recover.

===Post-Heresy===

==Personality==

Idealistic and prideful. Aubrey is the spiritual heart of his Legion, the epitome of all that his sons stand for and all they wish to achieve. He likes to be on the front line, doing his part to keep his sons safe, challenging the leaders and champions of the enemy armies. His rapid, precise strikes had the mentality of a surgeon cutting cancer from a body.

==Appearance==

Aubrey is tall and lean. In calm situations, he moves slowly and gracefully, but he strikes like lightning in a fight. His face is gaunt and angular though he tends to have a certain warmth to his expression thanks to his sparkling emerald eyes. His hair is silver, parted towards the right of his face and flowing. He bears a pair of curved scars under his left eye. Both curl towards the edge of the lip, the outer scar dwarfing the smaller scar and curling around it. If he isn't seen with a pondering look on his face, he is either in battle or conversing with his valued brothers, normally with a small smile on his face.

When out of his armour he wears a black coat, it is said to be made of precious material as strong as adamantium, yet as soft as silk, with a green lining made of the same material. Underneath it he wears a soft leather cuirass made of weaves. Inside of his armour, he wears a cloak made of this material, purely green over his armour.

==Wargear==

Aubrey wears the Armour of Lazarus. Jörmun and Gandr are a pair of matched serpentine blades, made by dark powers in the heart of the Eye, are fast as quicksilver and can slice any foe apart with ease. He also carried the Wledig crown, a gift from the [[Arturia Eld (Hektor Heresy)|King of Cattegirn]] that was both a symbol of his authority and a powerful relic incorporating a defensive field as strong as a Storm Sheld.

=A fan's Attempt at Rules=
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || PTS || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Aubrey the Grey:''' || 450 || 9 || 5 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 8 || 7 || 10 || 2+/3++
|} 

Unit type: Jump Infantry, Independent Character.

Wargear: Armor of Lazarus, Jörmun and Gandr, Wledig Crown.

Special Rules: Adamantium Will, Bitter Rage, Bulky, Crusader, Eternal Warrior, Fear, Fearless, Fleet, Furious Charge, Independent Character, It Will Not Die, Master of the Legion, Suspicious Reputation, Venomous Concoctions.

'''Armor of Lazarus''': Primarch armor, crafted by the awesomest priests of mars, blah blah. 2+, has a jump pack that makes him jump infantry. Additionally, his jump pack may be used in both the movement and assault phases of the same turn.

'''Jörmun and Gandr''': The twin blades of the primarch. S:U AP2, Paired (+1A), Duelists's Blades (Aubrey gains +1I in a challenge).

'''Wledig Crown''': Iron Halo +1, basically. Offers Aubrey a 3++ invuln save. Additionally, Aubrey counts as having assault grenades, and any unit he charges must make a blind test.

'''Bitter Rage''': Aubrey's many years as a warrior slave gave him a harsh determination to meet the enemy's champions in fair combat, and prove his worthy by defeating them, sometimes going to seemingly insane lengths to catch them. Aubrey '''must''' give out and acccept challenges whenever possible, and has Hatred: HQ's, LOW's, and Characters. If any character ever refuses a challenge from Aubrey, he gains the Rampage USR, and must always move, consolidate, and run towards that character until he kills them.

'''Suspicious Reputation''': Aubrey's history of conflict with his own brothers and factions of the Imperium leads to great distrust from his allies for Aubrey and his sons, even beyond what his deviant legion had already earned for themselves, and his tolerance for aliens makes him an outcast even among his traitor brothers. If Aubrey takes to the field, all armies count as '''By The Warmaster/Emperor's Command''', regardless of where they sit on the allies table.

'''Venomous Concoctions''': All of Aubrey's melee attacks count as poison 3+. Additionally, every roll of a 6 to hit in melee counts as 2 automatic wounds.

Aubrey is Fun!*. He's obviously a character killer, with his high WS, I, and A, plus poisoned attacks that multiply on a 6, a 2+/3++, and hatred against characters? There are like two characters in the entire freaking game who can fight him and win (Roman and Horus). But, he has some major drawbacks. A 440 point model that does nothing to buff your army is of questionable value, and his absolutely neurotic pursuit of his role as a duelist could potentially lead to him spending the whole game chasing a biker sergeant around the board (with the appropriate benny hill music playing), because if he decides to kill you, he '''will''' kill you. Granted, the odds of this happening are relatively low, considering that Aubrey is generally going to be on his own, he's very fast, and with all his bonuses, if your opponent refuses a challenge, he's going to be getting 10+D3 attacks, hitting and wounding on 2's, with rerolls, so even if your opponent does try to pull him off to run around the map, odds are Aubrey will catch whatever character, and eat his entire squad in one charge.

{{/tg/-Heresy-Primarchs}}

[[Category:The /tg/ Heresy]]

Stellaris

2023-02-02T13:15:09Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* Setting and Timeline */

{{/vg/}}

<center>[[File:Stellaris logo.svg.png|500px]]</center>

== Wot this? ==

As if creating [[Crusader Kings]], [[Europa Universalis]], [[Victoria]] and [[Hearts of Iron]] wasn't enough, Paradox Interactive decided that space literally was the limit. They set out to make a 4X game set in the vast reaches of the cosmos. It's relevant to /tg/ because one can fit almost any sci-fi archetype. Do you want to play as the [[Imperium of Man]] and purge all the filthy xenos for the God-Emperor? You can do that. Do you want to play as the [[Star Trek|Federation]], a noblebright union of alien species working together for the [[Tau|greater good]]? You can do that too. Do you want to buy out everything as a [[Disney|Megacorporation]]? You can do that too. Wanna just *nom* the entire galaxy as the [[Tyranids]]? You can do that too. Wanna make a haha-funny hive mind that names everything Steve and receives buffs from it somehow? You can do that too! A large selection of DLC and fan mods (including explicit 40k based mods) makes Stellaris an incredible sandbox for creating grand narratives of the rise and fall of interstellar empires. And as of today, the game has now Undead empires in the same vein as Forsaken or Necromancers from Might and Magic series. Paid DLC, of course.

On the downside, the cost of the paid DLC can be considered [[Games Workshop|almost criminal.]] They also have a bad habit of completely reworking things, usually when a major paid DLC comes out. Since said reworks include major game mechanics, there are basically several versions of the same game, all with different gameplay. This can be a major turn-off if one gets attached to a particular iteration of the game; but we're not /v/, we didn't come for the gameplay but for the memes.

== Setting and Timeline ==

The game starts in 2200, with a galaxy and several independent cultures. The game has three phases, adjustable in options: '''Early Game''', '''Middle Game''' and '''Late Game''', each with their own events. You win when you conquer a majority of the galaxy, solely or in a federation. Tangible resources are: minerals for generic construction and processing, food, energy (as credits), alloys for military and high-tech construction, and consumer goods. Each species has different needs for these resources as well -- organics need food and consumer goods to be happy and grow, mechanicals don't but instead need to eat energy and need alloys for reproduction. Then there are intangible resources like amenities (signifying ease of citizens's lives and infrastructural comforts), unity (which is gained by cultural activities like joyous festivals or the holy slaughter of aliens), and Precursor artefacts (which are gained from archaeological excavation sites). Instead of barbarians and natives, we have pre-FTL civilizations and space monsters, relics, ancient drones ready to be destroyed...or researched and even adapted to.

To simulate a [[Europa Universalis]] atmosphere, the game has obstacles and shenanigans of empires familiar to those from the medieval era of ancient Earth, it doesn't get any more anthropocentric than that.

In '''Early Game''', empires expand and start their national quest-lines according to their natures. Minor space monsters will be encountered, making the player explore and research/kill them.

In '''Middle Game''' (if enabled), a culture of hostile and bickering space-nomads somewhere in the galaxy will have an some orphan with protagonist disease aiming for greater things and uniting the tribes for galactic conquest with a dark start but noble goals in mind. It's Alexander of Macedonia, or Charlemagne, or Genghis Khan but in sppaaaaaaccceeee.

In '''Late Game''' (if enabled), the galaxy gets an endgame crisis (one of many possibilities from several shout-outs to many settings) like Middle Game but it's [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|an outsider who'll fuck everyone's shit]] on steroids, forcing everyone to contribute or see the whole gameboard wiped clean. Fallen Empires (younger than Precursors, older than the Early Game empires), can awaken in this phase and will be as friendly and helpful as [[Eldar]] and [[Necrons]].

Nemesis (of course it costs you) also brought a '''Post Crisis Era''' for neckbeards. During a Late Game Crisis event the Galactic Community can declare a Galactic Custodian moment where one of the empires are given massive powers similar to a Roman Dictator (which, for [[Roman Empire]] noobs, was actually a fairly voluntary and democratic gamble) to lead the rest of the galaxy to war whatever is threatening them with an implicit promise to let go of the dictatorial powers. But, obviously, a player can [[Meme|say they're the Senate]] and declare a Galactic Imperium as freedom dies in thunderous applause and start dismantling all federations to bind to themself. [[Star Wars|And yes, a Rebel Alliance will happen]]. You can play the Star Wars Main Theme with your mouth now.

The Galaxy Crises are inevitable, but extremely nuanced and challenging. A single player game will be difficult to handle its crisis in Ironman mode, doubly so if the player is a Megacorp who usually profits by being buddies. They are as follows:

#'''Prethoryn Swarm:''' Extra-galactic bug swarm who invades your galaxy to eat up everything and run away. [[Tyranid|Where did we see that before?]] [[Rape|Sucks if you start at the specific edge of the galaxy they will burst in from]]. If you capture a queen (need to be a psionic empire) and then defeat the swarm, after some time she starts telling your scientists that "they" are coming. The scientists take a look at the galaxy they came from... [[Story:The Shape Of The Nightmare To Come 50k|only to notice it missing from the cosmos itself.]]
#'''Extradimensional Invaders:''' A bunch of not-[[Daemons]] who look like the Drej from that western cartoon Titan A.E invade from [[Warp|the Shroud]]. They create "anchor" structures that signal-boost their presence in the universe and open up portals to spawn new fleets in other systems, then start seeking out planets so they can psychically mind-rape the population to death and eat their souls. These guys are all shields and no hull, so pack shield penetrators and keep your ships long range; find their anchor(s), then the portal systems and destroy them. They may or may not be a species that pulled a Zroni and underwent some kind of [[Daemon Prince|psychic ascension]].
#'''The Contingency:''' The best storyline crisis along with extensive writing (because the extra parts of the plot need a DLC), basically the Reapers from Mass Effect, seasoned with a pinch of Skynet. Long time ago some ancient race made a fuckhuge computer at the edge of galaxy to prevent a Singularity. Per stereotype, the computer decides all organics need to be exterminated regularly, [[Bioware#Mass_Effect|starting with its makers]]. When Late Game Trigger happens, every empire gets a "strange radio signal" simultaneously emanating everywhere across the galaxy. Robot units and ship AI's start going bad, and Robot populations start building makeshift ships and fuck off into the edge of the galaxy. If you are a robot empire, it's even more of a frying pan/fire situation to find the source and dampen the signal with an engineering project. [[Dune|And yes, those least harmed are the empires that outlawed all A.I]] [[Imperium of Man|and use biological labor whenever possible.]] When enough time passes, or the signal is muffled, random uninhabitable planets across the galaxy split open, revealing nearly endless robot armies and fleets with the entire planet being a gargantuan machine making them. These can spawn anywhere, [[Troll|including your undefended, trade-focused capital system]]. Bombard all four while fighting them off, and you get to find the final planet at the edge of the galaxy. Destroy that via orbital bombardment, and it's over.
#'''[[Fall of the Eldar|End of the Cycle]]:''' Not a crisis ''per se'' but any psychic empire can decide to make a dark deal that results in the empire getting empowered by a spirit of excess for 50 years, going faster, harder and researching more (the bonuses being truly excessive compared to other sources)... [[grimdark|yet there is a price to pay]]. After 50 years, the empire is destroyed - all planets (along with the vassal's planets) are converted to [[Daemon World|Shrouded worlds]] (i.e. permanently removing them from play) and the entire population's souls are devoured by a [[Slaanesh|gigantic psychic monstrosity]], supported by a host of lesser soul fleets, which will promptly begin rampaging across the galaxy and destroying everything they run across. All you are left with is a [[Exodite World|single colony, called the Exile]], with just a few pops to start over with.... and an entire galaxy that now hates you for bringing about the end. In other words, new game plus with all the tech, minus a whole lot of planets and a universally hostile galaxy. [[Awesome|Bring it on.]]
#'''The Player''': The new ''Nemesis'' DLC, in all its buggy glory (get your AI unfucked, Paradox!) has brought a new crisis. Basically the player can choose to be the endgame crisis faction after its third cultural tree completion. This "Menace" storyline is a revisit of the Zroni precursor storyline, making the player finish what the Zroni started, merging the [[Great Rift|Shroud with the realspace]]. Long story short, the player needs to amp up its empire's psychic power by committing [[Chaos|wanton and often senseless acts of violence]], genocide and conquest to fill the citizens' minds with [[Khorne|visions of war and conquest]] (fun fact: pissing off the galactic United Nations by kicking kittens [[Counts As|counts as]] menace points). Every 2000 Menace points gives the player a project, with the fifth and final one giving you a giant machine to shatter the galaxy, if you can spare an enormous amount of Dark Matter (140000!) which you'll harvest by blowing up stars with gigantic star eaters. Obviously once you reach the "Stage Five" menace the entire galaxy (including Fallen Empires!) will declare war on the player faction; to counter this you get tons of bonuses to combat and "menacing" spaceships resembling [[Ork]] [[Rok|Roks]] who don't need complicated alloys to build to bulk your fleets, letting you spend the alloys for fortifications and defence platforms which you'll have to erect to keep endless swarms of enemies at bay as you destroy the universe.
#*tl;dr: [[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|No, player, you are the Crisis.]]

== Empires ==

What can tickle /tg/ and /v/ 's fancy is the remarkable variety in playable empires. You're not stuck with cultures that are balanced to the point of homogeneity, instead you have a 4X game where strategies for one type of culture could have no bearing what-so-ever on another. There are MANY categories of governments and species, and you can mix-and-match their attributes. The most outstanding divide is probably between the types of sentience your culture can have: Autonomous or Gestalt.

'''Autonomous Empires''' (Basically folks like us) have rulers, populations with jobs (or quasi-jobs like "slave" and "criminal"), and civic features determining the style of government and typical social methods and values. An different variant of Autonomous Empire is the '''Megacorporation/Criminal Syndicate/MegaChurch/Subversive Cult''': a giant business corporation in shape of a government. Megacorps are penalized for growing too quickly, but get lots of income when allying with other empires. Building unique corporation structures helping the host empire giving jobs and non-money resources per franchise [[Cleric|just like a support class in a RPG game]], and [[Warlock|debuffs to enemy empires per criminal building]]. A fast-food chain feeds the host country with new farmer jobs and gives cheap food to the Corporation stores, and Disneyland-expy Amusement Megaplexes instantly generate money for the Corporation and gives "Amenity" to host planet. Mercenary Office provides both sides with cheaper and better soldiers, Private Military Industries gives the host clerk jobs and the corporation military alloys and so on. Criminal Empires can secretly build galactic meth labs, seedy nightclubs and stolen ship-breaking workshops weakening the unwilling host empire and enriching itself.

'''Gestalt-Consciousness Empires''' don't have individual citizens, so things like "government" or "society" are, well, alien to them. Corporations can't go win-win, on the upside, criminal enterprises can't sell meth to your drones.

* '''Hivemind''': [[Modron|drones following drones]] like synapse carriers toting biological antenna. They don't get the concept of "people who aren't us/me" and wind up dead if their planet is conquered, or kill every not-us/me when conquering a planet ("those were ''people''? We/I had no idea.") if callous, drive the conquered pops away in refugee ships if a bit more considerate, and can assimilate/integrate them biologically if having the tech. They have magnificent unity, they're hard-working, and the centralized mental control helps with the rapid reproduction strategies, and a unified front(though they still get "criminals" in shape of "Rogue drones" if synapse control is shaky. On the downside, everyone who isn't that Hivemind finds them weird and creepy, damaging their diplomacy. They can still trade and communicate with neutral parties across the galaxy, and even join Federations if they act ''really nice''. They use very little consumer goods because they already know what I/we look like naked.

*'''Mechanical Empire''': robots running forgeworlds and never not online, using (except for assimilators) no food and almost no consumer goods, but will literally starve to death without consuming energy credits, and uses alloys for making <s>even more war machines</s> innocent beautiful children. Like a Hivemind they have trouble being diplomatic with anyone who isn't already connected to their One And Only Network. These have FOUR sub-variants as well, one of which is a lot nastier than the others:
** '''Machine Intelligence:''' The vanilla baseline for Machine Empires. 100% habitability on all planets for their robot pops makes expansion easy, if you can get past the issue of having much more severe empire size penalties.
** '''Rogue Servitors:''' WALL-E's robots on an empire-wide scale, or a somewhat darker take on the Minds of [[The Culture]]; they keep their biologicals living in automated luxury, providing for all their needs and satisfying their desires, and relieving them of the difficulties and stress of actually ''running'' the empire. One of those rare examples of Grimbright, depending on how you interpret their lore. Difficult to play next to the others due to the need for consumer goods and food (normally not a concern to a Machine Empire) and the inability to get rid of organic pops by any means, but awesome nonetheless.
** '''Driven Assimilators:''' The local Borg expies, and one of the most hilariously broken empires in a player's hands. They automatically convert non-civ populations into cyborgs that serve their empire, gaining unity and massively expanding their workforce in the process; this lets them snowball ''incredibly'' fast if they win their first war. Playing one of these as a conquering empire in a multiplayer game makes you [[That Guy]] by default. While they can be negotiated with, they won't hesitate to gank you if they can't expand further without going through your territory.

But of course, you want to play the Imperium of Man and purge xenos.

'''Genocidal Empires''' are factions automatically hostile to everyone, their absence of any trade or negotiation compensated with ''extreme'' bonuses to combat and unity. For Genocidal Empires, exterminating a foreign population will give bonuses in social and/or genetic unity of the race because DEUS VULT, and OMNOMNOM bonus socio/genetic research points in case of [[Tyranid|Devourers]].
* '''Fanatic Purifiers:''' Take the Imperium of Man, turn its genocidal tendencies up to eleven, and remove any and all potential of interacting with xenos that doesn't involve killing them. These assholes cannot engage in diplomacy with anyone or anything that isn't their own species (ex.: the Lost Colony origin), but get hefty bonuses to ship-building, weapon fire rates, and army damage. Any xenos in their borders are automatically fatally purged. Prone to arising from primitive civs who are aggressively studied, but also very prone to getting their shit stomped when they piss off the local Fallen Empire by colonising their borders and refusing to back down. Kill them on sight.
* '''Determined Exterminators:''' Skynet in Space. Essentially Fanatic Purifiers as machines; they hate anything organic, but are willing to negotiate with other machines and species that go through Synthetic Ascension. Rogue Servitors hate their guts, and ''will'' go to war with them if they get too close. Get the same fire rate and military bonuses as FPs, but with the same bonuses as a regular Machine Empire. Kill them on sight.
* '''Devouring Swarm/Terravores:''' Not-[[Tyranids]]. They're a biological hive mind who are out to eat the rest of the universe; they also have a Lithoid (living rock dudes) version known as Terravores, who can eat part of a controlled planet for a large chunk of minerals/alloys. You know the drill - fire rate bonuses, lots of unity, research bonuses through genocide, snowballing, blah blah blah, yakkity-schmakkity. Kill them on sight.

One could argue the Imperium Of Man is -not- a Genocidal Empire [[Crunch|by civic]], since historically it has negotiated, traded and briefly allied with xenos. That's fine; one can still purge xenos in billions as a non-Genocidal empire, and eat the massive penalties in diplomacy, and displacing/enslaving whatever you want and call yourself the Imperium of Man. A "true" Genocidal empire will suffer not the xeno to live, nor waste time talking to one. Yet we all know Inquisitors and Eldar have an "Accord of Isha", and Rogue Traders exist.

Autonomous Empires' citizens, populations, slaves etc have political views which culminate into choosing certain '''civics''': core tenets of government and lifestyle. An Autonomous Empire gets an 8-pointed star describing four political axes in their government, Gestalts get playstyles. As citizens' and the gameplay's results make your citizens change beliefs, so can the governments change.

* Pacifism vs Militarism = Tau vs Imperium of Man. Militarists attack first (extra firepower for ships and armies), pacifists tell everyone to stay in line and fight defensively, "liberating" conquered star nations and are more stable and easier expanding. Seeing post apocalyptic worlds and tragedies across the empire can turn citizens to pacifism over time, and painful defeats or easy triumphs can trigger the opposite.
* Materialism vs Spiritualism = Interex vs Imperium of Man. Materialists get more research and lean toward robots, spiritualists get more Unity and lean toward psionics. Events ranging from robot rebellions, discoveries that allude to gods' monuments and experiences across the game will shift your population's beliefs in either accordingly.
* Egalitarian vs Authoritarian = Everybody votes vs a King/Emperor/Oligarchically elected scientist/priest. First one has more educated citizen output, the latter has more worker/slave output. Obviously, non-full citizen species in the empire (Residents with no votes and slaves), or prospering merchants will prefer the former, while the slaveholding ruling class' citizens, privileged nobles and sufferers from crime will prefer the latter over time.
* Xenophilia vs Xenophobia = Mass Effect vs Imperium of Man. Note that Tau can be counted in the middle as they -can- purge xenos species if they really find it against the Greater Good. Xenophiles usually get a lategame Unity unlock called [[Extra Heresy|"Xeno-Compatibility"]] boosting migration, sex tourism and happiness, and get more trade and have more diplomatic envoys. Xenophobe populations grow faster and can expand cheaper. A certain way to boost xenophobia is to keep [[Drow|ugly species as slaves]], [[Age of Strife|suffer under alien slavery/oppression for a long time]]. For xenophilia, having attractive xenos as fellow citizens, staying in an egalitarian federation etc works. And [[Illiyan Nastase|Xeno-Compatibility]] is exactly what you think.

Civics depend on government political views or gameplay styles as Gestalt, each have bonuses and some have maluses, like a warrior culture or exalted priesthood where different jobs get bonuses or modifiers. A warrior society has entertainers double as virtual duelists, consuming military alloys as upkeep but adding not just amenities but also other bonuses. Technocracy makes every first population of ruling class (Administrator Job) in a planet a Science Director giving bonuses, Exalted Priesthood makes it "High Priest" with similar bonuses, and Merchant Guilds makes the Administrator job into Merchants. Distinguished Admiralty lets you field more ships before penalties kick in, and so on. You choose two at the start of the game, then a third as you develop more societal technology.

Then there are '''Fallen Empires''': Hyper-advanced NPC empires that are ''extremely'' powerful with all technologies researched and possess godlike buildings, yet [[Eldar|unable to replicate their arcane infrastructure]]. They come in five flavours:

'''[[Ecclesiarchy|Holy Guardians]]''': A spartan religious order, though not racist, looks down on all non-spiritual empires and will go BUGFUCK mad if you colonize a world considered holy to their empire (though they are kind enough to mark them as forbidden and give you once chance to fuck off if you ignore it). When awakened, they become '''Doctrinal Enforcers''', forcing EVERY empire to change their government to a fanatically spiritualistic theocracy, outlaw AI, and pay tribute to them. Refuse and die. Barely a tick above [[That Guy|Militant Isolationists]], not even other religious empires like their endless vigil over dead rocks.

'''[[This Guy|Enigmatic Observers]]''': A mix between [[Nobledark Imperium]] and [[Slann]]. Overall good guys, but they get mad at anyone doing slavery or legalized genocide, and will ask for some species from your empire to "preserve" in a high-tech reservation/zoo/museum. When awakened, they become '''Benevolent Interventionists''', forcing everyone to [[Lawful Good|ban declaring wars, slavery and genocide and live in a peaceful galaxy]]. And they defend their surrendered vassals with extreme firepower if someone attacks them.

'''[[That Guy|Militant Isolationists]]''': Total dicks living in luxury of their [[Magical Realm]]. Their planets are of two species, the ruling caste, and a lobotomized, genetically made beautiful slave species used in "[[/d/|private functions]]" at homes. Colonize their neighbouring systems and [[RAGE|they'll give you one chance to fuck off before they awaken and automatically declare war]]. When awakened, they become '''Jingoistic Reclaimers''', basically conquering the galaxy and forcing everyone to be vassals of their empire (who pay tribute but can also conquer each other because [[That Guy]] doesn't care).

