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Lasgun

2017-10-15T19:30:12Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: /* Other laser weapons */

[[Image:Guardsman.jpg|thumb|right|This is painfully accurate. Unlike the fucking lasgun. And the sad truth is, that it would probably do more damage than the actual gun.]]

[[image:KHARN LOEV FLASHLIGHT.jpg|thumb|right|[[Kharn]] also love <strike>Flashlight</strike>LASGUN!!]]
[[image:1271099410879.jpg|thumb|right|The closest thing to choice an Imperial guardsmen will have - what sort of lasgun he'll get (not an actual choice, generally speaking).]]

The humble (and we mean humble) '''Lasgun''' is the standard-issue armament of the average [[Imperial Guard]]sman in the [[Warhammer 40,000]] setting. Given the incalculable number of Guardsmen under arms and the sheer scale of the [[Imperium]] itself, it is safe to say that the lasgun is probably the most common weapon in the entire galaxy that isn't some underhive piece of junk like stub guns, knives or other miscellaneous weapon. On the tabletop it shares the same rules with autoguns.

The name is rather obviously a portmanteau of "laser" and "gun", but argument [[rage]]s [[skub|over how the word is meant to be pronounced]]. Many claim that the "las" should be pronounced "layz" (or in other words say that it's pronounced with a long "a", as the first part of "laser"), but others contend that this sounds retarded, and "lazz-gun" (or a short "a" sound, as in "glass") is a better pronunciation. According to [[Games Workshop]], its name is pronounced "Laze-gun"; however, Jeremy Vetock and Duncan Rhodes both say "Lazzguns," so it really is a toss up. (And unimportant).

It is almost universally described in the [[fluff]] as discharging with a sharp crack (caused by the beam ionizing the air it travels through), but some authors describe the lasround as either a "bolt" as in Star Wars or as a "beam" as in Dawn of War. Other features of the weapon have greater variation - some [[Black Library]] works and items such as the [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]] describe the weapon as possessing a fully automatic firing setting; this feature is represented by Rapid Fire rule on the tabletop, but not represented in Dark Heresy, which can be explained away by virtue of the fact that there are many different patterns of Lasgun produced throughout the Imperium.

There is also some dispute as to the color of the "beam". Some fluff claims it to be blue, while games like Dawn of War portray it as red or something of a reddish-yellow. The popular ''Gaunt's Ghosts'' series of novels by [[Dan Abnett]] say that the Imperial weapons fire blue "beams", while the Chaos weapons fire red ones. In order to fix this [[Skub|mess]], we have proposed a Scientific fact on the issue...

*The Fact: the energy of each individual photon is determined by its frequency (i.e. colour); power output is energy per second, meaning the same power output is achievable with either more photons per second at a lower frequency (bright red) or fewer photons per second at a higher frequency (dim blue). In either case, the colour is also dependent on the gas it is traveling through, as the amount of energy transferred to the surrounding medium via [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_scattering]] depends on the mass of each gas particle, while the brightness depends on the amount of gas particles, so the laser would look different on different planets. Regardless, a fired lasround would never look like a "bolt" to any camera (such as a human eye) operating at a frame rate lower than approximately a billion frames per second, so those depictions can safely be assumed to be [[heresy|heresy]]; it would look like any pulsed laser, i.e. a "beam".

== Why the Lasgun sucks ==
''See Also: [[Lasgun Patterns]]''

IT'S NOT A LASER! IT'S A LITTLE LIGHT BULB THAT BLINKS! - Guardsman Woody.

"What do you call a Lasgun with a taclight mounted under the barrel? Twin-linked."
- Any 40k player evar (hilariously, GW has caught onto this. Less hilariously, on Regimental Standard they've got an in-universe nod where any Guardsman who makes this joke is sentenced to flogging).

The lasgun is [[Derp|rather pathetic]] [[Grimdark|compared to the mainline arms and armour of most of the other armies of the setting]], useful only by virtue of the fact that Guardsmen come in ridiculous numbers (except in comparison to Tyranids, Chaos Cultists/Zombies, or Orks) and the application of statistical probability. The weapons are often derisively referred to as "flashlights," based on their individual uselessness, although this is arguably more of an example of how ridiculously tough everything else is in the setting.

The 6th Edition rulebook describes the lasgun as severing limbs at close range but further away it only goes about as deep as the liver, explosively flash-boiling said liver and all other squishy bits in the laser's path. That sounds awesome, until you remember that nearly every enemy of the Imperium has [[Chaos Space Marines|heat and energy-dissipating armor]], [[Orks|redundant biology]], or [[Tau|simply outrange them]]. Pretty much the only enemy an individual lasgun can reliably kill are other humans. They are on the same level of effectiveness as autoguns (which are basically AK-47s IN SPACE), except lasguns are even more durable, reliable, accurate (due to low to no recoil and the fact that the beam is not affected by gravity or wind, though shooting though a dust cloud or fog on the other hand is more problematic, so a B over all for atmospheric effects) and less dependent on massive ammo supplies; a single power-pack can, depending on the gun's setting, afford up to 100 to 140 shots on average, while an autogun magazine is usually 20-60 bullets (which, fun fact, is generally what typical lasguns set to max power usually can fire.) Plus you can recharge their batteries from Chimera generators, sunlight or even fire, while an autogun is useless once out of ammo for anything other than a fancy club or if you have the good fortune to have a bayonet, a vaguely sharp stick. Not that said bayonet on either weapon will help against orks or 'nids. And given the general competence of Munitorum depots, you'd probably end up with ration packs instead of ammunition, though this of course applies to lasgun power-packs, as well.

Combine this with most lasguns seeming to come pre-set to "medium power" (granting between 40 and 80 shots a pack with usually enough penetration power to reliably punch right trough Imperial Guard's flak armour (or xenos-made equivalents of such) and many places not bothering to actually include how to adjust power as part of basic training - probably (rightly) assuming the soldier won't live long enough for it to matter - and you end up with an energy-based assault rifle, that is actually good for taking down lightly-armoured infantry with resilience to ballistic damage roughly equal that of a normal human (as it is in case with eldars or tau), but that's exactly what it was designed for - nothing less, but also nothing more. Unluckly for typical guardsmen, however, there are warrior-creatures of the 41st millenium that are either equipped with [[Power_Armour|armour, capable of deflecting even heavy stubber or bolter shells impacts]], or [[Orks|biology so robust, that it is able to take a hit from heavy stubber's bullet in the chest and continue fighting on]], or, in especially bad cases, [[Chaos_Space_Marines|warrior-creatures that have both of the aforementioned traits]]...

== Why the Lasgun is still being used ==

Although better known as a "flashlight", some players also call it "The AK-47 of the 41st Millennium", albeit ironically. Instead of being reliable, tough, relatively inaccurate and having a tendency to show up in the hands of just about everyone, it's reliable, common as fuck (like 100 for every human in the galaxy common), pretty damned tough, and accurate but that is only by 40k standards. ...So, yeah, I guess it is the AK of the 41st Millennium. It should be noted that the lasgun is stated to be able to destroy a slab of cement, which a .50 cal anti armour rifle would be able to do today. Although that could because the Lasgun is placed on a slightly higher setting or it may be a different pattern of Lasgun.

The lasgun has very low recoil, especially in comparison to a [[bolter]] or even an [[autogun]]. More like a jolt than a kick, probably, due to sudden change in air pressure. The powerpack that the weapon uses can fire about a hundred shots before running empty and can be easily recharged through any standard Imperial power supply, direct sunlight, and even heat. A relatively common practice of Imperial Guard units cut off from supplies is to place their lasgun power packs in open fires, although this does lower the pack's lifespan considerably and is [[heresy|frowned upon]].

The weapons are rather more useful in [[Dark Heresy]] than they are in the tabletop wargame, as their reliability, availability and plentiful ammunition become real considerations and they are rather more useful against the human foes that an agent of the Inquisition is likely to face.

Power packs for lasguns also vastly simplify a nightmare waiting to happen for ammunition logistics. Even if Autoguns were better in all ways than a lasgun, the Administratum would still use the lasgun for the power pack. Power packs, while not able to fit all sizes of lasgun apparently, can still be modified to fit, or be recharged in the middle of campaign. Especially important if you can't get any new supplies due to a variety of reasons (Enemy has orbital control, no one has your size caliber, ammunition expires, etc). This is important, since lasguns, the worst they can do if given the wrong size is not work. For an autogun, with the wide range and variety of possible ammunition sizes, the best that will happen is that you won't fire your weapon, the worse, is that the shooter dies, and more importantly the weapon is destroyed. This is a strategy already in use today: to simplify ammunition supply problems, all the guns fire the same cartridge. And ammunition logistics are already a nightmare today on a mere planetary scale where (at worst) thousands of soldiers are a couple thousand kilometres away from the nearest supply depot. These same standards are simply impossible to enforce in the Imperium for an army the size of trillions of soldiers spread all over the galaxy months if not years travel away from the nearest Forge World.

One last thing about Lasguns is that they ''can'' be used as last-ditch grenades by basically making the entire power pack empty into the gun without ever actually firing it. It turns the Lasgun into an explosive comparable in power to a krak grenade or melta charge, depending on how badly it manages to fuck up whatever it was thrown at. It can even fuck the shit of a Chaos Dreadnought who thought he was going to make some Guardsmen go squish, and instead gets a lasgun-bomb surprise to the face. (It should be noted that this happened to a dreadnought whose front armor was already cracked from being hit by anti-armor weapons, so no way your overloading lasgun is going to help against an undamaged one)

One must wonder, considering how ass-cheap power-packs and the part of the lasgun this power dumps everything into to make it go "boom" are (compared to things like melta bombs and probably krak grenades as well,) why doesn't the Imperium make standard-issue grenades like that? Seriously, imagine guard squads with grenades almost comparable to melta charges ( which are pretty much miniature ''nukes,'') and remember that squads can get multiple assault grenade launchers. The answer is probably that the Techpriests would go completely apeshit for desecrating holy technology and try to secede. Again. Unless there's some threat that forces them to make such weaponry or some red-robed asshat can convince enough other red-robed asshats that it was totally an STC design of course.

Five counter-arguments to the lasgun-power-pack-grenade come readily to mind, discounting most guardsmen not being aware of this particular tactic.
* Firstly, the power pack's detonation timing is highly unpredictable, and as we all know, <del>anything that endangers an imperial infantryman will absolutely not be considered</del> only the most fanatical, stupid, or just plain reckless Guardsmen would be willing to use it regularly.
* Secondly, while a lasgun is pretty inexpensive in comparison to, say, a bolter, its power-packs are ''not'' as cheap to produce (they make up for it by being so easily recharged.) And only veteran soldiers tend to carry more than a small handful of packs; packs which said veterans probably looted off other guardsmen who didn't get to be veterans.
* Thirdly, the blast yield from a power pack is never described as being particularly strong. In the aforementioned example the soldier managed to open a dreadnought's faceplate just enough for the [[grimdark|local flora to kill it]], which sounds commensurate to a glancing hit, estimating the explosion closer to that of a krak grenade (S6) or maybe a little stronger. While still powerful when compared to regular old frag grenades, this is nothing like the famous melta bomb.
* A weapon, no matter how shitty, is still a soldier's baby. A soldier without his main weapon is generally a dead man, commissar or no, and the only time you would be forced to use your own, custom, probably personalized rifle if you live long enough to know this tactic, is in case of true emergency or imminent death. The same case that the first case of this ever being recorded happened.
* Finally, in the instance where a Guardsman survives using his weapon and its magazine in such a reckless manner, he must then face the wrath of his superiors (If he survives the incident); the sheer number of Munitorum violations involved in using a lasgun and its ammo as a makeshift bomb are staggering (and while most alone would probably result in perfectly survivable corporal punishment, such as say being repeatedly rifle-stocked in the balls four dozen times while hanging upside down, all added up it's more pragmatic to just make the punishment execution to save some time.) <del>Unless he manages to secure a new weapon beforehand of course.</del>

In all seriousness, a lasgun is a deadly weapon when in the hands of someone competent. As being an effective combat weapon goes, anything not too heavily armored, like Traitor Cultists, Eldar Guardians, Ork Boyz, Tyranid Gaunts, and other Imperial Guard style forces are bound to be ridden with Laser holes quickly and efficiently. The Vostroyan Firstborn, for example, are renown for their precision with their lasguns and rewarded with high kill counts against everything from Orks to traitors. Elysian Drop Troopers are similarly known for exceptional marksmanship bred via necessity wherein they maximize lethality with minimal shots. It is only against heavily armored foes that a Lasgun falters. [[Power armour]] is able to shrug off lasbolts like there's no tomorrow when they hit its reinforced ceramite layers. The wearer is not invulnerable, though: helmet lenses, articulations and joints are still vulnerable to a well-placed lasbolt and a point- or near-point-blank shot at maximum power from a lasgun can penetrate a Space Marine's helmet and turn his brains into impromptu house paint. Pray to the Emperor and get really lucky, you will take down even a Chaos Space Marine (or equivalent) with your humble lasgun. ([[What|though Space Marines are also known to die after being poked (stabbed) by enough pointy (sharp hard) sticks on occasion after all or being stomped on by enough human beings at once.]]) And given the Imperial Guard's numbers they ''will'' get lucky, a lot, through sheer volume of fire.

In the end, a quote from [[Black Crusade (RPG)]] sums up the lasgun perfectly: ''"The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them."''
Of course, in Black Crusade a Legionnaire in power armor is all but impossible to wound with a lasgun (and that is what Horde rules are for!).

==Uses for the Lasgun==
[[Image:Laysgun2_1974.PNG|300px|right|thumb|Also, a rare pict-capture of the ancient Laysgun.]]
*Warming soup
*Cigarette lighter
*Changing TV channels
*Selling to buy a new weapon
*Pissing off [[Thunderhawk]] pilots
*Shining in enemies' eyes
*Throwing at people (may cause more damage than shooting it at them)
*Burning ants
*Paperweight
*Laser sight for a boltgun
*Aide during PotentiaPunctum presentations
*Light shows
*Laser tag for kids (who are probably more dangerous than the gun itself)
*Magic shows for kids
*Lighting candles on birthday cakes
*A Laser pointer
*Entertainment for your space-kitties
*Shooting bottles
*Hitting your officer's pipe (Warning, will result in [[Blam|BLAMing]])
*Flashlight
*Substitue baseball bat
*Salvaged for actual useful stuff
*Horsie rides
*Chair
*Creating a makeshift rave

== Other laser weapons ==

The lasgun also comes in carbine, pistol, bullpup, sniper ("long-las"), and light machine gun (the heavy lasgun, which so far seems to only exist in Black Library) - (Heavy laser is just a crew-fired multi laser) varieties, and the Imperium fields many other weapons based on the same technology, such as the [[hellgun]] (a powerful lasgun powered by a backpack power pack), the mighty [[lascannon]] (mighty being relative... SPESS MEHREENS can equip it), the even bigger [[Apocalypse|volcano cannon and turbo-laser]], the even bigger Defense Laser, and the bigger ''still'' laser weapons mounted on [[Battlefleet Gothic|starships.]] Must be a different type, though, because a broadside from a Retribution class battleship can devastate half a continent depending on the [[Skub|calcs]]. A single barrage from an Imperator class Titan can devastate an ''entire'' city with weapons as strong as modern day nukes. Keep in mind how large an Imperial city is.

Oh, and [[C.S. Goto|multilasers]].

=== Laspistol ===

''See main page, [[Laspistol]]''

=== Lasgun ===
[[Image:lasgun.jpg|thumb|right|190px|Standard Cadian pattern Lasgun]]

You know'em, you love'em. There really isn't a point in repeating what has already been said since you are on a page talking about this wonderful piece of Imperial equipment other then putting it in the Lasgun family. Of course there are certain modifications that may breach the line on what ''may'' count as a Lasgun. But overall, it is cheap, effective and put a lovely little dent to most light infantry contrary to popular belief.

Just don't try and attempt go all Leeroy Jenkins on this thing. The Lasgun is a light assault weapon, not a Titan-busting Volcano Cannon.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Lasgun|r7=24"|type7=Rapid Fire|s7=3|ap7=-|r8=24"|type8=Rapid Fire 1|s8=3|ap8=0}}

=== Hotshot Laspistol===
[[File:Hotshot_Laspistol.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Hotshot Laspistol]]

''See main page, [[Hellgun#Hellpistol|Hellpistol]]''

The Hotshot Lasgun's little brother, also known as [[Hellgun#Hellpistol|Hellpistol]] (although there do remain some canon conflict about these two weapons designation). Hotshot Laspistols are typically hand-crafted, rather than mass-produced in factories, and most are hundreds of years old and have acquired histories over the course of centuries of use in combat. Unless otherwise specified, a Hotshot Laspistol remains the property of the Departmento Munitorum, though an individual can be awarded one for heroic deeds. A Hotshot Laspistol fires a higher-intensity shot than a laspistol, cauterizing just about any wound it causes and preventing blood from being shed. For this reason, Hotshot Laspistol have been sanctioned for use as execution weapons for officers and commissars, as a shot to the condemned soldier's head will prevent any blood from staining their uniform.

=== Hotshot Lasgun===
[[File:Hotshot_Lasgun.png|190px|right|thumb|Hotshot Lasgun]]

''See main page, [[Hellgun]]''

A variant of the Lasgun, also known as the [[Hellgun]] (although there do remain some canon conflict about these two weapons designation), the Hotshot Lasgun and Hotshot Laspistol are weapons used primarily by the [[Stormtrooper]]s (and presumably other arms of the Imperial war machine). These are juiced-up versions of the Lasgun charge pack inside a normal Lasgun. They are designed to be used by elite troops or officers, who are generally better shots. Instead of the Hellgun's tactic of using lots of batteries to shoot several times per second, Hotshots use a super-concentrated laser blast to achieve the same kind of armor-penetrating power.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Hotshot Lasgun|r7=18"|type7=Rapid Fire|s7=3|ap7=3|r8=18"|type8=Rapid Fire 1|s8=3|ap8=-2}}

=== Hotshot Volley Gun ===
[[File:Volley_Gun.png|190px|right|thumb|Hotshot Volley Gun]]

Another variation of the Hotshot category of Lasguns. These weapons are borne into battle by [[Stormtrooper|Tempestus Scions]] to deal with armored enemy infantry. The Hot-Shot Volley Gun is a larger version of the Hot-Shot Lasgun that "incorporates penitent-class heat sink arrays" which means that they "can maintain a punishing rate of high powered fire".

Think of them as a fully automatic LMG version of the regular old Hotshot Lasgun. As you can imagine, the sheer amount of [[Dakka]] means that they are more likely to be situated within the heavy weapons category then the normal Hotshot Lasguns. They are known to fire with a distinctive spitting howl.

=== Mining Laser ===
[[File:Mining_Laser.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Mining Laser]]

Mining Laser is not formally a weapon, but a tool for breaching tunnels in the mining process. In some cases though the Mining Laser can be used as a weapon, often by [[Genestealer|Genestealer Cults]]. For example, Dvarlock pattern Mining Laser, founded and identified by Tempestor Gulack of the Kappic Eagles have been modified so it can blast the hole through a meters-thick bulkhead with a single pull of a trigger. It also features three hand-grips. indicating its use in combination with a tertia pattern servo-arm.

There is also the Heavy Mining Laser which is a heavier variant of the standard version, used on [[Goliath Truck|Goliath Rockgrinders.]] Although to be honest, it is only 'heavy' because it is on a turreted mount, other than that there is very little difference between the Heavy Mining Laser and the regular old Mining Laser.

=== Long-Las ===
[[File:Long-Las.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Long-Las]]

In the good old days the Imperial sniper rifle was the poorly named [[Needler|'needle rifle']] which was in fact a kind of laser weapon. Well, partly. It had two parts to each shot. It fired a narrow beam laser to burn through armor, and then it fired a 'needle' bullet; a spike of some kind of metal filled with horribly poisonous toxins. With the armor removed first, the spiky bit all but ensured a kill if you hit, spurting deadly death juice into your unfortunate body. Sadly they weren't especially well conceived weapons (hitting the same spot with two different weapons, one that responds to wind and gravity, and the other that doesn't is something of a challenge) so they've pretty much been written out of the setting these days. Now the term "sniper rifle" is used fairly loosely in the Imperium; many sniper rifles are simply over-powered lasguns called long-las rifles, while many others (such as those used by [[Space Marine]] [[Scout]]s) are high-velocity slug-throwers which have more in common with [[autogun]]s than they do with energy weapons. Then there are other more exotic variants firing poisoned darts or even stranger payloads, such as the aforementioned needle rifle (which Ratlings still prefer). All of these variants have pretty much the same effect on the target, unless you play older editions or use special characters who have rules that say otherwise. Or play [[Dark Heresy]].

However, since you are on the Long-Las category, we might as well talk about it. The Long-Las is a sniper variation of the Lasgun with a much longer barrel for increased range and accuracy, and also to prevent overheating. However the barrel makes a Long-Las up to twice as long as a standard Lasgun and thus difficult to use in close quarters.

Within the Imperial Guard the Long-Las, formerly known as the Sniper Variant Lasgun, is issued only to those Guardsmen with the necessary marksmanship skills and knowledge in stealth and scouting operations. It uses the XC 52/3 strengthened barrel, longer and thinner than normal models, and lacks a charge setting slider, instead using hotshot power packs. It's also much quieter than other lasguns and features a flash suppressor to dampen the revealing flashes of its shots. However the increased wear on the barrel from using the overpowered energy packs means more frequent barrel changes than is usually required for normal lasguns.

=== Lascarbine ===
[[File:Lascarbine.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Lascarbine]]

During the [[Great Crusade]] the Lascarbine was the great grandfather of the Lasgun. Basically the same weapon as the Lasgun in a smaller package. They were standard issue among the Imperial Army and Solar Auxilla.
In modern WH40k, a Lascarbine is designed for use by special operations units and is usually employed by Drop Troopers or scout units of the Imperial Guard such as the
[[Elysian Drop Troops]].

=== Auxilia Lasrifle ===
[[File:Auxillia_Lasrifle.PNG|190px|right|thumb|Auxilia Lasrifle]]

Auxilia lasrifles have better range compared to their inferior knockoffs. These have the option of taking Blast chargers. A one time ability that does more damage for skipping a turn. Roles of 1 prevent the player from using them for the remainder of the game.
They also [[awesome|come standard]] with Collimators. Switching out Rapid Fire for Heavy 2. Making any opponent think twice about about charging a squad of [[Solar Auxilia]]. As if a Super Heavy tank as a Dedicated Transport wasn't enough reason to stay out of range.

=== Blast Pistol ===
[[File:Auxillia_Blast_Pistol.PNG|190px|right|thumb|Blast Pistol]]
''Not to be confused with the [[Phosphor Weaponry#Phosphor Blast Pistol|Phosphor Blast Pistol]], another 30k era weapon that fires <u>completely different rounds.</u>''

Basically a supped up las-pistol that explodes in the user's hand. Their description makes them seem like laser revolvers used by officers of the Solar Auxilla. To mirror when an officer during the 19th century was issued a sidearm. Giving him a better gun than the line troops who had to use leaver and bolt actions. Which isn't the case here.

These bespoke weapons like the Hotshot Laspistol and Hellpistol were able to fire only a handful of shots before reloading, but their damage output rivals that of arcane [[Volkite Weaponry]]. Due to this, Blast Pistols were seen as an emblem of wealth and prestige, and many were works of art in their own right, and thus they also became a widely used form of decoration and reward for extreme gallantry and commendation within the Solar Auxilia regiments.

On the table top. Blast Pistols are S5 Las-pistols with Twin Linked and Gets-Hot. Archaeotech and Plasma pistols are more useful then these things.

=== Digital Lasers/Digital Weapons ===
[[File:JokaeroDigitalWeapon.jpg‎|200px|right|thumb|Digi-Weapon]]

These are actually melee weapons. However there isn't really anywhere else to put them.
In 40k they are exclusively made by [[Jokaero]]. During the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy they are weapons of [[Blood Ravens|unknown]] [[Heresy|Xenos origin]]. This section describes how the Imperium at large uses them.

Digital weapons are best described as a small laser used by Space Marine officers. It allows them to re-roll one failed hit during the Assault/Fight Phase. Which is decent, However it isn't anywhere near as cool when their used in Black Library books or the weapons stated to be used by the Jokareo. Only the Xenos monkies have them on the table top until the actual 8th edition Codexes are released.

30k Digital Lasers are as usual better than the 40k version. Rather than just Space Marines, Inquisitors and the occasional gun/chain/power sword toting hero. Every officer had access to them. They are short ranged but deadly weapons that are "small enough to be concealed in a ring, gauntlet, sword hilt or helm." So they should be as strong as a single Hot Shot Lasgun, Lasrifle or Las-Lock beam.

In the Horus Heresy game a Digital Laser gives the model one additional attack. [[Awesome|So the officer doesn't have to give up their sole ranged weapon for an extra melee hit.]] One would assume either weapon would also allow an extra ranged attack with the same strength and AP as a Hot-Shot Lasgun or Archaeotech Pistol. Like how the Servo Harness gives [[Techmarines]] extra ranged and melee weapons. However Games Workshop and Forge World aren't nice enough to give players an option that would be useful in more than one situation. Without making them pay extra real life money for it first.

=== Las-Lock ===

[[File:Las-Lock.PNG|190px|right|thumb|Las-Lock]]

Like everything like in else in Warhammer 40k. Whatever the forces of the Imperium of Man have, the Adeptus Mechanicus will have discovered or created a better version of it. That they don't bother sharing with their own allies. As with every other fraction in the game.
[[Tech Thrall]]'s are thus far the only know Ad-mech troops to carry las-weapons. Admech Las-lock's sacrifice rate of fire for more damage per shot. Making it a superior version of the Hot-Shot lasgun.

=== Mitralock ===
[[File:Mitralock2.PNG|190px|right|thumb|Mitralock]]

There is also the Mitralock, a [[what|laser shotgun]] with reduced range.
Both have the option to upgrade to Induction chargers [[awesome|increasing their shots to two.(represented as Assault 2 in game.)]] While still allowing them to Assault with no penalty. This turns them into a high risk unit to for any opponent dumb enough to charge them.

In terms of tabletop, the Mitralock is the [[Shotgun|Scattergun]] of the Las Family. It is an 8" range Las-lock, but it gains Shred. It also has Induction Chargers which is an optional attachment to both Las-locks AND Mitra-locks (HH3, p. 221) it upgrades them to Assault 2.

=== Lascutter ===
[[File:Bits-lascutter.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Lascutter]]

Lascutters are a powerful but extremely unwieldy type of Laser Weapon. Originally industrial tools used for cutting through armored bulkheads and dense ores, these weapons make use of disruption field-assisted short range laser arcs. They were later utilized for warfare, being used in sieges where they were able to breach enemy fortifications and if necessary become devastating close-quarters weapons.
On the table top. These thing suck. Only Breachers can take them. [[What| The Cumbersome rule reduces the model's WS1 and can only make a single attack.]] Take [[Graviton_weapons|Graviton guns]] instead.

===Lightning Gun===
[[File:Lightning+Gun.jpg|190px|right|thumb|Lightning Gun]]

[[Pretend|Despite the name,]] Lightning Guns are a type of laser weapons used by the AdMech. Whilst they do use electromagnetism, most of the killing power is from the pew pew lasers. Lightning Guns are Great Crusade era weapons used by various Adeptus Mechanicus troops, most notably [[Thallax]].

This aptly named weapon takes the form of a baroquely designed carbine connected to a micro-reactor or power core. It fires an ionizing las-beam along with a powerful phased discharge of electromagnetic particles. The ensuing effect makes the weapon able to overload mechanical targets in addition to its effectiveness against organic enemies.

=== Helfrost weapons ===

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling Laser cooling is actually a thing.]
''See main page, [[Helfrost Weaponry]]''

=== Multilasers ===

''See main page, [[Multilasers ]]''

=== Lascannon ===

''See main page, [[Lascannon]]''

===Superheavy Laser Weapons===

''See main page, [[Superheavy Laser Weapons]]''

== Properties of a lasgun ==
It's easy to imagine being hit with a lasgun would be like having a hole burned into you like an ant being burned by a magnifying glass. That, of course, is not nearly grimdark enough to be the truth.

