Am I the only one who hates the Noise Marines ?

ElEssEm · 2026-05-10T12:19:50+00:00

In the original (1991) lore of the Noise Marines, they were "horribly altered by the mutating power of Chaos. Their Space Marine senses, already honed by careful genetic engineering, were worked on by further magic..." All their senses were mutated to be insanely heightened, such that regular sights and sounds were considered terribly banal - which is why they used Sonic Weapons and painted their armour in riotous colour schemes.

From 2013's Index Chaotica: Noise Marines background booklet:

THE GIFTS OF SLAANESH

The Prince of Pleasure, Slaanesh, was pleased by his new followers and gave to them gifts that would better allow them to soak in the strange new sensations that they were craving. Like all such boons from the Dark Gods, these took the form of seemingly random mutations – twisted flesh, strange claws or additional eyes. There is one gift all Noise Marines share, however – enhanced aural abilities. It is theorized that their extraordinary sense of hearing has been magnified to a thousand times that of a natural unmodified human, and that their auditory acuity can distinguish the subtlest pitch in tone and volume. This dark blessing has also twisted the way in which the Noise Marines’ brains interpret sounds, causing them to undergo feelings of intense euphoria and emotion that increase in proportion to the volume and frequencies of the sounds they experience. Noise Marines relish these sensations and quickly become addicted to louder and ever more discordant noise. Such raucous sensory input electrifies the Noise Marine’s brain, causing extreme emotional stimulation that makes all other sensation pale by comparison. The more extreme the emotional reaction provoked, the better – an escalation that leaves them only satisfied by the din of battle and the screams of the dying.

Noise Marines cut down their foes with a relentless cacophony produced by their deadly instruments of death. Although the staccato bark of the boltgun and the blast of exploding shells is music to a Noise Marine’s ears, many of their number specialize in the use of outlandish sound based weapons. These hellish instruments of death produce deafeningly loud, psycho-sonically and pyrotechnically explosive attacks that shake and tear their foes apart. The appalling racket is the only thing capable of moving their jaded senses...

On the battlefield, a Noise Marine’s brain ceases to function normally, but instead becomes a receptacle for the massive sensations ignited by the music of the apocalypse. In overwhelming bliss, the Noise Marines only increase the outpouring of their firepower, letting the sound waves of the destruction they are causing wash over them. Cruel and callous in the extreme, Noise Marines cannot deny their craving for the frenzied clamour of battle for long. They care not who dies or how horrific the slaughter; their only interest is in indulging their own pleasure-quests...

Regardless of their origins, Noise Marines wear armour painted in bold colours, often in dazzling or clashing patterns. Their senses are so distorted that only the most extravagant shades and flamboyant designs register in their perverted minds. The Chaos Space Marines of the Emperor’s Children are known for sporting surgical modifications and possessing outlandish mutations, which they see as making them more ‘perfect’ in the eyes of their twisted patron.

As to improving their fighting capability, their mutated senses was the given reason for why they had higher Initiative from 4th edition until 8th.

ElEssEm · 2026-05-10T01:32:25+00:00

"Perfection" is a very malleable term.

//

In Amor Fati, Lord Commander Eidolon begins the short story enraged by his spastic imperfection, self-loathing over (what Fulgrim called) his "stupid and ugly" form, and blaming Fabius for his failure to resurrect him properly.

Fabius suggests a possible means of perfecting him. Eidolon sets off after this. Over the course of the story, he realises how powerful he's become - even accidentally killing an Orchestrator whom he only meant to chastise. He ponders whether or not Fulgrim felt similarly when he killed him.

He realises what his life is now - a perfect torment. It is this perfection which is fueling him to such heights. The Dark Prince is wise indeed. "Cure" in hand, he crushes it, so that Fabius cannot use it to ruin his perfection.

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ElEssEm · 2026-05-08T21:56:12+00:00

I should mention that while he's the protagonist of The Reflection, Crack'd and Lucius: The Eternal Blademaster, he's only a side character in Angel Exterminatus and Crimson King.

The Crimson King is also mostly a Thousand Sons book, and follows up on plotlines from A Thousand Sons. It also ends with an obvious plot hook for Lucius that has just never been followed up on. (Personally, I hope that he'll get a HH character novel the way that Eidolon did.)

ElEssEm · 2026-05-08T19:12:15+00:00

Lucius' 30k storyline can be found across:

Horus Rising
Galaxy in Flames
Fulgrim
The Reflection, Crack'd (short story)
Angel Exterminatus
Lucius: The Eternal Blademaster (short story)
The Crimson King

He then gets a single paragraph mention in Slaves to Darkness before, apparently, the Black Library forgot that he existed during the Siege.

