THE 164TH: Team Dossier 

 

 

AQUILON TEMPESTOR MASON

 

Role: Squad Lead

 

Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

 

MASON never traded up for the traditional officer’s pistol and sabre. He sticks with the same lascarbine he’s carried since his first drop, and the squad trusts him for that. He keeps a sealed relic-vial of Armageddon ash under his chestplate—grainy grey dirt Yarrick himself once trod on.

 

MASON’s leadership style is brutally simple: “land hard, move fast, die later.”

 

He handpicked every member of the 164th Ash Vultures after a disastrous, op that killed 80% of his previous squad at Hive Secundus. Since then, he’s shown an almost religious intolerance for incompetence and an equally religious patience for trauma.

 

 

AQUILON TROOPER VESPER

 

Role: Rifleman

 

Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

VESPER refuses every promotion thrown at him, convinced dying starts the moment you get noticed. He blends into any formation like smoke—quiet, unobtrusive, impossible to remember until everything’s already gone to hell.

 

Among the Ash Vultures, VESPER is the steady center. Nobody knows how old he is, but his instincts in a firefight are flawless. He and MASON share a long, unspoken history from the early Harakoni days, something involving a failed drop and a crashed Valkyrie whose crew didn’t make it.

 

 

AQUILON TROOPER ECHO

 

Role: Rifleman

 

Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

ECHO claims her memories were wiped, that she once fought alongside silver-armoured warriors carrying halberds. The others laugh it off—mostly to hide that they believe she might be right.

 

She’s brilliant at pattern analysis and movement prediction, often calling threats seconds before they appear. Off-mission she watches the sky like something’s going to come back for her.

 

 

AQUILON TROOPER THORN

 

Role: Rifleman

 

Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

The sole non-Harakoni in the team, THORN survived an Ork overrunning of his Steel Legion company by sheer stubborn refusal to die. MASON dragged him into the Ash Vultures not out of pity but respect: THORN kept firing long after his gas mask cracked and his squad was gone.

 

The others treat him like a younger cousin—respectful but merciless in hazing. THORN takes it in stride, absorbing Harakoni doctrine with frightening speed.

 

 

AQUILON GRENADIER KILN

 

Role: Demolitions

 

Weapons: Hotshot Laspistol, Melta Bombs and a Tempestus Dagger

 

KILN is a walking arsenal. He carries more grenade varieties than most supply officers have manifest slips for.

 

His favorites are a pair of Krak Grenades,  sizes for an Astartes. They came from a trade with a Black Templar neophyte; the reliquary he gave away in return almost certainly wasn’t authentic, but no one questions it.

 

KILN treats explosives like fine wines—classified by vintage, flavour, and ideal occasion.

 

 

AQUILON GUNFIGHTER SABLE

 

Role: Dual-Pistol Specialist

 

Weapons: 2× Hotshot Laspistols and a Tempestus Dagger

 

SABLE solves problems with gunfire and is annoyed when other solutions work. Her reputation for dead spouses follows her around; the squad jokes she marries for fun and “widows” for stress relief.

 

She and VESPER have an odd sibling rivalry: he avoids notice, she demands it. On missions, their paired advance is devastating.

 

 

AQUILON GUNNER HEMLOCK

 

Role: Melta Support

 

Weapons: Melta Carbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

HEMLOCK hides his intelligence behind a slackjaw façade. In truth he’s a meticulous thinker, designing a wargame about grot submarines and Ork naval tactics. He’s terrified the others will find out—not because they’ll laugh, but because they’ll ask to play.

 

In battle, HEMLOCK’s melta work is clinical. Anything that needs to stop existing, he deletes.

 

 

AQUILON GUNNER PRAXIS

 

Role: Plasma Support

 

Weapons: Plasma Carbine and a Tempestus Dagger

 

PRAXIS was raised to be a dentist, then discovered he hated teeth and loved falling out of aircraft. He took to plasma like an addict to his vice: he knows it’s killing him a little at a time, but Throne does it feel righteous.

 

He and HEMLOCK often run paired deep-strike insertions—one melts armour, one melts everything inside it.

 

 

AQUILON MARKSMAN TANGENT

 

Role: Sniper

 

Weapons: Hotshot Long-Las and a Tempestus Dagger

 

TANGENT’s auditory implant plays constant choirs whenever it detects blasphemy. Given the Imperium’s general level of profanity, she’s lived in a private cathedral for four straight

years.

 

Her silence unnerves new recruits, but the Vultures consider it comforting. If TANGENT is listening to what you have to say, it means you’re not damned… yet.

 

 

AQUILON PRECURSOR SPECTRE

 

Role: Pathfinder/Forward Drop

 

Weapons: Hotshot Laspistol and a  Tempestus Dagger

 

Youngest in the squad, SPECTRE hates aircraft with a religious intensity and prefers to free-fall whenever regulations allow. First down, first gone, he marks drop zones with burning white phosphorus—his way of telling the enemy the sky belongs to the Ash Vultures.

 

He hero-worships MASON and distrusts ECHO, claiming ECHO “falls like she’s being watched.”

 

 

SERVO-SENTRY ARGONAUT

 

Role: Automated Support

 

Weapons: Hotshot Volley Gun and a Tempestus Dagger

 

The regimental Enginseer insists ARGONAUT is a standard-pattern servo-sentry. The 164th insists he’s the reassembled skull of Trooper Argus Naught, whose grav-chute failed and who crushed an Ork Big Mek on impact.

 

The team issued the Servo-Sentry with a Tempestus Dagger, and while no one has ever seen the servitor draw the weapon (or wonder how such a miracle could occur), they find its mere presence comforting.