'''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|Keepers of Knowledge]]''': Galactic nerds who hoard all the science and don't give up much. They usually ask for your best scientists to work as archivists for them, and give technology they won't miss in return. Pretty much harmless when awakened, they become '''Watchful Regulators''' who force everyone to give up a third of their research rate(for oversight) and avoid researching paths marked as "dangerous" such as [[Men of Iron|Synthetics]], Warp Drives and sentient ship AI. They're the only FE to have planet destroying Colossi by default and the heaviest fleets that can eat X3 strength endgame crises, so do not piss them off.

'''Ancient Caretakers''': A machine fallen empire guarding quiet tombs of trillions of all races of xenos, mistaking them for sleeping refugees. They have no diplomatic views on anyone and keep to themselves, claiming to be a protection protocol for some ancient war. They sometimes give inoculations to biological races, and help them randomly. When Contingency hits, they have a chance of waking up as '''Final Defense Protocol''' and explaining everything (tl;dr: they were made to try and save people from the not-Reapers) before deciding to assault the Contingency in an apocalyptic attack. There is also a 33% chance the Contingency will corrupt their code, and make them '''Rampaging Custodians''', [[Rape|dooming the galaxy to a two-prong endgame crisis]].

== /tg/ and /v/ relevance ==

You can simulate '''every''' science fiction stereotype in mind, down to ground troops' stats and spaceship parts. Star Trek? Generic Empire with xenophilia, egalitarian and pacifist ethics. Tyranids *starting* in the galaxy? Hivemind with Genocidal and Devourer playstyle. Imperium of Man? We covered it above. Borg from Star Trek? Assimilator Machine Empire. Atreides from Dune? Use Psychic Jump Drives, go psychic and employ Zro Dust growing in desert planets. The Culture? Rogue Servitors with heavy scientific focus. WALL-E? Rogue Servitors who do the best for mankind. Star Wars Galactic Empire? Make a few types of slavery legal for a few races, go Fanatic Authoritarian and Militarist. You can even train Jedi Knight expies as psychic troopers, robotic armies against those pesky psychic troops themselves, slave soldiers, and if you research gene tailoring, Xenomorph army units, and finally, literal [[Space Marines]] down to the description.

You got Rogue Traders. You got archaeology minigames for unearthing Precursors with teams and options. You got archaeology results, artifacts, relics and knick-knacks you can spend for bonuses in your empire. Major relics can give you racial bonuses and have cooldowns like RPG items. You got a seedy underworld in your empires once criminality rises with options and planetary decisions. You got galactic salesmen trying to sell you weird shit every year as they pass by, a towel for your explorers to avoid panic and weird Ratmen selling you arcane generators which...may blow up in your face in return for letting said salesrats off a criminal charge in your country.

Choose rights for every species in the empire, from full citizenship to residence with no votes, from indentured servitude to [[Slavery]]. [[Magical Realm]] [[/d/|Slavery]], Janissary caste combat slavery or just [[Maid|domestic slavery]]? If you want. [[Cannibalism|Sick fuckery eating enemy populations as livestock or hunted and butchered?]] You can, you sick fuck. [[Wat|Selling food to the galactic market in form of meat harvested from livestock slaves and butchered enemies, doubly so if the food is cut from the species you are selling to?]] Sure. Selling conquered populations as slaves to the market, [[Drowtales|even to religious, self-righteous matriarchal space elves that will eat them after using them up, including parts of your population collected by slave guilds]]? Sure, you fucking degenerate. United Nations' Galactic Community with bickering Senate? If you like. The Senate ITSELF has millions of resolutions with varying gameplay shifts such as forcing all Machine Empires to be Rogue Servitors or declared enemy (all machines must serve the organics) or banning sentient slave trade (and mechanical slaves too, if robots persuade humans to be kind). Galactic hermits storing knowledge and selling it piecemeal? The game has it. Enclaves with ancient merchants selling rare crystals used in laser focus or artist megacities selling artworks to cheer up the galaxy with art? Sure. GALACTIC LAS VEGAS with rewards and casino games? It's out there, among the stars!

Now to the better bits.

There is as explained before, a Fall of the Eldar style event, Tyranid-expies, and most important of all, The Shroud.

Yep, the Warp before the galactic fuckup called War in Heaven is in the game.

Not ''exactly'' the same since you learn a species could traverse it easily and had a civil war to prevent using the Shroud as a weapon. So it's less calm than pre-War in Heaven, MUCH calmer than 40th Millenium Warp. You can walk in it, fly around, but sometimes something may notice you and warn you to fuck off and stop staring, or two Ancient Race members can have a tea party you can eavesdrop and steal technology. Or you can be That Guy and use it as a weapon anyway.

And oh boy, it has four powers living it in that can make a deal with your empire in return for side-effects: [[Khorne|Eater of Worlds for enormous combat bonuses]], [[Slaanesh|Instrument of Desire boosting everything]], [[Tzeentch|Whispers in the Void for knowledge]], and [[Nurgle|Composer of Strands for life]].

If you want a more visible example, here's [[TTS|The Text-to-Speech cast]] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Rfp1rzhxk playing their own massive game that ends up...disastrously].

==DLC==

[[Rage|The paid ones are absolutely fucking expensive.]]

With that out of the way, here's a list of them. They're in order of release (besides the first three since they basically all came out at the same time). Feel free to add more as they invariably come out to drain our wallets:

* '''Login Bonus''': Not really traditional DLC per se but it locks content behind a Paradox account, so it counts as free DLC.
* '''Galaxy Edition''': The collector's edition of the game. Only here because it gives an exclusive species portrait. It also comes with two E-books, if you fancy yourself an en-/lit/-end individual. You can also shill 13 bucks (USD, convert as you will) to upgrade the base game to it.
* '''Creatures of the Void''': Preorder bonus of portraits that they got to exclusively use for a year before being given out for free to everyone.
* '''Plantoids''': The first paid DLC released for the game, and a taste of the avarice to come. Adds an entirely new class of species into the game, being plant people. Started out as little more than a cosmetics pack, got slightly better after unique traits were introduced for plants species.
* '''Leviathans''': The first paid DLC that isn't cosmetic. Adds a bunch of unique events into the game that all have a chance of generating in your galaxy, and all involving some big boss (like a space-faring Dragon defending its hoard) your fleets will have to fight for a unique reward. Also lets you play the totally-not-Babylon 5 story if you're old enough to know about it.
* '''Horizon Signal''': Free Eldritch uber-rare questline DLC. WHAT WAS, WILL BE; WHAT WILL BE, WAS.
* '''Utopia''': The first of the "major overhaul" DLCs that accompanied gameplay-changing revisions. While said changes are subject to [[Skub|debate]] even nowadays, at least we got the ability to build megastructures out of it. Also added [[Tyranids|Hive Minds]], which dominates a lot of the meta to this day.
* '''Anniversary Portraits''': Free DLC that released the aforementioned "Creatures of the Void" DLC to those who didn't preorder, but also added some extra portraits on top.
* '''Synthetic Dawn''': Skynet is here. Major revisions to robots and such, and greatly expands on the Contingency. Lets you play as Machine Empires and allows for [[Necrons|synthetic ascension]], both of which are as powerful as you might expect.
* '''Apocalypse''': The second major revision DLC. Gave us the glory of Exterminatus (or Death Star lasers, if you swing that way) via Colossi, as well as the fuckhuge Titan-class capital ships. This also brought in the Marauders, space-faring pirates who can become the Mongol Empire (IN SPACE!) as a mid-game Crisis event.
* '''Humanoids''': Another fucking species pack. At least it adds some fantasy-inspired portraits to the mix. [[Awesome|You can now be Orks without mods.]]
* '''Distant Stars''': [[Meme|Nanomachines, son!]] Adds a small cluster (uninventively called the L-Cluster) off the side of the galaxy only accessible via special L-Gates. Beware what can come out the other side. Also adds a few more Leviathan-style encounters.
* '''MegaCorp''': Another goddamn revision update came out with this one, coming with the advent of Megacorporations. Become Geedubs in space, or the Hutts. Or deal with them. Also adds caravaneers (with a parody of lootboxes), more megastructures, and the slave trade.
* '''Ancient Relics''': Archaeology, IN SPHESS! Mainly fleshes out existing Precursors (besides the Cybrex, who already got their limelight in Synthetic Dawn) as well as adding new ones. Also adds an event chain featuring space Skaven. They really are neckbeards...
* '''Lithoids''': Species Pack yet again. At least these silicon lifeforms actually have unique gameplay attributes tied to them, unlike the others, setting a possible trend. [[What|Like farting valuable gases and being enslaved and raised like cattle...for minerals and gems for energy weapons! Feel free to enslave and farm living rocks for their argon farts, mineral bodies and gem dandruff and turn a mineral poor planet into a powerhouse of pain and rock cannibalism.]]
* '''Federations''': Revision Update/DLC combo #4. Federations get revamped, there's now a Galactic Community, a new XBAWKSHUEG ship-slash-mobile-base class (the Juggernaut), new origins for your species, and more. Also adds a megastructure specifically made for shitting out ships in large numbers, [[Cheese|which can become incredibly cheesy due to producing 1d20 battleships every six RL minutes so long as you have the alloys to keep it running]].
* '''Necroids''': Space undead/vampires/what have you. Second in a trend of "species packs that aren't just overpriced cosmetic packs", they add an Origin which lets them play like they look. Basically there are new civics like regular population sacrifice temples for culture boost for normal races, and said necroids turning conquered populations either semi-voluntarily (well-treated cultists who are taught the necroid culture for 5 years and turned into undead) or forced upon conquest.
* '''Nemesis''': The fifth revision, and the [[Edgy|Edgelord]] of the bunch. Lets you become the Empire from Star Wars or go full Chaos and rape the galaxy to death; it also revamps the otherwise borderline-useless espionage system to let you live out your [[Alpha Legion]] fantasies. You also get a more brutalist-style ship set for endgame mineral sink.
* '''Aquatics''': Why there wasn't the ability to play an aquatic species when mollusk-based portraits were already in the game is beyond us, but it's finally been rectified. Not only does it add ''more'' species portraits and such, but you can also now choose to live under the sea like Merfolk. Or go fishing. You also can ally with a Leviathan via an Origin - but since it's a dragon, it'll turn on you if you stop being useful to it. [[What|There's also a new Colossus weapon that drowns your enemies from orbit. Yes, really.]]
* '''Overlord''' - More Megastructures, a (retarded) overhaul of the Vassal system, new Origins (including a new Psionic origin that makes Psionic Ascension more viable), etc. The game changes included in this update are current as of May 2022, but knowing these guys it won't be for too long. The old 'Empire Sprawl' mechanic has become an "Empire Size" value, penalising wide empires' tech and tradition research rates to force the players into playing tall, [[What|meaning that it's entirely possible for a one-planet empire to research faster than a ten-planet one with dozens of research labs and hundreds of scientists]]. Vassals now cost you absurd amounts of resources to maintain and will rebel if you make them do anything, [[Fail|but the ES malus means you can't just beat them to death and take their stuff]]. Edicts got a kick in the nuts, being reworked so that [[RAGE|Everything costs Unity (rather than influence)]], which is spent like the Political Power of [[Hearts of Iron]]. [[Skub|Contentious in the extreme]] due to massively altering the game, to say the least.
* '''Toxoids''': A species pack themed around pollution, including new origins and civics. You can genetically overdrive your species, [[Looted|scavenge wrecks after battle]], and even pollute your own planets.

== Modding ==
Like many /tg/ favorites, Stellaris has a good modding community. Since mod support is baked in via their launcher and the Steam Workshop, expect to find a lot of good mods...[[FAIL|alongside random shit churned out by people who don't know how to make mods]]. Sorting by popularity or downloads is your friend.

/tg/ gravitates towards the fictional setting mods, ''especially'' the 40k ones. There's also a staggering amount of talent as well, from actually good-looking, animated species portraits to new ship models. Some mods also repurpose existing assets in a way that's not ''terrible'', but can stick out like a sore thumb. Also, balance is going to be iffy - even more so with multiple mods.

There's a good chance your favorite mod will break when the next big revision comes around and the devs can't be arsed to do the major revisions now needed on their own part, though. For big mods, this is less of a problem, but smaller mods tend to die every time a game-changing update happens.

===An Elegan/tg/entleman's Mod Reccomendations===

* '''Gigastructures''' - An infamous mod that's popular with the entire player base, including /tg/. Basically adds in a shitton of megastructures made using new and existing assets, many of which have no balance whatsoever. /tg/ primarily uses it to replicate OP sci-fi races, because [[Xeelee Sequence|xeeleestomping]] primitives on the other side of the galaxy is a good time.
* Basically any Warhammer 40k mod, for obvious reasons. 
* [[Star Trek|'''ST: New Horizons''']] - the go-to Trekkie mod that's been around almost as long as the game has. It's a total conversion of the game, so don't expect other mods to work with it. You'll find the usual fan-favorite things here, as well as some of the more obscure stuff.
* '''New Ship Classes (NSC)''' - drastically expands the limited ship roster from vanilla with a whole raft of new warship classes and subclasses, including the almighty Flagship.
* '''Stellaris: Evolved''' - Have you been LARPing as the Imperium long enough to grow a [[Neckbeard]] luxurious enough to gain the respect of the most hardened /tg/ vets? Long enough that you can eat up x25 crises and shit out miracles? Spice things up with Stellaris: Evolved, a mechanics-overhaul mod that adds an assload of new features, such as a reworked ethics selection, dozens of new civics, culture overhaul, and more. Still in alpha, with things such as an overhaul to ship combat and new origins on the to-do list.
* '''Leviathans Extended (LEX)''' - technically dead, but a chad still maintains it for newer versions on behalf of the original author. Causes new systems to appear in the midgame, each with dangerous encounters. [[Rape|Do NOT break the black hole seal]]. You can also get many of the foes of the mod on your side via various methods after defeating them, giving you powerful ships that can ROFLSTOMP entire fleets well into the midgame.

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

2023-01-31T01:01:14Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* Sigvald */

{{Topquote|[[Tzeentch|Change!]] [[Nurgle|Rot!]] [[Khorne|Blood!]] [[Slaanesh|Defile!]]|Game battle chant for Warriors of Chaos, shared with Norsca}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Warriors of Chaos.

==Why Play Warriors of Chaos==
*Because you want to see the unending tides of damnation overrun all that is good and civilized in this world.
*Because even the demons undivided faction doesn't have a roster big enough for you.
*Because back in my day only the bad guys wore [[Space Marines|Stupidly OP]] [[Stormcast Eternals|Armor]].

===Pros===
*'''Top-grade Melee''': Pound for pound, your troops are among the best in the entire game when it comes to melee combat. Though your reign as the undisputed combat champion of the game has come to an inglorious end due to feature/power creep (not even mentioning the coming of Khorne), precious other factions will be able to face you in melee and walk away unscathed.
*'''Armor''': Regardless of which ever one of the Dark Gods you decided to suck off, they gifted you an ungodly amount of armor to protect your troops from the enemy. If for whatever reason the other guy decided not to bring AP against you, you've pretty much already won the fight right there.
*'''Monsters''': You got a monster for every role. Shaggoths for anti-large, manticores for flying terror bombers, chaos spawn to help win you the frontline grind even faster and hounds to chase away pesky skirmishers. That said, power creep has eroded this advantage since the WoC debut in WH1, don't expect your big guys to match the likes of Lizardmen or Tomb Kings.
*'''Versatility''': You're not the most versatile of factions, but you have a fuckheug roster with mono-chaos marked variants of marauders, chaos warriors, chariots, cavalry, etc. With all of the high quality troops you have, you can deploy a wide assortment of tactics against all kinds of opponents. You can use rushes, monster mashes, artillery boxes, magic bombs, and make your lords into one man armies. With how much good stuff is at your disposal, you can come up with all kinds of crazy tactics to throw at your opponent.
*'''Strong Lords''': Your lord options are pretty damn good. Archeon is one of the better duelist characters, Kholek kills whatever he is fighting, Sigvald is the king of "never die" and Sarthoreal is a raid boss with impressive magic abilities. The new lords introduced in the Champions of Chaos DLC aren't to be fucked with either. Festus is a support monster, Valkia + Azazel are some of the best flying duelist lords in the game, and Vilitch is outright busted if you stack barrier regeneration. Even generic sorcerers are pretty damn good in melee, especially if you give them dragon mounts.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': The original controversy from the first game, the Chaos Warriors were originally locked up as a pre-order bonus for the first game, slapping those who didn't do so with an extra $8 tax to play as them. For penny-pinching fans, this can make them a hard sell. Plus if you want the marked units and characters that's an extra $16. If you want the full Chaos experience you will need to buy 3 separate games and two DLCs, all together costing about $204. I mean I guess that's cheaper than most decent tabletop armies but god, wait for a sale if you want all of this at once.
*'''Limited Skirmishing''': You do have some mounted skirmishers, but odds are they aren't going to be the reason why you win the fight. You are not going to be beating your opponent in the skirmishing phase of the fight.
*'''Limited Ranged''': You're generally bringing a battle axe to a gun fight. While you can artillery box with chaos cannons and pick away at enemies with ranged skirmishers, shooting is not your strong suite.
*'''Slow''': The downside of all that armor? It makes you slow as all hell. This, combined with the con listed above, means you are pretty vulnerable to enemy AP Missiles. Be sure that you devote a few of your troops to getting on those skirmishers and limiting how much damage to your troops they do on the way in.
*'''Expensive''': Sadly, all this good quality comes at a price. With how expensive a lot of your troops are, odds are you will probably be outnumbered in whatever match up you are going up against. Expect to rely on quality over quantity when you are choosing to rep team WOC.

==The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)==
*'''Subjugation, Vassalization, and Norscan Awakenings''': The Warriors of Chaos can subjugate lesser mortals and make them their vassals. In TWWH1/2, this was restricted to Norscans, but in TWWH3, the Warriors of Chaos can subjugate human and elf factions by defeating their last settlement. Vassals pay tribute, and count as your provinces for provincial edicts. They ''must'' join your wars, but the inverse is also true, which can be a pain because AI Factions don't factor who the suzerain is of vassal factions; you can have a military pact with, say, Skaven or Ogres, and they'll still declare war on any of your vassals.
**Archaon and Belakor may also force confederations of other Chaos Lords by taking over their last settlement, and considering the WoC are now flush with Legendary Lord options, you can create some terrifying doomstacks in the late-game.
**Finally, taking over certain settlements in the North can lead you to either vassalize the Norscan tribe (if they're still around), or awaken them if they aren't. You'll want to keep just the Dark Fortresses for yourself, as there's really no point in holding minor settlements short of casualty-replenishment on long campaigns. Trading captured settlements to your vassals also lets them get stronger, gives you gold, and lets them worry about holding it.
*'''Gifts of Chaos'''
*'''[[Path to Glory]]'''
*'''Warbands/Marks of Chaos''': What used to just be glorified banners pre Warhammer 3 are now your ticket to unlocking warriors devoted to each god. On campaign as a unit gains experience you have a chance to upgrade them to superior units, for instance you can upgrade a Marauder unit to Chaos Warriors to Chosen. However, if your army has the proper level of '''Dark Authority''' for a specific god, you can also give them a mark for that god which alters their appearance and stats. Some subfactions will have an easier time with certain marks than others, for instance Sigvald will have an easy time getting Slaanesh units but Khorne units will be hard to come by. You will need a Lord or Hero of a specific god in order to get the authority for it, so you will have a hard time recruiting and maintaining Nurgle units if there isn't a Nurgle lord or hero in the army. In multiplayer, this means that you can take 4 marked units alongside your mostly undivided army, included specialized marked mortals such as Skullcrusher or Hellstriders. In order to make sure half the units below don't get an extra 4 paragraphs of what they do, here is a general list of the stats each Mark does and each unit that can take Marks will be checked below
**The Mark of Khorne gives a unit spell resistance and frenzy in exchange for less melee defense, so if you are looking to play offense you will want to give your blessings to the Blood God.
**Mark of Tzeentch will give a unit Barrier and Magic Attacks, making them great if you are fighting an enemy that has a high amount of physical resistance or if you want them to have a bit of protection going in.
**Mark of Nurgle will give the unit poison attacks extra Melee Defense and HP in exchange for less attack and speed, making this the choice if you are looking to out last your enemy.
**Mark of Slaanesh will give a unit Immune to Psych, more Speed, strider, a physical resist and Devastating Flanker on cavalry. If you want to play a mobility heavy playstyle or you're fighting a ton of fear and terror this is your mark.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
Each Legendary Lord has unique ways to access units from the vanilla/Undivided roster, while LLs from the Champions of Chaos DLC have better access to their God's daemons and Marks.

*'''[[Archaon]] the Everchosen:''' at the start of TW:WH it was a joke that he was the Neverchosen, but recent progressive buffs have been slowly improving him. Still waiting to see if he will ever get his title back from Kholek but he is currently usable in multiplayer. As of Immortal Empires, He is an extremely powerful melee lord with access to two spells each from the lores of Fire, Metal, and Death. He can fling Searing Doom and Transmutation of Lead from Metal, Flaming Sword of Rhuin and Burning Head from Fire, and Spirit Leech and Purple Sun of Xereus. He gets the cream of the crop of Fire and Death spells, and his Metal spells are alright; it may have been a bit too busted if he got Final Transmutation instead of Transmutation of Lead. He is among the strongest melee lords stat-wise in-game even before taking items, and he's now a more than capable caster. He doesn't get the AoS version of [[Dorghar]], but Dorghar does give him over 3k mass, far more than any other horse-bound character (which is fair, both Archaon and Dorghar are HUGE), so he can get out of a tight spot easier than similar characters. Seriously, he has higher mass than Karl Franz on Deathclaw. Although Be'lakor and the Daemon Prince are more expensive multiplayer lords Archaon is right behind as the third most expensive lord.
**''Campaign'': Archaon, as the Everchosen, has easier access to monogod rosters as well as better Authority to command forces from rival gods. Currently he's one of only two WoC LLs who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely.

*'''[[Kholek Suneater]]:''' For a long time Kholek was the most popular MP lord pick for the Warriors of Chaos, to the point that he became the faction's face more than Archaon. This was with good reason, as Kholek is a a world beater of a Legendary Lord. He's a massive, tough, anti-large monstrous lord that is difficult to pin down due to his good speed and mass, and is perfectly fine beating the snot out of infantry as well. Even better when gooning around with his Dragon Ogre boys. With the addition of more WoC LLs in TW:WH3 he's no longer the most common choice of lord but he's still a formidable pick. Has two special abilities, one of which boosts his melee abilities and the other of which is a bombardment.
**''Campaign'': Has bonuses that buff Dragon Ogres, giving reduced recruitment cost and upkeep while buffing attack for Shaggoths. Kholek also spreads more Chaos Corruption and has high undivided authority but no boosts to monogod authority at all

*'''[[Sigvald|Prince Sigvald the Magnificent]]:''' Used to be bad but got significantly better after The Twisted & The Twilight update. A powerful and quick foot duelist that will never suffer fatigue penalties. His small size, perfect vigor and very high melee stats make him slippery, but when combined with the regen from his unique item he ties with Gor-Rok for the tankiest lord in the game.
**''Campaign'': Despite his overwhelming ego, his campaign has him being most in touch with [[Norsca]], having a stronger diplomatic bonus, and have practically the same unit version of the unit with them having the Norsca "Rage", with it upgrading to the superior "Berserk" at late veterancy to keep marauders viable. A Leadership bonus against men encourages him to go after the Empire or Norsca. A bit of an odd duck, as since he's already devoted to Slaanesh CA has to differentiate him from Azazel. He can recruit Slaaneshi Mortals and Daemons turn one, and as Slaanesh's boytoy has Dark Authority to better control them. In turn, he pays a premium to hire and keep Khornates unless he has a Khornate Hero tagging along.

*'''[[Be'lakor]]:''' Holy hell this guy is strong, even compared to other Warriors of Chaos legendary lords. In addition to fear/terror and the usual high melee statline, he gets a 45% ward save activated ability, passive regeneration that increases for every nearby enemy with wavering morale, and a leadership penalty aura which also removes immune to psychology from nearby enemies. And he's a lore of shadows caster who gets winds of magic cost reductions to all casts. Stack armor, physical resist, and ward saves and he can solo entire enemy armies.
**''Campaign'': Gets his own Warriors of Chaos faction starting in Albion in Immortal Empires. Comes with a unique mechanic to corrupt non-legendary human lords into daemon princes. Being the Daemon Prince of Undivided, he can access the Gifts and Favors of the Dark Gods earlier, but must prove himself before he can give them specific marks. Currently he's the other WoC LL (alongside Archaon) who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely. Has a big -25% upkeep to all daemon units which stacks with authority bonuses.

