Cain's Last Stand(Spoilers !) [Warhammer 40.000]

[Connor MacLeod]

Dawn of War's graphics engine is pathetically below what would be required to give a realistic depiction. When people are shot by a gauss weapon, they're engulfed by the ray, which whittles them away, showing organs, skeleton, and such.

They seem to engulf sometimes. Other times you seem to have them only causing very localized holes for some reason - gauss weapons seem to be rather phaser like in their effects against different targetS (or rather, out of universe, depending on authorial fiat and the source.)

[NecronLord]

Dawn of War's graphics engine is pathetically below what would be required to give a realistic depiction. When people are shot by a gauss weapon, they're engulfed by the ray, which whittles them away, showing organs, skeleton, and such.

They seem to engulf sometimes. Other times you seem to have them only causing very localized holes for some reason - gauss weapons seem to be rather phaser like in their effects against different targetS (or rather, out of universe, depending on authorial fiat and the source.)

Source on holes? The only textual evidence of holes I know of is in WD (meter wide hole in a piece of armour plate) and Caves of Ice (in the glacier). Every textual example of a person or similar object I can recall ofhand is complete atomisation.

There's a picture of what seems like a small area of a space marine being hit in the 5th edition rulebook art, but not only is that far shorter range than normal but it's a glancing hit, too.

[NecronLord]

Oh, hang on, are you thinking of the bit where a destroyer punches a hole in a Land Raider? I was thinking purely of infantry examples.

I think the consistant trait is that they engulf man-sized targets (if they are teleporters, this makes sense; C'tan would want at least brains, and probably whole specimens, stored, rather than just limbs or organs) but put holes in other matter.

[Ford Prefect]

Eh. I'm not sure if they're monoliths or something else. Their weapons were described as lightning arcs, wheras monoliths use a gauss weapon as their primary armament. They're possibly some kind of lightning-arc turret gun that's teleported into place.

Isn't the big crystal on top of a Monolith able to discharge 'lightning'? I'd check the issue of White Dwarf which has the Monolith rules in it, except I can't remember which one it is.

[Vanas]

There is a picture of a Necron hitting a Guardsman on the GW website, and it's pretty much punched a hole through him. I've got it here somewhere, but searching through all my pictures will take far too long.
Looks like the beam's mostly gone through, leaving a skeleton visible. It's notably widening, however, so this may simply be mid-flay. That, or they've got settings. 'Flay' and 'More Flay' maybe?

[NecronLord]

Isn't the big crystal on top of a Monolith able to discharge 'lightning'? I'd check the issue of White Dwarf which has the Monolith rules in it, except I can't remember which one it is.

No. It has 'gauss lightning' in its description, and 'gauss flux arc projectors' as secondary weapons, but its main weapon is a particle whip, which 'emits a tightly focussed particle beam, which is used as the carrier for a single immensely powerful bolt of energy.' Even its secondary gauss weapons tend to make a solid beam, rather than the crackling 'lightning arc' energy we see on necron starships and in necron lords too.

There is a picture of a Necron hitting a Guardsman on the GW website, and it's pretty much punched a hole through him. I've got it here somewhere, but searching through all my pictures will take far too long.
Looks like the beam's mostly gone through, leaving a skeleton visible. It's notably widening, however, so this may simply be mid-flay. That, or they've got settings. 'Flay' and 'More Flay' maybe?

I'm pretty sure they've taken the galleries down, alas. But if you mean the one with a skeleton in a gauss beam (P.22 Codex Necrons), then, yes, he's only partially engulfed, but it's only part way through the process, and even then, he's being engulfed from the waist up.

[Connor MacLeod]

Source on holes? The only textual evidence of holes I know of is in WD (meter wide hole in a piece of armour plate) and Caves of Ice (in the glacier). Every textual example of a person or similar object I can recall ofhand is complete atomisation.

