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Asuryani Wargear - Firestorm: Main article: Firestorm |
Asuryani Wargear - Night Spinner: Main article: Night Spinner |
Asuryani Wargear - Wraithbone constructs: The Eldar are known to create warriors which are composed entirely of Wraithbone and powered by the spirits of long dead warriors. They range from the man-size Wraithguard to the gigantic Warlock Titans. |
Asuryani Wargear - Wraithlord: Main article: Wraithlord |
Asuryani Wargear - Wraithguard: Main article: Wraithguard |
Asuryani Wargear - Others: In Epic Armaggeddon the Eldar utilize Wraithbone in a number of their Titans. Most notable of these is the Warlock Titan. The Warlock is not manned by a conventional crew, but a collection of powerful psykers, mostly Warlocks and Seers. |
Asuryani Wargear - Knights: Larger than walkers but smaller than Titans. The Knights are found on agri-worlds. Initially supported in the early 1990s in Epic Space Marine, these models are no longer replaced.Fire GaleBright StallionTowering Destroyer |
Asuryani Wargear - Engines of Vaul: Main articles: Cobra (Eldar tank) and Scorpion (Eldar tank)These are the super-heavy grav tanks.Storm Serpent - Armed with a turret mounted pulse laser and scatter laser, and several small weapon systems, the prime purpose of the storm serpent is to transport an eldar portal into position to transmit Eldar warriors from the webway to the battlefield. Since no troops are actually transported the storm serpent's destruction does not kill any Eldar troops other than its guardian crew. It only appears in the Epic Armageddon game.Void Spinner - Armed only with a void spinner monofiliment array, it is only used by the Biel-tan Craftworld Eldar. The reason is that the monofiliment barrages the void spinner produces not only slice enemies to pieces like other monofiliment weapons but they contain a techno virus that sterilizes the ground it lands on ready to be re-seeded by the Eldar. This is particularly necessary when facing the Orks as their spore-based form of reproduction means that sterilization is the only response to future re-infestation. It only appears in the Epic Armageddon game. |
Asuryani Wargear - Eldar Titans: Main article: Eldar Titans |
Asuryani Wargear - Spacecraft: Space battles are covered by Battlefleet Gothic (BFG) and the earlier Space Fleet (SF).Eldar Wraithship (SF)Eldar Shadowhunter (SF)Void Stalker Class Battleship (BG)Shadow Class Cruiser (BG)Eclipse Class Cruiser (BG)Aurora Class Light Cruiser (BG)Solaris Class Light Cruiser (BG)Hemlock Class Destoyer (BG)Nightshade Class Destroyer (BG)Hellbore Class Frigate(BG)Dragonship cruiser (BG)Blackstone Fortress (BG) - The Blackstone Fortresses are somewhere between space stations and starships in size. They are ancient weapons used to combat the C'tan, said to have been created by the Eldar God Vaul but more probably by the Old Ones. |
Asuryata - Asuryata: The Asuryata is an Aeldari text that tells an epic legend about the Phoenix Lords. It is only recited in full once in each generation by the mystical order of Aeldari poets known as the Bards of Twilight.The tale is composed of many well-known parables intended to pass on important teachings about life and Aeldari culture. The Asuryani of the craftworlds use the text to derive guiding principles for both their day-to-day lives, the war councils and their military campaigns. |
Atalan Jackal - Atalan Jackal: An Atalan Jackal is a fourth generation Genestealer Neophyte Hybrid who has been tasked with riding their Genestealer Cult's primary light vehicles, including Atalan dirtcycles and Atalan Wolfquads.Atalan Jackals form the outriders of their gene-sect. They roam the corners of the host planet in search of new regions for their cult to infest.In many ways they are prospectors -- not of rich veins of minerals, precious metals or fossil fuel deposits, but of the bounty of Human life. To a Genestealer Cult, that resource is the most precious of all. |
Atalan Jackal - Role: The Atalan Jackals roar across wastelands and dart through subterranean tunnels, gunning their engines to full throttle as they accelerate, swerve and skid into the fray. They have an uncanny ability to pick out the best positions from which to launch a killing strike, using their dirtcycles and Wolfquads to leap over obstacles and onto low roofs and gantries.They hunt as a pack, each psychically-linked to the others through the cult Broodmind to such an extent that they can speed down a disused tunnel five abreast and never so much as clip one another's vehicle. In battle this mental link makes them all the more formidable, for they fight as one.As with many of the Genestealer Cults' activities, this hunt for new territory and resources is carried out under a shield of legitimacy. Almost all mining corps in the Imperium's rapacious industrial machine search out new seams and quarries using teams of scouts. After all, geologicum servitors and terramantic augurs can only be trusted so far, and there is no substitute for the eyes of a well-trained reconnaissance operative.To see a pack of bikes with stowage attached racing from a mining hub into the far distance is common enough that few, if any, bother to ascertain their purpose, let alone their destination. Even so, the cultists always adequately cover their tracks to ensure they can operate undisturbed. The Jackals are well used to a nomadic lifestyle, andonly return to their brood lairs when they have something of import to recount.Jackals ride a variety of rugged Atalan exploratory machines, of which the most common are dirtcycles and four-wheeled Wolfquads. These are typically shipped to civilian Imperial mining corps by the Departmento Munitorum for the purposes of locating and claiming resources, before high-level agents of the cults ensure they end up in the hands of their Neophyte Hybrids.Each machine is built to run for solar decades or even Terran centuries. It has much to recommend it: a robust frame and a shock absorbing suspension array; an engine that can run on multiple fuel types; and the capacity to mount stowage, recovery tools and auxiliary equipment without loss of efficacy.Atalan Wolfquads, being larger and having more raw power than the dirtcycle, carry destructive tools of industry. Mining Lasers, Seismic Cannons and Atalan Incinerators enable the Wolfquads' riders to support their more nimble fellows in mining expeditions, as well as in battle. With such tools at its disposal, a mining corp's reach is long enough to find new sites with which to feed the endlessly hungering planetary networks of the Imperium.On almost every Industrial, Forge or Agri-world, Atalan-branded machines can be found -- much like the ubiquitous Lasgun, they are cheap to manufacture, highly durable and easy to repair. They have become well-respected workhorses across the industrialised elements of Mankind's realm, especially in fringe regions and Sectors Fronteris.In battle, the Atalan Jackals are serpent-fast, jinking left and right through enemy gunfire without pause. They ride in close to lash out with crowbars, electro-hatchets and improvised weapons made deadlier by sheer momentum. None are safe from their sudden attacks. Those officers who dismiss them as light cavalry soon learn the error of their ways, for some Jackals carry hidden mining charges that they can prime on the move before lobbing them amongst the enemy to detonate with killing force.Even as blood arcs through the air, the Jackals are already roaring away once more to leave the survivors choking in a cloud of particulate. |
Atalan Jackal - Jackal Alphuses: The Jackal Alphus is the undisputed leader of their Atalan Jackal pack. Not only are they the deadliest and fastest amongst their kin, they possess nerves of steel and a mind so focused that those of the Ordo Xenos who have seen them work have compared them to Imperial Assassins.Much like the rest of their wide-ranging pack, the primary function of the Jackal Alphus is to locate choice new sites for the cult. Every piece of information they gather about the host planet can be of importance to their cult Magus, Primus or Nexos.Wherever the Alphus goes they scout out ambush sites, hidden lairs, cave networks and fissures large enough to accommodate small vehicles, the better for their gene-sect's warriors to spring their ambush when the day of reckoning is at hand. Yet the Jackal Alphus is quite content to work alone -- with enough cunning and caution, a single outrider can often escape the notice of even a dedicated aerial spotter network.Though they mainly travel at night to better avoid attention, the Jackal Alphus will ride under the beating sun of an irradiated world for solar weeks on end without complaint. Their hybrid physiology lends them stamina far in excess of a Human, and their eyesight is second to none -- woe betide the person who falls under the crosshairs of their Sniper Rifle.When forced to lie low for a time, the Alphus will hole up in an abandoned cellar or cave, taking the opportunity to scribe maps and charts with painstaking care as they record every observation for the later assessment of the gene-sect's leaders. It is not unheard of for hundreds of Alphus maps to grace the war room of a Nexos, each of which they and their Primus peer commit to memory for the insurrection to come.When a Jackal Alphus reunites with their pack in order to take down larger prey -- whether it be a steel-skinned tank or a lumbering Ork Deff Dread -- they lead their fellows in the manner of scavenger canids hunting a pachyderm. Keeping out of their enemy's reach, they nip and slash at the machine's weakest points, fighting with cunning rather than brute force until the enemy is gradually brought to full immobility. Though they may have to harass their prey for solar hours, even days, the Jackals are relentless -- but when their target eventually collapses, they fall upon it in a frenzy that sees it ripped to shreds.As inventive as they are swift, the Jackal Alphus can be the difference between success and failure when an infestation's plan of ascension goes awry. In times of battle they will range around the flanks of the enemy army, taking a commanding position atop their dirtcycle with their Sniper Rifle held steady. A moment later they take their shot, blasting the foe's brains from the back of their head -- and in doing so, shattering the enemy battle plan with a single action.Should their target be formidable enough that it cannot be felled with a single well-placed bullet, the Alphus will use their long-ranged Vox unit to recount priority kill orders and firing solutions to the other cultists on the battlefield. A single set of instructions and coordinates from these outrider champions can bring about the death of a Space Marine Captain, an Ork Warboss, or even a lumbering super-heavy vehicle -- for when the cult fights together, there is nothing it cannot achieve. |
Atalan Jackal - Notable Atalan Jackals: Moragh Vignostiquod - Moragh Vignostiquod was a Jackal Alphus who personally assassinated Inquisitor Helvendt with a Sniper Rifle in the course of a successful assault by cult Atalan Jackals upon a force of the Astra Militarum. Though her weapon could not penetrate the Power Armour worn by the Inquisitor, her shot's sheer kinetic power broke his neck. |
Atalan Jackal - Unit Composition: 3-11 Atalan Jackals (dirtcycles)1-3 Atalan Jackal Wolfquads1 Atalan Leader1 Jackal Alphus |
Atalan Jackal - Atalan Jackals: DirtcycleWolfquad (1 for every 4 Atalan Jackals)AutopistolBlasting ChargesCultist KnifeDemolition ChargeGrenade LauncherHeavy Stubber (Only equipped on Wolfquads)Shotgun (Only for Wolfquad riders)Improvised Weapon (Only for Wolfquad riders)Power Pick (Only for Wolfquad riders)Mining Laser (As replacement for Wolfquad Heavy Stubber)Atalan Incinerator (As replacement for Wolfquad Heavy Stubber) |
Atalan Jackal - Atalan Leader: DirtcycleWolfquad (1 for every 4 Atalan Jackals)AutopistolBlasting ChargesAutogunBolt PistolPower Axe |
Atalan Jackal - Jackal Alphus: Jackal Sniper RifleAutopistolBlasting Charge |
Atar-Median - Atar-Median: Atar-Median, also sometimes referred to in certain sources as Atar-Meridian, is an Imperial Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World located in the Segmentum Pacificus of the Milky Way Galaxy.Founded by the Explorator Arks sent out by the ancient Mechanicum priesthood of the Forge World of Phaeton during the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium, Atar-Median was quickly transformed into a fully functioning Forge World.At the time of the Horus Heresy, Atar-Median was only one amongst several lesser Forge Worlds that formed the mighty "Belt of Iron" which spanned the border regions of both the Segmentum Tempestus and the Segmentum Pacificus.Atar-Median is the homeworld of the Titan Legion called the Legio Atarus, also known by their cognomen of "the Firebrands," which includes many ancient god-engines that once defended Phaeton during the Age of Strife. |
Atar-Median - History: The seeds of Atar-Median's ill-repute during the Great Crusade can be traced to the highly unusual circumstances of their inception. In the early years of the Great Crusade, one of the first tasks of Imperial expansion from Terra was to link up with a number of key domains within the Segmentum Solar identified as vital to the Great Crusade's success.Crucial among these were several Forge Worlds with whom the ancient Mechanicum of Mars had maintained some relationship throughout the tribulations of the later Age of Strife.In many cases, these inclusions went without difficulty, such as with Voss, whose masters had bent the knee to Mars without qualm. But in other cases, such as that of Phaeton, inclusion was a matter of some negotiation and difficulty, and the final acquiescence bought with considerably more autonomy than the fabricator-general of Mars would perhaps have preferred from a Mechanicum vassal-domain.What began as a coldly cordial relationship quickly grew into one of veiled and open rivalry, with Phaeton's position being further strengthened by it quickly becoming perhaps the second most productive Forge World of the Great Crusade until the late rediscovery of mighty Anvilus.Although never faltering in its commitment to the Great Crusade, machinations by the authorities of Mars brought matters close to outright conflict over Cult Mechanicus doctrine and subtle accusations that Phaeton was building its military assets to threatening levels, and this began to have a corrosive effect on the Forge World's reputation -- to the point where the storm clouds of hostile censure and perhaps even armed retribution gathered.At last, the ruling revered-comptroller of Phaeton Prime, realising that his domain could not stand before such power, brokered a compromise, offering publicly to give up a full third of his world's Titans, armed forces and chattels in the interests of political equanimity with Mars.This was quickly agreed, but as the fabricator-general, no doubt with some lust for the task, despatched an assayance task force to Phaeton, he discovered that he had been outmanoeuvred.Rather than give up its lore and dominion to Mars, Phaeton had created a fleet of vast Explorator Arks, and into these were divided an equal third part of its priesthood, chattels and machinery, and even as the Martian emissaries looked on, despatched them into the void.Conflict was averted, Phaeton diminished and its subservience to Mars was assured, but it and its allies gained a long-burning antipathy toward Mars and its masters. After a long and perilous journey through the Warp, the Phaetonite Covenant alighted in the vicinity of the white super-giant star Atarath, located in the Segmentum Pacificus, on what was then the edge of known Imperial space. Here they founded the fledgling Forge World of Atar-Median in its shadow, on one of the many rogue planets caught in the colossal star's gravitational pull.With frightening swiftness the transplanted magi rose up their domain of steel and fire, and using as its core ancient god-engines taken from the forces that had once defended Phaeton in the anarchy of Old Night, it founded the Legio Atarus as its shield and sword. |
