Putrid Choir warband colours as displayed by Ragthor Sphek, seventh chorister of the Dirge of Damnation.
The Putrid Choir are a warband or vectorium of Heretic Astartes of the Death Guard Traitor Legion's 3rd Plague Company. Noxious Blightbringers are especially prevalent in the vectoriums of the 3rd Plague Company. Such warbands as the Putrid Choir or the Dolorous Gnaw rarely take to the battlefield without two or three Blightbringers to herald them into battle.
The Putrid Choir's march to battle is signalled by the baleful toll of the vectorium's tocsins of misery, wielded by its Blightbringers. Accompanying this maddening percussion come discordant battle dirges sung in praise of Grandfather Nurgle.
Digging in amidst enemy territory, the Putrid Choir drive their foes mad with their droning cacophony, the enemy giving up defended positions and charging their guns rather than face the entropic aural torment.
Warband History
Notable Campaigns
- Battle of Anvarheim (Unknown Date.M41) - Imperial Navy ships of Battlefleet Obscurus pursue an outnumbered Plague Fleet through the Kuidus Belt. After a savage battle, the last surviving Plague Ship manages to perform a full combat drop onto the world of Anvarheim before breaking up in the planet's atmosphere. Emerging from their dropcraft, the Putrid Choir tear their way into Anvarheim's polar fortress city -- Jotungaard -- and seize the complex for themselves. Expecting swift victory, wave after wave of Imperial forces descend upon the complex. Each is broken in turn upon the tenacious Death Guard defences. A prolonged siege develops amidst bitter snowstorms tainted by Nurglesque plague spores, and as the fighting stretches into solar weeks, then months, the Putrid Choir's entropic dirge echoes endlessly across Jotungaard from the fortress' vox emitters. At last, three standard years after the Putrid Choir first descended upon Anvarheim, the remaining Imperial forces -- starved, diseased and deranged -- flee for the stars, leaving the Death Guard warriors sorely depleted but victorious within their contaminated fastness.
- The Pristine Rotting (Unknown Date.M42) - After enduring solar months of filth and indignity in battle against the Putrid Choir, the Astra Militarum's 14th Volpone Bluebloods can take no more, and beg Nurgle to spare them from the corruption. The Plague God answers, rendering them forever gleaming and pristine, except for every seventh soldier amongst them. These unfortunates endure all the disease and pestilence their comrades should have, bloating into dirt-smeared, infectious spawn whose forlorn wails and wretched stench drives the rest of the regiment mad with guilt and horror. The Bluebloods turn their guns on their former comrades before throwing in their lot with their Death Guard tormentors.
Warband Appearance
Warband Colours
The Putrid Choir's power armour is the same as that of the Death Guard, composed of decayed and cracked plates of ceramite in sickly green with light rust trim. Putrid Choir Chaos Space Marines, like those of the Death Guard, often wear grotesquely warped suits of antique Mark III Iron Power Armour.
Warband Badge
The Putrid Choir's warband badge is usually a modified version of the standard Mark of Nurgle, similar to that used by the rest of the Death Guard.
Sources
- Codex Heretic Astartes - Death Guard (8th Edition), pp. 15, 21-22, 32
- Dark Imperium (Game), Death Guard Booklet, "Death Guard Vectoriums," pg. 12
Gallery
