Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. Let's talk Chaos Space Marines.

In the last episode of this series, I talked about how the Tau killed the Chaos Space Marines before I could, which didn't let me take some screenshots of them in order to write an episode based around their race.

Today though, we'll get to talk about them Chaos boys. And if you remember the last last episode of the series I talked about the SPESS MEHREENS Space Marines of the Imperium of Man. Today we’ll talk about their Satanical brothers: The Chaos Space Marines (Otherwise known as Traitor Legions or Chaos Dogs).

To understand why in the nine hells there’s an edgy version of the Space Marines we need to go back to the lore.

In the Space Marine episode I introduced the God Emperor and the Primarchs (his sons) to all of you and I also explained how all of his sons had one legion of space marines specifically designed for them which they would then lead into battle.

Today I'll be adding a little bit more to their story, like why are they known as traitor legions or where did they come from, etc.

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Who are they? (The Traitor Legions)

Long ago, somewhere around the 30-something millennium (Warhammer 40k takes place in the 40-41st millennium) the Emperor named one of his sons, Horus the Warmaster of the Imperium of Mankind, essentially the guy leading the war effort, The Emperor then retired to Earth where he continued a super-secret project to allow humanity access to the Webway, a gate that could allow humanity to be stronger against the daemons and perils of the literal manifestation of hell known as The Warp.

The Emperor did not tell his sons about this project (he also wasn’t the best dad around) and so Horus ever so slightly doubted his Father. As if that wasn’t enough, Lorgar (Another son of the Emperor) was being seduced by Chaos (essentially being manipulated and used by the gods of Chaos), and eventually corrupted his brother Horus alongside some other Chaos cultists, a task made easier thanks to the doubts he already had about Daddy Emprah, and turned him against the Emperor (and the Imperium by extension).

This event would later be known as “The Horus Heresy” or “The day Lorgar ruined everything”

But it wasn’t only Horus and Lorgar who turned against the Emperor, half of his sons did, and with them their legions followed. And so started a terrible war which resulted with the “Death” of the Emprah and the Imperium of Mankind going down the drain. In addition, the people if the Imperium also lost like more than half of their brain cells, because in the millennia to come they made some pretty terrible (read: absolutely terrible) decisions.

The legions who turned against the Emperor and the Imperium were known as Traitor Legions, and as the war between Space Marine and Space Marine ended these Legions retreated into the Warp, the physical manifestation of the Chaos Gods’ playground.

But who are the Chaos Gods you ask? Well...

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Who are they? (The Chaos Gods)

There are four Chaos Gods, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeench and Nurgle.

Corn Khorne: The god of blood and war. Think about the god of any pantheon that enjoys combat and replace whatever normal quirks it has with total addiction to bloodshed. Khorne is basically a god that wants the blood to flow at all times, he revels in the carnage of living beings, he also has some sense of honor as he believes Psykers (The Wizards/Mages of 40k, kind of) are dirty cheaters and any battle where they are involved simply rustles his jimmies.

_{Some Khornate followers, their favorite hobbies include killing and killing one another.}

The sentences: “Blood for the Blood God!” or “Skulls for the throne!” usually come from him, as it's usually what some of his devoted followers yell all the time.

Tzeentch: He’s the god of scheming and planning. Essentially he’s the living version of the meme: Just according to keikaku (Translator’s note: Keikaku means plan), or if you’re not well versed in memes: Just as planned. He’s like a genie, in that he offers a solution to a problem but it usually ends up backfiring (for the person in need of the solution) and with Tzeentch owning a new soul.

_{This is a Chaos Sorcerer, usually followers of Tzeentch. Because Khorne usually hates wizards.}

Nurgle: The God of diseases, he’s also surprisingly chill, for real. No, seriously. His entire shtick is that he spreads the “love” to people and the only thing he wants these people do to is to spread his love to anyone willing (and unwilling).

Slaanesh: The god of NSFW. Think of the worst fetishes you can come up with and then multiply that by 69. Explaining more will just (probably) make the post NSFW.

Slaanesh and Nurgle's followers don't appear in this game for some reason. (thank God)

Every Legion worships one or two of these deities in self-explanatory ways, example: Khorne followers go kill stuff whilst shouting, Tzeentch guys just scheme or something, Nurgle boys just sit all day and spread the sweet sweet miasma love. Slaaneshy types just have sex (the very kinky very messed up way) and do drugs all day.

