With the impending release of the Hedonites of Slaanesh, a new type of beastman is about to be unleashed on the Mortal Realms – the claw-limbed Slaangor. Today, we’re taking a look through the history of the Beasts of Chaos, and how they grew from simple goat-headed warriors to the wide variety of creatures we know, love, and fear today.
Origins
Beastmen have been a part of the Warhammer worlds since their inception. In the world-that-was, they were originally men twisted by the power of Chaos, cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) with the aspect of animals – most commonly goats.* Intrinsically linked with the mortal servants of the Dark Gods, beastmen gathered wherever the forces of Chaos marched on the lands of men.
In these early days, many of the features of modern Beasts of Chaos were established. Notably, an article in White Dwarf 124 published in April 1990, introduced the concept of brayherds, alongside the importance of both shamans and herdstones. It also mentioned beastmen marked by each Chaos god – including the Slaangor who now have models, some 31 years later.
When Warhammer 40,000 was born, many of the fantasy archetypes found their way into the grim darkness of the far future, beastmen among them. Rather than being explicitly Chaos-tainted, beastmen were seen as abhumans. More or less tolerated by the Imperium, they were even inducted into the ranks of the Imperial Guard.
Children of Chaos
As the Warhammer worlds continued to evolve, so too did the beastmen. Successive army books delved more into the Beasts of Chaos, expanding on the ideas from that long-ago White Dwarf article and bringing new units and troop types to the service of the Beastlords. What had long been called simply “beastmen” became known as gors, and they were joined by ungors – smaller warriors marked by stubby horns – and Bestigors, even larger, more feral, and more frightening than their brethren.
When the world-that-was met its end, the Beasts of Chaos lived on in the Age of Sigmar, serving their gods and the Everchosen in the eternal battle against Order.
Over in the 41st Millennium, beastmen laid low for quite some time. They made the odd fleeting appearance in fiction and formed part of the fan-favourite The Lost and the Damned army list in the early 2000s, but it wasn’t until recently that they returned to action in a significant way in the Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress boxed game. Of the many dangers that explorers in the alien labyrinth could encounter, Chaos Beastmen were among the most dangerous and saw the end of many an expedition.
Fans of The Horus Heresy might have noticed beastmen appearing in the series as well, notably in the Siege of Terra novel The Lost and the Damned, where they’re among the first wave of traitors to attack the defences of the Imperial Palace.
Another beastman reared his horns in the underhive of Necromunda. Gor Half-horn is a bounty hunter, feared by all who have crossed his path – well, the few who survived. He even got his own Black Library audio drama.
Chosen of the gods
Now, what about those god-marked beastmen? First mentioned in that seminal White Dwarf article, they took a long time to make it to the tabletop, the first arriving in the early 2000s in the form of rage-fuelled Khorngors and decay-spreading Pestigors.
Quite sometime later, the Changer of the Ways got in on the beastman action, also in a Warhammer Quest game. Tzaangors awaited adventurers in the Silver Tower, and it wasn’t long before they made their way to battlefields across both the Mortal Realms and the 41st Millennium as well.
That just left Slaangors. The recent Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm boxed game brought our first glimpse of these servants of excess, in the form of the frankly terrifying Slakeslash. That claw is the stuff of nightmares.
Slakeslash was just the harbinger of beasts to come. Soon, you’ll see Slaangor Fiendbloods in Hedonites of Slaanesh armies everywhere, bringing their speed, fury, and those horrific claws to bear on enemies of Chaos.
You can pre-order them soon, along with a new battletome and loads more mortal servants of Slaanesh. In the meantime, grab yourself a Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm Core Set and start your collection with Slakeslash and his Dread Pageant pals.
* Why goats, particularly? In all honesty, it’s probably best not to ask.