Atar-Median - Dispute of Iron: Located across the border sectors of the Segmentum Tempestus and Segmentum Pacificus were numerous lesser Forge Worlds, which included Atar-Median, known collectively as the "Belt of Iron."For Atar-Median, the Horus Heresy started on 566.006.M31 when the War Maniple Red Naga of the Legio Atarus was destroyed on the black sand of Isstvan V during the Drop Site Massacre. Whilst it is unknown if the magi of Atar-Median had been approached by Traitor-aligned Dark Mechanicum envoys as is known to have happened in the Segmentum Obscurus, this sole act of aggression would suffice to propel Atar-Median into the Loyalist camp.Given the tension that existed previously between Phaeton and Mars, it could well be that the Traitor Kelbor-Hal, the fabricator-general of Mars secretly in league with Horus Lupercal, had deemed Atar-Median incorruptible and more efficient to subdue other, more-pliable Forge Worlds as not to waste resources on Atar-Median.Blockading or cutting off domains they could not readily subdue was, after all, almost as efficient as destroying the enemy itself. By 010.M31, Atar-Median was fully at war, the famed Belt of Iron having succumbed to infighting in the Mechanicum as had much of the Imperium.Allied to the Loyalist Forge Worlds of Graia and Arl'yeth, Atar-Median stood against those worlds of the Mechanicum that had thrown their lot in with the Traitors: Incunabula, Urdesh, Valia-Maximal and Kalibrax.The Belt of Iron's two remaining Forge Worlds, Arachnis and Jerulas Station, had both fallen into anarchy and full-fledged civil war and only marginally interfered in the internecine Mechanicum conflict in the region which would later be named the "Dispute of Iron" and result in the terrible campaign remembered as the Cataclysm of Iron in 010.M31.In the years that followed, these Forge Worlds' Taghmata's oathbound Knight Houses and Titan Legions would devastate scores of Human-inhabited worlds in the region that became the battlegrounds upon which the Cataclysm of Iron was fought. |
Atar-Median - Canon Conflict: Atar-Median has also been called Atar-Meridian, most notably in The Horus Heresy Book Six: Retribution, page 274. It is unclear whether the name of the world has actually been changed, or whether this is just an alternate form of the name for Atar-Median. |
Ateanism - Ateanism: Ateanism is an Imperial intellectual philosophy and academic school of thought, as well as a scholastic and artistic theory that has far too often degenerated into dangerous heresy. Ateanism holds beauty and the pure achievement of the mind above all other goals and believes that at the heart of the drive to perfection and purity in any field lies a single magnificent truth. The folly of Ateanism is a warning that it is not only the malign cultist who can bring on the storm of Chaos but also the follies of the weak, the vain, and the arrogant.To the end of attaining the single truth of their discipline, whatever it may be, Ateanists strive to use a set of formulae and processes that grant them a glimpse of the majesty of the truth that lies beneath all of Humanity's greatest works. Sadly for these deluded fools, the revealed truth they seek is a lie wed to the powers of depravity and hubris that echo in the Warp, primarily that of Slaanesh, the Chaos God of pleasure and pain. In applying their flawed and blasphemous patterns, Ateanists constantly court a blind dance with corruption, destruction, and damnation, spreading the power of the Chaos Gods in their ignorance and self-delusion. |
Ateanism - Origins: Ateanism is named for Julius Ateanos, the damned founder of this Imperial school of thought. Ateanos was an archivist and scholar whose hubris would unleash a tradition that has violated souls without control since his death over two Terran centuries ago in the Calixis Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus. Scholar, savant, archivist, and illuminator, Julius Ateanos was chief curator of the Library of Knowing on Fenksworld.The echoing vaults of the Library were Ateanos' home, and its stacks of books, parchment rolls, and data stores were his beloved charges. Yet, for all his learning and intellect, Ateanos did not understand a fundamental truth -- that to be a curator of knowledge in the Imperium is to keep it contained and confined from those who should not have it. Had he treated the knowledge at his disposal with the suspicion of a gaoler, many souls might have been saved.Ateanos' first steps to damnation were the fault of his own flawed character, his complete confidence in his own intellectual abilities, and his belief in the purity of intellectual endeavour. For solar decades he had pored over the works in his charge. He had read of great thinkers who had built the foundations of Human knowledge, been dazzled by the beauty of ancient Terran poets whose names are lost, and felt the tingle of illicit pleasure at secretly reading proscribed, heretical works in the dark watches of the night.In his quest, Ateanos crossed the boundary of necessary knowledge and in time he became not simply content to absorb the achievements of others but dreamed of being like the ancient champions of art and truth. This dream became Ateanos' warm and comforting companion in the grey drudgery of his mundane work, and it sustained him as he obeyed the orders of what he considered to be lesser men.After long Terran years of discontent, he decided to follow his dream to fruition, and took a step into nightmare, not beauty. Perhaps inspired by fragments of the work of an ancient philosopher, Ateanos came to the conclusion that a complex but common property underpinned all great art, thought, and Human expression. It was this unknown property expressed in the form and proportion of sculpture, the cadence of poetry, or the elegance of theory, he believed, that spoke to the depths of the soul and spurred Humanity to achieve all that was great and admirable.What was more, Ateanos was convinced that this property could be expressed and separated from those works of which it was the fundamental but hidden part. It would be perfection itself rendered to its supreme and absolute form. The means of revealing this property would be Ateanos' great gift to Human knowledge. He fantasised about it as the making of his immortality and fame, and thus was the focus of a deep and secret obsession in the last solar decade of his life. |
Ateanism - Truth Revealed: Unfortunately, Ateanos had stumbled upon a truth, though not the truth that he expected. As he poured himself into his work, exploring obscure areas of knowledge and diverse disciplines, he was spurred on by glimpsed snatches of his glorious goal. Long after the departure of his underlings from the library, Ateanos laboured by failing lights, furtively musing over hidden works. He became a haggard figure, his eyes hooded by fatigue, his sight ruined by long, secret solar hours of work. Finally, his labour was done and he basked in the warmth of a man close to having his life's work vindicated.The product of his long labour was a strange formula written in arcane symbols almost lost to Human understanding. It was his key to the magnificence of things created by art and contemplation, for he was sure that the strange formulae would reveal the hidden property behind all truth and beauty. Perhaps, buried deep beneath his obsession, he knew what he had formulated in the symbols of dead men was something terrible, for he delayed the final proof of his work.Instead he laid out all he had done in a secret journal and he laboured over rendering the Eris Transform, as he dubbed it, and the theoretical method of its applications onto the finest Terran vellum. Each page was a wonder of the illuminator's craft that gleamed with gold leaf, fractal-etched adamantine, and the deep hues of rare inks. Once all embellishment was done came a moment when Ateanos could delay the proof of his work no more. He began the first application of the Eris Transform. What Human work Ateanos chose to first apply the Transform to remains unrecorded, but whether it was a renowned sculpture or the work of a long-dead poet, it had an effect more wondrous and terrible than Ateanos could have dreamed.As the final stroke of the Transform's application was completed, the world changed around and within Julius Ateanos. A feeling of infinite doors of possibility opened to him, smothering his mind, and his being ran with an understanding of the untapped beauty of all things. He heard beautiful yet discordant sounds that made the soul ache and weep at their impossibility. He felt transported to a higher, more refined realm where things worked in different ways, and where experience of any kind was like gazing into a kaleidoscope in space and time from which he could not look away.However, even as he reached this peak of rapture he felt the lie to his bliss and the cold greasy feeling of touching something monstrous and mocking. His surroundings blurred and flowed like wax, lithe faces leered from the corners of his sight, and the air became thick with the smell of sweet corruption overlaid with a thousand cloying scents. Ateanos records his final experiences in his journal in a crazed, shaking hand, writing at the last that something was coming for his soul.The fate of this foolish genius is not known. A whispered tale exists amongst servants of the Holy Ordos who chase the fragments of Ateanos' legacy that if one were to find the original manuscript of the Eris Transform, he would find in the illuminated margins a tiny robed figure, screaming. After Ateanos vanished, the manuscript of his rendered work was first recorded in his successor's papers and then swiftly disappeared amid scandal and a spate of mysterious deaths.Meanwhile, his journal was discovered and seized by the Inquisition. Since then, the manuscript has spread in often-incomplete copies and fragments between the hands of Warp dabblers, jaded artists, and overweening scholars. The original has long been lost, and its damning power has been weakened by errors and omissions in inferior successors, but to those with sufficient faculties and learning, its application represents a blissful release from drudgery and mundane toil. To a scribe who labours over the copying of a book that will never be read or to the artist who's imaginative reach goes beyond the grasp of their talent, Ateanism represents the possibility of beauty, bliss, and rapture.Ateanists are often desperate or jaded people who seek out and apply its proscribed formulae compulsively to all manner of subjects in the hope of being granted a moment of pure perfection. Many never experience what they crave, their application or copy of the Eris Transform being in some way imperfect or incomplete. Some unfortunately do receive what they desire, and from that moment forward they are compelled to repeat the process by an infernal addiction more powerful than that inflicted by any chemical. |
Ateanism - The Eris Transform and its Application: A practitioner of Ateanism is chiefly concerned with the application of the Eris Transform to works of art and intellect, such as a work of literature or music. To have any use, however, the would-be Ateanist also requires the connected methodology -- a cipher which is made up of a mass of strange translation tables as well as geometrical and occult diagrams of equivalence. These elements can appear together or separately and occur in many forms, from scrolls to encoded data-slates. Many works also contain additional notes by previous users and commentaries on the exact method of application.Ateanism is not a unified intellectual or religious movement like a true Chaos Cult but a chain of individuals and small groups linked only by the passing of copies of the Eris Transform. Those copies and the lore that passes with them are of variable quality, and many do not work at all or will only work with the most imaginative handling. The quirks of practice that have crept into Ateanism over the centuries (over what it should be applied to, in what circumstances, the use of mirrors, special accompaniments, and so on) have even led to schism and murder between its followers.Almost all Ateanists are ignorant of the Daemonic influence they open themselves to by their acts, as if some external force was preventing those involved from discovering the truth (which may, in fact, be the case). Instead, most think of Ateanism as the pursuit of truth and beauty in a universe of drab repetition and crushing, philistine dogma. |
Ateanism - Pawns of Slaanesh: Ateanists have a tendency to be a mix of bookish scholars, tortured artists, and disenchanted scribes. Occasionally their ranks will be joined by art-obsessed Imperial nobles and magnates as well as other deluded visionaries. Unfortunately, the troubles they can unintentionally summon from the Warp when they make use of a properly inscribed copy of the Eris Transform run to a variety of hellish and depraved monstrosities, particularly the following:Fiends of Rapture - Spawned of seductive nightmares and obscenities too dreadful to contemplate, Fiends of Rapture are bizarre Daemonic beasts of Slaanesh that move with a terrible speed and sickening suppleness. They are shifting, lascivious things somewhere between woman and man, equine and insect. Their long tails are tipped with a sting like a scorpion's that grants the most exquisite of deaths, while their sinuous claws gently click together in anticipation of their victim's embrace. These Fiends are surrounded by a cloud of cloying musk that overwhelms the senses of those mortals who taste it, stupefying the mind, and many who encounter these infernal beings die walking willingly to their end. |
Ateanism - Ordo Malleus Departmento Analyticus Threat Briefing: The Inquisition knows of Ateanism, it knows its threat, and it knows how it spreads. This knowledge has not stopped Ateanism being one of the most subtle and persistent problems faced by the Ordo Malleus in the Calixis Sector. There have been 87 recorded incidents relating to the use of the Eris Transform in the two standard centuries since Julius Ateanos' disappearance.Since Ateanism is not a true Chaos Cult in the common sense, it is even more resistant to purging and is incredibly difficult to uproot. All that is needed for Ateanism to continue to exist is for copies of the Eris Transform to change hands between deluded and willing fools.These copies are often made by hand and so preventing their production is almost impossible, which is not to say the Inquisition is any less resolute in trying. Like the most endemic of weeds, Ateanism is a constant problem for the Holy Ordos that can bear the most horrific fruit, and though its adherents are often little more than pompous, deluded fools, their actions can have dire consequences. Therefore, they are shown no mercy when discovered. |
Athame - Athame: An athame was a unique ritualistic dagger made from crude metal or flint that was blessed by the Dark Gods and possessed the ability to alter the very fabric of reality.Eight athames were utilised by the Word Bearers Traitor Legion during the Battle of Calth in the opening days of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium.These eight daggers were esoteric weapons crafted from shards of the daemonic Anathame that had mortally wounded the Warmaster Horus on the plague moon of Davin and had facilitated his conversion to the service of Chaos in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge.Athames possessed special properties that enabled them to rend the skein of reality, allowing the wielder to step through the Immaterium and cross vast distances in realspace, whether aboard a vessel traveling through the Warp, or even onto another planet in the galaxy.Unknown to the Dark Apostle Erebus of the Word Bearers, the athames could even allow their users to travel multiple millennia back in time. Several of the XVIIth Legion's mortal Chaos Cultists on the surface of Calth also utilised ritualistic weapons known as athames, though these were rather small, mundane versions of the weapon, which was made out of flint or crude metal.Blessed by the Dark Apostles themselves, these daggers were considered a mark of high status within the ranks of both the XVIIth Legion and its allied Chaos Cults.The whereabouts of the eight true athames following the Battle of Calth is unknown, although one athame is believed to have been used by the Inquisition during the Pandorax Campaign's Battle of Pythos to seal the Damnation Cache, and another, known as the Shard of Erebus, may have been wielded by Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, to slay the Daemon Prince M'kar during the Invasion of Ultramar in 999.M41. |