In addition, the powers of Chaos are known as the “Ruinous Powers” because they corrupt the person receiving the blessing of the Chaos Gods.

_{A small Chaos Army.}

The followers of Nurgle, the Nurglites, would be the worst offenders as their bodies decay and are filled with unmentionable stuff that is too disgusting to speak of.

Followers of Khorne and Tzeentch only seem to have their skin decay for some reason, so I guess they’re the easiest ones to follow? I mean, one guy just asks you to whack stuff all day and the other wants you to play chess or something.

Slaaneshy guys usually look like BDSM people but with rotten skin.

Why can they corrupt people you ask? Well it’s cause every living being has some sort of connection or presence in the Warp. The worst cases are the Psykers, whose connection to the Warp is actually really unstable and can sometimes result with them summoning forth a greater demon or something.

But for real, the Chaos gods corrupt people because they need people to believe in them. They’re like the gods in D&D in that they need the people to believe in them in order to actually be able to do something. They made the Emperor’s sons rebel because the Emperor’s project (The Webway) would make humanity virtually immune to the Warp and the Chaos Gods. Basically, psykers that could no longer summon Cthulu by accident.

This is only part of the truth however, they do need people to praise them to obtain more power, but they can actually exist without someone believing in them.

You see, the Warp is one of those places you hear about sometimes in certain books or fantasy novels where the entire place is a physical manifestation of our darkest desires/needs/beliefs/whatever, in other words the Chaos Gods are born from the darkest parts of our minds(and the minds of all the other alien races) or even sometimes (like in the case of Slaanesh) they are simply born from an act so primal, so morbid that the warp just... poops a god into existence that rules over whatever it is that was happening around that time.

There was this other thing as well: Chaos Undivided. A long while back (to the times of Dawn of War 1, the original one not the expansions) Chaos Undivided was the name of the practice of praying and praising all of the Chaos Gods (Corn, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Fetish).

This was later changed to the Gods giving their blessing to one guy. Basically it went from “Billy praises all Chaos Gods for equal” to “The Chaos Gods give their blessings to Billy” which is stupid, because now it sounds like one person can only worship one Chaos God, despite the fact that anyone in the side of Chaos knows that there are more than one and that pissing them off (even if it was accidental) can have terrible repercussions.

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Okay I get it, stop. What do they do?

For short, let’s call the “Chaos Space Marines” Chaos Boys.

_{A band of chaos boys, behind them there are some cultists/heretics running around.}

In the lore they just sit around and get up to mess things up every day ending in “y”. In the game they’re a different version of the Space Marines that plays somewhat similar, until they don’t. Get it?

The big difference between the two is equipment. It’s the 40th Millennium, considering that they do not posses the means of producing more weapons or "modern" weaponry their Loyalist brothers do, not to mention they don't even know how to fix things when they break, how does a band of Chaotic Evil morons get actual weapons and armor?

They don’t; they compensate with their demonic powers from hell, and they summon hellish creatures from it.

The Chaos Boys play similar to the Marines in the first tier (first level of technology), a squad of scouts (by the name of cultists) that capture resources for them; their basic infantry consists of a Squad of Chaos Boys (Basically a Space Marine clone); and their “Hero Unit” Lord Torquill Eliphas the Inheritor may resemble the Space Marine’s Hero Brother-Captain Davian Thule of the Blood Ravens 4th Company at first glance. They do have their differences however, normal marines get four different types of weapons, whereas the Chaos boys are limited to only two (plus demon stuff).

_{He looks so badass in that helmet.}

The major differences appear from tier 2: Their vehicles are just possessed versions of the Marines and a “Despoiler” which is some sort of sentient tank of death. Their normal squads get access to “Aspiring Champions” which can double the damage they deal and decrease the damage they receive AND they can go invisible. Good stuff.

If you remember, in the last episode I spent a long time complaining about Tau and their stealth shtick, it's somewhat different in this case because Chaos units only get access to stealth after they build an armory and upgrade to the second tier whereas the fish people get invisible scouts as soon as the game begins which is stupid because I like my space marines and we don't get immediate access to units that can detect stealth.