A military DEW (or Directed Energy Weapon since military forces love TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms)) comes in several different types, from microwave weapons which are mostly used to short out electronics, to Electrolasers which use lasers to ionize the air into a semi-superconductive channel, allowing an electrical current to be projected between two points like a glorified (albeit high-power) taser. This may in fact is likely how necron [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tesla Tesla weapons] work but that is neither here nor now. A lasgun however is most likely to be a pulsed energy laser. A pulsed laser works by imparting so much energy to an area so fast, that it turns into plasma and explodes. Modern versions create a pressure wave strong enough to stun and knock a person out (termed "Pulsed Energy Projectile), but they are less then-lethal weapons that don't penetrate things very well by design, while the lasgun is not.

Being hit with a lasgun would (could) look and feel more like you were hit by a concussion grenade held up to your chest. You would see a bright flash of light as your skin or clothing vaporized into plasma, much like a high-end camera flash going next to the wound. Higher-power laser weapons might cause enough of an explosion to blow you back and maybe knock you unconscious, or if you got hit by one of the Lasgun's anti-tank big brothers, vaporize you outright turning you into an impromptu plasma grenade for the rest of your squad to deal with. The explosion would create enough hydrostatic pressure to likely scramble your internal organs and maybe snapping your bones in parts of your body distant from the explosion. However, if the lasgun hit something like armor, or even clothing it might induce an explosion only on the surface of the armor leaving the rest of you safe, though most assuredly stunned and dazzled from the plasma explosion. This explains why the Lasgun has a AP of only -. A Bolter's bolts, on the other hand, penetrate the exterior and then explode inside the target, meaning it can deal with armor and tough alien targets like Orks much easier, since you're effectively ignoring the armor on anything the mass-reactive warhead can punch through. The lasgun is clearly nothing to sneeze at; it's just that the vast majority of the Imperium's more exotic enemies are capable of taking that kind of punishment most of the time and still keep on fighting.

However, all that is based on the previously mentioned less than lethal lasers, which are specifically designed that way on purpose. A laser can easily be designed to maximize impact or penetration, and autogun bullets, which could likely go right through many parts of you, also have AP - anyway. A theory more in line with the stated effects of a lasgun shot is that it would use multiple insanely rapid micro pulses to BORE THROUGH light infantry-grade armour, clothes and flesh to reach internal organs. Imagine getting drilled into by hundreds of tiny explosions, all within the span of milliseconds. This would leave wound very similar to the ones described in the Uplifting Primer, nasty burnt holes.

While the lasgun is portrayed in some media as having recoil, it doesn't in any true sense of the term. There might be a slight jerk on the barrel from the air pressure differential created by melting a hole through the air, a la a thunderclap, but the effects would be much more pronounced on the target (since there's no direct exchange of kinetic energy, the recoil can be zero, while there is a noticeable impact.) It might make a loud "crack" noise, due to Compton scattering, if it is fired in atmosphere and an abundant source of electrons is available (such as from the gun itself, if it is design appropriately). It should also be noted that at long range, if you were shot with one, there would be a substantial delay between the shot hitting you and you actually hearing the noise, making it an effective sniper's weapon. The second most common counterargument to this is that you would be able to follow the beam back to the sniper, but remember: you don't see the beam. It's too bright for you to be able to see it clearly, and you're going to be flashblinded by both the plasma explosion and the laser itself, if it's in a visible spectrum. Which it doesn't have to be. In fact, since Imperial lasgun is described as firing blue or white beams, the laser itself is likely ultraviolet, meaning there would be some brightness as it carved through the air, but not as much as a high-power laser backscattering into your eyes and giving you an impromptu round of Lasik.

Coming to that, [[Grimdark|the continued use of a lasgun is probably going to render you blind.]] Remember, this is a gun that shoots a whole bunch of light to do damage. It's going to be even harder on your retinas, even if you're not the one being hit by it. After all, just because you can't see UV light doesn't mean it's not bouncing around your eyeballs-this is why UV protection in sunglasses is such a big deal, and why your eyes sometimes hurt when you step outside on an overcast day. There's still light there, and it's still fucking with your very easily damaged optics. So unless the Departmento Munitorum issues some kind of protective eyewear or contacts to the Guardsmen (and don't kid yourself, this is 40K. They don't.), their vision is going to get worse and worse over time, until they finally go blind. Fortunately, this would take about six months to a year of exposure of combat level conditions, or one apocalypse battle on a gunline, and most Guardsmen are not going to live that long on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium, and if do live that like then you're an elite soldier (or commissar/commander) worth the laser eye surgery to keep fighting since you're now worth many times what a normal guardsmen is. Or you manage to buy a cheap pair of shades at your troop ship's market, which are actually pretty common even then.

Except that you don't have to worry about laser back scatter or (to a lesser extent) lasers sucking at range. Lasers of sufficient power don't reflect. As in at all. Their light and energy is basically absorbed on impact. So the only light you'd have to worry about is the plasma flash of the impact and beam (if present). Also, lasers that can blast holes in to you may suffer from dust or distortion effects, but non-vacuum frequency lasers will get through air well enough simply on the basis that air is much much less dense than what it is intended to actually bore through. Also adaptive optics can at least partially mitigate said effect. As far as inverse square law goes, lasers are COHESIVE beams, and can easily be focused and stay focused well within firing range, even for typical sniper ranges, if aperture is large enough and/or wavelength is short enough to counter diffraction(UV is very short).

TL, DR: People disagree but it's not fun.

Too short, want more? Go [http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmenergy.php here].

== Why the Lasgun doesn't suck (an alternate take) ==
The purpose of the primary infantry weapon is not to take out everything that the infantryman might face. It's to provide volume of fire and self defense from other infantry. As today the average infantry man is equipped with an assault rifle that is not capable to pierce trough light armor up, nor is intended to. That's why in infantry squads you have infantry support weapons, like machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, anti materiel rifles etc. An infantry squad is supposed to take on hard targets with its support weapons where light armed troopers provide cover and logistic support. Also they are supposed to call in heavy support from artillery/air/tanks etc.

The astra militarum is fully equipped to handle harder targets with a variety of powerful infantry support weapons (plasma rifles, missile launchers etc) and a huge selection of heavy fire support from lascannons to leman russes.

In this context the lasgun is a fantastic weapon. Far superior of the today assault rifle even considering the battlefield differences. The lasgun is extremely rugged and reliable. Will require almost zero training becase has no moving part and no recoil. The "no recoil" part being extremely important, because it means that untrained troops will still be able to put down relatively accurate full auto fire, a practical impossibility with today guns. Lasgun fire will rape non armored or lightly armored infantry and still pose a threat to medium armored infantry. And will absolutely destroy unarmored vehicles. A bullet can cause virtually no damage to a truck, but a lasgun bolt will cripple it.

The logistical ability of giving hundreds of shots to every single infantry man, in the form of compact, standard and rechargeable power packs is the ultimate dream of every army. The level of flexibility that this allows is incredible and is unmatched by virtually any other infantry weapon in the 40k universe. And remember "amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistcs".

The lasgun is so an incredibly flexible weapon that it could be even modified into firing more powerful shots, still retaining part compatibility and power source (therefore logistical chain). So it's well suited for the lowly grunt '''and''' the special forces operatives, that will also be able to use it's superior training and physical fitness to carry literally THOUSANDS of shots worth of power packs. This will enable all sort of long range military operations deep in enemy territory and far from supply lines that we can't even think of today.

And yes, in 40k everyone and their mom has at the very least carapace-grade armor that will offer a decent grade of protection from lasgun shots (and that's not counting the fact that even carapace armour could be rather reliably pierced by lasgun's beams, abeit this would generally require a guardsman to close to about 100 meters distance to his target as opposed to lasgun's 400-500 meters effective range against infantry, donning only light flak vests and regular steel helmets). But that's not a weakness of the whole lasgun concept. Far from it. It's the ultimate victory of it, because it means that your enemy has to spend a shitload of money to put every one of his soldiers in expensive top grade armor just to have any hope not them to be instantly destroyed by your endless stream of dead accurate full auto lasgun fire.

== Las weapons and AA ==
The problem of hitting a flying object with a gun is that the flyer is moving at high speed in a three dimensional space. That means that to hit it with a "bullet" you need to know where the flyer be when the bullet will cover the relative distance between the shooter and the target. You need to detect the precise three dimensional position and velocity vectors. Then you have to factor the variable speed of the bullet and his ballistic trajectory. And even if you do all that with the near-perfect accuracy, the target might just change his velocity (maneuver) and dodge it.

That's why in modern warfare all AA, except at the very most close range, is handled to missiles instead of guns.

All this problems disappears if you have a practical las weapon that will fire a las beam at speed of light. Even if your target is - say - 300 kilometers away, the las beam will reach it in a millisecond. Flying at mach 3, the object would displace by only one meter in one millisecond and still be hit. This mean that hitting a flyer with a las weapon would be extremely easy even without any dedicated equipement if close enough to be seen by naked eye. With <s>radar</s> auspex firing control you will basically hit flyers as soon as you detect it. The main strength of flyers (being harder to hit) will disappear and they will become the easier targets on the battlefield because they have no chance of cover and they cannot be as hard armored as something on the ground.

That's it, practical las weapons will probably make all "airplane" like stuff disappear from battlefield.

==See also==
*[[Hellgun]]
*[[Laspistol]]

{{Template:40k-Imperial-Weapons}}
[[category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Helfrost Weaponry

2017-10-15T19:25:26Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: Helfrost might be las weapons

Helfrost Weaponry are basically reverse [[Flamer|Flamers]]. They are a type of specialised weapon class that is deployed solely by the [[Space Wolves]] [[Space Marine Chapter]]. These weapons are powered by rare crystals found only in the most remote corners of the Fenrisian wilds. Helfrost Weapons fire a beam of sub-zero energy that can instantly encase enemies in blocks of ice close to absolute zero, colder than the vacuum of space. Unless the foe can move away from the beam or break free quickly if hit by it, they might remain trapped within their glacial tomb forever, or even shattered into a thousand frozen pieces. The beam of energy fired by these weapons can either be a focused beam for use against large single targets, or a dispersed beam (AKA a 'icethrower') effective against groups of enemies.

Helfrost weapons maybe a type of las-weapon. Laser cooling as the name says. Uses lasers to cool down objects. By screwing around with their photons. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling Insert any lame pun as you click the link.] Obviously Helfrost weapons are between decades to centuries more advanced than a laser used in a university laboratory.

Example of Helfrost Weaponry at work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOWiF8VM-Vg

==Variants==
There are currently three known Helfrost weapons.
[[File:HelfrostPistol.jpg|150px|right|thumb|Helfrost Pistol]]

===Helfrost Pistol===

A Helfrost Pistol is the smallest, man-portable version of the specialized Helfrost Weapons. Helfrost Pistols are weapons used by the Space Wolves ground forces but is more commonly seen among [[Iron Priest|Iron Priests]] and project a short-range but devastatingly effective beam of sub-zero energy at its target. Flesh hit by the beams blacken with catastrophic frostbite. Armour and weapons buckle and crack. Soon enough, unless the victim can fight their way free, they are entombed forever as a withered mummy in a jagged tomb of ice [[Star Wars|Han Solo style.]]

===Helfrost Cannon===
[[File:Helfrost_Cannon.png|150px|right|thumb|Helfrost Cannon]]

The Helfrost Cannon is a large weapon of the specialized Helfrost Weapons type that is deployed solely by the Space Wolves Space Marine Chapter. Powered by rare crystals found only in the most remote corners of the Fenrisian wilds, these weapons fire a beam of sub-zero energy that can instantly encase enemies in blocks of ice close to absolute zero, colder than the vacuum of space.

Unless the foe can move away from the beam or break free quickly if hit by it, they might remain trapped within their glacial tomb forever, or even shattered into a thousand frozen pieces.

The Helfrost Cannon is only mounted on Space Wolf vehicles like the [[Stormwolf]], [[Stormfang]] and [[Dreadnoughts]] due to its large size, and the weapon can fire either a focused beam against large single targets, or a dispersed beam at groups of enemies.
[[File:HelfrostDestructor.jpg|100px|right|thumb|Helfrost Destructor]]

===Helfrost Destructor===

The Helfrost Destructor is the largest of the specialised Helfrost Weapons that are deployed solely by the Space Wolves Space Marine Chapter. The Helfrost Destructor is only mounted on [[Stormfang]] Gunships, [[FAIL|one of the worst looking piece of Imperial Avionics <u>EVER.</u>]] The weapon can fire either a focused beam against large single targets, or a dispersed beam at groups of enemies like all other Helfrost weapons.

{{Template:40k-Imperial-Weapons}}

Sword

2017-10-15T18:41:52Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: grammar, again

[[image:gladius.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Roman gladius (Pompeii Variant), one type of sword]]

Swords are probably the most commonly used weapon in Fantasy, especially by main characters. While certain fantasy races have certain specific weapons associated with them (Dwarves and Axes, Elves and Bows), all of them will make use of swords at least on the sidelines.

Real life shit: A '''sword''' is a melee weapon comprised of a long, sharp blade and a hilt to hold it with. In the real world, the blades of swords normally range between 50 to 150cm long and typically weigh between 1 to 4 kilograms, depending on the size and composition. Numerous variants of swords exist and have been employed since some ancient Mesopotamian metalworker decided to make the blade of a dagger much longer than usual.

== Love and Hate ==
There are various types of sword related retards.

*'''Sword Wankers''': Overly romantic morons who believe that the sword is the be all end all weapon until people got good with guns and tragically ended that. Buying into all that chivalry/Bushido nonsense.

*'''Anti-Sword Wankers''': People who respond to the sword wankers by going too far the other way. Seeing swords as worthless weapons that were only carried by overly romantic morons. Sword blades would always shatter on impact with plate armor and ten swordsmen would easily die to one guy with a spear.

*'''Nipponese Wankers''': People who claims that [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|Japanese swords are THE BEST]], magically sharp and indestructible because the metal has been folded a thousands times, able to cut through a Tank's armour and pierce steel plate. Western swords are, by comparison, unsharpened metal slabs used by hairy barbarians.

*'''Western Wankers''': On the opposite spectrum, these guys think that katanas are at best crude baseball bats that stands no chance against GLORIOUS EUROPEAN PLATE, and that by comparison European swords are the best thing around in therms of technology, sharpness and usability

[[Skub|All of them are stupid]]. Swords were not the be-all end-all of medieval warfare. Other weapons did have their advantages. [[Mace]]s did concussive damage even if someone was wearing heavy armor and could break bones. [[Spear]]s had a longer reach and were better against cavalry. Halberds could deliver a devastating chop at range. This did not mean that swords were worthless. They were versatile -- short swords were excellent as a fallback weapon. Double-handed Zweihanders could be devastating. Nevertheless, morons who think in bare basic binary believe that they are either the weapon of the gods or worthless rubbish. Ignoring that any civilization that developed metalworking (and a couple that didn't) eventually came up with swords.

In the same way, people comparing western and eastern swords should take in account that while Europe was and is a big place with lots of trade and plenty of steel, Japan was not. So European swords faced lots of tough metal armour, and there was a sort of "arms race" where swords became increasingly good against armour, that in turn became better at stopping swords and so on. This got to a point where people stopped carrying [[shield|shields]] around because armour was just that good, and swords became increasingly narrow and quick because slashing or piercing plate armour was totally ineffective and your best bet was stabbing weak points.

Japan on the contrary had a lot less metal around, so there was less armour and good quality metal was rarer and costly. So there was just no point in developing pointy (AH!) uber-piercing swords, and they had to use the metal they had in a smarter way. This does NOT mean they were worse: they were perfectly good for use in the role they had in the place they were, and developing European-like swords would be pointless. This is discussed below in greater details.

== So why are swords so popular? ==
Swords generally have five major advantages over other weapons:
* '''Ease of carrying''' - Almost all types of swords come with a sheath or scabbard and are generally compact and light enough to not cause any discomfort when carried on person. If you have a sword, you can keep is as a backup weapon for when your main one is at major disadvantage, is damaged or lost. You can also comfortably carry it out of the battlefield as a self-defense weapon.
* '''Versatility''' - While most battlefield weapons are specialized in chopping, piercing or crushing people, swords can generally do anything, if a bit worse than any weapon specialized in it. Even if the sword is specialized, like the thrusting rapier or the slashing sabre it still gives you more options than say an axe or a spear.
* '''Reach''' - Swords are good at a wide array of ranges, most importantly at extremely close range, where most other battlefield weapons suffer badly. If you're stuck in a close melee, fighting indoors or in the narrow streets, sword is your friend.
* '''Defense''' - Swords are made of metal, are generally quite long and most have crossguards or some other hand protection, which means that aside from the shield no other weapon is as good at parrying enemy blows.
* '''Lethality''' - Swords generally don't cut well through padded cloth or leather armour and don't cut ''at all'' through any kind of metal armour aside from the cheapest shittiest chainmail types, but thankfully most combatants through the history didn't wear full sets of armour, and in the hot regions it was quite common for people to not wear any armour into battle even in late medieval, and against unarmored opponents swords are among the best weapons you can pick.

Considering all fo this, sword was mostly used on the battlefield as a backup weapon, as while most soldiers through history went to battle with something way more specialized, almost anyone who could carry the sword would, often even choosing it over better armour if he cannot afford or carry both. Out of the battlefield it held the title the best self-defense weapon up until revolver pistols were invented.

That being said, swords are weapons and weapons only. You cannot use them to cut firewood like battleaxes, construct the camp or set field fortifications like warhammers, or use them as carving knives like daggers and have you ever heard of people going hunting with a sword? Going against a bear with a sword is generally a fucking stupid idea, even more so if you face things like battle elephants; you need either pole-arms or ranged weapons against them unless you have a death wish.

Considering all this, it's strange that swords are the go-to weapons of your average melee [[murderhobo]]s in any fantasy setting where they are supposed to fight giants and dragons on a daily basis. Though this may partly be the fault of unimaginative game designers or GMs, as the majority of magic weapons tend to be swords, or else you need to specialize in order to train with another weapon even if said weapon would realistically require less training in real life. Then again, murderhobos almost exclusively fight in duels rather than large formation warfare, where bringing a pike or other main battlefield weapon would be stupid in comparison. Although why they almost never bring poleaxes, halberds or glavies which would be ''ideal'' for the job of fighting things bigger, stronger and tougher than you is still beyond our understanding.

== Dissection of swords in battle ==
Because swords are so versatile, it's best to go over a few of their various benefits to the user and why they're so commonly used:

*'''Balance:''' To start off, most combat swords have their center of mass near the handle. This means you have much better control over their movement than with any other weapon, able to stop it or change the movement angle much faster. However this same balance has a double edge, thanks to their good balance a sword can't hit as hard as an unbalanced weapon since you have less weight and mass at the point of impact. It's why relatively untrained axemen and halberds are still a strong threat, the heavy weight of the head means that when you hit, you hit hard, even if it is hard to change your blow's speed or angle and it's why swordsmen need more training than with other weapons.

*'''Defense:''' Swords also offer more protection than most other weapons - most swords are one handed, so it's easy to use a shield with most types. You can also use them to parry other weapons if you're really desperate, however parrying anything but another sword is generally difficult and/or dangerous. Spears, pole-arms, and other weapons designed for thrusting (including some swords) are hard to parry, weapons that have gathered huge momentum, such as axes or maces, would have a high chance of damaging either your weapon or your hand, or throwing you off your balance and flails (at full speed) can hardly be parried at all, but that's to be expected given it's their main shtick. However the sword shines in attacking first before they build up the momentum which the sword's superior agility can allow. Or, if you are skilled enough, you can try to redirect their momentum so their weapon misses you instead of parrying it head-on with your edge and then counter-attack while they are trying to recover. Most swords also usually include crossguards to protect the hands of anybody using them unlike... pretty much every other common weapon.

*'''Training Time:''' One of the worst things about swords, they require more skill than most other close combat weapons, and while untrained militiamen with spears, halberds, or axes still could be a threatening foes, untrained men with swords possess a danger mainly to themselves. While high skill floor is a definite disadvantage, skill ceiling with a sword fighting is also much higher than with most other weapons, meaning if you can dump a lot of time into training sword training would give you more result - one more reason for it to be a staple weapon of warrior/noble classes in most culture. Additionally, a sword is just a sharp metal stick with a handle, so if you manage to master it, most of the core swordsmanship skills and martial art basics in general transfer well to other long, shafted weapons like axes, spears and quarterstaves, if you decide to train in using them.

*'''Space:''' One-handed swords require much less space to build momentum, so you can effectively use them in a tight shoulder-to-shoulder formation (unlike axes, maces and hammers), even two-handed swords will usually have a Ricasso (an unsharpened part of the blade immediately above the crossguard) which can be used to allow them to fight better in close quarters and even if they don't, they still don't require nearly as much space as great axes or two-handed warhammers and if you're really hard pressed (let's say somebody comes at you in armor), a fighting technique of the time was to just use the pommel at the end of the grip and just clobber your opponent with it (a German technique called "mordhau"), after all, this is the origin for English word "pummel", or you could hold the sword in the middle (even though it's sharp, it's okay if you use gloves; it's called half-swording) and use it like a makeshift short spear, doing quick jabs with its point or trying to wrestle your opponent to the ground by using your sword as a lever. All fairly good techniques for very close quarters combat.

*'''Availability and Reliability:''' Swords ran the gamut between very cheap and very expensive, more so than pretty much any other weapon of the time. Using England in the middle ages as an example, a sword could cost between 3 pence and thousands of pounds. A line archer made 3 pence a day on average while a professional archer made around 10. This means that the cheapest of swords were extremely affordable for pretty much anyone who actually needed them (remember, mythical beasts didn't tend to run around in real life), even if the sword was of lower quality it was still a tool of war and useable. Swords being built up as "nobility only" weapons of status is purely the work of pop-culture. Fun-fact: the rapier (commonly thought of as a nobility-only dueling sword) was an extremely common back-up weapon for soldiers.

*'''Lethality:''' How a sword kills is entirely dependent on the type of sword that it is (this will be covered more later). The main types of damage they inflict could be divided into three categories:
:*''Slashing'' deals huge, extremely painful and bleeding wounds. The pain alone would incapacitate most foes, leaving them to the finishing blow, and if you didn't finish them, they would just bleed to death in a matter of minutes. It's effective against opponents with partial armor, prevalent through most of the history, as limb hits are just as painful and lethal as body hits, and limbs are usually more exposed, and if your opponent happen to have no chest piece, disemboweling becomes a nice effective option. Two main issues with slashing is that pretty much any armor renders it completely useless, and that opponents with high enough pain tolerance (Berzerkers and Mameluks did it through painkiller drugs) can continue fighting for minutes even with their lethal wounds, taking their killers (and likely more people) with them.
:*''Stabs'' from a sword on the on the other hand can be instantly fatal since if you hit someone pretty much anywhere on the torso you are almost guaranteed to hit an organ that's full of blood like a liver or a kidney, and then have the blood pour out of the big hole you just made in them. The issue with stabs is if your opponent wears any kind of metal armor on his torso (like all soldiers worth their salt before the age of the musketeer), your stabs generally cannot do shit unless you manage to get that sharp point between the gaps between the plates.
:*''Half-swording'': grabbing your sword by the blade. It may seem utterly retarded at first, and you need a bit of practice not to cut off your fingers, but works surprisingly well against armoured opponent. If you encounter an enemy in full plate or even chainmail or a padded gamberson, you'd better forget about hitting him with a blade, as it would only serve to damage your weapon, as swords don't cut through metal. Like at all. You'd be far better with ''bashing'' him with a pommel, or yet better use half-swording known as "deathblow", holding your sword by the blade, and bashing your enemy with a pummel or a cross-guards like a makeshift mace or warhammer respectively. By the end of the Medieval period, when plate became widespread, pummels and crossguards became arguably more important than the blade itself, especially if you want to [[Meme|End Him Rightly]]. And if you hold your sword with the main hand on the handle and the off-hand on the blade close to the tip you get a short spear or a dagger with a very long handle, that you can jam between the plates of your opponent's armour. It was also a good way to use the Zweihander agains pike and halberd formations: you used the long blade to cast the pikes aside, and when you're inside the ranks you switch to half-swording and started slashing and stabbing around.

== Types of Swords ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">

Unlike, say, the [[spear]] or the [[mace]], which were pretty much the same all over, swords, being essentially jack-of-all-trades weapons, came in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes to fit the needs of the people using them. This is not a complete list (nor should it be, go to wikipedia), but it should give you a good introduction.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
===The Ancient Days===

A fair number of early bronze age swords look like big knives, because that was basically what they were. Societies figured out bronze working or learned it from someone else, found out that they could make serviceable bronze knives like their older rock ones, then began enlarging the shape. They also were composed of just a blade with a handle (or hilt) bolted on, rather than having a tang, Others were simply a single piece of bronze with maybe some leather or cloth tied around the handle to make it easier to hold. While bronze is quite easy to forge and shape, it's relative rarity compared to iron and it's softness means that bronze wasn't an ideal cutting material; swords made of bronze can't be too large or they'll bend after a strike, and they can't hold an edge as well. Later societies moved to iron, and then steel, once they mastered the smelting techniques necessary.

[[image:Khopesh.jpg|thumb|300px|right|An Egyptian Khopesh, a serviceable first draft that would be overshadowed by latter models]]

*'''Khopesh''': One of the oldest varieties of sword with a distinct sickle shape. Originally of Egyptian design, this weapon's distinctive blade allowed it to cut, hook shields, and even thrust. It was fairly good for its day in the bronze age, but in that day armor better than leather or padded cloth was a rarity. Its time was done once [[mail|chainmail]] and scale armor became common in the iron age. Despite most fantasy depictions of khopeshes having them as long as longswords, these blades were fairly small at 50-60 cm, since anything bigger made out of bronze tended to get bent easily.
*'''Kopis''': An ancient Greek short sword from the age of Hoplites, about 50-70 centimeters long. It curved inward and was a single bladed weapon on the inward curve. This did limit flexibility in slashing attacks somewhat when compared with swords with blades on both sides, but meant that a sharper edge could be put on the edged side, which was important since at this point the Greeks only had bronze to make weapons, which does not hold an edge very well. A similar sword, the Falcata, was used by the Spanish, which also featured a knuckle guard.
*'''Xiphos''': Another Greek short sword, this one was double-edged and the blade resembled more of a leaf shape, giving it some extra heft toward the point. A secondary, cut-and-thrust weapon.
*'''Gladius''': The standard sword of the Roman Legions, a short sword about 60 to 80 centimeters long. This sword was the (main?) weapon for the average Roman legionary. As one of the smallest one handed swords of its time, the gladius was decent at chopping and slashing, but excelled at stabbing; combined with Roman shield formations and the bash-step-stab-block move, this gave it a deceptively large effective range surpassed only by [[polearm]]s. The fact that Roman legionnaire maniples were able to crush Macedonian phalanxes in melee should tell you a lot about their effectiveness (though outflanking the formation helped). It was later phased out in favor of the longer spatha (a cavalry weapon adapted by the infantry, mainly as a reaction to increasingly mounted adversaries), which was itself a precursor to the viking sword, and by extension arming swords and longswords. (Historians are actually still divided on whether the pilum, a cross between a javelin and a spear, or the gladius was the legionnaire's main weapon. What is know is that each legionnaire carried two pilii and a gladius, but whether they were supposed to throw both and engage with their swords or keep one to engage in melee and only draw their sword later is unclear, with surviving evidence hinting at both tactics being used.)

===Medieval Times===

As a rule, during the Middle Ages in Europe most peoples settled on straight double edged swords for the most part.

