Blood Raven Fanboys Gather! SPOILERS

[Gabriel Angelos]

Toughts from a hardcore Blood Ravens Fanboys, what did you liked and disliked of the story and development of the chapter.

The Pros ;P :
I really Avitus Bantering and Gabriel Angelos getting his old vice back. Some of the new wargear is really awesome. One of my personal favorites is the sternguard vet armour for Tarkus.
We got to explore more of the higher ranks of the chapter. Also the revelation of the Master Chapter being a poisoned freak would explain alot on the matter of putting the raving idiot boreale at the head of a full scale crusade.

The return of Eliphas! Enuff said ^.^
The return of the machine pitt, It was my favorite building back in dow1 and now it has evolved in the main building for dow2! this is awesome.

The Cons:
Martellus having survied just to become a renegade really pissed me off. I remember having created a gordion and martellus thread and a guy saying that a renegade martellus would be pretty cool.
Marthellus was a nice char to have on mission briefiengs, besides I found it kind of odd that he was willing to sacrifice he's life for the chapter. But when renegade just because everyone tought him dead....

I really wanted to see Aramus(the force commander) talking and making comments etc.. Even when he moved it would be nice to have him say a few things.

There are a few more things that I have to say, but now I want to hear what you fellow fanboys think.

[Dux]

Moving to SP Discussion.

[Viper114]

Kinda of lame how they decided to go with "IT WAS MARTELLUS ALL ALONG!" for the traitor. He certainly gave no indication of heresy with the Tyranid war, why start now?

[Imperial Honour]

While you may have had Martellus as your traitor there are actually six possible options (inc. Martellus) as to who the traitor will be, each with their own reason. The way you played this campaign game lead you down the path to having Martellus selected as your traitor. If you replay the campaign you could end up with an entirely different campaign ending and traitor, but that depends on how you play the campaign.

[Gabriel Angelos]

which are the possible traitors?

Also which one would end up being the CANON traitor? Martelus definitely didnt made any sense. It was like they pulled it out in the last minute, like in a bad telenovela.


Also wtf with the ending cliffhanger? Eliphas pretty much cant be killed now, I mean he respawns at the black legion quarters. Everyone kept betraying, Eliphas betrayed the chaos lord, the nurgle fatty kind abetrayed eliphas, and now martellus and the chapter master....

I hope that the demon hunters or the witch hunters come to DESTROY the demon and purify the place.

[The Custodian]

Hey all, really never used this account much but...

For my campaign I got Thadeus as the traitor. I was trying to go full out corrupt, in the end was rewarded with a short cut scene with Gabriel running around saying that while they need to go after the chapter master the 'commander' must be taken out first... :noway: . You even get a short scene with the commander with a large chaos star on his chest.

Anyway I think the traitor for you will be the guy with the most corruption. IN my case where I made all my squads corrupt thadeus was the first to hit max (well he hit it at the same time as the commander, but you cant really betray yourself). Thad apparently said that he was contacted by the deamon and in exchange for helping eliphas in the future he would allow the warp to speed the ship on thier way to typhon to fight the nids. NOt sure if Martellus had the same reasons...

[Imperial Honour]

Possible Traitors, with backstory stuff.

You have confronted and executed Martellus for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Eliphas rescued him from his crashed Thunderhawk and initiated him into the worship of the Dark Gods. What's more, Chapter Master Kyras also pushed him in this direction, confirming his status as a heretic himself.

You have confronted and executed Avitus for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Chapter Master Kyras helped turn your fallen brother's rage into outright heresy, guiding him to Eliphas and the Dark Gods. There can no longer be any doubt that Kyras is a heretic himself.

You have confronted and executed Cyrus for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Chapter Master Kyras helped turn your fallen brother's pride and frustration into hubris and heresy, guiding him to Eliphas and the Dark Gods. There can no longer be any doubt that Kyras is a heretic himself.

You have confronted Jonah for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Chapter Master Kyras paved the way for the Librarian to be possessed by a foul daemon. In the end, Jonah's soul fought back against the possession and you gave him the Emperor's Peace. There can no longer be any doubt that Kyras is a heretic himself.