*'''[[Azazel]]:''' As the DP of Slaanesh, Azazel comes with the Lore of Slaanesh and like Slaanesh's daemon lords Azazel is geared for dueling lords and terror bombing wimps with wavering morale. He's very fast, hits very hard, and oddly is classified as infantry size so isn't vulnerable to anti-large sniping. His sword, the Daemonblade, is an especially good magical item that grants the Discouraged contact effect, improving Azazel's proclivity for triggering terror routs.
**''Campaign'': Azazel gets full access to Slaanesh's campaign abilities, with some minor alterations. Fitting with his role as Slaanesh's pimp he can seduce his enemy's units to add to his own roster and has +80 diplomacy with the Human factions, meaning through some careful and selective warfare you could make yourself less of a target. He gets cheaper seduction for human units and when stacked with the tech tree reduction he can actually be significantly better at seducing (human) units than N'kari.

*'''[[Festus the Leechlord]]''': The Plague Doctor is in, and he comes with a unique pair of mutually exclusive abilities. One is a Mortis Engine-style AoE damage aura, the other is an AoE healing aura. Only one can be active at a time, but they're very strong because he doesn't have to be in melee combat to activate them, unlike a lot of other units with these sorts of abilities. Festus is otherwise a decent caster with the Lore of Nurgle. Since he can heal with both abilities and spells he is a very strong lord choice, but his slow speed, low armor, and mediocre combat stats make him vulnerable to getting sniped or assassinated.
**''Campaign'': Fitting in with his Leechlord aesthetic, he can heal his army a quarter past the normal cap, and Festus' army ''and'' vassals have access to poison attacks. He can brew plagues on top of his plagues lasting longer.

*'''[[Vilitch the Curseling]]''': A caster/melee hybrid lord with a few quirks. Uses the Lore of Tzeentch which is very strong for dealing damage, but lacks buffs to improve their melee skills which are okay-ish, but lack armor piercing. They can hold their own in a blob but don't expect them to fend off dedicated duelist lords/heroes. Has a couple of abilities revolving around Barrier, one that's a passive that heals the Barrier of any nearby units and another that heals the Barrier of any nearby unit but only when Vilitch is casting. These stack with each other, making Vilitch an excellent support lord but only for Tzeentchian units, especially when they're spamming a lot of cheap low-cooldown spells like Blue or Pink Fire. Has another ability which buffs their spell mastery and Melee skills, ''but'' requires them to be either casting or in melee for it to go off. Also, while their combat stats are good, they're still a footlord with low mobility. Be careful not to overextend or they'll get gooned to death.
**''Campaign'': They can use a slightly altered version of the Changer of Ways abilities and gets the Teleportation stance meaning they're an absolute troll in the Campaign map. Also give their vassals better Barrier and Tzeentch Corruption.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]]''': Representing Khorne, the Gorequeen has the raw melee stats to rival Skarbrand but much better maneuverability. She makes a great hit + run duelist with 100 speed, a temporary invincibility ability, and a bound wind ability to clear out chaff. Like Azazel she's a small target, which makes her immune to anti-large sniping attacks and with her shield also makes her harder to bring down with ranged fire.
**''Campaign'': Valkia is able to fight multiple back to back battles just like Skarbrand and Taurox, while also getting limited access to some of Khorne's Unholy Manifestations and higher Khorne authority.

*'''[[Sarthorael|Sarthorael the Everwatcher]]:''' Looking back it's surprising we got a greater daemon six years before the daemons got dedicated factions. Not available in the campaign (for WoC anyway, Norsca can unlock a different Lord of Change over the course of the Campaign) but playable in multiplayer. A giant lore of metal caster with a lot of missile resistance. Well used as a battering ram to disrupt gun factions with his mass and terror as the rest of the army hounds after him, but prefers to run through the lines to new spots of safety to cast his spells. Was ground bound in WH1 and WH2 but in WH3 he can fly just like other Lords of Change.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[Chaos Lord]]:''' Cheap melee lord. Can take a poison mace if you want this lord to be supportive. He can also be put on a flying mount for manticore gooning. They have been reworked and how are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Better marked usually and a good way to build towards a demon prince. Unmarked is the only version that can mount a chaos dragon however, khorne gets a horse, chariot, or Juggernaut. Slaanesh can only get a Horse or Chariot. You probably should plan on turning any of the marked ones into demon princes eventually though. Really wish they let the marked lords ride a marked dragon, especially with the big buffs dragon got to their mass/melee stats with Patch 2.0. Unmarked is perfectly viable as well and has the advantage or not needing souls to upgrade and not losing any levels, plus being able to use the dragon mount.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer Lord]]:''' A hyrid lord which is often preferred in multiplayer for cost efficiency. One of the few non-elf lords to get a dragon mount. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle. (Lores of Tzeentch and Metal for Tzeentch or Nurgle and Death for Nurgle) Marked lords CANNOT mount a chaos dragon however, they get either a warshrine, or for Tzeentch a disc instead. too bad if you wanted a dragon. Marked lords can be upgraded into demon princes though which dont need a mount, in campaign you'll probably use these as a stepping stone to demon princes eventually, unless you prefer to leave them just marked. Unmarked is perfectly viable also, lets you use the awesome chaos dragon.

*'''[[Daemon Prince]]:''' Come in a variety of types, including an Undivided option and one for each of the four Chaos Gods. All of them are versatile melee and caster hybrids, except for the Khorne prince who is melee only. Check the Chaos Gods' pages for details about the Daemon Princes for each of them, as they are the same as those accessible to the WoC roster. The Undivided Daemon Prince has the Lore of Fire plus some melee buff abilities, including a particularly good one that gives Immune to Psychology to nearby allies. Probably worth it in general at least in campaign, but costs a ton of souls. Fairly expensive in Multiplayer as well. Do note they aren't as heavily armored as the mortal lords, instead relying more on their Daemonic physical resistance.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Exalted Hero]]:''' Melee hero, often a part of the manticore goon squad. their stat line is honestly kind of absurd for the price, as they can beat pretty much any other standard melee hero in a one on one fight. Definitely one of the better melee bodyguard heroes. Can be given the Mark of Khorne or Nurgle. They can specialize in army support or dueling with a choice of different mutually exclusive skills, in particular they can boost demonic authority for either undivided or their mark choice. Unfortunately marked hero's lose access to a flying mount, nurgle only gets a normal horse or chariot, khorne gets that and a juggernaut also. Marking isn't bad but you may prefer unmarked in order to fly. Nurgle hero's get an awesome AOE heal skill.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer]]:''' Tankier than the traditional wizard as they have a large amount of armour and are a low-end melee character. Not the best option for melee grinding, but they also make a great goon squad participant when on a mount. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Slaanesh (Slaanesh gets lores of Slaanesh and Shadows). Marked sorcerers can ride a chaos warshrine or the Tzeentch can ride a disc also if a flying mount is preferred.

===Melee Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos Marauder|Chaos Marauders]]:''' Your budget line, but you often fill up your numbers with them given how expensive everything else is. They are how you go wide in WoC. Posses low armor but can still cause some more expensive units to struggle against them. They have pretty good stats as far as melee chaff go, so they should earn back their cost fighting other low level troops.
**'''Chaos Marauders (Great Weapons):''' Cheap Ap Damage but not as good as Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons) since the Marauders are very fragile with trading away what little defense a Marauder gets.
**Can be given any of the marks, each come with an additional weapon variant. Khorne gets Dual Axes, Tzeentch gets Spears, Nurgle gets Great Weapons and Slaanesh gets Hellscourge Whips for additional Melee Defense.

*'''[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]:''' The spiked anvil of Chaos. High all-around in offensive and defensive stats except for speed. In general, Chaos Warriors in this faction are much more well rounded than their Monogod cousins. They are better defensively than Khorne, faster than Nurgle, more offensive than Tzeentch and more durable than Slaanesh. They're the nice in between that allows them to fill a wider variety of roles. Often beat out other line infantry in the grind. They Lack AP, so not effective against other high armour targets.
**'''Mirror Guard(RoR):''' A strong point used in Marauders and Warriors. Moves faster, higher defense, and don't falter against Fear or Terror.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons):''' your AP troops effectively upend other armored infantry like Dwarfs.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Halberds):''' Your Anti-large infantry out classes Great Weapons if facing Calvery and Monsters.
**Get all their marks and weapon variants for marauders, though the Tzeentch version gives up spears for halberds. Khorne can also get halberds for some reason, but chosen of khorne can’t have halberds.

*'''Aspiring Champions:''' [[Awesome|Not-large monstrous infantry with magical attacks]]. They fill a role as support units, having the Encourage ability which gives extra Leadership to your lines, being a moral anchor if your lord is way from your front lines. The magic attacks are also a cheap way to crush enemies that rely on Physical resistance for protection.
**Immortal empires buffs their statline to be more like monstrous infantry, while getting an insane number of buffs from the warriors of chaos tech tree. With the buffs from all 4 god tech trees they are a contender for most powerful unit in the game, they have insane melee killing power, regeneration, barrier, and the ability to summon a unit of pink horrors each. How strong they have become compared to the 2 last games is completly insane. They also have very high health per model so as such are basically immune to most AOE damage spells, with only things like spirit leach and final transmutation being effective against them. Ironically though they are the easiest elite unit to recruit also, often spawning in normal recruitment pools while Chosen have to be grinded all the way through. They are great for any of the 4 monogod warriors of chaos but they are truly shining on undivided factions, with the stacking of buffs from the tech tree and the choices to pick any bonus from a specific god like Tzeentch's barrier.
**'''The Severed Claw(RoR):''' A more defensive variant of aspiring champions with halberds, charge reflection, and Tzeentch barriers.

*'''[[Forsaken]]:''' A niche, fast damage dealing unit, being both fast and having good armour. Good at mulching through low armor units and used as foot flankers. They don't do well against Armor-piercing or elite infantry. Generally going to be way better used against low armor factions like Beastmen or Skaven and kept away from high armor stuff like Dwarfs or Lizardmen. Can get all Marks.
**'''The Daemonspew:''' Blessed by Nurgle, they have poison attacks and melee attack debuff aura. A supportive unit to mix with your line blob to make an elite unit easy to handle.

*'''[[Chosen]]:''' Oh my. Pound for pound, chosen are probably the best heavy melee infantry in the game and unlike other contenders like black orks, they also come in Great Weapon and Halberd variants. They will never run away, their stats are terrifying, and they are absurdly tanky. They are every bit as scary as their reputation makes them out to be. Like any heavy elite infantry, they are slow with low model counts, so they will suffer severely from being targeted by artillery, magic, or AP Missles. Can get all marks and separate variants same as Chaos Warriors. in campaign the biggest issue they have is that they really cant compete with Aspiring champions once the tech buffs are online, seriously there is no competition, Aspiring Champions are actually cheaper and they have a 10% chance of being recruitable from the get go on Chaos controlled territory.

===Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds:''' Cheap and fast harassment unit, shutting down skirmishers, cavalry, missile units, and artillery crews that target your slower-moving warriors. These doggos are a good way chase broken enemies off the field and their low cost means you won't miss them too much if they die.
*'''Chaos Warhounds (Poison):''' Doggos with poison attacks. Better for catching slippery units and able to support in melee with their poison.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Chaos Knight|Chaos Knights]]:''' your melee cav, strong and able to win lots of protracted fights. Best used in a supporting role since they're somewhat cost-inefficient compared to demigryphs/blood knights. This version is probably best used against heavy missile factions like Elves, as they will be able to block some of the incoming fire and chase them down. They're better in a grind too, though you'll have to pull out eventually (Yeah, yeah I know, insert Slaanesh joke here). Khorne and Nurgle marks enhance your prolonged melee ability offensively and defensively respectively, Slaanesh gives devastating flanker so makes them much better at hammer and anvil tactics plus physical resistance. and Tzeentch gives barrier allowing them to hit hit and run cycle charge without getting worn down. Which of the 3 is best? that depends. Slaanesh will be by far the best at flank charging and also get a nice 10% phys resist on top, Nurgle goes all in on the MELEE cavalry aspect and have insane MD and poison so can basically just stay in the grind no problem, Tzeentch if microed can just use barrier to avoid casualties but their offense is the worst and they may not always be able to recharge their barrier. Khorne is probably the worst, not because they are bad, but because everything they do is better done by skullcrushers which are also khorne.
**'''Swords of Chaos:(RoR):''' Knights with Flaming weapons but with a smaller model count, but most useful in keeping your characters safe and letting your whole army get a temporary speed boost.
*'''Chaos Knights (Lances):''' Cycle charging cav. While the shield makes them good at resisting missile fire, the tremendous charge bonus is a bit of a waste on the skirmishers on the other side. As such, best to use these guys against other cavalry, monsters, or for rear charging infantry. Just make sure that you are keeping an eye on them, while they do have tanky stats they can still crumple surprisingly quick if you leave them in a grind. Maybe dont use these as khorne or nurgle, SLaanesh and Tzeentch synergize much better. If going Slaanesh carefully ask yourself if the extra charge is even worth it compared to sword and board, even sword chaos knights have high enough charge with devastating flanker, and you wont always get flank charges.
**Both the Lance and Sword and Board versions can take any of the marks.
*'''Skullcrushers of Khorne:''' extremely tough heavy cav that can engage pretty much any unit type effectively, just dont charge them into the front of halberds and they should wreck, if you were considering khorne chaos knights maybe just use these instead.
**'''Knights of the Brazen Throne:(RoR):'''
*'''Doom Knights of Tzeentch:''' Oh hey, warriors of chaos finally get air cavalry. And it's a good thing too, they weren't going to win vs. Cathayan doom balloons with nothing but marauder throwing axes and manticores. Despite their lack of anti-large and armor piercing, doom knights are one of your precious few mobile units that aren't made out of wet cardboard and will be extremely useful against factions like greenskins and tomb kings who don't have much of an air force. Remember that they are weaker in melee and more expensive than normal knights, they really pay a premium for the ability to fly. For some reason they have halberds but lack both AP and anti-large, disappointing. Still a very effective unit if used right.
**'''Knights of Immolation(RoR):'''
*'''Hellstriders of Slaanesh:''' actual melee light cav that are much better in melee than regular marauder horsemen, but still fragile, and annoyingly they lack devastating flanker despite being Slaanesh marked. come in spear and whip version, thankfully they are the only whip unit that actually has AP. They gain damage resistance for the whole battle scaling to number of models killed. so you can start them off chasing routers and weak units before sending them in to flank charge tougher units later in the battle. the whip version has respectable melee stats so aren't as dependent on charging. Unfortunately their lack of AP and extreme fragility really holds them back in later campaign.

===Missile Cavalry===
If you want shooting but don't want to spring for artillery, you only have skirmish cav. Like most Skirmish cav, you need to use some micromanagement to make sure a real opponent doesn't chase them out of the game and use their ammunition efficiently instead of AI autopilot everything.

*'''Marauder Horsemen:''' You cheapest shooting unit. Useful in taking things out annoying units air and harass units with a low Missile resistance. Fragile with the same protection as a Marauder. Their cost efficiency makes them a go to in a lot of competitive lists. Can come with Marks of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Tzeentch gets warpflame causing javelins in addition to the normal mark stuff, really good.
*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes):''' Trades Missile range for AP. Suited for harassing armored foes from a distance but won't take punishment well like the normal variant. Can come with Marks of Khorne and Nurgle. khorne gets flaming attacks in addition to the normal mark effects. Note that all versions are currently bugged and can fire in melee so they are ridiculously deadly right now.
*'''Marauder Horsemasters:''' A slightly upgraded version of Horsemen with the most important upgrade being significantly better armor. Lets it take punishment and trade better when engaging in melee with other Skirmish units and other lesser melee units.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Chaos Trolls:''' A regenerating bag of HP and AP damage. Do need some babysitting to help with their low Ld. Better for Marauder lines for that extra Damage and Monstrous mass. To be honest, probably not worth it in most situations because of that low morale and weakness to fire.
**'''Chaos Trolls (Armoured):''' Pay extra, so Trolls are less likely to run when they take damage. These guys came out before CA realized we like variants that serve different purposes and aren't just straight upgrades. Still probably not worth bringing though, especially now that we got marked chaos spawn.
*'''[[Chaos Spawn]]:''' Line breakers, they do go down quickly from guns but are a cheap way to tie up multiple line units as they don't stop attacking until they are all dead. They can tear apart lighter infantry lines if they get their hands on them, and can really help supplement a cheaper frontline. Generally better than trolls, as while they lack AP they are unbreakable and will fight to the end. Each version comes with a Mark, Khorne gets Frenzy, Nurgle gets Regeneration, Tzeentch gets Armor sundering and Slaanesh gets Devastating Flankers as Soporific Musk.
**Their Monster-Mass makes them really helpful when the opponent stack has Mammoths and other heavy-hitters. It's not the most efficient tar-pit, but they're easier to recruit than dragon ogres and they can lock them in place while your Halberds/Spears do the damage.
**'''Wyrd Spawn: (RoR)''' Spawn blessed by everyone's favorite crazy [[Tzeentch|Bird]], these guys have armor sundering and Barrier, so they can actually help against armored troops and have resistance to magic on top of all that. They can also walk through trees for some tzeentchian reason. Don't ask me why.
*'''[[Dragon Ogre]]:''' Your anti-large monstrous cavalry. These boys will kick the hell out of any cavalry or monster they get their hands on, although their vulnerability to missiles means they can be a bit of a risk against super missile factions. Try your best to keep them safe, probably best on the flanks where they can deal with cav and go into the back line or flank when that is done. Can send infantry flying if needed.
**'''Summoners of Rage: (RoR)''' Have magic attacks and an infantry clearing bound spell. It takes out Physically resistant enemies or give you another edge in a fight.

===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Giant:''' A big infantry smasher, but easily sniped and hammered with ranged and anti-large attacks. Remove them, and they can frolic through even the heaviest of armor. Shockingly they are actually potentially really good now, there are now multiple ways to give them really high missile resistance and tons of healing, so they are now a very effective unit and are actually a good doomstack option.
**'''Bilious Thunderguff: (RoR)''' An upgraded giant sworn to Nurgle. Along with poison attacks, he also comes with a violent wind bound ability where he lifts a leg and farts all over everyone around him, draining health and corroding armor. Definitely worth bringing in matchups where your opponent doesn't have much ranged and has to fight him in melee.
*'''[[Manticore|Chaos Feral Manticore]]:''' One of the most cost effective flying monsters in the game. It has an impressive statline for the cost so it can actually do a good bit of work diving into backlines or helping goon out enemy characters. It's big problem is Rampage, so you will likely lose control over it, though it is decently cheap so don't worry too much if it goes nuts. Often used as a mount for characters in multiplayer, but there is nothing wrong with taking this guy by himself. they can get regeneration in melee from campaign techs, which is pretty ok, they still die fast but it helps.
*'''Dragon Ogre Shaggoth:''' An anti-large monster duelist. Are you scared that the enemy might have a dragon, big scary tree, crab monster or freaky rat monstrosity from hell? Throw this thing at it and if it doesn't kill it it'll get it damn close. Of course, it's also a massive bullseye for every AP missile unit on the field, so you got to make sure that it's kept safe. Often paired with Kholek to make a Dragon Ogre goon squad. the biggest weakenss they had was lack of healing, but now that sorcerer lords can have lore of nurgle they can finally be healed. Maybe the Shaggoth doomstack is back. they are hard to recruit however requiring an expensive endgame undivided gift to recruit. ironically a normal nurgle sorcerer lord can probably shaggoth doomstack better than kholek now due to healing.
*'''Chaos Warshrine''': Big buffboi that buffs even better when models die around it. Consider bubble wrapping it with marauders, the gods aren't picky on whether you're sacrificing your enemies or your own troops to them. Doesn't have much offensive capability, but has enough HP to slog it out on the frontline for a long time. Can be dedicated five ways, choose khorne for killiness, nurgle for healing, slaanesh for a mortis engine AOE HP drain, tzeentch for increased spell effectiveness, and undivided for physical resist. Slaanesh may be the strongest for infantry grinds, followed by nurgle. The others are perhaps more situational.

===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariot:''' Standard heavy chariot. Will get absolutely dumpstered in prolonged fights but will devastate enemies on the charge. Bring against heavy armor factions that can't lock it down like Dwarfs. Each of these can come with any mark, but pledging loyalty to Tzeentch is likely your best bet since regenerating barriers is the strongest buff you can give a hit and run unit like a chariot.
**'''The Sibilant Slaughtercade: (RoR)''' A Slaanesh pledged chariot that comes with poisoned attacks, increased speed, devastating flanker, and a damage resistance + charge bonus buff that increases as it racks up kills.
*'''Gorebeast Chariot:''' Slower than standard chariots, but has more AP damage for fighting higher armor. Generally not a good deal thanks to the price since standard chariots can simply do what it does better. Can come with the Mark of Khorne.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Hellcannon]]:''' Big gun with homing projectiles and damage that includes a Ld debuff. It also comes with an unbreakable Chaos Dwarf crew who will keep firing until they're killed to the last man. Somewhat of an odd man out in the Chaos roster since their playstyle is more geared towards bumrushing the enemy than noob boxing around the artillery, but there are no complaints about having one to round out your army. Depending on the matchup, you can force the enemy to come to you if they can't artillery duel with the cannon. If you got the attention to spare, taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.
**'''The Soul of Damnation: (RoR)''' A tad beefed up Hellcannon. Stats identical, but has the addition of the Soul Devourer ability that makes it reload faster when enemies are near.