*'''Arming Sword''': Also known as the side-sword, this was a one handed weapon about 70 to 90 centimeters pretty much carried by every decently equipped man-at-arms/archer/spearman/knight ever. Often carried with a shield of some sort, it can also be used if your main weapon breaks or happens to be too long to use in corridors. The standby weapon of knights, it retained some degree of use even after the advent of longswords due to their greater degree of adaptability. When most people think of the classic sword-and-shield combo, this sword is what most often comes to mind. Often incorrectly called a longsword in games and other fiction.
:*'''Viking Sword''': Often considered the progenitor of the arming sword, the Viking swords featured ornamental hilts, and many had unusually high-quality steel for their time, particularly the [[wikipedia:Ulfberht_swords|Ulfberht swords]].
:*'''Messer''' A straight single-edged sword, this German weapon basically became the poor man's sword because, according to the law, [[rules lawyer|its construction meant]] [[wat|it counted as a knife]]. Besides its association with shady criminals and brutal gang violence, It also featured an early knuckleguard called a "Nagel", or nail, which became very useful for parrying blows.
*'''Longsword''': A 90 to 120 cm long knightly sword, befit of any self-respecting knightly individual, it's your two-handed or hand and a half go-to man killer with multiple functions such as sword(duh), crowbar, spear, and hammer. Though there are dozens of techniques to use the longsword, two of the most common and useful styles are the Italian and German styles. The Italian longsword technique allowed wielders to strike and parry quickly, greatly emphasizing on using the general physics of a longsword combined with well planned footwork. The German style of "half-swording" (gripping the sword with the right hand on the handle and the left on the percussion point of the sword) this technique allowed the wielder to use the sword like a crowbar and fight armored opponents more efficiently in close quarters, the objective being to use the sword to catch and topple opponents, leaving them vulnerable to follow-up attacks through gaps in their armor. It is also good to note that the longsword strikes faster and harder than the arming sword because two hands are used to wield it (though it could be wielded with one hand in order to use a shield in the other, albeit not quite as effectively).
*'''Falchion''': This single-edged sword almost resembles a great machete, designed to combine the advantages of a sword and an axe. The blade is much wider in order to increase its weight, giving it better chopping power at the expense of balance and thrusting ability. Interestingly enough, there is very little information on how falchions were used in combat, though it is theorized that it was used with a shield (quite unlike the common fantasy depiction of a big two-handed fuck-off machete).
*'''Cinquedea''': Literally "five fingers", this Venetian blade straddled the line between a short sword and a long dagger (about 18-20 inches). One noteworthy feature was that the blade was obscenely wide, being as wide as five fingers, hence the name. It was a civilian weapon used in narrow streets, and frequently pimped out with etched blades. While the wide blade won't do much good against armor, it can give an unarmored opponent a pretty nasty wound.
*'''Estoc''': When plate armor became more common, some men carried the Estoc, which was basically a longsword with no sharpened edges but a very sharp and narrow point. The edges were left unsharpened, partly because a slash does no good against most armor, and partly because the actual blade wasn't flat and wide, but thick and narrow, reducing flex and making it more rigid for dealing with heavy armor. The blade could be triangular, square, or even hexagonal.
*'''Greatsword''': Or Zweihander, is a mighty 120-150 centimeter blade that appeared somewhere around the 15th century which was mainly carried by fuckhuge men with fuckhuge biceps and fuckhuge balls whose jobs were to run forth as the vanguard and hack enemy pikes, pikemen, swordsmen, and occasionally cavalry to meaty chunks or to guard vulnerable flanks. Greatswords bear many of the same qualities as the longsword, though it was a bit slower and struck harder due to the weight, and also require even '''more''' training. One unique ability of the Greatsword was that it could be wielded like a short spear, featuring an extra handguard past the primary hilt. Good greatswords were some of the most expensive close combat weapons in medieval Europe, and good [[landsknecht]]s were the most expensive foot soldiers, but for the good reason, as they combined the devastating killing blow and armor piercing capability of the axe, speed of the sword, and were also able do chop through tough spear or halberd formations (and mind you Swiss pikemen, and later halberdiers, were the deathstars of this era). This, however, comes at a great risk, as while a highly skilled landsknecht can swing the zweihander pretty fast, he cannot react fast enough to reliably block enemy strikes because of the fuckhuge momentum of his sword, leaving him vulnerable to counter-attack if something survives his swing - even while they usually wore heavy armor, landsknechts were known to die young.
:*'''Claymore''': Scottish variant of the Greatsword. The claymore is distinguished by its forward-sweeping hilt ending in [[wikipedia:quatrefoil|quatrefoils]]. Not to be confused with later basket-hilted swords of the same name.

===The Far East===

Like in the West, the peoples of East Asia made use of a wide and diverse variety of swords which evolved on their own lines. Here are a few of these.

*'''Katana:''' The unstoppable God-weapons that can cleave through tanks, cut through time, and cure cancer. ''No wait, come back!'' That's all bull and no one who isn't stupid disputes this. ''But'', they were perfectly functional swords for their place and time. Japanese blacksmiths didn't have access to the quality of iron that their European counterparts did, neither did they have proper smelting techniques to filter out most of the slag out of steel, so they had to develop techniques to get the most out of what they had, including folding the billet and laminating steel of different hardness together. Because of this, the katana was made using heavier steel with less carbon, using uneased hardened steel wrapped around a softer core to give the blade a strong edge while the core could absorb more force than a blade made of a single grade of hard steel. As a result, Katanas were harder and held the edge better then European swords, but were way more vulnerable, prone to chipping and bending (it was fairly common for BOTH opponents' swords to bend when parrying, hence why Japanese martial arts avoided parrying whenever possible), and being made of very inflexible steel types it was less prone to vibrate at wrong blade alignment, which actually lowered skill requirements a lot - in other words it trades reliability for the ease of use, which is, in all truth, a strange trade, considering that it was mostly used by very skilled swordsmen that usually don't require something of that nature (however it IS partially responsible for katana fanbiynsm, as it's actually an OK weapon in the hands of complete amateur, unlike most other swords). Katanas were pretty good all-around weapons that excelled at slashing - as you might expect from a relatively short (60 to 73 cm long - a longsword would be 89 to 109 cm long), thick, heavy, curved blade with a long handle, and was still decent at stabbing - being thick means that it didn't flex much and so the energy of the blow was transferred very efficiently. You didn't swing it like a baseball bat (though of course you don't swing any sword like a bat), you pull inward as you swing so the blade cuts as it goes. Historically, it was often kept with a shorter sword called a wakizashi, which was commonly used as an alternative to the katana in situations where the longer blade would be a hindrance (e.g. indoor fights). While in most circumstances, only one of the pair was used at a time, at least one school of martial arts (the Niten Ichi-ryu) exists that teaches a swordsman to wield both swords at once (Note, however, the school commonly teaches one to use a SHORTER blade in the off-hand, as carrying two swords meant for carrying with both hands is kind of, well, stupid). Katanas and similar swords were used by the Koreans and the Chinese to some degree. Contrary to popular belief, the katana was not the main battle weapon of the samurai, that was the bow or the naginata, a glaive-like pole-weapon. They were, however, pretty valuable status symbols as only the samurai class was allowed to wield them.
:*'''Tachi''' - The katana's predecessor was between 68 to 79 cm long and had slightly more curvature, though direct visual comparison would be difficult. The real difference is how the blade was signed by the smith and the way it was worn (edge down) compared to a katana (edge up), even the word "''Katana''" means "''Sword that is different from a tachi''." The additional length and the extra curvature made the blade more suitable for cavalry, which was the primary role of the samurai at the time. The later katana was shorter and straighter which was more practical for a footman or a duelist.
:*'''No-Dachi''' ''(or O-dachi)'' - Translates as "Fuck-Massive Tachi" which was the Japanese version of the greatsword. Made famous to the west by [[/v/|Sephiroth]]. They had a blade usually 120 to 150 cm length and was a weapon intended for infantry, though the shortest could also be used on horseback, though it then focused on downward cuts rather than side to side slashes which could rape hordes (Samurai prefered to use bows or Yari (Sengoku) and Naginata (prior Sengoku) when on horseback, since it did a better job than making one's Tachi longer). Some of the biggest Nodachi include ''Tarômaru'' (Nagasa 180cm, Zenchô 262cm, 7.2 kg, forged in Kamakura period, widely considered to be the golden age of Nihontô), ''Nenekirimaru'' (Zenchô 324cm, Nagasa 215cm, weight unknown, forged in Nanbokuchô period) or ''Tarôtachi'' (Nagasa 220cm, 4.5 kg, total lenght around 3m). The latter belonged to a Sengoku period General, [[Gabriel Seth|Makara Jûrôzaemon Naotaka]], who actually [[Kor'sarro Khan|wielded it on horseback]]. Such swords are the longest, biggest and highest quality blades around. Generally got banned by the Tokugawa Shogunate when they legislated how long a samurai's swords could be, so most of them got cut down or relegated to ceremonial duties. A lower quality version of the Nodachi called Wodao (Japanese Sword) was used by the Chinese after a Kage-ryû manual got [[looted]] by the Chinese Imperial army, who then mass produced it to use against northern barbarians in [[Landsknecht|specialized units]], unlike in Japan where only specialists individual fighters used them (contrary to popular Shogun Total War induced beliefs).
::*'''Legendary Blades:''' So you might have heard in RPG's of the the Masamune and Muramasa blades, but in real life these actually refer to specific swordsmiths (though Japanese swords are often called by the name of their swordsmith) of which Masamune is the most famous, being lauded as one of the greatest sword-smiths of all time and his swords are held as national treasures even today. Muramasa came 200 years later and produced swords during the Muromachi period. In modern fantasy fiction, Masamune's blades are far more elegant and the mark of a more refined warrior while Muramasa's blades were considered to be bloodthirsty and were even banned by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Though directly comparing them is unfair, as they were both the greatest masters limited only by the processes of their time. Masamune's era had less technical knowledge to process the impurities from iron creating brittle metals, but Masamune worked this disadvantage into his blades as an artistic expression, causing crystals of impurities to form making his swords appear to sparkle. By contrast Muramasa most likely had all the same technical knowledge of Masamune in addition to 200 years of engineering development and probably suffered a bad reputation because his blades were far more utilitarian.
*'''To''': Korean sabers were 60 to 86cm in length and have a very similar appearance to Japanese katanas, though straighter and often with a shorter handle, making them primarily one-handed which is more suitable for its function as a cavalry saber. In fact, many katanas could have been converted into ''To'' by cutting down the length of the handle, but considering the shape of most surviving Korean swords, it is unlikely they did it a lot. Contrary to popular belief on both the Western and Eastern side of the Internet, caused by K-Pop propaganda, the [[Tau|Koreans]] DID NOT had traditional schools of swordsmanship, Muyedobotongji was published in 1790. This is because Korean had a mainly Confucianist society dispising violence under the Kingship of the Joseon dynasty, and as such had no martial culture. Before the Invasion of Korea by the Toyotomi clan's Hosts (1592 - 1598), they used mostly Chinese style Jian, which the Korean wore hung diagonaly from a waist or a shoulder in back to front. This is because the only traditional martial art of Korea was archery. Because of those reasons, the Imjin war was initialy a huge success for the Japanese Samurai armies ; on the land it failed in the end for logistic and strategic reason rather than tactical ones, and on the sea it failed due to very recently developped Korean warships (ironicaly, based on the Japanese warships), as it is often the case (for exemple, in the Satsuma rebellion during the Meiji era, the samurai rebels killed twice their numbers, but lost because they were outnumbered and lacked guns, artillery, munitions, comfort, support...). Even after the war, the Korean used mostly blades who were abandoned / forgotten during the Japanese retreat, or low quality replicas of Nihontô. All those swords were often rusted, because unlike the Japanese, Koreans didn't knew how to maintain them healthy. Some other exemples of the [[Derp|low quality of ancient Koreans replicas of Japanese swords]] include the absence of ''Kogai'' (kind of stylet) and thus the uselessness of holes in Korean ''Tsuba'', the absence of ''Shinogi'' (or only 1 sided Shinogi) or the use of hardware to keep the blade inside the sheath (while the Japanese Sword do have a Habaki that will fit the Saya perfectly). Those latter Korean swords' sheath were not kept hung by the swordsman, but thrown away as to not be bothersome, and indeed, none of the many illustrations of Korean ancient martial arts books are shown wearing a sheath, and does not mention the sheating process (unlike Japanese ''Iaijutsu'' and ''Battôjutsu''). One might hence wonder from where does come from Haidong Kumdo, Taekwondo, Hapkido and others. Those were in fact derived from Japanese Martial Arts taught to Koreans by the Japanese for purposes of cultural exchange and peaceful cohabitation through sportsmanship, mostly during the occupation in the Shôwa era, which is why they use Japanese inspired clothing, weapons and techniques, but also have controversial stories when trying to pass as older as they really are (mostly for [[Edgy|Nationalistic purposes]]).
**Of note, you might have heard of the '''ninja-to''', a fictional weapon invented by Hollywood to be used as props for movie [[Ninja]]s and perpetuated by RPGs and video games (including D&D). Well the Korean ''to'' is probably the closest physical analogue to the ninja-to as there has never been any historical evidence of ninja-to's as a ninja would never be stupid enough to carry a weapon that would identify him as such. Save for the Japanese Historicaly acurate ''Shikomizue'', which came in a variety of forms, some easier to hide than others (similar to the European cane sword).

[[File:Chinese_Dadao.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Chinese 29th Division all carrying dadao against katana-wielding IJA troops.]]

*'''Dadao:''' A Chinese sabre meaning "Big Knife" in English. It has a thick, long, curved blade, and often has a handle half-as big as the blade itself, much like a very thick falchion or großemesser two-handed sword. This made the blade extremely durable and tough. During World War II, the Chinese Nationalists used them for defending Chinese territory against Japanese invaders. To just about everyone's surprise, was actually fairly effective in deterring any Japanese troops from getting too close, which was very useful when your foe likes to bayonet charge when they run out of ammunition. One highly specialized division, the 29th, (Ershi jiu jun) specialized in the dadao and became infamous for their beheading cavalry raids.

===Other places===

The guys outside of east Asia and Europe did some swordsmithing of their own, here we acknowledge their contributions to the world of swords.
*'''Ida''': A sword design native to Sub Saharan Africa (specifically Nigeria). There were a fair number of several types of swords used by sub-Saharan African peoples, some of which being similar to Middle Eastern scimitars, a few of which having a fairly common straight sword shape more commonly associated with European swords and others had rather exotic shapes. The ida is notable for having a straight blade which bulges towards the point.

*'''Macuahuitl:''' Some would dispute this weapon is a sword, but it still deserves a mention. The macuahuitl is from Central America and was used by the Aztecs and such civilization. Basically, imagine a paddle with grooves in the narrow faces that hold sharpened obsidian to make the cutting edge. Shards of obsidian can get really really damn sharp, sometimes having a monomolecular edge. As such a macuahuitl could cut through flesh and bone like nobody's business. But obsidian is volcanic glass, which means when a macuahuitl went up against metallic armor (such as, for example, the breastplate worn by a Spanish conquistador), said bits of glass would shatter, leaving its wielder helpless against the wearer of the aforementioned armor. The Spaniards, though, feared the Aztec warriors, who could almost behead their horses in but one swing.

*'''Scimitar:''' A family of swords of Middle Eastern design, including a number of offshoots such as the tulwar or shamshir, the scimitar was a curved single bladed sword, but could be one-handed or two-handed depending on its function or region of manufacture. Was made extremely popular by [[Drizzt]], who was famous for fighting with two of them on foot, though historically they were far more suited for fighting from horseback as the curved blade allows for fly-by attacks without the blade getting caught in the victim's bodies and pulling the rider off his horse. These blades were lighter than European counterparts (such as the sabre and the falchion) and had limited flexibility (since they only had one edge), but they were remarkably quick and sharp. Scimitars are one of the few blade weapons still in actual use today, with some Middle Eastern nations using them for executions of criminals. Fantasy scimitars and real scimitars are often two entirely different beasts. Fantasy scimitars tend to look like thinner, slightly more curved sabers while real scimitars were usually very thin and had such an extreme curve it was essentially impossible to stab with them.

*'''Yatagan:''' An inward-curved sword, popularized by Turkish Janissary, and adopted by many nations that fought against them or were conquered by them. Legally counted as a knife (seeing a trend here?), since Janissary being slave-soldiers weren't allowed to wield swords which were weapons of free people. Notable by being the least skill-demanding sword in the Middle East and later Balkans and being not as terrible at fighting people in armor as most other swords.

===Sword and Shot===

The age of the sword did not end the second someone worked out that a combination of a strong tube with one end sealed off, some black powder, and some pebbles could be used to shoot one's enemies. Swords and [[Firearm|guns]] coexisted for nearly a thousand years. The following latter day swords arose and were used alongside (and sometimes by) arquebusier, msuketeers, dragoons, and riflemen

*'''Flamberge''': Not actually a sword but a technique for making a blade meaning "Flame Bladed Sword" which was a primarily decorative single handed blade usually used by officers who practiced rapier forms. While it could be said that the blades caused more damage due to the curves on the edge giving a saw-like motion with each swing; remember that rapier forms were practiced during the gunpowder-era where there were much easier ways to kill a man, and to properly utilise this in combat would require a very different form that required swinging rather than thrusting. Therefore the flamberge's REAL benefit was that anyone who attempted to parry a strike from a waved blade would catch their sword on the curves and unbalance their hold on their own weapon or make their arms ache. This is all theory, of course, as the minor discomfort from parrying a flammarded blade would only really build up over time... and personal combat doesn't last that long.

*'''Flambard''': Forget what you think you know from fantasy books and video games, flambards are the two handed versions of flamberges. Unfortunately the terminology has been confused mostly by fanboys and collectors in the same manner as katanas have been. Just like a zweihander blade, flambards were meant to be heavy and the blows inflicted by them were absolutely lethal, so you could easily chop lumps out of dudes stupid enough to get close to you. On the other hand, the waved blade served a different purpose than the flamberge, of focusing force in a smaller area, thus increasing cutting power in a similar way axes do. This allowed it to cut through shields and armour almost as good as great axes (and don't get stuck inside them as often ass axes tend to), while retaining the speed and versatility of the zweihander. Flambard got a really bad reputation, due to ragged wounds left by it's waved blade having a nasty tendency of catching a gangrene (as this factors in ''after'' the battle it ''does not give the wielder any advantage'', maybe aside some psychological pressure if his opponent knows about this effect), so people assumed the blade itself was "wicked", "cursed", or even "demonic" - during the Reformation wars people carrying ones were often blamed as Devil-worshipers by Catholics (who banned it as unholy weapon) and subsequently BLAMmed, which naturally meant surrender was not an option for flambard-wielding protestant landsknechts. In a way this reputation had partially carried to modern days, where flambards are often carried by villains and outright demons in fantasy or even historical fiction. Once again, this is all theory and there has been no proven advantage to having a flammarded blade. In fact, many historians lump the flamberge style weapons in with the flambard style weapons as it is simply that, a blade style.

*'''Kriegsmesser''': A single-edged rigid top-heavy balanced longsword (sometimes slightly curved, sometimes not), favored by many German and Swedish mercenaries during the clusterfuck the 30-year war was. Basically what katanas should have been if Japanese swordsmiths had all the technology Europeans stole from Arabs (who stole it from Indians) and all the juicy high-quality iron ore - it had the same benefit of easy cutting even without much training (very useful for a merc), but made with a spring steel it was quite resilient to bending and chipping, and of course it had cross-guards and a pommel, unlike it's eastern analogue. Despite the benefit of ease of use, however, the main reason mercenaries used kriegsmesser was because in some of the German states it was illegal for a commoner to own a "knightly" longsword. It was mostly used as a sidearm alongside some-pole-arm or a musket, and later fell out of use in favor of much cheaper arming swords.

*'''Cutlass''': A European broadsword from the age of Enlightenment. Cutlasses had a point which went off to one side and were often slightly curved, but were usually double bladed. A very effective weapon for chopping and cutting. The stereotypical user of this sword is a pirate, which is not an exaggeration as it was commonly used by sailors and pirates during the age of sail, though it also saw use on the ground in the hands of infantry. Cutlasses were still used into the first world war, although they had largely been superseded by close-combat firearms.

*'''Rapier:''' As firearms became more prominent, swords became relegated to the purposes of self-defense and dueling rather than full-fledged military warfare. Unlike most swords, rapiers possess long, thin blades (commonly about a meter long and 2.5 centimeters wide) with a sharpened point- useless for cutting, but perfect for thrusting. They were frequently made with elaborate hilts meant to guard the wielder's hands more effectively, preventing them from being disarmed (both figuratively and literally). Over time, the rapier evolved into the small sword; as the name suggests, the blade was made shorter and the hilt was simplified. At this point, they served more as status symbols than weapons in their own right, as duels to the death (at least with swords) had become increasingly frowned upon. While often portrayed in media as light and flexible, real life rapiers were nothing but: they were about as heavy as an arming swords and about as stiff as technologically possible, and given they where longer then arming swords, fighting with a rapier was actually more taxing on the wielder's strength, contrary to "go-to weapon for [[-4 Str|girls and feminine guys]]" reputation they have nowadays. Rapiers were actually extremely common as infantry weapons and were not the sole purview of the nobility.

*'''Pistol Sword:''' In the 1600s, someone got a bright idea that seemed ingenious at the time: what if you stuck a [[firearm|gun]] barrel onto the side of a sword so you wouldn't have to fumble around changing your weapons in the middle of a battle? Unfortunately they were born well before they could make this into a videogame weapon, and much like most things in real life, the answer was not as cool as it sounds - instead of getting a weapon that could be used both as a sword and a pistol, you got a sword that was unbalanced and a pistol that was too heavy to aim with (and was also too expensive to mass-produce). Needless to say, they weren't all that popular, and remained more of a curiosity than anything else.

*'''Saber:''' The last type of sword to see any type of major military use. After firearms became the dominant battlefield weapon, sabers were still primarily used by infantry officers and cavalry up until WWI, when cavalry was finally made obsolete by machineguns and trench warfare, and more portable short-range firearms such as revolvers and submachineguns were readily available. Some officers still carry sabers today, such as those of the US Marine Corps, though for purely ceremonial purposes. While both cutlasses and sabers are curved weapons, the saber is distinguished from a cutlass in that they were mostly derived from the Middle-eastern Mameluke sword, being longer and more slender than the thick and short cutlass. The extra reach was more useful for cavalry while the weight of a cutlass was unnecessary for attacking at a full gallop.

*'''Shashka:''' When Russians conquered the Caucasian mountains, they banned locals from owning swords because they tended to rebel all the time and because it was a good excuse to prosecute undesirables. Apparently Russians weren't paying attention to German and Turkish history, and predictably the Caucasians made a saber that by legal definition counted as a big knife and named it (you guess it) "A Big Knife", or Shashka in Adyghe. It's heavier and straighter than a proper saber and lacks a guard, so it's a bit worse at drive-bying people from a horseback, but better at slicing them open when fighting on foot, being a bit of an all-rounder well suited for a region that favors cavalry that can fight on foot (because of all that mountains and valleys). Naturally, Russian cossacks that handled the brunt of peacekeeping/oppressing (depending on your view) work in the region found out it was a damn fine weapon for the task and adopted it to the point it quickly became their hallmark weapon. Later shashkas became so popular in Russia they almost pushed out sabers from the military and civilian use and by the late XVIII century only hussars and high nobility were still using sabers instead of shashkas. Modern Russian Cossacks still wear them, but nowadays they're mostly ceremonial.

*'''Machete''': Somewhere between a short sword and a long knife, the machete is, like the bayonet, still with us today. Essentially a short one-handed blade with a curved edge, it is mostly intended for cutting through undergrowth in tropical climates in the modern era. However in parts of Latin America and Western Africa "machete fencing" is still practiced.

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== Sword related stupidity ==

There is oh so much of it...

=== Carrying a sword ===

For some reason, everyone in fiction carries their sword on either the left hip or on the back, from the right shoulder to the left hip. The latter we will come to in a moment, first we will discuss the hip-holstered sword.

While it is certainly true that carrying a sword on the hip opposed to one's sword arm, one has plenty of room to dramatically unsheathe their sword. In the Middle Ages and earlier though, this was not done like that for a few practical reasons. First up is the shield: when one is in formation and wants to draw their swords having a raised shield in one hand means that one has to keep their shield hand out of the way when drawing their sword, compromising their defense. If one is mounted on a [[horse]] (like a [[knight]]) however, the sword is not carried on the opposing hip for a different reason: drawing one's sword form the opposing hip would mean either pulling the sword past the reins or the horse's neck, which might very well result in cutting the reins or the animal's neck. These two problems for both mounted and pedestrian soldiers was solved in a very simple way: the sword was carried on the same hip as one's sword arm. This limits one's drawing distance, but unless one is a [[C.S.Goto|deformed munchkin]] you should be perfectly fine drawing a one-handed sword from the same hip as the sword arm. The katana on the other hand were carried on the opposite hip, but this was because the Katana was a slashing weapon as such you could turn your draw motion into a cut.

The second point is back-mounted sheaths. Unless you are Dhalsim from Street Fighter or are armed with knives you are not going to be able to draw a single-handed sword from your back. Doing so would involve over-stretching, pulling the sheath down with your shield arm (giving up your defence, a big no-no) and a short sword. Go watch a movie featuring someone with back-mounted swords: you never see them draw their weapons on-screen. And two-handed weapons are right out. Though it is true that for transport purposes weapons were sometimes carried on the back, to and from the battlefield are NOT such situations. Soldiers armed with large two-handed swords carried them into battle much like their [[spear]]-wielding colleagues; [[Dwarf|held over the shoulders as the soldiers sung songs of war and victory.]]

=== Sharpness===
There are two misconceptions about swords - one is that combat swords were rather blunt and relied on the power of impact, and another that they were sharp enough to shave with and could cut padded cloth with little to no effort. The truth as always in the middle - blunt blades are obviously stupidly impractical, while extra sharpness leads to extra brittleness making the edge extremely vulnerable to chipping. Sure, in some cultures swordsmiths could get away with razor sharpness if metallic armor, shields weren't widespread and fencing styles developed in ways to avoid parrying, but really it only lasted for long in Japan. Now with ''modern'' swordsmithing, using modern materials and techiques it's quite possible to make the blade both resilient and razor sharp, but even then most HEMA practitioners prefer reasonably sharp swords, because they last fucking FOREVER when made with top-grade modern steel, while razor-sharp ones made from the same stuff would ''eventually'' wear down from use.

=== Parrying all day long ===

If you have a sword and your enemy has a sword, one thing that you can do is use your sword to stop the enemy's blade. This is called Parrying and it is a valid thing to do in a sword fight. However, in fiction (especially visual fiction) sword fights will often involve each side constantly slashing each other for minutes at a time hitting nothing but the opponent's blade. In real life this did not happen. Usually a sword fight is over in a few swings, especially one on a battlefield. Even in a "pure" sword duel (No shields), opponents do not slash and parry continuously like how they're stereotypically portrayed in media and instead only attack in short intervals before retreating and attacking again or until one of you suffers a fatal wound. This was the case for three reasons: 1. Eventually, you will suffer from fatigue and make a mistake, costing you your head if you don't take a few seconds to catch your breath and your rational opponent will be thinking the same. 2. Dodging the attack completely is preferable to parrying as it leaves your sword intact and actually leaves your opponent open for an attack. 3. Unless both of you have Slaaneshi-tier reflexes and are telepathic, it is nearly impossible for any sword fighter to match their opponent's moves in that magnitude for minutes-on-end that doesn't involve the duel being choreographed like a play (even if you were trained by the same teacher). A real sword fight, is NOT parrying all day, as seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQMqlFY7T64 here]

The first reason why this is the case is simple, the objective in a sword fight is to get your sword to hit the enemy, not his blade. The second reason is (if you have one) a shield is better suited to staving off an enemy blow than a sword. The third is that in a battle situation, you are vulnerable to another attacker if you are occupied in endless parrying. The fourth is that swords are not magically immune to other swords. If you parry a blow, your sword gets damaged, which is why the sort of "edge-to-edge" parry you always see in movies are questionable. It would dig huge divots out of the softer sword, if not both of them at once. Sword fighters of some schools tended parry with the flat of the blade unless they're using a specialized weapon with flanges or notches to catch and disarm or break the other weapon, while in others edge-to-edge was considered an acceptable move, since it provided better grip, more reliable block, better use of cross-guards and inevitable blade damage could be repaired later, while your cracked skull could not. It was a matter of [[skub]] both when sword-fighting was relevant and in modern HEMA community.