You have confronted and executed Tarkus for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Chapter Master Kyras helped nudge your fallen brother toward embracing heretical tools. From there it was only a short step into the temptations of the daemon weapon known as the Blighted Bolter, and then into madness. There can no longer be any doubt that Kyras is a heretic himself.

You have confronted and executed Thaddeus for his heresy and betrayal. It seems Thaddeus made a bargain with Ulkair and Eliphas in a moment of desperation during the Tyranid invasion. Chapter Master Kyras then helped reinforce this pact, turning a moment of weakness into outright damnation. There can no longer be any doubt that Kyras is a heretic himself.

[Darkwrath669]

I wasn't aware of all these possible endings.

Mine was the Jonah ending, which was pretty believable to go with the story, new guy shows up just after you been getting dodgey messages, and you don't have as much emotional attachment to him compared to the original guys so he won't go missed after you killed him.

I knew thew were going to be alternate endings if you were pure or heretic.

Although I had 4 squads with 30 corruption points, and that was me being nasty as possible, taking all opportunities to do chaotic options in the missions, spamming the chaos abilities that corrupted myself etc.

Only gave me 50% corruption on the final meter. My ending was Gabriel bitching me on the head with a thunder hammer. I wanted to see a darker ending, looks like I will have to play eviler next time. Doing the pure run through at the moment.

[Vendrin]

While I seriously enjoyed the campaign, I thought the big reveal would be that the blood ravens are a loyalist splinter chapter of a traitor legion.

I figure that's the only thing that really explains how they could not know their own Primarch, and would have made Araghast's statements of "Rejoice Brothers! Your slavery to the false emperor end's today!" so much more intriguing.

[Eblake]

Finishing my first play through the campaign, I went all pure, zero corruption, got Martellus (which doesn't make a lick of sense as he was the one that pointed out and lead you to most of the clues about Kyras been corrupted).

Anway, anyone knows for sure what triggers the traitor? First to reach full corruption, most corrupted when reaching the traitor mission, etc? Planning on a Corrupt playthrough soon.

[Imperial Honour]

Have not yet investigated the mechanics behind how the campaign decides who will betray you but so far I assume it is whoever has the most corruption, and whoever had the most corruption first if two\more squads have the same corruption levels.

[Atritas]

But what happens if multiple squads hit full corruption during one mission? I'm guessing there's a priority list there somewhere if that occurs.

[Imperial Honour]

Found the factors behind how Chaos Rising chooses the traitor in the campaign:


-- the number of corruption points for the winner(s) must be about a tunable value (default 3)
-- if no squad fits this, then the NPC techmarine is the traitor

-- if we more than one valid winner
-- the squad with the lowest total experience is the traitor
-- the squad with the lowest number of will points is the traitor
-- the squad with the lowest number of stamina points is the traitor
-- Choose alphabetically by squad blueprint

-- Gather all the squads available

[Eblake]

Excellent, do you know when the game performs that check? Is it when you travel to Aurelia?

Mmm, I think I will make a savegame before it, keeping a couple of redemption items at hand to tinker with the traitor thing.

[Imperial Honour]

Forgot to mention that minimum corruption required to not have Martellus as the traitor seems to be four corruption points. Could be wrong, but so far it looks like the traitor is determined after mission 13, or before\during mission 14.

[BrianGeneral]

But then it looks like that Corruption Point on Mission 3 (Forge) comes automatically, or not?

[Darkwrath669]

Finishing my first play through the campaign, I went all pure, zero corruption, got Martellus (which doesn't make a lick of sense as he was the one that pointed out and lead you to most of the clues about Kyras been corrupted).

Excellent point... why would Martellus decode all the messages to tell you that he's the traitor... Pure anti-logic went behind that part of the plot.

[Imperial Honour]

But then it looks like that Corruption Point on Mission 3 (Forge) comes automatically, or not?
Picking up one corruption point after finishing Mission 3 (Angel Gate) is unavoidable as the scar code checks corruption levels after completion of the mission and adds one corruption point.

[Viper114]

Actually, they may end up choosing Martellus as canon, because if they decide to throw in another campaign in XPack2 (where you can get up to Lvl 40, etc...), they will probably want you to have everyone alive for the campaign.

Unless they plan to go the Mass Effect idea, where the new campaign will adapt based on your progression so far. "Lost Avitus in your campaign? Here's a new Devastator squad for your troubles!"

