Books where Chaos wins

[DogWelder]

So are there any notable books where chaos wins? I've already read the Black Legion novels and Shroud of Night but it seems like these are the only 3 novels where this is the case.

[Athrawes]

Storm of Iron.

 

One of my top 3 favorite 40k books.

 

Widely considered one of graham McNeils best works.

[helterskelter]

Are we talking chaos as the entity or the bad guys? Technically the Night Lords series, and Word Bearers series should have that covered.

[DogWelder]

Are we talking chaos as the entity or the bad guys? Technically the Night Lords series, and Word Bearers series should have that covered.

 

Didn't the Word Bearers lose in the final book of the series? Sure they invaded Boros but they had to retreat when the Necrons showed up and lost around 3000 Astartes for very little gain since its shown that the Imperials still hold Boros.

[Vesper]

Storm of Iron is pretty popular for good reasons. The Ahriman series is quite good too, even if imperials don't mean much most of the time, it's not really about a conflict.

 

Most stuff with Khârn is about him hacking imperials to pieces before moving to the next place with soon to be dead imperials. Not perticularily awesome to read if you're not into bolter porn though.

 

Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds, about Huron rolfstomping Space Wolves and other imperial forces. It's inspired by a codex blurb yet I haven't read it myself.

 

On the Heresy side of things, I'm not really in the know since I follow it from afar, but I still read Weregeld and it was a great piece.

[Qkhitai]

Pawns of Chaos is a fun read, if you want something more retro and without any Space Marines. One of my favourite 40k books, although it's debatable who actually 'wins' anything in the end.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I thought Chaos wins more than 90% of the time tbh.

[DogWelder]

I thought Chaos wins more than 90% of the time tbh.

 

Honestly its extremely rare to find a chaos victory in the written works. Even among the chaos POV books.

[JH79]

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Though I simply refuse to believe that there isn't a way to save humanity. For starters someone get the Eldar round and into His throne room... build us some new Warp / Chaos Wards that come with at least a 5 year guarantee, turn off that pigging Golden pain engine and give the big E a few days off to get his s**t together. Yeah that'd do for starters!

 

Sorry, excuse the total mind fart 

[b1soul]

Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds, about Huron rolfstomping Space Wolves and other imperial forces. It's inspired by a codex blurb yet I haven't read it myself.

 

 

BL let the SW get stomped...you sure about this without having read the book?

[DogWelder]

 

Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds, about Huron rolfstomping Space Wolves and other imperial forces. It's inspired by a codex blurb yet I haven't read it myself.

 

BL let the SW get stomped...you sure about this without having read the book?

 

 

I read it. There's a hilariously one sided curbstomp mid-book where the Red Corsairs take out 4 SW pradators, 4 Vindicators, 2 land Raiders, 2 Whirlwinds, 6 Rhinos and 3 Land Raiders and only lose 1 predator.

[Vesper]

 

Tyrant of the Hollow Worlds, about Huron rolfstomping Space Wolves and other imperial forces. It's inspired by a codex blurb yet I haven't read it myself.

 

BL let the SW get stomped...you sure about this without having read the book?

 

The blurb was describing it as pretty one sided.

[A D-B]

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Hey, we only have a setting because Chaos won that book. They did us a favour.

 

Though Chaos eternally shafts itself because it can't hold together for long anyway, so any time they win anything at all, I always think "Yeah, we'll see well how you're doing five minutes after this, Red Team."

[Lucerne]

 

I thought Chaos wins more than 90% of the time tbh.

 

Honestly its extremely rare to find a chaos victory in the written works. Even among the chaos POV books.

 

Storm of Iron was basically the first Chaos win in BL at the time...And even now it's still one of very, very few.

 

Says it all about how writing LSM tends to go.

[JH79]

 

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Hey, we only have a setting because Chaos won that book. They did us a favour.

I remind myself of that over and over again... yet this completely irrational 5yr old version of myself always riles against any form of common sense and breeds thoughts of denial! 

