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Being an unwitting slave of a Chaos legion is one of the worst things that can happen to you in the Grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000 (while not the worst thing, but still pretty bad) But the question is which Legion is the worst to be a slave of? I personally think the Iron Warriors is the worst Legion you can be a slave of. At least in other Legions were if you demonstrate strength or something like that, you might get a little appreciation or respect from your brutal masters and might even exchange some friendly banter. But if you're a slave to the Iron Warriors you are nothing more than a weak fleshling and your the only usefulness you will most likely get from these Nihilistic brutes is as cannon fodder, a builder of fortresses, a military ration, or worse a test subject for a f*#ked up experiment (Daemonculaba).
They also feed you the flesh of your fellow slaves who died. As badass as the Iron Warriors are, they sure are a rather unpleasant punch.

Emperor's Children, definitely. They even started a major war in the Eye of Terror because they ran out of slaves to eat, butcher and sodomize, likely in that order. They are basically more chaotic version of Dark Eldar when it comes to slave treatment.

kaszak wrote:
Emperor's Children, definitely. They even started a major war in the Eye of Terror because they ran out of slaves to eat, butcher and sodomize, likely in that order. They are basically more chaotic version of Dark Eldar when it comes to slave treatment.

I'm kinky, but not that kinky, so deffo the worst but I think the Dark Eldar would be worser than them, The emperor's children would one day soon, get bored of filling your lungs with sludge, and penetrating your sweat glands, the dark eldar torture, main, and torment, not because they want to, but to keep themselves from the warp, they sate she who thirsts, so she doesn't come for their souls, and although most enjoy it, they don't do bored, they don't give up, they actively keep you alive, they don't want the result of your suffering, they want the suffering itself, and they work in shifts.

That said, I'm sure I could teach them both a thing or two.

Night lords would probs be the best, they're not even chaos really.

I'm going for death guard, I hate the idea of incubating millions of flies via my guts, -at best.

FYI, that was an old persian trick, they'd put you in a breel and cover you in honey, and feed you, you'd die rotting.

I hope this one is the right one.

Iron Warriors. They have some seriously sick dudes in their upper ranks. Hung up alive to have the skin stretched and then flayed off to accommodate the results of a daemonculabra let alone what the poor girl went through to become a daemonculabra. On that note I'd giggle a bit if Honsou somehow captured Girlyman and tried to make his own Primarch but after 1000 failed births Honsou gives up deeming it impossible and barter what's left of him to Slaanesh.

I believe it was these guys who came across an or planet dedicated to breeding humans like cattle for consumption. Apparently whatever the orks did to make those humans cattle was enough for the Iron Warriors to exterminate the planet, claiming it as a "mercy kill". Cue Grimdark.

I put my vote for the IW. As an IW slave, you exist to die against the walls of enemy defenses.
If the NL omnibus is anything to go off of, they might be the "best" to serve. They saw their slaves as utilities and treated them as such. Or maybe AL, since the AL will likely only pick you if you can serve them as an egent in some way.

IW treat there slave workers as basicaly a resource to be expended. They do use slaves to play games like find the enemy guns or clear the minefield though.

Most die of back breakling labour or killed during the enemy counter seigeworks fire. Others get sacraficed to dark gods to apese war machines and with demaons inside.

Emprorschikdren obviously bad.

To be fair thr night lords will likely kill you quicker than the EC or dark eldar at least....

Death guard your a desise riddled incubator almost.

World eaters probbly just kill you.

Alpha legion you may never even know you work for them!
Ou could be a code word phyco indocrinated sleeper cell.

Word bearers your slave as deamon sacrafoce or work to death building giant ass chaos cathederals that make zero sense and probbly use your blood as morter.

I'm not sure if there are Death Guards slaves at all. I mean, you probably die outright from some poison or desease and become a zombie.
I voted for Night Lords because of all their terror and torture stuff, though I imagine them to be on par with emperor's children.
Iron Warriors... yeah, well, you probably "live" like in a KZ until you are thrown out of tank as cannon fodder. At least you are dead then...

In older fluff Khorne often had an honorable side about not killing weak ones, so World eaters might be not that bad. In newer fluff some dude will randomly decapitate you one day for the lulz.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'm not sure if there are Death Guards slaves at all. I mean, you probably die outright from some poison or desease and become a zombie.
I voted for Night Lords because of all their terror and torture stuff, though I imagine them to be on par with emperor's children.
Iron Warriors... yeah, well, you probably "live" like in a KZ until you are thrown out of tank as cannon fodder. At least you are dead then...

