Cruelest, meanest legion

[Watch Commander Danek]

They'll figure out who your friends are amongst the other slaves they take, and make you watch as they torture them, brutalize them, and do many other things that perhaps a haemonculus is known for. Then they'll reduce them to a fine sludge, inject it with all sorts of mind-sparkling drugs or whatnot, and make you drink it. All so they can experience what you're feeling (oh, did I mention there would be some sort of link to your brain they could tap into). They use you and abuse you simply to be aroused at your antics, pain, terror, and suffering.

 

The Emperor's Children aren't just your basic renegade. They strive to feel all, both good and bad. It's a life of excess at every turn, where even in death you get high on the experience. Extreme callousness, uncaring attitudes towards anything living, so long as they feel good inside.

 

It's absolute cruelty.

 

(think of it like a parent doing every inconceivably bad thing to their kids, short of killing them, that will make the kid want to kill himself but can't, and will make the parent feel like he's trippin' with God or something)

 

 

This pretty much.

Think the Cenobites in Clive Barker's writings and the first Hellraiser film (not those terrible sequels). The Emperor's Children are about transcendance. Not just crossing thresholds. Shredding them. Even after death I'm sure some part of you will be in agony. They'll flay your very soul.

 

However as a former Night Lord I must say, one doesn't need to look farther than "The Culling of Grendel's World" to see how inhumane and cruel the Night Lord M.O. is on a planetary scale. When your methods net most of a planet's civilization killing themselves or dying of actual nueral or heart failure from fear, you redefine cruelty as well.

[Captain Tezdal]

Everyone is forgetting the Ultramarines.

 

Just being around those boring jackasses for about 20-30 seconds would make me wanna kill myself. After a day? Just being near one? He doesn't even have to say anything and all of my life would be as hollow and boring as he. Give me Emperor's Children any day beyond just being in the presence of an Ultramarine ^_^

 

Well Calgar is well known for his mistreatment of kittens and Avatars of Khaine.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Everyone is forgetting the Ultramarines.

 

Just being around those boring jackasses for about 20-30 seconds would make me wanna kill myself. After a day? Just being near one? He doesn't even have to say anything and all of my life would be as hollow and boring as he. Give me Emperor's Children any day beyond just being in the presence of an Ultramarine :D

 

Well Calgar is well know for his mistreatment of kittens and Avatars of Khaine.

 

"Come here Fluffy, come here! *squelch* Damnit Marneus, remember, turn the powerfists off before patting the kittens!"

[Saa]

Saa.....take a joke? :D

 

 

I heard a rumour that jokes were funny ;)

 

But yes I did rant a little.......long day at work....apologies

 

Saa

[Spear of Achilles]

My vote goes for the Legion of Doom...they gave those pesky Super-Friends a real going-over every weekend!

[Argon]

I'm going to have to agree with the Emperor's Children being the cruelest legion for all the reasons already stated.

 

 

 

 

However, everyone seems to have forgotten that there are multiple mentions in the fluff of sorcerors being able to retrieve a person's soul from the Warp and effectively raise them from the dead. They can do this as much as they want, too. So if the EC decide they want to keep having fun with you, there's really not much stopping them from doing so.

[Dammeron]

Depends on what you mean by "cruel." If you mean in terms of purely sadistic, hateful intent, then I wouldn't count the Word Bearers; true, their actions in the name of their faith are utterly deplorable, but their intent, insofar as I can determine, is far from sadistic or malevolent: they genuinely believe what they are doing is right, expressions of the ultimate truth that is humanity's only salvation. In that regard, they ae reflections of all that is hateful and vile at the heart of any kind of ideological extremism, be it religious, political or otherwise; behaviour of the purest maleovlence and sadism in terms of its evident effects justified as noble and absolutely moral under some delusion of higher truth. In that regard, they are the "traitor" legion that most succinctly echoes the Imperium from which they are divorced, which is no better. Considering what the Ordo Xenos, Ordo Malleus, the Black Templars and their ilk do to those they consider antithetical to their ideologies, there's very little distinction save the language and imagery used; one group murders, tortures and enslaves in the name of chaos, one murders, tortures and enslaves in the name of the Emperor. The actual consequences are no different.

 

The same goes for the Emperor's Children, in their own twisted way; they don't torture their victims out of cruelty, but because they genuinely regad any and all sensation and experience as welcome, as holy even; they lack the ability to distinguish between shrieks of agony and sighs of pleasure, because the two are both hymns of equal profundity to Lord Slaanesh. Even the experiences of cruelty AND of being its victim are entirely welcome, so much so that Slaanesh worshippers happily occupy both roles as and when the inclination takes them.