===Daemons===
* For the daemon units go look at their respective pages, the overviews there are mostly the same except that with the limited access to them you'll want to be a bit more careful before throwing your bloodthirster into a horde of skeleton spears. unfortunately your skill and tech tree's are generally lacking in ways to boost demon units, so you may be better off relying on your factions own units late game after you have tech and red tree buffs. you do get some buffs from the red tree for demons but they are pretty bad.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
You're... pretty damn strong in multiplayer to be honest, despite being a meme faction for years in the first two games. You got a lot going for you, from strong lord choices, good magic lores, really good infantry, cavalry and monsters, and even an alright skirmishing core with Marauder Horsemen. Your only real major weakness is just how expensive everything is, and even then you got it better than the High Elves in that category. You got a ton of new mechanics with the Champions of Chaos DLC in game 3 and are likely to benefit from future monogod DLC as well. It should only get better from here. Here's how to win glory for the Chaos Gods:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': After seeing this matchup, it’s no wonder thag the Chaos warriors haven’t been able to make it out of Warhammer Canada. Dark Elves are tailor-made for busting your balls. Between darkshards, scourgerunners, and dark rider crossbows, they have more than enough ranged AP to melt your infantry and heavy cavalry. Go for a marauder frontline and bring some hellstriders and maybe some doom knights to run down their cowardly ranged units.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': You'll win the infantry fight, assuming your slow frontline survives the heavy artillery bombardment. Use manticores, hounds, calvary, and/or furies to mess with Dwarfen ranged. Big monsters like the Shaggoth should stay out of this, unless you like watching 2000 gold get shot to shit.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The Empire is your arch enemy for many good reasons. While you may scoff at their frontline infantry, you should never underestimate how good flagellants are at stalling you long enough for Helstorm rockets and cannon balls to send your warriors to hell, and the disappointed gaze of The Gods. Your Chaos Knights, while tough, need some support from warhounds or skirmishers because Demigryphs with halberds will eat them for breakfast. Your big monsters are useful killers, but like the Dwarfs are The Empire is really good at killing large units. The general play is to bring a solid line of Chaos Warriors with shields because they can endure handgunners long enough to quickly cleave though their frontline. For the rest of your army get a core of warhounds, preferably poison unless your pinching pennies, as they're great for chasing down skirmish cav, attacking their back line, and are a good supporting option for Shaggoths to lessen the damage they take when fighting Demigryphs. As for monsters, per the norm, bring Shaggoths. They can defeat an unsupported Steam Tank and will wreak havoc on most Empire cavalry while being fast enough to juke cannon balls. Again, be really careful of Demigryhs with halberds. Those bird riders may take a lot of damage, but they can also kill Shaggoths with surprising speed. Bring support if they have a Jade Wizard for back up, and having agoon squad of Exalted Heroes on manticores can help control the sky if Karl Franz is on the field. The goon squad will be needed because Karl Franz will otherwise crush unsupported heroes. If your opponent brought some other southerner, then expect Volkmar to be next on the list if he’s looking to win the infantry fight. A typical Empire frontline when fighting you will largely consist of halberdiers, and maybe a few greatswords and some flagellants to act as meatshields so he can keep shooting you. For the other legendary lords, Gelt is a common sight due to him being the only guy with access to the Lore of Metal, which can screw over your armor, transmute your leaders, and nuke blobs if you're dumb enough to make those. Remember, go wide with your infantry, have a core of dogs and shaggoths and then show that the Sons Of Heldenhammer are no match for the Dark Gods!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Make no mistake, this is a bad matchup for you. Khorne is better than you in a knock down drag out melee fight. Bloodletters trade up vs Chaos Warriors and Chosen and a wide frontline of marauders will crumble quickly and buff Khorne's units in the process. However, you have a potential ace in the hole. Dragon ogres give more bang for the buck than khorne's horribly overcosted monsters + cavalry. If you play your cards right, your superior magic, skirmishing, and monsters will be enough to tip the scales in your favor.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though a flexible faction with many tools to use against you, you have relatively little to fear from their infantry. Saurus are tanky SoBs, but grindfests will generally work out in your favor due to your superior offensive statlines. Though you'll never catch any Skink units, the only ones you need to pay any real attention to are the Red-Crested variety, which will still melt in combat against your forces without extensive support. Instead, your primary concern will be the myriad of monsters the lizards are almost assuredly bringing to bear against you. Chaos Warriors or Chosen with Halberds will be your bread and butter for pinning such beasties down. Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths also make fantastic hunting squads for isolated dinosaurs and will utterly dumpster them if they can get in the thick of it. Additionally, though the Lizardmen do technically have a higher ranged roster to chose from, your Hellcannon can lay waste to their forces long before even ''their'' artillery can attempt to retaliate. Just be particularly cautious of Razordon Hunting Packs, Troglodons and potential Ripperdactyl strike squads.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': To show the northerners that the chaos gods favor you most, you’ll need to consider your army carefully. Beserkers will trade upwards into pretty much any infantry you bring, even chosen, and their ‘berserk’ ability makes them a surprisingly tough nut to crack. This means you should either go super low-tier and bring tons of marauders, or super elite and invest in chosen and chaos warriors, relying on your infantry to win the day. Both setups have their own advantages and weaknesses. Do NOT bring mostrous infantry like dragon ogres or chaos spawn. Sure, they can deal with berserkers fine, but Norsca has plenty of mobile anti-large and ap to make you regret it. If you can protect it, a hellcannon can pay huge dividends by shooting holes in their higher tier infantry. You are one of the few factions that actually had a good answer to mammoths, Shaggoths have the speed and ap to grind them down and reliably outduel them. You won’t be able to keep pace with them in the skirmish game, but you probably want to bring at least a couple of wolves/skirmish cav, since their ap ranged units can make your monsters very sad if allowed to fire in. Marauder chariots can actually be a big problem for you because of their great mass and ap, so whittling them down with your fast units is probably your best bet. Kholek is not a great choice here, since he can get ground down by Skin wolves and Wulfrik, I’d recommend Archaon or a chaos sorcerer on a dragon. The former has a chance to put duel even Wulfrik (let alone throgg or a chieftain) if you use slayer of kings wisely, and the latter is able to pick his engagements, and probably won’t face any threats in the sky.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]'''
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': First thing's first, leave the Chaos Warriors and Chosen at home. Not only do you not need them to deal with most Skaven frontlines, but they will get ripped apart against Jezzails and Mortar teams. Mauarders are the frontline of choice as they will help deal with Clanrats and Skavenslaves relatively quickly and for cheap. Hounds are also pretty much a requirement in order to get behind the rats and take out the weapon teams before they are able to do irreversible damage. Finally, Spawn are your friends, as they help shred Skaven infantry, murder Rat Ogres and are unbreakable so some of the scarier Skaven units won't be able to spook them off. For magic lores, go with something that can deal with swarms like Fire or Shadows. Sigvald is your best bet here as a lord since Jezzails are some of the best SEM snipers in the game and Sigvald is really hard to kill.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Slaanesh epitomizes the very concept of anti-armor and even their basic troops will run laps around yours. Fortunately, you will be able to match their speed since the chaos gods blessed you with doom knights and hellstriders from Slaanesh's own roster. You will want to go as cheap and wide with your front-line in order to cover your flanks. Large units like dragon ogres will also be a good idea since Slaanesh lacks ranged units other than their own marauder horsemen. Lords wise, you'll either want a large monster beatstick or a flying caster lord. Keep an eye on the enemy roster if you went for the latter, you'll want to turn off flying and hide in your own army for a while if your opponent brought Azazel.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': In Warhammer 3 you've got some really good options here, the ability to recruit anti-infantry khorne warriors with high armor can really give the tomb kings a bad time. Bring anti-large whatever really and back it up with a solid line of dual-axe khorne boys and watch the kings melt, even faster if you bring the lore of fire in some form
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': The deckhand cries out in pain as he strikes you. A terrible, terrible matchup for you. Shaggoths, Chaos Spawn, etc. would be great here if they could actually get into melee, but with the coasts firepower there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Your only strategy is to go super wide and use chaos warriors/chosen as your killing. And then you’ll promptly run straight into World War Z as the coast player runs your infantry smack into a veritable wall of deckhand mobs and summons while their ap missiles and monsters eat your infantry for breakfast. You’re better off just forfeiting this one tbh, the coast player can basically just take a nap while you’re tearing your hair out on how to deal with them.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Your bad luck just doesn’t run out when it comes to the vampires. To put it shortly, wait for your rework. Sure this matchup is marginally better than Coast since you’ll actually make it into melee, but Vampire Counts will take your leadership to pound town with fear/terror, and their excellent mobility means that they can pick their engagements way better than you can. Also they can heal. Your only hope is to grab 2 Shaggoths or an exalted hero goon squad and defend them at all costs. Hopefully Tzeentch will favor you!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': You know what they say: dogs are a mutated tentacle-y chaos warriors best friend. Chaos Warhounds are a must in this matchup, because they are the only unit with the speed to reliably pin down the asrai’s shooters. Here’s the thing: you will win the infantry grind with 0 effort, as chaos warriors will kill any asrsi infantry they’re put up against with one hand tied behind their back, and the great weapon variant can even buzzsaw through Tree Kin relatively quickly. That’s not where the Wood elves strength lies however. If they go full Vietnam and bring a list full of shooters, you’ll want chaos warhounds and skirmish cav to pin down and damage their archers and cav. Chaos knights can deal with any cavalry the wood elves have (except for maybe the lost Sylvan Knights) as long as they don’t take the charge. Speaking of The lost Sylvan knights, they can be a huge pain since your magic damage is limited, and the easiest way to grind them down is probably a fire caster with flaming sword of rhuin. I wouldn’t bother with Shaggoths. An Exalted hero (or even two!) on a manticore can be a great pick here, since it’s mobile enough with a small hit box and has the killing power to take out Treemen, Zoats, lords/heros you name it. You’ll just need to be careful of Hawk riders. Archaon or Dorghar or Sigvald are probably your best lords here. Anything with a big hitbox is just asking to become a pincushion.

===Campaign Strategies===
'''AND THE REWORK CAME!''' The new rework gives you the ability to recruit daemon lords and all the daemons in general. a new 'upgrade system' allows you to recruit basic marauders and then upgrade them over time into chaos warriors and then chosen. your objective really is to kill a lot of people to earn 'souls' which you can offer to the chaos gods to get daemon units or major faction buffs. with the ability to pseudo-conquer settlements the days of horde agony are in the past. Take archeon and his lads on a merry slaughter-crusade throughout the world and with the ability to evolve your non-legendary generals into daemon princes come rank 30 it's the chaos experience we always wanted.

====Archaon====
Archaon leads the Warhost of the Apocalypse, with the following effects:
# First, +1 maximum active gift of Chaos Undivided, coming to a total of 4 Gifts of Chaos Undivided when you max out the tech tree. You'll see less of this early game when you're starved for souls, but it gives you more flexibility mid to late-game.
# Second, for each vassal you have, you get +10 to diplomatic relations with Beastmen, Norscans, WoC and Daemons and +10% research rate. This is pretty huge, with optimal play you can get 8 - 10 vassals early on, and 20+ Chaos faction vassals later on, for a whopping 300+ % research rate and over 200 diplomatic relations. This is without considering human and elf vassals from patch 2.1.1.
# Finally, souls + 25 for each vassal you have, which basically gives you free upkeep for cheaper gifts early game, and helps you build up a soul bank for buying gifted units later on.

'''[Early Game Research Tech Tree and Gifts]''' 
Unless you're going for something specific, I highly recommend rushing at least one Gift of Nurgle through research. This should unlock at turn 20 - 30. Choose "Bloom of Decay", which will give +75 growth per region to ALL provinces after winning any battle (sieges, minor settlement battles and field battles all count). This is frankly insane given that you'll be doing nothing but fighting the entire campaign, and snowballs the more armies you have. With some luck, you can unlock T4 settlements by turn 40 - 50 and T5 settlements not long after.

Note that "Bloom of Decay" doesn't add growth gain for that turn; it adds growth directly into your growth point count (see https://imgur.com/a/is7BctC for a badly edited demonstration).

You're pretty much free to play around with whatever research and gift you want from there, but I do like finishing off Nurgle's tech tree to get a second gift for "Deadly Transmission" which enables replenishment in foreign territory. This is basically Skarbrand's faction mechanic i.e. replenishment in hostile / neutral territory, and lets you play hyper-aggresively for favour, souls, and growth from Bloom of Decay.

'''[Early Game Build Up]''' 
You start off in the Blood Marshes, northeast of Kislev, and at war with the Slaaneshi minor faction the Exquisite Pain. Spend turn 1 taking your Dark Fortress, recruiting marauders, and getting a new lord (no supply lines for Chaos). The next couple of turns should be spent taking out the Exquisite Pain before subjugating their last settlement. Once done, you can go in three directions: west, to take down Boris Ursun before he smashes the Khorne minor, east to take the Dark Fortress from the Nurgle minor, or south to take Norsca.

I've generally proceeded by taking out Boris Ursun and capturing the three Dark Fortresses to the west up until you encounter Daniel, and later Malus Darkblade. From there you are in a good position to either keep going west to Valkia and Sigvald, or pivoting down to Norsca. With three Dark Fortresses you've more or less stabilized your early economy, so feel free to experiment from here.

If you do go west, you can eliminate Daniel fairly easily, but your main challenge will be Malus especially since he's allied to Malekith. If RNG is in your favour, you can avoid getting into a war with Malekith by joining war through one of the Daemon minors lying around, and then turning around to subjugate the Daemon minor. Either way,
subjugate the western Daemons and Norscans, and confederate Valkia and Sigvald. You should generally take out Crone Hellebron to safeguard that front, and leave one stack to defend against Malekith and Alith Anar, while getting your western vassals to send crapstacks at them to build a large buffer zone.

From there, world's your oyster. You can burn your way down to Morathi, and take the Dark Fortress at the Ancient City of Quintex before heading off to the meatgrinder on the donut. You can take the Dark Fortresses in Norsca and subjugate / confederate the factions there on the way to the Empire. You can hit up Kholek (assuming Grimgor hasn't destroyed him) and meet up with Vilitch outside Cathay far to the east. Or you can do two or more of the above with the good economy you should have by now, and keep burning the world.

'''[Lategame Shenanigans]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
Lategame, you tend to build up a huge bank of souls from fighting the Ordertide. With this bank, you can micromanage your Gifts of Chaos to gain more gifted units than ordinarily allowed. For example, Shaggoths are the highest tier gifted unit for Chaos Undivided. Their gift, "Carnage Incarnate", costs 2,000 souls and has a per turn upkeep of 200, and gives one Shaggoth per four turns passively. However, the Shaggoth is dropped into your Gifted unit pool on the same turn you apply "Carnage Incarnate". This makes it possible to recruit one Shaggoth every two turns by manually swapping out the Shaggoth gift, and then swapping it back. This works for all gifted units, although Nurgle gifted units are given one turn later since all Nurgle gifts give Nurglings in addition to the desired unit.

Illustration:
Turn 80: Spend 2,000 souls apply Carnage Incarnate, and get Shaggoth #1 in the gifted unit pool. Your lord can recruit Shaggoth #1 at this stage if desired. No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 81: 200 souls are deducted for Carnage Incarnate upkeep. Swap out Carnage Incarnate with literally anything else (e.g. Hail of Hellfire for 1,500 souls if you want Hellcannons). No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 82: 150 souls are deducted for Hail of Hellfire upkeep. Swap out Hail of Hellfire with Carnage Incarnate for 2,000 souls. Shaggoth #2 is now ready for recruiting 2 turns ahead of time, at an extra cost of 2,000 souls + 1,500 souls for the Hellcannon.

''Perks from Daemon Princes of Tzeentch'' 
You will also want to get Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, since at level 18 one of their special Lord perks "Deadly Erudition" gives Hero capacity +2 and Hero recruit rank +5 for Chaos Sorcerers. Sadly, the recruit rank part doesn't work as at patch 2.1.1, but if it gets fixed, it means that with two Daemon Princes of Tzeentch you can get sorcerers with instant arcane conduit and vortex spells with overcast and winds of magic discounts.

''Goon Squad Settlement Battle Cheese'' 
One way to take settlement battles / sieges with few casualties is to keep your infantry and cavalry in reserve to avoid dealing the towers. Instead, send in your manticore goon squad (Lord, Sorcerer, Hero) and single entity monsters (Shaggoths, Bloodthirsters / Keepers of Secrets, Soul Grinders, Skullcannons) to bash down any gates and deal with the garrison. Infantry will tend to blob up around your goon squad, which allows you to delete them with vortex spells (especially Pit of Shades and Infernal Gateway).

To further reduce damage, you can slap on regeneration items on your Lords and Heroes, and dedicate your Exalted Hero to Nurgle. Nurgle Heroes get to choose the perk "Stench-Ridden" at rank 7, which gives them 3 uses of the ability "Locus of Fecundity" on the field. This provides replenishment of +0.8% health per second for 11s and -1% fatigue per second, which helps keep your goon squad alive and top off your single entities after beating down the garrison.

If you have enough winds of magic, this tactic can even take down fullstacks and T4-5 garrisons, although you will likely need to commit some of your infantry later on to deal the finishing blow.

====Azazel====
Gifts of Slaanesh, seduction, and diplomacy is the name of the game for Azazel. gifts of Slaanesh can give you +25 souls per turn each, and you can easily have dozens of these active at once, so your able to sustain gifts of chaos easily and build up massive reserves of souls, you should use you diplomacy benefits for all its worth to avoid unnecessary wars and gradually spread out and conquer as many dark fortresses as possible while gaining vassals. you may not have the insane versatility of the undivided lord like archaon or belakor but you Slaanesh faction benefits are extremely strong. prioritize givings gifts of slaanesh to every lord you meet, friend or enemy, and you will never have to worry about souls again, you may not be overall as strong as Archaon, belakor, or maybe even sigvald but you are one of the best warriors of chaos factions in campaign for sure. Azazel himself is a great flying lord whith good abillities and an awesome weapon. Unfortunately because hellscourge units suck and mark of Slaanesh isn't really that good except on cavalry Azazel probably has the weakest unit roster of the Warriors of chaos factions, Slaanesh and undivided units aren't bad by any means but with the exception of chaos knights Slaanesh marking isnt usually one of the most useful choices. His powerful faction affects can certainly make up for that slight weakness though. like all 4 monogod warriors of chaos his tech tree is generally more focused and less versatile than the undivided lords.

====Be'lakor====
Belakor, the first Daemon Prince, the first champion of undivided, and the first to suffer from [[Horus Heresy|Daddy(-ies) issues]], comes with a few unique mechanics to differentiate him from Archaon and the Daemon Princes:
*'''Confederation''': Like Archaon, Belakor can confederate with the other Warriors of Chaos factions after seizing their last settlement, whereas other Warriors can only vassalize. Easier to do the earlier it is in the campaign, while your competition is still trying to subjugate the tribes. The factions ''closest'' to you is Sigvald, who is just to your Northwest, and Festus, in the Empire. Your mileage may vary, but Sigvald is the easiest to subjugate since the Fortress of the Damned is a port, and isn't [[Money|DLC-locked]].
*'''Rifts''': The ''best'' of the unique mechanics because of how it works with the WoC playstyle: Rifts allow for instant travel between two points on the map, and new ones can be created with the Tzeentch Unholy Manifestation simply by activating it on any land army that you have vision on, so you can send expendable heroes out to tag distant armies for you and have portals all over Malleus.
**Belakor starts with a Daemonic Rift in his capital, which leads you to the Southern Wastes and Ostermark, which throws you into the shit right away.
**You start with 4 charges of this rite and a cooldown of 15 turns, and this anon recommends placing your first few rifts on your Dark Fortresses rather than on Order Faction Capitals: teleporting an army ''directly'' on Sigvald or Archaon's doorstep makes subjugating them so much easier, and also makes holding these fortresses a cinch. Dark Fortresses are hard to take even without a garrisoned army and some, but not all, tend to be pretty far away from each other. Rifts can transport an army from a relatively quiet fortress right in front of an invading Skaven Horde or Empire doomstack.
**Stances are retained when traveling through rifts, but not movement, so entering in the raid/encamp/ambush stance ensures you're not entirely defenseless when emerging from the other side.
*'''Manifestations''': Replaces the Eye of the Gods mechanic. You can sacrifice souls to the four Gods in exchange for campaign abilities and a gifted Daemon unit.
**Tzeentch creates portals and gifts Pink Horrors
**Nurgle delivers 100 Nurgle Corruption (over 10 turns, so +10 a turn) and Plaguebearers
**Khorne greatly improves the melee and charge stats of an entire army and gifts Bloodletters
**Slaanesh deals damage to an opposing enemy army and gifts Daemonettes
**Souls sacrificed in this manner ''do not'' count towards the Gifts of Chaos, which is a shame.
*'''Daemonic Warband Upgrades''': Not only does Belakor have a base 3+ Authority with all four Gods, but after researching through the tech tree, Belakor can upgrade any of the basic Daemons to their Exalted versions, which keeps them competitive as the game goes on.
*'''Belakor's Shadow''' - You can convert enemy Human lords into Daemon Princes, either by defeating them with Belakor, or by Hero action. This only applies to non-Legendary, non-Warriors of Chaos lords. It takes 10 turns for the transformation to complete, and if the Lord is disbanded or kille, the effect is removed.
*'''Konquata and the Campaign''': As mentioned above, Belakor starts in Konquata, Albion, with the Vanaheimling's as his Norscan vassals. Being so close to Bretonnia and the Empire, as well as having rifts to Ostermark and the Southern Wastes, it's tempting to start throwing the forces of Order into Chaos, but subjugating and vassalizing other Chaos-factions should take priority. Wulfrik's territory is also quite close to you, and while you can't make him playable, having him as a vassal is still helpful, and you can gift him territory to make his faction stronger. Honestly, trading away all the non-Dark Fortress settlements to vassals or allies is the smart way to go because you benefit very little from them, while they can make full settlements out of them. His one weakness is that he has no bonuses to soul generation at all so gifts of chaos are much harder to sustain.
**Konquata [[Fail|doesn't have a port]], which makes you kinda glad that you have the rifts, instead. Getting in and out of Albion without them is a bitch, both for you ''and'' for invaders. It's not as annoying as the Galleon's Graveyard, but you will have enough warning about coming invaders to get an army through a rift.

====Festus====
Festus has power support abilities and the always powerful and useful plague mechanic but is unfortunately stuck on foot and mediocre in melee, thankfully nurgle marking is generally one of the strongest options on many units and they have access to great weapon versions of infantry which is very useful. He also gains souls from plagues which is pretty decent but much weaker than archaeon's vassal effect or gifts of Slaanesh at generating souls overall. Both marked heros and lords of nurgle are very good as well. Frankly Festus is very solid. Good units to take advantage of are chaos giants while stacking missile resistance, Aspiring champions, and nurgle chaos knights are all very strong, make sure to always have sources of healing to outlast your enemies. really just his low speed and no mount holds him back.

====Kholek====
Kholek is a beast who gets stronger and BIGGER with every vassal, but he lost his 20% ward save skill for no apparent reason. Unfortunately he has no particularly good factions benefits, he does nothing to boost his army except giving dragon ogres a weak activated ability and some combat bonuses and he gives only his own army a 25% discount on dragon ogre upkeep, plus gets the shaggoth granting chaos gift easier. Unfortunately he if far, far less useful overall than archaon, belakor, or even Sigvald as far as faction effects go, his is still a beast in combat but there no real reason to use him instead of just confederating him as archaon and belakor. Disappointing that they felt the need to nerf him and give him nothing to make up for it. I guess you can get 50 vassals and have fun with how giant he is but frankly that's just a gimmick.

====Sigvald====
Sigvald has Slaaneshi seduction and gifts of Slaanesh both of which are extremely strong. Gifts of slaanesh let you spam hero actions across the map to passively generate souls, where most chaos factions depend on battling and razing to generate souls you can get insanely high passive soul income while also seducing factions to become your vassals, allowing you to upkeep your gifts of chaos for free. seriously this effect alone makes sigvald and Azazael deceptively powerful. compared to Azazel, Sigvald has a better tech tree and access to the full roster instead of just Slaanesh, frankly Slaanesh marking is only really that useful on chaos knights and cavalry to give devastating flanker but is kinda lack luster on mauraders, warriors etc. Sigvald is much more well rounded than Azazel in unit/hero/lord choice.

====Valkia====
Valkia has some of Skaarbrands signature mojo, but isn't quite as op. She herself is a potent flying beatstick and her Khorne/undivided rosters is focused and powerful, but in terms of faction benefits and campaign effects she is solid but perhaps not the best. Her Star ability is to replenish in enemy territory. khorne units are offensively focused and powerful thankfully. She is the only warriors of chaos faction who cannot use any sorcerer lords and only has access to the lores of fire and metal (maybe go fire since you have lots of units with flaming attacks to benefit from kindleflame. She also has no way of passively generating souls like Archaon/Festus/Azazel/Sigvald and must rely on razing and battles completely, meaning its much harder to sustain many gifts until later when you've built up a nice large reserve of souls. Still that doesn't mean she is weak by any means. Her ability to rampage across the map quickly is as potent as always. Her version of the Bloodletting ability is basically useless, all it does is increase khorne authority and experience gain for units, but she and her other lords should have no problem getting khorne authority since your likely to mark most of your lord and hero's.

====Villitch====
a decent caster and decent fight but stuck on foot unfortunately, god why couldn't they have given him a disc?, as a lord he's kinda mediocre, good to support barriers on your troops but other wise not amazing. factions wise his benefits are only ok, he has the changing of ways which can definitely be good and the ability to teleport is nice, but his other faction bonuses are semi-mediocre. thankfully barrier is extremely strong and the mark of Tzeentch is just good in general. The biggest issue with him is that he isn't kairos or nearly as op as him, but still Tzeentch units are strong enough to make up for that. He has no particularly good way to gain souls compared to other lords though.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

2023-01-31T00:59:48Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* Valkia */

{{Topquote|[[Tzeentch|Change!]] [[Nurgle|Rot!]] [[Khorne|Blood!]] [[Slaanesh|Defile!]]|Game battle chant for Warriors of Chaos, shared with Norsca}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Warriors of Chaos.

==Why Play Warriors of Chaos==
*Because you want to see the unending tides of damnation overrun all that is good and civilized in this world.
*Because even the demons undivided faction doesn't have a roster big enough for you.
*Because back in my day only the bad guys wore [[Space Marines|Stupidly OP]] [[Stormcast Eternals|Armor]].

