Vehicles of the Legiones Astartes

The *Legiones Astartes* used a multitude of vehicles acorss the Great Crusade. Some were used since its inception, or even during the Unification Wars, right through until the Great Secession, while others were developed later during the Crusade, or were replaced as new equipment was made avaliable, falling out of service or being relegated to 2nd or 3rd line supporting roles.

## Tanks

### Main Battle Tanks

**Deimos** **Predator Destructor**

The Deimos Predator Destructor is the standard pattern of Deimos Predator, and is armed with a turret-mounted Autocannon known as a Predator Cannon and two sponson-mounted Heavy Bolters, one on each side. The sponson-mounted Heavy Bolters can be replaced with either Heavy Flamers or Lascannons, depending on if the mission calls for close-range fighting or an enemy fielding a large number of armoured vehicles. The vehicle can also remove its sponson weapons entirely, although this is rarely done. The Deimos Predator's sponson-mounted weaponry can be enclosed in a circular armoured shell, and unlike the equally enclosed sponson weapons of the Mark III Predator, the Deimos Predator's sponson weapons can turn a full 180 degrees, allowing the weapons to be protected from enemy fire and to fire upon enemies that are behind the tank.

**Deimos** **Predator Executioner**

The Deimos Predator Executioner replaces the standard Deimos Predator's turret-mounted Autocannon, known as a Predator Cannon, with a turret-mounted Executioner Pattern Plasma Destroyer. The Plasma Destroyer is a powerful Plasma Weapon that is able to blast apart even the most powerful armour with contemptuous ease. The Predator Executioner was fielded in large numbers by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade, although by the late 41st Millennium Plasma Weapons technology has nearly been lost to the Imperium. As a result, surviving Deimos Predator Executioners are revered as treasured relics that cannot be easily replaced. It is unknown if the Mars Pattern Predator can be armed with the same weapon load-outs as the Deimos Predator variant, or even if the Adeptus Mechanicus would allow it if it were possible.

**Deimos** **Predator Infernus**

The Deimos Predator Infernus replaces the standard Deimos Predator's turret-mounted Autocannon, known as a Predator Autocannon, with a turret-mounted Flamestorm Cannon. The Flamestorm Cannon is a massive, vehicle-sized Flamer. The Predator Infernus was fielded in large numbers by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade.

**Predator Destructor**

The Predator Destructor, usually referred to simply as the Predator, is one of the most common main battle tank employed by the Space Marines of the Imperium of Man. It is a more heavily armed and armoured version of the Rhino armoured personnel carrier.

The Predator Destructor is the most common variant of the Predator used by the Space Marines, and its long-barreled Syrtis Pattern Autocannon main armament, also known as a Predator Cannon, makes it most effective in an anti-infantry role. All Rhino and Predator variants are based off of designs originally created during the Dark Age of Technology, using Standard Template Construct (STC) database designs. The tanks can be constructed on Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus or in a Space Marine Legions own forges, and afterwards they are sent to the Legions Armoury until they are needed.

**Sicaran Main Battle Tank**

Designed in the closing years of the 30th Millennium as a replacement of the Predator Main Battle Tank, the Sicaran was made possible using knowledge gleaned from the STC of both the Predator and the larger Land Raider, as well as numerous STC fragments recovered throughout the Great Crusade. The Sicaran Battle Tank is the exclusive province of the Space Marine Legions and was considered one of the most advanced armoured units in the arsenal of the Great Crusade. The primary armament of the main Sicaran variant was the sophisticated Herakles pattern Accelerator Autocannon. Technologically akin to the heavier calibre ordnance mounted on the Fellblade super-heavy tank, it was a superior rapid-firing and highly accurate weapon. It fired shells at far higher velocities than a standard Autocannon, enabling it to successfully track and engage swift-moving targets and pinpoint vulnerabilities in enemy armour with lethal precision.

**Sicaran Dominus [1]**

With sanction granted to a number of Forge Worlds to modify the Sicaran for a variety of combat roles, numerous versions of the standard Sicaran began to appear in greater or smaller numbers, the Dominus one such example. A need was quickly identifed for a version of the tank that could engage even the fastest moving armoured targets, necessitating keeping the turret, rather than creating a hull-mounted weapon, such as the Venator, and amongst the successful of the designs created exchanged the Sicaran’s accelerator autocannons for a pair of Graviton Cannons, increasing the tanks already prestigious anti-armour capabilities immensly.

Granted immediate approval by the Mechanicum, the Sicaran Dominus excelled in rupturing armoured vehicles as it was intended, as well as finding another niche as a siege vehicle, and during the Great Secession, as a deverstating weapon against the terminators fielded by the traitors. The Dominus was therefore highly sort after by all legions during that conflict, but few are known to have seen action, their weapon systems difficult to understand, and even harder to repair in the face of enemy fire.

**Sicaran Lanius [1]**

The Sicaran variant which would later become known as the Lanius owes its origins to conflicts against hordes of xenos armies, forces which sought to overwhelm through sheer numbers. First-generation Sicaran Battle Tanks were capable of combatting such foes, but even they could only engage so many targets at once, their autocannons lacking the high rate of fire required for such actions, taking heavy damage with each engagement. This quickly became problematic, as the delicate targeting augaries and sophisticated internal assemblies of the Herakles pattern accelerator autocannon caused extreme delays in the repair process, preventing many otherwise combat-ready vehicles from being deployed. This became ever more pressing as the Crusade wore on, a solution being required to bring these vehicles back to full fighting efficacy, without grinding the legion to a halt while the work was done.

Theeventual response to this issue was surprisingly utilitarian - replacing the accelerator autocannonw with a pair of mighty Kheres Assault Cannon, a weapon which was easily replaceable, simple to repair and maintain, and with a munition type heavily stockpiled and easy to produce - unlike the highly specialised shells required by the original Sicaran. Despite the revulsion of the Mechanicum adepts alongside the legion at such a brutal conversion of the Sicaran's highly advanced systems, the new variant did receive sanction for deployment where its new armament would provide a tactical advantage.

**Sicaran Omega Plasma Carrier**

The Sicaran Omega Plasma Carrier, usually refered to simply as the Sicaran Omega, is armed with a turret-mounted Omega Plasma Array. The Omega Plasma Array is a simplified, and sometimes considered crude, over-sized copy of the ancient Mechanicum's Plasma-fusil Weaponry, a stopgap and imperfect copy that was nonetheless capable of being produced by the lesser forges attached to many Space Marine Legion strongholds, allowing them to replace losses of more complex vehicles. These weapons relied on the brutal application of overwhelming force to reduce enemy armour to wrecks instead of the precise annihilation of more advanced weapons systems. The Omega Plasma Array is capable of focusing and projecting a highly pressurised stream of volatile and highly charged plasma, vaporising outer armour layers and literally burning through an enemy tank's defences. The weapon is capable of firing either as a volley of plasma bolts, or as a sustained burn which can quickly rip through multiple layers of armour plating, at the expense of potentially overheating the weapon.

The highly charged plasma utilised by the Sicaran Omega is contained at pressures that are difficult to regulate for even the most skilled Techmarines, and even a slight miscalculation can lead to disaster. When such an engine suffers a catastrophic breach, the destruction wrought is far more terrible than for other vehicles of its class.

**Sicaran Punisher Assault Tank**

The Sicaran Punisher directly competes with the Lanius and Ustor variants of the Sicaran as a anti-massed infantry assault tank, replacing the standard Sicaran Battle Tank's twin-linked set of the highly sophisticated Herakles Pattern Accelerator Autocannons with a massive Punisher Rotary Cannon, greater in scope than a Kheres assault cannon, though falling short of a Vulcan-class mega bolter. The Rotary Cannon does not simply replace the base Sicaran's weapon system, instead the tank's entire turret is replaced with the domed turret commonly found on other Astartes vehicles such as the Deimos Predator and Fellblade. The Punisher Rotary Cannon is mounted to the side of the turret dome, with its complex feeding mechanisms and gyro-assisted recoil compensators taking up the remainder of the turret.

**Sicaran Ustor Assault Tank [1]**

Designed after the Lanius variant was created, the Ustor variant of the Sicaran battle tank mounts the esoteric but nonetheless formidable Volkite Cascade in place of the twin assault cannons, a powerful weapon that is little understood outside a handful of Mechanicum Magos or the highest of Astartes Tech Marines. This Volkite Cascade ensures that the Sicaran Ustor is every bit as deadly as its Lanius forebear, the tank possessing considerable infantry-killing capacity, becoming especially devastating against entrenched enemy positions, where the weapon’s rapid rate of fire combined with the inherent combustive potential of Volkite beams creates a searing wave of incendiary energy around the target position, driving foes from cover and blossoming outwards is a series of secondary ignitions.

### Light Tanks

**Fireblade Light Tank**

Designed alongside the Malcador Infernus and the Infernus Infantry Support tank, the fireblade is much favoured tank of the Titans of Vayrd'un. Piloted by a single warrior, the fireblade is blindingly fast, able to outpace almost any other imperial ground vehicle, rivalled only by the Zephyr rapid insertion Vehicle.

However, rather than boasting any sort of transport capacity like the Zephyr , the Fireblade mounts a single, potent weapon in its hull; a Flamestorm Cannon, usually found mounted on large vehicles, such as the Deimos Predator Infernus, or sponson weapons of Land Raiders.

While lacking the protection or secondary of any of the Infernus-class vehicles; the Deimos Predator, Malcador or the Infernus Infantry Support Tank, the Fireblade’s speed and tiny size more than makes up for this, able to insert onto a battlefield, douse an area in deadly flames before withdrawing again with such speed that many enemies do not realise they are under attack before the tank as disappeared once more.

**Lionheart Light Cavalry Tank**

The Lionheart Light cavalry Tank, mostly refered to as the Lionheart, was designed to work alongside mechanised cavalry vehicles such as attack bikes. Boasting a profile that is barely taller than an Astartes, a pair of Space Marine crew can control the vehicle with ease, almost lying down within its sleek hull. Boasting a ferocious top speed, the Lionheart is lightly armoured and armed, vulnerable to even light anti-tank weapons, and armed either with a pair of autocannons or a light battlecannon.

