[OSSR] Realm of Chaos - the Lost and the Damned

[Whipstitch]

As a symbol of greed psychedelic vulture demons aren't half bad and the Lord of Change consistently brings some decent sculpts and paint jobs to the table. Tzeentch definitely sucks ass but I think the Vrock expies could have held up if stapled onto a better concept.

[DrPraetor]

We're at L&D pp. 161 - 191 - THE EYE OF TERROR; CHAOS CULTS; THE EMPEROR; THE STAR CHILD
This compares to StD pp. 209 - 247 - "DARK MILLENIUM" minus the army lists

These are largely fluff chapters, but of course they have little bits of rules scattered throughout.

For example, pp. 166 has the point costs for technological weapons. You roll some number of D6 to see how many points you can spend, then the equipment costs roughly what they do for squads in the army list (so power armour costs 6/model, terminator 50/model, a bolt pistol costs 1 and a lascannon costs 90) I've been reading two imperfectly edited versions of this book, so I'm not sure if, when a warband joins an army, you add these costs to the figures or not? In contrast to StD, L&D seems to mainly think that 40K warbands can just use the WFB rules.

The two books have somewhat different renditions of the WH40K fluff, and if you're reading this review, you probably know it.

If you guessed that the guy with the giant chest eyeball turns evil, you guessed right.

The Emperor is an immortal psychic, the powers of Chaos awaken in the Warp - which is the astral plane from Shadowrun - so the Emperor... genetically engineers a bunch of supersoldiers, roughly half of whom turn evil?

There are some significant differences and I don't like them. The versions in L&D are mostly much longer.

So in StD, the Emperor has biological offspring called Sensei, who are sterile and also "psychic blanks", invisible to the Warp. Thus the Emperor cannot see them. You may be surprised to learn, this is the plot of the later Dune novels, that no-one read.

So that's Mua'deeb's son, who breeds his own offspring to be invisible to the warpsight - especially, invisible to him. By being invisible to Mua'deeb Jr.'s future vision, they're... able to escape the doom of mankind which is being hunted down by robots? To the extent that the 40K future doesn't have computers in it - and it's highly inconsistent - it's the same as the backstory in Dune: at some point inbetween the Fall of the Eldar and the Imperium (or before the start of the first Dune), there was a Dark Age of Technology in which humans fought a civil war against their intelligent robots. This was a good conceit to use once, because the lack of computers makes the whole "space feudalism" of Dune a little more plausible. But, it gets old quick and WH40K doesn't even consistently use it.

Anyway, StD promises that the Sensei can make "warp attacks", which I assumed would be glowing energy blasts.

a few defy their brother Sensei and flee to Chaos becoming Grey Sensei, among the cruellest servants of darkness.

No Grey Sensei appear in L&D.

In L&D, the Sensei are just immortal dudes who are Champions of Law. They're descended from the Emperor but aren't sterile, and are only invisible to Chaos powers, because they're genetically destined to be good and righteous (?). L&D adds this whole schpeal about The Star Child, who will awaken as a good and harmonious warp power. Those with superior warhammerology know that this has swung back and forth in various novels... the Alpha Marines are agents of the Hydra which is going to be a human hive mind, which makes them secretly good guys in some versions... the fluff gets very convoluted, but you already back in the Bush Sr. administration have two volumes of supposedly the same book contradicting each other.

The Sensei are guided (in both books) by Illuminati, which brings me to the other big difference between the two. In StD, the Illuminati are possessed by demons but they defeat the demon and reclaim their mind. Full disclosure, I thought that was awesome as a kid. The Illuminati get limited access to the Black Library of the Eldar, and have some limited agreement with whatever creepy eldar to cooperate against Chaos. StD has lots of possessees in all the 40K material, including both a prominent place in the fluff and units in the army lists.

StD has these guys, L&D does not

For some reason, L&D drops possession almost entirely (there's a stray reference in the section on Chaos Cults to possession by demons, but it's very peripheral.) Furthermore, the Illuminati are just dudes who know that the Emperor is... off chilling in the warp? Which is heretical, so they're on the run from the Inquisition? Full disclosure, I think this is lame as an adult. I'm pretty sure the fluff has been changed, everyone knows this now, and I'm not sure if the Sensei are still part of the setting or not.

But, anyway, the Sensei are Champions of Law, they get rewards from a table that only has good stuff on it, and they attract a ragtag band of heroes to lead around.


Their "warp attacks" just roll +1D6 and add that to Strength, which I think is functionally the same as rolling 2D6 to wound and adding them together? But the S vs. T chart changes subtly in different versions, so maybe not.

If you want, you can have a Sensei warband while everyone else play a Chaos warband? Or... you can play this warband in WFB, because you're in the Old World or whatever. So all of the rules - except for the bolt guns and shit! - are given as both WFB and WH40K in case you decide to do a Connecticut Space Bandit in King Arthur's Court.

So unlike Chaos champions, Sensei always get rewards and never mutations/attributes. This means that after six rewards (instead of either six gifts or six mutations/attributes), they have a 10% chance per reward of winking off and becoming demon princesSensei Masters, who blue force ghost people. This is bad for a campaign, because it means your warband closes up shop potentially much faster.