In older fluff Khorne often had an honorable side about not killing weak ones, so World eaters might be not that bad. In newer fluff some dude will randomly decapitate you one day for the lulz.

Well in storm of iron. One of the more comanly cited books as not stupid lol.
A khorne marine rwfreains from killing one who spoke up for bravery. Putting her in first wave... (after crushing her arm)
But he let her live after assult...slave... (then she turned out to be chosen by a khrone deamon but hey ho to be a avatar of death.)

So yes and no with some intervention.

And given book age spoilers are long long not a problem.

Probably put AL and NL as higher for being more utilitarian and therefore probably not slaughtering their property for the hell of it, then the other undivided, then the cults, then slaanesh.

Actually, thinking about it, let's put thousand sons at the top of the list. They probably don't really care as long as you get your books and take care of their drones.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

I voted for Night Lords because of all their terror and torture stuff, though I imagine them to be on par with emperor's children.
.

Night lords might torture or brutalize you but it is to assert power by setting an example. They dont take pleasure from causing pain, they take pleasure from having people obey them without question.
EC on the other hand take pleasure from your pain. They torture you just to torture you.

My own opinions:

Alpha Legion: not really, not that chaos aligned and more likely to turn you renegade than torture you, unless they really want to know something you know.

World Eaters: Slaves, you mean skulls for the skull throne? (more likely dead than a slave or a slave awaiting sacrifice to the blood god)

Iron Warriors: marching fodder if anything.

Black Legion: not too sure, probably more of a slave as a means to an end more than anything.

Death Guard: debatable, as no doubt some would end up being "fortunate" enough to test new poxes and plagues. other than that, it might smell.

Emperor's Children: no question here that torture would be maddening and scripted to break you in oh so many ways...

Night Lords: It depends, going by the "Pharos" book, night lord slavery involves lots of torture and using your entrails while you still live as camp decorations, causing mind numbing pain to appease themselves. if you go by the night lords omnibus though, you are more of a possession than anything. He can do whatever he wants with you, but he knows the worth of having underlings serving him.

Word Bearers: Working slavery to build effigies and chapels to the dark gods until you literally give out.

Word Bearers will probably use you as a daemonic sacrifice, Death Guard will use you as an incubator for nurglings, not sure what Night Lords would do but with their terror thing going on they could have you on cafeteria duty and it you would still be paralyzed with sphincter-trembling fear all the time, but my vote goes to Emperor's Children due to the whole Slaanesh thing giving them an incentive to make your short life even worse than any of the others would so the overly excessive misery pleases Slaanesh.

The thing is with Iron Warriors they won't torture or maim you for pleasure or to spread a message. The creepy thong with them is they do some very disturbing biological mechanical warp experiments. Utterly detached and uncaring about the agonies of their subjects. Just mere lab rats to the warpsmith. Honsou would look at the concept of the human caterpillar and smirk considering the atrocities he came up with. I like how d4chan turns it into an Aristocrats joke. I wish it would be just for fodder on the battlefield cuz some things are worse then death.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
I hope this one is the right one.

Iron Warriors. They have some seriously sick dudes in their upper ranks. Hung up alive to have the skin stretched and then flayed off to accommodate the results of a daemonculabra let alone what the poor girl went through to become a daemonculabra. On that note I'd giggle a bit if Honsou somehow captured Girlyman and tried to make his own Primarch but after 1000 failed births Honsou gives up deeming it impossible and barter what's left of him to Slaanesh.

I believe it was these guys who came across an or planet dedicated to breeding humans like cattle for consumption. Apparently whatever the orks did to make those humans cattle was enough for the Iron Warriors to exterminate the planet, claiming it as a "mercy kill". Cue Grimdark.

It was book 6 in the beast arises.... the Iron Warriors, Fists Exemplar, and a batch of scions team up and are overwhelmed by orks and human auxiliaries. Long story short they eventually fall back to a bunker because they are overwhelmed and the iron warriors suggest killing the planet... scions say no but the fists exemplar kinda agree. Scions try to kill the iron warriors before they kill the planet which in turn causes the iron warriors to kill the scions (scions shot first) and leaving the costs exemplar in the middle saying no don't kill each other... all scions killed and planet still gets killed.

best would be either alpha legion or death guard iof you were a willing participant, and both would probably be the worst if you were not.

alpha legion might allow you to infiltrate a world and work with them but if you do not they will likely indoctrinate you to the cause through other means forcing you to betray everything you knew and stood for.

death guard if a willing participant nurgle things are always so happy, but if they are making a new virus that makes you explode after 3 tortuous days then that is going to suck.

moral of the story your best bet is to capitulate and appear valuable to their cause.