In battle, the Lionheart is used in two fashions, either unleashed in a veritable swarm, overwhelming their enemy in a hail of shells, or as dedicated scouting units into extremely hostile environments where less sealed vehicles such as land-speeders or bikes could not travel. The Lionheart never saw heavy use in the Great Crusade, Imperial Auspex systems usually rendering its scouting role obsolete, while swarming tactics were better used on the faster jetbikes of the crusade. However, during the Rangdan Wars, the Lionheart saw a resurgence, its extreme ease of production making it a common sight upon the battlefield in those dark days.

**Saber Strike Tank**

Fast, rugged and heavily armed, the Sabre serves the Legiones Astartes as a strike tank, attacking key enemy targets and destroying them long before they can pose a threat to any Legiones Astartes army. Fitted with a number of advanced weapons systems, from rapid-fire autocannon to exotic beam weapons, there are few foes that can resist the firepower of a full squadron of these swift hunters. Once the immediate foe is annihilated, the speed of these fleet vehicles allows them to evade any further counter-attack and reform to strike at the vulnerable flanks of the enemy army, keeping heavy armour suppressed as the Space Marine infantry advances to crush those who stand against the Emperor.

**Warg Assault Tank [1]**

The Warg assault tank is a rarity within the Imperium, classified as a light assault tank, possessing roughly equivalent fire power to the Astartes Predator, albeit mounted upon a smaller and less armoured hull. Unlike the Predator, the Warg is not another variant of the versatile Rhino chassis, seemingly purpose-designed as a battle tank, with none of the hallmark adaptability of the Rhino. Known to possess some fleeting similarities to certain components of the hulking Mastodon’s design, the Warg’s STC template was discovered as the Great Crusade spread beyond the Segmentum Solar, and once declared doctrinally pure by the Fabricator-general, the Warg was mass-produced on several secondary Forge Worlds in preparation for the next stage of the Imperium’s expansion.

Primarily designated as an assault vehicle, the Warg’s squat hull affords a reduced profile in confined warzones but lacks the capacity for the bulky generators typically required by longer-ranged armaments. Instead, the Warg can mount a variety of brutal short to medium ranged weapons, making it well-suited to infantry support, a role for which it has found favour with several more aggressively predisposed Legions, while its speed makes it a useful scouting vehicle in other legions, still able to hold its own when compared to even lighter scout vehicles, such as the Salamander.

### Heavy Tanks

**Ajax Heavy Support Tank [1]**

The Ajax is a vehicle which owes its origins to the brutal wars of suppression against the Roj xenoforms which occupied the Ist Legion in the final decade of the 30th Millennium. Developed in concert between the Legion’s artificers and the Adepts of the Morai Mechanicum, who would have created anything the Ist had desired if it would have secured the prize of Medusa at the end of the campaign. The tank’s primary purpose was to provide a mobile bulwark against the cataclysmic energies which accompanied the warhosts of the xenos, a purpose for which it’s design drew from a number of technologies prototyped upon the Deredeo Dreadnought frame, projecting its shields not merely over itself, but around those nearby warriors, making the Ajax a welcome sight upon any battlefield.

**Infernus Infantry Support Tank**

Designed to support an infantry assault, the Infernus Infantry Support Tank is built upon a unique hull, designed around a single barrel of an Inferno gun, the tri-barrelled version of which is more commonly mounted upon a Warhound titan, or a redesigned Malcador. Boasting extremely heavy armour, the tank has a very slow top speed, designed to keep pace with an advancing Space Marine, rather than ranging ahead of the infantry.

The Infernus's main purpose was clearing the battlefield of obstacles, suppressing or destroying even entrentched defenders, and protecting the infantry on their advance into and through enemy lines by giving mobile overwatch and armoured cover. Many legions spurred the use of the tank, maintaining that while it was heavily armoured, if it ever was destroyed its vast reserves of fuel made explosions all but certain.

**Land Raider**

The Land Raider is an Imperial heavy battle tank and troop transport which serves as the "armoured fist of the Space Marines." Primarily used by the Space Marines, it is one of the most resilient and iconic armoured vehicles in the galaxy.

**Land Raider Achillies**

The Land Raider Achilles is a variant of the Land Raider designed during the Great Crusade to deal with a very specific and now long-forgotten xenos threat. The Land Raider Achilles is most famous for its extraordinary durability as a result of the ancient and now-lost secrets of forging its special armour plating which provide an incredible array of immunities against a variety of different attacks, all the while delivering punishing vollies by the Quad-Mortar mounted within its hull.

**Land Raider Juggernaut**

The Land Raider Juggernaut is an early design conceived in the wake of the Land Raider Protues's success and almost instant replacement compared to the Malcador Assault tank. While the Proteus had a troop compartment and more advanced systems than the Malcador, its armaments fell short compared to the heavy tank, mounting las-cannons instead of the powerful battlecannon. The Juggernaut sought to replicate this, removing the troop carrying capabilities entirely, and adding a large bore turreted cannon on the top of the hull instead.

The Juggernaut was initially well received by the legions, providing them a heavy battle tank built with advancd systems like the standard Land Raider. However, it soon became clear that the Juggernaut was a modification tank, the Land Raider shell not designed for a top-mounted cannon. Accuracy drop-offs and the weak points created where the turret assembly met the hull meant this vehicle was soon retired from service, the Fellblade taking the role of direct fighting vehicle of the legions. However, many still believed the need for a Heavy Battle Tank, rather than a super-heavy one, was paramount, a line of thinking that led directly to the Sicaran Overlord.

**Land Raider Proteus**

The Land Raider Proteus is the very first pattern of Land Raider that was developed by the Imperium. The Land Raider Proteus was originally designed and deployed as the main battle tank used by the military forces of Mankind at some point during the Dark Age of Technology. Its Standard Template Construct (STC) data was recovered by the Imperial Technoarchaeologist Arkhan Land, during an expedition into the fabled Librarius Omnis on Mars. The Land Raider Proteus was heavily used during the Great Crusade, and while the tank performed exceptionally well in nearly every regard, some Astartes commanders argued that the Proteus' transport capacity and lack of a forward assault ramp were problems that needed to be corrected with a redesign of the vehicle.

**Mark IIb Land Raider Phobos**

The Mark IIb Land Raider Phobos is one of the earliest known marks of the Phobos Pattern Land Raider, and it still bears similarities to both the Land Raider Proteus and the Spartan Assault Tank that served as the models for the design. The Mark II Phobos is the only pattern of modern Land Raider that uses the older armoured sponsons, as they do not allow the weapons they hold to fully rotate.

**Malcador Assault Tank**

The Malcador Assault Tank is a truly ancient design dating back to the wars that consumed Terra during the Age of Strife. The Imperial production model of this heavy tank was named after Malcador the Sigillite, the Regent of Terra and right hand of the Emperor of Mankind during the Unification Wars, the Great Crusade, and the Great Secession of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Imperial Malcador tank was produced by the thousands by the Forge Worlds of Mars and Voss during the beginning of the Great Crusade where it was one of the primary main battle tanks of both the Imperial Army and the *Legiones Astartes*.

Although the Malcador was not as heavily armed as goliaths such as the Baneblade or the Stormhammer, or as heavily armoured as the Land Raider, it possessed a number of advantages to its design, the principal of which was its battle speed, which was formidable for a tank of its size, thanks to its highly sophisticated, if temperamental, drive system. The Malcador's design also allowed it to fight in the harsh conditions of the void, which was why it was most commonly associated with the elite Solar Auxilia Cohorts of the Imperial Army during the time of the Great Crusade. The Malcador's design, however, does suffer from flaws; most tellingly the relative vulnerability of its propulsion systems and the limited traverse of its main turret weapon.

By the time of the Great Secession, the Malcador had been almosyt completely replaced by the Land Raider, those legions that still possessed the vehicles mostly religating them to support or 2nd line roles.

**Mastiff Assault Tank [1]**

Designed to act as a vanguard unit for following infantry formations, the Mastiff Heavy Assault tank was developed as the Great Crusade began to expand forth from Terra’s local star cluster, originating as a basic siege modification to the Malcador chassis. With the majority of the Mastiff’s weaponry and armour mounted on its front facing at the expense of their rearward armour, the operators of the vehicle knew that to retreat was to die, keeping the heavy frontal armour towards the enemy at all times, advancing at a pace that belied its weight, the vehicle boasting a retrofitted engine and heavy mine plough to clear obstructing debris.

Although such a brutally simple weapon saw only limited use with many Legions - quickly replaced with a number of alternatives as the Great Crusade progressed - those Astartes formations which favoured assault or attrition often utilised the Mastiff in linebreaker deployments, and it would remain a vital component of a number of Commanders’ strategies even in the bloody wars of the Rangdan War.

**Mauler Heavy Battle Tank [1]**

The Mauler heavy tank was one of many additions to the Imperial host made upon the union of Terra and Mars, manufactured in bulk for the nascent Legions as the Great Crusade began in earnest. Heavier than most of the battle tanks in use by the Legions at the time, the Mauler served to anchor battle-lines and endure devastating firepower, with numerous weapon mounts providing potent anti-armour and anti-infantry offensive capabilities. Whether fielded in massed linebreaker formations or as mobile bastions, the Mauler was key to several of the great Crusade’s early victories, earning a reputation as a reliable cornerstone for the Legions’ armoured divisions, although its complex atomantic reactor proved difficult to repair should the vehicle suffer internal damage.

As numerous Forge Worlds were encompassed by the growing Imperium, the Legions’ array of armoured vehicles multiplied at a prodigious rate, providing access to tanks which could fulfil specific roles encompassed by the Mauler’s broad purview with greater proficiency. In time, the Mauler was generally reassigned to massed armour divisions, rather than infantry support, although Legions for which the Mauler’s sophisticated reactor and relatively ponderous speed was small issue still fielded it as a line tank.

**Sicaran Overlord**

Designed in an attempt to create a heavier version of the Sicaran and thus give the Legions a dedicated and advanced heavy battle take, the Sicaran Overlord is the heaviest of the Sicaran-based vehicles designed to go toe to toe with enemy armour while being safe from all but the most dedicated of enemy assaults.

Mounting heavier armour than any other Sicaran variant, the Sicaran mounts a pair of Battlecannons in its turret, solving the issue the Malcador faced by allowing the guns to traverse 360 degrees, bringing their firepower to bear on enemies, no matter where they may arrive from. These can, and often are, swapped out for the Vaniquisher's main cannon, the long barreled weapons turning the Overlord into a ferocious tank hunter.