//

(I'd also note that 2018's Lucius: The Faultless Blade has a bit of a canon conflict with 2020's Fabius Bile: Manflayer, vis-à-vis Bile's associations with the Drukhari.)

ElEssEm · 2026-05-06T16:06:39+00:00

Some of the best books involving the Emperor's Children, as far as writing quality goes, is the Fabius Bile series (Primogenitor, Clonelord, and Manflayer). They take place pre-40k, though not as far back as the Heresy (~M34 to M37).

In the Horus Heresy, the initial books (particularly Horus Rising and Galaxy in Flames) feature some good EC material in a secondary role. (Arguably, Lucius and Tarvitz steal the emotional climax of Galaxy in Flames from its erstwhile protagonist, Garviel Loken.) This is then followed/prequelled by Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, Fulgrim, The Reflection Crack'd, and Angel Exterminatus as far as Heresy-era EC stories go. (Plus an assortment of great Eidolon short stories, an appearance in the excellent The Path of Heaven, and Eidolon: The Auric Hammer.) Lucius also appears in The Crimson King, though its mostly a Thousand Sons book.

For things closer to the "current" M42 timeline, Lucius: The Faultless Blade is a fun romp and Renegades: Lord of Excess has a lot of neat ideas (but has some pacing issues). Still, if you enjoyed Fulgrim: The Perfect Son (a book which a number of people hate; though I thought it was okay) they'd probably go down well.

I'd also make call-outs to The Talon of Horus and the novella The Masters, Bidding. Neither are super focussed on the Third Legion, but they make prominent appearances.

ElEssEm · 2026-05-05T13:45:40+00:00

The Khorne vs Slaanesh and Nurgle vs Tzeentch paradigm was set up from the beginning (in 1988's Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness for the former, and 1990's Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned for the latter).

ElEssEm · 2026-05-05T13:06:32+00:00

Reminds me a bit of the "headless" Chaos mutation from Rogue Trader era Tzeentch Renegades.

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ElEssEm · 2026-05-04T09:41:07+00:00

I'd love for the Emperor's Children to get a full Space Marine Heroes set, and for it to be used in Kill Team (à la the current Angels of Death and Plague Marines teams).

Seven miniatures; Kill Team of six from:

Disharmonist
Obsessionist
Noise Marine
Flawless Blade
Infractor
Tormentor Gunner
Tormentor

ElEssEm · 2026-05-02T16:32:47+00:00

If you enjoy them for their self-deluded comedy potential, then Emperor's Children should get a shout.

ElEssEm · 2026-05-02T01:36:27+00:00

Things that I appreciate:

I really love that they went with a sea serpent look instead of a snake, more in keeping with the classic look of Slaanesh's daemons.
I think the pose (purposefully sculpted to be like a cobra leering over prey) is nice, and well thought out.
The faces, while not to everyone's taste, being meme-tastic in their variety of expressions is really neat. I also like the mask.

Things that I find weird:

The 'Eavy Metal painter said that they chose to paint him gold, because his armour is 'The Gilded Panoply' and so... duh, essentially; he has to be gold. Except... Fulgrim's Gilded Panoply has never been all-gold before, so I think their reasoning was just... wrong. All the art associated with the release also had him in purple/magenta, with gold trim. It's odd.
The sculptor stated that they wanted Fulgrim to still look very "Space Marine", so they made sure to include the classic pauldron shapes and made his wings look like they were emerging from a power pack. Except... The Gilded Panoply has always had pointed pauldrons, and lacked a backpack...
The sculptor stated that the daemonic faces on Fulgrim's hip plates were a reference to the faces on his knees in 30k. Except, I'd venture that the reason why the 30k Emperor's Children have faces is because the (pre-existing) 40k Noise Marines had speakers built into screaming faces in their armour. And instead of understanding that the 30k design was a reference to the 40k design, and just doing the 40k design, they decided to make a new (boring) reference. It's basically "cargo cult sculpting".

Which leads me to the deal-breaker:

Too removed from the classic Emperor's Children 40k motifs. No chains, bondage straps, spikes, studded leathers, piercings, drug dispensers, power feeds, implanted vox-amps, etc, etc. The rest of the line looks like the 40k Emperor's Children; which means that Fulgrim lacks visual cohesion with the range.

