Enemies

There are a large variety of enemies in the game, all of which whom worship the Forces of Chaos. They can be broadly divided into four classes, which are not acknowledged or noted in the game. These are simply for ease of categorization. All enemies have a toughness value, which like weapons, broadly correlate with their stats. It more or less denotes how much health an enemy has, as well as which weapon is best suited to dealing with it. However, sometimes it's not a very useful metric.

### Light

Light enemies are the most common, as well as the first encountered. They typically have a toughness value of 2, 3 or 4, and are consequently easily dispatched by the Boltgun. In rough approximate order of encounter:

#### Autogun Cultist

The first enemy the player will encounter, and wields an Autogun as the name implies, essentially an assault rifle. They will die to a single bolter round, even on Exterminatus difficulty.

#### Heavy Stubber Cultist

They carry heavy stubbers, which are heavy machine guns modeled on the M2 Browning machine gun. They die to two bolt rounds on Hard, and will be left with a fraction of health on Exterminatus.

#### Cultist Champion

Cultist Champions wield shotguns and have glowing eyes, and are a bit easier to identify at a distance. They also take two bolt rounds to kill on Hard, as well as having a fraction of health on Exterminatus.

#### Plasma Renegade

Cultists who wield plasma guns. Unlike the player, it seems theirs can explode, although it's not clear what triggers this. Perhaps shooting their guns while charging. They take two rounds to kill on Hard, but a third to put down on Exterminatus. They will very aggressively lead their aim on the player, necessitating constant changing of direction to throw off.

#### Nurgling

A minor daemon of Nurgle, these little pusbags will hop around attempting to scratch the player or lobbing a single, arcing green projectile. Like Plasma Renegades, this projectile is very aggressively led, and moving predictably will all but ensure they hit on higher difficulties. They die to single bolt rounds, although arguably the shotgun is more effective at dispatching them given they tend to cluster. They are also spawned endlessly by Great Unclean Ones, allowing players to achieve kill rates greater than 100% on levels. They will on occasion drop a single small contempt pickup.

#### Blue Horror

Analogous to the Pinky demon from Doom 1993, these are melee enemies. They either spawn by themselves or upon the death of Pink Horror, they die to a single bolt round. However, they can overwhelm players given their high speed and claw attacks. Two will spawn from the death of a Pink Horror, but if the clouds that pop out the Pink Horror fall into a pit, it will not spawn. Alternatively, gibbing the Pink Horror will seem to prevent the creation of two Blue Horrors. They die to a single bolt round on Hard, but will have a sliver of health left on Exterminatus. However, they will still die to the player's charge ability.

### Medium

#### Chaos Space Marine

A traitor to the Imperium of Man, Chaos Space Marines are the first major enemy players will face. They return fire with their own bolters, and lob grenades. Luckily, these bolts are much slower than the player's and the grenades have a very small blast radius. The can be effectively dealt with using basically any weapon, although the shotgun and vengeance launcher seem particularly effective. On Hard, at close range, a shotgun can put them down in two to three shots, and the vengeance launcher will reliably stun them and do significant damage upon each detonation.

They will spawn small health pickups, and fairly often a frag grenade as well, making it very economical to kill them with grenades. On Hard, they will be left with a sliver of health if the grenade explodes near them, which allows them to be picked off with a few bolter rounds.

#### Lesser Plague Toad

A daemon of Nurgle, they have a toughness stat of 3 but are remarkably more durable than a Chaos Space Marine. They will spit three green arcing projectiles at the player with a very wide spread, which often miss. However, the projectiles remain on impact and passing over them will deal damage. This seems to be intentional, so they can effectively leave a minefield which limits the player's ability to traverse a given area. If a player gets too close, they will open their maws to lash out their tongue which is very difficult to dodge and deals significant damage. However, the tongue can easily be blocked by cover, allowing players to hit the edge of their sprites, but preventing retaliation.

The shotgun is an effective weapon against them at close range, requiring two shots to kill on Hard, but this carries risk given their tongue attack.They will on occasion drop small contempt pickups upon death.

#### Pink Horror

A large pink daemon of Tzeentch. These will spit a large pink projectile at players. These projectiles seem to have some tracking ability, so it's not enough just to step out of the way as they can still home into the player. A single plasma gun shot will kill them on Hard, and swapping to the bolter will quickly dispatch the two blue horrors that spawn from its corpse.

As above, if it explodes into gibs upon death, this seemingly negates the two blue orbs that spawn Blue Horrors, however, if these orbs fall into bottomless pits, they obviously will not spawn anything.

#### Flamer

Flamers are floating creatures that launch a cluster of six fireballs at the player. They are surprisingly durable, despite their toughness stat of 3. While the fireballs they launch are slow, given their commonness, they can create a large intersecting area of fire which can be difficult to avoid. They seem vulnerable to being stunned by the heavy bolter however. Flamers drop a cluster of contempt pickups upon death.