### Super Heavy Tanks

**Acinaces**

The Acinaces predates the noble Fellblade, and represents the Mechanicum's first attempt to create a purpose build, legion capable version of the Imperial Armies Baneblade. Mounting a far larger turret than its forebear, the Acinaces  is able to mount a pair of powerful, though aging, Ironbreaker Siege howitzers, allowing it to act in both an artillery and direct-fire role.

It was this adaptibility that was key for the vehicles designers, who believed it suited the rapid methods of war of the legions. However, when deployed in real battlefield scenarios, the tank showcased multiple inadequacies, its oversized turret only able to traverse at the slowest speeds imaginable, making tracking even a lumbering Mauler tank a challenge. The Acinaces was eventually replaced by the far superior Fellblade, its design being left to gather dust in most legions, or rolled out for specialsed siege duty, alongside the Harpe.

**Broadsword**

Conceived a scant seven years before the outbreak of the Great Secession, the Broadsword is, by a considerable margin, the heaviest tank in service within the *Legiones Astartes*. Indeed, it is one of the heaviest land vehicles in use by any of the Imperium's armed forces, outside of the Titans, Capitol Imperialis and *Majoris Ordinatus* units of the Mechanicum. Boasting armour thick enough to survive a direct Macro-cannon shot, as well as void shielding to rival a small starship, the Broadsword is all but impervious on the battlefield. Nor is it merely limited to suitability, Mounting two Accelerator Cannons on its primary turret, the same weapon that the mighty Fellblade mounts within its own turrets. However, this is just part of its primary armament, for within its hulls forward glacis, the Broadsword houses a second turret, this one on a limited frontal traverse, and containing a pair of terrifying Dreadhammer Siege Cannons, modifed from the Typhon Siege Tank and static artillery pieces. Alongside this, the Broadsword is able to mount up to six sponson hardpoints, similar to the mounts found on a baneblade or Fellblade. Indeed, the Broadsword is best compared to the Stormhammer of the Solar Auxilia, though at almost double the size.

However, all this considerable power comes at a ferocious cost, not least the physical cost of the tank, the vehicle worth an entire fleet of lesser vehicles. Adding to this its great weight and ponderous speeds, as well as difficulty of manufacture, the Broadsword was reserved as a specialist tank, rather than a mainline vehicle. By the time of the Rangdan War, shipmeants had only just begun to go out to the Legions, the Storm Riders possessing the most of these fearsome vehicles, and even then, less than a dozen.

**Deathhammer**

Based on the same chasis as the mighty Baneblade, the Deathhammer seems to be a forerunner to the more common Fellblade. Little is known about this mighty tank, but it is known to have been far closer in terms of technology to the Baneblade, sharing a hull with this vehicle rather than the more advanced and sleeker Fellblade, while still mounting the twin-linked Accelerator Cannon of the Fellblade, making it a half-way house between the two designs.

**Fellblade**

The Fellblade was a highly advanced pattern of Imperial super-heavy main battle tank. It was based upon the same Standard Template Construct (STC) design as the mighty Baneblade and Deathhammer super-heavy tanks that formed the mainstay of the vast armoured brigades of the *Legiones Astartes* and the Imperial Army during the Great Crusade and later, the Great Secession.

The Fellblade was by far the more advanced design of the three, featuring many technologies that were unique to its construction, such as compact Mechanicum Atomantic Arc-reactor technology, a reinforced metaplas alloy chassis that provided protection superior to that of nearly all other Imperial armoured vehicles, and an advanced Accelerator Cannon as its primary armament.

**Glaive**

The Glaive, also known as the Fellglaive, the Legion Glaive or the Glaive Super-Heavy Special Weapons Tank, was a variant of the highly-advanced Fellblade super-heavy battle tank fielded by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade of the late 30th Millennium and later during the Great Secession in the early 31st Millennium. The Glaive was designed by the Mechanicum as a special weapons vehicle that makes use of the Volkite Carronade, one of the largest known Volkite Weapons ever used by the Imperium. This massive weapon was designed to destroy xenos beasts and incinerate enemy light vehicles in a single fell sweep.

**Hephaestus Special Weapons Tank [1]**

One of the most advanced vehicles of its time, the Hephaestus was designed in a concerted effort to expand the Legions’ wargear during the early Great Crusade, incorporating several novel systems into a super-heavy chassis which could feasibly mount almost any prototype heavy weaponry for rigorous field testing. Across its lifetime, these weapons laid the groundwork for armaments later found throughout the Legions’ arsenals, weapon systems of such destructive mien that they became bywords for utter desolation, from the Glaive’s colossal Volkite Carronade to the Grav-flux Bombard of the Leviathan Dreadnought.

Not only did the Hephaestus’ weapons propagate further Legion wargear; but the vehicle’s chassis itself proved fundamental to the development of various super-heavy vehicles, such as the Glaive and Falchion tanks, as well as playing a role in the design of the highly successful Sicaran main battle tank.

While frontline deployments of the Hephaestus dwindled towards the end of the Great Crusade, replaced by purpose-built vehicles equipped with more reliable and stable incarnations of their prototype armaments thanks to dedicated weapons projects which sought to avoid the need for lengthy field trials, the destruction unleashed by the Rangdan called forth the Hephaestus in greater numbers than ever before, bearing dark weaponry once consigned to history.

**Hercules Super-Heavy Battle Tank [1]**

Amongst the physically heaviest armoured vehicles available to the *Legiones Astartes*, the Hercules was a mainstay of the early and mid stages of the Great Crusade, relying as much on its great endurance as its overwhelming firepower to ensure victory on the most strongly contested fronts of the Galactic war. Fulfilling a similar tactical role as the Solar Auxilia’s Stormhammer Super-Heavy Assault Tank, the Hercules design prioritised massed fire over individual power in its armament, featuring an extremely modular design which allowed these vehicles to be fielded against enemy infantry or armour with equal proficiency.

To supply its multiple sub-systems, the Hercules incorporated a plasma reactor possessing an output usually only found within smaller void-craft, a feature which combined with engineering primarily concerned with continual deployment across the harshest warzones to form the Hercules into an unstoppable behemoth, capable of ramming through most obstacles unscathed, whilst its void shields ensured that only the most determined of opposition could hope to counter its relentless advance.  Despite featuring neither the sophisticated systems nor apocalyptically devastating weaponry which would later become a hallmark of the Legion Fellblade and its variants, the favour in which the Hercules was held by many Legions owed primarily to this extremely rugged construction, although the fact its schematics were the progeny of myriad separate STCs rather than a singular design meant it was held in dark repute by some sects of the Mechanicum.

**Khmali**

Closely linked to the Spatha, the Khmali is a rarely used tank even in the most brutal of legions, only the XXth known to possess more than a handful of these potent weapons. The Khmali is unleashed upon the foe alongside a legions destroyers, for situations where an enemy must be destroyed without mercy or thought of claiming the ground in the wake of the battle.

Its Atomantic Arc-reactor is replaced with a closed cell atomic pile and its hull thickened by layer upon layer of supplementary rad-wards, its massive bulk trundles slowly and mercilessly across the battlefield, leaving behind nothing but desolation in its wake. Its primary weapon, a massive Irradiation Carronade is a short-ranged shotgun-liked device that fires a cloud of extraordinarily radioactive transuranic metal powder, creating a boiling sea of subatomic instability that cooks the crews of tanks, scrambles sensors, and reduces the hardiest of infantry to ash. Khmali's are highly situational weapons, but their ability to produce radioactive contamination on a level capable of harming even Primarchs, made these weapons feared and loathed in both the Great Crusade and the Great Secession beyond.

**Khopesh**

The Khopesh is a varient of the Fellglaive that was initially found only within the armouries of the Ist Legion. In a rare exchange however, the Emperor allowed this singular piece of technology held by the Ist to be examined by the Mechanicum or Mars, and in time, a second generation was replicated, though inferior to those held by the Titans of Vayrd'un. Mounting a massive Graviton Cannon in place of the Volkite Carronade, the tank is terrifying against both armour and infantry, creating pockets of gravitic instability across the battlefield. A third generation of the tank eventually replaced the Graviton Cannon with an even more potent Grav Destroyer, though even this still fell short of the original design.

**Spartan Assault Tank**

The Spartan Assault Tank was designed by the Mechanicum in the latter days of the Great Crusade as a way for the Space Marine Legions to carry their Terminators into combat. The Spartan was armed with two sponson-mounted Quad-Lascannons and hull-mounted twin-linked Heavy Bolters. The Spartan Assault Tank was widely used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and the Great Secession.

**Spatha**

Based upon the Fellblades chasis, the Spatha competes with the Falchion as a dedicated anti-tank, super-heavy vehicle within the legiones. Where the Falchion mounts the potent twin-linked volcano cannons however, the Spatha retains its turret, instead mounting the ferocious Rotor Conversion Beamer, an archeotech weapon using the same antimatter-conversion technology favored by Legion Tech Marines or Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Though difficult to use against moving targets, the ability of a Conversion Beamer to atomically annihilate any enemy it is brought to bear against makes it a hellishly effective weapon.

However, though it is a potent weapon, the Spatha must be stationary to fire, its turret able to slowly traverse, but little else. Therefore, the Spatha finds its primary use as a defensive, rather than offensive, weapon, unleashing a whirling storm of electromagnetic energies, melting, searing and crushing the enemies of the Imperium of Mankind.

**Typhon Heavy Siege Tank**

The Typhon Heavy Siege Tank is a super-heavy siege tank that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and the Secession. The Typhon is a variant of the super-heavy Spartan Assault Tank also used by the Legions, and both were developed simultaneously using the same hull, armour, and chassis design. While the Spartan Assault Tank was developed by the Mechanicum in response to the Space Marine Legions demanding a vehicle as powerful and versatile as the Land Raider Proteus yet also having the ability to carry Terminators into combat, the Typhon was developed to provide the legions a tank that could rival the great artillery batteries of the Imperial Army in firepower, but maneuver and deploy at the speed of a Space Marine force, bringing down the fury of its terrifying Dreadhammer Cannon on the foes of mankind.