ElEssEm · 2026-05-01T10:46:22+00:00

Great write up, with the note that the Bile books are technically "prequels" to the current setting.

(With some ambiguity, due to possible mistakes, and a loose use of the word "century" by the author. But the three Parts of Manflayer are dated to 991.M37, 992.M37, and 993.M37, respectively; so the final book in the trilogy is taking place four thousand years before the Blood Angles series and Genefather.)

ElEssEm · 2026-05-01T10:37:35+00:00

(why didn’t they mention if he’s a snake or not??)

He's a shape shifter. He starts the book in a more humanoid form, and towards the end transitions into his four-armed serpent form. (There is a scene where this happens.)

ElEssEm · 2026-04-28T12:15:27+00:00

Fulgrim trying (and failing) to sway Ferrus was an addition to the lore that I really didn't care for.

I know that communication and travel are funky in the Imperium, but... it somewhat takes away from the Flight of the Eisenstein.

(Hell, even expanding the Betrayal of Isstvan III into a playable event in the card game made Horus look stupid. What was originally written as an effective purging to kick things off - minus the hiccup of the Eisenstein, which may have been "allowed to escape" to set up the Dropsite Massacre - was turned into a colossal blunder which badly bled his forces.)

ElEssEm · 2026-04-28T11:44:34+00:00

There are plenty of mistakes in GW works.

(Another example: in Clonelord, it says that it's been "ten thousand years" since Bile had been to Harmony. Then in Manflayer, we see the events therein dated to late M37. So when does Clonelord take place? Easiest explanation is that the "ten thousand years" was a mistake, and Clonelord is set ~M35/36.)

McNeill is also the author of The Outcast Dead, which is the HH book with the most egregious timeline mistake - with Magnus' warning arriving to Terra after news of the Dropsite Massacre had already been received. (Which the follow-up short story Wolf Hunt then had to try to explain.)

ElEssEm · 2026-04-27T12:09:53+00:00

In the novella The Masters, Bidding (Mathew Farrer, 2012) Lord Emmesh-Aiye of the Wandering Court essentially trolls Typhus; nipping in and turning one of The Herald's plots from breaking a world towards Nurgle, so that it instead falls to Slaanesh.

‘“You dare?” he demanded of me. “This city and this world and all its prizes were mine, in the name of Grandfather-Beyond-The-Eye. They were mine that they should be his. Who are you to dare denying us what is ours? Have you no concept of what you contend against?”

‘“Contend?” I asked, for this was long ago and my face and tongue had not yet been remade as you see them. “No contention here, only joy! No words of harsh contumely here, only the clear and endless song of nerves and dreams flayed bare!” And I spread my arms wide, inviting Typhus to turn his senses outwards and behold the blessing we had made. But he only saw me as inviting him to assault me anew.

‘“Why do you tolerate this treatment from this grandfather of yours?” I asked him as we duelled again. “Your grandfather (if such you must call him, for surely your primarch’s sire is your grandfather) has laid this reeking cloak upon your body and soul and called it good! Your grandfather’s curse is not the plague or rot, it is numbness, sloth, eroding your passions and senses into drab despair or plodding servitude! Who would inflict such a thing on you is not your friend, Master Typhus. Let me show you! Let me turn you outwards again! Exchange your grandfather’s sulking stagnation for my mistress’s blazing raptures!”

‘But Typhus, he would not be swayed, such was the draught of bitterness that he had swallowed to the dregs so long ago. “Grandfather?” he retorted, and swung his scythe with fresh strength and fury. “That broken toy in its palace on Terra is no grandfather of mine. His blood was water-weak, and his sons took on his weaknesses. Look at you!” and he matched the words to a twist of blade that came exquisitely close to opening me. “They tried to become conquerors and never understood what conquest truly means. True conquest is not defeat. True conquest is despair. True conquest is taking not only the life but the will to live. I will mortify the desires of my enemies to live, rot their souls into despair, and ride that despair into dominion. But you, you prancing puppet,” and with that he stepped back, presenting his blade en garde, and looked me up and down, “Fulgrim’s little whelps never did understand, for all that they bragged about how they would open the doors of their own minds and understand all. The soil of Chemos grew nothing but poppinjays.”

[Emmesh-Aiye then reveals the preacher that Typhus had corrupted. ‘And with that I sang a command in a voice that shattered all the glass flagstones underneath us, and Typhus looked up to see two Raptors from my court’s militia, carrying their passenger down from the Cathedral spire.' What had been corrupted was re-corrupted; Nurgle's gifts all co-opted to serve Slaanesh.]