Athame - Battle of Calth: To further the cause of Horus' rebellion, the Word Bearers' First Chaplain Erebus had interpreted the will of the Chaos Gods and devised the means to achieve his lofty goals. The Dark Apostle took the Kinebrach Anathame, the daemonic blade that had mortally wounded Horus and begun his corruption by the Chaos Gods in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge, and prepared to perform an ancient ritual.Within his personal chambers aboard his flagship, the Destiny's Hand, Erebus presented the sword to the statues of the four Ruinous Powers, calling out prayers and incantations, saluting the dread lords of the Warp, each in turn. He had the doors to this chamber barred and his bodyguards standing watch outside.Cowled artisans stood ready at the Dark Apostle's side -- Guldire, chief among Erebus' Warpsmiths, shadowed by his foremost apprentices. Though it seemed a sacrilege to the Ruinous Powers to do what he intended, he knew the weapon had already served its purpose -- in its original form, at least.Utilising a rune-inscribed hammer from an apprentice Warpsmith, Erebus brought the hammer's head down and began to reforge the baleful weapon into its new forms. With each dolorous hammer blow, the Dark Apostle was able to break off a finger-length sliver of the blade's weird alloys. Though diminished, the Anathame was yet whole.Seven more times did Erebus break the dark blade; seven more shards were commended to his Warpsmiths, until finally he was done. The shards had been knapped from the blade by his own hand, in accordance with the old rituals.Then they were grown in the blood of the Neverborn, and fashioned into fine, dagger-like implements -- each alike, but no two exactly the same. The fracturing of the Anathame was but the first step down a longer path. The diminished blade would be disposed of as the Dark Apostle had originally been instructed.Six daggers were forged from the metal taken from the Anathame for those Word Bearers officers who would lead the assault against the Ultramarines Legion on Calth during the Horus Heresy; the Dark Cardinal Kor Phaeron, Chief Librarian-Sorcerer Quor Vondar, Phael Rabor, Morpal Cxir, Foedral Fell, and Hol Beloth.The seventh was to be carried by Sergeant Kolos Undil, the leader of Erebus' cadre of bodyguards. The eighth and final dagger was forged for Erebus himself.Each of these servants of the Dark Gods could feel the untapped power that emanated from the blades. These were no mere ritual athames like those wielded by mortal Chaos Cultists, but true tools of the gods. Although all the blades were in some ways similar -- hilts bound in black leather or wire, marked with golden runes and tied with devotional ribbon -- the blades themselves were all markedly different.Sone were crooked, others straight, one forked, another with waved edges. All were, however, of the same flinty black metal that pained the eyes.Though initially insulted that the bearer of one of these daggers was a mere sergeant, Erebus assured his fellow Word Bearers that Undil's possession of one would not diminish the potency of the rest, nor the honour in carrying one.Undil was a renowned warrior within the XVIIth Legion, as devout in his service to the Dark Gods as his master and almost as devious.Erebus informed the bearers of the athames that the blades were gifts of the gods. They possessed the power to shield the wielder from harm, or to aid him in the working of great sorceries. However, these esoteric weapons were dependent on the ability of he who carried them.These athames were not merely ritual tokens, but tools of enlightenment. A wound from one of them could turn the mightiest Loyalist hero to the Traitors' cause, opening their eyes to the majesty of Chaos and the perfidy of the Emperor.These eight so-called Shards of Erebus also offered Erebus' fellow commanders the opportunity to escape from Calth if the battle turned against them, though this additional property of the blades was unimportant to him.Whether or not the others would learn how to effect flight through the Immaterium using the artefacts should they need it was something he would leave to the will of the gods.During the Battle of Calth, the Ultramarines 4th Company, under the command of Captain Remus Ventanus, converged on the fortress of Leptius Numinus. The Loyalists were able to power up the palace's data-engine and vox assembly in order to contact other possible surviving Ultramarines, Imperial Army or Loyalist Mechanicum forces.Ventanus eventually established short-range communications with other besieged Ultramarines units. His situation was not unique. All of the Ultramarines on Calth's surface found themselves mired in the same predicament following the treacherous surprise assault of the Word Bearers Legion.Soon a large horde of Traitor forces commanded by the XVIIth Legion's Commander Morpal Cxir encircled the palace and launched an attack against its small group of valiant defenders. Terrible carnage was inflicted upon the Loyalist defenders by packs of horrific Daemons summoned from the Empyrean as they punched through any breaks within the Loyalist defensive line.In the midst of the ensuing battle, Captain Ventanus unintentionally utilised the athame he had taken from Morpal Cxir in an earlier skirmish, and defeated the Daemon Samus with it. At the time he had no other weapon at hand, and he was amazed by the crude blade's lethal potency against such a powerful adversary.When his sergeant, Kiuz Selaton, suggested gathering other such similar blades from the fallen Word Bearers and their Human servants to utilise against the hordes of Daemons that now ravaged Calth's surface, Ventanus wisely refused, fearful that the weapons could be used as a source of Warp corruption. But he did keep the athame he had used and placed it safely in his belt.Criol Fowst, a Human "officer" of the Word Bearers-allied Chaos Cult called the Brotherhood of the Knife, also possessed an athame gifted to him by his patron in the Word Bearers, Arune Xen. Fowst used his athame to sacrifice victims as part of the Word Bearers' summoning ritual for the Ruinstorm on the surface of Calth.Fowst considered it his most treasured possession, and was enraged when he lost it to Ollanius Persson, a Perpetual and former Imperial Army soldier who had retired to civilian life on Calth but became caught up in the violent events of the battle.Persson later used this athame to cut a rift into the Immaterium that allowed him and a small group of survivors to escape the poisoning of Calth's atmosphere by the Word Bearers.At the climax of the Battle of Calth, the Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman personally led his Suzerain Invictarus and whatever supporting Ultramarines forces he could muster to assault an orbital platform circling Calth controlled by Kor Phaeron and his elite guard. The Dark Cardinal and his warriors each carried an athame.When confronted by the primarch in personal battle, the Dark Cardinal was able to stun Guilliman utilising the fell powers granted to him by the Chaos Gods. Rendering him temporarily helpless, instead of killing the primarch, Kor Phaeron toyed with the idea of using his athame 's innate abilities in an attempt to turn Guilliman to the service of Chaos, as Erebus had already done with Horus.Though he held the blade to the primarch's throat, piercing Guilliman's flesh, Erebus was unable to strike a fatal blow. Guilliman proved able to resist the dark influence of the malefic blade and launched a lethal counterattack of his own, impaling Kor Phaeron through the chest with his inert Lightning Claws.This mortal blow forced the Dark Cardinal and the Word Bearers to retreat, giving the Ultramarines their first window of opportunity to ultimately strike back at the Traitors and retake control of Calth's planetary defences.After the Word Bearers' initial assault on Calth was defeated, but the remaining Ultramarines and Word Bearers forces on the world's surface retreated into the underground manufactoria caverns to escape the poisoning of Calth's sun, the battle continued in subterranean form for several more Terran years.During this so-called "Underworld War" Captain Remus Ventanus came into possession of another of the original eight athame when he slew the Word Bearer officer Hol Beloth with his own athame. |
Athame - Shard of Erebus: Ten thousand standard years after the Battle of Calth, in early 999.M41 during the Invasion of Ultramar, Marneus Calgar, the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, killed the Daemon Prince M'kar with the athame that Captain Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines 4th Company had retrieved from Captain Ventanus' tomb.The Daemon Prince recognised the knife as a "Shard of Erebus" and was frightened by its power. This dagger was likely the same athame that Ventanus had taken from Hol Beloth, though it could also have been the first athame that Ventanus had taken from Morpal Cxir and used to banish the Daemon Samus early in the Battle of Calth. |
Athame - Other Athames: In the late 41st Millennium, an agent of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus stole an athame from a museum on a T'au Sept world; the T'au, knowing little of Chaos, had mistaken it for a crude flint knife.They displayed it as proof of how little the gue'la had changed over such a long history and how technically backwards Mankind was compared to the rapidly advancing T'au Empire. The T'au had no idea of the dagger's special properties.When trapped by a team of Fire Warriors after seizing the artefact, the agent used the dagger to open a rift into the Immaterium and escape.This blade was later used by the Inquisition during the Pandorax Campaign's Battle of Pythos to seal the Damnation Cache, a stable portal into the Warp that could be used as a source of daemonic invasion in Abaddon the Despoiler's soon-to-be unleashed 13th Black Crusade. |
Athame (Anthology Short Story) - Athame (Anthology Short Story): Athame is a short story published in The Horus Heresy series that was originally part of an anthology. Athame was first published as part of the Mark of Calth main series anthology in April 2013. The cover image used is that of Mark of Calth, as Athame has yet to be published separately. Athame is a prequel to the events of Book 19, Know No Fear. |
Athame (Anthology Short Story) - Synopsis: The story of an ancient ritual dagger, the athame, and its journey from its creation to the time thousands of years later where it comes into the possession of Oll Persson. |
Athenaeum of Kallimakus - Athenaeum of Kallimakus: The Athenaeum of Kallimakus was a great subterranean library and repository of forgotten knowledge located on the world of Appollonia, the moon of a gas giant and the location of a secret fortress of the Imperial Inquisition.The Athenaeum was maintained by a cult of savants that worshiped the memory and works of Mahavastu Kallimakus, the Remembrancer who served as the personal scribe of Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion, during the Great Crusade.Sixteen hundred years after the end of the Horus Heresy in the seventh century of the 32nd Millennium, when he was exiled from the Thousand Sons for casting the Rubric of Ahriman, Ahzek Ahriman led a warband of Rubric Marines to Appollonia after learning of the Athenaeum's existence.After a month-long siege defended by the forces of the Inquisition and the Grey Knights, Ahriman and his Heretic Astartes broke into the Athenaeum and looted the tomes of knowledge therein in search of a cure for the Rubric. When none was found, they burned the library to ashes, to ensure that no one else would ever learn its secrets about their Primarch and his Legion or be able to use the knowledge of the Warp contained within.After Ahriman was successful in penetrating the Athenaeum, his destruction of the massive subterranean complex fatally weakened the physical cohesiveness of Apollonia. A short time later, the moon imploded, the debris swallowed by a Warp Storm that was unleashed as the world was destroyed. |
Athenaeum of Kallimakus - Origins: In the wake of the Battle of Prospero at the start of the Horus Heresy, the Remembrancer Mahavastu Kallimakus, the personal scribe of Magnus the Red, fled that dying world along with many of the works he had written based on the dictations of the Thousand Sons Primarch.Kallimakus ultimately sought aid from the Inquisition after the Heresy. Kallimakus hoped to establish a place where the forbidden and heretical knowledge of Chaos and Warp lore that had been gained by Magnus could be both studied by Imperial savants but also kept out of the hands of those who would misuse it.The early Inquisition proved receptive and offered him the secluded moon of Appollonia to establish his repository. Before Kallimakus died peacefully of old age, he built the Athenaeum, compiling its archive of heretical knowledge both from, his own memory and the notes of Magnus' dictations to him.The Athenaeum thus housed an almost exact copy of the information contained within the infamous heretical work known as the Book of Magnus.After Kallimakus' death, this knowledge led to the creation of a fanatical cult of Imperial savants who studied the knowledge kept within the Athenaeum for over a thousand Terran years. These scholars added to Kallimakus' work and filled the library with tens of thousands of new works, much of it speculation and commentaries on the Remembrancer's original body of knowledge. |
Athenaeum of Kallimakus - Fall of the Athenaeum: After the Thousand Sons fled Prospero into the Warp and made a new home on the Planet of the Sorcerers, they were once more afflicted by the ruinous mutation known as the "Flesh Change." To stop it, Ahzek Ahriman and his cabal of like-minded sorcerers sought to enact the great spell known as the Rubric of Ahriman.The Rubric succeeded, but at the price of transforming the majority of the Thounsand Sons battle-brothers into the undying automatons devoid of all intelligence and personality known as Rubric Marines.Ahriman was exiled along with many of his fellow sorcerers from the Thousand Sons by Magnus the Red in the Primarch's anger at the outcome of the Rubric.In desperation, Ahriman recalled the work of Mahavastu Kallimakus who had recorded much of Magnus' research and began to search for the Remembrancer. The sorcerer hoped to read the exact words and procedures he had used to cast the Rubric from a copy of the Book of Magnus once more, in the hopes that a new analysis could lead him to detect the flaw that had produced the Rubric Marines. Ahriman believed he could reverse it and restore his brothers to full life.Though it supposedly took him 1600 Terran years, Ahriman eventually discovered Kallimakus' fate and the existence and location of the Athenaeum from the mind of the captured Inquisitor Iobel, who had been sent into the Eye of Terror on a mission to determine what the Thousands Sons were up to after the Horus Heresy.Ahriman immediately took his warband to Appollonia after learning of the existence of the Athenaeum from his interrogation of Iobel. He was opposed by the forces of the Inquisition and the Grey Knights present at the Inquisitorial fortress on the moon and even elements of his own warband turned on him. The resulting battle produced heavy losses on all sides, but Ahriman ultimately secured the library.After he proved unable to determine the flaw in his spell-casting, Ahriman burned the library to ashes so that no others could gain the knowledge of Magnus the Red. He left the world behind, to continue his quest for redemption and knowledge elsewhere.The Athenaeum had been hidden deep underground, near to the core of the moon, and its structure now largely held the small world together. Once it was destroyed, the moon soon after collapse in upon itself even as its debris was swallowed by a Warp Storm. |
Athkor's Destroyers - Athkor's Destroyers: Athkor's Destroyers is a Chaos Space Marine warband of the Black Legion led by the Master of Possession Bruakh Athkor, who is known as the "Daemontwister of the Screaming Void." The Destroyers emphasise numbers and strategic versatility.Led by a Master of Possession and his Greater Possessed, the force has a solid core of Heretic Astartes. With a Venomcrawler and a pair of Obliterators to provide heavy firepower, this force can respond swiftly to any strategic challenge. |