### Tank Destroyers

**Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer**

The Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer is a super-heavy tank destroyer that was used in by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and later during the Great Secession of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Cerberus was a rare and experimental variant of the super-heavy Spartan Assault Tank also used by the Space Marine Legions, both of which made use of the same hull, armour, and chassis design.

While the Spartan Assault Tank was developed by the Mechanicum in response to the Space Marine Legions demanding a vehicle as powerful and versatile as the Land Raider Proteus yet also having the ability to carry Terminators into combat, the Cerberus was designed near the end of the Great Crusade by the Mechanicum of Mars as a way to field test archeotech weaponry that was recovered during the Great Crusade known as the Neutron Laser Projector.

**Deimos Vindicator Laser Destroyer**

The Deimos Vindicator Tank Destroyer, also known as the Vindicator Laser Destroyer, was a variant of the standard *Legiones Astartes* Deimos Vindicator, an early pattern of Vindicator siege tank that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. Instead of the usual heavy-calibre Demolisher Cannon, this specialised variant instead utilised the powerful Laser Destroyer Array. This powerful weapon was an ancient variant of Lascannon technology, as the multi-barrelled Laser Destroyer fires a burst of short pulses microseconds apart, which have been designed to bore through the most resilient armour.

**Falchion**

The Falchion Super-Heavy Tank Destroyer, or simply the Falchion, was a super-heavy tank destroyer used by the Space Marine Legions, and in limited numbers by the Imperial Army and Mechanicum, during the time of the Great Crusade and the Great Secession in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. Along with its sister super-heavy tanks, the Fellblade and the Glaive, the Falchion was one of the most powerful and most feared weapons used during this time.

**Orthus Heavy Tank Destroyer**

In the wake of the success of the Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer, the Orthus Heavy Tank Destroyer was introduced near the end of the Great Crusade to further refine the idea. With an additional frontal gun shield providing a near invincible frontal glasis, the Orthus replaced the Neutron Laser Projector with a close ranged Melta Scourge, a weapon of such power that even a Warlord titan would fear its terrible wrath. Little could stand before even a single shot from the weapon, its short range its only drawback, while its terrifying potency made it a prime target for any who knew of its power before it fired its first, and usually last, shot.

During the Great Secession, clever commanders found ways to conceal the Orthus, running it just above shut down power, allowing it to draw the enemy in close ebfore unleashing its titan killing payload. These tanks rarely survived for a second shot however, leading to the crews becoming dour, knowing they were in effect, suicide squads.

**Sabre Tank Hunter**

The Sabre Tank Hunter was an anti-armour variant of the Rhino that was developed and used sometime shortly before or during the Great Secession in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. During this time, large tank formations were very common amongst the Space Marine Legions that fought on both sides of that interstellar civil war and so too was the need to combat them.

The Sabre Tank Hunter was designed for just such a purpose. The Sabre was armed with a powerful anti-armour weapon known as the Laser Destroyer. This powerful laser weapon gave the Sabre the ability to engage and destroy enemy armoured vehicles at range.

**Sicaran Cockatrice**

Designed after the initial tanks success, the vehicle was designed as an extreme range tank destroyer, replacing the turret and the twin autocannons of the initial vehicle with a single, hull mounted railcannon. Able to accelerate a variety of projectiles to a fraction of the speed of light, there are few foes the Cockatrice cannot engage, from vehicles with haywire shells, through to giant xenos bio-forms with poison laced shots. It was even possible for the tank to fire non-designed shells or even lumps of metal or ferrous rock, with an admittedly lower level of efficacy, which meant this tank could operate for long periods of time away from conventional supply lines.However, the tank was extremely complex and expensive to construct, costing nearly as much in rescources and time expendature as a full Knight suit of the Mechanicum, and so these vehicles are mercifully rare.

**Sicaran Executioner**

Developed in the final years before the Great Secession, the Sicaran Executioner represents the last of the Sicaran variants to be unleashed upon the galaxy. Rolling off the forges of Mars, the Sicaran Executioner continues the Cockatrice and Venator, removing the turret completely, in its place hull mounting a pair of heavy Conversion Beamers, rare and deadly antimatter-based archeotech weapons most likely developed during the Dark Age of Technology.

**Sicaran Venator**

One of the heaviest of the Sicaran variants, the Sicaran Venator is a heavy tank destroyer, replacing both the turret mounted Accelerator Cannon and the hull mounted heavy bolters of the standard Sicaran with a powerful Neutron Beam Laser. When coupled with the Sicaran Venator's ferocious speed, the Sicaran Venator was an ideal tank hunter, slicing apart armoured hulls with casual ease and blasting internal compartments and crew with atomic fire. Conceived in the fires of the Great Secession, the Sicaran Venator was the last of the newly designed Sicarans, the result of all the knowledge gleaned from the unnumbered battles of the Great Crusade and the need to combat overwhelming numerical superiority the IVth were preparing for. Its advanced Neutron Laser was specially designed to provide the *Legiones Astartes* with superior firepower, enabling it to destroy any and all threats that the traitors may, and indeed did, employ.

### Support Tanks

**Caelus Air-Defence Tank [1]**

Designed in the latter days of the Great Crusade, the Caelus was produced to address re-supply issues which had begun to emerge as the Expeditionary Fleets pushed further out into the far reaches of the Galaxy. Prior to its deployment, most Legion anit-aircraft assets relied upon specialised missile munitions, which were complex to manufacture and often in short supply with Legion deployments away from the major Expeditionary Fleets. By fitting a Rhino chassis with an Avenger Bolt Cannon variant, Legions were provided with anti-aircraft firepower that made use of the ubiquitous and easy to manufacture heavy bolter shell. Despite its practicality, the Caelus was controversial within the ranks of the Mechanicum, its turret assembly being developed from an undisclosed prototype obtained from a rival Forge World via 'unorthodox' means. Consequently this design was never sanctioned fully, and though the first creators of the vehicle were never identified.

**Deimos Vindicator**

The Deimos Vindicator, sometimes called the Deimos Pattern Vindicator, is an early pattern of the Imperial Vindicator siege tank that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and later during the Great Secession in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Deimos Vindicator, like the Mars Pattern Vindicator, is a Rhino variant that features improved armour, particularly on the vehicle's front and sides, and a hull-mounted forward-firing Demolisher Cannon.

The Deimos Vindicator is effective at destroying enemy barricades and other obstacles during urban conflict and is usually found directly supporting infantry squads, as its heavy armour and low hull profile increases its survivability, offering the supporting infantry the equivalent of a mobile strong-point. The Deimos Vindicator can also be used as an assault tank, spearheading attacks on enemy fortifications and strong-points by relentlessly closing in on the enemy and unleashing the power of its main weapons.

**Grendel Support Tank [1]**

As the frontiers of the Great Crusade expanded ever onwards, mobility became a pressing issue for a number of Legiones Astartes deployments, with smaller Expeditionary Fleet contingents less able to reliably deliver compliance via a number of simultaneous assaults. The Techpriests of Mars were therefore tasked with providing mobile firing platforms for a range of Legion ordnance that had previously utilized static emplacements.

The result was a chassis drawing from a number of STC designs that would later be used to develop the Chimera APC during the Scouring. Although similar to the variant that mounted the Legions’ Earthshaker and Medusa artillery weapons, the Grendel hull removed the heavy counter-balanced firing platform required by these high-ordnance weapons, considerably increasing the Grendel’s effective speed. Designed as a high-mobility alternative to the extremely common Rapier support weapon platform, the relatively light armour of the Grendel meant it was often deemed unsuitable for a number of theatres of war - passed over for heavier vehicles such as the Vindicator – although in formations that relied upon speed or outflanking manoeuvres, it was highly valued for its ability to deliver devastating firepower rapidly to high-value targets.

**Legion Hydra Flak Tank [1]**

A wide array of Hydra variants were produced for the Legions throughout the Great Crusade, with the latest pattern in production before the start of the Heresy bearing a pattern of autocannon originally prototyped on Deredo Dreadnoughts, having proven highly successful in providing anti-aircraft support for the Legions' ground forces. Proving highly robust under the horrific conditions in which many of the Great Secession's conflicts were fought, the Hydra became the mainstay of most Legions' air-defence during the civil war due to their relative ease of construction, superior vehicles deemed too difficult to deploy en-mass, searing the skies with their relentless firepower.

**Legion Artemis Flak Tank [1]**

The Skyreaper batter carried into battle upon the Artemis air-defence tank gained a fearsome reputation in the early days of the Great Crusade, clearing the skies of many battlefields upon planets which would later become key worlds in the nascent Imperium. Consigned to the reserves of most Legions due to their extreme ammunition consumption and external magazines after the introduction of a number of other anti-aircraft vehicles, the attrition rate of the Great Secession saw their re-introduction to multiple Legion divisions, many utilised to decimate the air-forces of planets they had claimed in the name of the Emperor decades before.

**Mars Pattern Hunter-Alpha [1]**

The Hunter-Alpha is the first known dedicated anti-aircraft tank fielded by the *Legiones Astartes* that bore full Mechanicum sanctioning. Prior to the discovery of the STC for the Hunter, Space Marine Legion forces hat attempted to retrofit various designs to the Whirlwind artillery vehicle, with largerly negative results or use the frowned upon Caelus, the mere act of which often drew unfavourable comments from Mechanicum allies. Though a stable pattern of anti-aircraft Whirlwind was ultimately achieved in the Hyperios, the Hunter provided an effective stop-gap, one that would continue development throughout the crusade.

**Mastodon Super-Heavy Gun Carrier**

With the success of the Mastodon Assault Transport during the Great Crusade, it was only a matter of time before an attempt was made to capitalise on its extreme load-bearing capabilities and the resilience of its hull. Stripping out all transport provisions, the Mastodon Super-Heavy Gun Carrier was instead mounted with a single weapon of terrifying power, more at home on a Warlord titan than a *Legiones Astartes* vehicle. These weapons ranged from heavy artillery pieces, such as a Mori-class Quake Cannon, to Belicosa Volcano cannons and Sunfire Plasma Annihilators. There was even a recorded intsnace of such a vehicle mounted with a Gatling Blaster, singlehandedly turning back an entire Ork Waaagh, though in doing so expended all its ammunition supplies in a single, devastating burst.

