Inspirational Friday - 03/10/2014

[Tenebris]

Greetings my fellow chaotics, and welcome back to Inspirational Friday. First and foremost I have to congratulate all of you since this week was nothing short of epic, each post was unique and sweet in terms of chaotic lore and vision. I have the feeling that this Inspirational Fridays of ours are growing, the posts are more elaborate, the impression and the settings are memorable and reading all of your contributions is always a great adventure. Really you made me enjoy my coffee breaks when I sit down and read all this awesome visions of Chaos, I hope you too share this sentiment. 

 

But we are Chaos, we demand a champion, don't we?

 

This week's champion is Marshal Sampson of Terra and his great work Once, a flower had bloomed on Drejj. I must compliment him on the setting. A lot of posts were superb this week but it was my impression that Marshal really created one of those rare and sweet pieces of fluff which really invoke the feeling of Chaos, of the sheer madness but also greatness that comes to be when the Dark Gods decide to bless or curse a people. The road to the greatest tragedies is usually paved with good intent and I think that this chaotic flower was really a great and original medium trough which a world fell to Chaos. In short, awesome. 

 

Now Marshal Sampson of Terra, step forth and claim your just reward. 

 

http://shrani.si/f/e/r4/KG83M5z/3/friday-award.png

 

As it has become custom, we have also some honorable mentions. Loesh as the local enthusiast of anything Slaaneshi presented us with a world of sin and damnation. On the other hand SlaveToDarkness did a great presentation of his post using the Inquisiton, I personally loved the Inquisition lookalike file feel, but we are here for Helvette and it looks like a great place to where a chaos lord should go on vacation.

 

Now onto this week Inspirational Friday:

 

Inspirational Friday - 03/10/2014 - CHAOS VEHICLE

 

Aye you have read it right, this week I want to propose as a topic a Chaos Vehicle. We know that each any every one of the many mankind vehicles in 40k has a soul, has a machine spirit. Some vehicles are brave souls, some other are brutish bruisers but all inevitably come to have a personality. Be it a humble Rhino fresh from a Daemonic Forge or an ancient and revered Land Raider, this vehicles are some of the most prized possessions of a chaos warband and most already have entire sagas written about them.

 

This week I want you to explore the story of a single chaos vehicle, to keep it simple use the vehicles available for tabletop, and write a short story or who knows, even a legend, about its machine spirit. As for guidelines important vehicles usually have a name and in our case their crew can be as much part of them as can be daemonic minions or even cultist drivers. The chaos forces are know to field countless types of such vehicles and some can even have sagas that span for thousands of years. So to recap chose a chaos vehicle and write a story about it.

 

Let us be inspired!

 

 

Tenebris

 

 

 

[Soldier of Dorn]

Do Daemon Engines count?

[Tenebris]

Sure, why not, anything that we can field. GW, FW... you get the idea. As long it is some sort of "vehicle" (bikes excluded). 

[Kierdale]

Congratulations, Marshal Sampson!

Well earned!

 

A vehicle next? Hmmm...

[Loesh]

Was awesome just to be mentioned, i'm sure i'll have fun this time around too.

[Kol Saresk]

Why are bikes excluded? That could actually have a bit of potential to it. But hey, rules are rules. This one will definitely take me some time to think of.

[Brother Ambroz]

I've got a vehicle that I've been working on some fluff for, when would it have to be in by? Next Friday?

[Tenebris]

Indeed you have time till next Friday to post, in order to participate to the selection for the best post of Inspirational Friday, but overall if you want just to contribute then it is open in indefinite. As for the "bikes" I plan to do someday a "cavalcade" thing so I rather see those not included this week, rest assured, maybe next week, maybe next month but bikers and riders in general will have an Inspirational Friday all to themselves. 

[Carrack]

The machine spirit of Dagger's Edge is dead. This Black Legion Rhino has carried Squad Defiance for decades, and has never displeased its masters in its history. Not so with its maintainers.

 

When the engine cover fell and struck the serf in the back of his head felling him as he checked the coolant, the other serfs said it was bad luck.

 

A few weeks later a belt snapped while post battle inspection rites were being performed and one of its flailing ends lashed out and struck a serf in the throat. She bled out in seconds. The maintenance serfs assigned to Assault Bay IV started muttering and approaching Dagger's Edge with trepidation.