I'll have to dig into all my stuff on necrons, but I recall it in a few short stories and I think Caves of Ice as well. I also think the Necron codex might've had an example or two also.

And no it wasnt the Land Raider thing, but I suppose that's worth noting as well.

[Vanas]

As another question, how exactly do Gauss Flayers work on the tougher stuff, like Marines or, indeed, the tougher breeds of tanks? Would they chew a hole through and vapourise the marine inside the armour or just eventually get around to doing the whole lot? I recall the Destroyers in Caves of Ice carving lines into one of the shuttles rather than causing all-over armour thinning.

[NecronLord]

As another question, how exactly do Gauss Flayers work on the tougher stuff, like Marines or, indeed, the tougher breeds of tanks? Would they chew a hole through and vapourise the marine inside the armour or just eventually get around to doing the whole lot? I recall the Destroyers in Caves of Ice carving lines into one of the shuttles rather than causing all-over armour thinning.

They're particularly effective against armour, supposedly. See the above bit about putting a hole in meter thick metal, and of course, the famous shooting right through a Land Raider.

When they've been described as hitting marines (Nightbringer) the armour offers no protection. I believe the new codex suggests that a named character venerable dreadnought survived for some time with them shooting at him, though.

Of course, that also has three hits from a pylon is a serious threat to a strike cruiser...

[Connor MacLeod]

I dug back into Caves of Ice and found one of the examples I was thinking of:

"What do you make of that, sir?" Jurgen asked, his fee­ble beam picking out something only he had noticed.

Apart from myself, he was the only one of our party who had walked these narrow tunnels before, and would be able to notice any changes. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, something that happens in popular fiction far more often than it does in real life, and which I can assure you is a remarkably uncomfortable sensation. My aide was shining his luminator down a narrow cylinder punched into the ice lining the tunnel, about the width of my forearm and deep beyond the strength of the lamp he carried to pick out the end.

"They've been here," I murmured. The only possible explanation was a stray gauss flayer shot striking the tun­nel wall. I looked about us, finding several more of the sinister indentations.

[NecronLord]

Yeah, I was thinking of that one too. Holes in the walls, and inanimate objects, seems common. But when they hit man-sized objects, they seem to engulf them entirely. There is one example of it knocking a hole in a human I can think of, though. In Forever Loyal the Notary sees the sergeant he's with has sustained a glancing injury that leaves the bone of his forearm showing.

Of course, as the necron warriors take their time about killing that guy, it may be that they didn't want to kill him swiftly by gauss flayer.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I think you're misundersting me, I think both Dan Abnett and Alex Stewart are creating new things. I think Abnett's created more mostly by virtue of having written far more material. It seems to me you're confusing stylistic choices on Abnett's part for canon issues. You seem to think everything ought to be out of the source books or otherwise be spread all over subsequently. That doesn't have to be the case for them to fall with in canon

On the other hand, you seem to be much more accepting of Stewart's work simply because of the area's he covering. In reality his contributions have been pretty significant for only six books. He's done a significant amount of world building, as much as Dan Abnett, but because it hasn't much challenged your preconceptions (or personal stake on canon) it doesn't seem as significant.

You're right. I guess most of my objections just boil down to "I don't like how Abnett did (whatever)." It's a shame because I loved most of his work, except for the Ravenor series and later Ghosts novels.

I also found his portrayal of the skitarii to be too ridiculous to take seriously, so I just kind of ignored the image of Mechanicus soldiers with fangs and claws and kept reminding myself that the Sabbat Sector is a strange place.

P.S.: They bark; they claw; they drool. They sleep above the covers.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

What's to stop Chaos-worshiping aliens from allying with Chaos-worshiping humans? In Xenos, those Glaw Guys didn't ally with the weirdo Abnett Aliens because they were so goddamn weird, but perhaps other Chaos guys wouldn't be adverse to allying with aliens. Hey, Chaos Undivided and all that.

