Horus Heresy Plastic Fellblade Super-Heavy Tank

[SvenIronhand]

On 6/7/2025 at 8:32 AM, Hungry Nostraman Lizard said:

Contrast that with the nu-marine 'suppressors', who have tiny bulbs attached to a basic power pack for the energy source, little bulbs at the back of the calves and shins. The marine is now supposedly bigger, so more muscle and flesh tonnage is added. Then you give them a big massive gun, one that looks like it's better suited for emplacements and as turrets, or perhaps better mounted on a vehicle. Then you tell me that his heavier, larger, with a smaller propulsion system - can fully HOVER? 

The proper comparison would be the old Assault Marines versus Jump Assault Intercessors.

[Nephaston]

Suppressors do look weird, but I don't know where the notion comes from that they hover? Other than that they do also have grav chutes, which, depending on how strict we like our anti-grav tech, should be plenty to enable six small thrusters to lift a marine the same as two big ones. Though judging by them not having a solo release yet I do hope they either returned them to the drawing board or refocused their effort somewhere else.

 

Anyway, seeing as this is the edition with more disintegrator presence than ever, what are the chances of a big disintegrator fellblade variant, to cover the obvious gap left by only having the autocannon, laser, and volkite archetypes covered so far. Or Plasma? Or a Mega Melta?

[MoriyaSchism]

7 hours ago, Nephaston said:

Suppressors do look weird, but I don't know where the notion comes from that they hover? Other than that they do also have grav chutes, which, depending on how strict we like our anti-grav tech, should be plenty to enable six small thrusters to lift a marine the same as two big ones. Though judging by them not having a solo release yet I do hope they either returned them to the drawing board or refocused their effort somewhere else.

The assumption that they hover comes from the idiotic flight stands they come with. I'm still not sure why most of the Primaris jump pack units are on transparent flight stands.

[Nephaston]

2 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

The assumption that they hover comes from the idiotic flight stands they come with. I'm still not sure why most of the Primaris jump pack units are on transparent flight stands.

Well, those flight stands are not exclusive to them, as seraphim and pteraxii have them as well. But yeah they suck majorly, and I'm glad GW moved away from them. Now if only they could just put them on the ground like the 30k jump units and tempestus aquilons.

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

23 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

This big resin Boi is getting some love, he's been waiting inspiration, and the thought of getting the fellblade options in plastic is just that.

Nobody, and I mean Nobody has behaved badly enough to have to endure building more than one of these monstrosities. 

Damn, what a gorgeous vehicle it is. I've no idea how you'd even transport something of that size. I have a Macharius that I run as a 'Lupercal' super heavy, with marine crew (this was an option in 1.0!) and that thing is a resin brick, but it's not quite as long in profile as the fellglaive/falchion/fellblade series. 
 

20 hours ago, SvenIronhand said:

The proper comparison would be the old Assault Marines versus Jump Assault Intercessors.

I mean, sure - you're correct. The secondary points I was trying to illustrate was that the suspension of disbelief is vanished with a lot of the nu-marine stuff. 
 

13 hours ago, Nephaston said:

Suppressors do look weird, but I don't know where the notion comes from that they hover? Other than that they do also have grav chutes, which, depending on how strict we like our anti-grav tech, should be plenty to enable six small thrusters to lift a marine the same as two big ones. Though judging by them not having a solo release yet I do hope they either returned them to the drawing board or refocused their effort somewhere else.

 

Anyway, seeing as this is the edition with more disintegrator presence than ever, what are the chances of a big disintegrator fellblade variant, to cover the obvious gap left by only having the autocannon, laser, and volkite archetypes covered so far. Or Plasma? Or a Mega Melta?

I might be misinformed. I vaguely recall reading in the warhammer-community article in which they were previewed that they could hover. Maybe that was ret-conned, or maybe the writers of the article were incorrect in their information, which isn't exactly a rare occurrence - it happens quite often that the writers for the social media accounts are straight up wrong and getting minor (and major) lore points wrong. Like when they called the Death Guard the 7th Legion, lol. 

This last point is a personal opinion, but a lot of the jump infantry do not look good, either through posing or design choices like grav chutes and weird ankle bulbs. Stop trying to be Halo Spartans. It's like trying to combine western and eastern style of mecha, the boxy style (think warhammer titans, battletech mechs) versus sleek builds (think gundam and armored core, and etc), which is two radically different design styles, pulling in different directions.

A disintegrator fellblade variant, hmm... Would it look more like the Falchion, then? What about disintegrators on things like the Kratos? Or a Spartan chassis, with the Typhon providing the munition based, shell artillery, and the Cerberus armed with the 'neuron laser destroyer' (which is an upscaled las weapon). 

Wild card, throw it onto a rhino-platform, we get vindicator disintegrators. Which is fun to say, three times fast.

