Centurion - History: Centurion warsuits are one of the most deadly and powerful assets available to the Adeptus Astartes, able to punch holes through fortress walls with obscene force, flush out enemies with flame or cut down any foe's advancing lines. They are walking tanks with formidable firepower.With the wall-grinding Siege Drill of the Assault Centurion, and the mass-collapsing grav-weapons of the Devastator Centurion, the vehicle pools of numerous Chapters are well-stocked with both variants of these warsuits.It is much disputed by Imperial scholars as to when the Centurion warsuit first engaged in conflict. This is because its origins are to be found within that dark period of the Imperium's history known as the Age of Apostasy. This was a new age of religious strife, where millions of Heretics were slaughtered across numerous star systems.The structures of the Imperium groaned under the weight of violent, internal conflict. During the Siege of Drax, a whole hive city was destroyed, and the entire Cadian 23rd fireballed in the process. Whole companies of Space Marines were consumed in these enduring, bloody actions. Battle-Brothers were emptied into orbit as the ejecta of battlefleet assaults, or slaughtered in the shadows of their own fortresses.The horrific spectre of the Horus Heresy and the threat of another all-consuming civil war began to loom over the Imperium. It became apparent to the High Lords of Terra that their troops would need new, more brutal wargear so that they might successfully smash their way across the galaxy to exterminate the unfaithful -- weapons that could resolve the most abhorrent of battles, even if apostate factions had barricaded themselves within indomitable citadels.So it was that the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus prepared for the worst and embarked upon the Voyages of Understanding, their arks criss-crossing the galaxy on unfamiliar routes and legions of Adepts scouring ancient texts in a quest for archaic knowledge. They brought back technologies to their Forge Worlds that had never before been observed, and set to work.Manufactoria clattered with fevered industry. They echoed with litanies as Tech-priests refined weapons and armour that could be used by the Adeptus Astartes. Forge Worlds were choked by banks of acrid smoke, while thousands of menials died each day, burnt to a cinder as they sought to feed the ancient furnaces with promethium.Some of the newly discovered STC databases, such as the VX Bellam Ravager and Thermae Missile Suits were beyond the best efforts of the Tech-priests to replicate reliably, and many corrupted over time to produce disturbing results. These designs were locked away in stasis vaults lest their potency seduce the more weak-willed fabricators.But out of the manufactoria on Mars came the prototypes of a Space Marine warsuit, a vehicle that would encase existing Power Armour and even enable the Battle-Brother to mesh with the larger suit's Machine Spirit. Itself a statement of intent, the warsuit was named in a manner as to acknowledge the Space Marine heroes of the Horus Heresy.It was called the Centurion.The two sanctioned variants of the Centurion warsuits were not called upon to fight during the Age of Apostasy itself, and even standard years later these two remained the guarded secret of the Tech-priests, who continued to refine their litanies, pray over them and pour on sacred oils. The Centurions remained unused and untouched, unable to be unleashed across the corpse-choked battlefields of the Apostasy before the Heretics could be finally crushed.Because of this strange delay, it was muttered by some that the Omnissiah Himself was displeased with what this new brute force might enact. This rumour was only strengthened by suggestions that these terrible devices were craving war and their Machine Spirits were thirsty for blood.