Are those aliens the ones that were in possession of some uber-chaos tome and whose planet was described as being covered a silver/gray jigsaw puzzle pattern? What was their name from this vague reference?

The saruthi?

I liked them.

[Shroom Man 777]

I like them too. I found Xenos to be a very compelling read!

So, Abnett thinks that the AdMech's elite troopers are, like, crazy cyborg animal people?

Man, at least the Cain novels had AdMech infantry enjoy gambling their monies away to Imperial Commissars.

[NecronLord]

Not all of them. One specific group had a 'techno-barbarian' thing going on. The others looked professional enough.

[andrewgpaul]

I suppose it depends on the Magus in charge. However, Fantasy Flight Games' Dark Heresy pages offer the following nuggets:

The Forbidden Arts of Dark Technology

The fundamental tenet of the Logicians, as enshrined in the great text, is the acquisition of power through unrestrained technological advancement. The great arrogance and sin of this work is as obvious as it is dangerous to anyone who believes in the Credo Omnissiah or the Imperial Creed and would lead mankind back to the terrors of the Age of Strife if it was allowed to bear fruit.

Here are but a few examples of the dark paths down which such forbidden technology might wander and the legends that cloak them:

Engines of Destruction: Weapons are the foremost goal and desire of many tech-heretics, whether it's the discovery or theft of heavily restricted designs—such as atomics or the dread life-eater virus used as a tool of Exterminatus, acquiring sophisticated relics like the secrets to creating the induction coils used in plasma weapons, or the pursuit of alien designs of terrible power.

Gholam and other Forbidden Fleshworks: A Gholam is an artificial construct made primarily of flesh and synthetic tissue by the arts of a gene-sculptor, although a widespread technology within the Adeptus Mechanicus, many branches of this lore are considered heretical and forbidden. These, in particular, include so-called "Murder Gholam"—horrific organic fabrications solely intended for violence, and homonculites—bio-forms fashioned from harvested human organs, alchemical serums and vat-grown tissue in the shape of a living thing with no natural origin. Rarer creations include "Chimerics"—strange amalgam creatures that combine many sources of DNA in often twisted monstrosities with utterly unpredictable results, forced psychic mutation, and unspeakable "slaver parasites"—artificial organic grafts that subvert the will and the bodily functions of those unfortunates they are inflicted upon.

According to sacred legend, such fleshworks were forbidden by the word of the Emperor during the days of the Great Crusade in response to the horrors that he and his superhuman warriors encountered in the wars to end the Age of Strife.

Transgenic Blasphemy: This field of research embodies the techno-heresy of combining xenos gene-matter or surgical grafts with human organic matter. It is an utterly forbidden practice, considered both a pollution of the divine pattern by the Adeptus Mechanicus and outright blasphemy by the Imperial Cult.

The Silica Animus: An artificial mind (rather than a simple cogitator) created from forbidden technologies, tradition holds that such unholy constructs are inherently evil and a perverted abomination in the sight of Omnissiah. Mechanicus doctrine states that the machine spirit of a Silica Animus is a twisted mockery of the soul of man, treacherous and insane. Ancient texts tell apocryphal stories, shrouded in metaphor, of such murderous and powerful creations during the Dark Age, and the legions of ‘iron children' that served them, blaming them in part for many of the terrible wars that laid humanity low in that lost time.

Malifica: Perhaps the darkest and most arcane of all sciences is the technology created to manipulate the energies of the warp or psychic force. A necessary evil for the Imperium and a cornerstone of its existence, it is a dangerous and volatile field of study. At the outer regions of the excepted uses and patterns of this tech lie terrible devices and desires, and the melding of Daemonic spirits with machinery and the channelling of the raw power of the empyrean through technology has long been a thing forbidden by the Mechanicus. For those reckless or insane enough, the temptation to pursue such dark experiements is great, offering the possibility of creativity and function unfettered by reason or the surly bonds of the universe's physical laws.