So, StD has clearly superior fluff, and also rules for summoning and possession and stuff, that has been dropped in L&D but very influential on later versions of 40K. Because it was metal, and all this lame stuff about being a Champion of Law was not.

EDIT: quick addendum #1, there are also sections on how cults of chaos operate in the imperium, which I suppose you can use as scenarios but unless you just declare your warband to be a chaos cult, there are no army lists for them? It reads like material written for a 40K RPG that didn't come along until much later.

quick addendum #2 there's also a section describing the eye of terror which is largely redundant with the material in the chaos renegades section, which also explains that the eye of terror is full of war-torn demon worlds that occasionally spawn units of chaos space marine raiders. In fact, that one sentence could've substituted for most of the section.

StD has uniformly much better information density, as well as having cooler stuff in it.

[Thaluikhain]

Those with superior warhammerology know that this has swung back and forth in various novels... the Alpha Marines are agents of the Hydra which is going to be a human hive mind, which makes them secretly good guys in some versions... the fluff gets very convoluted

Hey? I thought the Hydra business was dropped, way, way back and the Alpha Marines just happen to use a hydra as their symbol?

OTOH, not really read many of the zillion Horus Heresy books because when they set out to do 40k's version of the Star Wars prequels they evidently decided the wanted Star Wars prequel quality.

[DrPraetor]

Those with superior warhammerology know that this has swung back and forth in various novels... the Alpha Marines are agents of the Hydra which is going to be a human hive mind, which makes them secretly good guys in some versions... the fluff gets very convoluted

Hey? I thought the Hydra business was dropped, way, way back and the Alpha Marines just happen to use a hydra as their symbol?

OTOH, not really read many of the zillion Horus Heresy books because when they set out to do 40k's version of the Star Wars prequels they evidently decided the wanted Star Wars prequel quality.

You could very well be right. For some reason, I thought the Hydra business was from 40K novels? If it was fluff text in army lists, that doesn't contradict my major point, which is that the 40K fluff has been doing the new Star Wars trilogy thing of arguing about the plot onscreen for a while.

[OgreBattle]

The SW Prequels add in side details that could be explored, the horus heresy books just want to how awesome space marines are and how correct the politics of the imperium are and all sacrifices are for the greater good, xenos only show up to get punched in a side story before the emperor's children tragic big sad punch each other

[Thaluikhain]

You could very well be right. For some reason, I thought the Hydra business was from 40K novels?

It features in the Inquisition War trilogy by Ian Watson (well, mostly just the first book), way, way back in the before BL days. One of the characters is a squat, it's that old.

Never seen it referenced anywhere else, though in the 3rd ed rulebook there is a mention of something that could be those descendants of the Emperor, but vague enough that you think it's just another weird cult if you've not heard of the before.

[Omegonthesane]

Yeah, early in the 3rd ed rulebook there's a story where an inquisitor encounters a bunch of humans and the odd Eldar acting to generate the Star-Child and the inquisitor writes it off as a Tzeentch cult.

[DrPraetor]

Okay, let's resume.
L&D pp. 104-160, 'Eavy Metal, Chaos Warbands, Beastmen, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Dragon Ogres, Undead Champions
compares to...
StD pp. 145-168, Colours of Chaos ... sorta

So only the first part of this review has a clear correspondence between StD and L&D at all, and there isn't that much to say about it.

Both these books have the obligatory pictures of painted miniatures, and some guidelines on the color scheme for each chaos power. StD also has two pages of introductory painting stuff that I actually used as a youngin'. I'm team nostalgia, no question! It didn't infer any artistic talent (of which I have none), but I did manage to layer some colors on some plastic dudes.

Anyway, I think the miniatures in StD are painted better? This is very subjective. Say what you will about Khorne and Slaanesh, they have a very distinctive visual style. In L&D, the Nurgle green and other gross colors scheme is solid, if a bit monotonous (Khorne's black/red/shiny color scheme simply looks better, imo), whereas these Tzeentch miniatures are... very primary colored? Again, I think Slaanesh's pastel-candy-colorful holds together better than all of this red/blue/yellow Tzeentch gets.

Then, in both books, you get some sample warbands. I think I may be the first person to have read these sections in 30 years. These are useful primarily because the rules are confusing, and by showing you some sample outputs you can figure out what is supposed to be going on. The L&D version explicitly goes through a campaign record for each warband (which has some added value), but doesn't tell you their equipment! StD has more warbands without the detailed history, but specifies their damn gear, which is a big deal. So the two warbands in L&D are pretty meh - Werner Flamefist has a flamer arm and rides around on a disc of Tzeentch; he has a cockatrice. Lothar Bubonicus for some reason gave his chaos steed and his demon weapon to flunkies, he has some Pestigor which have a different statline than the Pestigor in the army list - I'll get back to that.

Then, we ge sections that really don't correspond to anything in StD, on Beastmen warbands. It's not clear to me if these are supposed to be balanced against "regular" champions of Chaos, or not. They aren't. Beastmen are basically better than humans, having superior WS, T, and W in exchange for Int and WP. Centaurs, Minotaurs and Dragon Ogres are better, significantly better, and an order of magnitude better than beastmen. So if you get lots of those as followers you tend to be better off, although maybe the loss of numbers isn't worth it? I've seen units of beastmen but I'm not sure how many people ever actually used these rules.


