Helbrute - Weapons of Indiscriminate Destruction: Once bound within the confines of a Helbrute, a pilot's only meaningful interaction with the world around him comes through violence. Their inherent psychoses -- coupled with a desperate need for catharsis through carnage -- makes Helbrutes wildly unpredictable. Only the most coherent amongst them can comprehend any form of orders.Even those few are unlikely to follow them once the bullets start flying and the blood starts flowing. Most commanders will therefore loose Helbrutes upon their foes almost as though they were heavily armoured Chaos Spawn. They rely upon the bellowing cyborgs only to cause terror, and to spread indiscriminate destruction.If nothing else, a Helbrute is an excellent linebreaker -- their physical appearance and maddened howls alone are enough to send lesser foes fleeing in fear for their lives. Furthermore, their thick armour plating renders them completely immune to small arms fire. Horrified enemy infantry are left clutching impotent weapons as the Helbrute storms into their midst.The sheer scale of the damage an enraged Helbrute can cause is a psychological weapon in itself. Many mount tank-busting heavy weapons that can flatten a bunker or hammer swathes of infantry into red mist. Others tear their enemies apart with massive powered fists, or crush them to paste with piston-driven warhammers.The more damage a Helbrute sustains, the more enraged and erratic its behaviour will become. Some will plant their feet and howl their fury as their weapons blaze, losing the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. Others will charge with frightening speed into the teeth of the enemy guns, heedless of the odds they face or the distance between themselves and the victims they wish to tear limb from limb.Such unpredictability makes Helbrutes a terrible danger to their foes. Yet it also necessitates clever usage by their own commander. A Chaos Lord who relies upon a Helbrute to complete a specific task -- or indeed to survive the battle into which it is sent -- is liable to see their plans reduced to tatters.The most canny Renegades will factor their Helbrutes into their plans in only the loosest sense. Such commanders exploit the devastation they cause and treat their Helbrutes as expendable fodder for the enemy guns. Indeed, there are those Traitor war leaders who have gone even further, developing specialised tactics to turn the unstoppable fury of Helbrutes to their advantage. Some Traitor factions, such as the Night Lords or Alpha Legion, make significant use of stealth or terror tactics. Amongst these Traitor Legions it has become common practice to deploy whole packs of Helbrutes via the teleportariums of low-orbiting battlecruisers.These formations, commonly known as "Mayhem Packs," are goaded to a killing fury and then hurled into the very midst of the foe. Few Helbrutes will long survive appearing in the midst of the enemy guns. However, the panic the war machines' sudden arrival sows -- not to mention the mindblowing levels of destruction they cause -- is more than adequate compensation for their loss.A different approach is often seen amongst the more zealous Chaos Space Marine warbands, such as the Word Bearers and their ilk. These Traitor Legions will use their Helbrutes as mobile armoured idols, encouraging great masses of Chaos Cultists to clamour around the armoured walkers and follow them into battle. Such an approach adds a hard edge to the cultists' onset, complimenting their prodigious numbers with the armoured might of the Helbrute in their midst.Furthermore, following a roaring, striding embodiment of Chaos into battle is a rapturous experience for the cultists. Their faith in the Ruinous Powers waxes strong, bolstering their fervour to manic extremes. Of course, surrounding a Helbrute with a jostling mass of noisy cultists is a calculated risk. The occasional slaughter occurs when an adoring flock find their idol turning upon them with guns blazing. However, the loss of such menial mortal warriors is of little matter to the Chaos Lords, many of whom view even these deaths as a suitable offering to the gods.Thanks to their omnipresent madness, it is possible to generalise about the battlefield roles of Helbrutes. However, no two of these roaring metal beasts are ever exactly the same in appearance. The influence of the Chaos Gods, coupled with the pilot's own dark dreams of glory, will twist each Helbrute's physical form within the Warp.Meanwhile, the Chaos Space Marine warband to which a Helbrute owes allegiance will decorate the beast's armoured hide to their taste. Many emblazon their warband's iconography upon their Helbrutes, and bedeck them in the trappings of their twisted faith. Others leave the maddened machines to mutate however they will, believing it against the will of the gods to interfere in the Helbrute's apotheosis.Thus a Helbrute of the Death Guard may degenerate into a bloated hulk of rusting metal and suppurative, weeping flesh. Conversely, one fighting amid the zealous ranks of the Word Bearers will become a crimson-armoured shrine to war, hung with devotional scrolls and wreathed in Daemonic flame.Whatever their outward appearance, every Helbrute is the same at its core: a screaming whirlwind of madness and hate that seeks to crush the life from everything in its path. These living weapons must be used with caution, for their insanity and self-loathing may turn them upon their own. Yet none who has witnessed the trail of bodies and blazing wrecks left in a Helbrute's wake can deny their overwhelming potential for destruction.