Athkor's Destroyers - Notable Warband Members: Bruakh Athkor - Bruakh Athkor is a Master of Possession who also serves as the leader of his own warband within the Black Legion. |
Athkor's Destroyers - Warband Colours: As members of the Black Legion, Athkor's Destroyers wear that Traitor Legion's black and gold Power Armour. |
Athkor's Destroyers - Warband Badge: Athkor's Destroyers display the Eye of Horus like all members of the Black Legion. |
Athonian Tunnel Rats - Athonian Tunnel Rats: The Athonian Tunnel Rats is a Militarum Regimentum of the Astra Militarum that hails from the world of Athonos. This Imperial planet's governance is constantly in flux, vied for by a dozen rival noble families. The resultant gang warfare amongst their various supporters is brutal and unending, the violence spilling into the streets and sewers of the hydroponic gardens that cover much of Athonos. Such is the recruiting ground for the Athonian Tunnel Rats. By the time they are drafted for the Imperial Tithe, they are already masters of urban combat and amongst the most determined close-quarters fighters of the Imperial Guard.Due to their expertise in subterranean warfare, the regiments of the Tunnel Rats are often called upon to quash heretical uprisings on densely-packed Hive and Mining Worlds. As such, they have come face to face with a great number of Genestealer Cults. The Athonians tend to eschew the use of mortars and artillery due to their limited effectiveness in the confined caverns in which they usually fight, instead relying on massed Meltaguns, Flamers and demolition charges, and utilising light armour support in the form of Sentinels and Chimeras. |
Athonian Tunnel Rats - Notable Athonian Tunnel Rats Regiments: 18th Athonian Regiment, "Children of Ganthos" - One of the more decorated Athonian infantry regiments. |
Atlantian Spears - Atlantian Spears: The Atlantian Spears is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter of unknown Founding that is a successor of the Blood Angels. |
Atlantian Spears - Chapter History: For millennia the Atlantian Spears fought to pacify the Enclave of Alkina and the Sanctuary of Konstantyah in the Segmentum Tempestus.The Atlantian Spears rely on the gift of foresight present in an unusual number of their Librarians to respond to the countless xenos and heretic threats that terrorise those vast regions.When the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Leviathan threatened the Blood Angels' homeworld of Baal, the Atlantian Spears received Commander Dante's call for aid, but took no action to aid their progenitors during the Devastation of Baal as they were consumed with their own duties.However, the Atlantian Spears did later send elements to serve in Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade. |
Atlantian Spears - Notable Campaigns: Indomitus Crusade (Unknown Date.M42) - The Atlantian Spears were assigned to serve as part of Task Force XI of Battle Group Kallides of the Indomitus Crusade Fleet Primus. Battle Group Kallides fought against the Necrons located in the foreboding region of the galaxy designated the Pariah Nexus.Argovon Campaign (Unknown Date.M42) - This campaign of the Pariah Crusade was fought in the Argovon System within the Pariah Nexus region. The Imperial forces faced the Necron Szarekhan and Oruskh Dynasties. The campaign was spearheaded by High Field Marshal Janred Remko Hynflagger and his Task Force XI, which possessed a contingent of Space Marines provided by the Atlantian Spears. |
Atlantian Spears - Notable Atlantian Spears: Lieutenant Auxitius Palamas - Palamas is an Atlantian Spears officer who took part in the Argovon Campaign as part of the Indomitus Crusade's Battle Group Kallides' Task Force XI. As the war against the Necrons in the Pariah Nexus raged, Palamas served on the task force's senior command staff as a representative of the Space Marines.Librarian Adones - Adones served among the Atlantian Spears warriors taking part in Task Force XI's Argovon Campaign. His mission was to prevent the Genestealer Cults of Argovon from reaching the upper tiers of the Argovonya, the planetary governor's multi-tiered arcology that served essentially as a city-sized palace. Adones fought the Genestealer Cults within the sewer systems of the Argovonya's sixth tier. He commanded a small force of Atlantian Spears Astartes which consisted of Infiltrator Squad Abdosir, Incursor Squad Arishon and the Invictor Tactical Warsuit pilot Diodokus. Adones sought to ensure that his brothers did not fall to the disgraceful genetic curses of their progenitors, the Red Thirst or Black Rage.Sergeant Abdosir - Abdosir was a sergeant who commanded an Infiltrator Squad under the command of Adones during their assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier.Sergeant Arishon - Arishon was a sergeant who commanded an Incursor Squad under the command of Adones during their assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier.Diodokus - Diodokus was the pilot of an Invictor Tactical Warsuit under the command of Adones during their assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier.Onasander - Onosander was a Primaris Space Marine under the command of Adones during the Atlantian Spears' assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier.Polus - Polus was a Primaris Space Marine under the command of Adones during the Atlantian Spears' assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier.Thales - Thales was a Primaris Space Marine under the command of Adones during the Atlantian Spears' assault on the Genestealer Cults of the Argovonya's sixth tier. |
Atlantian Spears - Chapter Fleet: The following vessels are known to be a part of the Chapter fleet of the Atlantian Spears.Aurelios (Strike Cruiser)Senekha (Strike Cruiser)Heartlance (Gladius-class Frigate)Hoplon (Gladius-class Frigate)Judgement (Gladius-class Frigate)Spear of Wisdom (Gladius-class Frigate)Stoika (Gladius-class Frigate)Trident (Gladius-class Frigate) |
Atlantian Spears - Chapter Colours: The Atlantian Spears primarily wear teal blue power armour with golden yellow shoulder pauldron trim.The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest armour is golden yellow. The black squad tactical specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder guard.The Atlantian Spears use unique squad iconography like that of the Blood Angels to indicate squad number, in this case on the right knee guard.Company number is indicated by a black High Gothic numeral centred on the left knee guard. |
Atlantian Spears - Helmet Markings: To indicate rank and status within the Chapter the Atlantian Spears utilise a unique livery system for easy battlefield identification, as follows:Battle-Brother - A battle-brother always has a golden yellow helmet.Sergeant - A sergeant wears a golden yellow helmet with a small, silver skull icon affixed to the forehead.Veteran - Atlantian Spears Veterans wear black helmets.Veteran Sergeant - A Veteran sergeant wears a black helmet with a golden yellow vertical stripe on the forehead. A small, silver skull icon is affixed in the centre of this stripe.Lieutenant - A lieutenant wears a golden yellow helmet with a black vertical stripe on the forehead. A small, silver skull is affixed in the centre of this stripe. |
Atlantian Spears - Chapter Badge: The Atlantian Spears' Chapter badge is a black trident pointed upward centred on a field of teal blue. |
Atlantian Spears - Sources: Codex Supplement Blood Angels (9th Edition), pg. 31War Zone: Octarius - Book 1: Rising Tide (9th Edition), pp. 30-33White Dwarf 457 (October 2020), "Flashpoint: Argovon System," pg. 56White Dwarf 459 (December 2020), "War for Argovon," pp. 64-65Warhammer Community - White Dwarf: Welcome to Flashpoint! (08 Oct 2020) |
Atlas - Atlas: The Atlas is an armoured recovery vehicle based on a tank chassis that is used by the forces of the Astra Militarum and possibly other Imperial forces such as Planetary Defence Forces and the armed forces of the Inquisition to recover damaged or immobilised armoured vehicles during and after a battle.The Atlas uses a powerful rear-mounted crane to tow vehicles out of the line of fire and to the field repair shop, where they can be fixed and sent back into combat. Heavily damaged vehicles can be placed on trailers and hauled away by a Trojan to be repaired at a better-equipped facility. The large spade on the rear of the Atlas is used to keep the tank from being dragged backwards by the weight of its target. If a vehicle is completely destroyed, and beyond repair, it is stripped of usable equipment and unfired ammunition, its Machine Spirit commended to the Emperor, and then its chassis is left to rust in peace.The Atlas is mainly used to recover damaged or immobilised tanks from the front where they can be repaired, but it can also be used to simply move a vehicle out of the way of other vehicles, and to move other obstructions. An Atlas is capable of lifting and towing up to one Leman Russ tank, of any variant, but anything larger, such as an Imperial Baneblade, will need to be towed by up to four Atlases to move it even a short distance.A regiment lucky enough to have multiple Atlas recovery vehicles usually groups them all into a single recovery squadron that is directly under the command of the regimental colonel and his staff. The tanks are given out as needed to the various companies. |
Atlas - Armament: The Atlas uses the same Mars Alpha Pattern chassis as the Leman Russ main battle tank, but with the turret ring and armour plating removed and the engine overcharged to provide more power. The Atlas is always kept in reserve during battle until it is needed and when it enters the battlefield to tow a stricken tank it is always protected by friendly units until it is clear of the fight, so the Atlas is only equipped with a hull-mounted Heavy Bolter for general protection.The tank can be upgraded with Camouflage Netting, Extra Armour Plating, a Hunter-killer Missile Launcher, an Improved Communications System, a Mine Sweeper, a pintle-mounted Heavy Stubber/Storm Bolter, Rough Terrain Modifications, a Searchlight, Track Guards, and Smoke Launchers. |
Atlas - Notable Regiments That Use The Atlas: 28th Death Korps of Krieg Armoured Regiment - The 28th Krieg Armoured Regiment served as a part of the Galan V Expeditionary Force.121st Teutonian Armoured Regiment74th Cadian Armoured Regiment - The 74th Cadian Armoured Regiment participated in the defence of Hamman's World. |
Atlas - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Atlas Recovery VehicleVehicle Name:AtlasMain Armament:Heavy BolterForge World of Origin:Stygies VIIISecondary Armament:N/AKnown Patterns:I - IXTraverse:10 degreesCrew:1 Commander, 1 Driver, 1 OperatorElevation:-2 to 18 degreesPowerplant:MR230 v12 Multi-FuelMain Ammunition:300 RoundsWeight:43 TonnesSecondary Ammunition:N/ALength:7.08 metresArmour:Width:4.68 metresHeight:3.75 metresSuperstructure:90 millimetresGround Clearance:.45 metresHull:80 millimetresMax Speed On-Road:34 kilometres per hourGun Mantlet:N/AMax Speed Off-Road:20 kilometres per hourVehicle Designation:0427-941-1117-AT013Transport Capacity:N/AFiring Ports:N/AAccess Points:N/ATurret:N/A |
Atlas - Sources: Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy, pp. 147-150Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard (Second Edition), pp. 208, 211-214, 251, 267Imperial Armour Volume Five - The Siege of Vraks - Part One, pg. 144Imperial Armour Volume Six - The Siege of Vraks - Part Two |
Atlas Infernal - Atlas Infernal: The Atlas Infernal is an ancient Imperial tome dating from before the Horus Heresy. It is an organic, adaptive map of the Aeldari Webway created from the flesh of human psychic Blanks who possess the Pariah Gene.Like the mutants it is made from, the Atlas Infernal is also a psionically-negative item that radiates null Pariah energy when opened, a defence mechanism intended to keep the Aeldari or creatures of the Warp from using the tome. |
Atlas Infernal - History: Sometime after the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millennium, this mysterious volume was taken by Aeldari Harlequins and was deposited in the Black Library's Wraith Tower where it was considered one of the Black Library's most dangerous (to the Aeldari) items. Millennia later, in the first century of the 42nd Millennium, the Atlas Infernal came into the possession of Inquisitor Czevak, its current owner.Czevak had read extensively about lost or forbidden human history when he became one of the only humans to ever penetrate to the hidden Aeldari craftworld that was the repository of all of that ancient race's knowledge of Chaos, a vessel located within the confines of the Webway that was known as the "Black Library."He knew that for several Terran years before the start of the Horus Heresy, an army of Mechanicum Tech-priest specialists (known as Magi Ethericus and Artisans Empyr) were building the Emperor of Mankind's most secret and vital project deep within the bowels of the Imperial Palace: a Terran extension into the Aeldari Webway that was intended to unite all the worlds of the Imperium without the need for Warp travel and initiate a new Golden Age for Mankind.Czevak assumed they were protected by companies of Custodians, and while building the transdimentional tunnels, were warded from the daemonic denizens of the Warp by the presence of squads drawn from the Sisters of Silence.The Primarch Magnus the Red's catastrophic psychic visit to the Imperial Palace in the early 31st Millennium to warn the Emperor of the betrayal of the Warmaster Horus, as the Horus Heresy was first taking form, caused irreparable damage to the project and destroyed the construction force's way back to Terra. Czevak reasoned that their only way back to realspace was through the hostile and uncharted Aeldari tunnel network.The humans constructed an atlas of their wanderings within the Webway and named it the Atlas Infernal. The Mechanicum crafted the pumping mechanism for the tome and used the donated battle plate of the Custodians to create the covers, clasps and interior frames.One or more Sister of Silence presumably willingly sacrificed themselves to provide the flesh necessary to create the atlas' pages. The Magi Ethericus, by some now lost process, then bestowed the "pages" with their adaptive and transformative abilities.After being captured by the Harlequins, the book remained in the Black Library for millennia, but it was never opened by the Aeldari because of its dangerous nature to fully psychic beings like themselves. In the first century of the 42nd Millennium the Aeldari Guardian-Scribe Adara-Ke gave the Atlas to Czevak so that he could escape the Black Library, and also committed suicide by opening it.Czevak used the tome to escape, and has since frequently utilised it to traverse the galaxy through the Webway, evade pursuers and thwart opponents, especially his prime enemy, the Chaos Sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman. Ahriman actively seeks the book, though it is unclear how he hopes to deal with its Pariah properties.Czevak also used the volume to resist a pursuing Harlequin troupe which was seeking both the book and his death, killing a Shadowseer with it, and injuring several other members of the troupe. |
Atlas Infernal - Description: The Atlas Infernal is a bulky but extremely lightweight volume with covers made of burnished, golden, and astonishingly resilient metal that possesses a strange sheen and was once a part of the battle plate of a Legio Custodes warrior.The volume's covers are engraved with ornate illustrations and markings in High Gothic, honouring the Terran Unification Wars.The book is held together by 3 clasps of the same metal and its spine houses an elaborate pumping mechanism that sighs rhythmically as it feeds oxygen to the book's still-living pages.Instead of true pages, the volume is actually a stacked panel of golden frames, each of which is supporting a sheet of still-living Pariah flesh stretched to transparency. The flesh is alive thanks to the oxygen fed by the pumping mechanism. Its visible arteries, capillaries and veins are a representation of the Webway.By some unknown process, they can reconfigure to show the "reader" routes to various desired destinations within the Labyrinthine Dimension. The skin itself can change flesh tone depending on conditions likely to exist in the course of the desired route. Helpful writing, formed by bleached scars, may also appear on the skin.Because of its psychically negative properties, the book radiates discomfort even to non-psykers when opened. It disrupts any nearby psychic field and can be deadly to fully psychic entities (it has claimed several Aeldari lives).Paradoxically, the book's adaptable-mapping ability indicates some sort of telesthesiac or telepathic ability which would ordinarily imply that it is also psychically active. Even Czevak, with his vast knowledge of such matters, could not explain this property of the tome. |