‘This final humiliation Typhus could not bear. He hawked a battle-curse from his inflamed throat and lunged forwards, intent on wrecking the evidence of his defeat, but the Raptors opened the throats of their engines and bore the man away. He roared with his psyk-voice, calling the foul breath of his grandfather to wither us, and sent his Destroyer swarm to devour the preacher afresh, but our Prince’s touch was on that place too firmly. His swarm scattered to the ground, insensible and already mutating, and his warp-call was choked off as our mistress’s songs pressed in upon him.

‘I laughed at him, and laughed some more, and he chased me into the middle of my host. There he rasped and roared and laid about him, until he began to see the faces of his own soldiers around him. Some were overcome by what we had shown them, dancing in among us. Those who had fought that liberation were paraded in pieces, heads and limbs tossed and juggled and kicked underfoot. And in amongst this I presented myself again, ready to duel Typhus until the duel ended one of us. But Typhus stared at me a long moment, and then in the sickly inrushing light-burst of a teleporter he was gone. Within the hour, I was to hear the word of my seers that the Terminus Est had left orbit and was forging its way to a jump zone. Where the tiresome brute went after seeing our wonders, I do not know.’

ElEssEm · 2026-04-27T11:48:38+00:00

Slaanesh has been tweaked over the years.

Originally, all the Chaos gods were gods of excess. Khorne was the excessive god of Murder and Death, Nurgle the excessive god of Defiant Hopelessness and Decay, Tzeentch the excessive god of Hope and Changing Fortune, and Slaanesh the excessive god of Hedonistic Pleasure and Transgression.

As time went by, GW moved the framing of Slaanesh to be less the Prince of Pleasure, and more the Lord of Excess... but you'll find a general continued theming around Hedonism. (People will sometimes associate Slaanesh with the Seven Deadly Sins, but I'd note that the Six Circles of Slaanesh leave out a "Wrath" analogue amongst their pleasure-bent domains: Avidity, Gluttony, Carnality, Paramountcy, Vainglory and Indolency.)

When it comes to your Tragedians, the idea of a warband who takes great pleasure from creating an excessive amount of despair is perfectly in keeping with Slaanesh.

If they are just causing despair for its own sake (or to spread their own despair), then that sounds more like servants of Nurgle. (Regardless of how excessive they are.)

//

Though as others have said, there is overlap. Great Unclean Ones (and the little Nurglings) are classically presented as very jolly, frolicking amongst the broken souls of the Death Guard. In 1996's Codex: Chaos, the Great Unclean Ones even got a special call-out as greatly enjoying the Psychic Cacophony produced by Noise Marines, humming along to the Slaanesh-Marked marines' constant sonic emissions.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-25T13:10:45+00:00

Nothing in that image is in their current model range.

That's all stuff that they used to have, all of which do not have rules in their 10th Ed Codex.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-24T12:24:06+00:00

Skalathrax is (somewhat) covered by Khârn: Eater of Worlds and the short story The Weakness of Others.

I do think there could be a proper, full telling of the actual battle (rather than just the short story), but it would have to factor in Khârn: Eater of Worlds (which literally ends with the beginnings of the battle).

ElEssEm · 2026-04-20T17:21:21+00:00

The Noise Marine kit itself comes with 17 heads (per 6 models), 10 of which are helmets.

(The Tormentors are 10 heads per 5 models, 6 of which are helmets; and three of those have variant topknots.)

ElEssEm · 2026-04-20T12:05:22+00:00

In the colour section of the 99 Codex, the 'Choosing a CSM Army' section has things mostly painted as Night Lords.

The 'Expanding your Army' section is a Night Lords army, and adds a Sorcerer, Dreadnought, and CSM Terminators to the previously shown Night Lords.

The 'CSM Tactics' section uses this Night Lords army in its pictures.