That would be kind of cool, actually...

[Darkwrath669]

...Or a new force commander because Gabriel killed your one if he was bad! :P

Sort of mucked up and complicated the canon with all these possible outcomes. Would need all the possibilities to have their own continuation if the next expansion went from your progress so far.

[iro43]

They could just replace whoever was killed off with a generic space marine character that always wears a helmet.

[GrimDark]

I bow my head to Relic. I was sure they will go easy rout with the heretic, but this... This expansion is all that I expected and more.

[Jonny]

Excellent point... why would Martellus decode all the messages to tell you that he's the traitor... Pure anti-logic went behind that part of the plot.

He'd not really got much choice, I suppose. "Suspiciously returning Techmarine, decrypt these traitorous transmissions" doesn't leave him much wiggle room. You could always say that he dragged the whole process out longer than necessary until he couldn't hide it anymore, then he hit "play" and legged it for the drop pods as fast as possible.

[Eblake]

Wasn't he the one that discovered where the Space Hulk was (don't remember the name), & tell the Ravens about it? The one that was full of clues about the Chapter Master & his past, and the equipment to decode the audio?

[Zallis]

Considering he was the only techmarine, he could just have easily have said, "Oh, nope. Nothing! Too much damage to the logic engines, time in he warp, and rats in the wires! Can't tell you who the traitor is!" or presumably tampered with the coding to make it look like just a regular old previously deceased battle brother.

[Gorb]

Followers of Chaos aren't always willing converts, nor are they always 100% dedicated to their new beliefs. The pure part of them can still affect their actions and fight against the corrupting touch of Chaos.

[TDATL]

All of Martellus's "clues" can easily be explained to be orders from Eliphas, attempts to kill them off, and/or wasting time. He didn't show up until they had already learned there was a traitor. He was likely hindering their attempts to break the encryption.

His reveal to them as he escapes is a very "villian" type thing to do. He got them to fly to Aurelia so he could get off and then rubbed his treachery in their noses.

Plus, I liked his evil laugh at the end.

[Leetsepeak]

Just to point this out on the subject of Martellus making no sense: Note how in one of the earlier parts he says "I will not be party to the murder of fellow Blood Ravens."

Martellus' last words give you an idea of his corruption, but I have the strong feeling its somewhat like Apothecary Galan's, with his servitude being somewhat against his will. Martellus' actions were due in part to his guilt/his rebellion against the corruption that spread within.

An admittedly weak explanation, but more sensible than just all of a sudden having him betray you.

[Gabriel Angelos]

Imo the someone of your guys turning traitor seemed really Ilogic and stupid. I mean why couldnt we have something more revealing like the BR actually finding that they are a loyalist splinter... but of what legion or of who? And being putted on quarantine by the chapter master.

Also the cliffhanger was pretty meh.. I mean at this rate the blood ravens are going to be driven to exctinction.

Relic should make a new ending where none of your guys is the traitor but a fated blood raven that has been surviving in the space hulk.
That would had been more mysterious.

srsly they fked up with multiple endings, and if there where going to be then they could had been way better like.

You and your company leaving the chapter or the entire chapter leaving in order to go and meet with their douche primarch in the warp (TS)

Or stablishing a new order in the chappie or something like that.

I am really unsatisfied, I dont want martellus nor any of my guys to leave, specially with such stupid excuses that don't make any fkin sense.

[TDATL]

I actually thought the BR civil war was a pretty cool idea. We still don't know what is special to the BR about the Black Legion has and a bunch of other stuff.

The missions and story was overall far superior to the DoW2 campaign. The missions felt more like missions and much more fun. I can only think of three things I would change

1. Let people skip the dialogue in missions. It hurts replay value when you have to wade through an explaination you don't need.

2. Let wargear help squadmates. Even if for "balance" you need to weaken the sargents I think it would still be more fitting for the squad be more solid instead of <insert sargent> and some redshirts.

3. Optional random mission mode. Like at the end of the first campaign right before The Last Stand mission. The scripted missions were much better from a story standpoint and if I had to choose one or the other I like CR missions more. As an option thing though it would add alot more play value to me.

Edit: I mean like after you complete the last scripted mission it makes a new "save" that lets you use that force and just do random missions cleaning up the riff raff.