Editing Warhammer 60K: Age of Dusk (Continued) (section)

==Additional Note: The Thunder Lizard Tank Legion==


<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">The Thunder Lizard Tank Legion were the preeminent armoured force of the Imperium Pentus. At the height of their power, the Legion had tank squadrons attached to every major army of the Five Primarchs and their generals.

The precise chronological beginning of the Thunder Lizards is unknown, but the Legion existed prior to Vulkan’s Imperium. At that point in history, the Legion’s tanks were mostly knock offs and experimental variations of existing Predator and Leman Russ basic designs. They hailed form the planet Argonauth, and formed the backbone of the PDF of that world. The atmosphere of Argonauth was highly toxic, and only sealed tanks and transporters could be relied upon to wage war there.<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Thunder Lizard Tank legion expanded after the Vulkan Imperium liberated their world from the Tyrant Tyberos, and they moved their tank factory facilities to the Forge World of Laakmor. The forge world had been left gutted by centuries of war, and most of its Tech priests were dead or mad, and thus the world’s vast polar Titan yards were converted into tank factories, and the equatorial deserts were made into testing fields and wargaming areas.

It was on Laakmor that the Legion began to build its soon to be famous super heavy tanks. As their facilities and resources increased, so the Thunder Lizard Tanks got larger and more sophisticated. These super heavies were the rivals of the legendary Fellblades, Stormshadows and Baneblades still in use by many Petty Imperiums. But they were still outclassed by the sheer firepower and defenses of the Warlord Titans and their larger cousins.

By the end of M56, Vulkan and the Five Primarchs were preparing for total war with their neighbors within the Travesty. Vulkan’s Promethean Cults and Ryzan Mechanicus did not have the knowledge or ability to produce Warlords or Imperators on anything like an industrial scale; it was claimed that whole cruisers could be built more cheaply and more easily than an Imperator. However, the Primarchs needed vehicles capable of fighting the numerous Titans and giant daemonic war engines of the Travesty on equal terms.

Vulkan, the most enthusiastic engineer amongst the five Brothers, decided to remedy this. He visited the Engineer-Commander of Laakmor, a man named Panzod B’olos, and gave the man six years to build a new range of super tanks, capable of going toe to toe with the worst his enemies could throw at him. B’olos, a brilliant and eager innovator, jumped at the chance.

Vulkan assigned a significant fraction of his war budget towards Laakmor and its surrounding yards. He also gave B’olos a cadre of Promethean Cultists to help his design teams and construction workers. Captain Teltegan of the ''Sons of Thunder Commandery'' (''one of the Veterans who initially liberated the Thunder Lizards, ironically'') was also ordered to Laakmor, to provide tactical and strategic pointers to the designers, and to help test out the new designs in wargames against his own Commandery’s tanks. The Sons of Thunder were well renowned for their affinity for tank warfare, which was reflected in the abundance of tanks they could field. In addition to all this, Vulkan sanctioned B’olos to source inspiration from any source available; human or alien, ancient or brand new. B’olos took advantage of this offer, and had his researchers scour the galaxy for the best examples of weapon and defence systems he could adopt, develop or improve upon. From the ''Tau'', to the ''Groevians'', to the ''Vorlish Taar'', and the ''Praetorian Kingdom'', his men brought him much inspiration.

After just five of the six years he was granted, B’olos had his tank designs finished, and their prototypes tested. By the time of ''The Primarch War'', B’olos had his new Tank Legions complete and ready to bring war to the evil in the west.

The main Classes of Thunder Lizard Tank (''not an exhaustive list''):

-	'''The MK III ‘Megasaur’''' – The main battle tank equivalent. They were larger than a baneblade, and sported advanced linear accelerators, grid-linked lascannon batteries, layered void shielding and guided missile systems, as well as heavy adamantine armor and layered void shields. In addition, they were equipped with the latest advances in machine spirit interfaces, to give their human pilots the best chance of rapidly engaging multiple targets. They are fast, powerful and versatile.

-	'''The MK VII ‘Velociraptor’''' – A scout tank. Though slightly larger than a Leman Russ, the Velociraptors were composed of almost nothing but engine, with minimal armaments. However, their reactors made them incredible fast, and when stationary, the reactor could be used to enhance the firepower of its single lascannon turret a hundredfold.

-	'''The MK II ‘Triceratops’''' – A titan slayer. Triceratops were similarly armed and armoured to a Megasaur, except for their large, tri-barrelled Rampager cannon; a rapid firing gatling macrocannon, which required the tank to anchor itself to the ground before firing, or else its recoil would surely flip the vehicle (''not a pleasant prospect for the crew or anyone outside the tank for that matter...'').

-	'''The MK I ‘Pterasaur’''' – many generals refer to the Pterasaur as ''what a Hydra wants to be when it grows up''. A Pterasaur is an aerial denial tank. Not only does it boast similar defences to a Megasaur, it has replaced its turret weapons with dozens of flakk batteries, surface to air manticore missiles, air-burst deathstrike missiles, and grid-linked Icarus lascannons. In major engagements, pentus command posts would park single Pterasaurs near to their command bases, and feel confident that no enemy aircraft could hope to reach them (''of course, orbital strikes were sitll a concern, but orbital strikes have always been a concern in any planetary battle''). Pterasaurs are slightly physically smaller than a baneblade, are considerably more massive (''due to the masses of munitions it is required to store''), making them painfully slow.

-	'''The MK V ‘Tyrannosaur’''' – A create goliath of a tank, the Tyrannosaur was far larger than even the greatest super heavy of the Old Imperium, and was actually close to being the size of a ''Leviathan'', of the long-dead Outremar forge worlds. It certainly outmassed even an Imperator Titan in displacement terms. The Tyrannosaur was truely the pinnacle of human tank technology. Its colossal reactors could power a hive city for three days, and was more than sufficient to power its vast plethora of weapon systems. Its primary weapon was its turret-mounted Lance cannon, a searing laser weapon of ungodly power. 
This was supplemented with secondary turrets of railguns, apocalypse missile pods, volcano cannons, lascannon anti-missile grids and siege guns. It also could mount void shields and dozens of metres of outer hull armour. Its machine spirit was close to true AI, without crossing the line, and its crew could utilise an extensive sensor suit deep in the Tyrannosaur’s heart. It was nominally a tracked vehicle, but it had a secondary anti grav engine, which allowed the entire tank to hover a few metres off the ground for up to twenty minutes at a time. This was used primarily to prevent the vehicle getting bogged down on land, crossing stretches of water and bog, and allowing the vehicle to travel at relatively high speeds (''well, faster than an Imperator, which was the important thing''). Some cynical chroniclers of history believe the Tyrannosaurs were vanity projects for B’olos himself. They were certainly expensive to produce, and were vastly outnumbered by the Megasaurs and Triceratops. However, despite this, the Tyrannosaurs were still considered the king of the tanks, and accordingly, the first one built was named ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’.
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