These are for Warhammer Undworlds, which I didn't even know existed


These are from "the 80s", so must be for these rules.


Someone is selling their chaos minotaurs on ebay? Maybe the guy in the middle is supposed to be a champion and this is indeed a warband for these rules? This picture will presumably go dead soon.

Okay, that's a boss figure, but can you imagine fielding an entire warband of mostly these?

Anyway, Beastmen have a high chance of significantly more chaos attributes (mutations) to start with, so your odds of making demonhood are quite poor. Here's a reminder of how that works:

OTOH, you get a *way* bigger warband. So you start with from 1-4 rolls on the retinue table, and you get a new retinue table roll for every reward instead of every other reward, and you get chunks of 2D6 beastmen instead of 1D6?!?! This is nuts, a starting champion can have like 30 guys pretty easily. That roflstomp most opposition simply by rolling buckets of dice. There are subtypes of beastmen worshiping each chaos power who mysteriously differ from the same Beastmen in the army lists. So on pp. 204 we get a Pestigor in the army list, which is +1T because Nurgle; on pp. 139 we have a Pestigor who gets a 50% chance of carrying Nurgle's Rot (thanks, Nurgle) and hates enemy units who are followers of Mr. T.

These guys show up in different places in the book with different stats.

Likewise you get Khorngor who get a WP (magic savings throw bonus) instead of a S bonus. On the one hand, a bonus to magic savings throws does make some sense for Khorne; but in the previous book it was Slaanesh who was handing out WP bonuses so again it reads like it was done by someone who didn't read the rest of this book let alone the previous one! Another possible inconsistency is notable in this section, in that in different places it says either that Beastmen Shaman with Khorne as a patron get -1 spell of each level, and that Beastmen Shaman who follow Khorne don't cast spells at all. I think that neutral beastmen still get two patrons, and that it's neutral Beastmen shamans with Khorne-as-a-patron who get -1 spell of each level but the whole thing is sloppy.

Okay, then we get a section on Centaurs:
Centaurs have even more attributes than that, are faster and have stats shuffled around vs. Beatmen, but come in like half the numbers and I think are inferior on balance; but Centaur champions can just use the Beastmen table if they want? You have a chance of having a champion who is a wizard-centaur - so you might want such a champion and just always roll on the Beastmen table for followers? Having 30 guys is bonkers but having even a small chance at starting with a 4th level wizard for no reason is also bonkers.

Both of these sections have significant amounts of fluff, which include various foundlings and turnskins and such that can be plot elements in WFRP. So there are beastmen foundlings (abandoned by their human parents) but no mention is made of beastmen children or for that matter of beastmen who are female and it's all oddly selective. The beastmen economy - they seem to nomadic hunter-gatherers exclusively - makes no sense, but Warhammer demographics never make any sense.

Centaurs are... even more primitive than beastmen and don't even hide in the forest? So I understand that there's a lot of empty space in olden times but I simply don't see how the Empire doesn't just exterminate these guys.

Next, we get Minotaurs:
A Minotaur is +2M, +1S, +1W, +1A over a beastman, so yes they are large and they eat your face. Minotaurs tend to attract 1D6 minotaurs instead of 2D6 beastmen. This is head and shoulders above what regular chaos champions get in their retinues (D6 dark elves being one of the *better* rolls on that table), but not the total insanity that is a Beastmen warband. Minotaurs get a bunch of special rules including -1 to enemy armor saves in melee, they start with fewer chaos attributes (but champions have a chance of getting a new mutation every time they are wounded?), and they have like an entire page devoted to rules for how they will stop in the middle of combat to feast on their slain enemies. They have cow heads but clearly human teeth.
The Minotaur section is mostly fluff, but it's reasonably cool. Each minotaur champion of Chaos has a shrine somewhere with a block of warpstone that is his Chaos Saltlick? They live... even deeper in the wilderness than do Beastmen and Centaurs?

That picture is in the book.

Our final warband is for dragon ogres. Dragon ogres have many of the same special rules as minotaurs, but are lightning-immune instead of man eating. They can use either warband table for beastmen or centaurs, but they start with 1-7 dragon ogres. Their fluff text indicates that they hibernate under mountains and then when they rarely wake up during thunderstorms they... fight on mountaintops amid the lightning for the privilege of leading warbands of chaos marauders! More Metal > Making Sense is always the Warhammer way.

Finally we've got a section on *undead* champions of chaos tucked in here for some reason. I suppose if you had a really cool chaos champion model and he was killed during the campaign, you might very well want to declare him a zombie and have him lead a unit of undead around. That's what these rules are for, they don't really make sense in any other context. To my pleasant surprise, they're functionally the same as the rules for Skeleton Champions of Chaos on pp. 56 of StD. The difference is, StD takes up half a page including art, while L&D manages to fill an entire page and a half with the same material and no badass picture of a skeletal chaos warrior.