Malcador Heavy Tank

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The Malcador Heavy Tank is an ancient pattern of super-heavy tank, dating to the Horus Heresy, or shortly thereafter (it is named for Malcador the Sigillite, right-hand man of the God-Emperor of Mankind and founder of the Administratum). Like the Macharius Heavy Tank, it resembles an oversized Leman Russ Battle Tank, but while the Macharius looks like it's been cut and extended in the middle, the Macharius looks like someone at Forge World made a Russ out of silly putty and stretched it.

Its engine is prone to malfunction (represented in-game as a fifty-fifty chance of being completely immobilized rather than slowed down by engine damage), and in the grim, dark future, a static tank is a dead tank, and so it has since been superseded by the more reliable and cheaper Leman Russ Battle Tank. That said, the tanks were never destroyed, merely stored; many armory worlds still have large stocks of Malcador tanks on hand in case they are needed for an urgent engagement.

Like every other tank operated by the Imperium of Man, the Malcador comes in many flavors:

Malcador Heavy Tank

The stretched Russ, except with weaker front and side armor, an unreliable engine, and a turret that can't spin all the way around. The only advantages that this tank has are that its rear armor is slightly better and that it can soak a few more hits since it's a super-heavy.

Malcador Annihilator

Like the Predator variant of the same name, the Malcador Annihilator has a set of twin-linked lascannons in its turret (though unlike the Predator, these cannons can only turn 30 degrees to either side), and it also mounts a Demolisher Cannon in its forward hull.

Malcador Defender

Recognizing that the mostly-fixed-forward turret was a problem, the Adeptus Mechanicus thought up the Malcador Defender. The turret was given five heavy bolters, each of which covers a roughly 90-degree arc, so the tank can shoot at least one and up to two heavy bolters at anything in any direction (in addition to the sponson weapons). For anti-armor, they kept the hull-mounted Demolisher Cannon.

Malcador Infernus

It's an Inferno Cannon taken from a Titan and mounted on a tank. When the tech-priests realized that they had run out of room for fuel tanks, they decided to put them in a trailer towed behind the tank. In retrospect, this is not one of their smarter designs. Though it has a longer range and higher strength than the mini-Inferno Cannon used by the Hellhound, it has the unreliable engine (compared to the Fast Hellhound) and a tendency to explode when catastrophically damaged.

Minotaur Artillery Tank

Some tech-priest thought it would be a good idea to take a Malcador chassis and mount two Earthshaker cannons backwards in it. Though it looks goofy, and still has an unreliable engine, this design choice makes it the only tank stronger in the back than in the front, leaving it less vulnerable to deep-striking assault troops.

Valdor Tank Hunter

This variant was not named for Malcador, but for Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. The Valdor tank mounts a Neutron Laser that somehow causes an electromagnetic pulse in tanks it shoots (in addition to putting a big hole in them), but also risks getting damaged by the feedback if it misses. Because there wasn't enough room in the tank to put shielding around the reactor that powers the laser, the tank is more prone to catastrophic damage and its crew is at an increased risk of getting cancer.