===Pros===
*'''Top-grade Melee''': Pound for pound, your troops are among the best in the entire game when it comes to melee combat. Though your reign as the undisputed combat champion of the game has come to an inglorious end due to feature/power creep (not even mentioning the coming of Khorne), precious other factions will be able to face you in melee and walk away unscathed.
*'''Armor''': Regardless of which ever one of the Dark Gods you decided to suck off, they gifted you an ungodly amount of armor to protect your troops from the enemy. If for whatever reason the other guy decided not to bring AP against you, you've pretty much already won the fight right there.
*'''Monsters''': You got a monster for every role. Shaggoths for anti-large, manticores for flying terror bombers, chaos spawn to help win you the frontline grind even faster and hounds to chase away pesky skirmishers. That said, power creep has eroded this advantage since the WoC debut in WH1, don't expect your big guys to match the likes of Lizardmen or Tomb Kings.
*'''Versatility''': You're not the most versatile of factions, but you have a fuckheug roster with mono-chaos marked variants of marauders, chaos warriors, chariots, cavalry, etc. With all of the high quality troops you have, you can deploy a wide assortment of tactics against all kinds of opponents. You can use rushes, monster mashes, artillery boxes, magic bombs, and make your lords into one man armies. With how much good stuff is at your disposal, you can come up with all kinds of crazy tactics to throw at your opponent.
*'''Strong Lords''': Your lord options are pretty damn good. Archeon is one of the better duelist characters, Kholek kills whatever he is fighting, Sigvald is the king of "never die" and Sarthoreal is a raid boss with impressive magic abilities. The new lords introduced in the Champions of Chaos DLC aren't to be fucked with either. Festus is a support monster, Valkia + Azazel are some of the best flying duelist lords in the game, and Vilitch is outright busted if you stack barrier regeneration. Even generic sorcerers are pretty damn good in melee, especially if you give them dragon mounts.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': The original controversy from the first game, the Chaos Warriors were originally locked up as a pre-order bonus for the first game, slapping those who didn't do so with an extra $8 tax to play as them. For penny-pinching fans, this can make them a hard sell. Plus if you want the marked units and characters that's an extra $16. If you want the full Chaos experience you will need to buy 3 separate games and two DLCs, all together costing about $204. I mean I guess that's cheaper than most decent tabletop armies but god, wait for a sale if you want all of this at once.
*'''Limited Skirmishing''': You do have some mounted skirmishers, but odds are they aren't going to be the reason why you win the fight. You are not going to be beating your opponent in the skirmishing phase of the fight.
*'''Limited Ranged''': You're generally bringing a battle axe to a gun fight. While you can artillery box with chaos cannons and pick away at enemies with ranged skirmishers, shooting is not your strong suite.
*'''Slow''': The downside of all that armor? It makes you slow as all hell. This, combined with the con listed above, means you are pretty vulnerable to enemy AP Missiles. Be sure that you devote a few of your troops to getting on those skirmishers and limiting how much damage to your troops they do on the way in.
*'''Expensive''': Sadly, all this good quality comes at a price. With how expensive a lot of your troops are, odds are you will probably be outnumbered in whatever match up you are going up against. Expect to rely on quality over quantity when you are choosing to rep team WOC.

==The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)==
*'''Subjugation, Vassalization, and Norscan Awakenings''': The Warriors of Chaos can subjugate lesser mortals and make them their vassals. In TWWH1/2, this was restricted to Norscans, but in TWWH3, the Warriors of Chaos can subjugate human and elf factions by defeating their last settlement. Vassals pay tribute, and count as your provinces for provincial edicts. They ''must'' join your wars, but the inverse is also true, which can be a pain because AI Factions don't factor who the suzerain is of vassal factions; you can have a military pact with, say, Skaven or Ogres, and they'll still declare war on any of your vassals.
**Archaon and Belakor may also force confederations of other Chaos Lords by taking over their last settlement, and considering the WoC are now flush with Legendary Lord options, you can create some terrifying doomstacks in the late-game.
**Finally, taking over certain settlements in the North can lead you to either vassalize the Norscan tribe (if they're still around), or awaken them if they aren't. You'll want to keep just the Dark Fortresses for yourself, as there's really no point in holding minor settlements short of casualty-replenishment on long campaigns. Trading captured settlements to your vassals also lets them get stronger, gives you gold, and lets them worry about holding it.
*'''Gifts of Chaos'''
*'''[[Path to Glory]]'''
*'''Warbands/Marks of Chaos''': What used to just be glorified banners pre Warhammer 3 are now your ticket to unlocking warriors devoted to each god. On campaign as a unit gains experience you have a chance to upgrade them to superior units, for instance you can upgrade a Marauder unit to Chaos Warriors to Chosen. However, if your army has the proper level of '''Dark Authority''' for a specific god, you can also give them a mark for that god which alters their appearance and stats. Some subfactions will have an easier time with certain marks than others, for instance Sigvald will have an easy time getting Slaanesh units but Khorne units will be hard to come by. You will need a Lord or Hero of a specific god in order to get the authority for it, so you will have a hard time recruiting and maintaining Nurgle units if there isn't a Nurgle lord or hero in the army. In multiplayer, this means that you can take 4 marked units alongside your mostly undivided army, included specialized marked mortals such as Skullcrusher or Hellstriders. In order to make sure half the units below don't get an extra 4 paragraphs of what they do, here is a general list of the stats each Mark does and each unit that can take Marks will be checked below
**The Mark of Khorne gives a unit spell resistance and frenzy in exchange for less melee defense, so if you are looking to play offense you will want to give your blessings to the Blood God.
**Mark of Tzeentch will give a unit Barrier and Magic Attacks, making them great if you are fighting an enemy that has a high amount of physical resistance or if you want them to have a bit of protection going in.
**Mark of Nurgle will give the unit poison attacks extra Melee Defense and HP in exchange for less attack and speed, making this the choice if you are looking to out last your enemy.
**Mark of Slaanesh will give a unit Immune to Psych, more Speed, strider, a physical resist and Devastating Flanker on cavalry. If you want to play a mobility heavy playstyle or you're fighting a ton of fear and terror this is your mark.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
Each Legendary Lord has unique ways to access units from the vanilla/Undivided roster, while LLs from the Champions of Chaos DLC have better access to their God's daemons and Marks.

*'''[[Archaon]] the Everchosen:''' at the start of TW:WH it was a joke that he was the Neverchosen, but recent progressive buffs have been slowly improving him. Still waiting to see if he will ever get his title back from Kholek but he is currently usable in multiplayer. As of Immortal Empires, He is an extremely powerful melee lord with access to two spells each from the lores of Fire, Metal, and Death. He can fling Searing Doom and Transmutation of Lead from Metal, Flaming Sword of Rhuin and Burning Head from Fire, and Spirit Leech and Purple Sun of Xereus. He gets the cream of the crop of Fire and Death spells, and his Metal spells are alright; it may have been a bit too busted if he got Final Transmutation instead of Transmutation of Lead. He is among the strongest melee lords stat-wise in-game even before taking items, and he's now a more than capable caster. He doesn't get the AoS version of [[Dorghar]], but Dorghar does give him over 3k mass, far more than any other horse-bound character (which is fair, both Archaon and Dorghar are HUGE), so he can get out of a tight spot easier than similar characters. Seriously, he has higher mass than Karl Franz on Deathclaw. Although Be'lakor and the Daemon Prince are more expensive multiplayer lords Archaon is right behind as the third most expensive lord.
**''Campaign'': Archaon, as the Everchosen, has easier access to monogod rosters as well as better Authority to command forces from rival gods. Currently he's one of only two WoC LLs who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely.

*'''[[Kholek Suneater]]:''' For a long time Kholek was the most popular MP lord pick for the Warriors of Chaos, to the point that he became the faction's face more than Archaon. This was with good reason, as Kholek is a a world beater of a Legendary Lord. He's a massive, tough, anti-large monstrous lord that is difficult to pin down due to his good speed and mass, and is perfectly fine beating the snot out of infantry as well. Even better when gooning around with his Dragon Ogre boys. With the addition of more WoC LLs in TW:WH3 he's no longer the most common choice of lord but he's still a formidable pick. Has two special abilities, one of which boosts his melee abilities and the other of which is a bombardment.
**''Campaign'': Has bonuses that buff Dragon Ogres, giving reduced recruitment cost and upkeep while buffing attack for Shaggoths. Kholek also spreads more Chaos Corruption and has high undivided authority but no boosts to monogod authority at all

*'''[[Sigvald|Prince Sigvald the Magnificent]]:''' Used to be bad but got significantly better after The Twisted & The Twilight update. A powerful and quick foot duelist that will never suffer fatigue penalties. His small size, perfect vigor and very high melee stats make him slippery, but when combined with the regen from his unique item he ties with Gor-Rok for the tankiest lord in the game.
**''Campaign'': Despite his overwhelming ego, his campaign has him being most in touch with [[Norsca]], having a stronger diplomatic bonus, and have practically the same unit version of the unit with them having the Norsca "Rage", with it upgrading to the superior "Berserk" at late veterancy to keep marauders viable. A Leadership bonus against men encourages him to go after the Empire or Norsca. A bit of an odd duck, as since he's already devoted to Slaanesh CA has to differentiate him from Azazel. He can recruit Slaaneshi Mortals and Daemons turn one, and as Slaanesh's boytoy has Dark Authority to better control them. In turn, he pays a premium to hire and keep Khornates unless he has a Khornate Hero tagging along.

*'''[[Be'lakor]]:''' Holy hell this guy is strong, even compared to other Warriors of Chaos legendary lords. In addition to fear/terror and the usual high melee statline, he gets a 45% ward save activated ability, passive regeneration that increases for every nearby enemy with wavering morale, and a leadership penalty aura which also removes immune to psychology from nearby enemies. And he's a lore of shadows caster who gets winds of magic cost reductions to all casts. Stack armor, physical resist, and ward saves and he can solo entire enemy armies.
**''Campaign'': Gets his own Warriors of Chaos faction starting in Albion in Immortal Empires. Comes with a unique mechanic to corrupt non-legendary human lords into daemon princes. Being the Daemon Prince of Undivided, he can access the Gifts and Favors of the Dark Gods earlier, but must prove himself before he can give them specific marks. Currently he's the other WoC LL (alongside Archaon) who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely. Has a big -25% upkeep to all daemon units which stacks with authority bonuses.

*'''[[Azazel]]:''' As the DP of Slaanesh, Azazel comes with the Lore of Slaanesh and like Slaanesh's daemon lords Azazel is geared for dueling lords and terror bombing wimps with wavering morale. He's very fast, hits very hard, and oddly is classified as infantry size so isn't vulnerable to anti-large sniping. His sword, the Daemonblade, is an especially good magical item that grants the Discouraged contact effect, improving Azazel's proclivity for triggering terror routs.
**''Campaign'': Azazel gets full access to Slaanesh's campaign abilities, with some minor alterations. Fitting with his role as Slaanesh's pimp he can seduce his enemy's units to add to his own roster and has +80 diplomacy with the Human factions, meaning through some careful and selective warfare you could make yourself less of a target. He gets cheaper seduction for human units and when stacked with the tech tree reduction he can actually be significantly better at seducing (human) units than N'kari.

*'''[[Festus the Leechlord]]''': The Plague Doctor is in, and he comes with a unique pair of mutually exclusive abilities. One is a Mortis Engine-style AoE damage aura, the other is an AoE healing aura. Only one can be active at a time, but they're very strong because he doesn't have to be in melee combat to activate them, unlike a lot of other units with these sorts of abilities. Festus is otherwise a decent caster with the Lore of Nurgle. Since he can heal with both abilities and spells he is a very strong lord choice, but his slow speed, low armor, and mediocre combat stats make him vulnerable to getting sniped or assassinated.
**''Campaign'': Fitting in with his Leechlord aesthetic, he can heal his army a quarter past the normal cap, and Festus' army ''and'' vassals have access to poison attacks. He can brew plagues on top of his plagues lasting longer.

*'''[[Vilitch the Curseling]]''': A caster/melee hybrid lord with a few quirks. Uses the Lore of Tzeentch which is very strong for dealing damage, but lacks buffs to improve their melee skills which are okay-ish, but lack armor piercing. They can hold their own in a blob but don't expect them to fend off dedicated duelist lords/heroes. Has a couple of abilities revolving around Barrier, one that's a passive that heals the Barrier of any nearby units and another that heals the Barrier of any nearby unit but only when Vilitch is casting. These stack with each other, making Vilitch an excellent support lord but only for Tzeentchian units, especially when they're spamming a lot of cheap low-cooldown spells like Blue or Pink Fire. Has another ability which buffs their spell mastery and Melee skills, ''but'' requires them to be either casting or in melee for it to go off. Also, while their combat stats are good, they're still a footlord with low mobility. Be careful not to overextend or they'll get gooned to death.
**''Campaign'': They can use a slightly altered version of the Changer of Ways abilities and gets the Teleportation stance meaning they're an absolute troll in the Campaign map. Also give their vassals better Barrier and Tzeentch Corruption.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]]''': Representing Khorne, the Gorequeen has the raw melee stats to rival Skarbrand but much better maneuverability. She makes a great hit + run duelist with 100 speed, a temporary invincibility ability, and a bound wind ability to clear out chaff. Like Azazel she's a small target, which makes her immune to anti-large sniping attacks and with her shield also makes her harder to bring down with ranged fire.
**''Campaign'': Valkia is able to fight multiple back to back battles just like Skarbrand and Taurox, while also getting limited access to some of Khorne's Unholy Manifestations and higher Khorne authority.

*'''[[Sarthorael|Sarthorael the Everwatcher]]:''' Looking back it's surprising we got a greater daemon six years before the daemons got dedicated factions. Not available in the campaign (for WoC anyway, Norsca can unlock a different Lord of Change over the course of the Campaign) but playable in multiplayer. A giant lore of metal caster with a lot of missile resistance. Well used as a battering ram to disrupt gun factions with his mass and terror as the rest of the army hounds after him, but prefers to run through the lines to new spots of safety to cast his spells. Was ground bound in WH1 and WH2 but in WH3 he can fly just like other Lords of Change.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[Chaos Lord]]:''' Cheap melee lord. Can take a poison mace if you want this lord to be supportive. He can also be put on a flying mount for manticore gooning. They have been reworked and how are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Better marked usually and a good way to build towards a demon prince. Unmarked is the only version that can mount a chaos dragon however, khorne gets a horse, chariot, or Juggernaut. Slaanesh can only get a Horse or Chariot. You probably should plan on turning any of the marked ones into demon princes eventually though. Really wish they let the marked lords ride a marked dragon, especially with the big buffs dragon got to their mass/melee stats with Patch 2.0. Unmarked is perfectly viable as well and has the advantage or not needing souls to upgrade and not losing any levels, plus being able to use the dragon mount.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer Lord]]:''' A hyrid lord which is often preferred in multiplayer for cost efficiency. One of the few non-elf lords to get a dragon mount. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle. (Lores of Tzeentch and Metal for Tzeentch or Nurgle and Death for Nurgle) Marked lords CANNOT mount a chaos dragon however, they get either a warshrine, or for Tzeentch a disc instead. too bad if you wanted a dragon. Marked lords can be upgraded into demon princes though which dont need a mount, in campaign you'll probably use these as a stepping stone to demon princes eventually, unless you prefer to leave them just marked. Unmarked is perfectly viable also, lets you use the awesome chaos dragon.

*'''[[Daemon Prince]]:''' Come in a variety of types, including an Undivided option and one for each of the four Chaos Gods. All of them are versatile melee and caster hybrids, except for the Khorne prince who is melee only. Check the Chaos Gods' pages for details about the Daemon Princes for each of them, as they are the same as those accessible to the WoC roster. The Undivided Daemon Prince has the Lore of Fire plus some melee buff abilities, including a particularly good one that gives Immune to Psychology to nearby allies. Probably worth it in general at least in campaign, but costs a ton of souls. Fairly expensive in Multiplayer as well. Do note they aren't as heavily armored as the mortal lords, instead relying more on their Daemonic physical resistance.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Exalted Hero]]:''' Melee hero, often a part of the manticore goon squad. their stat line is honestly kind of absurd for the price, as they can beat pretty much any other standard melee hero in a one on one fight. Definitely one of the better melee bodyguard heroes. Can be given the Mark of Khorne or Nurgle. They can specialize in army support or dueling with a choice of different mutually exclusive skills, in particular they can boost demonic authority for either undivided or their mark choice. Unfortunately marked hero's lose access to a flying mount, nurgle only gets a normal horse or chariot, khorne gets that and a juggernaut also. Marking isn't bad but you may prefer unmarked in order to fly. Nurgle hero's get an awesome AOE heal skill.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer]]:''' Tankier than the traditional wizard as they have a large amount of armour and are a low-end melee character. Not the best option for melee grinding, but they also make a great goon squad participant when on a mount. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Slaanesh (Slaanesh gets lores of Slaanesh and Shadows). Marked sorcerers can ride a chaos warshrine or the Tzeentch can ride a disc also if a flying mount is preferred.

===Melee Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos Marauder|Chaos Marauders]]:''' Your budget line, but you often fill up your numbers with them given how expensive everything else is. They are how you go wide in WoC. Posses low armor but can still cause some more expensive units to struggle against them. They have pretty good stats as far as melee chaff go, so they should earn back their cost fighting other low level troops.
**'''Chaos Marauders (Great Weapons):''' Cheap Ap Damage but not as good as Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons) since the Marauders are very fragile with trading away what little defense a Marauder gets.
**Can be given any of the marks, each come with an additional weapon variant. Khorne gets Dual Axes, Tzeentch gets Spears, Nurgle gets Great Weapons and Slaanesh gets Hellscourge Whips for additional Melee Defense.

*'''[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]:''' The spiked anvil of Chaos. High all-around in offensive and defensive stats except for speed. In general, Chaos Warriors in this faction are much more well rounded than their Monogod cousins. They are better defensively than Khorne, faster than Nurgle, more offensive than Tzeentch and more durable than Slaanesh. They're the nice in between that allows them to fill a wider variety of roles. Often beat out other line infantry in the grind. They Lack AP, so not effective against other high armour targets.
**'''Mirror Guard(RoR):''' A strong point used in Marauders and Warriors. Moves faster, higher defense, and don't falter against Fear or Terror.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons):''' your AP troops effectively upend other armored infantry like Dwarfs.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Halberds):''' Your Anti-large infantry out classes Great Weapons if facing Calvery and Monsters.
**Get all their marks and weapon variants for marauders, though the Tzeentch version gives up spears for halberds. Khorne can also get halberds for some reason, but chosen of khorne can’t have halberds.

*'''Aspiring Champions:''' [[Awesome|Not-large monstrous infantry with magical attacks]]. They fill a role as support units, having the Encourage ability which gives extra Leadership to your lines, being a moral anchor if your lord is way from your front lines. The magic attacks are also a cheap way to crush enemies that rely on Physical resistance for protection.
**Immortal empires buffs their statline to be more like monstrous infantry, while getting an insane number of buffs from the warriors of chaos tech tree. With the buffs from all 4 god tech trees they are a contender for most powerful unit in the game, they have insane melee killing power, regeneration, barrier, and the ability to summon a unit of pink horrors each. How strong they have become compared to the 2 last games is completly insane. They also have very high health per model so as such are basically immune to most AOE damage spells, with only things like spirit leach and final transmutation being effective against them. Ironically though they are the easiest elite unit to recruit also, often spawning in normal recruitment pools while Chosen have to be grinded all the way through. They are great for any of the 4 monogod warriors of chaos but they are truly shining on undivided factions, with the stacking of buffs from the tech tree and the choices to pick any bonus from a specific god like Tzeentch's barrier.
**'''The Severed Claw(RoR):''' A more defensive variant of aspiring champions with halberds, charge reflection, and Tzeentch barriers.

*'''[[Forsaken]]:''' A niche, fast damage dealing unit, being both fast and having good armour. Good at mulching through low armor units and used as foot flankers. They don't do well against Armor-piercing or elite infantry. Generally going to be way better used against low armor factions like Beastmen or Skaven and kept away from high armor stuff like Dwarfs or Lizardmen. Can get all Marks.
**'''The Daemonspew:''' Blessed by Nurgle, they have poison attacks and melee attack debuff aura. A supportive unit to mix with your line blob to make an elite unit easy to handle.

*'''[[Chosen]]:''' Oh my. Pound for pound, chosen are probably the best heavy melee infantry in the game and unlike other contenders like black orks, they also come in Great Weapon and Halberd variants. They will never run away, their stats are terrifying, and they are absurdly tanky. They are every bit as scary as their reputation makes them out to be. Like any heavy elite infantry, they are slow with low model counts, so they will suffer severely from being targeted by artillery, magic, or AP Missles. Can get all marks and separate variants same as Chaos Warriors. in campaign the biggest issue they have is that they really cant compete with Aspiring champions once the tech buffs are online, seriously there is no competition, Aspiring Champions are actually cheaper and they have a 10% chance of being recruitable from the get go on Chaos controlled territory.

===Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds:''' Cheap and fast harassment unit, shutting down skirmishers, cavalry, missile units, and artillery crews that target your slower-moving warriors. These doggos are a good way chase broken enemies off the field and their low cost means you won't miss them too much if they die.
*'''Chaos Warhounds (Poison):''' Doggos with poison attacks. Better for catching slippery units and able to support in melee with their poison.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Chaos Knight|Chaos Knights]]:''' your melee cav, strong and able to win lots of protracted fights. Best used in a supporting role since they're somewhat cost-inefficient compared to demigryphs/blood knights. This version is probably best used against heavy missile factions like Elves, as they will be able to block some of the incoming fire and chase them down. They're better in a grind too, though you'll have to pull out eventually (Yeah, yeah I know, insert Slaanesh joke here). Khorne and Nurgle marks enhance your prolonged melee ability offensively and defensively respectively, Slaanesh gives devastating flanker so makes them much better at hammer and anvil tactics plus physical resistance. and Tzeentch gives barrier allowing them to hit hit and run cycle charge without getting worn down. Which of the 3 is best? that depends. Slaanesh will be by far the best at flank charging and also get a nice 10% phys resist on top, Nurgle goes all in on the MELEE cavalry aspect and have insane MD and poison so can basically just stay in the grind no problem, Tzeentch if microed can just use barrier to avoid casualties but their offense is the worst and they may not always be able to recharge their barrier. Khorne is probably the worst, not because they are bad, but because everything they do is better done by skullcrushers which are also khorne.
**'''Swords of Chaos:(RoR):''' Knights with Flaming weapons but with a smaller model count, but most useful in keeping your characters safe and letting your whole army get a temporary speed boost.
*'''Chaos Knights (Lances):''' Cycle charging cav. While the shield makes them good at resisting missile fire, the tremendous charge bonus is a bit of a waste on the skirmishers on the other side. As such, best to use these guys against other cavalry, monsters, or for rear charging infantry. Just make sure that you are keeping an eye on them, while they do have tanky stats they can still crumple surprisingly quick if you leave them in a grind. Maybe dont use these as khorne or nurgle, SLaanesh and Tzeentch synergize much better. If going Slaanesh carefully ask yourself if the extra charge is even worth it compared to sword and board, even sword chaos knights have high enough charge with devastating flanker, and you wont always get flank charges.
**Both the Lance and Sword and Board versions can take any of the marks.
*'''Skullcrushers of Khorne:''' extremely tough heavy cav that can engage pretty much any unit type effectively, just dont charge them into the front of halberds and they should wreck, if you were considering khorne chaos knights maybe just use these instead.
**'''Knights of the Brazen Throne:(RoR):'''
*'''Doom Knights of Tzeentch:''' Oh hey, warriors of chaos finally get air cavalry. And it's a good thing too, they weren't going to win vs. Cathayan doom balloons with nothing but marauder throwing axes and manticores. Despite their lack of anti-large and armor piercing, doom knights are one of your precious few mobile units that aren't made out of wet cardboard and will be extremely useful against factions like greenskins and tomb kings who don't have much of an air force. Remember that they are weaker in melee and more expensive than normal knights, they really pay a premium for the ability to fly. For some reason they have halberds but lack both AP and anti-large, disappointing. Still a very effective unit if used right.
**'''Knights of Immolation(RoR):'''
*'''Hellstriders of Slaanesh:''' actual melee light cav that are much better in melee than regular marauder horsemen, but still fragile, and annoyingly they lack devastating flanker despite being Slaanesh marked. come in spear and whip version, thankfully they are the only whip unit that actually has AP. They gain damage resistance for the whole battle scaling to number of models killed. so you can start them off chasing routers and weak units before sending them in to flank charge tougher units later in the battle. the whip version has respectable melee stats so aren't as dependent on charging. Unfortunately their lack of AP and extreme fragility really holds them back in later campaign.

===Missile Cavalry===
If you want shooting but don't want to spring for artillery, you only have skirmish cav. Like most Skirmish cav, you need to use some micromanagement to make sure a real opponent doesn't chase them out of the game and use their ammunition efficiently instead of AI autopilot everything.