 

Fatal "accidents" during maintenance and refitting continued with increasing frequency as time went by; the transmission slipped into neutral on the loading ramp and the rhino ran over a guide, a loose track fell from the top of the vehicle and brained another thrall and on and on. The champion of Squad Defiance, Marron, when approached by the pit boss of Mustering Bay IV, laughed and said, "Just get more slaves, and do not approach me with such trifling matters." The members of his squad viewed the matter as a running jest and with quiet pride.

 

This carnage culminated during unloading rituals for Dagger's Edge after the conquest of Del Glenn. The havoc launcher fired into the busy mustering bay killing several thralls, then when damage control crews arrived, the havoc launcher fired a second time with fragments scything threw the crowded deck. Pit boss Shed decided that Dagger's Edge must be stopped

 

He spent much of his budget and personal resources to bring in a skilled technomancer from the enginerium decks to assuage the killing spirit of Dagger's Edge, but was informed that the vehicle was too far into the sway of the Blood God to appease and would never be appeased, except by more blood, but this condition could be remedied by bringing it to the attention of the Blood God's rival, the Prince of Pleasure.

 

Shed spent the remainder of his resources and went into considerable debt hiring an alchemist from the apothecarium to concoct a special oil laced with powerful stimulants, hallucinogenics, and neural toxins. A dark ritual of evil unspeakable acts was performed to imbue the oil with power from the Warp.

 

With this profaned oil Shed personally changed the lubricant of Dagger's Edge and started the engine. The machine howled its death cries across the vox as it's combi bolter stitched a rune into the bay door and the havoc launcher fired eight times. Then silence. The Dagger's Edge has never started since.

[Slave to Darkness]

Congrats to  Marshal Sampson of Terra on a win well deserved. Shocked I got a mention tbh, 'Helvette' was actually heavily edited, as my original draft would have probably got me banned for being too graphic, but this isnt the last you wll hear/see of Helvette, Ive actually started on building it as a games table and started converting some of the inhabitants as Inq 28 warbands. As for this weeks theme, I just got hit by an idea harder than I was hit in the wall of death at an Anaal Nathrakh gig... Good luck to all who enter. :)

[Midnightmare]

Great work Marshal, a most worthy winner :)

[Goreshed]

The Fall of Summotus Subversor

 

Warhounds were a class of titan not favored as highly as the much larger classes of Titans within the Iron Warriors Legion and for obvious reasons. While the load out of a single warhound was greater then most tracked vehicles of their extensive pool, when the much larger Titans came forward their power was dwarfed in comparison. Who would need a scout titan when the slow advance of the Iron Warriors covered all the angles of attack? Still, some things persisted throughout the Great Crusade. As the contingent of Titans swelled and shrank as the Crusade plodded along, increasingly the call was for the larger Titans rather then those of the 'scout' class. The Titan crews themselves were valued, their fighting spirit as great as any and their skills were unchallenged, however the class of titan left something to be asked for. So it was an unspoken word that when a Warhound fell in battle the rest of the fighting force would continue on. Usually the titan crews were moved up to a larger class, however some wished to stay with their noble steed. When these once fallen Warhounds returned to walk again they would find that the Crusade fleets have moved on leaving them for other assignments elsewhere. Soon there was only a few of these scout class titans left within the fighting force of the Iron Warriors Legion.  While most of the Grand Battalions shunned the use of the smaller Titans, it wasn't until the 9th Grand Battalion fought along side the Warhound Summotus Subversor that a changed occured. Warsmith Bion saw the value where his fellow Warsmith's did not and increasingly he would request the aid of the Titan in his engagements. Whether the Titan was bringing its weapons to bare against the walls of some fortress or being used to help lift gun batteries into place the crew was greatful to be used and not shipped away from a Legion that had fallen in love with as only warriors could.