As can be expected, these tanks are in high demand at all times, but in incredibly short supply, the weapons mounted within them representing a small planets worth of resources. The loss of such a vehicle is sure to anger attached Mechanicum forces, and as such the Mastodon Super-Heavy Gun Carrier was a rare sight upon the fields of battle.

**Sicaran Vindex Air-Defence Tank [1]**

One of the earliest ventures of this secondary project undertaken by the Magi of the Tempestora Sect was the modification of the Sicaran's extremely sophisticated turret targeting array to alter the vehicle's function into a dedicated anti-aircraft tank, capable of keeping pace with Legion vanguard formations whilst purging the skies of any opposing aircraft.

Boasting a far larger turret to mount the additional sensors, as well as affording it the ability to mount a third Accelerator Cannon upon its hull, the Vindex is a terrifying prospect to face for enemy pilots, though due to the additional size of the turret, the guns struggle to decrease their elevation to engage enemy ground assets.

**Vindicator**

The Vindicator is an Imperial siege tank based on the Rhino chassis used by many Space Marine Legions that boasts one of the most powerful weapon of its type in the *Legiones Astartes* standard armoury, the Demolisher Cannon. Though short-ranged, the Vindicator's Demolisher Cannon is capable of destroying enemy armour and fortifications in a single shot. The vehicle is an essential part of any armoured spearhead that the Space Marines unleash. There is little that can stand before a Vindicator's pulverising fury. It is a rare Space Marine tank assault that does not employ a Vindicator in its vanguard. The standard varient of the Vindicator, unlike the more advanced Deimos pattern, is based upon the Mars-pattern Rhino chassis.

## APCs

**Deimos Rhino**

The Deimos Rhino, also known as the Deimos Pattern Rhino, is a variant pattern of the Rhino armoured personnel carrier (APC) used by the Imperium of Mankind's military forces. The Deimos Pattern Rhino was the most common Rhino pattern in use during the Great Crusade and Great Secession in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia, and served as the transport of choice for the Space Marine Legions, the *Legio Custodes*, the Sisters of Silence, the Mechanicum, and in limited numbers by the regiments of the Imperial Army.

**Drop Pod**

The ultimate weapon of terror and surprise, when a Drop Pod lands directly in the midst of an enemy line or formation and its occupants disembark and start wreaking havoc, there is little escape for the foe. Drop Pods are fired with colossal acceleration from an orbiting Strike Cruiser or Battle Barge, after which it screams through a planet's atmosphere with oversized rocket thrusters boosting it even further beyond terminal velocity; even the most advanced air defence systems have difficulty locking on to a Drop Pod travelling at up to 12,000 kilometres per hour. At these velocities, it takes only a matter of solar minutes, or even seconds, for a Drop Pod to reach its destination as it plummets through the atmosphere, only firing its retro thrusters at the last possible moment before making a devastating impact on the planetary surface with enough force to crush most structures.

**Anvillus Pattern Dreadclaw**

The Anvillus Pattern Dreadclaw Drop Pod, also known as the Anvillus Dreadclaw, or simply the Dreadclaw, is a unique type of Drop Pod that was used by the *Legiones Astartes* during the Great Crusade and Great Secession. The Anvillus Dreadclaw differs from other older Drop Pod types in that it is able to take off again after landing under its own power. The Anvillus Dreadclaw was designed to return to orbit after its initial landing to move units from battlefield to battlefield or even to extract troops from a planet's surface. The Anvillus Dreadclaw is also able to board enemy spacecraft by attaching itself to the hull and then burning a breach with its Melta-Cutters, allowing the infantry within to assault the enemy voidship directly.

**Kharybdis Assault Claw**

The Kharybdis Assault Claw, also known simply as the Kharybdis, was a monstrous ship-to-ship heavy assault craft that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Kharybdis was a Drop Pod-type assault craft, massive in size compared to other Drop Pods of the era. The Kharybdis was capable of carrying a large assault force through the void of space whilst mounting significant enough firepower to blast a path through smaller defensive vessels. The arrival of a swarm of these assault craft, boarding hooks extended outwards like hungry jaws, signalled the doom of whatever target they closed on.

**Mastodon**

The Mastodon Heavy Assault Transport, or simply the Mastodon, is a super-heavy assault transport that was utilised by the *Legiones Astartes* during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras. The Mastodon was one of the heaviest assault transports ever used by the Space Marine Legions, and was reserved for use against only the most heavily fortified of enemy positions. At several times the size of a Land Raider, the Mastodon was a truly formidable war machine, capable of ferrying up to forty Space Marines, or twenty Astartes and two Dreadnoughts through the most perilous of battlefields and protecting them from the most powerful of enemy weapons, including Titans. Although Mastodons were used by nearly every Legion, they were used sparingly during the later Great Crusade. This was because deploying them was a major operation in itself, as they were used during long, protracted siege operations where one or more entire Legion had amassed to destroy a foe that no other was capable of engaging. As the Great Secession ground ever onward, the Mastodon saw an increase in its deployment rate, as both sides of the conflict committed every last weapon and vehicle to utterly destroy their hated foe.

**Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier**

The Rhino, or more formally, the Mars Pattern Rhino, is an Imperial armoured personnel carrier (APC) that is widely used throughout the galaxy by many different factions, though it is a mainstay vehicle of the *Legiones Astartes*. It has provided safe transportation since the earliest days of the Great Crusade, transporting its cargo of Space Marines swiftly and safely to the forefront of battle. Robust and versatile, and able to resist the most hostile of environments, the Rhino has become the basic troop transport for Space Marine squads. The Mars pattern rhino was in use by the end of the Great Crusade, but many still prefered the more advanced Deimos pattern, despite its more time-consuming maintainence requirements.

**Sicaran Advancer Armoured Transport [1]**

Since the very first deployments of the Sicaran Battle Tank, a number of Forge Lords and Mechanicum Magi had contemplated the potential benefits of utilising the vehicle's speed and mobility as an Armoured Transport for the elite warriors of the Legiones Astartes. However, despite myriad different approaches from a dozen Forge Worlds, success could not be found, with the complexity of the Sicaran's internal construction hampering any attempts to extend its hull to allow for an expanded transport capacity.

Instead,a conceived of a Sicaran variant which combined a smaller passenger contingent allowed for by the existing hull with a suite of sensory and communication systems was devised, which would allow the transport to function as a reconnaissance or command vehicle whilst maintaining considerable firepower. Although the Sicaran Advancer tended to find favour amongst specialist Legion formations rather than mainline forces, the limited production run before the Great Secession's outbreak resulted in most vehicles being assigned as dedicated transports for commanding officers, a role in which the vehicle excelled.

**Sphinx Recon Carrier [1]**

Although possessing a smaller transport capacity that the far more common Rhino carrier, the Sphinx fulfilled a specialised niche within the Legions’ armouries, being a light scouting vehicle capable of both delivering small troop contingents to forward positions – often for clandestine deployments – and providing long-range intelligence for following units. Whilst mostly attached to larger divisions to operate ahead of their main advance, some smaller Legion formations fielded the Sphinx as their primary transport, favouring its manoeuvrability, speed and relatively high firepower, which often lead to its use in swift hit and run attacks, destroying outlying enemy forces piecemeal. This legion was highly favoured amongst the warriors of the Wind Reavers, its near silent engine and fast speed aiding them in deploying warriors in great flanking attacks without alerting the enemy until the attack had already begun.

**Zephyr Rapid Insertion Vehicle**

The Zephyr is a relatively simple vehicle, built around a large open-topped compartment capable of holding a full squad of up twenty Space Marines, double that of the standard rhino. Attached to this troop bay are a pair of massive tank treads, akin to the Land Raider Proteus's 'up and over' design of tread, rather than a flatter design such as on the Mastadon.

True to its name, the Zephyr is blindingly fast, but more than that, has an engine that go go from off to full speed in only a handful of seconds, making it perfect for supporting an ambush after it is sprung, hiding out of sight and hearing range of the enemy, before bursting into life and charging forward, its frontal assault ramp slamming down to deliver its compliment of warriors directly into the fighting. Unsurprisingly, this vehicle has become a staple of the Wind Reavers, their ambush based fighting style benefiting greatly from the options this vehicle affords.

## Artillery

**Deimos Whirlwind**

The Deimos Whirlwind, officially the Deimos Pattern Whirlwind Multiple Missile Launcher Tank, also known as the Deimos Pattern Whirlwind, is a variant pattern of the Whirlwind artillery vehicle that is used by the Adeptus Astartes. The Deimos Whirlwind differs from the more common Mars Pattern Whirlwind in that it is based upon the Standard Template Construct (STC) Deimos Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) chassis.

The Deimos Whirlwind plays the role of artillery support, providing support fire against enemy formations from the relative safety of geographical cover, such as behind hills, forests or other line-of-sight obstructions. It is intended to be used primarily for softening up a heavily-fortified static position or other well-defended target prior to the start of a major Space Marine assault. The Deimos Whirlwind, like most vehicles based on the Deimos Rhino Pattern chassis that was commonly used during the Great Crusade.

**Deimos Whirlwind Scorpius**

The Deimos Whirlwind Scorpius, also known as the Whirlwind Scorpius, is a rare variant of the ancient Deimos Pattern Whirlwind that was widely used by the Space Marine Legions during the Emperor's Great Crusade and the Great Secession in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Deimos Whirlwind Scorpius mounts a specialised anti-infantry rocket launcher, known as the Scorpius Multi-Launcher, in place of the vehicle's original Whirlwind Multiple Missile Launcher. The Scorpius Multi-Launcher is a drum-fed Rocket Launcher that makes use of special implosive warheads that are extremely effective against armoured infantry, such as Space Marines, and light vehicles.

**Harpe**

At first little more than a battlefield modification created from the salvaged remains of other Fellblade class vehicles, the Harpe is a dedicated artillery platform, able to mount no less than three earthshaker cannons, arranged to fire in a single, devastating salvo.

This redesigned Harpe boasted a new turret design, containing advanced mechanical and gyroscopic stabilisation mechanisms that allow the gun to stay completely steady, even in the most catastrophic of conditions. Indeed, there have been reports of the gun mantles taking direct battlecannon hits, and though the damage to the gun shield was extensive, the gun itself did not waver. This allows the Harpe to deliver punishing long range firepower even on the move, allowing it to avoid counter battery or air strikes with far more ease than standard Basilisks.

