Chaos Word Bearers DLC Preview

Today we’re giving you a sneak preview of our upcoming DLC for the Word Bearers with Relic artist Matt Kuzminski. The DLC will soon be on sale through Steam.

The Chaos Word Bearers are one of the most exciting packs we’ve gotten to do. The Word Bearers venerate the dark pantheon of the Chaos Gods and have taken it upon themselves to bring the word of those gods to the wayward Imperium of Mankind. The Word Bearers take on the elements of whatever god to which they are more aligned, and fit perfectly with Dawn of War II’s Chaos Undivided theme.

For the Chaos Lord we wanted to give an evil warrior priest look, but also befitting someone inspired by Khorne. I’ve always loved the look of the warrior clad in an animal skin trophy, and took this opportunity to thow some Dark Eldar flavour into him, by way of a Clawed Fiend trophy. The tabard of skulls was inspired by a Khorne Daemon Prince model from Forge World. His unmasked and terrifying face, with his glowing red eyes, and his cape arrayed with heretical pages reinforce his status.

The new Dreadnought is directly inspired by the Forge World version. The flame effects and daemonic headpiece really distinguish him from our existing Chaos Dreadnought, and should provide ample menace to your opponents.

The Heretics underwent substantial changes. Referencing Forge World renegade militia enforcers; they’ve ditched their robes and decorative backpacks for some hard-core skull masks, fatigues, and some very painful looking body modification.

My colleague, the ever-prolific Claire Roberts stepped up to the plate on the Chaos Sorcerer, delivering a classic iconic look to the Sorcerer with the spiked helm and dragon vent array. All of this while simultaneously creating the entire set of FX for the Tau Commander. All of which look amazing.

Mike Moore is our Art Director and HUGE Chaos fan. I cannot emphasize that ‘huge’ quite enough, in fact back on Chaos Rising, if I ever needed to put myself in the headspace for making Chaos art, I’d ask myself “what would Mike do?” and the rest was easy. Mike kicked out some awesomeness for us, providing us with The Chaos Marines with their menacing new look, The Chaos Havocs, the Predator Tank, almost all the pages draped on Word Bearers, and each of the God-specific Shrines featured in the pack.
 

Finally a huge thanks goes out to our concept artist Roberto Robert for the designs of the shrines. He went through a number of iterations (Chaos is no cake walk) on those, and just kept kicking out awesome takes. You also have Roberto to thank for the brand new portraits of the heroes you will find on all the chapter packs.

 It’s been a wild few months for the DoW2 art team, and we hope you enjoy our efforts. On behalf of everyone who worked on this DLC, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the community for their awesome support.

Thanks!