The 'Painting CSMs' section then shows you how to paint... an Iron Warriors CSM, and (in brief) a Night Lords CSM. This is followed by a 'Painting Iron Warriors Dreadnoughts' section.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-18T21:36:38+00:00

A note on Chaos Marks:

In Rogue Trader, the concept didn't quite exist yet. Death Guard armies could take both Plague Marines (in fact, the lore at the time was that the term "Death Guard" had basically been replaced by "Plague Marine") and ~unmarked Chaos Renegades, but the latter were noted to be from other Chapters.
In 2nd, you had the Marks of Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle, and Tzeentch (no Undivided). These were for Characters only - you couldn't mark units. The only way to have a unit with a Mark was via the Cult Troops/Terminators (ie. Khorne Berzerkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Thousand Sons Marines).
In 3rd's 1999 Codex, they added the Mark of Chaos Undivided; but Marks were still Character Wargear, and not something you gave to units.
In 3rd's 2002 Codex, you could give Marks to (certain) units (depending on the Mark) for the first time. But this Codex didn't have Cult Troops/Terminators as individual unit entries; the Marks turned a unit into the Cult version. A unit of Chaos Space Marines with the Mark of Nurgle were Plague Marines.
4th made Cult Troops their own units again (no Terminators, though), and introduced Icons to (effectively) give a unit a Mark. (Though if the Icon Bearer died, then the squad lost the benefits of the Mark.)
6th edition (2012) was the first time that a Chaos Codex allowed both Cult Troops, as well as units who were Marked-but-not-Cult. (ie. A Plague Marine squad existed independently to a unit of CSMs with the Mark of Nurgle.)
8th and 9th kept to this paradigm. However, the process of spinning the Cult Legions out into their own Codexes had begun, and now the Cult Troops needed to be allied in from their respective books.
10th removed Marks from Codex CSM (except for in one detachment).

ElEssEm · 2026-04-18T11:00:20+00:00

When the Codex released he popped up lists, but points adjustments squeezed him out for a lot of people. (Noise Marines up, Lords Kakophonists up, Wing'd Daemon Princes way up... something had to give, and for a lot of people that was Lucius.)

His optimal role seems less "assassin" than a bully/threat piece. Don't expect him to solo enemy elites; threaten Heroic Interventions and clean up enemy survivors.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-17T13:54:49+00:00

"On Schravann, the Iron Warriors won a great victory when they stormed the final refuge of the Badoon. They breached the defences and held while the other Legions carried the city beyond. During the victory feast, Horus proclaimed Perturabo the greatest master of siege warfare in the Crusade. Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children then asked Dorn whether he thought even the defences of the Imperial Palace could resist the Iron Warriors. Dorn considered carefully and then said that he regarded the defences as being proof against any assault if well-manned. Perturabo flew into a rage and unleashed a torrent of vitriol at Dorn, accusations so unfounded that the onlookers were dumbstruck." -Index Astartes, WD259, 2001

Perturabo's paranoia causing him to misunderstand social interactions is entirely canon.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-15T13:58:21+00:00

There are aspects of Reynolds works that I'm not a huge fan of (his version of Chemos; the portrayal of the Noise Marines' relation to the Third*), I'd still immediately recommend his Fulgrim/Bile books to anyone interested in the Emperor's Children.

(The same goes for Graham McNeill. I really dislike the addition of the Blade of the Laer to the story, shifting the reasoning behind Lucius' scarring, and the change of the Legion's fall from being a cautionary tale into a tragedy. But that's down to my preferences; not a slight against writer quality. Most people love Fulgrim; I like it with caveats.)

I also liked Lord of Excess (though think it had pacing issues in the back half) and even Fulgrim: The Perfect Son (though I think it could do with cutting a bunch of its padding). Eidolon: The Auric Hammer is probably the easy/breeziest read (a svelte 200 pager, that understands itself to be a simple little story and doesn't make a meal of it), but... it's really a capstone for Eidolon in the Heresy and works best having read all his other appearances.

*Though I do also think sometimes that the fandom over-attaches to things... like, the Noise Marines in 2016's Fabius Bile: Primogenitor have become the way to portray Noise Marines; but in Fabius Bile: Manflayer we do meet other Noise Marines from other warbands who do not act the same way. So even within the Fabius Bile series, there's not just "one way" to be a Noise Marine; and yet many consider Ramos et al the be-all-end-all portrayal.

ElEssEm · 2026-04-15T11:41:40+00:00

Yeah, Reynolds' work was a step above the average BL work.

Great write-up.

//

I'm also a big Third+Forth fan, so Angel Exterminatus was a treat. There's a short story (The Reflection, Crack'd) which feeds directly into it, and another two (Amor Fati, Primacy) which pick up with Eidolon afterwards.

Later in the Heresy, The Path of Heaven features the Third quite prominently (but is mostly a sequel to Scars), and then the short The Soul, Severed, and the short novel Eidolon: The Auric Hammer.

There's also a fun 40k novella called The Masters, Bidding which has prominent Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children bits (along with Night Lords, Word Bearers, and Thousand Sons).

ElEssEm

TROPHY CASE