 

It doesn't help that outside of the odd novella / computer game or two my main introduction to the universe of 40k was through The Horus Heresy, it's easy to forget that for most of everyone else on here 40k and all the horror that goes with it is the norm and has been for decades. Who'd of thought that investing yourself in the literary works that accompany the toy soldier gaming side of things could be such a masochistic experience... if you find yourself getting too attached to certain characters that is lol

Edited October 13, 2017 by JH79

[Ascanius]

Though I simply refuse to believe that there isn't a way to save humanity. For starters someone get the Eldar round and into His throne room... build us some new Warp / Chaos Wards that come with at least a 5 year guarantee, turn off that pigging Golden pain engine and give the big E a few days off to get his s**t together. Yeah that'd do for starters!

 

Funny that you should say that . . .

[MrDarth151]

 

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Hey, we only have a setting because Chaos won that book. They did us a favour.

 

Though Chaos eternally shafts itself because it can't hold together for long anyway, so any time they win anything at all, I always think "Yeah, we'll see well how you're doing five minutes after this, Red Team."

 

 

To be honest, I've always felt this was a bit of narrative cop-out more than anything. Chaos does not lose. Their servants do. And it achieves nothing, really, in a long run.

 

I've actually found it hard to enjoy Horus Heresy because of it. The entire thing becomes nihilistic validation of the Chaos servants, because the loss of Horus is not really a loss for the Chaos gods, it's a victory. The galaxy is basically turned into all-you-can-eat buffet for the Four, until in several thousands of years humanity losses and dies out. So basically the only people who have the right idea are those that pursue Daemonhood, because that's the only way to not end up tortured for all eternity.

 

It's kinda annoying. Like putting a big footnote next to every victory and epic speech by the loyalist saying "This character is delusional. Their efforts are meaningless. You are wrong to be invested in their efforts, because they achieve nothing in the long run.".

 

A bit hard to get invested in that, to be honest. Nothing wrong with a tragedy that ends badly for all involved, but there is a reason most of those are not turned into universes spanning hundreds of books.

[Vesper]

 

 

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Hey, we only have a setting because Chaos won that book. They did us a favour.

 

Though Chaos eternally shafts itself because it can't hold together for long anyway, so any time they win anything at all, I always think "Yeah, we'll see well how you're doing five minutes after this, Red Team."

 

 

To be honest, I've always felt this was a bit of narrative cop-out more than anything. Chaos does not lose. Their servants do. And it achieves nothing, really, in a long run.

 

I've actually found it hard to enjoy Horus Heresy because of it. The entire thing becomes nihilistic validation of the Chaos servants, because the loss of Horus is not really a loss for the Chaos gods, it's a victory. The galaxy is basically turned into all-you-can-eat buffet for the Four, until in several thousands of years humanity losses and dies out. So basically the only people who have the right idea are those that pursue Daemonhood, because that's the only way to not end up tortured for all eternity.

 

It's kinda annoying. Like putting a big footnote next to every victory and epic speech by the loyalist saying "This character is delusional. Their efforts are meaningless. You are wrong to be invested in their efforts, because they achieve nothing in the long run.".

 

A bit hard to get invested in that, to be honest. Nothing wrong with a tragedy that ends badly for all involved, but there is a reason most of those are not turned into universes spanning hundreds of books.

 

There is only war and the laughter of thirsting gods.

 

I'd say dudes who want to become daemons are also delusional and not really grasping the reality of it. They also end up tortured for all eternity. A different kind of torture, but a torture nonetheless.

[MrDarth151]

 

 

 

Horus Heresy Book 41: Master of Mankind. That there is the ultimate win for Chaos 

 

Hey, we only have a setting because Chaos won that book. They did us a favour.

 

Though Chaos eternally shafts itself because it can't hold together for long anyway, so any time they win anything at all, I always think "Yeah, we'll see well how you're doing five minutes after this, Red Team."

 

 

To be honest, I've always felt this was a bit of narrative cop-out more than anything. Chaos does not lose. Their servants do. And it achieves nothing, really, in a long run.