 

The Death Guard and the servants of Nurgle have a similar psychology; to them, when they visit plague and suffering on a populace, they are gifting them with Father Nurgle's blessings, and are unbelievably selfless and generous in that pursuit.

 

The Night Lords on the other hand...they fully comprehend and acknowledge their own cruelty, empathising with their victims even as they psychology and physically destroy them, feeding off of the pure malevolence of the act like psychic leeches. In that regard, I'd have to say the Night Lords win hands down when it comes to pure, unabashed cruelty.

 

As for the World Eaters, it's hard to regard them as especially cruel; they don't care about inflicting pain on their enemies; they care about killing and shedding blood. They certainly don't deliberately prolongue their victim's suffering, instead killing and slaughtering in the most burtal and expedient manner possible.

[Lord Kallozar]

Some great views there guys.

 

A few of you have talked about "getting bored" hence these kinda topics starting up. I'm not bored, i just like causing discussions and sharing opinions on things.

 

In all honesty i forgot about the Night Lords, They are a pretty cruel legion indeed. But i dont get the Night Lords, they dont seem to "do anything" as in they dont crusade, capture worlds/relics, they just randomly kill every now and then. Plus they have completely crumbled as a legion and split into tiny fractured warbands that loan themselves out as mercenaries and pirates - to me they dont seem powerful or much of a real threat anymore! (admittedly i havnt read any of the NL novels so i could be very wrong, i have purely based my opinion on gathered info from lexicanum and warhammer wiki's)

[Bewlay]

Some great views there guys.

 

A few of you have talked about "getting bored" hence these kinda topics starting up. I'm not bored, i just like causing discussions and sharing opinions on things.

 

In all honesty i forgot about the Night Lords, They are a pretty cruel legion indeed. But i dont get the Night Lords, they dont seem to "do anything" as in they dont crusade, capture worlds/relics, they just randomly kill every now and then. Plus they have completely crumbled as a legion and split into tiny fractured warbands that loan themselves out as mercenaries and pirates - to me they dont seem powerful or much of a real threat anymore! (admittedly i havnt read any of the NL novels so i could be very wrong, i have purely based my opinion on gathered info from lexicanum and warhammer wiki's)

 

Although true that they are splintered and lack formality, you have to see that most Chaos Warbands aren't a threat as some people expect, yeah you have the Black Legion and Word Bearers that organise themselves and launch huge crusades, but the majority of CSM aren't presented as a threat.

 

The fluff is meant to change in the next book but, but ATM CSM's pose a threat to planets, systems and thats it really.

 

But back on topic, although I'm a huge NL fan I still think the EC, with the NL coming a close second, although the NL will make you poop yourself and then nail you to one of their tanks, the EC will not only torture you physically but mentally (through the use of maaaaagic :o ). However not all EC are sadists, they try and reach perfection in all things, so you could spend the rest of life listening to the greatest musical symphonies any mortal has heard, or be subjugation to the most perfect execution, killing you instantly.

 

Still, wouldn't like to be captured by any of them TBH :)

[Walter Payton]

Personally, I've always found priests to be the most boring, sanctimonious individuals on the planet, so I'd like to be captured by the WB least.

[Lord Kallozar]

The fluff is meant to change in the next book but, but ATM CSM's pose a threat to planets, systems and thats it really.

Ive heard rumour about the new Chaos Codex, any official news about it?? Legion dexes or another generic dex?

[Brother Ambroz]

This topic has alot of info on the rumor. I'd advise reading that.

[Possessed Marine]

The cruelest, meanest, most brutal legion? Angry Marines, the answer is always Angry Marines.

[Machine God]

IRON HANDS.

 

'Nuff said!!!

[NemFX]

It depends on how you look at it.

 

Night Lords use generally 'evil' tactics, but they are TACTICS. For a purpose. Usually.

 

then there's the Iron Warriors, who are usually depicted as being all buisness until they win, and THEN they do evil things, like making slaves fight to the death.

[Brother Ambroz]

The whole slaves fighting to the death thing isn't just Iron Warriors.

 

Some Night Lords cause terror just for the fun of it.

 

My vote still goes to EC as the worst of the worst.

[Shuggnuggath]

Probably Dark Angels

[Dammeron]

It depends on how you look at it.