 

Some would say that the Titan held a lucky streak as it was one of the last warhounds left in the titan pens after each campaign. It wasn't until the battles upon the death world of Uxtor that the lucky streak would end. The death world was a hard fought campaign, with near impassable forests choking the planet, the only terrain to cut through the foliage being the mountain chains. Cut off from supplies the Titan was running low on ammunition. Warsmith Bion had ordered the Titan to the rear of the lines until supplies could be brought in however the crew blantantly refuesed, stating that the high casualties that the Grand Battalion has already suffered would be greater if not for the Titan's presense to draw out the huge creatures of the death forests. These giant creatures were the byproduct of the worlds sick and twisted overlords who hid within their mountain strongholds and released their creations into the rest of the world. This would not be the first time that the scout titan used itself to draw the fire of the legionaries and had proved itself countless times before in that role. It would be one of these huge creatures that would finally bring down the Titan. The battle was long and hard fought, the ammunition having run out mere seconds into the fight. The Warhound was reduced to using its weapon mounts as bludgening weapons, warping barrels and overworking countless servo motors and systems. Yet still the Titan would not give up, the crew fighting for every precious moment while the Legionaries who fought around their feet attempted to bring down the death forests creature. As the last moments of battle came to fruition the creature landed a fatal blow against the legs of the Titan, bringing the once proud machine to its knees. A clear shot now available, the supporting tanks were able to hammer the creature as it stood over the broken form of Summotus Subversor until it too toppled to the ground and Legionaries were able to move in with boarding charges and other explosives to finish the dread creature off.

 

As the creature's corpse lay smoking at the feet of the IV Legion, Warsmith Bion climbed to the cockpit of the falled Warhound ripping free the canopy to reveal the gruesome sight within. All of the crew were in critial condition, many of them suffering mental wounds from the death of the Titan while some physical wounds saw their life's blood leak all over the controls that sparked and caught fire around them. Within moments the apothecaries of the 9th worked to try and save the crew while other Legionaries moved to get the Titan ready for transport back to the Titan pens. The mood was subdued as the giant recovery claws brought the Titan into the dark depths of the recovery craft, all of the Legionaries feeling the loss of a valued comrade in arms while others thinking that this would be the last time they would see the titan before it was shipped off to another theatre where the warhound class was more valued. Such was not to be however. As the rest of the planet was conquered and brought into compliance, the mountain strongholds broken open, the news arrived of Olympia's failure. In an instant the mood changed. The entire Legion felt the stab that would haunt them for time immorial. Warsmith Bion personally saw to the recovery of not only the crew of Summotus Subversor but the Titan itself. When the Legion made planetfall upon their homeworld the Summotus Subversor fought beside them.

 

The ashes of the world filled the lungs of all who were there, not just the human and astartes but also the very machines themselves. The hatred the legion felt, the second class nature of all the fights they were forced into fighting, all the times other legions took the credit that was rightfully theirs. The crew of Summotus Subversor felt as the Legionaries felt, hurt as they hurt and commited as many crimes against humanity as any others had over the course of the burning of Olympia. With the ashes filling their lungs the mood of the entire legion changed, from the lowest of low tech adept to the highest of high within the command structure, they all felt the same failures heaped upon them. Never again. As the 9th Grand Battalion made its planetfall upon Terra to rip the walls of the Imperial Palace apart, Summotus Subversor was at their side, suffering the victories and defeats as the Legionaries did. Once again the Warhound proved itself to the Legion that had once sought to send it away. Warsmith Bion would not allow the Titan to fall again and on the last night before Horus would fail them all the Warsmith and Princeps made a warriors bond between the titan and the Grand Battalion, forever cementing their shared comradery. When Horus fell and the inevitable fall back of the Traitor forces fled from Terra, the Summotus Subversor was with them, following the Legionaries of the 9th into the unknown fate that the Eye of Terror promised them.

 

For thousands of years the fate of the Warhound Titan Summotus Subversor was unknown to the Imperium. Many had thought they had seen the titan fall upon the field of battle before the Imperial Palace yet on the Martian held factory world of Tytugrad they were to be proven horribly wrong. As the forces of the 9th Grand Battalion made planetfall the very soil of the planet recoiled as the tread of the Summotus Subversor touched it for the first time. Gone were the loyalist markings that had been painted with loving care over the carapace. Instead a growth of mechanical, yet living in nature had sprouted from its back. Bodies of loyalist marines were dangling from chains attached to its weapon mounts while a large warhorn bayed into the nights air, signaling the start of the seige. At some point it is believed that a mutated version of the obliterator virus infected the Traitor Titan, warping not only the machine but the crew itself. The crew are now one and the same with the Titan, no one having seen the actual forms of the crew in centuries as they never leave the Titan even when it is birthed inside of its holding pen. Only Warsmith Bion, now known as Warsmith Goreshed, has seen the crew face to face and he never speaks of what he sees. Those of the 9th there to see the fall of the Titan on that long forgotten death world now pay their respect to the warhound in their own ways, seeing it as a lucky icon and one that has been with them the longest and understands on a deep level what the Legionaries have been through.