The Proteus Protocol: Considered little more than a myth by many but the ultimate goal of an obsessed few, the Proteus Protocol is an ancient and heretical technology for transferring not only the engramatic knowledge and memory of an organic brain, but also the personality and will, granting in effect complete mental and spiritual immortality in a artificial physical form. Of the few legends that surround this tech, some state that the abominations created are soulless beings with dark desires and alien hungers that can never be satiated. These warnings however, often fail to deter the Protocol's most ardent seekers.

Depending on the details of these particular Skitarii, they could be committing the Transgenic Blasphemy.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey, Pontus Glaw succeeded in that Proteus Protocol, didn't he?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Hey, Pontus Glaw succeeded in that Proteus Protocol, didn't he?

Yes, he did. He was "encoded" on..whatever it was fully, personality intact and even had his full psychic powers. (Enough to overwhelm Eisenhorn without any untouchables around to intervene)

[Chris OFarrell]

Its also interesting that the Shadowlight appears to confirm the hypothesis that massive directed warp energy is a direct threat to a C'Tan, between the Blackstones and this, enough of one for the Necrons to dedicate considerable resources over the long term to locating and capturing/destroying it.

Eh. It depends if it actually creates chaos gods - frankly, that seems a bit unlikely (extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof after all) - if it could do that, it wouldn't need to be a direct threat to the C'tan for it to be something they'd want to get their evil mitts on, or destroy.

Um...I never claimed it created Chaos Gods, not in the slightest. What I was hypothesizing was that the Shadowlights real function -when constructed and completed- may have been designed to open a rift to the immaterium and direct gigantic quantities of warp energy against a C'Tan, ala a Blackstone.

The ability of one part of it to turn people into Psykers -or mutate them through horrible exposure to warp energy until they die- is just an uncontrolled side effect of one part of the device, IMO.

The writing on the wall -which is not eldar, and dating of the artifacts shows it to be far older then them anyway- all strongly suggest this is an anti-C'Tan weapon developed by the Old Ones, or peers of the same age. Smaller in scale then a Blackstone, sure, but perhaps much of the same idea. Such is my theory anyway, the fact is that the writings explicitly ID this as a weapon against the C'Tan and not the Necrons.

What it certainly does, is make mass-manufacture of high level psykers possible, which itself is reason enough to devote a squad or two to keeping an eye out to see who turns up to try and use it, then call in a starship to ruin their day.

Thats IMHO only an unintended side effect of PART of the device. The actual device was far larger then the block of the Shadowlight that caused people to be made into Psykers after all, and it had a control system which when activated, opened a warp rift almost at once letting a Daemon though. Though as we 'know', the warp back in the 'old days' was supposedly free of Daemons and stuff until the Enslavers showed up, so I dobut THAT was its function. Killian was able to modify the device as it were to turn people into Psykers using the energy it gave off, but the real device was implied to be far larger and more complex then even the final version we saw in 'Cains last Stand'.

It's not like this operation compares to the (simultaneous) operations to destroy the remaining Blackstones in scope, after all.

Yes, but you don't use a sledgehammer when a finger will suffice either. Its not like the Necron fleet simply jumped around the Imperium to each of the Blackstones without warning and vaporized them either, Deceiver carefully and subtly manipulated and worked to let everyone else do his work for him after all. As you say, its entirely possible the C'Tan or their Lords were told to keep an eye out for this thing -and we know from Cain that at little as 10,000 years ago they HAD been probing the planet with recon forces looking for it- and when they 'heard' the psi signature of it being activated, a fast response team was sent in to deal with the situation, from a long term OP they had set up on that asteriod orbiting the planet.

It might not in SCALE match fleets of ships running around the EOT, but someone -and again I'd put my money on Deceiver- DID place significant enough resources to this project.

Eh. I'm not sure if they're monoliths or something else. Their weapons were described as lightning arcs, wheras monoliths use a gauss weapon as their primary armament. They're possibly some kind of lightning-arc turret gun that's teleported into place.