#### Screamer of Tzeentch

A blue flying daemon, these will approach the player and bite them. While a minor nuisance by most metrics, they have a surprising amount of health and can overwhelm with numbers. The bolter, shotgun and heavy bolter are effective means of countering them, but a useful trick is engaging them at extreme range. They seem to float and will not actively approach the player beyond a certain distance, similar to Doom 1993 having limitations to enemy behavior.

### Heavy

#### Chaos Terminator

The first heavily armored threat the player will face. A krak grenade will be particularly effective against them, although frag grenades will also do significant damage. They carry assault cannons which act like the Heavy Stubber Cultist's gun, but with larger bursts and seemingly faster projectiles. They will also occasionally teleport if they remain out of sight of the player, presumably to gain a better vantage point.

They can be effectively engaged by the plasma gun or heavy bolter, using cover to block their weapon while allowing yours to work. They will drop a large Bolter ammo pickup upon death, as with small health pickups.

#### Exalted Flamer

An upgraded version of the Flamer, which has even more health and deals more damage. Exalted flamers will attack with blue fireballs, but have similar vulnerabilities to being stunned by the heavy bolter. They drop even more contempt pickups upon death.

#### Aspiring Champion/Chosen Champion

An unhelmed Chaos Space Marine that carries a plasma gun and twin chainaxes. They have a very high movement speed, more or less similar to the player while sprinting and so can close the distance very quickly and carve them to ribbons. At range, or if their pathfinding cannot get them close to the player they will fire their plasma gun, which behaves similarly in projectile speed and damage to the Plasma Renegade, however theirs will not explode if shot.

They can be stunned easily with the shotgun or vengeance launcher, which staggers them enough to widen the distance from them. Also the plasma gun will deal significant damage. Once killed, they will resurrect but only if they have dealt damage to the player. However, even if hurt, there is a short window to explode them into gibs, which is where the plasma gun or vengeance launcher are very useful, which prevents their resurrection. They are surprisingly fragile, taking large chunks of damage from both weapons.

On death, they typically drop small health pickups, as well as a small plasma ammo pickup.

#### Plague Toad

A larger variant of the Lesser Plague Toad. This thing can be considered a mini-boss. They also spew those green projectiles, but in a great quantity. Also they will lash out with their tongues. They have a large amount of health and can dominate a player's attention.

Personally, I recommend dealing with all lesser threats first during a Purge section, and utilizing heavier weapons like a plasma gun, grenades, vengeance launcher or volkite caliver to deal with them while popping in and out of cover. If you're feeling brave, you can face them down with a heavy bolter and sustained fire. They drop a large cluster of small contempt pickups.

### Super-heavy

#### Ambull

Ambulls are large alien creatures that will charge the player, dealing significant damage and knockback. They also take a lot of ammunition to put down. Arguably most effective is the heavy bolter, which will stagger them like the Chaos Marine Champions, and lessen the threat of being charged. They drop a lot of small health pickups on death.

#### Ancient Ambull

Larger and even more durable than a regular ambull, they are brown/reddish in color rather than blue. They also will attack with projectiles and cannot easily (or even possibly flat out) be staggered.

#### Lord of Change

Initially appearing as a boss in Chapter 1, Lords of Change are greater daemons of Tzeentch. They will spawn Tzeentchian daemons like flamers and blue horrors, and are the only enemy that seems to have a hitscan attack, in contrast to every other enemy that uses projectiles. It manifests as a pink aura on the bottom of the screen and will quickly start dealing damage to the player. It is heavily advisable to limit line of sight to them and utilize the tactic of quickly poking in and out of cover. They also have projectile attacks that are relatively easy to avoid. They will also teleport upon taking enough damage, making sustained damage difficult.

Arguably the best use case for a Vortex grenade. They appear as mini-bosses in subsequent levels, although thankfully rarely.

#### Great Unclean One

Initially appearing as a boss in Chapter 2, these are greater daemons of Nurgle. They will seemingly endlessly spawn nurglings. While nurglings are individually weak, they can quickly overwhelm players, and take up all of their ammo reserves. The Great Unclean One also has three attacks. One is an area of effect where they ring their bell that damages players too close. The other two? manifest as a shockwave which can be avoided by jumping, and a projectile from their sword which can hit players in the air.

Also very much a viable target of a vortex grenade. They also appear as mini-bosses in subsequent levels.

#### Sorcerer

Appearing in all three Chapters as a boss, culminating in the end of Chapter 3, the Sorcerer is the primary antagonist of the game. Attacking with projectiles and spawning enemies, the Sorcerer is arguably the most difficult enemy in the game. The final boss fight comprises three stages where the player must reduce the Sorcerer's health to zero. A Lord of Change and Great Unclean One make an appearance.

The Sorcerer has several projectile attacks, but has an ability to create a blue shield around himself. That shield is visually linked to an enemy, although it seems you can kill an enemy before he binds himself to it. If bound, the player must kill the enemy first before being able to harm the Sorcerer. Like the Lord of Change, the Sorcerer will teleport when damaged, but also seemingly to actively search for the player.