Atlas Infernal (Novel) - Atlas Infernal (Novel): Atlas Infernal, subtitled "An Inquisitor Czevak novel", is a book by Rob Sanders published in 2011 by the Black Library. Its main character is High Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak of the Ordo Xenos, who had been previously mentioned in Games Workshop literature only briefly. The novel details the events of 4 crucial decades in Czevak's life when he became the only human ever known to be invited to study at the Eldar's Black Library and the attempts by the Chaos Sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion to claim that knowledge for himself. The action for the most part takes place in or around the Eye of Terror, and covers the years from approximately 990.M41 to approximately 030.M42. The novel's title refers to an ancient and valuable book, the Atlas Infernal, which comes into Czevak's possession, and which plays a central role in the story.The novel has an unusual format: it is organized in a series of acts and scenes as in a theatrical play or as the libretto (book) of an opera, and includes related terminology that occurs outside of the text proper -- for instance, a scene may include a Canto or may end with a character exiting in a so-called Flourish. It has a non-linear narrative, with several jumps and flashbacks. Written in this format, the novel has similarities to an Eldar Harlequin troupe's performance. Eldar Harlequins are artist-warriors who "act out" in elaborate performances that include dance and theater, "stories" related to the Eldar race's past, present and future, often without clear distinction between time periods. |
Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo - Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo: An Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo is an Imperial weapon of mass destruction, a variant of the Cyclonic Torpedo, that is deployed from space into low planetary orbit. It will ignite a run-away thermonuclear chain reaction within the atmosphere of the target world that will rapidly consume all the free oxygen, initiating a planetary inferno that will burn the entire biosphere to ash.The Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo is only used by the armed forces of the Imperium of Man to carry out an authorised Exterminatus action on a world that has been deemed to present an extinction-level threat to other inhabited regions of the human-settled galaxy.This weapon was notably deployed to carry out an Exterminatus action on the world of Medusa IV in the Medusa System in ca. 750.M41. The planet had been overwhelmed by the forces of Chaos, who were a constant danger due to the Medusa System's proximity to a Warp rift known as Van Grothe's Rapidity, despite the intervention of a number of Imperial forces, including the Ultramarines 2nd Company.The warheads ignited the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the planet, devouring everything in a blistering conflagration that seared all signs of life from the world, turning metal into molten slag and rock to glass as the Inquisition's fiery judgment took its toll.The planet burned brightly for a whole solar month, and from the safety of their own world, the people of Medusa V looked on in awe as their neighbour was consumed in the purifying flames of the Emperor's justice. Those Loyalist citizens of Medusa IV who had escaped offered prayers of gratitude to the Emperor for their deliverance. |
Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo - Trivia: During work on the original American atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico in July 1945, the researchers were aware that there was an infinitesimal chance that the first Human detonation of a nuclear device might unleash an uncontrolled fission chain reaction in the Earth's atmosphere.This would produce the planetary inferno very similar to that created by an Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo.Luckily, the first atomic bomb and the much more powerful thermonuclear weapons that have been detonated in tests at the Earth's surface did not actually possess enough power to fission atoms of low atomic number like oxygen and nitrogen. |
Atoma Prime - Atoma Prime: Atoma Prime is an Imperial Hive World and the capital of the Moebian Domain in the Segmentum Solar that has been consumed by conflict with an infestation by Chaos caused by the Chaos Cult dedicated to Nurgle known as the Admonition, which gained the support of the corrupted Moebian 6th Regiment of the Astra Militarum's Moebian Regiments, now a Traitoris Militarum force.The world has also been classified as a War World by the Imperium after the Inquisition deployed its forces to eliminate the Chaos infestation.Atoma Prime possesses 3 moons, the largest of which is Atrox, which has a faint red hue.Atoma Prime, in particular its hive city of Hive Tertium, is the setting for the video game Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. |
Atoma Prime - Origins: Atoma Prime is an important Imperial Hive World that has long been the centre and capital world of a vast, semi-autonomous region of Imperial space comprising many different Human worlds known as the Moebian Domain that is located in the northwestern Segmentum Solar. The bearer of the office of sector lord in the Moebian Domain is known by the title of "Lord Moebian" and they rule from the domain's planetary capital of Atoma Prime. The current ruler, Lord Margrave, is the 13th successive member of House Margrave to hold this office. As the political and economic centre of the Moebian Domain, Atoma Prime is of great importance to the regional Imperial presence. Its industrial output of Leman Russ Tanks and other armoured vehicles is paramount to the continued security of the domain.The world that would be known as Atoma was first colonised by Humans at some point in the Dark Age of Technology, when Mankind had achieved its technological golden age. What would later be known as the Moebian Domain was likely colonised during the "Stellar Exodus" from Old Earth after ca. M15, as the region was relatively close to the Human homeworld.In the the subsequent Age of Strife after the collapse of the first Human interstellar civilisation, Atoma managed to survive by becoming economically self-sufficient largely due to its advanced industry, ultimately weathering the isolation of Old Night relatively well when compared with what befell so many other Human colonies. |
Atoma Prime - Great Crusade and Horus Heresy: During the Great Crusade of the late 30th Millennium, the expeditionary fleets of the Emperor of Mankind rediscovered Atoma Prime and immediately saw its strategic value to the newborn Imperium. No harsh re-education and violent subjugation was needed to incorporate Atoma into the fledgling Imperium and impose Imperial Compliance. The rulers of Atoma were quite willing to join their fates to this powerful new interstellar Human empire. The highly productive manufactoria of Atoma were immediately set to produce materiel needed to support the Great Crusade's fleet supply lines.Soon after, Atoma was designated the capital world of its star system, thus becoming becoming "Atoma Prime," after the forces of the Great Crusade had brought its neighbouring planet, the future Shrine World of Crucis, to Compliance. The rulers of Crucis ceded their own authority to Atoma Prime, whose planetary governor was recognised by the Administratum as the overall governor of every world in the system. The fleets of the Great Crusade would ultimately bring all the worlds of the Moebian Domain into the Imperium, liberating many of the worlds they discovered from Human tyrants, while hostile xenos species were either completely exterminated or defeated to the point of military insignificance.The worlds of the Moebian Domain remained profoundly Loyalist from the outset of the Horus Heresy. The Domain continued to supply and support Loyalist military efforts throughout the time of the Heresy and into the post-Heresy Great Scouring period. Like so many worlds of the Imperium, however, Atoma Prime did not escape the terrible fighting entirely unscathed and consequently an interim government was established on the neighbouring world of Crucis to allow Atoma Prime to be restored to a position of stability and productivity. At this time a major Navis Imperialis sector battlefleet depot was established at Crucis. |
Atoma Prime - Time of Rebirth and the Darktide: In the early 32nd Millennium, Atoma Prime was still recovering from the aftermath of the Horus Heresy and its productive output remained below its pre-war levels. The conflicts that had begun on the Fringe of the Moebian Domain as a result of the instability unleashed by the Heresy did not abate and became a persistent annoyance that soon required a permanent deployment of military assets to keep the threat contained. Periodically the situation flared in intensity and could be classified as an outright war. The world of Komaris remained the primary Imperial bastion in the Fringe region of the Moebian Domain during these conflicts.Finally, in the late 32nd Millennium, Crucis returned the domain's administrative powers to Atoma Prime peacefully and Atoma Prime was restored to its position as the sector capital world. Additionally, the Navis Imperialis depot in orbit of Crucis was moved into the orbit of Atoma Prime.For centuries, Atoma Prime and the peoples of the Moebian Domain have been under assault by Chaos and xenos forces from the fringe of its territory that the Adeptus Administratum has chosen to simply classify as the "Darktide." The people of Atoma Prime know little about the nature of these shadowy foes, other than what they hear in Imperial propaganda broadcasts, but are certain that they must be defeated if Atoma Prime is to remain within the light of the God-Emperor.To deal with the Darktide, Atoma Prime has for centuries raised hundreds of regiments for the Astra Militarum from among its teeming masses, known as the Moebian Regiments. These heroic men and women have kept the Darktide at bay for many standard centuries, fighting in what is known as the "Fringe War." |
Atoma Prime - The Middle Millennia: Historical details concerning the Moebian Domain from the 33rd Millennium to the 35th Millennium have been, for reasons unknown, heavily redacted by Imperial censors. Early in this period, there were minor disturbances as there might be upon many worlds of the Imperium. Additionally some small dynastic civil wars raged among the nobility, between various hive cities and the economic guilds of the world. Occasionally, beings referred to generically only as "xenos" sparked conflicts on the region's Fringe that required a concerted effort to pacify the area.At some time in the 34th Millennium, the world of Rocyria was reclaimed as part of the Moebian Domain. It is unspecified how the world had originally been lost and what specifically occurred to return it to Imperial control. At this same time, a major xenos war is believed to have been fought in the Fringe and a period of extensive warfare was required to keep the threat from spreading.At the turn of the 35th Millennium, the Fringe War flared once more. This time the xenos forces were noted as having made a considerable offensive push into the core space of the Moebian Domain. Consequently, an Imperial force was sent as reinforcements to bolster the Moebian troops on the front lines of the Fringe War, but the nature of this force, including its origin, is unspecified, including as to who ordered it. As a result of these reinforcements, however, the xenos threat on the Fringe was fragmented and driven back once again.This period appears to also have been marked by some political destabilisation in the Moebian Domain itself. Records indicate a civil war was fought on Atoma Prime at this time. The fact that this conflict is not clearly explicated suggests it could have been a mere civilian revolt or something more significant. However, an alliance of noble houses proved victorious in ending this civil conflict, whatever its nature and origins, and an Atoman noble named Yannis Barquette is selected as the new sector lord with the title of "Lord Moebian."In the latter years of the 35th Millennium, the world of Infidus Brim was noted as having been reclaimed as a vassal world of the Moebian Domain. The apparently "victorious alliance" of noble houses under the leadership of House Barquette began constructing a cluster of three hive cities that will eventually merge to become the vast, sprawling hive city of Tertium.It is at this time that Atoma Prime entered a complete environmental collapse caused by the sheer amounts of industrial pollution emitted by the growing hive cities. The world's remaining ecosystems collapsed, leading to the extinction of much of the former native flora and fauna. This left the surface of the world marked only by the orange streaks of the industrial wastes later called by the people of Atoma Prime the "Witherlands." |
Atoma Prime - Reign of House Margrave to the 41st Millennium: In the 36th Millennium the expansion of the cluster of three hive cities led by House Barquette and its alliance of noble houses continued. Over the centuries, the population of the hive cluster of three cities under House Barquette's control grows exponentially and the arcologies' systems soon become interlinked, leading to the emergence of a single, massive hive city that covers an extensive portion of Atoma Prime's surface. The unified arcology is named "Hive Tertium."Consequently, any remaining populations outside of the hive city now merge and Hive Tertium becomes the primary and perhaps only population centre on the planet. The rivalry between House Barquette and other Highborn houses continues and intensifies within the higest spires of Tertium.At some point in the 36th Millennium the upstart House Margrave launches a coup with allies of its own and replaces House Barquette as the ruling house of Atoma Prime and the Moebian Domain following yet another period of instability. Anselm Margrave is declared the new Lord Moebian in the wake of the coup. It is also at this time that the world known as Mornax is recorded as having been brought into the Moebian Domain as a vassal world.Over the next few thousand years Moebian Domain enjoys a period of stability and calm. There are no records of any major incidents or conflicts, nor does the xenos Fringe War appear to have flared up once more.In the 38th Millennium, the worlds of Mornax and Branx Magna are officially granted membership within the Moebian Domain. In the late 39th Millennium, the Ocean World of Incron is reclaimed and also becomes part of the domain. The Navis Imperialis sector battlefleet depot above Atoma Prime is relocated to Incron for unknown reasons. In the early 41st Millennium, the world of Pavane is charted and claimed as part of the domain.By the 41st Millennium the Moebian Domain and Atoma Prime seem a stable and well-managed region of the Imperium. There had been steady economic and population grownth over the preceding six millennia and the Atoma System now comprised seven main worlds, the capital Atoma Prime with its massive hive city of Tertium, Crucis which had been designated as a Shrine World of the Ecclesiarchy, and then five other worlds including Incron, Rocyria, Branx Magna, Pavane, and Mournax. The domain also maintained several vassal worlds, the most notable being Infidus Brim. Branx Magna had expanded its industrial output and population to a level that it now rivalled even Atoma Prime in terms of its gross planetary product and industrial importance within the star system. Its planetary governors belonged to a noble dynasty known as House van Sparzi.On Atoma Prime itself, Constant Margrave was the Lord Moebian, the 13th head of House Margrave to hold the office and rule the Moebian Domain. Lady Margrave, his sister, while officially subservient to her brother, also held some measure of power within the domain. Unfortunately, the Fringe Wars against the Darktide had flared up once more with increasing regularity.A specific world was noted to be the site of one of the on-going conflicts in the Fringe War at this time. This was the planet of Nox Alpha, a world that was not part of the Moebian Domain as either a member of a vassal, but possessed an inherent strategic value for the Imperial forces fighting on the Fringe. |