[Nephaston]

2 hours ago, Hungry Nostraman Lizard said:

I might be misinformed. I vaguely recall reading in the warhammer-community article in which they were previewed that they could hover. Maybe that was ret-conned, or maybe the writers of the article were incorrect in their information, which isn't exactly a rare occurrence - it happens quite often that the writers for the social media accounts are straight up wrong and getting minor (and major) lore points wrong. Like when they called the Death Guard the 7th Legion, lol. 

Might've been the artwork used during the shadowspear reveal, which featured one of the suppressors shooting mid jump, which could be interpreted as them hovering, since it's a still image.

[Wibbling]

I know this is off topic regarding the jump infantry, but the tech is supposedly 30,000 years in the future. Who knows what technology will exist to mitigate weight/efficient jet boots. Dune had Baron Harkonen using suspensors to ofset his weight (and 40K 'borrowed' that in Rogue Trader to offset heavy weapon penalties. 

 

On the Fellblade variants, it being in plastic opens up the opportunity for all sorts of weapon types - a laser cannot instead of the accelerator, a plasma turret, different chassis mounts. This could of course have been done with the resin model but it's a bit harder for lower ROI, as I imagine the plastic tank will outsell the resin one - I'll certainly buy the super heavy plastic, whereas I wouldn't the resin: folk have flagged it's a pain to build.

[Nephaston]

1 hour ago, Wibbling said:

I know this is off topic regarding the jump infantry, but the tech is supposedly 30,000 years in the future. Who knows what technology will exist to mitigate weight/efficient jet boots. Dune had Baron Harkonen using suspensors to ofset his weight (and 40K 'borrowed' that in Rogue Trader to offset heavy weapon penalties. 

 

Suspensors still exist, most notably in Kill Team and Necromunda where you can equip it as an individual piece of gear. The latter also has suspensor chairs used by two different characters. Along those we also have classic anti gravity engines like the ones used in cherubs, servo skulls and land speeders, grav chutes used by elysian drop troops, harakoni warhawks and the newer marine jump units, and of course the repulsor tech in the newer marine vehicles.

 

In general I would also argue these are all different; Suspensors.... suspend the object to not be pulled by gravity, but still be handled. Classic anti-grav engines do the same but allow for steering using the same engine. Grav Chutes lighten the load but don't fully counteract gravity, so you'll float and gently sink without hurtling off the planet because of the slightest jump. Repulsors are much cruder and simply punch in the direction the plates go, so they will fall down until they can repulse off of something.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Suppressors look awful. The 30k Assault Squad looks fantastic. 

 

Anyway, the Fellblade is awesome. Were there any Legions that made more than average use of super heavy tanks? The Iron Hands and Iron Warriors seem like obvious candidates. 

 

Also, did they fall out of use after the Heresy because of the logistics element or just because the Legions broke into Chapter's?

 

 

[Marshal Loss]

43 minutes ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Also, did they fall out of use after the Heresy because of the logistics element or just because the Legions broke into Chapter's?

 

All of the above. From Imperial Armour Volume 2 (2nd ed): War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes:

 

Ten thousand years after the Great Crusade, the Fellblade is all but unknown in the arsenals of the Adeptus Astartes. It is thought that many were lost in the inter-legionary wars of the Horus Heresy and the subsequent Scouring, having borne the brunt of the fury of those terrible confrontations. Possessed of such rare and potent technologies, it was perhaps inevitable that the Fellblade should fall from use as the knowledge and spirit that contributed so much to the Great Crusade receded, to be replaced with ignorance and superstition. Maintaining the Fellblade's advanced systems became ever harder as time went on and repairing battle damage all but impossible. In addition, with the mighty legions of old divided into Chapters the need or such a heavy vehicle faded, the Space Marines refocusing on shock assault and rapid strike tactics. Later on, key Forge Worlds responsible for the production of specific systems used by the Fellblade were lost, knowledge and expertise becoming ever more fragmented, a reflection of the fate of the Imperium itself.

[Xirix]

I could be wrong, but maybe the STC was lost for the Fellblade like a lot of things during the Heresy, and that's why they're much rarer.

 

Edit : I have been sniped :P

Edited Tuesday at 07:50 AM by Xirix

[infyrana]

9 hours ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Anyway, the Fellblade is awesome. Were there any Legions that made more than average use of super heavy tanks? The Iron Hands and Iron Warriors seem like obvious candidates. 

 

 

Death Guard - Betrayal book 1.  Noted that "While the Death Guard did maintain and utilise field armour, support vehicles and transports (Mortarion would not allow his forces to be circumvented, cut-off or left wanting for their lack), these were not given any primacy in the Legion's tactical doctrine. The only exceptions to this were dedicated siege units such as the Vindicator which was fielded in disproportionately high numbers by the Legion, alongside squadrons of Fellblade super-heavies and Land Raider Spartans in mass warfare."  Goes on to note the crews were mostly of Terran blood so quantities took a big hit during the Isstvan 3 iirc.

 

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Huh, interesting. Thanks guys. 