Monoliths IIRC have both Gauss and Lightning arc weapons so its hardly irreconcilable.

[NecronLord]

Um...I never claimed it created Chaos Gods, not in the slightest.

The book does. Or rather, it has the characters speculate that the Shadowlight somehow 'unleashed the curse of Chaos on the galaxy.' (P234)

What I was hypothesizing was that the Shadowlights real function -when constructed and completed- may have been designed to open a rift to the immaterium and direct gigantic quantities of warp energy against a C'Tan, ala a Blackstone.

The ability of one part of it to turn people into Psykers -or mutate them through horrible exposure to warp energy until they die- is just an uncontrolled side effect of one part of the device, IMO.

To be honest, it could just as easily be for making psykers, to use against the C'tan. That was supposedly the Old Ones' chief strategy, after all.

The writing on the wall -which is not eldar, and dating of the artifacts shows it to be far older then them anyway- all strongly suggest this is an anti-C'Tan weapon developed by the Old Ones, or peers of the same age. Smaller in scale then a Blackstone, sure, but perhaps much of the same idea. Such is my theory anyway, the fact is that the writings explicitly ID this as a weapon against the C'Tan and not the Necrons.

Indeed. However, I wouldn't necesserily think that makes it a special anti-C'tan weapon of the same function as a Blackstone, though. Tapping into the power of the warp could mean many things.

Thats IMHO only an unintended side effect of PART of the device. The actual device was far larger then the block of the Shadowlight that caused people to be made into Psykers after all, and it had a control system which when activated, opened a warp rift almost at once letting a Daemon though. Though as we 'know', the warp back in the 'old days' was supposedly free of Daemons and stuff until the Enslavers showed up, so I dobut THAT was its function. Killian was able to modify the device as it were to turn people into Psykers using the energy it gave off, but the real device was implied to be far larger and more complex then even the final version we saw in 'Cains last Stand'.

I really don't think we can say anything about its true function that isn't speculation. It might be an Old One battery for all we know.

It's not like this operation compares to the (simultaneous) operations to destroy the remaining Blackstones in scope, after all.

Yes, but you don't use a sledgehammer when a finger will suffice either. Its not like the Necron fleet simply jumped around the Imperium to each of the Blackstones without warning and vaporized them either, Deceiver carefully and subtly manipulated and worked to let everyone else do his work for him after all.

Indeed. The Eldar would have shown up (foresight is a bitch) and done something. Though according to the EoT campaign scenarios, there were actually tombs of necrons placed on at least one of the Blackstones at some point before the Gothic War... Wheels within wheels, eh?

As you say, its entirely possible the C'Tan or their Lords were told to keep an eye out for this thing -and we know from Cain that at little as 10,000 years ago they HAD been probing the planet with recon forces looking for it- and when they 'heard' the psi signature of it being activated, a fast response team was sent in to deal with the situation, from a long term OP they had set up on that asteriod orbiting the planet.

It might not in SCALE match fleets of ships running around the EOT, but someone -and again I'd put my money on Deceiver- DID place significant enough resources to this project.

Mmm. The point is, it's worth remembering similar ground forces are deployed for entirely frivilous reasons - there was a prank on Bajoris IV (ah, the fanfic ideas that name suggests...) that had at least platoon strength necrons devoted to it, after all. With inertialess drives, of course, getting a single ship there isn't exactly difficult.

But yes, it's clearly something they don't want grubby aliens poking about with, one way or the other. It may be presumed to be dangerous to them in some way. But specifics about what it does... are pretty vague and mysterious. Its description could as easily be some power source to generate shield power to 'defend them from their enemies' as it could be a weapon.

Monoliths IIRC have both Gauss and Lightning arc weapons so its hardly irreconcilable.

Nope. They have gauss flux arcs, and the particle whip. The lightning arc is something else.