**Legion Basilisk**

The Legion Basilisk was a common variant of the standard Imperial Army Basilisk Self-Propelled Artillery Tank that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. As cohesive fighting forces able to operate and conquer in any theatre of war, with or without support from the Imperial Army, the Space Marine Legions maintained their own mobile heavy artillery units. The long-range Basilisk, Medusa Siege Tank, and the Deimos Whirlwind were some of the most common artillery units deployed by the *Legiones Astartes*.

**Legion Medusa**

The Legion Medusa was a common variant of the standard Imperial Army Medusa Self-Propelled Siege-Mortar Tank that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. As cohesive fighting forces able to operate and conquer in any theatre of war, with or without support from the Imperial Army, the Space Marine Legions maintained their own mobile heavy artillery units. The long-range Legion Basilisk, Medusa Siege Mortar, and the Deimos Whirlwind were some of the most common artillery units used by the Legiones Astartes. These vehicles proved their effectiveness both for protracted bombardments and as defensive weapons against enemy armoured vehicles.

**Sicaran Arcus Strike Tank**

The Sicaran Arcus Strike Tank is a ranged support variant of the standard Sicaran Battle Tank, part of the second generation of such vehicles developed in the wake of the vehicles successful combat trials, the adepts of the Mechanicum wasted none of the skills, removing the Sicaran's turret-mounted weapons and replaced it with an Arcus Launcher, a type of Rotary Missile Launcher, similar to that of the Deimos Whirlwind Scorpius. The newly developed Arcus Launcher was capable of deploying with a wide range of warheads, each crafted to fulfil a distinct tactical niche during combat, the vehicle able to react in a heartbeat to changing battlefield conditions.

**Whirlwind**

The Whirlwind, whose standard pattern is known as the Whirlwind Helios, plays the role of artillery support, providing support fire on enemy formations from the relative safety of geographical cover, such as behind hills, forests or other line-of-sight obstructions. It is intended to be used primarily for softening up a heavily-fortified static position or other well-defended target prior to the start of a major Space Marine assault. The launcher's normal payload consists of solid fuel, high explosive missiles, but it is also capable of firing incendiary warheads to burn the enemy out of entrenched positions. The Whirlwind is available exclusively to Space Marine forces and is typically deployed in squadrons of three units, though in smaller actions individual vehicles may be observed operating just as effectively.

## Support Vehicles

**Armoured Supply Carrier**

The Armoured Supply Carrier, also known as the Armoured Supply Crawler**,** is a logistics vehicle used by the *Legiones Astartes* and other factions of the Imperial military to carry munitions and supplies during prolonged ground campaigns. Although many fighting forces of the 30th and 31st Millennium have some sort of air or space-based supply system, there are times when those avenues are not available, whether because of dense terrain features, enemy air superiority, or adverse weather conditions that may prevent such operations. In these situations, ground-based Armored Supply Carriers (ASCs) become necessary to fill the gaps and ferry vital supplies.

**Damocles Command Rhino**

The Damocles Command Rhino is a variant of the standard Rhino used by all Space Marine Legions. The Damocles is used as a command vehicle during large-scale military operations, and acts as the main communications link between all Space Marine ground forces and the orbiting Astartes fleet assets.

The Damocles is a good example of the kinds of advanced Imperial technology that the Space Marines are given access to, and it is equipped with unusually sophisticated communications and tracking equipment. The Damocles is primarily deployed only during large-scale planetary assault operations that involve either entire companies or multiple companies of Space Marines serving alongside other Imperial forces.

**Portcullis**

The Portcullis was a super-heavy tracked vehicle once used as a mobile energy shield generator by the *Legiones Astartes* during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennium. The Portcullis was outfitted with extremely powerful energy shield generators, similar to starship Void Shields. While the Portcullis was undoubtedly effective, the Ist Legion is known to have possessed their own variation of the vehicle, one that surpassed its contemporary in every way, though little else was revealed on its design.

## Fast Attack Vehicles

**Assault Bike**

The Assault Bike, also known as the Space Marine Bike, is a light vehicle that is used throughout the Imperium by most Astartes Legions alongside the Scimitar Jetbike. The Assault Bike is an extremely powerful machine, and is capable of propelling a fully armoured Space Marine at dizzying speeds while remaining responsive enough to perform a full-range of death-defying combat maneuvers. There are tales of experienced Space Marine Bikers who have driven their bikes through solid rockcrete walls at full speed without harm.

**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 *Legiones 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 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.

**Javelin Attack Speeder**

The Javelin Attack Speeder, also known simply as the Javelin, is an advanced pattern of anti-gravitic skimmer vehicle dating back to the 30th Millennium.The Javelin is larger and more heavily armed and armoured than the more common Land Speeder. The Javelin's gravitic nullification plates, the secret of whose production and maintenance have long since been lost, allow the vehicle to mount an array of heavy weaponry more akin to that found on a heavy tank destroyer rather than a nimble skimmer. These advanced anti-gravitic plates allow the Javelin to make pinpoint strikes on enemy armour or infantry with devastating Lascannon or missile barrages.

**Jetbike**

A Jetbike is a fast and highly maneuverable vehicle that is powered by advanced anti-gravitic technology that allows it to hover above any surface while being propelled by powerful jet or rocket engines.

These sleek vehicles can be used to carry a passenger into the air above the maelstrom of battle or to carry out missions like reconnaissance or hit-and-run attacks that require a high degree of speed and mobility.

There were several different patterns of Jetbike used by the Imperium of Man over the centuries, and the most common patterns are usually armed with some type of anti-personnel weapon such as a Heavy Bolter or a set of twin-linked Bolters that are synchronised to fire simultaneously. These weapons can lay down a withering hail of fire against lightly armoured targets.

**Bullock Pattern Jetbike**

The Bullock Pattern Jetbike, also known as the Mark XIV Bullock Pattern Jetbike, was the last known pattern of Jetbike produced by the Imperium of Man before the outbreak of the Great Secession. The Bullock Pattern first saw use shortly before the outbreak of the Great Secession, and many of the Bullock Pattern Jetbikes that had been produced at the time were in the possession of the Astron Lords Legion.

The Bullock Pattern Jetbike was armed with a single spinal-mounted Heavy Bolter, although it is highly probable that the Bullock Pattern Jetbike could also be armed with different weapons, much like other Jetbike patterns.

**Scimitar Pattern Jetbike**

The Scimitar Pattern Jetbike was a relatively common pattern of Imperial Jetbike that was used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade and later in the Great Secession. The Scimitar Pattern Jetbike was armed with a single spinal-mounted Heavy Bolter, but was also able to be armed with a Multi-Melta, a Plasma Cannon, or a Volkite Culverin. These Jetbikes were usually organised into fearsome Sky Hunter Squadrons by the Legions and used as powerful fast strike units. These squadrons were so effective that they were used in some capacity by almost all the Space Marine Legions. Due to the Jetbike's extreme speed and mobility and its ability to carry heavy weaponry, it was not uncommon for these squadrons to range far ahead of the main strength of a Space Marine force, striking targets of opportunity at will.

**Sojutsu Pattern Voidbike**

The Sojutsu Pattern Voidbike is an early prototype Imperial Jetbike that predates the more common Scimitar Jetbike in common use with the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras. During initial trials its thrusters were capable of providing sufficient thrust to grant the bike limited periods of true flight, and even some manoeuvrability in deep space, and it was classed by the Logisticae Imperialis as an ultralight fighter craft instead of a Jetbike.

**Landspeeder**

The Land Speeder is a light anti-gravity vehicle which serves as the primary reconnaissance, scouting, resupply and fast attack vehicle of the Imperium of Man's Adeptus Astartes. The Land Speeder is based on a Standard Template Construct (STC) design that was recovered early in the 31st Millennium by the Techno-Archaeologist Arkhan Land during his famous expedition into the Librarius Omnis on Mars. Land's Speeder, later known simply as the Land Speeder, was soon widely produced and used throughout the Imperium of Man by the various Space Marine Legions and the Imperial Army.

## Fliers

**Caestus Assault Ram**

The Caestus Assault Ram is one of several types of assault rams used by the Imperium of Man. Assault rams are used for boarding actions during void battles and are capable of quickly placing boarding parties directly aboard enemy spacecraft. The Caestus Assault Ram is the most common assault ram used by the Legions, due to the craft's high speed and phenomenal durability. The Caestus Assault Ram is smaller than the Thunderhawk gunship but is larger than the Shark-class Boarding Torpedo, allowing more Space Marines to be safely deployed into enemy vessels. The craft can safely transport up to 10 fully armoured Space Marines into combat, wearing either Power Armour, Artificer Armour, or Terminator Armour.

**Fire Raptor**

The Fire Raptor, also known as the Fire Raptor Gunship, is a specialised variant of the Storm Eagle gunship and was first used by the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium. The Fire Raptor replaces the storage capacity of the Storm Eagle with greater ammunition stowage in order to feed the voracious appetite of its numerous weapon systems. The Fire Raptor is usually deployed as heavy support for landing Astartes transports, such as the Thunderhawk, and during Drop Pod assaults.

**Fire Raptor Destroyer [1]**

Owing its development to the impressive combat record of the original Fire Raptor gunship, the Destroyer was among the many vehicle variants produced as part of the Neutron Laser project, integrating powerful Atomantic Arc-Reactors and a Neutron Beam Laser in place of the standard Raptor's Avenger Bolt Cannons and extensive munition stowage. Alongside paired lascannon ball-turrets and an array of high-ordnance missiles, the Neutron Beam Laser modified the Fire Raptor into a dedicated tank hunter, combining hyper-destructive firepower with mobility and speed entirely unattainable to the Legions' vast fleet of anti-armour vehicles.

Extremely favoured by Legions which eschewed armoured ground vehicles in preference for high-speed deployments, the Fire Raptor Destroyer played a significant role in some of the Great Secession's fiercest engagements, often fielded to counter large-scale armoured formations which would otherwise threaten lighter infantry forces, although the considerable investment in resources each air-frame represented resulted in increasingly conservative deployments of the dwindling number of Destroyers as the conflict wore on.

