Famous Spaceships of Warhammer 40,000

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The void of space in Warhammer 40.000 is a vast entity, and every species living there has had to develop one way or another to cross the black emptiness, even with the use of things such as warp travel and the Webway. As such, there are hundreds of thousands of spaceships out there, with them functioning like sea battles most of the time (only the tyranids seem to realise that space is three dimensional). With so many years of war, some vessels have gained notoriety over time, becoming the stuff of legends for their allies and nightmares for their enemies.

Famous Imperial Spaceships

• Eisenstein: One of the most iconic ships in canon, this piddly Death Guard frigate pretty much did not exist until it took aboard one Nathaniel Garro during the Isstvan III operation and promptly ran the gauntlet under his orders, somehow escaping the traitor armada in high orbit; then the crew proceeded to die stranded in the warp due to it being extra warpy that day, until finally said Nathaniel Garro manages to deliver jolly good news to Malcador and Big E about this whole heresy deal, thus kicking the entire Imperium into gear. And what did your glorified legion flagship do for the Imperium of Man?

• Invincible Reason: Gloriana Class Battleship, Flagship of the Dark Angels Legion and their primarch Lion El'Jonson during the Horus Heresy. The current status in M41 is unknown.

• The Rock: Orkish attack moons during War of the Beast were cool, right? The remnants of Caliban and now the Dark Angels' spaceborne fortress-monastery.

• Macragge's Honour: Gloriana Class Battleship, Flagship of the Ultramarines' fleet and personal vehicle for Bobby G.

• Dominus Astra: Emperor Class Battleship, this ship basically won the battle of Macragge against Hive Fleet Behemoth by itself, by detonating their warp engines in the middle of the tyranid swarm, throwing the whole hive fleet into the Warp and sacrificing themselves in the process. This noble act would see its crew granted the title of "Heroes of the Imperium" posthumously.

• The Phalanx: Mobile Fortress Monastery used by the Imperial Fists chapter.

• Eternal Crusader: Chapter flagship and monastery of the Black Templars. Like some other ships (such as the Vengeful Spirit, Alpha or Conqueror of CSM fame) it was originally a modified Battle Barge before being retconned into being one of the few Gloriana-class ships in the Imperium. But for the Phalanx this ship would have been the flagship of the Imperial Fists Legion.

• Zar-Quaesitor: Ark Mechanicus, personal property of Belisarius Cawl. Massive enough to carry a couple Imperial Knight lances on top of its tons of skitarii.

• Speranza: An absolutely massive, repurposed DAoT ship, that was used as part of an explorator fleet into the Halo Zone. The technology on this thing puts the tech of every other faction in the setting, save Necrons (who surpass it) and Dark Eldar (who tie when they pull out the stops), to shame. Some examples of this include cannons that fire black holes at the speed of light, chrono weapons that can shift time around their targets, and an ACTUAL UNCORRUPTED AI.

Famous Traitor Spaceships

• Planet Killer: Flagship of Abaddon the Despoiler. Best known for the fuckoff-massive cannon strapped to the front, capable of annihilating whole planets. Was supposedly wrecked during the Gothic War.

• Vengeful Spirit: Gloriana Class Battleship, Flagship of the Luna Wolves (and the Black Legion after the Heresy) and scene of the duel between the Emperor and Horus Lupercal. Later stowed away by Abby and then suddenly revealed, resulting in quite a lot of fuss in the Eye during the ensuing traitor power struggles - nobody expected a huge black long-forgotten battleship inexplicably rammed up their warband's collective ass. It is somehow still kicking after the fall of Cadia, believe it or not.

• Terminus Est: Flagship of Typhus. Formerly a capital ship of the Death Guard and the site of the entire legion's fall to Chaos. Currently serves as the flagship of the Plague Fleet. Now Typhus being Typhus, this is probably the most disgusting piece of spacecraft in existence, which is saying something in this setting.

• Furious Abyss, later also Blessed Lady and Trisagion: Lorgar's brain-child that honestly deserves a separate article; Abyss-class was a fukhueg battleship/carrier hybrid that carried, among many, many other things, the first plasma lance that was shaped like a humongous book (that opened and closed too), which allowed the bald fuck to smugly order to "enlighten them", evaporating entire smaller ships with the thing.

• Conqueror: Angron's ugly slab of steel Gloriana flagship; was captained by a woman known bad-ass Lotara Sarrin and sported giant bizarre freaking awesome Ursus batteries that fired void harpoons on adamantine chains with links the size of Rhinos (about as subtle as Angron usually was). The fastest battleship ever for Ripping&Tearing.

• Photep: Gloriana-class Battleship, Flagship of Magnus the Red

• Pride of the Emperor: Gloriana-class Battleship, Flagship of Fulgrim. Also the site where he put grandpappy smurf out of commission for almost ten thousand years.

• Endurance: Gloriana-class Battleship, Flagship of Mortarion

• Wage of sin: Huge sleek shafty schwifty Flagship of Eidolon

• Scion of Prospero: Formerly Ahrimans flagship, now used by other Thousand sons while he's off seeking a library card.

• Iron Blood: Gloriana Class Battleship, Flagship of the Iron Warriors. Perturabo looked at it and went full brutalist: closing all the viewpoints, jettisoning the baroque stuff and adding armor and weapons, like a warship should do. This created 20 kilometers of pure awesome.

Famous Alien Spaceships

• By definition, all Eldar Craftworlds are technically fuckhueg spaceships, but due to their size and function they work closer to artificial planetoids rather than space vehicles.

• The World Engine: The most famous and most dangerous Necron ship ever seen by the Imperium, it is basically a reinterpretation of the Death Star. It was valiantly destroyed by the sacrifice of the Astral Knights chapter.

Non-Aligned Spaceships

• Space Hulks are the result of the union of hundreds of spaceships floating in the Warp and being spit out to realspace as a mass of junk. However, many species still use it as a means of transportation (genestealers, orks and chaos cultists have been known to use them).

• The different Blackstone Fortresses were made in immemorial times, with their original makers long gone. As such, they serve whoever can get their hands on them first. Both the Imperium and Chaos have managed to control a few at certain points, with the most famous examples of this being the Gothic War and the Fall of Cadia.