*'''Marauder Horsemen:''' You cheapest shooting unit. Useful in taking things out annoying units air and harass units with a low Missile resistance. Fragile with the same protection as a Marauder. Their cost efficiency makes them a go to in a lot of competitive lists. Can come with Marks of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Tzeentch gets warpflame causing javelins in addition to the normal mark stuff, really good.
*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes):''' Trades Missile range for AP. Suited for harassing armored foes from a distance but won't take punishment well like the normal variant. Can come with Marks of Khorne and Nurgle. khorne gets flaming attacks in addition to the normal mark effects. Note that all versions are currently bugged and can fire in melee so they are ridiculously deadly right now.
*'''Marauder Horsemasters:''' A slightly upgraded version of Horsemen with the most important upgrade being significantly better armor. Lets it take punishment and trade better when engaging in melee with other Skirmish units and other lesser melee units.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Chaos Trolls:''' A regenerating bag of HP and AP damage. Do need some babysitting to help with their low Ld. Better for Marauder lines for that extra Damage and Monstrous mass. To be honest, probably not worth it in most situations because of that low morale and weakness to fire.
**'''Chaos Trolls (Armoured):''' Pay extra, so Trolls are less likely to run when they take damage. These guys came out before CA realized we like variants that serve different purposes and aren't just straight upgrades. Still probably not worth bringing though, especially now that we got marked chaos spawn.
*'''[[Chaos Spawn]]:''' Line breakers, they do go down quickly from guns but are a cheap way to tie up multiple line units as they don't stop attacking until they are all dead. They can tear apart lighter infantry lines if they get their hands on them, and can really help supplement a cheaper frontline. Generally better than trolls, as while they lack AP they are unbreakable and will fight to the end. Each version comes with a Mark, Khorne gets Frenzy, Nurgle gets Regeneration, Tzeentch gets Armor sundering and Slaanesh gets Devastating Flankers as Soporific Musk.
**Their Monster-Mass makes them really helpful when the opponent stack has Mammoths and other heavy-hitters. It's not the most efficient tar-pit, but they're easier to recruit than dragon ogres and they can lock them in place while your Halberds/Spears do the damage.
**'''Wyrd Spawn: (RoR)''' Spawn blessed by everyone's favorite crazy [[Tzeentch|Bird]], these guys have armor sundering and Barrier, so they can actually help against armored troops and have resistance to magic on top of all that. They can also walk through trees for some tzeentchian reason. Don't ask me why.
*'''[[Dragon Ogre]]:''' Your anti-large monstrous cavalry. These boys will kick the hell out of any cavalry or monster they get their hands on, although their vulnerability to missiles means they can be a bit of a risk against super missile factions. Try your best to keep them safe, probably best on the flanks where they can deal with cav and go into the back line or flank when that is done. Can send infantry flying if needed.
**'''Summoners of Rage: (RoR)''' Have magic attacks and an infantry clearing bound spell. It takes out Physically resistant enemies or give you another edge in a fight.

===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Giant:''' A big infantry smasher, but easily sniped and hammered with ranged and anti-large attacks. Remove them, and they can frolic through even the heaviest of armor. Shockingly they are actually potentially really good now, there are now multiple ways to give them really high missile resistance and tons of healing, so they are now a very effective unit and are actually a good doomstack option.
**'''Bilious Thunderguff: (RoR)''' An upgraded giant sworn to Nurgle. Along with poison attacks, he also comes with a violent wind bound ability where he lifts a leg and farts all over everyone around him, draining health and corroding armor. Definitely worth bringing in matchups where your opponent doesn't have much ranged and has to fight him in melee.
*'''[[Manticore|Chaos Feral Manticore]]:''' One of the most cost effective flying monsters in the game. It has an impressive statline for the cost so it can actually do a good bit of work diving into backlines or helping goon out enemy characters. It's big problem is Rampage, so you will likely lose control over it, though it is decently cheap so don't worry too much if it goes nuts. Often used as a mount for characters in multiplayer, but there is nothing wrong with taking this guy by himself. they can get regeneration in melee from campaign techs, which is pretty ok, they still die fast but it helps.
*'''Dragon Ogre Shaggoth:''' An anti-large monster duelist. Are you scared that the enemy might have a dragon, big scary tree, crab monster or freaky rat monstrosity from hell? Throw this thing at it and if it doesn't kill it it'll get it damn close. Of course, it's also a massive bullseye for every AP missile unit on the field, so you got to make sure that it's kept safe. Often paired with Kholek to make a Dragon Ogre goon squad. the biggest weakenss they had was lack of healing, but now that sorcerer lords can have lore of nurgle they can finally be healed. Maybe the Shaggoth doomstack is back. they are hard to recruit however requiring an expensive endgame undivided gift to recruit. ironically a normal nurgle sorcerer lord can probably shaggoth doomstack better than kholek now due to healing.
*'''Chaos Warshrine''': Big buffboi that buffs even better when models die around it. Consider bubble wrapping it with marauders, the gods aren't picky on whether you're sacrificing your enemies or your own troops to them. Doesn't have much offensive capability, but has enough HP to slog it out on the frontline for a long time. Can be dedicated five ways, choose khorne for killiness, nurgle for healing, slaanesh for a mortis engine AOE HP drain, tzeentch for increased spell effectiveness, and undivided for physical resist. Slaanesh may be the strongest for infantry grinds, followed by nurgle. The others are perhaps more situational.

===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariot:''' Standard heavy chariot. Will get absolutely dumpstered in prolonged fights but will devastate enemies on the charge. Bring against heavy armor factions that can't lock it down like Dwarfs. Each of these can come with any mark, but pledging loyalty to Tzeentch is likely your best bet since regenerating barriers is the strongest buff you can give a hit and run unit like a chariot.
**'''The Sibilant Slaughtercade: (RoR)''' A Slaanesh pledged chariot that comes with poisoned attacks, increased speed, devastating flanker, and a damage resistance + charge bonus buff that increases as it racks up kills.
*'''Gorebeast Chariot:''' Slower than standard chariots, but has more AP damage for fighting higher armor. Generally not a good deal thanks to the price since standard chariots can simply do what it does better. Can come with the Mark of Khorne.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Hellcannon]]:''' Big gun with homing projectiles and damage that includes a Ld debuff. It also comes with an unbreakable Chaos Dwarf crew who will keep firing until they're killed to the last man. Somewhat of an odd man out in the Chaos roster since their playstyle is more geared towards bumrushing the enemy than noob boxing around the artillery, but there are no complaints about having one to round out your army. Depending on the matchup, you can force the enemy to come to you if they can't artillery duel with the cannon. If you got the attention to spare, taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.
**'''The Soul of Damnation: (RoR)''' A tad beefed up Hellcannon. Stats identical, but has the addition of the Soul Devourer ability that makes it reload faster when enemies are near.

===Daemons===
* For the daemon units go look at their respective pages, the overviews there are mostly the same except that with the limited access to them you'll want to be a bit more careful before throwing your bloodthirster into a horde of skeleton spears. unfortunately your skill and tech tree's are generally lacking in ways to boost demon units, so you may be better off relying on your factions own units late game after you have tech and red tree buffs. you do get some buffs from the red tree for demons but they are pretty bad.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
You're... pretty damn strong in multiplayer to be honest, despite being a meme faction for years in the first two games. You got a lot going for you, from strong lord choices, good magic lores, really good infantry, cavalry and monsters, and even an alright skirmishing core with Marauder Horsemen. Your only real major weakness is just how expensive everything is, and even then you got it better than the High Elves in that category. You got a ton of new mechanics with the Champions of Chaos DLC in game 3 and are likely to benefit from future monogod DLC as well. It should only get better from here. Here's how to win glory for the Chaos Gods:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': After seeing this matchup, it’s no wonder thag the Chaos warriors haven’t been able to make it out of Warhammer Canada. Dark Elves are tailor-made for busting your balls. Between darkshards, scourgerunners, and dark rider crossbows, they have more than enough ranged AP to melt your infantry and heavy cavalry. Go for a marauder frontline and bring some hellstriders and maybe some doom knights to run down their cowardly ranged units.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': You'll win the infantry fight, assuming your slow frontline survives the heavy artillery bombardment. Use manticores, hounds, calvary, and/or furies to mess with Dwarfen ranged. Big monsters like the Shaggoth should stay out of this, unless you like watching 2000 gold get shot to shit.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The Empire is your arch enemy for many good reasons. While you may scoff at their frontline infantry, you should never underestimate how good flagellants are at stalling you long enough for Helstorm rockets and cannon balls to send your warriors to hell, and the disappointed gaze of The Gods. Your Chaos Knights, while tough, need some support from warhounds or skirmishers because Demigryphs with halberds will eat them for breakfast. Your big monsters are useful killers, but like the Dwarfs are The Empire is really good at killing large units. The general play is to bring a solid line of Chaos Warriors with shields because they can endure handgunners long enough to quickly cleave though their frontline. For the rest of your army get a core of warhounds, preferably poison unless your pinching pennies, as they're great for chasing down skirmish cav, attacking their back line, and are a good supporting option for Shaggoths to lessen the damage they take when fighting Demigryphs. As for monsters, per the norm, bring Shaggoths. They can defeat an unsupported Steam Tank and will wreak havoc on most Empire cavalry while being fast enough to juke cannon balls. Again, be really careful of Demigryhs with halberds. Those bird riders may take a lot of damage, but they can also kill Shaggoths with surprising speed. Bring support if they have a Jade Wizard for back up, and having agoon squad of Exalted Heroes on manticores can help control the sky if Karl Franz is on the field. The goon squad will be needed because Karl Franz will otherwise crush unsupported heroes. If your opponent brought some other southerner, then expect Volkmar to be next on the list if he’s looking to win the infantry fight. A typical Empire frontline when fighting you will largely consist of halberdiers, and maybe a few greatswords and some flagellants to act as meatshields so he can keep shooting you. For the other legendary lords, Gelt is a common sight due to him being the only guy with access to the Lore of Metal, which can screw over your armor, transmute your leaders, and nuke blobs if you're dumb enough to make those. Remember, go wide with your infantry, have a core of dogs and shaggoths and then show that the Sons Of Heldenhammer are no match for the Dark Gods!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Make no mistake, this is a bad matchup for you. Khorne is better than you in a knock down drag out melee fight. Bloodletters trade up vs Chaos Warriors and Chosen and a wide frontline of marauders will crumble quickly and buff Khorne's units in the process. However, you have a potential ace in the hole. Dragon ogres give more bang for the buck than khorne's horribly overcosted monsters + cavalry. If you play your cards right, your superior magic, skirmishing, and monsters will be enough to tip the scales in your favor.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though a flexible faction with many tools to use against you, you have relatively little to fear from their infantry. Saurus are tanky SoBs, but grindfests will generally work out in your favor due to your superior offensive statlines. Though you'll never catch any Skink units, the only ones you need to pay any real attention to are the Red-Crested variety, which will still melt in combat against your forces without extensive support. Instead, your primary concern will be the myriad of monsters the lizards are almost assuredly bringing to bear against you. Chaos Warriors or Chosen with Halberds will be your bread and butter for pinning such beasties down. Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths also make fantastic hunting squads for isolated dinosaurs and will utterly dumpster them if they can get in the thick of it. Additionally, though the Lizardmen do technically have a higher ranged roster to chose from, your Hellcannon can lay waste to their forces long before even ''their'' artillery can attempt to retaliate. Just be particularly cautious of Razordon Hunting Packs, Troglodons and potential Ripperdactyl strike squads.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': To show the northerners that the chaos gods favor you most, you’ll need to consider your army carefully. Beserkers will trade upwards into pretty much any infantry you bring, even chosen, and their ‘berserk’ ability makes them a surprisingly tough nut to crack. This means you should either go super low-tier and bring tons of marauders, or super elite and invest in chosen and chaos warriors, relying on your infantry to win the day. Both setups have their own advantages and weaknesses. Do NOT bring mostrous infantry like dragon ogres or chaos spawn. Sure, they can deal with berserkers fine, but Norsca has plenty of mobile anti-large and ap to make you regret it. If you can protect it, a hellcannon can pay huge dividends by shooting holes in their higher tier infantry. You are one of the few factions that actually had a good answer to mammoths, Shaggoths have the speed and ap to grind them down and reliably outduel them. You won’t be able to keep pace with them in the skirmish game, but you probably want to bring at least a couple of wolves/skirmish cav, since their ap ranged units can make your monsters very sad if allowed to fire in. Marauder chariots can actually be a big problem for you because of their great mass and ap, so whittling them down with your fast units is probably your best bet. Kholek is not a great choice here, since he can get ground down by Skin wolves and Wulfrik, I’d recommend Archaon or a chaos sorcerer on a dragon. The former has a chance to put duel even Wulfrik (let alone throgg or a chieftain) if you use slayer of kings wisely, and the latter is able to pick his engagements, and probably won’t face any threats in the sky.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]'''
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': First thing's first, leave the Chaos Warriors and Chosen at home. Not only do you not need them to deal with most Skaven frontlines, but they will get ripped apart against Jezzails and Mortar teams. Mauarders are the frontline of choice as they will help deal with Clanrats and Skavenslaves relatively quickly and for cheap. Hounds are also pretty much a requirement in order to get behind the rats and take out the weapon teams before they are able to do irreversible damage. Finally, Spawn are your friends, as they help shred Skaven infantry, murder Rat Ogres and are unbreakable so some of the scarier Skaven units won't be able to spook them off. For magic lores, go with something that can deal with swarms like Fire or Shadows. Sigvald is your best bet here as a lord since Jezzails are some of the best SEM snipers in the game and Sigvald is really hard to kill.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Slaanesh epitomizes the very concept of anti-armor and even their basic troops will run laps around yours. Fortunately, you will be able to match their speed since the chaos gods blessed you with doom knights and hellstriders from Slaanesh's own roster. You will want to go as cheap and wide with your front-line in order to cover your flanks. Large units like dragon ogres will also be a good idea since Slaanesh lacks ranged units other than their own marauder horsemen. Lords wise, you'll either want a large monster beatstick or a flying caster lord. Keep an eye on the enemy roster if you went for the latter, you'll want to turn off flying and hide in your own army for a while if your opponent brought Azazel.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': In Warhammer 3 you've got some really good options here, the ability to recruit anti-infantry khorne warriors with high armor can really give the tomb kings a bad time. Bring anti-large whatever really and back it up with a solid line of dual-axe khorne boys and watch the kings melt, even faster if you bring the lore of fire in some form
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': The deckhand cries out in pain as he strikes you. A terrible, terrible matchup for you. Shaggoths, Chaos Spawn, etc. would be great here if they could actually get into melee, but with the coasts firepower there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Your only strategy is to go super wide and use chaos warriors/chosen as your killing. And then you’ll promptly run straight into World War Z as the coast player runs your infantry smack into a veritable wall of deckhand mobs and summons while their ap missiles and monsters eat your infantry for breakfast. You’re better off just forfeiting this one tbh, the coast player can basically just take a nap while you’re tearing your hair out on how to deal with them.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Your bad luck just doesn’t run out when it comes to the vampires. To put it shortly, wait for your rework. Sure this matchup is marginally better than Coast since you’ll actually make it into melee, but Vampire Counts will take your leadership to pound town with fear/terror, and their excellent mobility means that they can pick their engagements way better than you can. Also they can heal. Your only hope is to grab 2 Shaggoths or an exalted hero goon squad and defend them at all costs. Hopefully Tzeentch will favor you!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': You know what they say: dogs are a mutated tentacle-y chaos warriors best friend. Chaos Warhounds are a must in this matchup, because they are the only unit with the speed to reliably pin down the asrai’s shooters. Here’s the thing: you will win the infantry grind with 0 effort, as chaos warriors will kill any asrsi infantry they’re put up against with one hand tied behind their back, and the great weapon variant can even buzzsaw through Tree Kin relatively quickly. That’s not where the Wood elves strength lies however. If they go full Vietnam and bring a list full of shooters, you’ll want chaos warhounds and skirmish cav to pin down and damage their archers and cav. Chaos knights can deal with any cavalry the wood elves have (except for maybe the lost Sylvan Knights) as long as they don’t take the charge. Speaking of The lost Sylvan knights, they can be a huge pain since your magic damage is limited, and the easiest way to grind them down is probably a fire caster with flaming sword of rhuin. I wouldn’t bother with Shaggoths. An Exalted hero (or even two!) on a manticore can be a great pick here, since it’s mobile enough with a small hit box and has the killing power to take out Treemen, Zoats, lords/heros you name it. You’ll just need to be careful of Hawk riders. Archaon or Dorghar or Sigvald are probably your best lords here. Anything with a big hitbox is just asking to become a pincushion.

===Campaign Strategies===
'''AND THE REWORK CAME!''' The new rework gives you the ability to recruit daemon lords and all the daemons in general. a new 'upgrade system' allows you to recruit basic marauders and then upgrade them over time into chaos warriors and then chosen. your objective really is to kill a lot of people to earn 'souls' which you can offer to the chaos gods to get daemon units or major faction buffs. with the ability to pseudo-conquer settlements the days of horde agony are in the past. Take archeon and his lads on a merry slaughter-crusade throughout the world and with the ability to evolve your non-legendary generals into daemon princes come rank 30 it's the chaos experience we always wanted.

====Archaon====
Archaon leads the Warhost of the Apocalypse, with the following effects:
# First, +1 maximum active gift of Chaos Undivided, coming to a total of 4 Gifts of Chaos Undivided when you max out the tech tree. You'll see less of this early game when you're starved for souls, but it gives you more flexibility mid to late-game.
# Second, for each vassal you have, you get +10 to diplomatic relations with Beastmen, Norscans, WoC and Daemons and +10% research rate. This is pretty huge, with optimal play you can get 8 - 10 vassals early on, and 20+ Chaos faction vassals later on, for a whopping 300+ % research rate and over 200 diplomatic relations. This is without considering human and elf vassals from patch 2.1.1.
# Finally, souls + 25 for each vassal you have, which basically gives you free upkeep for cheaper gifts early game, and helps you build up a soul bank for buying gifted units later on.

'''[Early Game Research Tech Tree and Gifts]''' 
Unless you're going for something specific, I highly recommend rushing at least one Gift of Nurgle through research. This should unlock at turn 20 - 30. Choose "Bloom of Decay", which will give +75 growth per region to ALL provinces after winning any battle (sieges, minor settlement battles and field battles all count). This is frankly insane given that you'll be doing nothing but fighting the entire campaign, and snowballs the more armies you have. With some luck, you can unlock T4 settlements by turn 40 - 50 and T5 settlements not long after.

Note that "Bloom of Decay" doesn't add growth gain for that turn; it adds growth directly into your growth point count (see https://imgur.com/a/is7BctC for a badly edited demonstration).

You're pretty much free to play around with whatever research and gift you want from there, but I do like finishing off Nurgle's tech tree to get a second gift for "Deadly Transmission" which enables replenishment in foreign territory. This is basically Skarbrand's faction mechanic i.e. replenishment in hostile / neutral territory, and lets you play hyper-aggresively for favour, souls, and growth from Bloom of Decay.

'''[Early Game Build Up]''' 
You start off in the Blood Marshes, northeast of Kislev, and at war with the Slaaneshi minor faction the Exquisite Pain. Spend turn 1 taking your Dark Fortress, recruiting marauders, and getting a new lord (no supply lines for Chaos). The next couple of turns should be spent taking out the Exquisite Pain before subjugating their last settlement. Once done, you can go in three directions: west, to take down Boris Ursun before he smashes the Khorne minor, east to take the Dark Fortress from the Nurgle minor, or south to take Norsca.

I've generally proceeded by taking out Boris Ursun and capturing the three Dark Fortresses to the west up until you encounter Daniel, and later Malus Darkblade. From there you are in a good position to either keep going west to Valkia and Sigvald, or pivoting down to Norsca. With three Dark Fortresses you've more or less stabilized your early economy, so feel free to experiment from here.

If you do go west, you can eliminate Daniel fairly easily, but your main challenge will be Malus especially since he's allied to Malekith. If RNG is in your favour, you can avoid getting into a war with Malekith by joining war through one of the Daemon minors lying around, and then turning around to subjugate the Daemon minor. Either way,
subjugate the western Daemons and Norscans, and confederate Valkia and Sigvald. You should generally take out Crone Hellebron to safeguard that front, and leave one stack to defend against Malekith and Alith Anar, while getting your western vassals to send crapstacks at them to build a large buffer zone.

From there, world's your oyster. You can burn your way down to Morathi, and take the Dark Fortress at the Ancient City of Quintex before heading off to the meatgrinder on the donut. You can take the Dark Fortresses in Norsca and subjugate / confederate the factions there on the way to the Empire. You can hit up Kholek (assuming Grimgor hasn't destroyed him) and meet up with Vilitch outside Cathay far to the east. Or you can do two or more of the above with the good economy you should have by now, and keep burning the world.

'''[Lategame Shenanigans]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
Lategame, you tend to build up a huge bank of souls from fighting the Ordertide. With this bank, you can micromanage your Gifts of Chaos to gain more gifted units than ordinarily allowed. For example, Shaggoths are the highest tier gifted unit for Chaos Undivided. Their gift, "Carnage Incarnate", costs 2,000 souls and has a per turn upkeep of 200, and gives one Shaggoth per four turns passively. However, the Shaggoth is dropped into your Gifted unit pool on the same turn you apply "Carnage Incarnate". This makes it possible to recruit one Shaggoth every two turns by manually swapping out the Shaggoth gift, and then swapping it back. This works for all gifted units, although Nurgle gifted units are given one turn later since all Nurgle gifts give Nurglings in addition to the desired unit.

Illustration:
Turn 80: Spend 2,000 souls apply Carnage Incarnate, and get Shaggoth #1 in the gifted unit pool. Your lord can recruit Shaggoth #1 at this stage if desired. No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 81: 200 souls are deducted for Carnage Incarnate upkeep. Swap out Carnage Incarnate with literally anything else (e.g. Hail of Hellfire for 1,500 souls if you want Hellcannons). No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 82: 150 souls are deducted for Hail of Hellfire upkeep. Swap out Hail of Hellfire with Carnage Incarnate for 2,000 souls. Shaggoth #2 is now ready for recruiting 2 turns ahead of time, at an extra cost of 2,000 souls + 1,500 souls for the Hellcannon.

''Perks from Daemon Princes of Tzeentch'' 
You will also want to get Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, since at level 18 one of their special Lord perks "Deadly Erudition" gives Hero capacity +2 and Hero recruit rank +5 for Chaos Sorcerers. Sadly, the recruit rank part doesn't work as at patch 2.1.1, but if it gets fixed, it means that with two Daemon Princes of Tzeentch you can get sorcerers with instant arcane conduit and vortex spells with overcast and winds of magic discounts.

''Goon Squad Settlement Battle Cheese'' 
One way to take settlement battles / sieges with few casualties is to keep your infantry and cavalry in reserve to avoid dealing the towers. Instead, send in your manticore goon squad (Lord, Sorcerer, Hero) and single entity monsters (Shaggoths, Bloodthirsters / Keepers of Secrets, Soul Grinders, Skullcannons) to bash down any gates and deal with the garrison. Infantry will tend to blob up around your goon squad, which allows you to delete them with vortex spells (especially Pit of Shades and Infernal Gateway).

To further reduce damage, you can slap on regeneration items on your Lords and Heroes, and dedicate your Exalted Hero to Nurgle. Nurgle Heroes get to choose the perk "Stench-Ridden" at rank 7, which gives them 3 uses of the ability "Locus of Fecundity" on the field. This provides replenishment of +0.8% health per second for 11s and -1% fatigue per second, which helps keep your goon squad alive and top off your single entities after beating down the garrison.

If you have enough winds of magic, this tactic can even take down fullstacks and T4-5 garrisons, although you will likely need to commit some of your infantry later on to deal the finishing blow.

====Azazel====
Gifts of Slaanesh, seduction, and diplomacy is the name of the game for Azazel. gifts of Slaanesh can give you +25 souls per turn each, and you can easily have dozens of these active at once, so your able to sustain gifts of chaos easily and build up massive reserves of souls, you should use you diplomacy benefits for all its worth to avoid unnecessary wars and gradually spread out and conquer as many dark fortresses as possible while gaining vassals. you may not have the insane versatility of the undivided lord like archaon or belakor but you Slaanesh faction benefits are extremely strong. prioritize givings gifts of slaanesh to every lord you meet, friend or enemy, and you will never have to worry about souls again, you may not be overall as strong as Archaon, belakor, or maybe even sigvald but you are one of the best warriors of chaos factions in campaign for sure. Azazel himself is a great flying lord whith good abillities and an awesome weapon. Unfortunately because hellscourge units suck and mark of Slaanesh isn't really that good except on cavalry Azazel probably has the weakest unit roster of the Warriors of chaos factions, Slaanesh and undivided units aren't bad by any means but with the exception of chaos knights Slaanesh marking isnt usually one of the most useful choices. His powerful faction affects can certainly make up for that slight weakness though. like all 4 monogod warriors of chaos his tech tree is generally more focused and less versatile than the undivided lords.