 

I've actually found it hard to enjoy Horus Heresy because of it. The entire thing becomes nihilistic validation of the Chaos servants, because the loss of Horus is not really a loss for the Chaos gods, it's a victory. The galaxy is basically turned into all-you-can-eat buffet for the Four, until in several thousands of years humanity losses and dies out. So basically the only people who have the right idea are those that pursue Daemonhood, because that's the only way to not end up tortured for all eternity.

 

It's kinda annoying. Like putting a big footnote next to every victory and epic speech by the loyalist saying "This character is delusional. Their efforts are meaningless. You are wrong to be invested in their efforts, because they achieve nothing in the long run.".

 

A bit hard to get invested in that, to be honest. Nothing wrong with a tragedy that ends badly for all involved, but there is a reason most of those are not turned into universes spanning hundreds of books.

 

There is only war and the laughter of thirsting gods.

 

I'd say dudes who want to become daemons are also delusional and not really grasping the reality of it. They also end up tortured for all eternity. A different kind of torture, but a torture nonetheless.

 

 

That doesn't precisely make it better you know?

[JH79]

Hmmmm... interesting thoughts! I'm fortunate as my enjoyment of the setting isn't affected in that same way. As for Chaos and it's "gods", well they're happiest when humanity continues to live, struggle and die so I don't imagine the species will die out too quickly in it's current form. Regardless of what lies beneath the veil of reality and our personal feelings towards that fact of the setting though, I cannot help but rally behind all those that fight against the encroaching darkness! Durun Atticus in The Damnation of Pythos for example, his complete and total self belief and Iron will to literally destroy anything that gets in his way never fails to make me believe, just for a moment that maybe he will survive and victory is possible.

 

How deluded of me, but that's what makes books such as Damnation of Pythos so great (in my eyes) and for me it's right up there in my top ten Heresy novels. To keep us on topic it also represents an epic win for Chaos! Poor Jerune, I hope we meet him again in Ruinstorm!

[Qkhitai]

 

Like putting a big footnote next to every victory and epic speech by the loyalist saying "This character is delusional. Their efforts are meaningless. You are wrong to be invested in their efforts, because they achieve nothing in the long run.".

 

But that's kind of the point of 40k. I understand your point, but that very nihilism has always underpinned the 40k universe; humanity is never winning, it's always just delaying the inevitable. That false hope for the characters that comes after every victory makes it all the more poignant when the audience knows it's all for nothing in the end. It's dramatic irony in a nutshell.

 

It's probably better to not think of it as 'good guys have to win and bad guys have to lose'; 40k is more about the greys in between (at least in my mind), which is why I recommended Pawns of Chaos earlier; I have no idea who the good guys are in that, or even the bad guys. I don't even know who is supposed to have won or lost. But it's a wonderful journey through that in-between grey area that eschews loyalists vs traitors, humans vs xenos and ultimately good vs bad paradigms. Chaos in some shape or form does 'win' in the end, but it also loses as well, which is pretty chaotic when you think about it.

[battle captain corpus]

Surely it also depends on your definition of "winning".?...

 

Some Legions/warbands/chapters see living to fight another day as winning. ADB touched upon this with Talos and his naughty chaps with at one point Talos having enough and declaring it was about time they started to win the Long War? Correct me if I'm wrong though!

 

Winning again is subjective. To some survival is winning. To others its about toppling ivory towers and being crowned. Hence all the mis-placed occasional references to Abaddon always "losing" his Crusades.....if anything he won the majority as he had different objectives to complete. But I digress....actual novels where Chaos win in the "traditional" sense are harder to find than the poster boys of the Imperium grinning and holding Ork heads aloft crying "By Harry and St.Phetos we did it!"

 

BCC

[Ascanius]

I certainly think that people who would like heroes to cheer on probably won't get much out of 40K without wilfully ignoring the wider implications of the universe.

[Plasmablasts]

Prospero Burns: a pretty clear Chaos win, even if neither side were really "Team Chaos" at the time of conflict.

[b1soul]

Abaddon wants to destroy the Imperium.

 

I think Chaos (at least the smart entitied) is fine with the current status quo...a massively militarised Imperium fighting wars on all fronts.

 

The return of Guilliman and the opening of the Rift just add fuel to the fire.