=== Swords and dual wielding ===

If you go to battle with a one-handed sword, you'd generally want some other weapon in your off hand as well. Ideally it should be a shield or a buckler, but lets face it: if you're going to battle sword is probably your sidearm, and your main weapon is likely to be two-handed or incompatible with shields in some other ways, and if you use a sword for self-defense against bandits or assassins on the town's street, chances are you didn't bring a huge-ass shield as part of your civilian outfit, and the only other weapon on you would likely be a dagger. So you grab your ''other'' sidearm, like a dagger or a small axe, or maybe even a mace or warhammer. Why not another sword? Well, wielding a single sword requires a lot of skill and attention to do it properly, and operating two requires ''more'' than twice of both, since you use the other sword with your off-hand, which by definition is weaker and less dexterous. That's not to say, master swordsmen didn't try it - some of them did, often with quite a success on tourneys and duels, but none of them was crazy enough to go to war with double swords when sword and something less skill-intensive is so much more sensible. Once you got two weapons in your hand you ''do not'' get to attack twice as often, like it's normally portrayed in traditional or video games - a good attack move requires muscle effort from a whole body, but by attacking with both hands simultaneously (like with showy "scissors" move movies and video games so love) you can only use your arms and to an extend shoulder strength. What dual wielding is really about, is attacking with one weapon and defending with another. This allows you to parry an enemy attack with one weapon and simultaneously retaliate with another, or attack with one weapon without compromising your own defense (much). So contrary to how it's normally portrayed in media and games, dual-wielding is a defensive technique rather then offensive one. And you'd need that extra defense, since with one-handed weapons you would have lower reach. This is also the reason why people didn't block enemy attacks by both their weapons crossed, which is another showy but extremely impractical move popularized by media - one weapon is almost always enough to deflect a blow, and using both you'd just throw away the immediate counter-attack feature, which is the prime selling point of double-wielding. Now double-wielding might look to you like a poor man's sword-and-shield style, but there is one more thing: your options for attack angles are doubled with two different lethal weapons no less, which makes defending against your attacks hell of a lot more difficult for your opponent. Sure, shields and bucklers could and would be used for bashing people, but it's nowhere near as lethal as dagger or axe to the face.

Now, in the Renaissance there was such a thing called the main-gauche or "parrying dagger," but these usually required special training to use effectively, and some models came with specialized designs to aid in parrying; for example, "swordbreakers" had notches to catch the enemy blade and twist it out of their hands, while the trident dagger had spring-loaded sides that could also catch the blade. However, daggers were not used to attack unless the wielder was able to lock blades and close in... which would put you in range of the other guy's dagger as well.

=== Cutting arrows and bullets ===

If hit straight-on, a sword will cut a bullet in half in mid-flight. Sometimes you'll see this as evidence by the Katana-cultists (see below) that the Katana is a uniquely sharp/strong weapon, but ''any'' blade will cut through a fast-moving block of lead, even a butter knife. The problem with this is that you are standing right behind where the bullet is going, meaning that unless your sword is shaped in such a way that it causes the bullet to split in a wide angle (This is usually done by shaping the sword's blade like long, flat diamond/parallelogram.), you are now shot twice. If you're not standing right behind where the bullet is going... why are you bothering cutting it in half? The same goes for arrows, but there is likely more batting aside involved (sort of like it goes in [[Star Wars]] with lightsabers and blaster bolts). The thing is, if you can move so fast that you can deflect incoming projectiles (the projectile from a decent [[Bows and Arrows|bow]] can easily go faster than your car does at close range) you should be able to just dodge them instead of bothering with looking fancy. But no human being is capable of dodging a battlefield's worth of arrows/bullets because those thing are just too fast and you do not (or even cannot) see them coming. So unless you're precognitive or have some kind of [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic]] you're not going to do well stopping projectiles with your sword. Oh, and this damages your sword of course.

=== Pistol and Sword ===

40k is in love with combining a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other and as far as 40K weapon stupidity goes, Games Workshop actually gets it almost right this time. In ye olden times, pistols were slow to reload and inaccurate so it only made sense to have a melee weapon along with the pistol. Pirates were partially famed for this combo. Rather than shoot at range and run the risk of missing, they would close to melee range, deflect the enemy's sword, then stick the pistol in the enemy's gut and pull the trigger. Afterward, they would either drop the gun and draw another or flip it round and hold it by the barrel to use it like a club.

The other and somewhat more relevant reason that 40K uses pistol and sword was because this was a common weapon combination of the assault troopers in World War I; if you look at the Imperium's other tech, they take a lot of "inspiration" from WWI (several tanks are blatant ripoffs of real world tanks of the era). As the war progressed, commanders realized that defending a trench from an oncoming wave of men was handled sufficiently with bolt action long rifles supported by static machine guns, but these were useless when assaulting a trench. Thus, after discussing with the men who had the most experience in taking enemy trenches, gave them the weapons they requested: small, handheld, easy to use weapons, especially pistols, trench knives, clubs, and sharpened shovels. These were much easier to handle in narrow, muddy trenches where the rifles of the defenders were much harder to maneuver. Officers in WWI were also equipped with a sword and pistol as standard, and they weren't just for show, they'd get used both to direct their own troops and to clear trenches, both theirs and the enemy's.

Also, there are several additional reasons why it makes perfect sense in the 40k or 19th century context:
* A sword can never jam or run out of ammunition. Handy when you are engaging [[Tyranids|a swarm of enemies]]. Though you still need to sharpen and repair it from time to time, this isn't nearly as much of a problem as it is for earlier firearms.
* A sword can parry. If you are fighting in melee against [[Orks|an opponent who prefers hand weapons]], and are armed with just a rifle or a pistol, you can only hope to hit your enemy and incapacitate him before he chops you down. Good luck doing that to an Ork. On the other hand, having a sword means you can at least try to defend yourself against other melee weapons. Makes sense now why a sword continued to be an officer's and nobleman's weapon well into the gunpowder age?
* A sword is not that noisy compared to firearms (or bolters, for that matter). Sure, a melee fight isn't silent, there are bound to be clangs and screams, but it's not nearly as overt as an unsuppressed firearm discharge which can easily reach an ear-shattering 130 dB. There is a reason why people need to wear ear protection at gun ranges. Never mind it also produces flash and smoke, more so if you are using non-smokeless powder. So if you, say, managed to take an isolated enemy position within a wider front line [[Kayvaan_Shrike|with melee weapons only]], there is a good chance the enemy won't know about it for a while. Granted. you can [[Raptors_(Chapter)|snipe from afar using advanced suppressed rifles and scopes]]- but you don't always have the luxury of doing that.
* 40k has [[Power Armour]], which can only be reliably threatened either by melee [[Power_weapon|Power Weapons]], or goddamn anti-tank guns. And unless you are a Space Marine yourself, you can't just fasten a [[Lascannon]] onto your belt and call it a day, so if you don't want to end up facing a Space Marine or [[Tyranid_Warrior|a similarly armored xeno monstrocity]] with just a lasgun, grab that power sword. Also, in fluff, power swords are remarkably good at breaking enemy non-power weapons while parrying, adding to their value in defense. Two reasons why they are very popular amongst officers and champions alike.
**This means there are gradations in weapon/armour interaction; [[Flak_Armor|flak armour]] defeats weaker [[Autogun|firearms]] and [[Lasgun|lasguns]], but falls to [[Bolter|bigger]] [[Shuriken_Catapult|and]] [[Gauss#Necrons|scarier]] [[Plasma#Pulse_Weapons|advanced]] guns, which are nigh useless against [[Power_Armour|power armour]], which can't protect against [[Power_weapon|power weapons]] or [[Plasma_gun|advanced]] [[Meltagun|anti-tank]] guns. So unless you happen to have the latter either [[Incubi|on very fast elite melee units]], on [[XV-8 Crisis Battlesuit|sufficiently mobile weapon platforms]], or simply [[Aspect_Warrior#Fire_Dragons|in abundance]], when Adeptus Astartes come for you, you are beyond screwed, just as in fluff.
**While [[Terminator]] armor does protect against most common power weapons, the aforementioned advanced anti-tank guns still have a good chance at hurting them anyway and the greatly reduced speed puts them at a disadvantage against enemies that are either faster than they are or can hit them from far away. And while they do have Power Fists equipped as standard, they're slow enough to give an appropriately geared opponent the chance to kill them before they get a chance to use said power fists. So it all works out...unless you're dealing with Assault Terminators, that is.

=== Unsheathing fun ===

Quick: what sound does a sword (or any blade weapon) make when you unsheathe it? If your answer is something along the lines of SHWING!, think about how a sword would make this sound upon being drawn. It has to be dragged against other metal, but this can causes a whole series of engineering nightmares: if your sword is dragged alongside its sharp edge it blunts, which is obviously not desirable. If you draw it against it flat (or its non-sharp edge if your sword is single-edged) the engineering involved would have to be so precise that the sound is produced, but this would create such a narrow fit for your blade that it would be very difficult and heavy to draw and sheathe, and when temperatures cause the metal to expand or contract your sword gets either stuck or dangles loose in its scabbard. This is obviously not desirable as well.

A more accurate reproduction of what sound a sword makes is to pull up the sleeves of whatever shirt you are wearing: a soft "ffffp"-esque sound. This is because sword sheathes were often made out of wood or leather, with sometimes some kind of fur inside of it. This held the blade snugly in place, would prevent it from falling out if held upside down and would not provide more wear on your sword than combat would.

And whatever dumbass thinks he's 2cool4sheathes will soon learn that cutting his furniture/legs is a very good reason to start wearing a sheathe for his sword.

=== How not to make swords ===

[[image:Conan sword casting.jpg|thumb|300px|left|How to make a sword shaped ingot of pig iron which is of less value to you in a fight than a nice heavy stick]]

Making a sword from steel is a fairly complex and tricky process. Generally it was done by specialized swordsmiths once societies got big enough to support them. Village blacksmiths could make swords, though not good ones. Making a steel sword involves taking a form of ferrous metal (be it an ingot of iron, a hunk of scrap metal or a sandwich of different types of steels) and heating it until it got soft, gradually hammering it into a sword shape, re-heating periodically as it cools during forging and then getting reheating it again to temper it and quenching in oil to give it strength. A sword does take a fair bit of time to make. As it's a tricky job, swordsmiths did not live alone in isolated workshops but rather worked together in guilds to help train new swordsmiths, while whole families (male and female) were involved in the process of making swords one way or another. They were also not adverse to using mechanical assistance such as water powered trip hammers to help them get things done quickly and efficiently, though forging by hand did allow them to be more precise about things.

[[image:Chinese_Trip_Hammers.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Trip Hammers, for when a smith does not want to use his muscle for all the hammering]]

In any case, as it gets the hell beaten out of it during forging what you start with does not look like what you get when your done. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E6TzT0eCYs What a medieval swordsmith would not do is cast a sword shaped form of Pig Iron (the type of liquid iron which you can make with pre-industrial technology, which is full of impurities and carbon), wait for it to cool into a semi-solid form, hammer it on an anvil for a bit and dunk it into water.] If you try that and it does not shatter on the anvil or shatter after being dunked into water due to cooling to rapidly, it will shatter after the first blow. Note that casting was a legitimate way to make one type of sword; the ones made of bronze, although bronze swords do not match up to the performance of an properly-made iron sword.

Also, nobody ever quenched a blade by thrusting it into a living guy's chest. That is an obvious bit of often repeated embellishment and rumor about Damascus Steel blades (which were made with the previously mentioned sandwiches of steels) which wormed its way into folklore and you're a moron if you think otherwise.
Firts there's a, let's say, logistical problem: a sword is a meter long or more, and you need to immerse it completely to get a proper quench - and the supply of people at least a meter thick is quite unreliable... Or did they use elephants and walruses?
Then there's the metallurgical problem: when you quench steel you want it to cool in a quick, controlled and homogeneous way to avoid warping and having differtial hardening where you don't want differtial hardening. Flesh is not a good at dispersing heat, so your sword will probably not harden at all, and even if this gruesome process did somehow work, you'd need an army of clones to get repeatable results.

=== Folded a thousand times ===

''Ah, Glorious Nippon Steel, Folded Over 1000 Times....''

This is, as you might expect, bullshit, even if it contains a (small) grain of truth. Japanese swords were created by combining three types of iron alloys, which (if you drop weaboo names) were basically low carbon steel, high-carbon steel and extra-high-carbon pig iron. The limitations of Japanese smithing techniques made it so smelting of those alloys happened below their melting point temperature (or, in other words, they became soft and malleable but not liquid), hence they were unhomogeneous and contained lots of impurities. So it was ultimately plain common sense to "knead" the mix (like you would do with bread) to get an homogeneous bar by stretching it on an anvil, folding it back, forge-welding the 2 parts together again. Repeat, repeat and repeat until (almost) all of the impurities were driven out.

This process, called lamination, was meant to spread the carbon content in the steel and remove inclusions by bringing them to the surface where they could be hammered away as slag. It also created layered laminated steel with layers of hard but brittle high-carbon steel and soft but plastic low-carbon steel (actually pig iron and high-carbon layers initially, but by the time laminating was done enough carbon would burn out of them to change their type) which combines the strong points of both, so the blade could be almost as sharp as hard steel and almost as flexible as soft steel. (You have to give it to them, the Japanese swordsmiths did a pretty good job, all things considered the limitations they had to work with.) This was however an horribly time-consuming process (and thus costly), not to say prone to errors. And even if everything works correctly, the very act of working the steel means you lose some every time you work it: external layer of steel burns off, slag detaches from the workpiece, small pieces fly away with every hammer strike - so you would try to keep work to a minimum. Keep in mind that the number of layers of your sword doubles with every fold: 2-8-16... and so on, so after 10 folds you get 1024 layers, and after 20 your steel is as homogeneous as it can get due to having over a million layers that blend in each other, losing all the sexy benefits of laminating. One thousand folds would theoretically get you more layers than there are atoms in the perceivable Universe (it's 302-digit number in case you wonder), you'd also end up with only a small fraction of steel you started working with, and almost all the carbon in it would burn out long before you reach 100 foldings, leaving you with almost useless soft iron. Katanas weren't folded a thousand times (perhaps a dozen, if even that), however they did possess over a thousand discernible layers in there structure.

Other nations also used techniques similar to folding (welding) to get over impurities and make layered steel sandwiches, but then one day some smart Indian smith invented crucible smelting to make much purer steel right of the bat, and after that another Indian smith invented tempering that was both cheaper, easier and more effective then laminating. Some enterprising Chinese and Arabian traders spread these techniques all over Asia and Europe, so people there immediately stooped folding/welding their Glorious Steel and adopted the better (mostly less time-consuming and hence cheaper) technology. All, of course, except for fucking Japan that decided to isolate itself from the rest of the world and only found about these technologies when Commander Perry gently knocked their front door off.

A huge chunk of the reputation of Japanese swordcraft comes from the fact that, by the time Europeans forced their way into the island, swords had became largely a ceremonial part of officer's uniforms in the Western militaries and little attention was given to their crafting that their quality had become quite poor, not even half as good as they were made but a century before. Low-tech Japanese swords, on the other hand, were still crafted for actual battle and killing people rather then pointing at the enemy to inspire your troops, so they were of the highest quality their technology allowed. Naturally westerners were amazed by the quality of Japanese swords compared to their own stamped pass-produced junk, and here's where Glorious Nippon Steel bullshit took its origins.

None of the swords the IJA used were Katanas but were actually Guntō. [[what|Most of them were made by a Japanese railroad company.]] While effective against mass produced bayonets and better than the Katana before them. The Guntō proved to be inferior to the Kukri used by Gurkha, their British commanders and National Revolutionary Army(China) soldiers armed with Dadao. Weapons that are variants of the machete. So for a small cost. Anyone with some cash to spend can have a better weapon than IJA swords.
So anybody who says that they got a Katana from killing a Japanese soldier from WW2 or that their grandfather picked one off the body of a dead officer are full of shit.

== Swords in Fantasy ==

Swords are probably the most commonly used weapon in Fantasy, especially by main characters (the characteristic of the sword listed above makes it symbolic for a leader). While certain fantasy races have certain specific weapons associated with them (Dwarves and Axes, Elves and Bows), all of them will make use of swords at least on the sidelines.

Alongside the usual racial variants, many fantasy universes has some kinds of sword you wouldn't see in the real world.

===Busters===
Named after the "Buster Sword" from [[/v/|Final Fantasy VII]]: these are basically unrealistically huge broadswords. By unrealistically huge; we mean that a Buster Sword is about as tall and wide as a fully-grown adult human, with the weight being a dozen or more kilos. Depending on the make, its either shaped and used like a giant greatsword used to chop unfortunate enemies with extreme prejudice or it can also be a heap of metal affixed to a grip where it can be used to bludgeon targets with maniacal glee. There's no strict criteria on what exactly qualifies as a buster sword, but if its almost as tall and wide as its wielder (or larger); it gets lumped into this category. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cHqPYnnLpo Much to the joy of neckbeards everywere, somewhere in Martha's Vineyard there's a guy who makes real Buster Swords and similar insane weapons for a living, and he's as awesome as you'd expect.]

Realistically speaking: busters would be unsurprisingly unwieldy to use. Its heft and size makes would make it nearly impossible to be wielded effectively during a confrontation where a more agile opponent can simply avoid the first swing and attack while the wielder takes their time readying the damn thing for another go, it'd be like trying to swat a fly with a tree trunk. Not to mention because the weight of the sword isn't focused on single point (like how the weight of a battle axe is largely focused on the axe head instead of all over itself), trying to damage armored opponents would be an incredibly tough, if not impossible affair (Plus a blade this large would have to be hardened to withstand the heavy damage done by its attacks; so this also isn't counting the blade doesn't outright shatter under its own weight after striking plate armor).

That also isn't counting that your wielder would have to rival the strength of an Olympic body builder in order to even bring it to bear in combat in the first place([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BIfrA6CIIk and using it combat is another problem due to the weight])], something an army would not bother with, given the tons of better, much more cost-effective alternatives - most appropriately battle axes. When you swing a top-heavy heavy object in one direction with all your might; the inertia of that is incredibly hard, if not impossible to, stop mid-swing for a normal human being (if you do, your joints and muscles will pay the price), so unless you happen to be a heavily augmented super-strong cyborg or blessed with inhuman muscular bulk to put most strongmen to shame; you will either only be doing vertical downward slashes (which isn't really that effective, unless your opponent is stunned in place) or spin around like an out-of-control top while swinging it horizontally (in which case, you might get one lucky kill before you collapse from dizziness and someone else gives you a good stomping).

In fantasy, however, the rule of cool takes over and the lore can make up a proper explanation for why that particular universe need these fuckheug weapons. Busters in fantasy (or really any impractically large weapon) are typically used in settings where they make a lick more sense; a fantasy world populated by giant creatures. You see, if you were to bring something like a claymore or a gladius to your ho-hum fantasy setting; chances are that they'll lack the mass to cut through monsters the size of city buses and beyond. With a sword as big as a human being, however; the weapon's size and weight plus the user's presumably augmented strength and the fantasy's general disregard for inconvenient things like realism and physics, allows them to cleave through thick materials like scales, bones, armor, muscles...etc, with ease. Its not the most practical way to go about it, but then again this is fantasy; your imagination and sanity is the limit.

More examples of Busters could be the [[Iron Kingdoms]], who have a type of sword called "Caspian Battleblades", very heavy, dull swords with a head that spikes out to either side broader than the blade, made crucial for warfare because of all the [[Warjack|heavy armour]] walking about, and tend to have lots of cut-outs in the blade's center to reduce its weight. [[Berserk]]'s Guts also wields an ordinary Buster Sword, though he's super-humanly strong, has a mechanical arm, and regularly battles giants and demons. Curiously 40k of all settings managed to make it's two busters more or less reasonable or at least usable: Eviscerator is outfitted with it's own anti-gravity propulsion system, trowing most issues with busters out of the window, and Incubi Claive is made out of light materials and have extra grips, so it could be used like a pole-arm despite looking like a giant sword.

===Gunblades/Pistol Swords===
As mentioned before, they were an idea that started in Ye Olden Times of the 16th century, where a flintlock or revolver pistol was given a blade or bayonet attachment to so that the user could get the benefits of two weapons in one system- only to get the drawbacks of both weapons in just the right way to make it worthless as a sword ''or'' a pistol. It evolved from the idea of mounting daggers on pistols, which had a bit more practical sense in comparison.

[[/v/|Final Fantasy VIII]], however, took it a step further and made a sword with a fucking pistol-grip for a handle, a revolver's chamber built into the hilt, and a long, rifle-like barrel welded to the flat side of its one-edged blade. Though, this is offset by the fact that the weapon isn't meant to be fired in the traditional sense at all; all bullets fired by a gunblade are blanks, intended to [[What|set the blade oscillating such that it cuts through monsters and other opponents better, like a chainsaw.]] (See also: Oscillating Blades.) Which begs the question: if it doesn't even deal damage by firing a projectile, why build a gun mechanism into the sword at all?

In other works of fiction. This problem is solved with [[Necron|advanced technology]]. Starting off with the most well known [[/tg/]] example. From Warhammer 40K. We have the Sentinel Warblades used by the golden BFFs of the [[Emperor of Mankind]]. The [[Adeptus Custodes]] put the short barrel equivalent of a [[Storm Bolter]] with a halved range on their massive swords. Since Custodes are larger than a Space Marine on average. They might as well be full sized guns. They also have direct energy weapons on their Guardian Spears. Which is a better option than a projectile weapon. As the user won't have to reload as often. Reduced range are not much of a problem for the Custodes. There won't be many survivors left after they are hit with [[Anal_circumference|Melta Beams or Adrathic Destructors.]] After a few volleys, the Golden Bananas will charge the unlucky bastards who weren't vaporized.

The transforming variant from gun to blade or vise-versa is often used in Japanese Media. Mostly [[/m/|Tokusatsu]]. The earliest example examples are from Kamen Rider 555. One is a primary weapon of the main character, Kamen Rider Faiz. Toei unlike a [[Games Workshop|certain model making company]]. Likes to stretch a budget and tries to out do themselves as technology advances. Many Kamen Rider and Super Sentai who will take too long list will have transforming Gunblades just about every other season. Some bigger or more detailed than the last. Usually if the Sentai Team or Kamen Rider of the season has tech based powers. Most often, these Gundblades fire lasers or some other form of energy beam.

Special Police Dekaranger has a strange example in the form of the D-Sword Vega. A sword that was used as a ranged weapon on two occasions. [[What|The special effects imply it is both a blade and a direct energy weapon]]. The primary user, Doggie Kruger. Typically [[awesome|shoots lightening]] out of it as his finishing movie. However, since the Space Police in the show have more advanced technology than a typical terrestrial officer. Who have their own direct energy firearms. The D-sword Vega itself is a century or more ahead of anything in IRL or most works of fiction have.

Square Enix, In their lack of creativity. Has taken to ripping off the transforming Gunblade. The primary weapon of one of the biggest [[Mary Sues]] in the Final Fantasy franchise. [[Original_character,_do_not_steal|Lightening, who is basically a female Cloud with pink hair.]] While Tokuzatsu is mainly targeted at kids. [[Fail| At least they have decent writers who can come up something original one in a while.]]

So TL:DR. Gunblades, while possible to turn into a useful weapon sometime in the future. Will require advancements that have yet to be made and throwing out the projectile part of the equation. While fixing the gun part will be easy enough. Another problem is the blade itself. Which can't be easily replaced on the user end. If and when this becomes possible. Whether it is a Power Sword or Light Saber. The blade itself will still be little more than a fancy bayonet. In of itself becoming redundant compared to using a melee weapon in one hand, and a gun in the other.

=== Lightsabers and their issues ===
Oh yes. These things. Specifically, their weightless blades. Because light weighs pretty much as low a mass as you can get not counting your dick (oh snap!), the center of balance of the blade is likely somewhere near the end of the blade (going by that's where the battery is, and that they likely weigh more than the blade projector). The problem with this is that you are essentially wielding a lever which will, upon being hit, flop all over the place because your hands function as a hinge. This might be less the case when used in two hands but when used in one your sword will go all over the place when it is struck. There ''is'' some in-story stuff to justify this, mostly based around how the arc-waves that form the blade do have a kind of mass that balances it correctly, but this is mostly hand-waving the issues.

Another point is the double lightsaber. Based on a variety of unbladed [[pole-arm]]s like the Gun or the Bo, it has a double-sized handle with the laser parts coming out from both ends. The problem with this style is that it gives the wielder only a limited surface to work with without burning their hands off. Maybe this can be discredited as training in the Force and all that jazz (plus, Ray Park is REALLY good at what he does), but this would still involve swinging a large dangerous rave stick very close to your body, and a good number of these styles involve holding the weapon near the end to gain great striking power at the tip of the weapon like with a [[pole-arm]]. With a lightsaber this is not possible, though not needed since it can just cut through anything by touching a target and letting the plasma do all the work.

And the lightwhip and all other kinds of outlandish lightsabers can go right fuck themselves. And don't use the Force argument, if someone focuses on holding a plasma whip properly they will get shot because, super powerful or not, you still have to think. The "lightcrossguard" on the lightsaber of Kylo Ren certainly looked silly, but for one: they gave him an edge in close combat letting him use them to burn his opponent in a bind, and secondly expanded material say they are vents required because his lightsaber is unstable. You'd think that his boss might fix that problem for him, but that would be using logic.

===Oscillating blades===

Also known as: "vibraknives," "high-frequency blades," et cetera, these are blades made so that they vibrate at such extreme speeds that they weaken the molecular bonds of the material being slashed, translating into the blade being able to cut things that a normal sword would snap against and making them nearly indestructible in the process. These actually have a real-world counterpart in the form of electric knives and jigsaws, which are saw-toothed and cut a variety of materials, but not to the degree or speed that proper HF blades can. Completely relegated to sci-fi stories and vidya. One of the most famous examples thus far is Metal Gear Rising: [[Derp|Revengeance,]] featuring a psychopathic weeaboo cyborg with a high-frequency katana against the world. The HF blade is depicted as being capable of slicing through everything, except materials capable of withstanding HF weapons. Against these, they have to be weakened enough that the HF blade can chop it into mincemeat.

The science SEEMS sound, but they don't ever explain how the extreme vibration needed to electrically sever molecular bonds doesn't shake apart the human wielder's skeleton or the sword itself, which is why even if it was possible to make them, they'd likely never be used in real life. After all, Newton's third law is still in effect. You can test this yourself and try holding any vibrating appliance for a few minutes; your muscles will start feeling numb from all the vibrations. They also state that the power of an HF blade is determined on how the original blade was forged before being modified, meaning that higher-quality blades yield better HF blades, as the HF technology only augments the properties sword. Though Jetstream Sam, a Brazilian samurai in the game, wields his own master forged high frequency blade, which is so good that it could slice pretty much anything, even the megalomaniac final boss ''who manages to block and snap Raiden's sword in half with his bare hands''.

While his blade is apparently made from a well-forged katana that has been passed down in Sam's family since the 16th century; they don't ever really elaborate on how the blade's quality affects the transition into an HF blade, especially when Raiden's modern-forged blade is somehow of lesser quality than a genuine Japanese katana made of low-quality steel folded in forging to work out the heavy impurities. The only way this makes sense is if the Katana was reforged with more durable materiel. As even the best weapon will break down with regular use.
It could have been explained better by stating that HF Blades have Monomolecular edges and are built with Carbon Nanotubes like the cyborgs themselves. So it seems that Platinum is ignorant about how swords are made like most [[Fail|fan fic writers]].

===Mechanically-powered weapon===

This basically means that the sword is powered by an external power source, like motors. The chainsword, for example, is common in sci-fi worlds that have close combat, as it's basically a chainsaw in sword form and the motor helps the sword do more then if it was just a sharp chunk of steel. Realistically speaking, power weapons would be bottom heavy, making them awkward to use, and if it goes the chainsaw route, then it would be hilariously impractical to use at all in combat situations; things softer than wood or ice tend to get caught in and gum up the teeth of a chainsaw, flesh being one such material. So, your custom chainsword would be rendered useless almost immediately, and in fact would be rendered less useful than an ordinary sword against whatever you were trying to [[RIP AND TEAR]] at the time.