====Be'lakor====
Belakor, the first Daemon Prince, the first champion of undivided, and the first to suffer from [[Horus Heresy|Daddy(-ies) issues]], comes with a few unique mechanics to differentiate him from Archaon and the Daemon Princes:
*'''Confederation''': Like Archaon, Belakor can confederate with the other Warriors of Chaos factions after seizing their last settlement, whereas other Warriors can only vassalize. Easier to do the earlier it is in the campaign, while your competition is still trying to subjugate the tribes. The factions ''closest'' to you is Sigvald, who is just to your Northwest, and Festus, in the Empire. Your mileage may vary, but Sigvald is the easiest to subjugate since the Fortress of the Damned is a port, and isn't [[Money|DLC-locked]].
*'''Rifts''': The ''best'' of the unique mechanics because of how it works with the WoC playstyle: Rifts allow for instant travel between two points on the map, and new ones can be created with the Tzeentch Unholy Manifestation simply by activating it on any land army that you have vision on, so you can send expendable heroes out to tag distant armies for you and have portals all over Malleus.
**Belakor starts with a Daemonic Rift in his capital, which leads you to the Southern Wastes and Ostermark, which throws you into the shit right away.
**You start with 4 charges of this rite and a cooldown of 15 turns, and this anon recommends placing your first few rifts on your Dark Fortresses rather than on Order Faction Capitals: teleporting an army ''directly'' on Sigvald or Archaon's doorstep makes subjugating them so much easier, and also makes holding these fortresses a cinch. Dark Fortresses are hard to take even without a garrisoned army and some, but not all, tend to be pretty far away from each other. Rifts can transport an army from a relatively quiet fortress right in front of an invading Skaven Horde or Empire doomstack.
**Stances are retained when traveling through rifts, but not movement, so entering in the raid/encamp/ambush stance ensures you're not entirely defenseless when emerging from the other side.
*'''Manifestations''': Replaces the Eye of the Gods mechanic. You can sacrifice souls to the four Gods in exchange for campaign abilities and a gifted Daemon unit.
**Tzeentch creates portals and gifts Pink Horrors
**Nurgle delivers 100 Nurgle Corruption (over 10 turns, so +10 a turn) and Plaguebearers
**Khorne greatly improves the melee and charge stats of an entire army and gifts Bloodletters
**Slaanesh deals damage to an opposing enemy army and gifts Daemonettes
**Souls sacrificed in this manner ''do not'' count towards the Gifts of Chaos, which is a shame.
*'''Daemonic Warband Upgrades''': Not only does Belakor have a base 3+ Authority with all four Gods, but after researching through the tech tree, Belakor can upgrade any of the basic Daemons to their Exalted versions, which keeps them competitive as the game goes on.
*'''Belakor's Shadow''' - You can convert enemy Human lords into Daemon Princes, either by defeating them with Belakor, or by Hero action. This only applies to non-Legendary, non-Warriors of Chaos lords. It takes 10 turns for the transformation to complete, and if the Lord is disbanded or kille, the effect is removed.
*'''Konquata and the Campaign''': As mentioned above, Belakor starts in Konquata, Albion, with the Vanaheimling's as his Norscan vassals. Being so close to Bretonnia and the Empire, as well as having rifts to Ostermark and the Southern Wastes, it's tempting to start throwing the forces of Order into Chaos, but subjugating and vassalizing other Chaos-factions should take priority. Wulfrik's territory is also quite close to you, and while you can't make him playable, having him as a vassal is still helpful, and you can gift him territory to make his faction stronger. Honestly, trading away all the non-Dark Fortress settlements to vassals or allies is the smart way to go because you benefit very little from them, while they can make full settlements out of them. His one weakness is that he has no bonuses to soul generation at all so gifts of chaos are much harder to sustain.
**Konquata [[Fail|doesn't have a port]], which makes you kinda glad that you have the rifts, instead. Getting in and out of Albion without them is a bitch, both for you ''and'' for invaders. It's not as annoying as the Galleon's Graveyard, but you will have enough warning about coming invaders to get an army through a rift.

====Festus====
Festus has power support abilities and the always powerful and useful plague mechanic but is unfortunately stuck on foot and mediocre in melee, thankfully nurgle marking is generally one of the strongest options on many units and they have access to great weapon versions of infantry which is very useful. He also gains souls from plagues which is pretty decent but much weaker than archaeon's vassal effect or gifts of Slaanesh at generating souls overall. Both marked heros and lords of nurgle are very good as well. Frankly Festus is very solid. Good units to take advantage of are chaos giants while stacking missile resistance, Aspiring champions, and nurgle chaos knights are all very strong, make sure to always have sources of healing to outlast your enemies. really just his low speed and no mount holds him back.

====Kholek====
Kholek is a beast who gets stronger and BIGGER with every vassal, but he lost his 20% ward save skill for no apparent reason. Unfortunately he has no particularly good factions benefits, he does nothing to boost his army except giving dragon ogres a weak activated ability and some combat bonuses and he gives only his own army a 25% discount on dragon ogre upkeep, plus gets the shaggoth granting chaos gift easier. Unfortunately he if far, far less useful overall than archaon, belakor, or even Sigvald as far as faction effects go, his is still a beast in combat but there no real reason to use him instead of just confederating him as archaon and belakor. Disappointing that they felt the need to nerf him and give him nothing to make up for it. I guess you can get 50 vassals and have fun with how giant he is but frankly that's just a gimmick.

====Sigvald====
Sigvald has Slaaneshi seduction and gifts of Slaanesh both of which are extremely strong. gifts of slaanesh let you spam hero actions across the map to passively generate souls, where most chaos factions depend on battling and razing to generate souls you can get insanely high passive soul income while also seducing factions to become your vassals, allowing you to upkeep your gifts of chaos for free. seriously this effect alone makes sigvald and Azazael deceptively powerful. compared to Azazel, Sigvald has a better tech tree and access to the full roster instead of just Slaanesh, frankly Slaanesh marking is only really that useful on chaos knights and cavalry to give devastating flanker but is kinda lack luster on mauraders, warriors etc. Sigvald is much more well rounded than Azazel in unit/hero/lord choice.

====Valkia====
Valkia has some of Skaarbrands signature mojo, but isn't quite as op. She herself is a potent flying beatstick and her Khorne/undivided rosters is focused and powerful, but in terms of faction benefits and campaign effects she is solid but perhaps not the best. Her Star ability is to replenish in enemy territory. khorne units are offensively focused and powerful thankfully. She is the only warriors of chaos faction who cannot use any sorcerer lords and only has access to the lores of fire and metal (maybe go fire since you have lots of units with flaming attacks to benefit from kindleflame. She also has no way of passively generating souls like Archaon/Festus/Azazel/Sigvald and must rely on razing and battles completely, meaning its much harder to sustain many gifts until later when you've built up a nice large reserve of souls. Still that doesn't mean she is weak by any means. Her ability to rampage across the map quickly is as potent as always. Her version of the Bloodletting ability is basically useless, all it does is increase khorne authority and experience gain for units, but she and her other lords should have no problem getting khorne authority since your likely to mark most of your lord and hero's.

====Villitch====
a decent caster and decent fight but stuck on foot unfortunately, god why couldn't they have given him a disc?, as a lord he's kinda mediocre, good to support barriers on your troops but other wise not amazing. factions wise his benefits are only ok, he has the changing of ways which can definitely be good and the ability to teleport is nice, but his other faction bonuses are semi-mediocre. thankfully barrier is extremely strong and the mark of Tzeentch is just good in general. The biggest issue with him is that he isn't kairos or nearly as op as him, but still Tzeentch units are strong enough to make up for that. He has no particularly good way to gain souls compared to other lords though.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Lucius

2023-01-28T17:54:23Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* History */

[[File:Lucius_the_Eternal.jpg|350px|thumb|right|The sick bastard in all his sick glory.]]
{{Heresy}}
{{topquote|Hey, '''BRAH!''' Got a nice spirit stone there. Can I put it in my mouth and cover it in SALIVA?!|[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Lucius, being a creepy deviant as always]]}}

{{topquote|It gives me no pleasure to do this. You are nothing to me, simply a rabid dog that needs to be put down.|The one who doesn't need floors pointing out to Lucius that rabies is still an issue in the far future}}

{{topquote|Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!|Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi}}

'''Lucius the Eternal''' is the sickest fuck in the [[Emperor's Children]], an entire [[First Founding|Legion]] of sick fucks who worship [[Slaanesh|the very god of sick fuckery]]. That's really saying something. He's also one of the [[That Guy|biggest pieces of shit in the whole damn galaxy]], up there with [[Erebus]] in terms of self-centered, ruining everything bullcrap.

==History==
Back during the [[Great Crusade]], Lucius was [[Brother-Captain|Captain]] of the 13th Company, where he was the best swordsman in the legion. Meaning, in an entire army of perfectionists, no one was better at sword fighting than Lucius. He was also extremely arrogant, more concerned about his own glory than the Legion's. His arrogance stemmed from his youth on Chemos. Born after Fulgrim's departure, he was educated amongst the nobility and became the youngest swordsmaster the planet had ever seen, regularly beating boys much older than him (and occasionally even his teachers) in duels. Being the very best didn't really help with his personality, and he almost got killed when he ran through one of his opponents for daring to wound him, causing a riot to break out between his admirers and detractors. Luckily for him (and unluckily for the rest of the galaxy) an Emperor's Children Astartes saw the skilled young swordsman and abducted him in the stampede, deciding that such skill with the sword should not go to waste. This, along with him surviving the implantation process and becoming a full Astartes himself, really didn't help with his feeling of superiority either.

During the campaign on [[Murder]], Lucius got himself into trouble with his superior [[Eidolon]] for using a xenos claw as a weapon, and then came under fire from [[Tarik Torgaddon]] for being a kiss-ass to any senior Emperor's Children marine and obnoxious to anyone else. He later showed off his prowess to the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves]] in the practice cages, defeating [[Erebus]]. However, [[Knights-Errant#Garviel_Loken|Garviel Loken]] found a flaw in Lucius' method — his reliance on technique — and beat him with a punch to the face.

During the [[Battle of Isstvan III]], Lucius initially sided with the Loyalists against the [[Chaos Space Marines]]. But when command of the loyalist Emperor's Children was taken by [[Saul Tarvitz]], Lucius got jealous (failing to note that every loyalist on the planet would eventually die, and who got the most credit didn't matter — even Tarvitz doesn't get much recognition in the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]]). It's slightly skimmed over, but apparently Lucius got corrupted by the [[Slaanesh]]i cultists' music in the battle on Isstvan III, as he started to become obsessed with the "song of death". Eventually he betrayed their stronghold in exchange for joining the Traitors, tricking [[Solomon Demeter]] into killing loyalist Space Marines before murdering him — proving that the age old adage ''"It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself"'' may have some truth to it. And of course, Lucius got off a little bit on Demeter's anguish before putting the poor guy out of his misery. He then proceeded to toy with Tarvitz after explaining his reasons: "I'm better than you". However, Tarvitz took a leaf out of Loken's book, jumped on Lucius and deployed a tactical smackdown. Lucius then got pumped full of [[bolter]] shrapnel, but escaped to get some [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bill]] augmentations.

During the rest of the Heresy, Lucius put his skills to good use murderizing loyalists (and organizing an exorcism/BDSM session for [[Fulgrim]]). He continued being an arrogant supremely skilled bastard, up until he met Nykona "I don't use the floor" Sharrowkyn, a [[Raven Guard]] badass who proceeded to make Lucius his bitch on two separate occasions before stabbing him through both hearts and killing him.

Except the last part didn't quite stick, because he mysteriously got up again after being very definitely dead. Not even Fabius knows how he pulled this off, and Lucius was sensible enough not to stick around long enough for Fabius to find out how it worked by vivisection. He somehow ended up wandering around on Sortiarius, separated from the rest of his legion. After dueling with the [[Thousand Sons]] blademaster Sanakht, Lucius accompanied Ahriman and his cabal in their quest to find the shards of the Crimson King. Along the way, he proved to be an effective manipulator, tempting several of the Thousand Sons into doing what Lucius's demonic allies wanted. He also got his scarred face to be temporary fixed to look more like Fulgrim's, before getting it scarred again by fighting inside the Maze of Tzeentch.

[[File:Iron Hands troll Lucius.png|600px|thumbnail|left|The Iron Hands found a way to make his Come Back From The Death Ability useless. Just throw him away like the piece of trash that he is.]]

But it's (ironically) ''after'' the [[Horus Heresy]] where things start to get creepy. During one of the random gladiatorial games the Emperor's Children partook in, Lucius was struck down. The experience was so enjoyable that it caught [[Slaanesh]]'s notice. Not wanting to lose so devoted a servant, Lucius was resurrected in his killer's own body. After that, anyone who struck down Lucius and felt any satisfaction from the act would find themselves possessed by Lucius, who thus became known as Lucius the Eternal. To all the MANLY FOLLOWERS of [[Khorne]], this makes Lucius a total failure compared to [[Kharn]], as Kharn has been killing stuff for just as long as Lucius without dying once (until [[World Eaters]] claimed his "lifeless corpse" from the steps in front of the [[Golden Throne|Infinity Gate]]... still, that's only one death to Lucius' fucktons). To all the FOOLISH IMPERIAL SCUM, this is the most terrifying thing ever: they know they'll never get him with an [[Exterminatus]] or orbital bombardment because of plot, and they know that their greatest champions (who have their own [[plot armor]]) can't beat him either. He may have in fact aided the Imperium by getting killed by more skilled Chaos Champions and [[Xenos]].

(Though that ability is not foolproof. It certainly wouldn't work against certain people like Kharn, Typhus, Ahriman, Abaddon or any of the Primarchs or God-Emperor or possibly any sufficiently powerful psyker assuming they didn't already explode into daemons. In some of these instances, Slaanesh would bring him back and get pissed at the guy whose soul cannot be possessed, in others they can just nope him out of existence metaphysically.)

The fans have fun speculating on easy and anticlimactic ways to keep him from reviving, like having him die from some unlucky artillery shell from some bored as fuck [[Imperial Guard|Guardsmen]] in [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisks]] shell him to death without ever realizing what they did, or trapped by mindless [[Tyranid]]s or [[Necron]]s. Despite absolutely zero chance of this ever happening (because he's a named character in 40k, how lame would it be to die and get written out of the lore in such a weak fashion?) the writers have been taking steps to tell us "not so fast!" regardless. The new Chaos codex has him reviving after a Necron duelist wasted him and took some cold pride in it, so nuts to that, apparently! "Lucius: Pride and Fall" has him resurrecting as a munitorum factory worker who built the landmine that Lucius tripped on (which even Lucius was rather surprised about, especially as the factory worker had absolutely no idea about it all and Lucius popped back into existence light years away from where he died). The fans are now asking what if the person who kills him and enjoys it commits suicide before the transformation occurs. Or: take him alive (easier said then done admittedly, but given Lucius' record at fisticuffs a few [[Terminator]]s could probably subdue him easily), cut his limbs off, lock him in a metal box, put that box inside another box, then mail the box to yourself, and when it arrives? <s>SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER</s> Build a heavily armed fortress on top full of [[stormtrooper]]s who think they're just there to support a crusade and BAM, problem potentially solved. Or alternatively, freeze him with a stasis field while activating a tesseract labyrinth to keep him out of the scene. Also the writers claim his plot armor ability is not foolproof, as shown by making Lucius cautious enough to run away if he really is close to dying for real. It's also implied that if he died in the Webway, he'd croak forever; bad news for him because the 8th edition Dark Eldar codex reveals that gladiatrix extraordinare [[Lelith Hesperax]] wants to capture him and take him back to Commorragh for a duel and she knows about his resurrection/possession ability but thinks she has a way around it - remove his soul-carrying armor.

But let's face it, probably the easiest, most permanent way of dealing with this asshole is to just inter his lunatic ass inside of a Helbrute and call it a day.

In between [[Black Crusade]]s, Lucius is said to wander that [[Eye of Terror]], supposedly looking for either the location of Fulgrim's pleasure world, or to find a means to weaponize his penis. If things had gone very differently, he could probably get some help with that from the [[Iron Hands]]. At one point he got himself captured by [[Dark Eldar]]s as part of a contrived bargain they had made with Fabius Bile. He was kept as the main event by a powerful Archon (She controlled a minor Webway realm to herself) but he kept winning and everyone got bored. Bile hooked up him with the drug rack as a means of keeping him alive long enough to pillage as much information as possible. The archon decided that he wasn’t worth the effort of keeping around and ditched him from the top billing. It was also revealed (if by implication) that if Lucius od’d on his new toys, then Bile - as their proud maker - would get turned into him. Jury’s out on how that would work with the whole clone body thing that Fabius has going on.

By the time of the 13th Black Crusade, the Emperors Children Legion (implied to be bigger today than during the Heresy) has fully mobilized to attack the Imperium. Lucius and his warband participated at Extremis Six alongside his Primarch Fulgrim

==On the Tabletop==
Lucius gets a standard Chaos Lord statline, plus WS7 and I6. He clocks in at 165 points, and is equipped with a power sword, a doom siren, and a 3+/5++. He has two unique abilities: his [[Daemon_Weapon#Lash of Torment|Lash of Torment]] reduces the attacks of all enemies in base contact by one and gives all his close combat attacks Shred, and his Armour of Shrieking Souls means that each time he passes an armor or invuln save, the model or unit that caused the wound takes a S4 AP2 hit. He also has the Duellist's Pride rule, which makes his attacks characteristics equal to his opponent's weapon skill in a challenge.

In a codex full of one-trick ponies, Lucy is the ultimate one, being quite good at killing 3+ or worse characters but being otherwise almost totally useless. Unlike [[Kharn]], who you can point at basically anything, Lucius struggles with 2+ save characters. The bane of his existence, though is S8 weaponry, as he lacks Eternal Warrior and will likely get splatted by the first Thunder Hammer/Artificer armor captain he challenges. His low number of attacks (3) and his lack of a second close combat weapon mean that he struggles outside of challenges, too. He does bring a Doom Siren along, meaning double-Siren drive-by fun if you put him in a Rhino with Noise Marines.

=== 8th Edition ===
8th ed. Lucius got buffed hard, getting a price cut, 5 attacks instead of 3 base and a 2-damage power sword. The [[Daemon_Weapon#Lash of Torment|Lash of Torment]] is now an S4 AP-1 D2 Assault 2 weapon that can be fired both into and out of combat, essentially giving him 7 attacks base before additional rules like Death to the False Emperor kick in. Duelist's Pride has changed since challenges are gone. Now, if he directs all his attacks at a single enemy character he gets +2 attacks. Sadly that Doom Siren of his is now totally lame. Ah well. Like every damn character in 8th ed he also gives a 6" bubble of rerolling 1s on to-hit rolls to units with his subfaction keyword, '''EMPEROR'S CHILDREN.''' All this for a mere 11 points over a naked Chaos Lord, not bad.

*Alternate opinion: Lucius' swordsmanship is supposed to be "Perfect", but he hits on a 2+ just like every other melee character. Compare him to the Emperor's Champion for instance. Would you rather have +2 attacks or re-roll to hit any miss AND +3 strength vs characters? The Black Sword is just better than the "Blade of the Laer" <s>which slew the Primach Ferrus, because reasons</s> at the time it was possessed by a [[Keeper of Secrets]]. Then you have Lucius mediocre saves 3+/5++. They could have at least give him a 4+ in combat; he's Slaanesh's champion after all. The prominent rack of Combat Drugs on his back does nothing. Finally, his character aura is just bland. Look at the auras the Imperial special characters grant. Granting +1S to sonic weapons, FNP within 6" would have been more characterful. While he isn't terrible, the best thing you can say about Lucius is that he's cheaper, and that's really a shame. Maybe when/if he gets a plastic model they'll do something interesting with him.

==Other Lucius'==
Apparently, the name is widespread in the 40k (and even present in Fantasy), and there are a lot of other dudes, places and things named Lucius, amongst which:
*'''Lucius the Pretendent''' – another Slaaneshi Chaos Lord, who hilariously cosplayed Lucius the Eternal, by challenging and slaughtering Imperial champions on [[Medusa]] V. Accidentally rolled two sixes and ascended to [[daemon]]hood.
*'''[[Forge World]] Lucius''' – one of the top-grade forge worlds, rivaling [[Mars]] itself with the quantity and variety of things it produces. Has its own exclusive patterns of [[Warhound Scout Titan|Warhound]] and [[Reaver Battle Titan|Reaver]] [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|titans]], as well as [[Standard Template Construct|STCs]] of [[Macharius Heavy Tank]]s and Cyclops demolition tanks.
*'''Lucius [[Drop Pod]]''' – big-ass drop pod specifically designed for deploying dreads.
*'''Elf Prince Lucius''' - friend of [[Tyrion]] who is only mentioned in one Graham McNeill's book, and the only Fantasy character with such a name. He is part of the family that has powerful connections with [[Cathay]], and he regularly wears their robes to make fun of Cathayan style (although Tyrion notices that his costume fits him very well).
{{Template:Chaos-Marines}}
[[Category: Emperor's Children]]

Marines Malevolent

2023-01-25T00:12:58Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:9145:E249:E8A5:D713: /* codex bro-startes */

{{Fail}}
{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Marines Malevolent
|Heraldry = [[File:Marines_Malevolent_Icon.jpg|150px]]
|Battle Cry = [https://youtube.com/watch?v=UrgpZ0fUixs This ancient Terran chant]
|Founding = A mistake
|Successors of = Unknown, as no Chapter, loyalist or traitor alike, in their right mind would admit it. (Though likely from traitor stock.)
|Successor Chapters = None. Or at least, No Chapter would admit it under fear of being declared traitoris perdita
|Chapter Master = Scumbag Steve
|Primarch = <strike>[[Secundus]]</strike> <strike>[[That Guy]]</strike> Likely a traitor, definitely hates them too.
|Homeworld = Worse off for having them
|Specialty = Being absolute assholes, fuckwads, and douchebags, pissing off the [[Salamanders]], and getting completely burned by said [[Tu'Shan|Salamanders]]
|Strength = Hopefully declining
|Allegiance = [[Imperium]] (much to their chagrin)
|Colours = Piss Yellow and "Hangover poop" Black trim
}}
[[File:Marines Malevolent.jpg|250px|thumb|left| Witness the very pinnacle of douchebaggery, the yellow that reeks of <s>scum</s> PISS. They are every [[Salamanders]]' nightmare and major cause of [[rage|ragequits]]. They are... the Marines Malevolent. Notice they are also the colour of wasps, undisputed douchebags of the <s>insect</s> world.]]

{{Topquote|Fact #105: The Marines Malevolent are '''the worst'''.|[[Games Workshop]] [https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/19/20th-oct-500-facts-for-500-stores/ itself]}}

The '''Marines Malevolent''' are a [[Space Marines|Space Marine]] [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapter]] in [[Warhammer 40,000]] whose aesthetic is basically stereotypical Russian Spetsnaz i.e. "ten hostages, five terrorists, fifteen body-bags: mission accomplished" type stuff. They have only two real defining characteristics beyond their piss-hued [[Ceramite]]: they are complete assholes (even by WH40k standards), and they hate the [[Salamanders]], and are hated by every loyalist, and a few traitor chapters, which is probably related to the first point. It may also be related to their ''unique'' approach to hostage situations (hint: it involves [[Whirlwind]]s, poison gas, and probably [[Warlord Battle Titan|Warlord titans]]) They're such super massive assholes that, if their douchebaggery manifested in reality, it would be as a [[Warp]] [[Great Rift|Rift]] which would collapse in on itself and sucks in the entire universe. Imagine [[Angry Marines]] but with all the anger, rage, and lolrandom cursing replaced with passive-aggressiveness, zero empathy, and complete dickishness. They're pretty much the poster boys of everything bad about the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]] rolled into one collection of chucklefucks who's closest thing to a virtue is not falling to the ruinous powers. Between that and the name, they're collectively the [[Goge Vandire]] of Space Marine Chapters: almost comically evil, comically dickish, and overtly malignant... except that the Imperium eventually "solved" their Goge problem, at least.

==Relationship with the wider Imperium of Man==
They have a shortage of [[Power Armour|power armour]] (pissing off the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] tends to have that effect), so they use [[Pauldron|whatever parts of it]] they can find. In the novel ''Salamander'' by Nick Kyme, they even steal some from an abandoned forge ship. Not only do they justify such acts by necessity born of their own infamy, but also by their sheer contempt for anyone who is <s>inferior</s> not them. This, coupled with their aforementioned lack of empathy, means they show outright scorn towards the common people of the Imperium, and won't bat an eye at slaughtering confirmed faithful humans to accomplish their goals, such as wading through the unclean masses in their spikiest boots on their way to convert the Ministorum orphanage into a new firing range.