 

Before each engagement a hundred captured enemies of the previous campaign and brought before the Titan, their arteries opened up and fed directly into the heart of the Warhound itself, fueling the pact that the warsmith and the titan crew made upon the ground of Terra. The chains hanging from the weapon mounts are empty at the start of the campaign and slowly fill up once a worthy openent is found. At the end of the campaign the warpsmiths hang these fresh victory trophies upon the rafters of the landing bay and forge new chains to be fitted to the weapon mounts. Each time the Summotus Subversor walks from its berth the bodies of those it has taken as a trophy scrape and bang against the hull of the Traitor Titan, ringing like the lost bells from long dead Olympia.

[incinerator950]

I find that strange, but nonetheless good gor.

[Son of Carnelian]

Aw, shucks. Thanks guys! I got the idea after staring too long at the flower-scythe bit on the Empire Battle Wizards kit and thinking "this would look awesome on a Slaanesh Lord." Anyway, on to my entry for this week!

 

+++

 

Andor crushed another guardsmen under his heel as he strode forward. He had not noticed the man and the kill felt hollow, devoid of the immediacy that should come with death. Patches of blood covered his massive frame, most from enemies but some from his brother World Eaters. If he could even call them "brothers" now. Most of the men he had fought beside in the Heresy had long since died, buried in the mud and drowned in their own vital fluids on a thousand different worlds. Attrition rates had always climbed high amongst Angron's sons, but their devotion to Khorne and the passing of ten thousand years had exacerbated the problem exponentially. Only a handful of Astartes remained from the glory days of the World Eaters, their minds irrevocably twisted and their perception of reality often distorted into complete fantasy. 

 

But not Andor. His mind remained inside the shell of a massive dreadnaught. Ordinarily, such internment would have driven him completely insane. He had seen other devotees of the dark gods unleash their dreadnoughts like frenzied beasts set loose from a cage. None of them ever survived. But Andor had survived and kept his sanity, safe inside the inner workings of a Contemptor. A more advanced pattern of dreadnaught from a forgotten template whose secrets had long since faded into obscurity, his mind still functioned as it should. He had not gone mad. He had not lost his strength of purpose. But something far worse had happened to Andor, Breaker of Kings and Crusher of Mountains.

 

He could not longer feel. Or smell. Or hear. Or speak. At least not in the way that those things mattered. They appeared only as code, transmitted directly into his brain so that he might have the information necessary to his continued existence. But the sequence of zeros and ones that his brain interpreted as stimuli could never accurately give him the experiences the universe had once provided him so freely. The hot wash of blood over his face after a decapitating strike. The crunch of bone as he drove his sword into the breast of an enemy. The stinking smell of carrion wafting over the battlefield after a massacre. Never again could Andor bellow his devotion to the Blood God in anything other than a dull, metallic tone. His men all admired him; thin-blooded recent additions to the World Eaters who respected his victories in the Long War and foolishly believe his existence an enviable one. Some of the cultists that had joined his warband even worshipped him as a living idol of Khorne, bedecking him in all manner of totems and trophies.

 

Andor could not feel them. He could not feel anything. In battle his rage came not from his hatred for the enemy. It came not from a place of worship for Khorne. It came, cool and calculated, from his hatred for himself for not having the good sense to just die. Better death and damnation, he thought, than the cold of a walking tomb...

 

He crushed another guardsman underfoot and prayed a silent prayer to Khorne for something to finally kill him this day. 

[Loesh]

"You are but a man, I have slain dragons young warriors, what makes you think you could best me?"

 

Upon the evergreen fields of Arexis Prime he stood, his armor a shining bright green and decorated with golden and purple Slaaneshi runes, in one hand he hefted a great shield with his patrons symbol inscribed upon it, and in his other he held a massive greatsword that he somehow held in one hand. Through his visor he looked at the soldiers the false king had gathered around him and smirked behind his helm,  they painted their armor half yellow and half red in design with the emblem of a winged lion upon their chest. Circling him like wolves, no doubt waiting for the chance to take the ancient knights head as a prize to their tyrannical leaders.

