Artist Thomas Mack created a painting of a Noise Marine between commissions, drawing heavily on the unsettling aesthetic of body horror. Inspired by cult films such as Hellraiser, From Beyond, and The Cell, Mack infused the piece with a nightmarish, visceral quality, pushing the boundaries of the Noise Marine’s twisted form and grotesque excess.
The Noise Marines are a terrifying and twisted faction within the ranks of the Emperor’s Children Chaos Space Marine Legion, dedicated to the worship of Slaanesh, the Chaos God of excess, sensation, and pleasure. These corrupted warriors have embraced Slaanesh’s philosophy to the extreme, turning their quest for perfection into a nightmarish obsession with sensation, particularly sound. Their armor is often gaudy and adorned with exaggerated designs, reflecting their devotion to Slaanesh’s ideals of beauty and excess, but it is their weapons and tactics that truly set them apart.
Noise Marines are infamous for their use of sonic weaponry—especially the Sonic Blasters, Blastmasters, and Doom Sirens. These weapons harness the power of sound, turning it into a lethal force on the battlefield. Rather than conventional projectiles, these weapons unleash waves of deafening noise and vibrations that can obliterate matter, burst organs, and warp the minds of those who hear them. The Noise Marines use sound not only to kill but to inflict agony, reveling in the torment of their foes as much as the act of destruction itself.
A typical Noise Marine is an embodiment of both martial skill and hedonistic excess. Their senses have been heightened and warped by the blessings of Slaanesh, allowing them to experience the battlefield in ways no mortal could comprehend. Every explosion, every scream, every clash of blades is a form of stimulation to them, feeding their insatiable desire for new sensations. Their once noble search for perfection in war has transformed into a perverse lust for chaos, noise, and violence.
On the battlefield, the Noise Marines are a nightmarish spectacle. Their weapons scream as they fire, unleashing sonic waves that tear through enemy lines, leaving behind only bloodied wreckage and broken minds. The Doom Sirens, mounted on their armor, emit high-pitched wails that can rupture the eardrums and brains of anyone within range. Every shot from their Sonic Blasters is like a power chord of pure destruction, shredding flesh and armor alike in a torrent of deafening sound. To the Noise Marines, war is a twisted symphony, and they are its deranged conductors, orchestrating death and agony to a perfect, discordant rhythm.
Their obsession with sensation makes them utterly fearless and unpredictable. They are driven not just by a desire to win, but by a lust for the extremes of experience, reveling in the screams of their enemies and the cacophony of battle. To face the Noise Marines is to be enveloped in a maelstrom of sound so overwhelming that it can fracture minds, crush bodies, and leave entire battlefields drenched in blood and madness.