Atoma Prime - Era Indomitus: In the Era Indomitus, the Chaos Cult called the Admonition infested the hive city of Hive Tertium on Atoma Prime. When they unleashed a Zombie Plague and a swarm of Poxwalkers began to assault the lower reaches of Hive Tertium, the Moebian 6th Regiment was redirected from frontline deployment to assist in combating the Nurglish corruption. Instead, the corrupted regiment turned on the people it had sworn to protect and began to support the uprising.To stop this growing corruption, the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition under the direction of the Inquisitor Grendyl recently deployed its forces and agents into Hive Tertium in a race against time to save the hive city before it can grow into a cancer that could consume the entire world, or even eventually threaten the entire Moebius Domain. The Ordo Hereticus based its operations in orbit of Atoma Prime, aboard the requisitioned Rogue Trader Firestorm-class Frigate Mourningstar under the command of Shipmistress Emora Brahms. |
Atoma Prime - Hive Tertium: In general, the great Atoman hive city of Tertium is far more "open" in its geographic layout than most hive cities of the Imperium and thus its conurbation is generally less dense than most Imperial arcologies. Yet, it is still an amalgamation of the ramshackle steel layers characteristic of most Imperial hive cities. It is characterised by massive, open cavities within the hive city so large that they even allow voidships and skyfighters to readily pass through and yet remain entirely within the arcology.These open cavities are so expansive that inhabitants of Hive Tertium can be fooled at times that they are living under under open skies until one looks up to see a distant dome of steel boxes marked with massive stalactite-like towers and other artificial structures, all peppered by the pin-points of artificial lights stretching as far as the eye can see. The massive hive city's foundations seem to have been sunk into unsteady ground and are supported by massive pole-like infrastructure in the lower hive levels.The capital city of Atoma Prime, Hive Tertium is the jewel of the Moebian Domain. Hive Tertium was constructed in the 35th Millennium at the behest of Yannice Barquette, the newly-appointed and first known Lord Moebian not descended from the original ruling Moebian dynasty. The industrial boom that saw Hive Tertium and House Barquette's rise to wealth and power on Atoma occurred after the devastating Fringe Wars began in the 35th Millennium.Since Tertium's founding, manufacturing and mining output has been greatly expanded on Atoma Prime. The growth of these industrial actitivites has greatly increased the wealth of the planet but at the cost of the total collapse of its former biosphere and ecosystems, as is so often the result of the establishment of an Imperial hive city. Being a conglomeration of what were once three large but entirely separate Atoman cities, hence the name "Tertium" once they were combined into a single hive, Tertium has been extended upwards by millennia of construction until it has become the massive, continent-straddling arcology it is at present.The opulent and overly indulgent House Barquette was ultimately overthrown by House Margrave in the 36th Millennium after only a single Terran millennium of rule over the hive city and its planet. House Margrave's leader, Anselm Margrave, claimed the office and title of the Lord Moebian and was the first of his house to take upon themselves the office of Lord Moebian.House Barquette would later become infamous in Atoman culture for their overt greed and self-indulgent nature (habits certainly enhanced in House Margrave propaganda after their coup), which could be seen in the attire of the members of their house and those who served them. Barquette Highborn preferred to wear clothing in rich reds and blues covered in elaborate golden patterns and complemented by gold-plated personal armour.Hive Tertium and the husk of a biosphere left on Atoma Prime being a monuments to the unchecked greed of the opportunistic noble houses who overthrew the original Moebian Dynasty in M35. The Margraves would mark themselves apart from the rival noble house of the Barquettes with a more dull and somber attire, adopting dark reds and blue, brown, and black colours into their attire and those who support them. This would mark the beginning of the political rivalry between the two most powerful noble houses of Tertium. One that would continue in current day 41, influencing the divisiveness of Moebian Administratum, Ecclesiarchy, and commoners alike to choose a side. |
Atoma Prime - Witherlands: All of the desolate, polluted regions outside of Hive Tertium are called the "Witherlands," or sometimes simply "the Outside" by the inhabitants of the hive city. The Witherlands are defined by the acrid, orange dust that covers the barren expanse of polluted desert lands that are all that remain of Atoma Prime's once thriving biosphere.There are roaming nomads, mutants and other individuals living in these wastelands, though almost all are required to make use of rebreathers and goggles to allow them to filter the toxic elements out of the air and see through the haze of pollutants. The omnipresent orange dust has a particular odour that can't be easily removed from clothing. |
Atoma Prime - Atoman Society: The planetary capital city of Hive Tertium is known for the thriving liturgical practices that surround the veneration of Saint Messelina by its people and its riveting camelid races.All aspects of Atoman society are currently shaped by the political polarisation between the supporters of the two strongest noble houses that either currently rule or formerly ruled the world and the Moebian Domain, House Margrave or House Barquette, respectively. This societal divide can most easily be seen in the dress and uniforms present throughout all facets of Atoman life.The Barquettes are represented by opulent and lavish attire in bright reds and blues, elaborate clothing patterning, and golden armour plating. The Margraves have sought to distance themselves from the former ruling house by adopting a far more sedate customary garb, defined by drab reds and browns and generally plain in comparison.This political polarisation also affected the Ecclesiarchy of the Moebian Domain, or at least the powerful institutions of the Adeptus Ministorum in the local star system that was home to Atoma Prime and its neighbouring planet, the Shrine World of Crucis. |
Atoma Prime - Crime: Enforcers on Atoma Prime, as is true on most Imperial worlds, are typically the local police forces that maintain order in the hive city and clamp down on most mundane criminal activities like theft, property crimes, food and queue riots, murder, rape, etc. However, like most Enforcers in the Imperium, they are easily corrupted and make excessive use of brutal violence to protect the interests of those in power far more than they seek to ensure justice or fairness.The Carnival district is a recreational district of Hive Tertium that thrives primarily on the production and trade of illegal stimms. As a result, it is a cesspit of vice and depravity and home to a myriad of drug dens, saloons, organised crime hideouts and illegal but highly popular blood sport amphitheaters. |
Atoma Prime - Notable Atoman Criminal Groups: Water Cartel - The Water Cartel's activities are localised within the Torrent district of Hive Tertium. The gangers of the Water Cartel control most of the water refineries of Tertium that are responsible for providing a detoxified, fresh water supply for most of the hive city's population. The Water Cartel is made up of many smaller factions that regularly war amongst themselves for more power and control. It was the Water Cartel that was originally targeted by the Cult of Admonition to serve as its primary vehicle to begin corrupting the inhabitants of Hive Tertium. The cult eventually decapitated the Water Cartel's leadership and then used its control over the water refineries of the Torrent district to begin spreading Nurgle's supernatural diseases like the Zombie Plague and the Walking Pox throughout the hive's populace.Chasm Station Railers - The Chams Station Railers are a gang of smugglers that make use of Hive Tertium's many railway sub-levels, in which they traffick both illegal goods and people, including fugitives seeking to escape the attention of the noble houses. A major hub for Railers' activities is the Chasm Station, a major Tertium subterranean railway depot and crossroads.Durkham's Raiders - The Raiders are a gang associated with Tertium's lower levels. The Moebian 260th Regiment of the Astra Militarum typically recruited from the members of this gang, and their clothing has an orange-and-cream striped pattern.Skyreavers - The Skyreavers are a criminal gang of airborne raiders, smugglers, and bandits. They often tail the various Valkyries flying about the hive city on Imperial business, seeking new opportunities to make a major score on a valuable airborne shipment across the hive. |
Atoma Prime - Moebian Steel: What makes Atoma Prime so strategically valuable to the Moebian Domain and the wider Imperium is its manufactoria's prolific production of Leman Russ Battle Tanks and other armoured vehicles. The Astra Militarum armoured regiments of the Moebian Domain are fully reliant on the materiel and vehicles produced by the many manufactoria of Atoma Prime. At least half of Atoma Prime's surrounding sub-sector is supplied by its manufactoria, with one Atoman manufactorum being worth three lesser ones from worlds in the rest of the sub-sector.However, the sheer quantity of Atoman output is also matched by the quality of its manufactoria's products. All Atoman military output is produced using "Moebian Steel," a stronger and tougher alloy of the standard metal that is smelted from a special blend of minerals found only on Atoma, known colloquially if inaccurately as "Moebian Iron." This remarkable material and Atoma's exceptional manufactoria have made it the economic centre of the Moebian Domain since its inception. |
Atomantic Arc Reactor - Atomantic Arc Reactor: An Atomantic Arc Reactor, also called simply an Atomantic Reactor, is an arcane miniaturised plasma reactor technology based on a form of nuclear fusion originally developed during the Age of Technology that was sometimes employed by various early Dreadnought patterns of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. Even in that era, its workings were poorly understood by the tech-priests of the ancient Mechanicum.An Atomantic Reactor is more powerful by far than anything of its size in current Imperial manufacture, and is a prime example of archeotech.The Atomantic Reactor provided a great surplus of power for those Dreadnought patterns like the Contemptor Dreadnought and other Legiones Astartes vehicles that employed it, and in particular allowed them to deploy Atomantic Shielding or an Atomantic Deflector and more powerful heavy weapons.However, if the Atomantic Arc Reactor is breached in combat, it is prone to catastrophic failure, dooming the Contemptor chassis or other vehicle it is embedded within to utter destruction. The miniature nuclear fusion explosion generated by its inevitable destruction is also prone to causing considerable damage to nearby allied units. |
Atomantic Deflector - Atomantic Deflector: An Atomantic Deflector was an Imperial defensive energy field technology employed by the vehicles of the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.Powered by the vast glut of energy from the compact Atomantic Reactor at its heart, many of the more advanced Legiones Astartes war machines entered the field of battle veiled in a protective shroud of energy that could deflect or disperse las bolts and kinetic munitions.Yet, such was the power channelled through this little-understood device that, in death, these engines of war would erupt in fiery ruin, a danger to friend and foe alike. |
Atomantic Pavaise - Atomantic Pavaise: The Atomantic Pavaise was a highly experimental, carapace-mounted energy shield system that was used by the ancient Deredeo Pattern Dreadnoughts of the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.The Atomantic Pavaise was developed by the Clave Nuathac sub-cult magi of the Forge World of Anvilus with Zone Mortalis operations in mind, with the idea of turning the Deredeo Dreadnought into a mobile bulwark against the heaviest enemy weapons fire. This reinforced energy shield increases the Deredeo's own already formidable armour and shielding, and provides protection to nearby friendly units. |
Atomantic Shielding - Atomantic Shielding: Atomantic Shielding is an advanced, arcane, defensive energy shield system most likely discovered during the Age of Technology that was primarily used to protect Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts and some robots of the Legio Cybernetica during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.The Contemptor Pattern incorporated not only traditional Dreadnought technologies, but arcane systems drawn from the ancient and guarded lore of the Legio Cybernetica of the ancient Mechanicum. Principal among these is the compact Atomantic Arc Reactor power core that is more powerful by far than anything of its size in current Imperial manufacture. A series of defensive energy shield generators are mounted in its armoured carapace.The abundance of power it generates can be used to grant the Dreadnought chassis that houses it speed and strength as well as powerful defensive energy field systems to further increase its battlefield durability, providing greater protection from both ranged and melee attacks for the cybernetic combat walker.However, if the Atomantic Arc Reactor is breached in combat, it is prone to catastrophic failure, dooming the Contemptor chassis to utter destruction. The miniature nuclear fusion explosion generated by its inevitable destruction is also prone to causing considerable damage to nearby allied units. |
Atonement - Atonement: AtonementDeath WorldAchilus CrusadeOrpheus SalientJericho ReachTyranidsHive Fleet DagonAt first glance, Atonement is a Paradise World that appears lush and ripe for Humanity's incursion. The planet has a broad temperate zone, with temperatures that are ideally suited to Human life.The atmosphere is oxygen-rich, the gravity is close to that of holy Terra, and the seas and lands have lush vegetation and abundant, herbivorous fauna. No predators or parasites that target Humankind have been identified.Appearances are deceiving. The air, soil, plants, and wildlife of Atonement are all heavily tainted with high levels of cadmium and other heavy metals that are toxic to Humanity and most other forms of organic life not native to the world. |