 

"What have you heard about the traitors young warriors? Did you expect to turn my blood yellow?" he laughed "No, no, we know well the ways of war, and when i'm done you won't come here anymore."

 

The youngest of them, really more a boy then a man, leaping forward with his sword help high, foolish boy! with another cackle the knight thrust his shield forward with such force that it nearly knocked the blade from the boys hand. With one swift movement he took the boys head from his shoulders, his companions crying out in rage as they charged him all at once! yet he was far faster, easily blocking one blow and then rolling under two more as they flew harmlessly wide of him and struck each others shoulder instead,

 

As the green knight came back up he was grinning behind his helm, enjoying the sport even as one of their blades pierced his shoulder, it seemed like forever since anyone actually wounded him in a fight and that only made it more exhilarating. Dancing away from the sword with inhuman speed the Knight brought his blade up and cut deeply into his opponents stomach. Yet he had no time to savor his opponents shrill screams as two more of them were upon him, blocking one blade with his shield and knocking the other sword wide. Using the momentum from the other strike he rolled past the unbalanced warrior and cut him in two, just before somehow thrusting forward despite having no time to recover and running the other one through as well.

 

"Did you think you were the heroes of this fairytale? Well...i'm afraid you were mistaken."

 

+++

 

Even thousands of years later, Devine proved to be a terrible foe to face. The Knights of House Hawkwood looked to one another and called the retreat even as this rampaging 'Green Knight' came forward and cut another one of them apart with his Chainsword, the daemonic entity crushing everything beneath it as it moved from one target to the next.

 

Truly this thing was horrifying, Hell-striders alone were monstrous..but a full on Hell-Knight from times forgotten? merely looking at the mutated mass of metal and flesh was terrifying, human heads hanging from it's metallic waist as grim trophies and stretched skin and faces over it's chest plating, purple daemonic energy seethed from it's armors seams and the wound they had struck to it's shoulder which didn't even seem to be slowing the thing down, they dared not listen to the creatures daemonic insane mutterings lest it drive them mad.

 

As House Hawkwood tried to find solace in the forest the great machine rumbled after them, screaming part in high Gothic and part in the tongue of the Neverborn "Craven worms! I HAVE NOT YET HAD MY FILL!" and with that, the Green Knight chased after his would be assailants.

[Montuhotep]

I can't compete with any of these, they're just too awesome for mere words to express......

[Tenebris]

Chaos Predator - "Brontus" - Arrogant Sons, Black Legion Warband

 

It was a dark time for the Iron Hands after the death of their sire on the fields of Istvaan and the nigh shattering of their legion but some companies of stragglers still fought back the Warmaster with any device they could conjure up. One of such brotherhoods of warriors was the Rhodium Compact, a band of Iron Hands made from two companies who were spared the ignominy of the Dropsite Massacre. The Rhodium Compact was en route to Istvaan when they were reached by the rumors of their sire's death and it is a testament to the steel resolve and discipline of Iron Father Kalan that this band of warriors turned their backs on their doomed brethren and decided to take the vengeance of the 10th legion to the stars. 

 

For months the powerful Desolator-Class Battleship Rhodium stalked the stars in search for a worthy quarry. Iron Father Kalan enacted a strict protocol of search and destroy missions and a string of punitive actions severely hammered the renegade forces of the traitor legions. In this dark months which turned into years, full of misery and dread, deceit and shattered hopes the Rhodium Compact endured and their mighty vessel was the doom of many a traitor to the Throne of Terra. 

 

All this came to an end when the unassailable Rhodium was hunted down by a covenant of traitors and its ironclad spirit was shattered in a daring void assault. For days the Thousand Sons fought across the length of this leviathan of black iron skin and steel bones but on the ninth day of the battle Rhodium was no more, the ship bore a new name, a dreadful name from now onward to the eternity, The Arrogance.