[kabaakaba]

Quote

Grav Chutes lighten the load but don't fully counteract gravity, so you'll float and gently sink without hurtling off the planet because of the slightest jump.

I'm abnet gaunt hosts book there is detailed instruction for one and they virtually allow you to fly because of small engines + anti-grav

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

My homebrew 42nd armored has a few of them... :P 

I can see them being utilized across all the Legions. Dark Angels Ironwing probably had a bunch of Falchions, maybe even something with a more esoteric gun, with their secret weapon caches. 

Imperial Fists I could see burying the hull in the ground, in a very 'hull down' WW2 style entrenched bunker turret.

White Scars might enjoy the use of the classical shell based Fellblade to punch a massive hole in a wall fortification so that the cavalry can charge in. As we don't really know the actual stats of these weapons, I'd imagine a Fellblade chassis is more mobile than a Typhon or Cerberus, so the Scars will value it more - and a biker will not exactly level a giant 'eff u' wall.

Fellblades are big, all that space to place honorifics to the Emperor... and later the Pantheon. The 17th would welcome these massive behemoths as a personification of the will for their deity(s).

And so on and so on. 

[roryokane]

Accidental post duplication

Edited Wednesday at 02:37 PM by roryokane

[roryokane]

1 hour ago, Hungry Nostraman Lizard said:

My homebrew 42nd armored has a few of them... :P 

I can see them being utilized across all the Legions. Dark Angels Ironwing probably had a bunch of Falchions, maybe even something with a more esoteric gun, with their secret weapon caches. 

Imperial Fists I could see burying the hull in the ground, in a very 'hull down' WW2 style entrenched bunker turret.

White Scars might enjoy the use of the classical shell based Fellblade to punch a massive hole in a wall fortification so that the cavalry can charge in. As we don't really know the actual stats of these weapons, I'd imagine a Fellblade chassis is more mobile than a Typhon or Cerberus, so the Scars will value it more - and a biker will not exactly level a giant 'eff u' wall.

Fellblades are big, all that space to place honorifics to the Emperor... and later the Pantheon. The 17th would welcome these massive behemoths as a personification of the will for their deity(s).

And so on and so on. 

I'm sorry, that rogue apostrophe for "Purgatorys' Deliverance" is driving me mad.  It's such a cool force org chart though. How did you make it?

21 hours ago, infyrana said:

 

Death Guard - Betrayal book 1.  Noted that "While the Death Guard did maintain and utilise field armour, support vehicles and transports (Mortarion would not allow his forces to be circumvented, cut-off or left wanting for their lack), these were not given any primacy in the Legion's tactical doctrine. The only exceptions to this were dedicated siege units such as the Vindicator which was fielded in disproportionately high numbers by the Legion, alongside squadrons of Fellblade super-heavies and Land Raider Spartans in mass warfare."  Goes on to note the crews were mostly of Terran blood so quantities took a big hit during the Isstvan 3 iirc.

 

If I recall correctly, the DG heavy tanks weren't really included in the loyalist drop onto Issvan III - they were deployed after the virus bombing to help kill the survivors. However, that large contingent of Terrans in the legion's armour pool, as you say, resulted in a lot of the armour turning on the traitors. Mortarion was VERY angry. So yes, a lot of them would have been lost at Isstvan - but in a slightly twisty and roundabout way. Would have taken a lot of time to re-crew those vehicles which were captured or salvaged in good enough nick to be repaired.

[infyrana]

2 hours ago, roryokane said:

I'm sorry, that rogue apostrophe for "Purgatorys' Deliverance" is driving me mad.  It's such a cool force org chart though. How did you make it?

If I recall correctly, the DG heavy tanks weren't really included in the loyalist drop onto Issvan III - they were deployed after the virus bombing to help kill the survivors. However, that large contingent of Terrans in the legion's armour pool, as you say, resulted in a lot of the armour turning on the traitors. Mortarion was VERY angry. So yes, a lot of them would have been lost at Isstvan - but in a slightly twisty and roundabout way. Would have taken a lot of time to re-crew those vehicles which were captured or salvaged in good enough nick to be repaired.

 

Page 128 of the book - the very next sentence starts "It was notable in hndsight - and would prove to be a telling factor on Isstvan III - that a proportionately high number of Death Guard Legion war machine crews were of Terran blood by the time of the Heresy...".  Page 129 states "Deployed to the surface of Isstvan III it is believed were a little under a third of the Legion's forces, comprising the principal elements of its 2nd, 5th and 7th Great Companies, as well as a detachment of Legion Fellblades and siege gear."  So yeah, it doesn't state all of the Fellblades, but this was before they bombed themselves.  I lack the stuff on Isstvan 5, so can't find any quotes on what they salvaged or had access to, I'm sure it's written somewhere :)

 

Looking at the NL chart above though, I'm guessing you're gonna need a few hundred Consuls for your consuls to consul your detachments attached to your consuls to field that lot ;)