Atonement - History: Mankind first settled Atonement when Human colonists arrived in sleeper ships before the Great Crusade. Those settlers died, probably of heavy metal poisoning, before their colony was even completed. The ruins of their vessels remain on the planet as a monument to early Human interstellar history.Human settlers established a new colony on Atonement in the waning days of the Imperial Jericho Sector. Equipped with a broad range of filtration devices, these settlers chose the name "Atonement" to honour the ancients who had desperately attempted to tame this world.When Imperial contact and support were lost during the onset of the sector's "Age of Shadows", troubles swept through the colony. As filtration equipment failed, construction stalled. Like the first attempt, many of these settlers died of heavy metal poisoning. Unlike the ancient settlers, some members of this colony survived in isolation.The few million who dwell on the planet today are descendants of the surviving settlers. They are a stubborn and sickly lot, dependent upon the few remaining filtration systems that have been maintained through the millennia.Many have genetic modifications that enable them to better tolerate the planet's living conditions, though even with these their life expectancies are far shorter than Imperial averages. Aside from filtration, their technology base is far below that of the modern Imperium, almost entirely dependent upon petrochemicals for their energy base.The natives initially rejected Imperial interference when the Achilus Crusade made contact. A show of force, which included an example of orbital bombardment, quickly convinced them to change their minds.They have shown lip service to the Imperial Cult, and have begun to provide limited mining resources to the crusade. The ever-present taint of heavy metals prevents most Imperial units from utilising agricultural products provided by Atonement.In early 815.M41, a Tyranid Hive Ship with its entourage was seen entering the system. A few vessels that were in orbit attempted to engage the fleet, while a pair of destroyers were dispatched to send a plea for reinforcements. One of those destroyers, Thorn of Truth, made contact with elements of the salient stationed at Castobel.A sizeable fleet element was dispatched to Atonement, with orders to make every effort to hold the planet. When they arrived, they found only Tyranid vessels in system, and a world already seeded with Tyranid spores. To their surprise, however, the planet's natives responded to vox inquiries and explained that they were maintaining a defensive action against overwhelming numbers of xenos.Support units rapidly deployed to the planet, as the fleet launched a counter-assault against the Tyranid vessels. The battles still rage both on land and in the void. Though the odds are not in their favour, the Imperial defensive efforts -- especially on the surface -- seem to be going better than expected.The organisms involved in the attack appear less vigorous in their actions than those observed throughout the salient. Agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus have not determined if this is due to the planet's contaminants or another unidentified variable. |
Atramentar - Atramentar: The Atramentar were the elite unit of Veteran Terminators within the Night Lords Traitor Legion's formidable 1st Company that was commanded by the infamous First Captain Jago "Sevatar" Sevatarion. Following the death of Captain Sevatarion at the Siege of Terra, the leadership of the Atramentar passed to the Terran-born Night Lord Zso Sahaal.After the death of the Night Haunter at the hands of the Imperial Assassin M'Shen on Tsagualsa years after the end of the Horus Heresy, the Atramentar scattered with the rest of their Legion and, by the time of the 41st Millennium, often served as individual bodyguards to the powerful Chaos Lords who commanded the various Night Lords warbands of Heretic Astartes.While originally outfitted in Tartaros Pattern Terminator Armour, over the centuries many of the surviving Atramentar Chaos Terminators adapted other patterns of Terminator Armour captured from Loyalist Astartes as their own ancient armour was damaged or wore out with little chance for securing replacement parts. |
Atramentar - Origins: During the Great Crusade, no Legion of the Legiones Astartes elevated the use of fear itself as a weapon to the extent that the Night Lords did. Even before the treachery of the Drop Site Massacre of Isstvan V, the Night Lords were Renegade in all but name, having entirely devoted themselves to the arts of terror and murder.At the forefront of this Legion of murderers, cutthroats and torturers were the Atramentar. This elite cadre's numbers were chosen from amongst the standard ranks of the Night Lords Legion from Astartes who had been singled out and personally selected by their primarch for their ferocity and cruelty. Each member was known by name and reputation within and without the Night Lords Legion.These deadly warriors were outfitted in Tartaros Pattern Terminator Armour and armed with the finest weapons the Legion possessed, which they proceeded to wield with murderous talent. Along with this fearsome armament and formidable killing prowess, the Atramentar were also just as fractious and rebellious as the rest of their Legion. The task of commanding such a force was only possible for the strongest-willed of leaders, those willing and capable of demonstrating what they asked of their charges on the countless battlefields of the Great Crusade. It was in these circumstances that the Atramentar excelled as shock troops, with all their irascibility and spite correctly channeled, ready to be unleashed in a crescendo of savagery against any that dared to stand before them.The Atramentar had sworn their loyalty not to their Legion or primarch, but to First Captain Jago Sevatarion alone. In battle they followed his commands without question, remorse or hesitation. This was a rare example of fidelity among a Legion famed for its treachery and lack of honour.For the warriors of the Atramentar, no deed was beneath them and any pretence of honourable combat had long since been abandoned. Seeking only to end their enemy in the most painful and undignified manner, they used deception and trickery to make spiteful and underhanded attacks, never facing their opponent in an honest engagement, even stooping to pushing their own brethren before a killing blow in order to make a counter themselves. |
Atramentar - Drop Site Massacre: During the Drop Site Massacre, First Captain Jago Sevatarion led his 1st Company elite to the surface of Isstvan V. Bronze chains wrapped their armour, lashing weapons to fists, as the Night Lords made ready for the coming signal to begin the assault upon the unsuspecting Loyalists.Following the first wave of the attack and the bloodying of the three Loyalist Legions, the second wave of "reinforcements" eagerly awaited the withdrawing mass of Loyalists on the slopes of the Urgall Depression. As the battered Raven Guard warriors staggered towards the unified Night Lords and Word Bearers force, exhausted, clutching empty bolters and broken blades, believing their "brothers"' presence to be a reprieve, they waited in grim silence.As they voxed hails requesting medical aid and supply, the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their "allies." It was then that Horus revealed his perfidy and sprung his lethal trap. Inside the black alien fortress where the Warmaster had made his lair, a lone flare shot skyward, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below. The fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns, as the second wave of Astartes revealed where their true loyalties now lay, and the Atramentar gloried in the slaughter of their former brethren that followed. |
Atramentar - Thramas Crusade: Following the massacre on Isstvan V, the Warmaster Horus sent Primarch Konrad Curze and his Night Lords Legion on a campaign of genocide against the Imperial strongholds of Heroldar and Thramas in the Aegis Sub-sector of the Eastern Fringe, thus protecting Horus' flank and delaying the Dark Angels Legion from reinforcing the Loyalists. This bitterly contested Thramas Crusade dragged on for nearly three standard years.At the height of this brutal conflict the Dark Angels executed a meticulously planned ambush on the Night Lords' fleet while it was in transit across the sub-sector that saw the back of the Night Lords Legion broken and their primarch mortally wounded after having faced his brother Lion El'Jonson once again in mortal combat.Thanks to the skilled coordination and superb execution by the Lion, the Night Lords fleet was devastated, losing dozens of capital ships and approximately one-quarter of their Legion fleet to the Dark Angels' assault. Unfortunately, the remainder of the Night Lords fleet fled the Dark Angels' wrath, taking their critically wounded primarch with them before the Lion could finally end his wretched life.This resulted in the death of all but a dozen of the Atramentar and the capture of First Captain Sevatarion and the remaining survivors. Konrad Curze fled El'Jonson's wrath, evading the Dark Angels for solar months, stalking the shadows within the bowels of their mighty capital ship, the Invincible Reason. Somehow, the remaining Night Lords managed to affect their escape and fled into the void. |
Atramentar - Doom of Sotha: In the latter days of 010.M31 a brutal storm would engulf the isolated system of Sotha. The ragged fleets of the Night Lords Legion, fresh from the murderous crucible of the Thramas Crusade, shattered the orbital defences of the Ultramarines and seized control of this remote corner of Ultramar. Such an act would swiftly draw the ire of the Lords of the Five Hundred Worlds, whose warships outnumbered those of the Night Lords, and seemed an ill-considered onslaught if the prize was no more than a Frontier World on the edge of the Imperium. Yet, Sotha held sometl1ing more valuable than resources or conscripts -- an artefact known as the Pharos. This device was the key to the Ultramarines' defences and a prize that would allow the warlords of the Night Lords to claim the favour of Warmaster Horus.One among these disparate warlords was chosen to lead the initial assault on the planet -- Claw Master Zaar Siakaar. A warrior whose ambition outstripped his caution, he boasted of the victory his troops would win at Sotha even as the assembled Night Lords looked on. Such a victory would see him rise high in the esteem of his leaderless Legion, with the Night Haunter missing since the final battle of the Thramas Crusade, and grant him a chance at true power. Yet, few of the more established captains of the VIIIth Legion cared for the braggadocio of such an upstart whelp. These grim veterans granted the claw master his opportunity, with several even offering their supply of warriors from the elite Atramentar to support his assault. Blinded by dreams of glory, Zaar Siakaar took them at their word and moved his ships to the vanguard of the fleet.Claw Master Siakaar's planetfall was preceded by a barrage of macrocannon shells and incendiary munitions, indiscriminately dropped among the habitation zones to demolish buildings and ignite a conflagration that quickly spread through the city of Sothopolis. Waves of Drop Pods and planetary assault craft swiftly followed, carrying the bulk of seven companies -- with Siakaar's company and the Atramentar at the fore.Thousands of missiles streaked up into the sky on trails of burning promethium, followed by volleys of laser fire from Sotha's anti-air batteries, turning the skies into a seething storm of fire. Yet, for every Drop Pod that perished, dozens more landed amid the outskirts of the city to disgorge their deadly cargo. Within a few short solar hours, the horizon was engulfed in black clouds of smoke as the Night Lords rampaged through the streets of the dying city, falling upon the hastily drawn up ranks of the Ultramarines' Aegida Company as it vainly tried to defend the city and its inhabitants.Claw Master Zaar Siakaar presided over the assault from his personal command Spartan Assault Tank, co-ordinating the actions of his warriors as they swept through the city. Serving as his personal guard were a cadre of the elite Atramentar Terminators. These vicious killers were drawn from the missing Captain Sevatarion's 1st Company, now spread out amongst the warbands and companies of the fractious VIIIth Legion to act as enforcers for the other warlords of the Legion.An armoured spearhead amassed around the command Spartan; Land Raider Proteus carriers and Deimos Pattern Rhinos carrying the Legion's assault troops, supported by swift Sabre Strike Tanks and heavily armed Sicaran Punishers. Siakaar sent a single coded vox-signal across all VIIIth Legion frequencies and the vehicle column surged forwards through the streets of Sothopolis towards the XIIIth Legion castellum defending the approaches that led to the mountain where the Pharos lay hidden.The invasion quickly became a massacre, the Night Lords venting the rage of their defeat at Thramas on the defenders of Sotha. Proteus Pattern Land Speeders and Legion Outrider Squadrons ranged ahead of the main invasion force to herd Sotha's fleeing population down the capital's streets and into the waiting blades of the VIIIth Legion. The revving of chainblades and the roar of bolters combined with the screams of the terrified population to form a cacophony of misery that echoed across Sothopolis. The Ultramarines engaged the invaders in a fighting retreat, buying time with their lives holding makeshift roadblocks in a valiant effort to evacuate as many civilians from the city as possible.The overwhelming enemy numbers began to tell and the Ultramarines rigged charges to send sections of buildings collapsing across the Night Lords' line of advance, crushing Legionaries and blocking the passage of armoured vehicles. Still, the VIIIth Legion came on, Siakaar and the Atramentar crushing all resistance beneath the treads of their mighty Spartan tank. Packs of Night Raptors ranged ahead of the tank formation, leaping over the wreckage using controlled bursts from their Jump Packs to land among the warriors of Ultramar and slice them apart with serrated swords and viciously hooked axes. One by one pockets of resistance across the city were surrounded and eliminated, with the wounded survivors often dragged away to suffer unspeakable torments in the torture pits of the VIIIth Legion.The tattered remnants of the Ultramarines' garrison chose to make their stand at Attican Square, a natural choke point where all the roads leading to the castellum converged. Centurion Vieron Ekarr, the last of the Ultramarines officers left in the city, took the opportunity to rally the withdrawing forces of his Legion as the Night Lords paused their advance to terrorise and butcher the civilians trapped within the city. Despite the chaos of the retreat, the disciplined centurion managed to assemble a sizable force of defenders -- from battered phalanxes of Breachers to the grim ranks of his Suzerain bodyguard.These vengeful warriors locked their shields together in front of a marble statue of Roboute Guilliman carrying the torch of Imperial Unity, determined to hold beneath the gaze of their primarch and delay the enemy long enough for those that had already evacuated the city to fortify the castellum against the Night Lords' assault. A pair of Deredeo Pattern Dreadnoughts took up position on either side of the monument, Ancients Menarrio and Argan training the barrels of their Anvilus Autocannon batteries to the skies, while alongside them, the few remaining Predator and Sicaran battle tanks of the Ultramarines blocked the enemy's advance towards the castellum.The Night Lords responded m a fashion typical of their cruel nature, herding hundreds of captured civilians into the square, each with their eyelids sewn together or their eyeballs plucked from their skulls. Behind the throng of unfortunate Sothans came squadrons of Night Lords Land Raiders and Rhino armoured transports, speeding into the square with the still-living bodies of captured Ultramarine neophytes pinned to their hulls with their skin flayed in agonising and depraved parodies of the Emperor's Aquila. The XIIIth Legion's tanks belatedly opened fire, stunned into inaction for a brief but decisive moment, and though several of the enemy vehicles disappeared in a storm of explosive rounds and plasma blasts, most crossed the square unharmed.The Night Lords assault group rolled over the stumbling civilians, leaving trails of broken bodies and rivers of blood behind them as they came to a grinding halt before the Ultramarines' position. Assault ramps dropped with a resounding crash and through the darkness of their interiors came the Despoiler and Terror Squads of the VIIIth Legion, scores of Renegade Legionaries charging towards the cobalt blue shieldwall with a murderous fury.Vieron Ekarr positioned himself within the front rank, a wave of gold and blue armoured bodies surrounding the last surviving officer of the Ultramarines, the shields of his warriors overlapping against each other to form a protective barrier. The order ciringite frontem was given and the well-drilled Ultramarines Legionaries responded by lifting their shields higher, bracing for the charge.The lead Night Lords lashed out with chainblades and Bolt