 

Since most of the engagements in which Rhodium took place were in the void, against the ships of the Warmaster, it was a surprise (though somehow predicted by the mastermind of the attack) that the mighty Desolator-Class Battleship had in its ripe belly a veritable stockpile of weapons, armour and vehicles bound to reinforce the loyalist cause on several worlds in the Sadoru Subsector. Among this mighty hoard of techno-arcana and astartes war machines was also a complement of Predator tanks, fresh from the forges of Medusa and yet untested in battle.

 

Initially the Thousand Sons were overjoyed to find a complement of such fine armour in the belly of the conquered ship but it soon revealed to be an unpredictable burden. Most of the Iron Hands vehicles revealed to be "enhanced" by the peculiarities of the 10th legion such as MIU links, techno-arcane systems and even sarcophagus installations more fit for a dreadnought than for a tank. This proved to be a major problem for the Thousand Sons who severely lacked the trained and enhanced personnel to fully take advantage of the many Predators and Rhinos aboard the newly christened Arrogance.

 

The story of "Brontus" as Predator Tank E-372-HG-Delta is known, begun aboard the Arrogance. The machine spirit of the Predator was yet untested in battle and ignorant in the ways of the world. Using scavenged Iron Hands who were beyond recovery as forced implants to activate the MSU links, the Thousand Sons managed to activate several of this war machines in order to supplement their shattered legion. Initially the Iron Hands force wired to the systems of their tanks were a liability, several hundreds of slaves died during the attempts to placate the Machine Spirits of the Predators and soothe the choler of the enslaved Iron Hands, but in time and thanks to a constant supervision and telepathic manipulation the spirits of the tanks were placated and at long last the Iron Hands realized the truth borne by their captors.

 

Brontus was one of the Predator Tanks whose first roar of anger and smoldering hot fury was unleashed upon the loyalists. Both machine and driver were now consecrated to the Warmaster's cause and while some Iron Hands pilots still rebelled against their fate soon the legends of the Rhodium Compact begun to circulate on the battlefields of the Horus Heresy.

 

Named after battle brother Brontus, an Iron Hands marine, a former Havoc in the Rhodium Compact, this Predator Tank is now intertwined with the choleric spirit of its pilot and years of exposure to the mutagenic effect of the Warp sealed the fates of machine and marine for eternity. A daring machine spirit, Brontus is often found in the forward elements of the Arrogant Sons, venting the fury of its heavy bolters and autocannon upon those who dare to oppose the might of the Black Legion. Marine Brontus is still capable of communicating with his brethren and it is perhaps only due to his iron will that his Predator Tank is still unblemished by the caress of Chaos on the outside, yet inevitably corrupt in the inside.

 

The ancient MSU link is still active and Brontus is a very responsive steed, each thought of its pilot is answered by the enslaved machine spirit and each choleric outburst is echoed by the roar of the many weapon systems. The MSU allows Brontus and unprecedented control over the Predator Tank and it is thanks to this dark technology that the steeds of the Rhodium Compact are victorious in battle. Working tirelessly as only a host of minds linked in a noosphere can, Brontus and its iron brethren are a fearsome force of armoured hulls and spiked threads. Communicating in bursts of machine cant, the Rhodium Compact uses a lingo named "The Aracant" which is a form of early Medusan, used as the battle cant of the squadron. 

 

When once this detachment of Predators fought their captors and rebelled against the Thousand Sons, much like their entire ship and onboard systems, they relented their position when they came to learn the truths about the Heresy, especially when it was revealed to them by Iron Father Kalan, now self christened Warpsmith, Lord of Manusiarium, the forge aboard the Arrogance. Most of the pilots accepted their fate with the iron resolve typical of the 10th legion but for marines like Brontus and others who clung to their old beliefs it was their Iron Father who finally soothed their adamant wills, some by coercion, some with technophage viruses or with infected warpcode but inevitably the entire Rhodium Compact came to serve the Arrogant Sons and was integrated as part of the warband soon after the Heresy.

