Hell Talon

And this thing turns into a Heldrake when it goes too Daemonic.

The Hell Talon is the Chaos Space Marines' heavy fighter-bomber. Like the Hell Blade, it is made by the heretical Forge World of Xana II from souls, flesh, metal, and daemons (or so the Imperium surmises -- considering that they disintegrate on destruction, it's hard to be sure). You'd think the Imperium would send a Kill Ship to destroy Xana (and any other Chaos Forge World they know of). But no, that wouldn't be grimdark enough and, additionally, most Dark Mechanicum Forge Worlds are basically daemon worlds, which give zero fucks about Exterminatus. Ah, but what about psych-out Exterminatus? Or rigging up the ship Daemon Killer with Kill-Ship stealth capabilities and swapping out its Warp cannon with a giant version of that beam weapon Culexus Assassins have and then hooking that up to a shit ton of Pariahs and Blanks and such? There, Exterminatus designed for Daemon Worlds.

Evidently, Chaos Space Marines never watched Top Gun and therefore never learned how glorious being a fighter pilot could be, so they hard-wire three servitors into the cockpit to fly the Hell Talon instead of "demeaning" themselves. They do have a good reason to do this though, daemonic vehicles will eventually eat their crews, and Chaos Space Marines don't like being locked in a machine for the rest of their lives.

For its role as a fighter, the Hell Talon mounts a twin-linked lascannon and an autocannon, while also carrying eight firebombs or cluster bombs filled with blight grenades, nurglite forces in particular prefer the latter. It can be specialized for anti-infantry by swapping the autocannon for a havoc launcher or heat-seeking krak missiles to better engage enemy fighters. The Hell Talon is extremely daemonic -- it's not a full Daemon Engine like the Heldrake, but it tears rips in the warp as it flies and has a tendency to cause vox distortions and hallucinations for forces below. When enough of them fly together, they often seed storms in their wake which can cause enemy aircraft to experience extreme turbulence and lightning strikes.

History

Like its little brother, the Hell Blade, the Hell Talon was made by Forge World around 2006 and given rules in the Imperial Armour Update volume of that year. It was a Heavy Support choice for Chaos Space Marines and the Lost and the Damned. Forge World also included it in the Chaos army list in Aeronautica Imperialis.

It was updated in Imperial Armour Volume Six as a heavy-support choice for the "Servants of Decay" and "Servants of Slaughter" variants of the Renegades and Heretics army list as well (they only showed up when the leadership of Vraks went full Chaos). Imperial Armour Aeronautica made it fast with the new flyer rules of 6th edition, made it beefy (4 HP is more than most transports, and more than any non-super-heavy flyer), increased its price, and moved it into Fast Attack.