**Harvester**

Designed as a dedicated VTOL gunship for the Legions, the Harvester is much loved by the warriors it supports, though is loathed by those who have to service its complicated systems, meaning few saw the end of the Great Crusade, being moth-balled in favour of Fire Raptors or other astartes aerial vehicles.

With a small wingspan, built around a single variable position plasmatic-turbine, the Harvester was both fast, and yet could easily hover in place, providing heavy support fire from its copious ammounts of missiles, auto-cannons, heavy bolters or lascannons. It could even be equipped with a single Vanquisher Battle Cannon, though this procluded it from carrying any weapons other than a point defence heavy bolter, turning it into a relativly effective tank hunter.

**Lightning Crow**

The Lightning Crow was an ancient type of strike fighter craft used by the Imperium of Man during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Lightning Crow's primary armament included various types of Missiles and Lascannons and it was an aerospace fighter capable of operation in both a planetary atmosphere and the void.

**Stormbird**

Stormbird is a catch-all term that refers to a series of various super-heavy dedicated attack landers that were once used by the *Legiones Astartes* as their primary means of deploying forces into combat. Stormbirds also served in air support and general planetary transport roles during the Great Crusade and Great Secession  eras in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.

Unlike the spacecraft used later, the Stormbird series is based on an incredibly old and incomplete STC (Standard Template Construct) design and as such consists of multiple classes and patterns of super-heavy flyers. These super-heavy spacecraft were used nearly exclusively by the Space Marine Legions before the development of the smaller and much easier to produce STC-based Thunderhawk gunship and was often considered the lynchpin of any Space Marine Legion's aviation arm, as it was able to fulfill many combat roles.

The Stormbird was fully void-capable as well as of functioning as an orbital drop ship, an assault lander, a heavy ground attack gunship, a bomber, or as a ground bastion or firebase. This spacecraft was able to quickly carry Space Marine forces from orbiting starships down into the midst of a battle, while at the same time providing supporting fire against enemy ground or air targets.

All known Stormbirds were bulkier and larger than the Thunderhawk and also less agile in flight. However, some Stormbird classes, such as the Warhawk IV, could carry up to the equivalent of a modern Space Marine company, up to 100 Space Marines or the equivalent in vehicles or cargo, far larger than the Thunderhawk's carrying capacity. Some Stormbirds had missiles or bombs slung under both wings while other classes included powerful ballistic cannons mounted on its nose.

Stormbirds were piloted by two Space Marines or Legion Serfs along with either hardwired Servitors, Space Marines or Legion Serfs operating the craft's various weapons. While various classes and patterns of the Stormbird have been described, it is not known what most actually looked like, yet descriptions of some classes include folding wings, armoured cockpits with view slits, multiple large engines, and magnetic launch rails used aboard Imperial starships to quickly launch the craft into the void. However, one of the more modern Stormbirds, the Sokar Pattern, has a nearly full technical data sheet available at present, including telling pict-captures.

**Warhawk-class Stormbird**

The Warhawk-class of Stormbird was the most common of the different Stormbird classifications, and was one of the original assault transport classes utilised by the Yndonesic Bloc during the Unification Wars on ancient Terra. There are known to be at least four different marks of the Warhawk class. It is believed that the Warhawk's wings could be folded or collapsed back against the Stormbird's chassis in some manner when the aircraft was being stored aboard an Imperial starship. Described as monstrous and fat-bodied, the Warhawk IV had a massive transport capacity of up to 100 seated Astartes, using rear-facing cage seats that had weapon locks for safe stowage. The seat restraints were manually locked in place when the Astartes sat down but would automatically release upon landing. The seat restraints could also be manually released in case of an emergency. The seating was completely removable to facilitate the transportation of cargo, vehicles, or for other more specialised purposes.

**Nephoros-class Stormbird**

The Nephoros-class Stormbird was one of the original assault transport classes utilised by the Yndonesic Bloc during the Unification Wars on ancient Terra. No other information about this class is known.

**Condor-class Stormbird**

The Condor-class Stormbird was a more massive and less agile pattern than Warhawk-class.

**Sokar Pattern Stormbird**

The Sokar Pattern Stormbird was one of the later patterns of Stormbird developed during the Great Crusade and was used as the design precursor to the smaller, more widely produced Thunderhawk gunship. It was conceived as a specialised, high-durability orbital assault craft -- almost a mobile bastion and firebase -- which could land a Space Marine strike force and withstand heavy ground fire while its passengers forced a landing zone.

**Apophis Pattern Stormbird**

 The Apophis Pattern Stormbird was the largest Stormbird pattern, widely known for its ominous appearance and vast wingspan, which earned it the title of "Sunkiller".

**Khonsu Pattern Stormbird**

The Khonsu Pattern Stormbird was one of the largest Stormbird patterns, used to transport Space Marine Legion vehicles.

**Storm Eagle**

The Storm Eagle is a heavy assault gunship used by the *Legiones Astartes* as a heavy tactical air support unit. The Storm Eagle mounts an impressive amount of firepower for an aircraft of its size and is also capable of transporting twenty Space Marines directly into the thick of a ground assault. The Storm Eagle assault gunship was one of the most numerous designs found in a Space Marine Legion air-fleet during the Great Crusade. A dedicated tactical strike unit, its primary roles are orbital assault deployment of Space Marine infantry forces and low-level ground attack. The Storm Eagle is a rugged and durable machine, very heavily armed for its size, and considerably protected by armour plating, although it lacks the speed and manoeuvrability of true fighters and bombers. In operation use it proved itself an extremely flexible vehicle serving capably as a long-range transport, orbital shuttle, scout and interceptor when called upon to do so in addition to its main battlefield roles.

**Storm Eagle Transporter [1]**

The Storm Eagle Transporter is the primary support variant of the widespread Storm Eagle Assault Gunship, developed during the mid-era Great Crusade to provide for the mounting transport needs of the Legions’ rapidly expanding arsenal of armoured vehicles. Smaller than most orbital interface transports used to ferry the Legions’ ground vehicles, the Storm Eagle Transporter was nevertheless one of the most numerous transports of its type, owing to its relative ease of production and breadth of deployment roles, although use of the newer Thunderhawk Transporter grew to eclipse the aircraft in the years before the Great Secession.

Despite its smaller carrying capacity compared to similarly-purposed vehicles like the Hellcrow Carrier and colossal Argo Drop Ship, the Storm Eagle Transporter found a new role by the end of the Great Crusade, able to carry the newly designed Sicaran and its many variants into battle on a frame far more agile than any of its contemporaries and represented a significantly less valuable target than these hulking aircraft. This allowed it to operate in conditions that would ground larger transports, deliver payloads to much smaller or unstable drop-zones, and conduct covert stealth flights when properly equipped, all the while remaining a significantly armed and armoured gunship. These qualities also lead to its widespread use in myriad non-combat roles, with Transporters being used to ferry cargo, recover damaged or spent wargear including the Legions’ various patterns of Drop Pods as well as deploying or redeploying emplaced equipment like Tarantula Sentry Guns.

**Balefire-Pattern Storm Eagle Attack Bomber [1]**

One of numerous modifications upon the Storm Eagle Gunship developed as the rigours of the Great Crusade depleted the Legions’ stocks of older, highly specialised aircraft. These Balefire-pattern Storm Eagle possessed vector thrusters and vertical take-off capability allowed them to conduct bombing runs on the enemy as they appeared, with little need for forewarning.

Exchanging the Storm Eagle Gunship’s transport capacity for a capacious munitions bay, in the rear assault ramp’s place the Balefire-pattern mounts a sophisticated targeting array and bomb launch system, capable of swiftly alternating between payload types during flight. Like its predecessor, the Balefire-pattern lacks the speed and full-velocity manoeuvrability of true fighters or bombers, but its heavy armour, range of defensive weapons, and vertical take-off and landing capability allow it to continuously operate in combat theatres that are too high-intensity for conventional bombers to survive, making it perfectly matched for the Astartes Legions.

**Thunderhawk Gunship**

The Thunderhawk gunship is used by the *Legiones Astartes* as one of their primary means of deploying forces for ground combat as well as their primary source of air support alongside the Stormbirds. The Thunderhawk gunship is often considered the lynchpin of any Space Marine Legion as it is able to fulfill many combat roles. The Thunderhawk is fully capable of functioning as an orbital drop ship, a heavy ground attack gunship, or as a bomber. The aircraft is able to quickly carry Space Marine forces from orbiting starships down into the midst of a battle, while at the same time providing supporting fire against enemy ground or air targets. Even though the Thunderhawk is a large vehicle, it is controlled with a relatively small crew, which includes the Techmarine pilot, co-pilot, gunner, and navigator.

**Thunderhawk Transported**

The Thunderhawk Transporter is a logistical support variant of the Thunderhawk. The Thunderhawk Transporter is used to quickly transport a Chapter's vehicles from their orbiting Battle Barges or Strike Cruisers to a planet's surface. The Thunderhawk Transporter is not designed for battle and is only armed with two sets of wing-mounted twin-linked Heavy Bolters for self-defense. The Thunderhawk Transporter is similar in appearance to the standard Thunderhawk with the exception of the missing dorsal-mounted heavy weapon and the addition of an extra engine mount. Additionally, the aircraft's 4 engines are mounted on its wings as opposed to having one mounted on the rear fuselage. The aircraft's troop compartment is removed and replaced with a set of large magnetic clamps to hold on to its cargo of vehicles. The Thunderhawk Transporter is capable of carrying up to two Rhino-sized vehicles or a single Land Raider-sized vehicle. The aircraft also sports a powerful winch which allows it to recover Drop Pods from the field.

**Wrath**

The Wrath or Wrath Pattern Starfighter was a starfighter utilised by the pilots of the *Legiones Astartes* and the *Imperialis Auxilia* during the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. By the beginning of the Great Secession, the Wrath had become obsolete, and was increasingly replaced in Imperial service by the Fury Interceptor since the Fury was easier to manufacture, its pilots found that it handled more smoothly, and it suffered technical malfunctions at a much lower rate. However, the more veteran pilots in the Imperial Army and Astartes Legions still preferred the Wrath, seeing it as a finer instrument of void war over the much more "sterile" Fury. Like its successor, the Wrath was also crewed by a mix of human or Space Marine pilots and Servitors.