 

Night Lords use generally 'evil' tactics, but they are TACTICS. For a purpose. Usually.

 

then there's the Iron Warriors, who are usually depicted as being all buisness until they win, and THEN they do evil things, like making slaves fight to the death.

 

Not necessarily; although it undoubtedly has a tactical purpose, almost every ource ever written on the Night Lords point sout that they revel in the infliction of pain and terror; it is not only their modus operandi, it is WHY they fight in the first place. I believe their I.A. article describes them at one point as "psychic leeches," almost literally taking nourishment from the pain and fear they inflict on their victims.

 

Worse, they are under no delusion as to why they do what they do; they do it because they are sadists; they enjoy it, which is something even the Emperor's Children, to whom the infliction of pain is synonymous to the gifting of pleasure and vice versa, cannot boast.

[Walter Payton]

Emperor's Children or Night Lords

[Dammeron]

The Emperor's Children are interesting when one examines their philosophies and motivations; though ostensibly and in any objective sense, the acts they commit are horrendous; not stopping at mere murder and genocide, but stretching into the conscious infliction of pain and degradation in order to satisfy their own twisted desires.

 

However, one must understand that they are fanatical devotees of Slaanesh, and to devotees of Slaanesh; all conditions, all states and experiences, from the basest to the most ascended, are welcome. They literally draw no distinction between the experience of pain and pleasure, between misery and ecstasy; degradation and glory. They regard anything and everything as welcome consummation of experience. In that regard, they are actually acting out of a twisted version of what might be called The Golden Rule of Morality, i.e. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you;" in point of fact, they are living manifestations of that very principle in the same manner that Nurgle's Plague Marines are; they quite sincerely see nothing wrong with what they are doing, but regard it as right, true and holy; they are not degrading or torturing their slaves and victims; they are gifting them wondrous, rapturous piques of sensation, twisting their dull, uniform flesh into art and beauty! In that regard, it is difficult to regard them as consciously "cruel" in the same manner as, say, the Night Lords, who lack the same delusion and fanaticism; who empathise with their victims even as they terrify, torment and mutilate them, basking in their own status as monstrosities.

[Shuggnuggath]

'We heard a rumour that you know information about the Fallen. Now we need to know everything you know'

 

or

 

'I'm sorry lord governor but Feldrax hive will have to defend itself against these filthy renegades. Some urgent business has just come in another sector and we have to go.'

'Outnumbered ten thousand to one and the mutants are going to flay you and the entire population alive you say, oh well thats a shame. Give my regards to Fabius Bile when you see him.'

[TheDarkApostle]

I vaguely remember a part from the Night Lords IA where they had captured an IG guardsman and then hijacked the PA system of the station and then there was a report made by one of the surviving IG officers:

 

It went something like this:

 

"Everything was just as normal, then suddenly the lights went out and the comms died as well. Then the screaming started. And I'm telling you, no one should have been able to scream non-stop that loud for 48 hours."

 

I'll see if I can't get ahold of the proper quote later.

 

TDA

[TheDarkApostle]

Hmm, weird, I can't seem to find the quote I was looking for.

 

This will require further investigation.

 

TDA

[minigun762]

I'd be curious to see that line as well TDA, quite brutal sounding.

[Watch Commander Danek]

Sounds like it's from The Culling of Grendel's World, but the incident was described with no witness interviews. Hijacking the PDF orbital broadcast systems is typical Night Lord MO. They want you to know they are coming. The unknown is always scariest because we fill it with our own hidden fears.

But does that make them "the cruelest"? I still think the Emperor's Children rank higher, and would honestly place Iron Warriors under them on second thought.

 

Is there anything more cruel than apathy? Than viewing people as nothing more than gears of a machine?

I get the feeling being enslaved by the Iron Warriors is equivalent of being in the concentration camps. You are worked til you die.

Would they waste food on slaves, or would death come from growing weaker and weaker til you fall, your own kin trampling you into the mud? Everyone emaciated and dying on their feet, keeping a pace meant to spare themselves a spot in some bloodsport set up by the sons of Perturabo or, even worse, on landmine detail or cannon fodder.

 

Maybe they do feed the slaves... what? Once a day? Unlikely, because that time is better spent digging, stoking fires, etc. And if they do.... what do they feed them? Do you think it crosses the fevered minds of these slaves? That perhaps they are devouring a family member, a neighbor, a person they knew who's body finally gave out?

 

In life and death, part of the machine. Iron within, Iron without.

 

what can be more cruel than that?