The Chaos boys also get access to these affronts to god:

They can "teleport" into any space you can see, if I remember correctly. They also make me very uncomfortable.

It’s at the final tier (Tier 3) that things get real: You gain access to, not one, but TWO giant units of death and destruction, which are deployed by sacrificing an Aspiring Champion, your “Chaos Champion” Hero (Lord Torquill Eliphas the Inheritor), or your “Chaos Sorcerer” Hero.

_{Transformation sequence begins...}

_{Transformation sequence ends.}

_{And this is only the first of the big units. This one's called Bloodthirster.}

Just look at those images. One of those units can destroy a bunch of stuff, imagine what happens when you combine both.

But basically, these guys are like normal Space Marines, and play in a similar manner to them. For a general idea on what the normal space marines do you can go to their episode.

And finally, but not least, we'll talk about their stronghold:

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Let's talk about strongholds now

Welcome to the last part of this post where I just talk about a level set around a single 40k race. If you've made it this far, good for you.

I will now proceed to explain what a stronghold is despite the fact that i've done this multiple times in the past! It's a level representing the "headquarters" of an entire race in the game, if you defeat said race here they're eliminated from the game and you get a little cutscene explaining how your guys killed/humiliated/destroyed them.

Their stronghold shows extremely well two very important aspects of the Chaos "race", the first is the fact that the leaders of their armies are usually very strong, charismatic Chaos cultists that are not only smart enough to lead, but strong enough to intimidate those who may want to usurp their spot.

This is shown through Eliphas, their commander unit, who gets quite a lot of dialogue with most commanders whenever they invade his stronghold, or as he invades theirs. This man is able to disturb some of the commanders in their interactions and usually mocks whoever he's not able to intimidate just as easily.

Unfortunately, Necrons don't really get much dialogue with him thanks to their entire "silent machines of doom" shtick. They are however, capable of turning the tides on Eliphas and intimidate him instead, based on the simple fact that them Necrons did some weird stuff to their souls.

The other important aspect this stronghold shows is how incredibly insane those chaos cultists are. Just like in all strongholds your base will be constantly assaulted by enemy squads, in this one you'll be assaulted by chaos cultists, even when the enemy starts producing normal chaos space marines they'll still send one or two squads of cultists against your base, heck sometimes you'll find them yourself as you're advancing through their territory.

Be prepared to hear the constant screams and yelling of them cultist boys. While it may be annoying to some people, to me it simply adds some humor to the entire scenario as you get to hear 30 or so little guys yell "for khayossss" "my spleen!" and "khayos is strong!". Their voices really add to the entire experience.

Some strongholds have gimmicks on them, for example, Space Marines get to bombard enemy territory every now and then, Tau get invisible stuff, Imperial Guard get aerial support, etc, in the chaos stronghold the gimmick is that every 30 or so seconds these things-

-will produce a shock wave of blood that will kill any and all units standing on its range. This means you'll have to keep an eye on your guys and make sure they don't run into the splash zone by accident and also to keep your distance from them until you have enough time to clear whatever may be inside of it (like turrets, because they're not affected by the shock waves for some reason).

Other threats in this level include the Bloodthirster, which spawns some time later.

_{As you can see, my Necron lord makes it run away whilst zapping its butt.}

And the Obliterators which can, as their name implies, obliterate a bunch of your units if you're looking somewhere else or just ignoring them.

They can be dealt with quickly with the right units, but they are a threat to everyone as their weapons are effective against literally anything.

The goal in this stronghold is to destroy a giant gate which i believe connects to the Warp. The level ends when you destroy the gate instead of destroying the headquarters of the enemy army.

Eliphas is killed in the ending cutscene not really, he comes back in the sequel which made a lot of people cry manly tears, since he's regarded as being one of the best characters in the expansion and one of the best in the entire series.

Overall, a short but sweet map which showcases the otherworldly powers the Chaos boys use and their insane personality. It also shows that despite the fact that chaos is usually an army of crazy guys there's usually very interesting and "charming" characters in it, like Eliphas.

So far it's my favorite stronghold in the game.

This time I don't get to show you some extra pictures of the final assault, as the post is already too big without them, so with everything else said I hope you all have a great day and I thank you for reading my post.

_{The after action report. Necrons aren't only genocidal machines, they also seem to hate the Warp, or at least its presence.}