**Xiphon Pattern Interceptor**

The Xiphon Interceptor is a heavily armed and armoured fighter craft, with two sets of twin-linked Lascannons located on the sides of the aircraft's fuselage. The craft is also armed with a ventral-mounted Xiphon Rotary Missile Launcher, a smaller and more compact design more commonly found on heavy void fighters, and incorporates sophisticated cluster munitions. This firepower when combined with an Astartes pilot and the Interceptor's speed and agility made it an incredibly deadly opponent. The Xiphon is armoured with ceramite plating by default and can be equipped with chaff launchers. Its cockpit can be outfitted with additional protective armour. During the Great Crusade and Great Secession, many of these vehicles were further augmented with ground tracking auguries, sophisticated scanners and advanced Cognis-interpreters that allowed for the detection and analysis of even the most well-concealed ground targets.

**Xiphon-Theta Strike Fighter [1]**

Sharing most of its deviations from the Legions’ Xiphon Interceptor with the Xiphon variant possessed by the abhuman corsairs of the Theta-Nyx cluster, the Xiphon-Theta Strike Fighter resulted from a concerted effort to modify the extant Interceptor to accommodate a different combat role in response to its gradual replacement in the armories of most Legions by a variety of other air-superiority craft. While the Graviton Surge Projector carried by the Xiphon-Theta was originally used by the Theta-Nyxan corsairs to cripple the void-craft of their prey, the Xiphon-Theta is designed to bring this potent weapon to bear on enemy armour and fortified positions, utilising the airframe’s impressive speed to sunder the heaviest assets of an opposing force in a devastating first strike before they can retaliate.

A number of Legions used the Xiphon-Theta in this way to alter the nature of engagements which might otherwise have descended into bitter fights of attrition, using wings of the strike fighters flying below the notice of enemy augur arrays in overwhelming, if extremely risky preemptive attacks. The Umbral Blades, Immaculate Sons and Angelis Noctem Legions, all noted for their distaste towards protracted siege engagements made repeated use of the Xipon-Theta in this manner, decimating the defenses of an enemy bastion before a second wave composed of various assault rams delivered their warriors into the heart of the compromised enemy, gambling all on a single momentous strike.

## Walkers

**Dreadnought**

A **Dreadnought** is a cybernetic combat walker of intermediate size used by Legions as heavy infantry support for their warriors, as well as a life-support system for their otherwise mortally wounded comrades. The Omnimarines are known as the greatest users of such life-supporting frames, having far more of these giant walking death machines than any other legion. There are multiple known varients of the Dreadnought, all with their own quirks, strengths and weaknesses.

**Castraferrum Pattern Dreadnought**

The Castraferrum, of which the Mars Castraferrum Pattern Mark IV and Mark V are the most common is one of the lesser breeds of Dreadnought, though easier to maintain and build as a result. In appearance, the Castraferrum is very different from other types, being far boxier than all, save the mighty Leviathan-class.

It is not as tall as such venerated relics as the Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought and its armour is said to be configured far more to the fore than the unhallowed Lucifer Pattern Dreadnought. Often seen mounting a great fist or missile launcheron one shoulder, and a giant cannon on the other, even this small dreadnought is a terrifying foe to face in battle.

**Castraferrum Assault Dreadnought**

The Assault Dreadnought replaces the standard Dreadnought's ranged weapon with another Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon. These Dreadnought variants are an uncommon sight within many Space Marine Chapters due to the fact that removing the Dreadnought's ranged weapon arm means it forfeits its ability to engage ranged targets. This, when combined with the Dreadnought's relatively low ground speed means the Dreadnought will be very vulnerable to enemy ranged fire.

**Castraferrum Siege Dreadnought**

The Siege Dreadnought is designed exclusively for assaults against fortified positions. Some Space Marine Legions have equipped their armoured Dreadnought Battle-Brothers to siege fortresses and lead their assaults upon other fortified enemy emplacements. They are equipped with either an Inferno Cannon or a Flamestorm Cannon for clearing out enemy infantry from bunkers and an Assault Drill arm for grinding through Ferrocrete in only a matter of seconds. This arm also usually includes a built-in Heavy Flamer so that once a hole has been drilled, the Dreadnought can pour super-heated Promethium into a bunker or pill box complex. Siege Dreadnoughts are specialised units and are only deployed when a Legion needs to break through a stubborn static defence line or during close quarters street-to-street fighting within a city or town. A Siege Dreadnought's standard weapons loadout includes an Inferno Cannon, an Assault Drill with built-in Heavy Flamer, Smoke Launchers, a Searchlight and reinforced Ceramite Armour. In some cases the Inferno Cannon can be replaced with a Multi-melta, and two Hunter-Killer Missile Launchers can be attached using external sponsons to the Dreadnought's carapace.

**Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought**

A more powerful combat walker than the Castraferrum patterns of Dreadnought in service with the Astartes Legions, the Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought features many technological systems that found a parallel in the combat robots of the Legio Cybernetica, including such fabled techno-arcana as Atomantic Field Generator technology that would later be refined and incorporated into the Storm Shields used by Space Marine Terminators and other now-lost secrets from the Dark Age of Technology that were meshed with the Contemptor's basic systems. During the height of the Great Crusade, the Contemptor served alongside the standard Mars Pattern Mark IV and Mark V Dreadnoughts as a spearhead unit for the Legiones Astartes. During the Great Secession, they bore the brunt of the fighting by Dreadnoughts in every theater and as a result suffered the heaviest losses.

**Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought**

During the Great Crusade and Great Secession eras, the Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought was a dedicated heavy support Dreadnought frame, though it shared many core components and systems with the more general assault-based Contemptor Pattern. Initially deployed in limited numbers to each of the Space Marine Legions due to difficulties in its manufacture, its durability and firepower saw demand for the Deredeo Pattern dramatically increase after the outbreak of the Great Secession.

One of the primary weapon systems the Deredeo could mount was the twin-linked Anvilus Autocannon Battery, a fearsome development of the existing Autocannon pattern that could engage and destroy armoured targets with a punishing salvo of fire. The carapace of the Deredeo could also mount additional weapons and support systems, including twin-linked Heavy Bolters or Heavy Flamers for close-in defence as well as the advanced Aiolos Missile Launcher which, with its sophisticated targetting system, could track targets independently of the primary weapons system and regardless of intervening terrain.

**Leviathan Pattern Siege Dreadnought**

Created in in the latest days of the 30th Millenium, the Leviathan Pattern Siege Dreadnought was developed in secret on Terra, away from the pervasive oculars of the Mechanicum. Its massive frame incorporates hybridised technologies, some dating back into the dim past of humanity. Towering over later Imperial walker patterns, this heavily armoured dreadnought is savagely powerful. It was designed for siege warfare and primarily armed with close combat and support weaponry that can rend buildings, vehicles and flesh alike; though it is no less effective when armed with the powerful and esoteric short ranged weaponry uniquely developed for it. The Leviathan's oversized reactor allows it to bear weapons more powerful than other classes of dreadnought, and also powers reinforced energy fields that surpass those developed for the Contemptor class. Power has its cost though, and the systems of the Leviathan place a lethal level of strain on the minds its occupants. Only a handful of these vehicles were sent to the legions during the Rangdan War, more finding their way into the hands of the loyalist legions during the Great Secession, Seccessionist forces repairing their own frames time and time again, or salvaging those of the loyalist forces.

**Leviathan-Thrasos Assault** **Dreadnought**

Initially encountered by embattled Loyalist forces on Korhlus, the Leviathan-Thrasos was believed to be an inferior reproduction of the Leviathan Dreadnought by Seccessionist forces, presumably attempting to make up for the mighty vehicles extremely difficult to replicate systems outside of the forges of Terra the true vehicle came from. In truth however, the Thrasos-class may have begun development long before the Leviathan was deployed to the legions, its pattern originating potentially centuries earlier, but hidden for an unknown reasons.

When the Great Secession erupted and engulfed the galaxy however, such restrictions were lifted at the Secessionist Conclave, the design combined with the Leviathan-pattern to create the Leviathan-Thrasos Assault Dreadnought, replacing the little understood technologies with inferior, but still deadly, counterparts. Unlike the original Leviathan which remained solely the product of Terra, the template for the Leviathan-Thrasos, distributed to several Secessionist-aligned Forge Worldsthough many were also captured and used by Loyalist factions, far easier to produce than the true version of the Dreadnought.

**Lucifer Pattern Dreadnought [1]**

A hybrid of Terran and Martian design, the Lucifer pattern Dreadnought was first prototyped in the decades following the final conquest of Terra, as the Legions claimed the Segmentum Solar for the Imperium. Drawing from the myriad Dreadnought designs utilised by pre-unification humanity, as well as the plethora of Battle Automata within the Mechanicum’s arsenal, the Lucifer integrated a basic pattern of atomantic reactor – variants of which would be used for a number of specialised vehicle designs throughout the Great Crusade.

Although featuring fewer advanced systems than the later Contemptor pattern - believed to have been developed from the Lucifer design - the Lucifer still saw considerable use in the later days of the Crusade, with its smaller size, barely bigger than a Terminator, and enhanced frontal armour specilaising it for use within void craft and fortifications, providing a niche that would see it endure some of the fiercest fighting of the Great Secession.

**Malevolant Dreadnought [1]**

The first Imperial Dreadnought to be mass-produced for use by the nascent Legions, the design of the Malevolant was almost entirely drawn from Terran specifications, which explains why it diverged so significantly from later patterns – at least in appearance – which all relied heavily upon the Mechanicum’s expertise. Despite this factor, the Malevolant did gain a number of advantages from the Imperium’s alliance with the Martian Mechanicum – namely much more advanced materials for its construction, and a number of mechanical sub-assemblies which dwarfed any available to Imperial engineers on Terra in terms of efficiency at the time.

Field-tested in the last wars of Terran Unification, the Malevolant was deemed extremely successful in its role during the conquest of the Segmentum Solar, leading to the development of many subsequent patterns of Dreadnought that would ultimately go on to virtually replace the Malevolant as the Great Crusade progressed.

## Sources

[1] - Initial ideas by Iron Hands Fanatic Designs - http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/295603-30k-vehicleautomata-concepts-deimos-vendetta/