 

In M41 the Rhodium Compact is still very much active though the once noble machines of the astartes are in the minority now. Warpsmith Kalanthrox expanded the might of the Arrogant Sons with daemonic engines and hosts of Helbrutes, but undeniably when true battle is joined and the Black Legion fights a worthy foe the Rhodium Compact is unleashed. Brontus is still there, still fighting with cold blood, iron will, an Iron Hand trough an trough, still clad in black, albeit of a more sinister hue. The hull of this Predator Tank is still sable but the choleric nature of its pilot in now made manifest. Adorned with trophy spikes and cruel teeth of adamantium, Brontos is now a brawler, an apex predator. What the heavy bolters and the autocannon fail to destroy is soon gauged by wicked spikes or ground to dust beneath its treads. The marine inside is now one with his machine, the skin of Brontos is his own, the sensorium of the tank his eyes and ears. Deep down Brontos reached the apotheosis, the pinnacle of belief typified in his legion, the flesh is weak and only iron is strong enough. Brontos is now not only a machine, but a machine of death, a herald of violent intent and his thoughts are now beyond mortal ken, he is now one with the machine spirit and one with his brothers in the Rhodium Compact squadrons. 

 

Ultimately the Iron Hands became a weapon, a weapon of the Warmaster, a weapon of the Arrogant Sons and some might claim a weapon of humanity. The Rhodium Compact is now a dread presence in the Eye, when the Arrogant Sons go to battle they are accompanied by their brethren clad in adamantium and it is no secret that the Warmaster gave a commendation to this squadron when they fought valiantly their loyalist brethren during the 10th Black Crusade. Brontus much like his brothers desires nothing more than to unleash his rage upon the foes of the Black Legion but in order to prevent him or his brethren to vent their all too choleric fury aboard the Arrogance their Predator Tanks are chained in the vast Rhodium Hall, their pilots dormant much like the helbrutes of the warband. When the need for such direct means of violence such as the Rhodium Compact is required the machine spirit are roused from their slumber and warpcode floods the minds of their pilots. The squadron then advances with machine-like precision toward the many lifters and when they are unleashed on the planet the cold efficiency and sheer brutality of this traitor Iron Hands and their adamantine steeds in truly a grim spectacle to behold. 

[Montuhotep]

Oh sod it, I'll have a go anyway.....

 

Tomb Cutter. Designation: Warhound-class scout titan. Princeps commanding: Erasmus Tomb. Status: Excommunicate Traitoris.

 

One of the few Warhounds left to Legio Audax; Tomb Cutter is, outwardly at least, uncorrupted by Chaos. How this can be after millennia spent inside the Eye of Terror and transitioning in and out of Warp space is rather a mystery but it bears no signs of mutation, no adaptations to it's original combat load-out and indeed nothing to indicate it's changed allegiances other than a 12th Legion maw displayed prominently on it's head. And that in itself has been present since the days of the Great Crusade. Pitted and stained through combat damage and the environments of a thousand worlds, it still remains as intact as when it first stalked out of the construction shrine.

 

 Perhaps one reason may be found in the bellicose and feral nature of it's machine spirit. It is still pure (a rarity in itself) and still has all the hallmarks of the original imprint used in it's creation - a great hunting cat from the Death-world of Phyrr. More easily roused to attack than even the usual for such imprints, the spirit of Tomb Cutter may simply be too strong willed for even the hardiest data-daemon to conquer. Or perhaps merely it's long association with the Eaters of Worlds has developed a kind of innate resistance to the Warp. Certainly it appears not to have mellowed with age!

 

 The warriors of the 25th Grand Company, whom it still stalks alongside, have a more reverential name for the machine. Headsman.

This is because of it's preferred combat style. Armed as it is with a single Vulcan mega-bolter and a scaled down Ursus Claw device at first impression, Tomb Cutter would seem to have been optimised for anti-infantry and vehicle work instead of hunting bigger game, but this is not the case. Whilst it is true that the Warhound will gleefully mow down any ants in it's path with snarls of delight sounding from a braying warhorn, it much prefers to hunt those of it's own kind - the larger the better. When doing so the technique is simplicity itself - a prolonged burst of fire that shreds any shielding that the target may possess before the harpoon of the Claw is fired at a weakened point. Once it is firmly lodged, a chain with links fatter than hab blocks tightens and either reels the victim towards Cutter or more likely pulls Cutter towards the victim. At close enough range that it's weapon is almost touching the target another burst of mega-bolter fire annihilates the head and command structure. Another skull is claimed for Khorne, albeit metallic and not bone.

[Kierdale]

Some great pieces by everyone!

 

It was nice to see old House Hawkwood in your post, Loesh, albeit as the enemy, as I've always been a fan.