One could argue that the chainswords in 40K are made differently from actual chainsaws in that they're designed for cutting people in mind; the teeth are mono-molecular and are shaped like knives rather than the thick, axe-like notched blades of real chainsaws (which are designed to chew away at thicker and harder materials, like wood); allowing them to nick through flesh more cleanly than your everyday chainsaw. The motor would have to be more powerful than a car's engine, yet light enough to be carried in one hand, allowing it to run the blade at speeds that it the teeth won't get caught, while still making it as maneuverable as a standard sword. But that's technology in the grim future, as trying to make a chainsword with today's technology and engineering would make for a very impractical weapon.

Impracticality aside, there's an argument to be made that in the 40k universe that chainswords and their non-imperial equivalents have a well-established purpose in the setting, analogous to the Buster swords 40k generally eschews. Beyond rogue humans or possibly Eldar (for which any sharpened stick should be a more sensible weapon), most opponents of the imperium pack incredibly tough flesh, extremely heavy armor, sheer mass enough to ignore grievous wounds, or any combination of the three. A chainsword, for all its downsides, can inexpensively provide some measure of response to any of these. The additional power yielded by the engine would exacerbate physical trauma, blowing physical injuries way out of human proportion. The sharp teeth provide concentration of force beyond any sword and can scrape through or catch in the gaps and seams inherent in any armor designed to move. The added motion and dimensions of force applied would help the wielder cut through limbs or body parts far too thick to slice apart for the same reason a chainsaw can gouge through thick tree trunks. All in all a chainsword gives the imperium a cheap one-size-fits-all answer to killing up close, with the acknowledgement that the weapon must be wielded not like a sword but like a saw. For all its technological improvement, the downsides are largely the same as they would be today: the wielder gives up grace, balance, most ability to parry, and accepts that they will be wounded by almost anything they fight. To take it one step further, it's an apt metaphor for the imperium itself: capable of grinding down anything through sheer low-tech single-mindedness, but always at grim cost in blood and lives.

===Magical materials===

In folk lore you can make weapons, typically swords since they are the weapon most associated with nobles in most cultures, out of any of a number of different types of special materials that have properties that grant it magical properties. A few of the more common examples are:

*'''Treasure Steel:''' the legendary super-steel from the Slavic and Norse mythology. Legends attribute it with extreme durability and ability to cut through "lesser steel". It was for a long time thought completely fictional or just the name for an Iranian Bulat steel, but eventually historians found out the stories were based on the early steel-age forging techniques. IRL it was just an alloyed high-carbon steel in the early age of very low-quality unhardened steel. It was made with a very wasteful process that included burying a huge steel ingot into the ground (aka "Treasure"), letting it rust for few years and reforging the remnants - then repeating the process several times each time the ingot loosing a sizeable percent of it's mass to the rust and smelting burnout. As iron corrodes faster then natural alloys found in the ore and carbon, repeated treasuring and reforging increased alloy and carbon concentration resulting in a a great metal for it's time. Needless to say, only the nobility could afford to waste so much iron, so it also became a trademark of warlords and their champions.
*'''Thunderbolt Iron''', which is a fancy term for weapons made from meteorites. In fantasy space iron swords tend to have magical properties or are treated as some kind of super steel: in D&D they are the source of adamantine. In real life, this was for many civilizations their first experience with iron and for some civilizations, a lump of iron-rich meteorite could be many times purer than what they could naturally forge and smith. That is if they could even make iron at all: the otherwise Bronze Age Egyptians managed to get a meteoric iron dagger into King Tutankhamun's tomb. The problem of course is the term "iron-rich" and many meteorites are either very small or made of rock or nickel that can't actually be forged; there is a good reason why Tutankhamun had a dagger and not a sword. Additionally, many meteorites have [http://xkcd.com/1114/ impurities that weaken the blade]. Still, bad iron is better than no iron and we do get plenty of big meteors to make swords out of. The late [[Discworld|Sir Terry Pratchett]] famously [[Awesome|forged his own sword out of a meteorite when he was knighted]].
*'''Cold Iron''', On the other hand, just being made out of iron by itself was enough to grant magical properties, as Rudyard Kipling said, ''"But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all."'' Iron, and by extension steel, have strong folklore traditions perhaps because that blood smells and taste metallic due to its iron content, or perhaps the "mystical" attraction of a lodestone to iron. In folklore, you could use iron scissors to ward off changelings, nail an iron horseshoe to your door to give luck, while an iron knife buried under the entrance to your home would keep witches away. In the modern "sci-fi approach," fantasy iron weapon's "magical" abilities are sometimes explained by its magnetic properties that can disrupt "magical" being's senses and abilities based on electromagnetism, and in some instances can cause them great pain or even instant death just from a physical contact or even being near. ''"All well and good,"'' I hear you say ''"but what does this mean for swords?"'', well honestly not much. It does mean your best weapon against things not weak to some other magical material like silver, such as fairies or demons, is a steel sword, but you were going to use that anyway since steel is better than any material not from the future. The importance of iron as an anti magic weapon only becomes important in settings where iron as a weapon is rare. The "cold" part is often a point of contention and it can mean that the iron has to be cold forged, i.e. never heated, or that it's just not hot now, or sometimes it's just a poetic term for any iron, Room-temperature metals feel cool to the touch because, when held, they conduct heat out of the skin more readily than air does, the same way we use the term "Hot Lead". Changeling: The Lost defines it to mean 'anything called iron', no steels, no oxides, no alloys, just pure iron. While iron in general has adverse effects on anything touched by Faerie, the most potent kind of all is "cold iron" (that is, iron that was never worked using any kind of heat). This means iron fresh out of the ground does the most damage (but is obviously just a rock so using it is hard), and Meteoric Iron (see above) since it's never been heated by man, but re-entry smelted it making it easier to work with by comparison. On the other hand, weapons of pure iron tend to be less sharp and durable when compared to steel and other alloys- and are consequently much trickier to find outside of an antique collection. You're probably best off breaking off a piece of a wrought iron fence and making it into a weapon, and even then it's not guaranteed it'll be pure enough to have any special effects.
*'''Silver''', unlike iron and meteoric Iron, doesn't work as weapon material in real life. Cost aside, silver is softer, heavier, and dulls much easier than a steel blade, but silver's tradition of magic goes further back than iron and in settings with werewolves a silver sword may be your best friend. The reason why Silver's magical tradition likely goes back further then iron (at this rate may as well make a page for magical metals) is because of a a unique property of silver: [http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Silver_as_an_Antimicrobial_Agent water in silver pitcher takes a lot longer for it to get scummy, as silver ions damage bacterial DNA and enzymes]. This led to it having reputation for healing and since healing is good (duh), for being holy. This trait of silver is also why we get the reputation for why vampires can't cast a reflection: old timey mirrors used a silver backing to get a clear reflection, and since vampires are unholy, they wouldn't cast a reflection in the holy silver. As for werewolves, in olden times it was thought werewolveism was also like rabies, hence the whole 'you become a werewolf if bitten by one', bring to mind rabid animals hence silver against werewolfs stems from it's anti microbial, and so healing, property's. In modern times though the logic behind silver and werewolves tends to be that since silver is the same color as moonlight and werewolves are empowered by the moon, it would suppress their powers or otherwise weaken them. In fantasy settings, silver weapons often do less base damage but deal more damage against, or are the only thing that can hurt, unholy monsters like ghosts. It is also possible to [[Grey Knight|coat your realistic steel blade with silver]] (or gold, for that matter) without dulling it too much, and keeping it dangerous for supernatural creatures weak against silver. Although given silver and iron lie on the opposite sides of electro-activity scale you'd better keep your silver coated blade very clean all the time, least it rusts down in a matter of months or even weeks, effectively being a huge-ass chemical battery only waiting for electrolyte to work (this is even worse with gold coating BTW).

===Super Sword===
Super Swords are a broad category of fictional weapons includes weapons made with advanced technology (Lightsabers, Necron Phase swords), Magic (Shardblades from Words of Radiance), divine origins or just are the product of super duper swordsmithing abilities (your memetic Katana). What they have in common is the fact that they can cut through basically anything with minimal resistance. They'll cut through armor and steel like nothing. Generally another super sword can resist them and maybe a few special items, but they'll go through a boulder like nothing.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Fallen

2017-10-15T16:05:24Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: 8th update

[[File:99120101047_FallenSquad01.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[Pretend|Don't mind us. We're Dark Angels just passing through Imperial Citizen. Nothing to see here.]]]]
''"Secretive and spiteful warriors, the Fallen fight with furious determination as they try to avoid defeat or capture. Ever on the run from the inexorable vengeance of the Dark Angels and their successor Chapters, the Fallen have become as relentlessly merciless as those who pursue them. Some prefer to take the fight to their enemies at close quarters, while others eliminate from afar – in either case, the Fallen make lethal foes, who do not flinch from dark acts and terrible hardship."'' ~ <small>Games Workshop</small>

The most common troops of the [[Fallen Angels]], the Fallen are the descendants of those who have followed [[Luther|Luther's]] cause during the [[Horus Heresy]]. As such, they are hunted down and reviled by the deepest inner circles of the [[Dark Angels]]. Unfortunately for the Dark Angels, the Fallen are a tricky bunch to catch, often twisting the Unforigven's nipples to no end. They are often lead by a [[Fallen Champion]] to guide them on where the best place is to be so they can remain hidden from the sons of the First Legion.

During the events of Gathering Storm, Cypher and his cohorts of Fallen and their superiors, freed [[Roboute Guilliman|Grandpa Smurf]] from being turned into [[Kairos Fateweaver|Kairos Fateweaver's]] personal bitch on board a [[Blackstone Fortress]]. They along with the [[Harlequins]] escorted the [[Primarch]] and his forces into [[Holy Terra]] itself. Unfortunately for the Fallen, Big Bobby G [[Not as Planned|actually double crossed Cypher's forces cause Girlyman was suspicious on the]] [[Lion El'Johnson|mysterious sword that Cypher was holding.]] Suffice to say, Cypher and his forces ''somehow'' managed to [[Wat|escape in the most heavily defended planets in the entire galaxy that is filled with]] [[Adeptus Custodes|the Emperor's finest.]] One could argue that their 40k's Houdini.

The Fallen are equipped with a multitude of weapons to assist them in combating the varied threats in the Galaxy. In some ways, they are the equivalent of the [[Space Marine]] [[Tactical Squad]]. Up to four Fallen may replace his Bolter with either a Flamer, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, , Plasma Gun, a Combi-Weapon, or Power Weapons. While one may take a weapon from the Heavy or Special Weapons lists. All in all, the Fallen are well trained to fend off innumerable threats to compensate for their much smaller forces. The only real downside is that the Fallen have no way of taking Dedicated Transports.

{{Fallen-Angels}}

Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (30k)

2017-10-15T15:41:51Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: /* Heavy Support */

So we've had rules for [[First Founding|the Legions]], the [[Primarch]]s, and the [[Mechanicus|Mechanicum]]. It was only a matter of time until the [[Custodian Guard|Emprah's BFFs]] and the [[Sisters of Silence|premium in anti-psyker units]] got rules, and here they are. [[Fail|RAW you can't them take as allies]], though. Do note that these rules for the Talons of the Emperor are only for the Horus Heresy (30k) game, if you're interested in the 40k tactics, you can find the [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Sisters of Silence|Sisters of Silence tactics here,]] [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Adeptus Custodes (7E)|and the Adeptus Custodes tactics here.]]

==Why play Talons of the Emperor==
There are a number of reasons for playing this army.
*Because you like gold
*Because you like Eagles
*Because you like Eagles made out of gold
*Because the Emperor was right all along
*Because [[Erebus]] can fuck a cactus
*Because you want to take [[Emperor's Children|Phoenix Terminators]] with a half-Primarch statline as troops
*Because you hate Psykers harder than [[Space Wolves|any furry]] can ever hope to imagine
*Because one day you will be able to take the EMPRAH as a LoW

==Special Rules==
===Custodes===
*'''Preternatural Skill''': If the majority of enemy models have equal or less Weapon Skill compared to yours when fighting in assault, you get +1I. ''(Though consider Thousand Sons' Khenetai Cabal being the only squad with potential WS6, and things that drop your WS)'' you might as well assume you're always I6 with most of your troops, unless you're facing a lone HQ model.''
*'''The Sodality''': A Custodian's unit coherency range is 3" and they always use their usual LD for regrouping. ''Representing how the Banana Custards fight as individuals rather than a squad in the lore. Use the 3" to better control the battlefield and reduce the effectiveness of Blast weapons (since a 3" blast will only touch more than one Custodes when perfectly centered between two of them, at maximum coherency).''
*'''Inviolable Psyche''': Forgeworld dancing around ATSKNF again, you are immune to Fear and Pinning and ignore all penalties when taking Morale Checks, meaning it's Stubborn 2.0, and re-roll Deny the Witch rolls. ''However, it does mean you CAN break as a result of bad combat, and you CAN be utterly wiped out. Not that that would happen often, but still.''
*'''Bulky''': Not a rule specific to the Custodes, but they all have it.
*'''Character''': Always remember that ALL Custodes are Characters. That means they can issue and accept challenges, but also benefit from Look Out, Sir. ''With some lucky rolls and a good positioning, this can really help your guys survive hails of plasma fire and assaults, especially if you have a lot of Solarite gauntlets.''
*'''Crusader''': Like Bulky, almost all Custodes have it. ''Quite powerful since your Custodians usually have better Initiative than most 30k units.''

===Sisters of Silence===
*'''Psychic Anathema''': The core defining feature of the Sisters of Silence, this is how they fuck up psykers all twenty ways from Sunday. They're immune to any psychic powers targeting them and ignores any Telepathy Blessings that would negatively affect them, because fuck invisibility cheese (you can still be raped by Biomancy user, for example, so pick your targets). Anyone within 12" takes -1 Ld (-2 if they're psykers, though anyone with Fearless is immune) while allies can re-roll Deny tests, but any Daemons in range take -1 to Toughness while Daemon vehicles take +1 to Pen. Anyone within that range that tries to use a power now needs to roll 1 higher to successfully manifest, raised to 2 higher if they're in B2B (So if they're against Magnus, he has to roll 4+ to use a power when in range, while needing 5+ when in combat).
*'''Ex Oblivio''': Another deadly null power for the Sisters, but only for the most brutal of them. Anyone within 6" can't generate WC dice, and if they want to use a power, they have to test Ld or suffer Perils at a -1 penalty, minimum 1. ''This means they can't roll a 6 for warp surge and are twice as likely to roll a one''.
*'''Fanatical Discipline''': Sisters are Fearless and Hate Psykers. Blah.
*'''Company-Cadres''': The organization of the Sisters. For every three non-HQs they bring, they need an HQ choice. If they have an HQ choice, every Sister model in the detachment gains Infiltrate, Crusader, Stealth, or +1 to Combat Resolution.

==Special Equipment==
===Ranged Weapons===
*'''Adrathic Weapons''': Yet another super special Terran-only weapon, these are proper disintegrators. As a rule, they will make Mechanicum players cry, also they are all AP2 with Instant Death, Armorbane, and Gets Hot.
**'''Adrathic Destructor''': 12" S5 AP2 Assault 1: By far the most 'common', available in some form or another on most infantry models.
**'''Adrathic Devastator''': 18" S6 AP2 Heavy 2: Dickbike and Pallas upgrade.
**'''Adrathic Exterminator''': 36" S6 AP2 Heavy 1, 3" Blast: Not yet used on any model, but it's only a matter of time. Rumoured to be one of the weapons on the upcoming Custodes 'Heavy Dreadnaught'
*'''Adrastus Bolt Caliver''': 30" Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter with a Disintegration Beam (Adrathic destructor possibly with beam special rule--need FAQ!) welded onto it. Distinctly stated as being two functional weapons with unlimited uses, but only one can be used a turn.
*'''Lastrum Bolt Weapons''': The Caladus' fixed mounts have turned into the Custodes' most prevalent vehicle mount. All weapons have '''Heliothermic Detonation''', so anybody that takes an unsaved wound has to make a Toughness roll or get '''Instant Death''' (or +1 to penetration damage table if a vehicle).
**'''Lastrum Storm Bolter''': 24" S5 AP4; only used by Aquilon Terminators and the Contemptor-Achillus.
**'''Lastrum Bolt Cannon''': 36" S6 AP3 Heavy 3; used on the Caladus, Coronus, and (assuming a typo) the Dickbikes.
**'''Iliastus Accelerator Cannon''': 60" S7 AP2 Heavy 3, Rending, Rapid Tracking (ignores Jink saves).
*'''Infernus Weapons''': The Custodes super flamers. Only two versions, and they're both Heavy 1, but who gives a shit when they're S6!
**'''Infernus Firepike''': S6 AP6 Heavy 1, Torrent; only used by Aquilon Terminators.
**'''Infernus Incinerator''': S6 AP4 Heavy 1; used on the Contemptors, either as a replacement for the Storm Bolters or in the Galatus Warblade.
*'''Proteus Las-Lance''': 24" S7 AP2 Heavy 2, Lance; like the Adrathic Exterminator, it is not yet used on any model, come again later.
*'''Corve Las-Pulsar''': 36" S9 AP2 Heavy D3: Upgrade for the Agamatus jetbikes and found as part of the Contemptor-Achillus's Dreadspear, and most of the reason for it's 40 point upgrade cost.
*'''Arachnus Blaze Weapons''': Bastard offspring of Multi-lasers and Lascannons, they have two firing modes. One is Burst for infantry shredding, the other is Concentrated for Vehicle killing with AP1 and '''Exoshock''', which gives you an automatic '''second''' Penetrating hit which ignores cover saves on a 4+ after you score one (so you roll to hit, roll to penetrate, enemy rolls invulnerable/cover, and only then...)
**'''Arachnus Blaze Cannon''': S6 AP5 Heavy Bolter, '''or''' 48" S8AP1 Heavy 1, Exoshock: In all honesty, the Burst mode is rather shitty, but Concentrated is essentially a Lascannon with nasty special rules.
**'''Arachnus Storm Cannon''': 48" S7 AP3 Heavy 7, '''or''' 72" S9 AP1 Heavy 2, Exoshock: the Telemon's big gatling gun and perhaps the most versatile of the Arachnus weapons.
**'''Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannon''': 48" S8 AP3 Heavy 4, '''or''' 72" S10 AP1 Heavy 1, Exoshock: Optional turret replacement for the Caladus, enjoy IDing MEQs.
*'''Psyk-Out Weaponry''': Available as grenades with 8" range, in grenade launchers with 24", or in missiles with 48", each of them has Strength 2, Blast 3 and Psi-Shock, which forces Psykers to suffer perils.
*'''Stake Crossbow''': A 24" S5 AP- crossbow with Rapid Fire and Psi-shock
*'''Needle Weapons''': S2 AP5 weapons with Rending and Poisoned 4+.
**'''Needle Pistol''': 12" Pistol.
**'''Assault Needler''': 18" Assault 2.
*'''Snare Gun''': A 12" Assault 1 Pinning weapon. If it hits, it inflicts d3 hits, each of them requiring a Strength test to resist taking an unsavable wound (though Invulns work). Just don't expect Superheavies to listen to this. Hurray, the Rogue Trader Webber has finally made a return!

===Melee Weapons===
*'''Custodes Spears''': Made of two parts, the power blade is AP2 +1S on the charge, and reverts to a specialist power sword afterwards. Every time you roll a 6 to hit with it, you get another attack, but those extra attacks can't generate any more. The second part depends on the spear.
**'''Adrasite Spear''': It has an Adrathic Destructor, which was 12" S5 AP2 Assault 1, Instant Death, Armorbane, and Gets Hot. Short range and nasty.
**'''Guardian Spear''': Attached with a 18" S4 AP4 Assault 2 bolt weapon. Pretty good on anything short of an MEQ, but not great.
**'''Pyrithite Spear''': Attached with a 6" S8 AP1 Melta, essentially an inferno pistol. Okay for busting light vehicles or TEQs, but 3" melta range can hurt, but it's not like you weren't planning on charging at that range anyways.
**'''Paragon Spear''': AP2 '''+2S''' on the charge (reverts to AP2 +1S when not charging, like a Paragon Blade), rather than +1, and 6s to wound always inflict Instant Death, but 6s to hit get another attack, as it is a spear. The attachment is an 18" S5 AP3 Assault 2 bolter.
*'''Misericordia''': [[Fail|No entry in the book]], thank you FW. Fluff-wise it is the long dagger the Custodes carry as the sign of their right of life and death in the Emperor's name, so we can assume it to be a close-combat weapon of some sort since all Custodes without an actual CCW have one instead. Maybe it has some special rules, maybe not. Just wait for the FAQ.
*'''Paragon Blade''': Specialist +1S AP2 that inflicts Instant Death on a wound roll of 6, but you want a Paragon Spear more.
*'''Plasma Grenades''': Rare enough to mention here, they are assault grenades that can be thrown as S4 AP4 instead of S3 AP-.
*'''Sentinel Warblade''': A Specialist Power Sword with Rending. In addition, it's got an inbuilt 12" Storm Bolter that snap fires at BS2. As it exists now, it's almost entirely inferior to the Guardian Spear except when snap shooting (including overwatch), unless you're planning on using Rending to even out long assaults with high toughness models, or you need to crack open AV11+ and you can't get enough Custodes stuck in to use their Krak Grenades (a lucky rend with this sword can glance a Land Raider, though [[MathHammer]] doesn't favor your odds). But, the Sentinel Warblade does work better with the Praesidium Shield, so taking models with this is a legitimate trade of punching power for defense.
*'''Solarite power gauntlet''': AP1 mastercrafted power fist, same as Imperial Fists. However, you are Custodes, so your punches are now railguns.
*'''Solarite power talon''': +1S, master crafted lightning claw.
====Sisters of Silence Melee Weapons====
*'''Proteus Neuro-Lash:''' Flails and sectioned staves known for causing agonizing pain. Each is a two-handed melee weapon with S+1 but AP-. What they also get is the ability to hit anyone within 3" as opposed to just hitting one unit. In addition, for every hit they make, they roll a d6, with a 3+ meaning they can deliver an additional attack with Poisoned 4+ at AP-. These aren't gonna kill a marine any time soon, but Daemons will rue fucking with these ladies.
*'''Execution Blade''': Essentially Charnabal Sabres with more fancy. They're Two-Handed S+1 AP3 weapons with Duelist's Edge (+1 Initiative in a challenge) and Flawless Cut (a 5+ to hit counts as AP2)

===Equipment===
*'''Arae-shrikes''': Enemy units deep striking within 12" of a model with this wargear suffer perils on a 4+, including models that ignore the effects of mishap. In addition, barrage weapons targeting models with this wargear add 1D6 to their scatter and pick the 2 highest results, although a hit still remains a hit.
*'''Aquilon pattern Terminator Armour''' is super Cataphractii armour with Hammer of Wrath and pseudo-relentless. They can't Run, but they can make Sweeping Advances and fire Overwatch.
*'''Custodian Armour''': Artificer Armour and ''Move Through Cover'' rolled into one pimping banana suit. ''Makes footslogging and charging across difficult terrain a bit more reliable and basically means your Agamatus jetbikers can move everywhere confidently.''
*'''Praesidium Shield''': Lets you reroll invulns and your opponents suffer -1 to Hit on every attack targeting the wielder in close combat. A Praesidium Shield precludes two-handed weapons, the +1A for 2 CCW, and the bonus for charging with a spear (this includes the Paragon Spear).
*'''Magisterium Vexilla''': A unit with this wargear can reroll failed leadership checks and gains the ''Fear'' special rule. In addition, all units within 12" add 1 to combat resolution at the end of the phase. ''TAKE IT. The vexilla compensates for the lack of Fearless and may give you the edge when charging with Guardian spears. Fear may be especially useful if you're fielding Sisters of Silence alongside your Custodes.''
*'''Teleportation Transponder''': Already known to Imperial Fists and Night Lords, this model's entire unit can deep strike.
====Sisters of Silence Equipment====
*'''Vratine Armour''': The armor of the Sisters of Silence and symbol of their oath to kill witches...otherwise known as Power Armor.

==Unit Analysis==
===HQ===
*'''Legio Custodes Shield Captain''': A <s>holy</s> [[Imperial Truth|honest]] rape machine, fit to take on a [[Chaos Lord]], a [[Chapter Master]] and a [[Warboss]] simultaneously and come out on top. His statline comes with all the best bits of a Chapter Master and a Custodes and gear better than both, he can take the all powerful Paragon Spear, and combine it with a Praesidium shield, Digital lasers, Iron Halo and a Cyber-Familiar for [[Cheese|6 S6 AP2 attacks which generate additional attacks on 6s to hit and Instant Death on 6s to wound at I6 and a rerollable 3++ in close combat with -1 to Hit malus for your adversary if they specifically target your golden dude]]. Or you can drop the Paragon Spear and go for a Solarite gauntlet for [[Rape|6 S10 AP1 master-crafted I1 attacks]] (don't forget the Praesidium shield means you don't get a bonus attack for 2 CCWs, even though the Solarite gauntlet isn't a specialist weapon and the shield captain comes with a basic ccw). And everything in between, the rape train has no brakes.
**'''Tribune''': Ooooh FW, what have you done... Here is Mr. Cheestodes, the deadliest, most broken, stupidly OP as fuck generic character in the ENTIRE GAME. No really, this guy is the very definition of mindless rape, Slaanesh him/herself is fucking ashamed. Same as above except you get ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Fearless'', y'know, in case you wanted to add an [[Archon]] and an [[Necron Overlord|Overlord]] to the stuff you can take on at once. At a price of [[Rage|25 more points]]. However, you can only take him in a <u>detachment</u> of 2000 points or more, so you're not likely going to see him in an allied force. unless you are playing HUGE games. Also, if he's in the Primary detachment he has to be the warlord ''(unless Valdor, Krole, or [[What|Emps]] are present)'', but he is able to choose his warlord trait. Needless to say, some warlord traits can be really, really good for your guys. Strategic Genius can be useful since almost all your Custodes have access to deep strike, and Master of Ambush is priceless when your cheapest transport is 135 points for a capability of only 6.
*'''Sisters of Silence Oblivion Knight-Centura''': Surprisingly has mostly ordinary human stats with WS5 BS4 I5 and Ld9, she's essentially the budget HQ at 75. She's not barebones however, as she grabs Artificer Armor with a 4+ Invuln that ups to 3+ against Blasts and Templates. She has a bolt pistol, Execution Blade, and Frag, Krak, and Psyk-out grenades, while she has the Cadre rules, Ex Oblivio, and Precision Strikes. Her melee weapon can be exchanged for a power axe (don't), a Neuro-Lash (not for Marines), or a Paragon Blade (if you just want to maul 2+ saves with a chance at ID), while her pistol can be exchanged for a hand-flamer, a plasma pistol, a needle pistol, or an archaeotech pistol - and for 10 points, any of these weapons can be Master Crafted.
*'''Sisters of Silence Excruciatus Cadre''': Something akin to a command squad, this is a squad of WS4 BS4 I4 Ld9 ladies with tools, with the Silent Judge having 2 wounds. They all hate Daemons and Psykers, get Fanatic Discipline, Night Vision, the Cadre rules (forcing them to be the mandatory HQ if the detachment is less than 500 pts, meaning they eat up at least 1/5 of the budget by themselves), and the ability to make their melee attacks ID. The Questorae only get CCWs, Bolt Pistols, Assault Needlers, and grenades alongside their armor and ''Spectra-vestments'' which force anyone to take -1 BS to hit them, while the Silent Judge adds a refractor, a Needle Pistol, a Nuncio-Vox, and a power weapon. A Questora can buy the Ardrathic Destructor, while any of them can exchange their guns for Needle Pistols or Stake Crossbows for free or buy a Snare Gun or a Flamer with a one-use boost to make them S6, and each can replace their CCW for a Charnabal Sabre or a power weapon. The Judge can swap her melee weapon for a Neuro-Lash, the Execution Blade, or a fist, while her gun can be exchanged for a Stake-Crossbow, hand flamer, plasma pistol, or a second needle pistol.