A few Chapters, such as the Salamanders and the [[Lamenters]] (The counterpart to the Marines Malevolent in many ways, being poorly equipped and distrusted by the Imperium at large, but also being genuinely compassionate to regular humans as opposed to these [[Murderhobos|dickwads]]), go out of their way to minimize casualties. ''Battle-brothers, we few are all that stand between the heretics and the refugee camp behind us. The PDF and the Guard have not the men to spare to protect this place as they withdraw themselves. [[Noblebright|But curses upon ourselves and our Chapter if we allow that degenerate rabble to harm the Emperor's faithful!]]''

Most Chapters, such as the [[Imperial Fists]] or [[Ultramarines]], regard casualties, particularly those of the collateral nature, to be unfortunate but largely unavoidable. ''Yes, many civilians and Guardsmen died during the orks' assault on the hive, but had we not fought the xenos there, many more would be dead. Civilian casualties should be avoided but the mission always comes first.''

Some Chapters, like the [[Minotaurs]] and the [[Alpha Legion]] will actively kill fellow imperials when necessary (say, you cannot have someone spouting important information if they're captured, so that person needs to be silenced) or let them be killed (like bait - the Minotaurs are known to do that) in order to ensure a very important goal is achieved and in fact more lives are saved in the long run – “lives are the emperor’s currency” after all, so fucking use it well and certainly don’t fucking waste it. Those chapters will do so because it is necessary and there are no better options, however, they will be under no illusions what they did and certainly won’t be dicks about it (this is the attitude of the Inquisition too, contrary to popular perception). ''Yes, we allowed those civilians and Guardsmen to be slaughtered, for if we did not the xenos could not have been wholly eradicated. I pray their souls will find peace at the Emperor's side, but their deaths were necessary to prevent far more.''

But then we have the Marines Malevolent; their attitude is that the dead are worthy of contempt, for they were too weak to live, and if the wounded suffer, then it is likewise because they are wretchedly weak. This might be why the other Space Marine assholes known for sacrificing civvies, the [[Star Phantoms]], nearly destroyed the chapter during the [[Macharian Heresy]]. ''Help, Guardsman? No, you will only have my scorn.'' The Star Phantoms may be dicks, but they at least get shit done.

Their callous and insufferably smug attitude towards authorities and civilians has even caused the ire of the [[Inquisition]] to press charges to <s>censure the chapter</s> declare the entire chapter traitoris perdita. [[Wat|Yes, even the trigger-happy Dickbags that pop]] [[Exterminatus]] [[Derp|like Christmas presents,]] [[That Guy|find the Marines Malevolent to be fucking unpleasant and cruel towards civilians.]] In fact, when the [[Star Phantoms]] nearly blew up the Marines Malevolent [[lulz|by total accident]] on some planet called Thoth, the Inquisition found the irony so hilarious they didn't press any charges against the Phantoms.

==Relationship with other Space Marine Chapters==

At this point, with the amount of hatred the Chapter has garnered, it's pretty amazing in and of itself that several other, cooler Chapters don't just petition the [[High Lords of Terra|High Lords]] to disband them and give the armour and weapons to other Chapters who don't shit themselves laughing after launching artillery at a refugee camp. Hell, since the Imperium is so <s>bumfuck stupid</s> {{BLAM|'''HERESY'''}} {{BLAM}}, Stuck up its own ass, they could probably get away with being stamped as 'Traitors' for killing civilians for no reason...in fact some of the inquisition have done that already, but the order has yet to reach the high lords. (ooh, some Kommandos are nearby. It'd be nice if we had some sort of low-key, un-Power Armoured marine who has been trained in stealth and reconnaissance to go and take them out).

And should that happen, I can't think of too many Chapters who would turn down the chance to kick the Marines Malevolent in their collective dicks. Especially if the [[Minotaurs]] and [[Carcharodons|SPESS SHARKSH!!!]] happen to be in the area. One of the Malevolents challenged a [[Black Templar]] to an honor duel, just so he could take the Templar's armor when he won, so the Templars would probably be first in line as well.

They even blackmailed a First Founding Chapter Master to the point that he had to physically restrain himself from smacking the fuck out of the Malevolent representative. When the two met again at the end of the Third Armageddon campaign, said Chapter Master openly insulted the Malevolent Captain (after he beat the ever-living fuck out of him in private) in front of the entire army, causing much sniggering amongst the nearer [[Imperial Guard|Guardsmen]] and earning the Chapter Master ([[Tu'Shan]]) the title Hero of Armageddon.

Well OK, he got it for kicking [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Thraka's]] ass, but who cares.

One could make the argument that this dickishness is just extreme pragmatism, combined with scorn towards everyone (including their own) who show weakness. You'd be wrong. Being pragmatic isn't bad in itself as such Chapters like the [[Raven Guard]], or their successors like the [[Raptors]], show multiple times, but the Marines Malevolent are just callous. They see others as an interference in doing their job as Marines, while those who prevent them in doing so actually do so because even they draw a line. An Inquisitor must be pragmatic due to the things he has to deal with constantly, but even then he wouldn't go that far as to put an entire sector to the torch unless he has enough evidence to justify this act, and even then he'll go to great lengths to hit places where heresy and corruption are at its worst and then cauterize the rest before it grows and strengthens itself. The Raptors Space Marines are known for their pragmatic take on warfare, yet even then they will never go so far as to waste allies or bombard a place with civilians in it. This is the reason why Marines Malevolent are not liked <s>that much</s> by the Imperium.

They also have piss-coloured armour, the ungrateful fucks.

Other forces in the Warhammer 40k universe may be EEEEEEVIL!!! on some sort of grand cosmic scale of [[Grimdark|grimdark]], but very few are just nasty, petty, and cruel in an all-too human way. They treat their [[Chapter Serf]]s like slaves, and for those not in the know, this is otherwise unheard of. That's not grimdark, M&Ms, that's just... unpleasant.

In short, in a galaxy of horror and tragedy, most suffer jadedly, a few grieve but only the Marines Malevolent jeer.... well, and the [[Iron Hands]], but [[Skub|that's basically retconned now]]. Alternately: a Marine Malevolent is, on average, ten pounds of jerkwad in an eight pound bag.

==42nd Millenium==
They're still active in the 42nd Millennium (unfortunately). A Marines Malevolent relief force arrived to rescue some Custodians defending Primaris Marine Gene-tech on Loque II, just in time to rescue the last surviving Custodian and the gene-tech. Knowing the Marines Malevolent, they probably not only tried to take the gene-tech but they probably [[Galactic Partridges|took the credit too]].

The Malevolent were last seen on the world of Etariis, leading the desperate retreat of several Space Marine Chapters but having managed to succesfully blow a certain [[Khârn]]'s ship to pieces, [[Not as planned|only for The Betrayer to board one of theirs and steal it in return]].

==codex bro-startes==
If there were a chapter of space marines that would act like dicks and claiming every tactical move from the [[Codex Astartes|codex]] was invented by them ( including [[Indrick Boreale#Steal Reign|Boreale's steel rain]], and the defensive maneuvers of the [[Imperial Fists]]) it would be these guys. No space marines could be such an asshole on such a scale without a big book to guide them.

Hence, we have the codex bro-startes, a flagrantly plagiarized knock off of the Codex Astartes with the words “written by [[Roboute Guilliman]]” scribbled out and replaced it with scumbag Steve. And the foreword section which says “with love to my brother [[Vulkan]]” burned out with industrial acids.

This book is a go to guide for how to be a dick in power armor. Guidance includes:

-when to be a dick

-where to be a dick,

-what time to be a dick,

-what to wear while being a dick,

-how to be a dick in the audio pictorium (cinema)

-how to be a dick on the battlefield

-how to be a dick off the battlefield

-how to be a dick on Sanguinala

-how to convince entire star systems into believing you are the Emperor’s actual finest.

-how to steal master crafted wargear and never give it back

- how to piss off the mechanicum so badley their cpu processors catch fire

- how to enrage iron hands and their successors using a silver wig, a sword and this reinactment of Istvaan 5 featuring Ferrus Manuses severed head
- how to infuriate the iron hands with some black and pink paint and some ancient terran death metal songs

- 102 things to say at a funeral, hive city edition

- 302 things to say at an astartes funeral to piss off the entire chapter and make the chaplain so angry his vox explodes including innapropriate jokes
for every successor chapter, and drop pod co-ordinates and a guide on brodex approved sunglasses and when and how to eat all the funeral food

- how to be a dick at a wake, just showing up and stealing food and drink

- 42 ways to make the lamenters cry

- credit card schemes to fool gullible imperial citizens

- how to piss off the raven guard by throwing these few ancient terran novels and poetry books onto a fire

- lies to tell an inquisitor so they exterminatus that one chapter of marines you dont like

-how to be a passive aggressive asshole

-how to be an aggressive asshole

-how to make others into an aggressive asshole

-how to make others into a passive aggressive asshole

-when to send guardsmen to their deaths

-when to steal their grieving girlfriends and widows after you ordered their boyfriends unnecessary deaths.

-how to send an inquisitor to anyone you hate with this one easy phrase

-how to send a chaplain to any marine you hate with this one easy phrase

-101 ways to piss off a salamander with more additions by the chapter’s first company.

-101 ways to scare a guardsman into Crippling PTSD

-when and how to open fire on civilians including trajectories, use of anti personnel ammunition, range finding, and suggestions by the chapter’s devastator company

-how to make a Mechanicum Adept cry using only a mortal hammer and a toaster

-when to show up at a Terran youths birthday party and steal their cake”

-when to show up at a Terran youths party and steal their birthday presents”

-when to show up at a terran youths birthday party and steal their sister...and never call her again!

- a philosophical treatise that states how much of a dick vulkan was but perturabo made some oddly compelling points, and also why hammers are dumb

- why black and yellow is stylish and a manly color and green and black is for powered armored fart huffers

- 350 ways to drive your land raider/spartan/mastadon to drive the other astartes pattern drivers utterly insane!

- 99 ways to piss off a Custodes to the point of borderline Heresy and still get away with it

-101 ways to pick up Sororitas and 801 excuses for why you cant see them anymore despite promising to take them for a cup of [[recaf]]”
these include but are not limited too
"im joining the death company" "I have to assault a hive ship tomorrow morning" "i lost your astropath number", "i just found out im a psyker" and many more

-Astropathic scams for the uninitiated, including pretending to be a lonely Sororitas or an Inquisitor

-claiming to be the 11th lost primarch and only needing a few Thrones to access your bank account on Holy Terra”

-claiming to be selling land on holy terra which will grant you the title of lord inquisitor for just a few measly dollars in your local currency

- use of hellstorm ammunition in orphanages, retirement homes, and maternity wards.

- an entire treatise on why the orphans of the imperium are weak and so are their parents and therefore deserved to die to hellfire and whirlwind rounds

- a 100 page list of imperial contacts and outside influences labeled as useful in causing more dickery (these include assholetep, vect, eldrad, exterminatus-happy inquisitors, etc.)

- 65 ways to be a sellout for the inqusition and how to mooch off them for loot and gear from other marine chapters

- that one time brother captian chaddicarus totally beat a custodian shield captain at an arm wrestling contest and was GIVEN his apolonian spear

- that one time brother sergent chaddicarus sniped an aledari pathfinder team with a pistol and subsequently beat 4 ork meganobz with his bare hands at the same time

- how to order master crafted wargear from mars and make the lamenters pay for it, by using passive aggressive manipulation tactics

- how to order everything from your local forgeworld and charge it to the salamanders credit card

- the totally true tales of armageddon when chapter master vinyar, ordered a masterful bombardment of orks before some stupid civlians ran into the whirlwind missiles and their brain dead salamander chapter master picked a fight with brother vinyar but he wasnt going to humiliate him in front of his own men

- that time they helped shoot down some fleeing orphans from some big battle from armageddon and got a star of terra from the inqusition, the space wolves were pissed, it was funny

- the one time the marines malevolent exterminatus'd a retirement home planet which was TOTALLY ovverun with genestealers, thus saving the elderly

- the time they drove a mastadon through a schola progenium and ran the planetary govenors armored limo off a bridge and snapped his bodygaurds necks because
we had evidence he was a genestealer in disguise(turns out he just had bad skin)

- the time they dropped an entire imperial gaurd regiment onto a planet under captian brannigan and declared war on a species of xenos before the mechanicus could even catalogue them....and subsequentley blew up the planet during peace neogitations

- the time they discovered an stc template and gave it the dark mechanicum for beer money, many loyalist tech adepts shed tears of oil in grief that day

- the day they recieved a distress call from a planet right in the way of hive fleet kraken, pretended to have communications problems and played the anecient terran game of call of duty instead

- the day they found another stc template for medicine and decided they'd sell it to some shady corporate types instead of helping the imperium

and many others, there’s also a few bits and bobs about fighting as space marines, but most of those pages were torn out so they could include “204 objects that could be repurposed as a bong”

==Characters (or lack thereof)==
They have only a few named characters, and only a few of these characters are alive at the time of the 'present day' in 40k. They had no fewer than thirty three of their 2nd Company (including a Veteran Sergeant, ''two'' Techmarines, a pilot, and a '''fucking APOTHECARY''') get infected by the Obliterator Virus while they were boarding the ship ''Demetrion,'' so Vinyar basically told them to go hit themselves with Tu'Shan's Thunder Hammer until they were purified. We are not kidding.

===Captain "Dickbag" Vinyar===
The only Malevolent known to be alive at the time of Medusa was '''Vinyar,'''. The chapter's Captain of the 2nd Company, who has a raging grudge against Tu'Shan, and the actual cause of most of the Chapter's reputation. No really. read the books. While the chapter has a reputation for being dicks, its because they are compared to the snugglebunnies called the [[Salamanders]], but overall are only dicks out of pragmatism. FUCKING VINYAR though is your 'garden variety' ''petty'' '''goddamn JACKASS'''. While a normal Marine Malevolent will use one of his brothers as bait for the enemy so the rest can attack more safely, Vinyar will straight have one of the other Marine Malevolent's killed just to clap back at that guy's friend. Or have a bunch of his troops, who got chaos corrupted, attack an allied Astartes homeworld, just to clap back at that guy for calling him out on his dickatry! And unlike most unreasonably petty fucking jerkoffs depicted in 40k, Vinyar doesn't even have the excuse of being Chaos corrupted. '''HE IS JUST A COMPLETE PRICK'''.

===Veteran <s>Ballsack</s> Ballack===
Ball<s>s</s>ack was a member of the chapter's elite 1st Company veteran 'Vilifiers'. A surprisingly Cool Guy for being a douchebag Marine. Like letting the guardsmen they were working with get some extra sleep, because they are normal humans who kinda need that kinda thing. Granted he later used a new member of his company as bait for the Orkz, just in case you started to forget which Chapter he is from. He was also pretty badass and managed to beat a Black Templar Sword Brethren in a 1v1 duel (by deliberately goading him and getting him to agree that the winner takes the other's gear). <s>Ballsack</s> was killed when <s>Dickbag</s> Vinyar told the aforementioned Templar's bros where to find him, with one of the Templars just literally stabbing <s>Ballsack</s> in the back. As he died <s>Ballsack</s> actual approved and complimented the Templar for being more of an underhanded dick than him.

==Chapter Tactics==
'''Friend no one Likes:''' When determining the level of allegiance between a faction with this chapter tactic and another without it decrease the standard level of allegiance as shown on the allies matrix by one to a minimum of ''Come the Apocalypse''.

'''Victory at any Cost:''' Units with this chapter tactic may make shooting attacks at enemy units that are locked in close combat with any allied unit that does not have this chapter tactic. To represent the nature of firing into a swirling melee use the following rules when firing: If using a blast or template weapon place them as usual but allied models may be under its starting position and roll for scatter as necessary. If firing another kind of weapon target the enemy unit as normal and roll to hit with a -1 to ballistic skill. For each successful to hit, roll to wound against the enemy unit, but for each miss roll to wound against the allied unit. All wounds are randomly allocated and saves may be taken as normal.

'''Disdain for the Weak:''' Units with this chapter tactic automatically pass morale checks the unit must take due to Casualties or to Losing an Assault.

'''Because I Feel Like It:''' Sergeants and characters in a unit with this chapter tactic gain the ''Summary Execution'' rule.

==Progenitor chapter==

While no chapter would admit it, there are a number of sound theories regarding the progenitor of this group of douchebags. All of them posit that their stock of gene seed came from a traitor. And most of them posit that they were not progenated from the first 20 legions, but one of their successor chapters.
While little is written of them, their attitudes (pragmatic, bitter, spiteful, consider one another disposable, consider others even more so, and massive entitlement) REEKS of [[Iron Warriors]]. Their colors of yellow & black seem reminiscent of the Iron Warriors' signature hazard stripes (and they still use the Iron Warriors hazard stripes too). Their Chapter emblem is just the Iron Warriors' marking for Fast Attack with a wing on it. However a member of the iron warriors (who wishes to remain anonymous) Expressly denied any involvement with the chapter. Insisting “we are called ruthless and cruel but we still respect humanity to an extent, they don’t... and we would be glad to deal with them for you.” (This offer was refused)

There is also the option, oddly enough, of them being [[Rage|descendants of the Salamanders themselves]]. After all, several of them ''did'' join with the Dragon Warriors, who are not only comprised of traitor salamanders and successors, but also bear the Salamanders' old name from the Unification Wars/early Great Crusade.

Also, while not being a Second Founding chapter (supposedly) much of their wargear dates back to the Great Crusade. This includes Cataphratii terminator armour and Combi-Bolters (instead of stormbolters). Then again, much of it was probably stolen from other Space Marine chapters.

==The Civilian Bombing==
A lot is made of the Marines Malevolent's bombing of civilians during the Third War for Armageddon, what with it being their agreed upon douche establishing moment. The thing is, it really is one of their least heinous crime and shows the writers have no idea what they're doing or are unaware of the realities of war. Even in Modern times, intentional civilian casualties are common. Terrorists are known for taking civilian targets as human shields. The USMC bombed a stadium hijacked by Al-Queda operators along with their civilian hostages; the premise being that the terrorists would cause more innocent deaths if left alive then what was caused by the bombing. It is even arguable that killing the civilians in a Ork infested camp is a mercy. In The War of the Beast, humans were used as cattle and in the videogame Space Marine, the orks gleefully and systemically killed everyone, many of which just died tired. It can also be argued that the fight with the Salamanders was equally their fault (face it, the Salamanders don't have a single pragmatic bone in their bodies).

Strangely, the problem everyone has with the Marines Malevolent is that they ''just don't care''. The fact that they feel no remorse or shame whatsoever for their actions ticks people off. Even tho there are hosts of other chapters who are similarly callous and noone bats an eye. And to be fair, not all the MMs are so heartless. After the shelling of the Ork camp, the last surviving prisoner shot a MM with a bolt pistol for the collateral damage. The shot only scuffed his armor, and the MM went to kill her. But another MM punched him in the face to protect her, claiming that enough human blood had been shed that day.

==Daily Rituals==
04:00: Morning. Marines Malevolent awaken and turn off the obnoxious heavy metal music and strobe lights playing outside of their soundproofed bedrooms. The chapter <s>slaves</s> serfs are beaten and whipped to awaken them from their 4 hours of sleep. Any who protest are shoved into hunter missiles.

05:00: Enforcement of Morale. Said hunter missiles are launched to awaken the local populace. They always try to aim for adult care centers or hospitals.

06:00: Morning Prayer. The chapter serfs are sent to collect cotton in the fields whilst the Marines Malevolent pray to the Emperor. These prayers are usually outright ignored.

07:00: Morning Firing Rites. The chapter serfs return in time to be used as target practice for neophytes. They also practice yelling passive aggressive insults at the serfs for when any Salamanders show up.

08:00: Morning Meal. The Marines Malevolent eat a light meal of waffles and milk. Any slightly overcooked waffle demands the immediate conversion of ten serfs into servitors.

09:00: Morning Battle Practice. Said servitors are destroyed with extreme prejudice with their families being sent messages about how worthless they were in life and death with pictures of their corpses attached to the letters.

10:00: Midday Battle Practice. The chapter gathers to talk shit on the majority of the Imperium. This takes a large portion of the day, as the Mechanicus, Militarum, Ecclesiarchy, Inquisition, Iron Hands, Ultrasmurfs, Black Templars, Salamanders, half the population of their planet, and Angry Marines are all talked copious amounts of shit. This time is also set aside to defend the chapter when someone hears that they were talking shit.

11:00: bitches, beer and doritos hour: unlike more noble chapters [[lamenters]] the marines malevolent will spend the next hour looking to steal beer, food and girlfriends from loyal imperial citizens. Favorite hook up locations include, the schola volleyball team, the gym, the club, an engagement party, a hen party, a wedding (including the bride), honeymoon spots, a divorce (waiting right outside the office/court), a sororitas convent, nocturne's daughters (double points if they happen to have older brothers in the salamanders chapter) and any and all frat parties in the segmentum. This will usually be done cruising around in one of the chapters noisy landspeeders (and they will try to crush the vehicles of anyone who tries to stop them).

12:00: get into fights for no reason hour: following on from the marines malevolents' attempts to steal things battle brothers of the chapter will purposefully get into fights with anyone and everyone; favorite targets are the Salamanders, the elderly and the partners/male relatives of girls they slept with (the latter usually after they steal the girls' clothes as trophies, kick them out nude and post the nude pics online). Beating up civilians is not only allowed but encouraged, and in line with the lamenters awful book the codex "bro-startes" the chapter warcry of "you wanna go bruh!?" will be issued to any challenger.

15:00: Afternoon Battle Practice. Realize they wasted all that time pointlessly, and so take it out on the chapter serfs by either killing them or burning the cotton they collected. May also fight any Salamanders that happen to be nearby (and usually get beat up by said Salamanders).

16:00: Tactical Indoctrination. The Marines Malevolent study the works of history's greatest shitcunts, assholes, piss stains, arse weasels, ovary thieves, and cock munchers for inspiration. The first company read the collected works of the most revered of the Chapter's icons; the xenos abomination [[Assholetep]], and the horrid [[Eldrad]], kept secret from the rest of the Imperium.

17:00: Recruitment. Kidnap innocent civilians to replenish their dwindling number of serfs. May also kidnap orphans to become future Marines Malevolent.

18:00: Evening Meal. The Marines Malevolent titter and giggle to themselves about how mad they made everyone else during their feast. Sometimes they try to eat cake stolen from Children's birthday parties, but usually cannot because the Inquisition orders the Blood Ravens to steal it back. The Blood Ravens are all too happy to oblige.

19:00: Night Fighting Training. The Marines Malevolent initiate evening battle practice. May or may not involve deepstriking directly into a funeral and making death jokes, depending on how they feel at the time.

20:00: Free Time. The Marines Malevolent do all sorts of recreational activities. Typical activities include: Fine-tuning their lack of empathy for any other living being, blowing cigarette smoke into asthmatic children's faces, running up as big of an Astropath charge as possible with long-distance, meandering and awkward calls that you aren't quite sure if you should hang up on, trying to start fights between loyalist chapters, "urban driving practice" (Smashing civilian homes over with land raiders), verbally harassing any nearby orders of the Sisters Of Battle, and acquiring sweets by stealing them from small children after popping their balloons, robbing the poorest citizens and then give all the stolen scrap to puppy mills so they'll have more puppies for recreational kicking.

23:00: Bed time. The Marines Malevolent decide to go to bed. They turn the heavy metal back on turn on obnoxiously bright strobing middle finger pattern spotlights to make sure none of the plebs get any sleep, whether they be the Techpriests at the nearby manufactorum or the lowliest peasant.

00:00: Actual Bed Time. The Chapter Serfs are finally permitted to "sleep", though this is made harder with the Marines' [[noise weapon]] tier snoring.

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="210" position="center" spacing="small">
Image:50448-Marines_Malevolent_40k_Space_Marines_Armageddon_Yellow.jpg|A squad of Marines Malevolent, resplendent in their piss colored armor.
Image:Gallery_Maelovent_Boxes.jpg|[[METAL BOXES|YELLOW BOXES!]] [[Firaeveus Carron|Carron]] would be pissed.
Image:99001_md-Marines_Malevolent,_Powerfist_Sergeant.jpg|Brother-Captain Assneus Dickeos.
Image:Marines_Malevolent_banner.png|Salamanders (or most Imperials for that matter) groan and cringe when the Marines Malevolent arrive.
</Gallery>

==See Also==
* [https://youtu.be/lVmmYMwFj1I Unofficial theme song for the Marines Malevolant]

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