[Loesh]

Some great pieces by everyone!

 

It was nice to see old House Hawkwood in your post, Loesh, albeit as the enemy, as I've always been a fan.

 

I really like the Imperial Knights on both sides of the fence, though House Devine in particular since Vengeful Spirit.

[Kierdale]

Summoned from the Inner Circle

 

The Astarte warrior was clad in armour of hues no sane human could fail to label as unseemly for such post-human killing machines. The armour was decorated with iconography it both hurt and exhilarated the very soul to gaze upon. Former astartes, he no longer wore the somber black they had been clad in as the Stygian Guard, for now they were the Psychopomps. He stood on a gantry high over one of the smaller launch bays, looking down upon the humans milling about on the deck. Members of the Exalted Fecund all, some were guards and others engineers. Such lowly mortals were not fit to work upon the weapons and vehicles of the astartes and had been assigned to salvage those technologies deemed beyond repair. The bay was as a scrapyard. A pair of the guards, clad in pale yet vividly coloured fatigues, their heads within tight black masks, mouths fastened shut, passed before a huge lift door which lead to the realm of the techmarines. These purveyors of the artifices of astartes war had too undergone a change of appellation after the flight from their homeworld of Fulcrum.

A bitter memory, that. Bitter too that they had had to abandon the great majority of their war machines. Landraiders, predators, vindicators...they had but few. The whirlwinds and razorbacks had been sacrificed to cover the retreat and now none remained.

While the chapter, by their now renegade nature, would have to adapt and find new ways of waging war, there were calls for replacements. As raiders their bike fleets would serve them well, but all astartes knew that sometimes war needed slabs of adamantium. Heavy armour.

It was to this task that the remaining warpsmiths - as they now called themselves - had sequestered themselves, under the guidance of chaplain Angra: recovered and reborn, in a manner of speaking, from being lain low by the loyalist vanguard. His guidance and that of the herald from beyond the veil to whom he was now fused.

The two humans turned, instinctively raising their autoguns as the vast outer doors of the lift began to peel back, the inner doors, bathed in deep red light, beginning to part shortly after. When they had but separated a hand’s width the two could hear thunderous strides, as heavy as a dreadnought though far faster of gait. While his partner and the sensible majority of the other humans beat a hasty retreat away from the widening orifice (though for naught as the hatches had been sealed), one of the two leaned close, peering between the armour-plated doors.

There was the crack of a whip and a slender, blood-streaked metal spike protruded from the rear of the man’s skull. As the doors opened wider, pushed aside by that which wished to escape as much as they were pulled by the vast pistons of the bay, the man - now as limp as a fleshy puppet - was lifted higher and more of the appendage revealed: a long, snaking tentacle of metal and engorged flesh. It shook and quivered, skewering him deeper.

With a squeal of tortured metal, a pair of huge hands pushed the doors wide. Hands similar in size to those of a dreadnought yet while those of such a war machine resembled a human’s, these were more akin to the clawed paws of an ursidae. To some who heard it, there followed the roar of a cudbear while others would - had a single soul on that bay’s deck lived - have described it as the scream of a temptress in ecstasy, and the beast was unleashed.

 

“It’s no battle tank,” commented lord Sophusar, watching the carnage from his vantage point, granting the chaplain a glance. There came the sound of a burst of gunfire from below, quickly silenced.

The other’s double tongue flicked out, as if tasting the bloodshed dozens of meters below.

“Indeed! Far faster, far more deadly...master.”

“How did the warpsmiths forge this…abomination?” The last word was said with a measure of glee, accompanied by the sound of a skull being crushed with ease betwixt chromium jaws.

The chaplain cocked his head, tilting the purple-skinned, neverborn-side of his face toward the former chapter master.

“Chains woven from the hair of your accursed first company, shackled and tore my sisters from the inner circle of the Dark Prince’s palace and bound them to the metal shell contrived by your minions.”

The infernal beast was fast and, Sophuasar noted with amusement, it liked to toy with its...food? Playthings? And it had been painted in a manner as outlandish as that of his own warriors.

"They hunger for excess...and for souls," the chaplain purred. "Human souls...will suffice, but you know that which they truly desire..."

The chaos lord nodded and turned back to the chaplain.

“I hope you have a lot more sisters. I want more of these beasts.”