===Special Characters===
*'''Constantin Valdor''': The Captain-General of the Legio Custodes and [[Malcador|second]] best bro of the [[Emperor]] takes to the field. With his near-primarch statline he is a CC beast, with 5s across the board plus WS7, I6, Ld10, and 2+ save. He also has the ever rare Eternal Warrior, as well as Crusader, Fearless, and Counter-Attack. In terms of wargear he has the '''Apollonian Spear''', a +1s (+2 on the charge) AP2 guardian spear, with the GODLY ''Molecular Severance'' rule: any to-wound rolls of 4+ cause instant death or an automatic penetrating hit regardless of AV or T. In addition, [[Sigismund|successful invulnerable saves against wounds caused by this weapon]] must be rerolled! Oh, and it comes with an attached 18" S5 AP2 Assault 2 ''Concussive'' bolter on top! He also has lots of other gear: An Iron Halo, plasma & krak grenades, Arae-shrike, Misericordia (whatever that does), digital lasers, and custodian armour. His warlord trait allows him to re-roll Seize the Initiative, and any Legio custodes unit (including himself, and possibly Dreads depending on how you interpret 'Legio Custodes units'. Nope, GW confirmed that you cannot use Valdor to teleport dreadnoughts, it only applies to units which can take teleport-transponders) can take teleportation transponders at no extra cost. All that for just 275 points.
**This guy is your ultimate golden Swiss Army Knife. Even if he is not a good match for most of the Primarchs - let's not even talk about motherfucking [[Anacharis Scoria]] - he can fuck with a wider variety of things than most of them for a far cheaper price. Six S6 attacks (Seven at S7 on the charge, remember 30k Digital Lasers are +1A and the average to hit roll increases this to 7/8 attacks respectively thanks to Lightning Blow) are great against big squads, while Molecular Severance allows him to deal with any vehicle from cardbox-made Raiders from Spartans and will ruin the day of any character or multi-wound unit crossing his path. Do note that his Sigismund-ish shenanigan works ANYTIME, not just in challenge, so you can slaughter MC or even GC with your shiny spear.
**[[That guy|Some people]] may ask why you would ever take good ol' Valdor rather than the already infamous Tribune (you know, the guy who can stomp Spartans, Primarchs and Scoria for the same price). Firstly, you don't want to be beaten to death by your opponent IRL. Secondly, Valdor is more versatile than the Tribune, butchering hordes, TEQs and tanks alike without sacrificing his I6. He's better at dishing out the hurt, just not as good at taking it. The possibility to '''deep-strike almost all your army for free''' is something unique in 30k and may be <s>a gift from the gods</s> {{BLAM}} '{{BLAM|THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS GODS YOU FOOLISH <s>HERETIC</s>}} {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|THERE IS NO DOGMA AND THEREFORE NO HERESY, NONCOMPLIANT SCUM!}} a welcome alternative if you don't want to buy some Coronus. Last thing is, you can only take the Tribune if your Detachment is over 2000 points, so Valdor is the only way to get a Custodes HQ with Fearless and Eternal Warrior if you play smaller games. And since you are probably spending a lot of points on your Shield Captain's wargear anyway, you should consider taking the golden boss instead.
**If you take 55 custodes in your army and decide to have them all deepstrike, you can take Valdor for the low, low price of your warlord trait.

*'''Jenetia Krole''': Knight-Commander of the Sisters of Silence. She's got 3's across the board with WS6, BS4, I5 A4 and Ld10. On top of Psychic Anathema, she also has Ex Oblivio, Fanatic Discipline, Rage, Preferred Enemy against Psykers and Characters, Cadre rules, Eternal Warrior, and the option to upgrade an Oblivion Knight Cadre to her elite Raptor Guard, which costs 20 points to make them WS5. For gear, she has Artificer Armor with the invuln seen on the Knight-Centura, an Archaeotech Pistol, grenades, and the '''Sword of Oblivion''': a super-Execution Blade with S+2 AP2 with 5+ Murderous Strike instead of Flawless Cut. This all makes her <s>close to a match</s> a challenge beast against any Marine HQs without Eternal Warrior, and more than a match against Daemons. Her Warlord Trait lets her re-roll Seize the Initiative and grants d3 units Scout.

===Elites===
*'''Legio Custodes Hetaeron Guard Squad''': The Emperor's [[Companion|Companions]], [[Mary Sue|the best]] of [[Adeptus Custodes|the best]] of [[Imperium|the best]]. At 70 points per model they look REALLY expensive, but they're probably the best infantry unit in the game, bar none. So they have the same stat line as normal custodes but with 3W and 3A. their special rules are the same as normal Custodes as well but they get ''counter attack''. They can all take a Praesidium shield, melta bombs, Arae-shrikes, and Teleporters, and any member of the squad can replace their spears with any melee weapon other than a Paragon Spear, but you can have Paragon '''blades''' for some nice AP2 at Initiative (probably [[Fail|another typo from FW]], just wait for a FAQ). One of the squad without a shielded may replace their guardian spear with the vexilla and either a MC power weapon or a sentinel warblade.
**So, super Custodes with '''S6 AP2 attacks at I5 (I6 if your opponent is WS:5 or below!), re-rollable 5++ and hit on a 5+ by most units in the game''' ? Yep. Unless your opponent has something capable of insta-killing them, the Hetaeron are a real step above your other Custodes, so do not dismiss them because of their high price. Depending on the loadout, a Hetaeron can be as deadly as an Aquilon and more than twice as durable in CC for just +20 points, while remaining more flexible. Mixing Paragon blades and Solarite gauntlets in a squad allows you to mince EVERYTHING you could fight against without being stuck at Initiative 1 and still getting some Instant Death attacks thanks to Murderous Strike. Find some psyker ally with Endurance or Invisibility and you are basically unkillable in assault. Too bad your only option for that are Knights Errant, and nobody will ever play with you ever again if you try.
**Again, remember you can reallocate some wounds on a 4+ thanks to Look Out, Sir!, so having 3W is a real advantage over your other Custodes. When one model is worth almost 100 points, that's definitely something you MUST NOT forget.
*'''Legio Custodes Aquilon Terminator Squad''': Custodes with Terminator Armor. How terrifying. Each of them is 75 points a model, and at with 5s on every stat save W2 A3 and Ld9, they're absolutely not slouches. Aquilon Terminator Armour affords 4++, Hammer of Wrath and Pseudo-relentless. In addition, they are able to fire Overwatch and sweeping advance, but cannot run. Say hello to Super Cataphractii armour. Each Aquilon Terminator has Crusader, a Lastrum Storm Bolter, a Solarite Gauntlet, and a Misericordia, and each can exchange the gauntlet for a Solarite Power Talon or exchange their guns for a TL Ardrathic Destructor or Infernus Firepike. Each can also buy a Teleport Transponder and Arae-Shrikes.
**While costly, they can do the job if you use them correctly. They are the Custodes' answer against vehicles and Astartes multi-wound special units, since they can one-shot Justaerin, Firedrakes and Gal Vorbak while giving no fucks about power fist/thunderhammer instakill (beware for shenanigans, like Rad Grenades, Rad Furnaces, Rad-Phage etc). Firepikes are also you best friends against hordes, something useful since tarpits are the bane of your Cutodes.
**Worth noting that the standard Solarite Power Gauntlet is NOT a specialist weapon. Whilst we do not have the profile for the Misericordia, it is safe to assume it is a CCW (check the Shield Captains profile in book 7! But RAW it is not, discuss that with your opponent before the game). If this is indeed the case, then the Aquilon terminators can throw out a surprising number of attacks. '''On the charge, that's 3 base, +1 for the charge, and +1 for multiple bashing weapons for a total of 5 attacks each'''. With Mastercrafted. At AP1. Therefore, given that the Talon is a specialist weapon, you will be sacrificing both strength and an extra attack for initiative in combat...an interesting thing to mull over, until a FAQ is finalised for this book.
*'''Legio Custodes Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought''': The fanciest, goldiest, and potentially deadliest non-boxiest dreadnought to ever be seen. It's got WS6 and BS5, an AV of 13/13/11, and hits at I5, meaning he'll more than match any marines on the field. He also has a Refractor Field instead of the basic Atomantic Reactor Contemptors use and comes stock with Extra Armor. For weapons, he starts with two Dread CCWs with Lastrum Storm Bolters, but he can buy the Dreadspear, a S10 AP2 MC weapon that '''turns ALL hits into S:Destroyer if he rolls a single 6 to hit''' AND has a Corvae Las-Pulser bolted on top. In addition, he can replace his Lastrum Storm Bolters with either TL Adrathic Destructors or Infernus Incinerators for a small fee.
**Do note the Dreadspear is not two-handed, and nothing is specified about the bonus attacks for every CCW after the first walkers get being included in the profile, so you may get [[Cheese|7 Destroyer attacks on the charge]] (4 base + 2 for three CCW + 1 for the charge). <sup>See page 91 of the BRB.</sup>
** Some players think Dreadspear's special rule is a typo, and that it works akin to Lightning Blows, Murderous Strike, etc - only 1 D hit per 1 6 on To Hit roll. RAW it is not, but, well, [[Forgeworld]]...
*'''Sisters of Silence Oblivion Knight Cadre''': The Elite among the Sisters of Silence, each comes with Ex Oblivio, Fanatic Discipline, and Precision Strikes. Each comes with Vratine Armor, cloaks that grant a 6++ Invuln or a 4++ against Templates and Blasts, Execution Blades, grenades, and Bolt Pistols. Everyone can replace their blades for Power Axes while the sergeant can buy a Neuro-Lash and replace her pistol with a Needle-Pistol, a Plasma Pistol, or a Hand Flamer.

===Troops===
*'''Custodian Guard Squad''': Think Terminators, but with all the 4s in their statline replaced with 5s (so yes, you can strike at Initiative 6 thanks to Preternatural Skill), with situational AP2 at initiative weapons, something that most Space marines (outside of Praetors or Emperor's Children) would never get. They can take the usual Arae-shrikes, Teleportation Transponders and Melta Bombs as upgrades for the whole squad, any Custodian can replace its Guardian spear by an Adrasite or Pyrithite spear and one can take a Magisterium vexilla with a master-craft power weapon or a Sentinel blade instead. They do pay for the high degrees of kickassitude they bring to the table, most notably with actual points and they are liable to get shot down before doing anything if you don't take a Coronus, though '''with 2 wounds each and a 2+ 5++''' they might pull though. With '''3 S6 AP2 attacks per Custodian on the charge''' and the buff from Crusader and a vexilla Magisterium, they have decent chances to win the first round of close combat with a good margin before AP3 becomes a problem, so make sure the situational nature of their AP2 isn't going to get them killed.
**Since Custodes pay no extra points for the base squad, it may be worth deploying a lot of small squads rather than big pseudo-deathstars if you expect a lot of 2+. AP3 and only 2 attacks by Custodian are trash if you get charged by TEQs with AP2, even if you outnumber them, so you REALLY don't want to see your 10-man squad rammed by 5 angry Tartaros with power fists. While they are more vulnerable to Moral tests if they take too many casualties, small units are also more adaptable : keep a couple of them close so you can charge with all your dudes when the opportunity presents itself without risking [[Rage|losing 550 points all at once]].
**Before bitching about your ultimate elite warriors being butchered by "mere" Terminators because of your shitty AP3, remember these guys are only ''basic Custodes'' and remain rather violent in close combat against anything else. Mathammer-wise, even a three-man squad of Custodians can withstand the charge of 20 World Eaters tactical Legionnaries with 2 CCW ''and win''. Anything with 2+ save and AP2 will quickly have the upper hand on your golden bananas if the fight turns into attrition warfare, but otherwise you may be able to murder MEQs or at least keep them locked until reinforcements arrive.

*'''Sentinel Guard Squad''': As Custodians armed with sword and board, they are somewhat less killy than their spear-wielding counterparts, but are more defensive thanks to their Praesidium shields. These are best used to guard your squishier Custodians, so they don't get wiped when they get charged by a squad with 2+ saves as your improved Invuls allow Sentinels to stick around long enough for rending to enter the equation. It's also worth noting that these guys can theoritecally deal with vehicles thanks to their rending swords, but don't expect too much from them. Anyway, you can replace your Sentinel blades with Solerite gauntlets and talons for more flexibility.
**While expensive, the Sentinels are the very definition of holding the line, as anything without S10 or Instant Death will take a lot of turns to kill them in CC. For sure, they lack AP2 against TEQs, but they can tank your opponent's most dangerous units, so they are good for preventing a deathstar from rampaging through your army.
**Worth noting that, unlike Custodian Guard, you do actually get a small discount if you run these guys in small numbers (180 for the basic unit of 3, with 65 per model, means you save points if you run small)

*'''Sisters of Silence Prosecutor Cadre''': Baseline WS4 BS4 I4 Sisters of Silence with bolters (or double bolt pistols) and grenades. They get Fanatic Discipline and can buy a Nuncio-Vox or Breaching Charge.

*'''Sisters of Silence Vigilator Cadre''': Slightly improved Sisters, they all get an Execution Blade and Pistol. They also have the ability mark a single Infantry unit or Character and they get Preferred Enemy on that one target.

===Dedicated Transports===
*'''Legio Custodes Coronus Grav-Carrier''': A 13/12/11 4HP fast skimmer with BS5 acts as the Dedicated Transport for Custodes forces. It's equipped with a TL Arachnus Blaze-cannon AND TL Lastrum bolt cannon, a Machine Spirit, and a Flare Shield, while also having Grav-Backwash (-2 to hit in close combat unless immobilized), DS, and Outflank. It can also buy Extra Armor, Armoured Ceramite, and a Searchlight. It's not an assault transport - it's an infantry supporting unit depositing gunboat in ways that a Razorback can only dream of. That thing is also bigger than ''a Spartan'', so Deep Strike with caution.
*'''Sisters of Silence Kharon Pattern Acquistor''': The DT of the Sisters, it's not Custodes-tier hax but it's got lots of weapons and is an ASSAULT VEHICLE. It's only 12/11/10 with BS4. It has a ton of guns however, with missile launchers and the Helion-Pattern Heavy Cannon Array, a super TL-autocannon with S7 AP4 Heavy 4 with Pinning. It also has an Auspex to give Night-Fighting and reduces enemy cover while also having Stealth and the ability to make anyone shooting beyond 12" shoot at -1 BS. The last trick it has is the Capture-Grid, a tank-shock attack that grants d6 S5 HoW attacks before any Death of Glory is counted. Stick any type of sisters with execution blades in it, with a character (even a custodes one, they're the same list), infiltrate the Kharon Acquisitor, charge in, and rip and tear.

===Fast Attack===
*'''Legio Custodes Pallas Grav-Attack''': A light tank with 12/11/11, but it has a TL Arachnus Blaze Cannon to attack and a Flare Shield and the Grav-Backwash of the Coronus to defend it. It also gets a Machine Spirit, Outflank, and DS, making it best suited to attack from an unexpected angle rather than be an assault weapon.

*'''Sisters of Silence Pursuer Cadre''': They're Sisters...with pets. For each sister you buy, you also have to buy a Cyber-Jackal, a powerful beast that's actually slightly stronger and tougher than the sisters and equipped with Rage, FNP, a 5+ save and the option to shoot flamers or meltas at BS2 (pick the flamer), or Razortalon Wings, birds that get more attacks at higher Initiative, but can only fight in melee. The birds are a bit cheaper, but the dogs have more utility and punch. The sisters meanwhile benefit from Fleet and Move Through Cover as well as Fanatic Discipline, though the sergeant has a small list of pistols or Charnabal/Power Weapons to use if she's unhappy with the CCW/Bolt Pistol combo.

*'''Legio Custodes Agmatus Jetbike Squadron''': RIDE THE LIGHTNING ! Custodians on super golden banana jetbikes wielding FUCKHUEG knight-style power lances. It sounds so goddamn metal, it looks goddamn metal, it fights goddamn metal. The Gyrfalcon-pattern jetbike is a jetbike that boosts the rider's Toughness by 1, [[Awesome|making you as tough as a Primarch]] so you can laugh at S10-induced instant death and allows you to re-roll failed charge distances. Your glorious steed of gold and fury comes with cool-looking leather boots and gauntlets (we're not making this up), <strike>an Iliastus</strike> (Alan Bligh confirmed it was a typo) a Lastrum Bolt Cannon and benefit from the slew of Custodes rules in addition to Split Fire and ''Sweeping Fire'', which lets them shoot with each weapon once per shooting phase. If you're not happy with the bolt cannon, the whole squadron can be 'upgraded' with Adrathic Devastators (+5 points) or twin-linked Corvae Las-pulsers (+25 points) as well as getting melta-bombs.
**Move on Boltodes, those guys can do your job better. For just 10 points above the Sagittarum guard, you have a unit that can actually move 12ps, shoot three 36" S6 AP3 and deliver three (four if you assume Misericordia to be CCW) S6 AP3 attacks on the charge, so anything without a 2+ or decent invulnerable save is fucked. If you must deal with something harder, Corvae las-pulsers can ruin the day of any vehicle, TEQ or MC but the price of your squadron is increasing quickly, so just take the Adrathic Devastators if you're not afraid of short range fights. Two S6 Armourbane shots are mathematically better than 1D3 S9 ones and you get Instant Death as a bonus for far cheaper, meaning [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Mechanicum: Taghmata (30k)|T5 or more characters, multi-wound units and Monstruous Creatures]] will shit in their pants too.
** As a smart fa/tg/uy or ca/tg/irl you probably noticed that wording about "upgrading" weapon is unclear, but models '''clearly''' replace it, and Golden Dudes are armed with simple Power Lances, not Custodes Spears. One can safely assume FW initially thought to give riders the latter option and wanted to enable them to shoot both with Spear and Jetbike-mounted weapon with Sweeping Fire, but as it is - enjoy 1 bonus Grenade thrown per shooting phase. If your opponent insists on Jetbikes having 2 weapons even after being shown the actual model, he is a particular bad case of [[rules lawyer]] bordering [[that guy]]. Other rules-lawyers consider that the rule is a broad term that enables the squad to throw a full load of their grenades - plasma, krak, then bolt whatever is left (spoiler: it does not, read the BRB about how to use Grenades then realize Sweeping Fire doesn't let Custodes mitigate "only one grenade per unit per phase").
**Do note that the Agamatus are the only Custodes unit without Crusader, and are just jetbikes, not eldar jetbikes, so no free 2D6-not-thrust-moves, and it really sucks since you NEED to win the first round of close-combat after you charge if you don't want to be locked forever with your downgraded derp-lances. Don't be greedy and keep your precious heavy weapons away from tarpits.

===Heavy Support===
*'''Sisters of Silence Seeker Cadre''': Sisters with Flamers. Nothing more you need to know besides the ability to grab grenades and the basic Anathema, Fanatic Discipline, and Cadre rules. The squad can take Grenade Launchers with Frag, Krak, and Psyk-Out grenades. This is your answer to Magnus and his D.
**Use them as a Militia Grenadier Squad with optional anti Psyker options. They don't get Gas or Firebust like the other guys. However a ten member squad of can put out a load of hurt in with ten S6 AP4 attacks at 24". Not quite as good as the Caladius or the Telemon but they can threaten light vehicles such as Rhinos and out range squads with Volkite Chargers. However keep in mind that unlike Grenadiers they won't last as long in a shooting match.
*'''Legio Custodes Sagittarum Guard Squad''': For 65 points per model, you got Custodes with Adrastus Bolt Calivers and refractors. Thanks to their caliver, they're more than able to cover either front. There's not much more to describe on the equipment front, being able to grab Arae-Shrikes, meltabombs, and transponders as well as one guy grabbing the Vexilla. For sure they are as tough as any Custodes and can withstand more damage than almost any shooty unit in the entire HH setting, but are quite difficult to use if you want them to earn their points back. They can be useful in low point games. But you are better off taking the Dreadnoughts or Grav-Tank instead.
**Using the bolt profile makes your golden Boltodes derp-tough overcosted Devastators, and basically nothing more. Unless you're fielding a big squad of Sagittarum, a 30" heavy bolter means you are sacrificing mobility for only a few damage against anything with an armour save of 3+ or better. As a comparison, a 8-man strong Astartes Support Squad costing the same price can deal almost thrice the amount of dakka.
**So, what about the Adrathic destructor? AP2, Amourbane and Instant Death are pretty terrifying, but you only get '''one''' shot per shooting phase, so anything with a good invulnerable save and/or some meatshields will probably survive your volley of murder beams. And since the unit you are shooting at is within charge range and will wreck/tarpit your Boltodes in assault because [[Derp|you have only 2 attacks and not even a power weapon]] (The Misericordia might be a power sword equivalent[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericorde_(weapon)] but until a FAQ is released we can't assume anything about it), you need to be lucky. Concretely, that means you must target something you're almost sure to kill in one turn, so avoid characters with Eternal Warriors and Cataphractii squads. Deep-striking behind vehicles is the best way to use your golden boys, so plan to take melta bombs if you fail at blasting this angry Contemptor before it charges you.
*'''Contemptor-Galatus Dreadnought''': Another giant golden mecha for the Emperor's Firstborn. Compared to the Achilius, this one gets a fuckhuge warblade with AP2, Shred and Rampage, with a Twin-Linked Infernus Destructor built in to it. The Galatus also sports a Praesidium Shield, allowing it to re-roll invul saves taken from the front at range (and all in CC) and makes any hit rolls from any non-Gargantuans drop by 1. It also grabs Counter Attack, which lets it use that sword to its fullest. Put this in the front to take a few hits and let the other bananas smack whatever targets the big guy.
**Whilst this sexy beast occupies the sacred support slot for your Golden Bananas, and doesn't have any long-distance ranged weapons, this guy is an absolute BEAST in close combat. Even if we gloss over the Twin-linked S6 AP4 Flamer in it's sword (!), it's going to be doing some damage. On the charge, after a S8 Hammer of Wrath; you can expect 4 base attacks, +1 for charging or counterattack, and +d3 on the charge for for Rampage. '''That's between 5 and 8 attacks resolved at I5, at S10 AP2, rerolling failed to-wound rolls.''' The really nice thing is that in the event YOU are charged, you're still probably going to benefit from Wall of Death, Rampage, and (thanks to Counter Attack) +1 to your base. And if you don't sweep assault? They'll likely be hitting you on 5's in CC thanks to that shield of yours, which is also affording your AV13 a rerollable 5++. Again, it's competing with the Caladius, and the Achilius is arguably better overall, but don't discount this fella. Used correctly, he will put in some work, and is one of the few things that can take a charge of Primarch-train and hope to survive.
*'''Caladius Grav-Tank''': Take a [[Sicaran Battle Tank]], and stick it on a [[Land Speeder]]. Then give it to the most elite dudes in the Imperium and you have the Caladius. It's a fast skimmer (so you can Jink) with BS5, 13|13|11 3 HP and a flare shield, so keep it front toward your enemy and enjoy [[Awesome|your grav-Land Raider with a 4+ cover save]]. It comes with '''Outflank''', a '''Machine spirit''' (so you can Jink AND fire one of your weapons at full BS, pretty cool since the guns of your gilded podracer are nasty) and '''Grav Backwash''' (your enemy doesn't want to charge as much and suffers a -2 to Hit penalty in close combat as long as the Caladius is not Immobilised). The Caladius comes with two weapons : the turret-mounted '''Iliastus accelerator cannon''' and the hull-mounted '''Lastrum bolt cannon'''. The former is a twin-linked '''60" S7 AP2 Heavy 3''' gun with ''Rending'' and ''Rapid Tracking'' (no Jink for your enemy), while the latter is twin-linked '''36" S6 AP3 Heavy 3'''. Great, but here is the cherry on the top of the golden banana cake. Both weapons have a brand new fearsome rule : '''Heliothermic Detonation'''. If your target has suffered one or more unsaved wounds, they have must '''pass a Toughness test or suffer Instant Death''', and '''Penetrating hits adds +1 to the Vehicle Damage table'''. You get this package for just 195 points, or the same as an off the shelf Land Raider Proteus, a bargain for your golden banana warriors.
**Given some similarities with the Sicaran's accelerator autocannon, it is worth making some comparisons. Against metal bawkses, the Sicaran remains better for pure saturation and wiping out HP since it throws twice the amount of dakka the Caladius does, especially against Flyers, the Caladius' BS5 being useless in this case. HOWEVER, any Penetrating hit you may score with the Iliastus will have a 33% chance to blow your enemy up, something the autocannon can't even do. Anyway, the Sicaran looks like a jealous little bitch when coming to anti-infantry capabilities as the Caladius can tear apart MEQs and even TEQs or Monstruous Creatures better than most tanks. Well, for the same price the Sicaran can have 4 heavy bolters and will do a better job against 4+ saves and Cataphractii ([[Tyranids|by pure saturation power]]), but the golden floater remains more polyvalent overall. This Heliothermic Detonation shit means that Characters, multi-Wounds units and MC will sweat a little if they get wounded, [[Be'lakor|unless]] [[Nathaniel Garro|they]] [[Salamanders|are]] [[Sigismund|Eternal]] [[Primarchs|Warriors]].
**In book 7, we now have the option to replace the turret-mounted twin-linked Iliastus accelerator with a Twin-Linked Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannon, for 15pts. Whilst you do lose out on AP2 and Rapid Tracking, you are gaining a Heavy 4 weapon with +1S and AP3. The real icing on this weapons cake, however, is the alternate firing mode. S10 AP1, with the Exoshock special rule from the Deredeo. With BS5 and TL, one would hope that round punches through some armour! Mathammer-wise, the concentrated mode is more efficient against Armour Value from 12 to 15, while the burst mode will wip out more HP than both the Iliastus and the concentrated blast until facing AV14 but remember you have no chance to get the Explosion! result on the chart. The Arachnus is better at tank-hunting and MEQ-killing, but if you expect a lot of skimmers, flyers, jetbikes or TEQs to show up, the Iliastus remains a more versatile (and cheaper) choice.
**All in all, the Caladius is maybe the most versatile tank in 30k for its price, both durable, fast, manoeuvrable and killy. With a main weapon firing from 48" up to 72", a 4+ cover save and a Frontal Armour of 14, it can stay away from your adversary's biggest guns while destroying light vehicles and infantry from afar and survive medium-range fire from the front when you cannot retreat. Just remember it has only a '''Rear Armour of 11''' so any deep-striking/outflanking unit with a bit of anti-armour stuff will wreck it.
*'''Telemon heavy Dreadnought''': The biggest, shiniest Dreadnought variant that ever existed and the Legio Custodes equivalent of the Leviathan. It comes with an Armour value of 13|13|12, 4HP, WS6, BS5, I5, 4 Attacks, exta armour, armoured ceramite and a 4+ invulnerable save increasing to 3+ against weapons with the Blast special rule or that use a template of any kind. Pretty good, but the giant golden Kinder has another surprise for you... The ''Unyielding Sentinel'' rule lets you roll 2 dice on the Vehicle Damage table after you suffered a Penetrating Hit, the highest being discarded. Now the time has come to punch things, the Telemon has some good tools for the job. Its basic weapons are a pair of '''Telemon Caestus''', Dreadnought close-combat weapons with ''Shred'' and ''Murderous Strike'', perfect for tearing Monstruous Creatures. Each Caestus comes with an in-built '''Proteus plasma projector''', an Assault 1 S5 AP2 Template weapon. It Gets Hot like other plasma weapons, but who cares ? AP2 flamers will make Terminators cry, especially if you're playing Zone Mortalis. You also get 1d6 Hammer of Wrath attacks instead of one when charging. If you don't want to dirty your shiny armour in close-combat, no problem, the Emprah has given you some nasty guns to do the job from afar. The '''Spiculus bolt launcher''' is a 48" S5 AP4 Heavy 5 weapon with ''Rending'' which can '''fire twice if you stay immobile during the Movement phase'''. But the real star in the long-range combat department is the '''Arachnus storm cannon''', an [[Awesome|oversized laser gatling gun]] which can shoot with two profiles : 48" S7 AP 3 Heavy 7 or 72" S9 AP1 Heavy 2 with the ''Exo-Shock'' special rule. Not quite as good as the Arachnus heavy blaze cannon if you want to insta-kill MEQs or squads of T5 models, but slightly better against light vehicles, hordes and MC. You can replace one or both Caestus and Proteus projectors with this beauty for +30 points each.
**The Telemon is by far the most versatile ranged unit in the Talons of the Emperor army list. The Arachnus storm cannon makes him a threat against vehicles and infantry alike and the Spiculus launcher can add a lot of saturation fire, all this at 48" range. If you stay immobile, your Dreadnought can unleash [[Dakka|14 S7 AP3 and 10 S5 AP4 shots each turn]], making it a good counter-measure against the usual Nemesis of a Custodes army : hordes and flyers. It does not match the Leviathan anti-armour capabilities in close-combat but can engage a wider variety of targets while staying away from the melee.
**Like the Achillus Dreadnought, nothing is specified about the bonus attacks for every CCW after the first walkers get being included in the profile, so you technically don't lose any attack when taking an Arachnus storm cannon.
**Take note that '''the Telemon is a Character''', so he can call and accept challenges, be your Warlord, etc.