Pistols, seeking an opening in the shieldwall that would break the formation. Many found themselves hurled from their feet by the press of their enemies' Boarding Shields slamming back as one. The shieldwall opened and the Suzerains cut the nearest Night Lords down with swift strikes of their legatine Power Axes before closing ranks again. The charge lost momentum and faltered, many Night Lords forced to defend themselves while others still pressed the attack.The Ultramarines fought in the disciplined manner their Legion was renowned for, blocking and thrusting with their gladii power swords to kill or maim their opponents. The Night Lords fought as brawlers and murderers, using the bodies of their fallen as stepping stones to jump over the shieldwall where they dragged their enemies to the ground, hacking at soft armour joints and firing their Bolt Pistols point blank into eye lenses.Xiphon Interceptors and Fire Raptors in the midnight-blue of the VIIIth Legion dived from the sky and flew through the streets to strafe the rear of the Ultramarines' positions with a hail of Avenger Bolt Cannon shells and Lascannon blasts, suicidally braving the castellum's anti-air batteries in an effort to drain their ammunition reserves out of pure murderous spite.Dozens of Ultramarine Legionaries were torn to bloody shreds and Predator tanks were reduced to flaming wrecks before a stream of armour piercing rounds from the Ultramarines Deredeo Ancients sent the enemy aircraft crashing into the fire-blackened buildings of Sothopolis. The Ultramarines' and Night Lords' dead littered the ground, the XIIIth Legion's defensive formation now reduced to just a third of its original size.The shieldwall reformed around the statue of Guilliman, its features now scarred by gunfire and stained with soot and blood; those injured Ultramarines fortunate enough to be dragged into the cover of the shieldwall by Legion Apothecaries fired their weapons over the shoulders of their brothers in the front. Time seemed to slow down to the warriors of the two Legions as they fought to a bitter standstill with both sides stubbornly refusing to yield.With the battle stagnating, a lone Spartan Assault Tank sitting silent among the Night Lords vehicles powered up its engines. The metal behemoth moved ponderously at first and then picked up speed as it drove towards the swirling melee at the square's edge. Sensing the Loyalists were now weakened enough by his expendable troops, Claw Master Siakaar and his aloof Atramentar guard deemed it was time to enter the fray and claim an easy victory. The Spartan crashed into the close press of Ultramarines and Night Lords, indiscriminately grinding armoured bodies into bloody pulp under its mighty tracks.The shieldwall broke and the Night Lords poured their numbers through the gap to swarm the beleaguered Ultramarines. The Spartan's hatches opened and out of them charged Siakaar and the Atramentar. Hulking warriors clad in debased midnight-blue Tartaros Pattern Terminator Armour, festooned with grisly trophies torn from Human bodies, the Atramentar lashed left and right with their Nostraman Chainglaives, butchering all in their path.Ultramarines were hacked down like wheat before the scythe and even Night Lords Legionaries who strayed too close to the claw master were not spared their wrath, the Atramentar showing little trust to their perfidious brothers since the fracturing of their Legion. Two of the Atramentar singled out Centurion Vieron Ekarr among his brethren by his magnificently sculpted Artificer Armour and lashed out at him with their Nostraman Chainglaives, seeking to claim a kill that would seal the battle's outcome.The Ultramarines centurion barely held his ground against the monstrous Terminators, his surviving three Suzerains rushing to their lord's defence. One of the Atramentar grabbed a nearby Night Lord and shoved him in the way of the charging Suzerains, delaying them long enough for him to shoot one of Ultramar's champions through the chest with his Plasma Blaster before crashing into the rest, wildly swinging his Chainglaive in wide arcs. Still engaged in combat with the other Atramentar, Vieron Ekarr failed to see the dark form of Siakaar step in behind him. The bladed fingers of a crackling Lightning Claw erupted from the Ultramarine officer's chest, tearing apart both of his hearts, before his helmet and head were ripped brutally from his body by the whirring teeth of a Chainglaive.With the death of their commander, the remaining Ultramarines were truly broken and the last of their number fell amidst the shattered armour and buckled shields of their brethren. Only corpses and ash marked the Ultramarines' brief stand in Attican Square, and Claw Master Siakaar stood upon the verge of glory, his position among the new warlords of the VIIIth Legion all but guaranteed by this triumph.As the claw master paused to cut his mark upon the bloodied, torn corpse of Centurion Ekarr, the Atramentar assigned to him by his allies closed about him, blades raised and bolters cycling. The hulking Terminators grimly followed the orders given to them in orbit, to eliminate the vainglorious claw master who had dared to step beyond his place. Siakaar had forgotten the strictures that the Night Haunter had instilled in his sons: glory and honour were worthless and victory was fleeting. It was only the will to wield the knife that mattered, that and the strength to direct where it fell. |
Atramentar - Dark Fate: Following the death of Jago Sevatarion during the conclusion of the Horus Heresy at the Siege of Terra, the Atramentar largely dissolved, which some, like the Apothecary Talos Valcoran, believed was due to Sevatarion's successor Zso Sahaal being a non-Nostraman. Though the Atramentar respected Sahaal, they had no affection for him. When the Atramentar disbanded after Sevatarion's death, their resistance to Zso Sahaal was born from something more than simple prejudice.Some of the 1st Company were Terrans, the oldest warriors in the VIIIth Legion. But there was more to it than just Sahaal's birth world. Being Terran, Nostraman, or born of any other world had never mattered to most of the Night Lords. They were divided because, with their primarch gone, this was every Traitor Legion's fate over time as the realities of an allegiance to Chaos, no matter how ephemeral, manifested themselves more strongly. Centuries later, when a member of the Atramentar was questioned by Mercutian, a squad member of First Claw, 10th Company, he replied that the Night Lords' 1st Company had dissolved mostly because its Astartes felt that no one could live up the dark reputation of their former first captain.The Atramentar would serve no other leader after Sevatar died; he had made them into what they were, a brotherhood that could not be broken any other way. In the same way, the members of the VIIIth Legion would serve no single captain after their primarch died. It was not their way, just as most of the Traitor Legions ultimately fragmented into hundreds of different warbands. Allegiance to Chaos ultimately always bred division and fractious internecine conflict no matter how powerful its worshipers proved to be. |
Atramentar - Unit Composition: 4-19 Atramentar1 Atramentar Trucidor (Sergeant) |
Atramentar - Wargear: Tartaros Pattern Terminator ArmourCombi-bolterPower Weapon (Any type) |
Atramentar - Optional Wargear: One in five Atramentar in a squad may exchange their Combi-bolter for one of the following:Heavy FlamerReaper AutocannonPlasma BlasterAny Atramentar and/or the squad's Trucidor may exchange their Combi-bolter for one of the following:Minor Combi-weaponMagna Combi-weaponVolkite ChargerAny Atramentar and/or the squad's Trucidor may exchange their Power Weapon for one of the following:ChainglaivePower FistLightning ClawChainfistThunder HammerAny Atramentar and/or the squad's Trucidor may exchange both their power weapon and combi-bolter for:2 Lightning ClawsThe squad's Trucidor may take any of the following:Grenade HarnessHeadsman's Axe |
Atramentar - Notable Atramentar: Jago "Sevatar" Sevatarion - Jago Sevatarion, known also as Sevatar, "the Condemned," and the "Prince of Crows," was the first captain of the Night Lords Legion. He was also the commander of the Atramentar, the elite Terminator-armoured unit of the VIIIth Legion's formidable 1st Company and an officer of the Kyroptera, the Night Haunter's most trusted advisors and confidants within the Night Lords Legion, during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy in the 30th and early 31st Millennia. A native of Nostramo, Sevatarion served as equerry to Primarch Konrad Curze and was known as one of the most lethal warriors of the entire Legiones Astartes, his name and skill as well known as those of Ezykyle Abaddon of the Sons of Horus, Corswain of the Dark Angels, Chapter Master Raldoron of the Blood Angels or Lord Commander Eidolon of the Emperor's Children. Sevatarion was killed during the Siege of Terra.Zso Sahaal, "The Talonmaster" - Zso Sahaal was the "Talonmaster", the First Captain of the VIII Legion's elite 1st Company after his predecessor, Jago Sevatarion, was slain during the Battle of Terra. He was known as the Unguis Raptus, "the Raptor's Claws," for his incorporation of Lightning Claws into his Power Armour, and this name was also applied to the troops of the 1st Company's elite command squad.Malek - Served amongst Sevatarion's elite Atramentar during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. His squad, including Veteran Atramentar warriors Thorion and Jakresh, followed Sevatarion's order to execute rogue Kyroptera officers Malithos Kuln and Cel Herec after a I Legion ambush facilitated by the Tuchulcha Warp Device. Ten standard millennia later he, alongside Garadon and Vraal, served as bodyguard to Vandred Anrathi, also known as The Exalted, the former commander of the Night Lords 10th Company. He also served as an advocate and advisor to Talos Valcoran, the Soul Hunter, when The Exalted felt threatened by the former Apothecary's rising star. After Talos' death at the hand of Jain Zar on the former VIII Legion world of Tsagualsa, Malek, along with Garadon, was found at the side of Decimus, the Astartes created from the fallen prophet's gene-seed.Garadon - Served as bodyguard to the Chaos Lord known as The Exalted.Vraal - Served as bodyguard to the Chaos Lord known as The Exalted.Thorion - Served as an Atramentar commander during the Thramas Crusade in the midst of the Horus Heresy.Orrin Valzen - Served as an Atramentar officer and Chief Apothecary of the VIIIth Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.Jakresh - Served amongst the Atramentar during the Thramas Crusade in the midst of the Horus Heresy.Tal Vanek - Served amongst the Atramentar during the Thramas Crusade in the midst of the Horus Heresy. |
Atrapos Lascutter - Atrapos Lascutter: The Atrapos Lascutter is a massive Laser Weapon used by the combat walkers of the Questor Imperialis, the Imperial Knights, and by the Renegade Knights of the Questor Traitoris. The Atrapos Lascutter is found only on the Cerastus Knight-Atrapos. The Cerastus Knight-Atrapos was designed with the singular purpose of destroying Heretek engines and xenos war machines whose very nature and existence was considered a blasphemy to the Omnissiah. The Atrapos Lascutter is a massively up-scaled version of the standard Lascutter that is used both as an industrial tool and as a close-range support weapon during void-boarding actions and siege warfare. Lascutters work by using a disruption field-assisted short range laser arc to cut through a target's dense molecular structure.The Atrapos Lascutter takes the function of a Lascutter to the extreme, resulting in a weapon able to cut through the hulls of enemy tanks with ease. The Atrapos can use its Lascutter to destroy enemy Knights and can even pose a threat to Battle Titans at close range. The Atrapos Lascutter can be used as a melee weapon, or can fire a longer-ranged directed energy attack, though the range remains quite limited. |
Atrapos Lascutter - Sources: The Horus Heresy - Book Six: Retribution by Alan Bligh, pp. 278-279Imperial Armour Index: Forces of the Astra Militarum (8th Edition), pg. 97Imperial Armour Index: Forces of Chaos (8th Edition), pg. 61Forge World Webstore - Cerastus Knight Atrapos |
Attack Bike - Attack Bike: The Attack Bike, also known as the Space Marine Attack Bike, is a variant of the standard Assault Bike used by the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes.The Attack Bike is the most common variant of the Assault Bike and has been used by the Space Marines since the early years of the Great Crusade.The Attack Bike and Assault Bike were used by both sides in the Imperial civil war known as the Horus Heresy.In the years following the Heresy, the usage of the Attack Bike by the Traitor Legions, now led by Abaddon the Despoiler, decreased, although they still make use of the standard Assault Bike.The Attack Bike differs from the standard Assault Bike in that it adds a sidecar to the left-side of the vehicle which is equipped with a heavy weapon such as a Heavy Bolter.Another Space Marine rides in the sidecar to fire the heavy weapon. The Attack Bike is used as heavy, yet mobile fire-support for Space Marine Bike Squads and infantry squads.The power and speed of the Attack Bike is so potent that many Space Marine Chapters field entire squads of Attack Bikes in place of Assault Bikes. |
Attack Bike - History: The Attack Bike, along with its Assault Bike variant, have been used by the Adeptus Astartes since the dawn of the Imperium. The Space Marine Legions that fought during the Great Crusade maintained deployed entire companies of Attack and Assault Bikes to use for lightning fast attacks on their enemies.These vehicles were deployed during the Horus Heresy by both Loyalist and Traitor Legions alike. During the Heresy many Bike Squads were used by the Traitor Legions to hunt down Loyalist survivors of the virus-bombing of Istvaan III, and the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V.At the Siege of Terra the White Scars Legion and their expert use of Assault and Attack Bikes helped keep the Traitor Legions from the walls of the Imperial Palace, and after the walls were breached they were successful in capturing the Lion's Gate Starport and denying the Traitors many of their reinforcements as a result.Following the death of the Arch-traitor Horus, the Traitor Legions made a hasty retreat from Terra into the Eye of Terror, all the while being harried from world to world by White Scars Bike Squads. |
Attack Bike - Armament: The standard Attack Bike used by the Adeptus Astartes and sometimes by the Chaos Space Marines is armed with Twin-linked Bolters that are attached to the bike's forward armour cowling, fixed to fire in the direction of travel.The sheer amount of Bolter shells that can be brought to bear at whatever target that might stand in the way is often enough to make the enemy break and run before a Bike has even reached them. The Attack Bike mounts a heavy weapon on the vehicle's sidecar to be used by its passenger. This weapon can be either a Heavy Bolter or a Multi-Melta.While the Attack Bike itself is only lightly armed and armoured by most Space Marine vehicle standards, the vehicle's real firepower comes from its riders, who are always equipped with Frag Grenades, and can also employ Krak Grenades.The riders are usually also equipped with a Bolt Pistol and a Chainsword, and can optionally make use of Flamers, Meltaguns, Grav-Guns and Plasma Guns.Bike Squad Sergeants, and sometimes regular Battle-Brothers from very well-equipped Chapters, may also possess Plasma Pistols, Grav-Pistols, Power Swords, Powerfists, Combi-weapons, and Melta Bombs.During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia, Attack Bikes could be equipped with weapons that are no longer commonly used by the Adeptus Astartes in the late 41st Millennium, such as an Autocannon that replaced the vehicle's standard Heavy Bolter. |
Attack Bike - Unit Composition: 1-3 Space Marine Bikers on Attack Bikes |
Attack Bike - Wargear: Each Biker in a Space Marine Bike Squad is armed and equipped with:Bolt PistolFrag GrenadesKrak GrenadesTwin-linked Bolters (Attack Bike)Heavy Bolter (Attack Bike)An Attack Bike may replace its side car-mounted Heavy Bolter with the following:Multi-Melta |
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