Iron warriors or Black legion would be gruelling and soul-crushing, but Emperors children take the cake, they'd either turn you into some sick kind of surgically modified pet/servant or torture you to death for their own amusement, then grind your twitching corpse down into some kind of bizarre stimulant.

I was torn between Iron Warriors and Word Bearers, but first I want to get into why I don't think Emperor's Children are as bad as people think.

Ok, so yes, if you do get picked to be turned into a living piece of furniture, then yes, they're the worst legion. But I think that they have enough slaves at this point where the odds of them singling you out for a good time might be unlikely. I could be wrong on this, of course. It just makes sense to me that running out of slaves was just a phase in adapting to their new lifestyles, and that things are more stable now. Again, I could be wrong. But generally I'd take the legion that I could hide from or otherwise avoid over the legions that enforce constant labor, like the Word Bearers and Iron Warriors. Those two legions literally shackle people together and work them to death, at least I'd have a chance in one of the others.

 Quarterdime wrote:
I was torn between Iron Warriors and Word Bearers, but first I want to get into why I don't think Emperor's Children are as bad as people think.

Ok, so yes, if you do get picked to be turned into a living piece of furniture, then yes, they're the worst legion. But I think that they have enough slaves at this point where the odds of them singling you out for a good time might be unlikely. I could be wrong on this, of course. It just makes sense to me that running out of slaves was just a phase in adapting to their new lifestyles, and that things are more stable now. Again, I could be wrong. But generally I'd take the legion that I could hide from or otherwise avoid over the legions that enforce constant labor, like the Word Bearers and Iron Warriors. Those two legions literally shackle people together and work them to death, at least I'd have a chance in one of the others.

I'm with you on that thought line, I think people blow up EC way to much cause of the 'Running out of slaves' seems to send imaginations into orbit. Sure its justified, but I don't think its an all the time thing but it gives that feeling if their running out of slaves. I think losing command structure really is the reasoning behind the vagueness. The novel Fulgrim comes to mind as well, and I can't recall any instances where 'slaves' where being slaughtered or used in some sort of death activity for sport. Though one might want to think of running out of slaves as I don't have enough to do X job / service. Though I feel that way being that Slaanesh is symbolic of flesh and flesh can be utilized in many ways. 'Violators' a slaanesh war band in Daemon World by Ben Counter seemed fairly civil in a slaanesh social structure with a strong command. Slaves in that novel mostly sent to mine for (Spoiler) though some seemed to be servants and attendants to rituals and general service to Violators & Charybdia and in good health. They didn't seem to be throwing lives around carelessly in that novel unlike their opponent. Though this is a different war band of course not EC. I think Beauty, Creativity, Perfectionist(A lot could fit this) will get you far as a slave with any slaanesh war band. A toy to keep around rather then work or play with tell death. I honestly voted Word Bearers as I feel with them slightly more crazy and zealous then others and trying to please all the chaos gods you will end up dead fast.

What do 1000 sons do to slaves? Do they even have any?

 koooaei wrote:
What do 1000 sons do to slaves? Do they even have any?

Thousand Sons rarely take slaves because of how self-reliant they are. In the Ahriman trilogy, there are only 2 instances of them taking slaves, one was a navigator, and the other was the king of a largely barren Imperial world (long story)

They were each assigned to be the slave of a specific marine, for them to use as they saw fit. Even though the Thousand Sons didn't really care about the health of their slaves they still treated them with some courtesy. Ahriman might have even said please at one point, albeit laden with implicit threat.

Aside from that, they were left unsupervised. Relatively speaking. Since the Thousand Sons could probably not only locate them with their psychic powers on a whim, but could also manipulate their minds and bodies if they wanted. Although the Thousand Sons seemed too purposeful to abuse that power.

But like I said, they rarely take slaves, and when they do they're usually looking for something specific. The bulk of their labor comes from some kind of diminutive class of mutant that they let live on their ships...

Putting aside the constant threat of getting tangled up in their Machiavellian shenanigans I think it'd be the most comfortable life for a slave to live for any of the traitor legions, because they had a LOT of nice things on that ship. I remember being painted a picture of clean and expansive libraries with golden accents.

...Actually, that's just how the exiled sons live. The Sons that live with Magnus basically live in a Tzeentchian wonderland full of Tzaangor and random mutations, where reality always seems to be an illusion, and you're subject to be snatched up by the Thousand Sons at any time to be used as a daemonic sacrifice (though I got the impression that it was something that they do in times of war)