===Lord of War===
*'''Warlord-Sinister Pattern Battle Psi-Titan''': '''HO-LYYY FUCK. PSYCHIC WARLORD TITAN.''' [[Grimdark|Fueled by the powers of captured psykers, who are bled dry to power the Titan]], it's a good thing this monster is worth 3250 points. Starting off with the standard kit of a [[Warlord Battle Titan]], the Warlord-Sinister adds the Psychic Pilot rule (Mastery Level 3), knowing three set powers: a 24" d6 bolter-shot nova with Soul Blaze and Ignores Cover, a blessing which [[Cheese|restores any lost hull point on a 5+]], and a witchfire which hits all units within 24" of a point with a Haywire hit (for vehicles-EVEN FLYERS) or d6 Heavy Bolter shots (PER 5 MODELS) if it's infantry. The Psi-Titan makes all enemy units within 12" take leadership checks automatically, and any unit that wishes to charge the monstrosity (why you would do that is beyond us) must take a leadership check at -3 Ld. Its weapons are standard fare for the Warlord, except that you always carry the '''Sinistramanus Tenebrae''' , aka the gun that will ruin your day, on one arm. Fluff-wise it's an up-scaled Animus Speculum, crunch-wise it's an apocalyptic mega-blast that's Strength D/Fleshbane/Poison 4+, and AP 1/2/3 for its respective ranges. Oh, and that inner circle? Yeah, it's a Vortex, just in case anything in the blast radius thought it would survive that shot. And if you finally manage to put the Titan(ic amount of [[Grimdark]]) down, it will explode on you, which on a 4+ becomes a '''[[Rape|36 INCH DESTROYER BLAST]]'''. Honestly, even when the Emperor's rules get released, this bastard will probably be the more OP Lord of War choice.

*'''Orion Assault Dropship''': A 7 hull point, 13-12-11, 600ish point super-heavy flyer and a Lord of War for Talons of the Emperor. It's also a transport with a capacity of 24 models. (Yes, Custodians do count as two.) This golden nugget is capable of transporting a Dreadnought, (which counts as 10 models.) Along with being a super-heavy flyer, and transport, the Orion is armed with two Arachnus Heavy Blaze cannons, Two nose mounted tl Lastrum Bolt Cannons, two Spiculus Heavy Bolt Launchers (48", 7, 4, H3, Rending,) armored ceramite and cockpit as standard and the new Eclipse Shield and Macro Arae-Shrike. The Eclipse Shield provides the Orion with a -2 to blast and template weapon strength, and a -1 to all other weapon strength. If a shooting weapon inflicts a glancing or penetrating hit, the Orion immediately gains Shrouded against all subsequent hits against its front Arc during rhis phase. However, this has no effect on melee attacks or weapons of the Destroyer type (not a big deal as long as you're not Hovering since most of D weapons are usually blasts). Macro Arae-shrikes on the other hand, act as normal Arae-shrikes, with the addition of ''interception interference.'' When enemy units declare their interception, the intercepting player must roll a D6 for each unit attempting to intercept. If a unit rolls 3 or less, it's unable to intercept but may fire as normal in its next shooting phase. Furthermore, because He and the terrawatt clan love us so, the Orion has the Deep Strike and Assault Vehicle special rule.
**As long as you keep the ennemy in front of it, the Orion is arguably more resistant (and cheaper) than a similarly geared Thunderhawk. Its firepower may seem somewhat limited for what you're paying and it clearly won't earn its points back by killing TEQ or hordes. Two S10 AP1 exo-shock shots and 3 rending autocannons are still quite good for tank-hunting and make the Orion a monster against other flyers, but you could have more big guns for the same price. Unless you really need a very reliable transport or flyer-killer, there are other units that can do the job better.

*<s>God-</s>[[Emperor of Mankind]]: '''COMING SOON!''' No actual rules yet, but a note in the Legio Custodes Tribune rules suggests he will be a future potential HQ choice for the army, similar to the Primarchs and their legions.

==Allies==

There isn't a word about Talons of the Emperor being Agents of the Emperor in Prospero. RAW you can't take them as allies or take allies with them. Definetely an editor's mistake (much like the missing Misericordia), but you can only homerule it.

[[Category: Adeptus Custodes]]
[[Category:Warhammer Tactics/30k]]

Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (30k)

2017-10-15T05:56:11Z

2601:147:4200:6280:45EE:32FD:F695:C26D: /* Heavy Support */

So we've had rules for [[First Founding|the Legions]], the [[Primarch]]s, and the [[Mechanicus|Mechanicum]]. It was only a matter of time until the [[Custodian Guard|Emprah's BFFs]] and the [[Sisters of Silence|premium in anti-psyker units]] got rules, and here they are. [[Fail|RAW you can't them take as allies]], though. Do note that these rules for the Talons of the Emperor are only for the Horus Heresy (30k) game, if you're interested in the 40k tactics, you can find the [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Sisters of Silence|Sisters of Silence tactics here,]] [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Adeptus Custodes (7E)|and the Adeptus Custodes tactics here.]]

==Why play Talons of the Emperor==
There are a number of reasons for playing this army.
*Because you like gold
*Because you like Eagles
*Because you like Eagles made out of gold
*Because the Emperor was right all along
*Because [[Erebus]] can fuck a cactus
*Because you want to take [[Emperor's Children|Phoenix Terminators]] with a half-Primarch statline as troops
*Because you hate Psykers harder than [[Space Wolves|any furry]] can ever hope to imagine
*Because one day you will be able to take the EMPRAH as a LoW

==Special Rules==
===Custodes===
*'''Preternatural Skill''': If the majority of enemy models have equal or less Weapon Skill compared to yours when fighting in assault, you get +1I. ''(Though consider Thousand Sons' Khenetai Cabal being the only squad with potential WS6, and things that drop your WS)'' you might as well assume you're always I6 with most of your troops, unless you're facing a lone HQ model.''
*'''The Sodality''': A Custodian's unit coherency range is 3" and they always use their usual LD for regrouping. ''Representing how the Banana Custards fight as individuals rather than a squad in the lore. Use the 3" to better control the battlefield and reduce the effectiveness of Blast weapons (since a 3" blast will only touch more than one Custodes when perfectly centered between two of them, at maximum coherency).''
*'''Inviolable Psyche''': Forgeworld dancing around ATSKNF again, you are immune to Fear and Pinning and ignore all penalties when taking Morale Checks, meaning it's Stubborn 2.0, and re-roll Deny the Witch rolls. ''However, it does mean you CAN break as a result of bad combat, and you CAN be utterly wiped out. Not that that would happen often, but still.''
*'''Bulky''': Not a rule specific to the Custodes, but they all have it.
*'''Character''': Always remember that ALL Custodes are Characters. That means they can issue and accept challenges, but also benefit from Look Out, Sir. ''With some lucky rolls and a good positioning, this can really help your guys survive hails of plasma fire and assaults, especially if you have a lot of Solarite gauntlets.''
*'''Crusader''': Like Bulky, almost all Custodes have it. ''Quite powerful since your Custodians usually have better Initiative than most 30k units.''

===Sisters of Silence===
*'''Psychic Anathema''': The core defining feature of the Sisters of Silence, this is how they fuck up psykers all twenty ways from Sunday. They're immune to any psychic powers targeting them and ignores any Telepathy Blessings that would negatively affect them, because fuck invisibility cheese (you can still be raped by Biomancy user, for example, so pick your targets). Anyone within 12" takes -1 Ld (-2 if they're psykers, though anyone with Fearless is immune) while allies can re-roll Deny tests, but any Daemons in range take -1 to Toughness while Daemon vehicles take +1 to Pen. Anyone within that range that tries to use a power now needs to roll 1 higher to successfully manifest, raised to 2 higher if they're in B2B (So if they're against Magnus, he has to roll 4+ to use a power when in range, while needing 5+ when in combat).
*'''Ex Oblivio''': Another deadly null power for the Sisters, but only for the most brutal of them. Anyone within 6" can't generate WC dice, and if they want to use a power, they have to test Ld or suffer Perils at a -1 penalty, minimum 1. ''This means they can't roll a 6 for warp surge and are twice as likely to roll a one''.
*'''Fanatical Discipline''': Sisters are Fearless and Hate Psykers. Blah.
*'''Company-Cadres''': The organization of the Sisters. For every three non-HQs they bring, they need an HQ choice. If they have an HQ choice, every Sister model in the detachment gains Infiltrate, Crusader, Stealth, or +1 to Combat Resolution.

==Special Equipment==
===Ranged Weapons===
*'''Adrathic Weapons''': Yet another super special Terran-only weapon, these are proper disintegrators. As a rule, they will make Mechanicum players cry, also they are all AP2 with Instant Death, Armorbane, and Gets Hot.
**'''Adrathic Destructor''': 12" S5 AP2 Assault 1: By far the most 'common', available in some form or another on most infantry models.
**'''Adrathic Devastator''': 18" S6 AP2 Heavy 2: Dickbike and Pallas upgrade.
**'''Adrathic Exterminator''': 36" S6 AP2 Heavy 1, 3" Blast: Not yet used on any model, but it's only a matter of time. Rumoured to be one of the weapons on the upcoming Custodes 'Heavy Dreadnaught'
*'''Adrastus Bolt Caliver''': 30" Heavy 3 Heavy Bolter with a Disintegration Beam (Adrathic destructor possibly with beam special rule--need FAQ!) welded onto it. Distinctly stated as being two functional weapons with unlimited uses, but only one can be used a turn.
*'''Lastrum Bolt Weapons''': The Caladus' fixed mounts have turned into the Custodes' most prevalent vehicle mount. All weapons have '''Heliothermic Detonation''', so anybody that takes an unsaved wound has to make a Toughness roll or get '''Instant Death''' (or +1 to penetration damage table if a vehicle).
**'''Lastrum Storm Bolter''': 24" S5 AP4; only used by Aquilon Terminators and the Contemptor-Achillus.
**'''Lastrum Bolt Cannon''': 36" S6 AP3 Heavy 3; used on the Caladus, Coronus, and (assuming a typo) the Dickbikes.
**'''Iliastus Accelerator Cannon''': 60" S7 AP2 Heavy 3, Rending, Rapid Tracking (ignores Jink saves).
*'''Infernus Weapons''': The Custodes super flamers. Only two versions, and they're both Heavy 1, but who gives a shit when they're S6!
**'''Infernus Firepike''': S6 AP6 Heavy 1, Torrent; only used by Aquilon Terminators.
**'''Infernus Incinerator''': S6 AP4 Heavy 1; used on the Contemptors, either as a replacement for the Storm Bolters or in the Galatus Warblade.
*'''Proteus Las-Lance''': 24" S7 AP2 Heavy 2, Lance; like the Adrathic Exterminator, it is not yet used on any model, come again later.
*'''Corve Las-Pulsar''': 36" S9 AP2 Heavy D3: Upgrade for the Agamatus jetbikes and found as part of the Contemptor-Achillus's Dreadspear, and most of the reason for it's 40 point upgrade cost.
*'''Arachnus Blaze Weapons''': Bastard offspring of Multi-lasers and Lascannons, they have two firing modes. One is Burst for infantry shredding, the other is Concentrated for Vehicle killing with AP1 and '''Exoshock''', which gives you an automatic '''second''' Penetrating hit which ignores cover saves on a 4+ after you score one (so you roll to hit, roll to penetrate, enemy rolls invulnerable/cover, and only then...)
**'''Arachnus Blaze Cannon''': S6 AP5 Heavy Bolter, '''or''' 48" S8AP1 Heavy 1, Exoshock: In all honesty, the Burst mode is rather shitty, but Concentrated is essentially a Lascannon with nasty special rules.
**'''Arachnus Storm Cannon''': 48" S7 AP3 Heavy 7, '''or''' 72" S9 AP1 Heavy 2, Exoshock: the Telemon's big gatling gun and perhaps the most versatile of the Arachnus weapons.
**'''Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannon''': 48" S8 AP3 Heavy 4, '''or''' 72" S10 AP1 Heavy 1, Exoshock: Optional turret replacement for the Caladus, enjoy IDing MEQs.
*'''Psyk-Out Weaponry''': Available as grenades with 8" range, in grenade launchers with 24", or in missiles with 48", each of them has Strength 2, Blast 3 and Psi-Shock, which forces Psykers to suffer perils.
*'''Stake Crossbow''': A 24" S5 AP- crossbow with Rapid Fire and Psi-shock
*'''Needle Weapons''': S2 AP5 weapons with Rending and Poisoned 4+.
**'''Needle Pistol''': 12" Pistol.
**'''Assault Needler''': 18" Assault 2.
*'''Snare Gun''': A 12" Assault 1 Pinning weapon. If it hits, it inflicts d3 hits, each of them requiring a Strength test to resist taking an unsavable wound (though Invulns work). Just don't expect Superheavies to listen to this. Hurray, the Rogue Trader Webber has finally made a return!

===Melee Weapons===
*'''Custodes Spears''': Made of two parts, the power blade is AP2 +1S on the charge, and reverts to a specialist power sword afterwards. Every time you roll a 6 to hit with it, you get another attack, but those extra attacks can't generate any more. The second part depends on the spear.
**'''Adrasite Spear''': It has an Adrathic Destructor, which was 12" S5 AP2 Assault 1, Instant Death, Armorbane, and Gets Hot. Short range and nasty.
**'''Guardian Spear''': Attached with a 18" S4 AP4 Assault 2 bolt weapon. Pretty good on anything short of an MEQ, but not great.
**'''Pyrithite Spear''': Attached with a 6" S8 AP1 Melta, essentially an inferno pistol. Okay for busting light vehicles or TEQs, but 3" melta range can hurt, but it's not like you weren't planning on charging at that range anyways.
**'''Paragon Spear''': AP2 '''+2S''' on the charge (reverts to AP2 +1S when not charging, like a Paragon Blade), rather than +1, and 6s to wound always inflict Instant Death, but 6s to hit get another attack, as it is a spear. The attachment is an 18" S5 AP3 Assault 2 bolter.
*'''Misericordia''': [[Fail|No entry in the book]], thank you FW. Fluff-wise it is the long dagger the Custodes carry as the sign of their right of life and death in the Emperor's name, so we can assume it to be a close-combat weapon of some sort since all Custodes without an actual CCW have one instead. Maybe it has some special rules, maybe not. Just wait for the FAQ.
*'''Paragon Blade''': Specialist +1S AP2 that inflicts Instant Death on a wound roll of 6, but you want a Paragon Spear more.
*'''Plasma Grenades''': Rare enough to mention here, they are assault grenades that can be thrown as S4 AP4 instead of S3 AP-.
*'''Sentinel Warblade''': A Specialist Power Sword with Rending. In addition, it's got an inbuilt 12" Storm Bolter that snap fires at BS2. As it exists now, it's almost entirely inferior to the Guardian Spear except when snap shooting (including overwatch), unless you're planning on using Rending to even out long assaults with high toughness models, or you need to crack open AV11+ and you can't get enough Custodes stuck in to use their Krak Grenades (a lucky rend with this sword can glance a Land Raider, though [[MathHammer]] doesn't favor your odds). But, the Sentinel Warblade does work better with the Praesidium Shield, so taking models with this is a legitimate trade of punching power for defense.
*'''Solarite power gauntlet''': AP1 mastercrafted power fist, same as Imperial Fists. However, you are Custodes, so your punches are now railguns.
*'''Solarite power talon''': +1S, master crafted lightning claw.
====Sisters of Silence Melee Weapons====
*'''Proteus Neuro-Lash:''' Flails and sectioned staves known for causing agonizing pain. Each is a two-handed melee weapon with S+1 but AP-. What they also get is the ability to hit anyone within 3" as opposed to just hitting one unit. In addition, for every hit they make, they roll a d6, with a 3+ meaning they can deliver an additional attack with Poisoned 4+ at AP-. These aren't gonna kill a marine any time soon, but Daemons will rue fucking with these ladies.
*'''Execution Blade''': Essentially Charnabal Sabres with more fancy. They're Two-Handed S+1 AP3 weapons with Duelist's Edge (+1 Initiative in a challenge) and Flawless Cut (a 5+ to hit counts as AP2)

===Equipment===
*'''Arae-shrikes''': Enemy units deep striking within 12" of a model with this wargear suffer perils on a 4+, including models that ignore the effects of mishap. In addition, barrage weapons targeting models with this wargear add 1D6 to their scatter and pick the 2 highest results, although a hit still remains a hit.
*'''Aquilon pattern Terminator Armour''' is super Cataphractii armour with Hammer of Wrath and pseudo-relentless. They can't Run, but they can make Sweeping Advances and fire Overwatch.
*'''Custodian Armour''': Artificer Armour and ''Move Through Cover'' rolled into one pimping banana suit. ''Makes footslogging and charging across difficult terrain a bit more reliable and basically means your Agamatus jetbikers can move everywhere confidently.''
*'''Praesidium Shield''': Lets you reroll invulns and your opponents suffer -1 to Hit on every attack targeting the wielder in close combat. A Praesidium Shield precludes two-handed weapons, the +1A for 2 CCW, and the bonus for charging with a spear (this includes the Paragon Spear).
*'''Magisterium Vexilla''': A unit with this wargear can reroll failed leadership checks and gains the ''Fear'' special rule. In addition, all units within 12" add 1 to combat resolution at the end of the phase. ''TAKE IT. The vexilla compensates for the lack of Fearless and may give you the edge when charging with Guardian spears. Fear may be especially useful if you're fielding Sisters of Silence alongside your Custodes.''
*'''Teleportation Transponder''': Already known to Imperial Fists and Night Lords, this model's entire unit can deep strike.
====Sisters of Silence Equipment====
*'''Vratine Armour''': The armor of the Sisters of Silence and symbol of their oath to kill witches...otherwise known as Power Armor.

==Unit Analysis==
===HQ===
*'''Legio Custodes Shield Captain''': A <s>holy</s> [[Imperial Truth|honest]] rape machine, fit to take on a [[Chaos Lord]], a [[Chapter Master]] and a [[Warboss]] simultaneously and come out on top. His statline comes with all the best bits of a Chapter Master and a Custodes and gear better than both, he can take the all powerful Paragon Spear, and combine it with a Praesidium shield, Digital lasers, Iron Halo and a Cyber-Familiar for [[Cheese|6 S6 AP2 attacks which generate additional attacks on 6s to hit and Instant Death on 6s to wound at I6 and a rerollable 3++ in close combat with -1 to Hit malus for your adversary if they specifically target your golden dude]]. Or you can drop the Paragon Spear and go for a Solarite gauntlet for [[Rape|6 S10 AP1 master-crafted I1 attacks]] (don't forget the Praesidium shield means you don't get a bonus attack for 2 CCWs, even though the Solarite gauntlet isn't a specialist weapon and the shield captain comes with a basic ccw). And everything in between, the rape train has no brakes.
**'''Tribune''': Ooooh FW, what have you done... Here is Mr. Cheestodes, the deadliest, most broken, stupidly OP as fuck generic character in the ENTIRE GAME. No really, this guy is the very definition of mindless rape, Slaanesh him/herself is fucking ashamed. Same as above except you get ''Eternal Warrior'' and ''Fearless'', y'know, in case you wanted to add an [[Archon]] and an [[Necron Overlord|Overlord]] to the stuff you can take on at once. At a price of [[Rage|25 more points]]. However, you can only take him in a <u>detachment</u> of 2000 points or more, so you're not likely going to see him in an allied force. unless you are playing HUGE games. Also, if he's in the Primary detachment he has to be the warlord ''(unless Valdor, Krole, or [[What|Emps]] are present)'', but he is able to choose his warlord trait. Needless to say, some warlord traits can be really, really good for your guys. Strategic Genius can be useful since almost all your Custodes have access to deep strike, and Master of Ambush is priceless when your cheapest transport is 135 points for a capability of only 6.
*'''Sisters of Silence Oblivion Knight-Centura''': Surprisingly has mostly ordinary human stats with WS5 BS4 I5 and Ld9, she's essentially the budget HQ at 75. She's not barebones however, as she grabs Artificer Armor with a 4+ Invuln that ups to 3+ against Blasts and Templates. She has a bolt pistol, Execution Blade, and Frag, Krak, and Psyk-out grenades, while she has the Cadre rules, Ex Oblivio, and Precision Strikes. Her melee weapon can be exchanged for a power axe (don't), a Neuro-Lash (not for Marines), or a Paragon Blade (if you just want to maul 2+ saves with a chance at ID), while her pistol can be exchanged for a hand-flamer, a plasma pistol, a needle pistol, or an archaeotech pistol - and for 10 points, any of these weapons can be Master Crafted.
*'''Sisters of Silence Excruciatus Cadre''': Something akin to a command squad, this is a squad of WS4 BS4 I4 Ld9 ladies with tools, with the Silent Judge having 2 wounds. They all hate Daemons and Psykers, get Fanatic Discipline, Night Vision, the Cadre rules (forcing them to be the mandatory HQ if the detachment is less than 500 pts, meaning they eat up at least 1/5 of the budget by themselves), and the ability to make their melee attacks ID. The Questorae only get CCWs, Bolt Pistols, Assault Needlers, and grenades alongside their armor and ''Spectra-vestments'' which force anyone to take -1 BS to hit them, while the Silent Judge adds a refractor, a Needle Pistol, a Nuncio-Vox, and a power weapon. A Questora can buy the Ardrathic Destructor, while any of them can exchange their guns for Needle Pistols or Stake Crossbows for free or buy a Snare Gun or a Flamer with a one-use boost to make them S6, and each can replace their CCW for a Charnabal Sabre or a power weapon. The Judge can swap her melee weapon for a Neuro-Lash, the Execution Blade, or a fist, while her gun can be exchanged for a Stake-Crossbow, hand flamer, plasma pistol, or a second needle pistol.

===Special Characters===
*'''Constantin Valdor''': The Captain-General of the Legio Custodes and [[Malcador|second]] best bro of the [[Emperor]] takes to the field. With his near-primarch statline he is a CC beast, with 5s across the board plus WS7, I6, Ld10, and 2+ save. He also has the ever rare Eternal Warrior, as well as Crusader, Fearless, and Counter-Attack. In terms of wargear he has the '''Apollonian Spear''', a +1s (+2 on the charge) AP2 guardian spear, with the GODLY ''Molecular Severance'' rule: any to-wound rolls of 4+ cause instant death or an automatic penetrating hit regardless of AV or T. In addition, [[Sigismund|successful invulnerable saves against wounds caused by this weapon]] must be rerolled! Oh, and it comes with an attached 18" S5 AP2 Assault 2 ''Concussive'' bolter on top! He also has lots of other gear: An Iron Halo, plasma & krak grenades, Arae-shrike, Misericordia (whatever that does), digital lasers, and custodian armour. His warlord trait allows him to re-roll Seize the Initiative, and any Legio custodes unit (including himself, and possibly Dreads depending on how you interpret 'Legio Custodes units'. Nope, GW confirmed that you cannot use Valdor to teleport dreadnoughts, it only applies to units which can take teleport-transponders) can take teleportation transponders at no extra cost. All that for just 275 points.
**This guy is your ultimate golden Swiss Army Knife. Even if he is not a good match for most of the Primarchs - let's not even talk about motherfucking [[Anacharis Scoria]] - he can fuck with a wider variety of things than most of them for a far cheaper price. Six S6 attacks (Seven at S7 on the charge, remember 30k Digital Lasers are +1A and the average to hit roll increases this to 7/8 attacks respectively thanks to Lightning Blow) are great against big squads, while Molecular Severance allows him to deal with any vehicle from cardbox-made Raiders from Spartans and will ruin the day of any character or multi-wound unit crossing his path. Do note that his Sigismund-ish shenanigan works ANYTIME, not just in challenge, so you can slaughter MC or even GC with your shiny spear.
**[[That guy|Some people]] may ask why you would ever take good ol' Valdor rather than the already infamous Tribune (you know, the guy who can stomp Spartans, Primarchs and Scoria for the same price). Firstly, you don't want to be beaten to death by your opponent IRL. Secondly, Valdor is more versatile than the Tribune, butchering hordes, TEQs and tanks alike without sacrificing his I6. He's better at dishing out the hurt, just not as good at taking it. The possibility to '''deep-strike almost all your army for free''' is something unique in 30k and may be <s>a gift from the gods</s> {{BLAM}} '{{BLAM|THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS GODS YOU FOOLISH <s>HERETIC</s>}} {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|THERE IS NO DOGMA AND THEREFORE NO HERESY, NONCOMPLIANT SCUM!}} a welcome alternative if you don't want to buy some Coronus. Last thing is, you can only take the Tribune if your Detachment is over 2000 points, so Valdor is the only way to get a Custodes HQ with Fearless and Eternal Warrior if you play smaller games. And since you are probably spending a lot of points on your Shield Captain's wargear anyway, you should consider taking the golden boss instead.
**If you take 55 custodes in your army and decide to have them all deepstrike, you can take Valdor for the low, low price of your warlord trait.

*'''Jenetia Krole''': Knight-Commander of the Sisters of Silence. She's got 3's across the board with WS6, BS4, I5 A4 and Ld10. On top of Psychic Anathema, she also has Ex Oblivio, Fanatic Discipline, Rage, Preferred Enemy against Psykers and Characters, Cadre rules, Eternal Warrior, and the option to upgrade an Oblivion Knight Cadre to her elite Raptor Guard, which costs 20 points to make them WS5. For gear, she has Artificer Armor with the invuln seen on the Knight-Centura, an Archaeotech Pistol, grenades, and the '''Sword of Oblivion''': a super-Execution Blade with S+2 AP2 with 5+ Murderous Strike instead of Flawless Cut. This all makes her <s>close to a match</s> a challenge beast against any Marine HQs without Eternal Warrior, and more than a match against Daemons. Her Warlord Trait lets her re-roll Seize the Initiative and grants d3 units Scout.

===Elites===
*'''Legio Custodes Hetaeron Guard Squad''': The Emperor's [[Companion|Companions]], [[Mary Sue|the best]] of [[Adeptus Custodes|the best]] of [[Imperium|the best]]. At 70 points per model they look REALLY expensive, but they're probably the best infantry unit in the game, bar none. So they have the same stat line as normal custodes but with 3W and 3A. their special rules are the same as normal Custodes as well but they get ''counter attack''. They can all take a Praesidium shield, melta bombs, Arae-shrikes, and Teleporters, and any member of the squad can replace their spears with any melee weapon other than a Paragon Spear, but you can have Paragon '''blades''' for some nice AP2 at Initiative (probably [[Fail|another typo from FW]], just wait for a FAQ). One of the squad without a shielded may replace their guardian spear with the vexilla and either a MC power weapon or a sentinel warblade.
**So, super Custodes with '''S6 AP2 attacks at I5 (I6 if your opponent is WS:5 or below!), re-rollable 5++ and hit on a 5+ by most units in the game''' ? Yep. Unless your opponent has something capable of insta-killing them, the Hetaeron are a real step above your other Custodes, so do not dismiss them because of their high price. Depending on the loadout, a Hetaeron can be as deadly as an Aquilon and more than twice as durable in CC for just +20 points, while remaining more flexible. Mixing Paragon blades and Solarite gauntlets in a squad allows you to mince EVERYTHING you could fight against without being stuck at Initiative 1 and still getting some Instant Death attacks thanks to Murderous Strike. Find some psyker ally with Endurance or Invisibility and you are basically unkillable in assault. Too bad your only option for that are Knights Errant, and nobody will ever play with you ever again if you try.
**Again, remember you can reallocate some wounds on a 4+ thanks to Look Out, Sir!, so having 3W is a real advantage over your other Custodes. When one model is worth almost 100 points, that's definitely something you MUST NOT forget.
*'''Legio Custodes Aquilon Terminator Squad''': Custodes with Terminator Armor. How terrifying. Each of them is 75 points a model, and at with 5s on every stat save W2 A3 and Ld9, they're absolutely not slouches. Aquilon Terminator Armour affords 4++, Hammer of Wrath and Pseudo-relentless. In addition, they are able to fire Overwatch and sweeping advance, but cannot run. Say hello to Super Cataphractii armour. Each Aquilon Terminator has Crusader, a Lastrum Storm Bolter, a Solarite Gauntlet, and a Misericordia, and each can exchange the gauntlet for a Solarite Power Talon or exchange their guns for a TL Ardrathic Destructor or Infernus Firepike. Each can also buy a Teleport Transponder and Arae-Shrikes.
**While costly, they can do the job if you use them correctly. They are the Custodes' answer against vehicles and Astartes multi-wound special units, since they can one-shot Justaerin, Firedrakes and Gal Vorbak while giving no fucks about power fist/thunderhammer instakill (beware for shenanigans, like Rad Grenades, Rad Furnaces, Rad-Phage etc). Firepikes are also you best friends against hordes, something useful since tarpits are the bane of your Cutodes.
**Worth noting that the standard Solarite Power Gauntlet is NOT a specialist weapon. Whilst we do not have the profile for the Misericordia, it is safe to assume it is a CCW (check the Shield Captains profile in book 7! But RAW it is not, discuss that with your opponent before the game). If this is indeed the case, then the Aquilon terminators can throw out a surprising number of attacks. '''On the charge, that's 3 base, +1 for the charge, and +1 for multiple bashing weapons for a total of 5 attacks each'''. With Mastercrafted. At AP1. Therefore, given that the Talon is a specialist weapon, you will be sacrificing both strength and an extra attack for initiative in combat...an interesting thing to mull over, until a FAQ is finalised for this book.
*'''Legio Custodes Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought''': The fanciest, goldiest, and potentially deadliest non-boxiest dreadnought to ever be seen. It's got WS6 and BS5, an AV of 13/13/11, and hits at I5, meaning he'll more than match any marines on the field. He also has a Refractor Field instead of the basic Atomantic Reactor Contemptors use and comes stock with Extra Armor. For weapons, he starts with two Dread CCWs with Lastrum Storm Bolters, but he can buy the Dreadspear, a S10 AP2 MC weapon that '''turns ALL hits into S:Destroyer if he rolls a single 6 to hit''' AND has a Corvae Las-Pulser bolted on top. In addition, he can replace his Lastrum Storm Bolters with either TL Adrathic Destructors or Infernus Incinerators for a small fee.
**Do note the Dreadspear is not two-handed, and nothing is specified about the bonus attacks for every CCW after the first walkers get being included in the profile, so you may get [[Cheese|7 Destroyer attacks on the charge]] (4 base + 2 for three CCW + 1 for the charge). <sup>See page 91 of the BRB.</sup>
** Some players think Dreadspear's special rule is a typo, and that it works akin to Lightning Blows, Murderous Strike, etc - only 1 D hit per 1 6 on To Hit roll. RAW it is not, but, well, [[Forgeworld]]...
*'''Sisters of Silence Oblivion Knight Cadre''': The Elite among the Sisters of Silence, each comes with Ex Oblivio, Fanatic Discipline, and Precision Strikes. Each comes with Vratine Armor, cloaks that grant a 6++ Invuln or a 4++ against Templates and Blasts, Execution Blades, grenades, and Bolt Pistols. Everyone can replace their blades for Power Axes while the sergeant can buy a Neuro-Lash and replace her pistol with a Needle-Pistol, a Plasma Pistol, or a Hand Flamer.

===Troops===
*'''Custodian Guard Squad''': Think Terminators, but with all the 4s in their statline replaced with 5s (so yes, you can strike at Initiative 6 thanks to Preternatural Skill), with situational AP2 at initiative weapons, something that most Space marines (outside of Praetors or Emperor's Children) would never get. They can take the usual Arae-shrikes, Teleportation Transponders and Melta Bombs as upgrades for the whole squad, any Custodian can replace its Guardian spear by an Adrasite or Pyrithite spear and one can take a Magisterium vexilla with a master-craft power weapon or a Sentinel blade instead. They do pay for the high degrees of kickassitude they bring to the table, most notably with actual points and they are liable to get shot down before doing anything if you don't take a Coronus, though '''with 2 wounds each and a 2+ 5++''' they might pull though. With '''3 S6 AP2 attacks per Custodian on the charge''' and the buff from Crusader and a vexilla Magisterium, they have decent chances to win the first round of close combat with a good margin before AP3 becomes a problem, so make sure the situational nature of their AP2 isn't going to get them killed.
**Since Custodes pay no extra points for the base squad, it may be worth deploying a lot of small squads rather than big pseudo-deathstars if you expect a lot of 2+. AP3 and only 2 attacks by Custodian are trash if you get charged by TEQs with AP2, even if you outnumber them, so you REALLY don't want to see your 10-man squad rammed by 5 angry Tartaros with power fists. While they are more vulnerable to Moral tests if they take too many casualties, small units are also more adaptable : keep a couple of them close so you can charge with all your dudes when the opportunity presents itself without risking [[Rage|losing 550 points all at once]].
**Before bitching about your ultimate elite warriors being butchered by "mere" Terminators because of your shitty AP3, remember these guys are only ''basic Custodes'' and remain rather violent in close combat against anything else. Mathammer-wise, even a three-man squad of Custodians can withstand the charge of 20 World Eaters tactical Legionnaries with 2 CCW ''and win''. Anything with 2+ save and AP2 will quickly have the upper hand on your golden bananas if the fight turns into attrition warfare, but otherwise you may be able to murder MEQs or at least keep them locked until reinforcements arrive.

*'''Sentinel Guard Squad''': As Custodians armed with sword and board, they are somewhat less killy than their spear-wielding counterparts, but are more defensive thanks to their Praesidium shields. These are best used to guard your squishier Custodians, so they don't get wiped when they get charged by a squad with 2+ saves as your improved Invuls allow Sentinels to stick around long enough for rending to enter the equation. It's also worth noting that these guys can theoritecally deal with vehicles thanks to their rending swords, but don't expect too much from them. Anyway, you can replace your Sentinel blades with Solerite gauntlets and talons for more flexibility.
**While expensive, the Sentinels are the very definition of holding the line, as anything without S10 or Instant Death will take a lot of turns to kill them in CC. For sure, they lack AP2 against TEQs, but they can tank your opponent's most dangerous units, so they are good for preventing a deathstar from rampaging through your army.
**Worth noting that, unlike Custodian Guard, you do actually get a small discount if you run these guys in small numbers (180 for the basic unit of 3, with 65 per model, means you save points if you run small)

*'''Sisters of Silence Prosecutor Cadre''': Baseline WS4 BS4 I4 Sisters of Silence with bolters (or double bolt pistols) and grenades. They get Fanatic Discipline and can buy a Nuncio-Vox or Breaching Charge.

*'''Sisters of Silence Vigilator Cadre''': Slightly improved Sisters, they all get an Execution Blade and Pistol. They also have the ability mark a single Infantry unit or Character and they get Preferred Enemy on that one target.

===Dedicated Transports===
*'''Legio Custodes Coronus Grav-Carrier''': A 13/12/11 4HP fast skimmer with BS5 acts as the Dedicated Transport for Custodes forces. It's equipped with a TL Arachnus Blaze-cannon AND TL Lastrum bolt cannon, a Machine Spirit, and a Flare Shield, while also having Grav-Backwash (-2 to hit in close combat unless immobilized), DS, and Outflank. It can also buy Extra Armor, Armoured Ceramite, and a Searchlight. It's not an assault transport - it's an infantry supporting unit depositing gunboat in ways that a Razorback can only dream of. That thing is also bigger than ''a Spartan'', so Deep Strike with caution.
*'''Sisters of Silence Kharon Pattern Acquistor''': The DT of the Sisters, it's not Custodes-tier hax but it's got lots of weapons and is an ASSAULT VEHICLE. It's only 12/11/10 with BS4. It has a ton of guns however, with missile launchers and the Helion-Pattern Heavy Cannon Array, a super TL-autocannon with S7 AP4 Heavy 4 with Pinning. It also has an Auspex to give Night-Fighting and reduces enemy cover while also having Stealth and the ability to make anyone shooting beyond 12" shoot at -1 BS. The last trick it has is the Capture-Grid, a tank-shock attack that grants d6 S5 HoW attacks before any Death of Glory is counted. Stick any type of sisters with execution blades in it, with a character (even a custodes one, they're the same list), infiltrate the Kharon Acquisitor, charge in, and rip and tear.

===Fast Attack===
*'''Legio Custodes Pallas Grav-Attack''': A light tank with 12/11/11, but it has a TL Arachnus Blaze Cannon to attack and a Flare Shield and the Grav-Backwash of the Coronus to defend it. It also gets a Machine Spirit, Outflank, and DS, making it best suited to attack from an unexpected angle rather than be an assault weapon.

*'''Sisters of Silence Pursuer Cadre''': They're Sisters...with pets. For each sister you buy, you also have to buy a Cyber-Jackal, a powerful beast that's actually slightly stronger and tougher than the sisters and equipped with Rage, FNP, a 5+ save and the option to shoot flamers or meltas at BS2 (pick the flamer), or Razortalon Wings, birds that get more attacks at higher Initiative, but can only fight in melee. The birds are a bit cheaper, but the dogs have more utility and punch. The sisters meanwhile benefit from Fleet and Move Through Cover as well as Fanatic Discipline, though the sergeant has a small list of pistols or Charnabal/Power Weapons to use if she's unhappy with the CCW/Bolt Pistol combo.

*'''Legio Custodes Agmatus Jetbike Squadron''': RIDE THE LIGHTNING ! Custodians on super golden banana jetbikes wielding FUCKHUEG knight-style power lances. It sounds so goddamn metal, it looks goddamn metal, it fights goddamn metal. The Gyrfalcon-pattern jetbike is a jetbike that boosts the rider's Toughness by 1, [[Awesome|making you as tough as a Primarch]] so you can laugh at S10-induced instant death and allows you to re-roll failed charge distances. Your glorious steed of gold and fury comes with cool-looking leather boots and gauntlets (we're not making this up), <strike>an Iliastus</strike> (Alan Bligh confirmed it was a typo) a Lastrum Bolt Cannon and benefit from the slew of Custodes rules in addition to Split Fire and ''Sweeping Fire'', which lets them shoot with each weapon once per shooting phase. If you're not happy with the bolt cannon, the whole squadron can be 'upgraded' with Adrathic Devastators (+5 points) or twin-linked Corvae Las-pulsers (+25 points) as well as getting melta-bombs.
**Move on Boltodes, those guys can do your job better. For just 10 points above the Sagittarum guard, you have a unit that can actually move 12ps, shoot three 36" S6 AP3 and deliver three (four if you assume Misericordia to be CCW) S6 AP3 attacks on the charge, so anything without a 2+ or decent invulnerable save is fucked. If you must deal with something harder, Corvae las-pulsers can ruin the day of any vehicle, TEQ or MC but the price of your squadron is increasing quickly, so just take the Adrathic Devastators if you're not afraid of short range fights. Two S6 Armourbane shots are mathematically better than 1D3 S9 ones and you get Instant Death as a bonus for far cheaper, meaning [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Mechanicum: Taghmata (30k)|T5 or more characters, multi-wound units and Monstruous Creatures]] will shit in their pants too.
** As a smart fa/tg/uy or ca/tg/irl you probably noticed that wording about "upgrading" weapon is unclear, but models '''clearly''' replace it, and Golden Dudes are armed with simple Power Lances, not Custodes Spears. One can safely assume FW initially thought to give riders the latter option and wanted to enable them to shoot both with Spear and Jetbike-mounted weapon with Sweeping Fire, but as it is - enjoy 1 bonus Grenade thrown per shooting phase. If your opponent insists on Jetbikes having 2 weapons even after being shown the actual model, he is a particular bad case of [[rules lawyer]] bordering [[that guy]]. Other rules-lawyers consider that the rule is a broad term that enables the squad to throw a full load of their grenades - plasma, krak, then bolt whatever is left (spoiler: it does not, read the BRB about how to use Grenades then realize Sweeping Fire doesn't let Custodes mitigate "only one grenade per unit per phase").
**Do note that the Agamatus are the only Custodes unit without Crusader, and are just jetbikes, not eldar jetbikes, so no free 2D6-not-thrust-moves, and it really sucks since you NEED to win the first round of close-combat after you charge if you don't want to be locked forever with your downgraded derp-lances. Don't be greedy and keep your precious heavy weapons away from tarpits.

B===Heavy Support===
*'''Sisters of Silence Seeker Cadre''': Sisters with Flamers. Nothing more you need to know besides the ability to grab grenades and the basic Anathema, Fanatic Discipline, and Cadre rules. The squad can take Grenade Launchers with Frag, Krak, and Psyk-Out grenades. This is your answer to Magnus and his D.
**Use them as a Militia Grenadier Squad with optional anti Psyker options. They don't get Gas or Firebust like the other guys. However a ten member squad of can put out a load of hurt in with ten S6 AP4 attacks at 24". Not quite as good as the Caladius or the Telemon but they can threaten light vehicles such as Rhinos and out range Volkite Charger. However keep in mind that unlike Grenadiers they won't last as long in a shooting match.
*'''Legio Custodes Sagittarum Guard Squad''': For 65 points per model, you got Custodes with Adrastus Bolt Calivers and refractors. Thanks to their caliver, they're more than able to cover either front. There's not much more to describe on the equipment front, being able to grab Arae-Shrikes, meltabombs, and transponders as well as one guy grabbing the Vexilla. For sure they are as tough as any Custodes and can withstand more damage than almost any shooty unit in the entire HH setting, but are quite difficult to use if you want them to earn their points back. They can be useful in low point games. But you are better off taking the Dreadnoughts or Grav-Tank instead.
**Using the bolt profile makes your golden Boltodes derp-tough overcosted Devastators, and basically nothing more. Unless you're fielding a big squad of Sagittarum, a 30" heavy bolter means you are sacrificing mobility for only a few damage against anything with an armour save of 3+ or better. As a comparison, a 8-man strong Astartes Support Squad costing the same price can deal almost thrice the amount of dakka.
**So, what about the Adrathic destructor? AP2, Amourbane and Instant Death are pretty terrifying, but you only get '''one''' shot per shooting phase, so anything with a good invulnerable save and/or some meatshields will probably survive your volley of murder beams. And since the unit you are shooting at is within charge range and will wreck/tarpit your Boltodes in assault because [[Derp|you have only 2 attacks and not even a power weapon]] (The Misericordia might be a power sword equivalent[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericorde_(weapon)] but until a FAQ is released we can't assume anything about it), you need to be lucky. Concretely, that means you must target something you're almost sure to kill in one turn, so avoid characters with Eternal Warriors and Cataphractii squads. Deep-striking behind vehicles is the best way to use your golden boys, so plan to take melta bombs if you fail at blasting this angry Contemptor before it charges you.
*'''Contemptor-Galatus Dreadnought''': Another giant golden mecha for the Emperor's Firstborn. Compared to the Achilius, this one gets a fuckhuge warblade with AP2, Shred and Rampage, with a Twin-Linked Infernus Destructor built in to it. The Galatus also sports a Praesidium Shield, allowing it to re-roll invul saves taken from the front at range (and all in CC) and makes any hit rolls from any non-Gargantuans drop by 1. It also grabs Counter Attack, which lets it use that sword to its fullest. Put this in the front to take a few hits and let the other bananas smack whatever targets the big guy.
**Whilst this sexy beast occupies the sacred support slot for your Golden Bananas, and doesn't have any long-distance ranged weapons, this guy is an absolute BEAST in close combat. Even if we gloss over the Twin-linked S6 AP4 Flamer in it's sword (!), it's going to be doing some damage. On the charge, after a S8 Hammer of Wrath; you can expect 4 base attacks, +1 for charging or counterattack, and +d3 on the charge for for Rampage. '''That's between 5 and 8 attacks resolved at I5, at S10 AP2, rerolling failed to-wound rolls.''' The really nice thing is that in the event YOU are charged, you're still probably going to benefit from Wall of Death, Rampage, and (thanks to Counter Attack) +1 to your base. And if you don't sweep assault? They'll likely be hitting you on 5's in CC thanks to that shield of yours, which is also affording your AV13 a rerollable 5++. Again, it's competing with the Caladius, and the Achilius is arguably better overall, but don't discount this fella. Used correctly, he will put in some work, and is one of the few things that can take a charge of Primarch-train and hope to survive.
*'''Caladius Grav-Tank''': Take a [[Sicaran Battle Tank]], and stick it on a [[Land Speeder]]. Then give it to the most elite dudes in the Imperium and you have the Caladius. It's a fast skimmer (so you can Jink) with BS5, 13|13|11 3 HP and a flare shield, so keep it front toward your enemy and enjoy [[Awesome|your grav-Land Raider with a 4+ cover save]]. It comes with '''Outflank''', a '''Machine spirit''' (so you can Jink AND fire one of your weapons at full BS, pretty cool since the guns of your gilded podracer are nasty) and '''Grav Backwash''' (your enemy doesn't want to charge as much and suffers a -2 to Hit penalty in close combat as long as the Caladius is not Immobilised). The Caladius comes with two weapons : the turret-mounted '''Iliastus accelerator cannon''' and the hull-mounted '''Lastrum bolt cannon'''. The former is a twin-linked '''60" S7 AP2 Heavy 3''' gun with ''Rending'' and ''Rapid Tracking'' (no Jink for your enemy), while the latter is twin-linked '''36" S6 AP3 Heavy 3'''. Great, but here is the cherry on the top of the golden banana cake. Both weapons have a brand new fearsome rule : '''Heliothermic Detonation'''. If your target has suffered one or more unsaved wounds, they have must '''pass a Toughness test or suffer Instant Death''', and '''Penetrating hits adds +1 to the Vehicle Damage table'''. You get this package for just 195 points, or the same as an off the shelf Land Raider Proteus, a bargain for your golden banana warriors.
**Given some similarities with the Sicaran's accelerator autocannon, it is worth making some comparisons. Against metal bawkses, the Sicaran remains better for pure saturation and wiping out HP since it throws twice the amount of dakka the Caladius does, especially against Flyers, the Caladius' BS5 being useless in this case. HOWEVER, any Penetrating hit you may score with the Iliastus will have a 33% chance to blow your enemy up, something the autocannon can't even do. Anyway, the Sicaran looks like a jealous little bitch when coming to anti-infantry capabilities as the Caladius can tear apart MEQs and even TEQs or Monstruous Creatures better than most tanks. Well, for the same price the Sicaran can have 4 heavy bolters and will do a better job against 4+ saves and Cataphractii ([[Tyranids|by pure saturation power]]), but the golden floater remains more polyvalent overall. This Heliothermic Detonation shit means that Characters, multi-Wounds units and MC will sweat a little if they get wounded, [[Be'lakor|unless]] [[Nathaniel Garro|they]] [[Salamanders|are]] [[Sigismund|Eternal]] [[Primarchs|Warriors]].
**In book 7, we now have the option to replace the turret-mounted twin-linked Iliastus accelerator with a Twin-Linked Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannon, for 15pts. Whilst you do lose out on AP2 and Rapid Tracking, you are gaining a Heavy 4 weapon with +1S and AP3. The real icing on this weapons cake, however, is the alternate firing mode. S10 AP1, with the Exoshock special rule from the Deredeo. With BS5 and TL, one would hope that round punches through some armour! Mathammer-wise, the concentrated mode is more efficient against Armour Value from 12 to 15, while the burst mode will wip out more HP than both the Iliastus and the concentrated blast until facing AV14 but remember you have no chance to get the Explosion! result on the chart. The Arachnus is better at tank-hunting and MEQ-killing, but if you expect a lot of skimmers, flyers, jetbikes or TEQs to show up, the Iliastus remains a more versatile (and cheaper) choice.
**All in all, the Caladius is maybe the most versatile tank in 30k for its price, both durable, fast, manoeuvrable and killy. With a main weapon firing from 48" up to 72", a 4+ cover save and a Frontal Armour of 14, it can stay away from your adversary's biggest guns while destroying light vehicles and infantry from afar and survive medium-range fire from the front when you cannot retreat. Just remember it has only a '''Rear Armour of 11''' so any deep-striking/outflanking unit with a bit of anti-armour stuff will wreck it.
*'''Telemon heavy Dreadnought''': The biggest, shiniest Dreadnought variant that ever existed and the Legio Custodes equivalent of the Leviathan. It comes with an Armour value of 13|13|12, 4HP, WS6, BS5, I5, 4 Attacks, exta armour, armoured ceramite and a 4+ invulnerable save increasing to 3+ against weapons with the Blast special rule or that use a template of any kind. Pretty good, but the giant golden Kinder has another surprise for you... The ''Unyielding Sentinel'' rule lets you roll 2 dice on the Vehicle Damage table after you suffered a Penetrating Hit, the highest being discarded. Now the time has come to punch things, the Telemon has some good tools for the job. Its basic weapons are a pair of '''Telemon Caestus''', Dreadnought close-combat weapons with ''Shred'' and ''Murderous Strike'', perfect for tearing Monstruous Creatures. Each Caestus comes with an in-built '''Proteus plasma projector''', an Assault 1 S5 AP2 Template weapon. It Gets Hot like other plasma weapons, but who cares ? AP2 flamers will make Terminators cry, especially if you're playing Zone Mortalis. You also get 1d6 Hammer of Wrath attacks instead of one when charging. If you don't want to dirty your shiny armour in close-combat, no problem, the Emprah has given you some nasty guns to do the job from afar. The '''Spiculus bolt launcher''' is a 48" S5 AP4 Heavy 5 weapon with ''Rending'' which can '''fire twice if you stay immobile during the Movement phase'''. But the real star in the long-range combat department is the '''Arachnus storm cannon''', an [[Awesome|oversized laser gatling gun]] which can shoot with two profiles : 48" S7 AP 3 Heavy 7 or 72" S9 AP1 Heavy 2 with the ''Exo-Shock'' special rule. Not quite as good as the Arachnus heavy blaze cannon if you want to insta-kill MEQs or squads of T5 models, but slightly better against light vehicles, hordes and MC. You can replace one or both Caestus and Proteus projectors with this beauty for +30 points each.
**The Telemon is by far the most versatile ranged unit in the Talons of the Emperor army list. The Arachnus storm cannon makes him a threat against vehicles and infantry alike and the Spiculus launcher can add a lot of saturation fire, all this at 48" range. If you stay immobile, your Dreadnought can unleash [[Dakka|14 S7 AP3 and 10 S5 AP4 shots each turn]], making it a good counter-measure against the usual Nemesis of a Custodes army : hordes and flyers. It does not match the Leviathan anti-armour capabilities in close-combat but can engage a wider variety of targets while staying away from the melee.
**Like the Achillus Dreadnought, nothing is specified about the bonus attacks for every CCW after the first walkers get being included in the profile, so you technically don't lose any attack when taking an Arachnus storm cannon.
**Take note that '''the Telemon is a Character''', so he can call and accept challenges, be your Warlord, etc.

===Lord of War===
*'''Warlord-Sinister Pattern Battle Psi-Titan''': '''HO-LYYY FUCK. PSYCHIC WARLORD TITAN.''' [[Grimdark|Fueled by the powers of captured psykers, who are bled dry to power the Titan]], it's a good thing this monster is worth 3250 points. Starting off with the standard kit of a [[Warlord Battle Titan]], the Warlord-Sinister adds the Psychic Pilot rule (Mastery Level 3), knowing three set powers: a 24" d6 bolter-shot nova with Soul Blaze and Ignores Cover, a blessing which [[Cheese|restores any lost hull point on a 5+]], and a witchfire which hits all units within 24" of a point with a Haywire hit (for vehicles-EVEN FLYERS) or d6 Heavy Bolter shots (PER 5 MODELS) if it's infantry. The Psi-Titan makes all enemy units within 12" take leadership checks automatically, and any unit that wishes to charge the monstrosity (why you would do that is beyond us) must take a leadership check at -3 Ld. Its weapons are standard fare for the Warlord, except that you always carry the '''Sinistramanus Tenebrae''' , aka the gun that will ruin your day, on one arm. Fluff-wise it's an up-scaled Animus Speculum, crunch-wise it's an apocalyptic mega-blast that's Strength D/Fleshbane/Poison 4+, and AP 1/2/3 for its respective ranges. Oh, and that inner circle? Yeah, it's a Vortex, just in case anything in the blast radius thought it would survive that shot. And if you finally manage to put the Titan(ic amount of [[Grimdark]]) down, it will explode on you, which on a 4+ becomes a '''[[Rape|36 INCH DESTROYER BLAST]]'''. Honestly, even when the Emperor's rules get released, this bastard will probably be the more OP Lord of War choice.

*'''Orion Assault Dropship''': A 7 hull point, 13-12-11, 600ish point super-heavy flyer and a Lord of War for Talons of the Emperor. It's also a transport with a capacity of 24 models. (Yes, Custodians do count as two.) This golden nugget is capable of transporting a Dreadnought, (which counts as 10 models.) Along with being a super-heavy flyer, and transport, the Orion is armed with two Arachnus Heavy Blaze cannons, Two nose mounted tl Lastrum Bolt Cannons, two Spiculus Heavy Bolt Launchers (48", 7, 4, H3, Rending,) armored ceramite and cockpit as standard and the new Eclipse Shield and Macro Arae-Shrike. The Eclipse Shield provides the Orion with a -2 to blast and template weapon strength, and a -1 to all other weapon strength. If a shooting weapon inflicts a glancing or penetrating hit, the Orion immediately gains Shrouded against all subsequent hits against its front Arc during rhis phase. However, this has no effect on melee attacks or weapons of the Destroyer type (not a big deal as long as you're not Hovering since most of D weapons are usually blasts). Macro Arae-shrikes on the other hand, act as normal Arae-shrikes, with the addition of ''interception interference.'' When enemy units declare their interception, the intercepting player must roll a D6 for each unit attempting to intercept. If a unit rolls 3 or less, it's unable to intercept but may fire as normal in its next shooting phase. Furthermore, because He and the terrawatt clan love us so, the Orion has the Deep Strike and Assault Vehicle special rule.
**As long as you keep the ennemy in front of it, the Orion is arguably more resistant (and cheaper) than a similarly geared Thunderhawk. Its firepower may seem somewhat limited for what you're paying and it clearly won't earn its points back by killing TEQ or hordes. Two S10 AP1 exo-shock shots and 3 rending autocannons are still quite good for tank-hunting and make the Orion a monster against other flyers, but you could have more big guns for the same price. Unless you really need a very reliable transport or flyer-killer, there are other units that can do the job better.

*<s>God-</s>[[Emperor of Mankind]]: '''COMING SOON!''' No actual rules yet, but a note in the Legio Custodes Tribune rules suggests he will be a future potential HQ choice for the army, similar to the Primarchs and their legions.

==Allies==

There isn't a word about Talons of the Emperor being Agents of the Emperor in Prospero. RAW you can't take them as allies or take allies with them. Definetely an editor's mistake (much like the missing Misericordia), but you can only homerule it.

[[Category: Adeptus Custodes]]
[[Category:Warhammer Tactics/30k]]