Space Marine Dreadnoughts - The Honored Few

 Today we are looking at Space Marine Dreadnoughts!
Dreadnoughts are machines constructed to be both walking tombs and mobile battle stations for a mortally wounded Space Marine.

Generally if a Space Marine has provided exceptional service to his chapter and is seriously wounded the chapter may elect to bestow upon that Space Marine the honor of continuing to serve the chapter in the form of a Dreadnought.


This is considered a great honor and Dreadnoughts are feared and respected for the extensive combat experience and expertise they can provide to the chapter, having honed their skills through both life and death.
















 The interred Space Marine is housed within what is known as the Sarcophagus within the Dreadnought, which is basically a giant life support system keeping what is left (it might not be much) of that Space Marine functional and connected to the rest of the machine. The space marine literally becomes one with Dreadnought


When Dreadnoughts are not needed in battle or for other duties such as advising its chapter on issues related to its expertise, Dreadnoughts are typically left to sleep away the years, decades or even centuries until they are needed again....


The above picture depicts a Dreadnought from the Black Templar Space Marine Chapter tearing apart a Chaos Space Marine and holding the rest back with its Auto Cannon. The bottom picture is a Dreadnought holding of a group of Tyranids with an Auto Cannon and a Claw.



It should be noted that although these two dreadnoughts have very similar weaponry dreadnoughts can be outfitted with all sorts of members ranging from heavy flamers to laser cannons, extra armor and the list goes on.

In my next couple of post i am going to take the Dreadnought further and look at the various load outs chapters employ to their Dreadnoughts and how they fit in with the Codex and the various chapters methods, as well as venerable dreadnoughts.

Alpha Legion - Before and After the Heresy

This is an Alpha Legion Space
So today I wanted to start looking at the Traitor Legions, specifically how they looked before and after the Horus Heresy.

This is a Pre Heresy Alpha Legion Space Marine. The Alpha Marine pictured is in the Alpha Legion traditional colors and heraldry, purple armor and  a big A with chains through the middle on their right shoulder as heraldry.

Although the "Alpha" Legion the Legions traditional number is 20 and is unique amongst the original Space Marine Legions in that they had two Primarch's, Alpharius and his twin brother Omegon.

This picture is taken from the cover of  "Legion - Secrets and Lies" by Dan Abnett.

These are Alpha Legion Marines Post Heresy. Their colors have changed to blue, their backpacks and (some) members helms have changed and their heraldry is now a Hydra, which amongst other things is symbolism regarding their combat tactics.

Recently the Alpha Marines have appeared in several book and computer games, most notably the Dawn of War series where they have played the Antagonist on multiple occasions.

The legion is devoted to Chaos Undivided which makes it well suited to sowing the seeds of Chaos throughout the Imperium of man, why limit yourself to the corruption of a single Chaos God when you can branch out and corrupt with power of all four!

Rubric Marine

This is a Rubric Marine from the Thousand Sons traitor space marine legion. The Runic Marines of the Thousand Sons are easily identified by their uniquely shaped helms.

The Rubric Marines themselves are but suites of armor which can follow orders, having lost their bodies and free will during a failed incantation meant to purge the marines of mutation, cast by the Chief Sorcerer Librarian of the Thousand Sons Ahriman.

Their Armor and lore is one of my favourites in Warhammer 40k due its uniqueness, these marines make being a soulless husk look damn good indeed.

Sanguinius and The Eternity Gate

This is one of my favourite drawings.

This is a drawing of the Primarch Sanguinius infront of The Eternity Gate. The Eternity Gate is a massive door constructed from adamantium with a gold outer layer. It is the door to the inner palace on Holy Terra (Earth).

This drawing is at the height of the Horus Heresy when the traitor legions were bearing down on the imperial palace. Things were getting desperate, the loyalist space marines had fallen back to the inner palace under the pure foracity and horror of the assault, their brothers had turned against them and they were being nuked from orbit. Bad day.

No one seemed willing to defend The Eternity gate.. no one except Sanguinius. Alone he held back legions of daemon and traitor alike giving The Emperor time to break through the shields surrounding Horus's Battle Barge, giving an oppurtunity for the loyalist to teleport aboard and take the fight to Horus.

 Thats pritty bad ass.

I am finnally not sick, yay! Also my desktop PC died whilst i was sick so i had to go buy a cheap laptop. Anyway i am back, gimme a couple days to add you all to my morning coffee and ill be reading ya blogs again, making crappy comments etc etc :)

In the mean time, have this Black Templar. His the man. Notice the shape of the power sword and the crown on his head? I highly doubt those two things are cannon but his absolutely amazing none the less.

I am incredibly ill guys and have been for a couple days now. For those who check your traffic I do apologise that I haven't had the time to catch up on your biog ill be right back in the game once I can get out of bed. I bet you all have all gone and done some awesome shit whilst I've been gone and i missed it but i guess that's the way it goes. Anyway I proudly present what appears to be the entire Imperial Fist space marine chapter. fuck ... yes

Imperial Navy Ship Classes

This is a great picture showing you the various space ships used by the Imperial Navy to blast the crap out of all the various alien scum. What i personally love about the picture is up the top it has the length of the ships and when you realise that the Retribution class battleship is 5km long it really starts to get your imagination going. I should also probably mention that the Imperial Navy has alot more ship classes then what is on this picture, this is because ships may be in service for several millenia at a time so new classes come out but the old ones still stay in service etc etc.

Here we have a picture of an Emperor Class Battleship, although it may look quite similiar to the Retribution  class the Emperor class has alot more squadrans of attack fighters however has less cannons etc whether the retribution class is more of a ship of the line and likes to get up beside the enemy and blast it with those broad side cannons you see. This pacticular Emperor Class is the Divine Right and is the flagship for Battlefleet Artemis. Coming up next will be an explanation of sectors, sub sectors and segmentums. I am almost positive this picture comes from one of the Battlefleet Gothic rulebooks.

Space Marines also have various ships but we'll deal with them in their own post!

Dark Angels in Battle

Ok, this is unmistakably a member of the Dark Angels space marine chapter, if the hood doesnt give it away the chapter symbol of a sword through wings on his right shoulder sure as hell does. What i like about this photo is again the dark theme of it (see a pattern here :) and also the fact that the marine in his stride, moving over a pile of skulls towards the enemy in true Adapetus Astartes style, that is to say this mother fucker is purging the filth that is the enemies of the imperium and looking good doing it.

This artwork was created by a concept artist named Chris Bourassa
http://www.chrisbourassa.com/

I am all about giving credit to the artist i post, its just a pitty i have had trouble tracking them down. Although i finnally found one!

Just a bit of fun today. Here we have a statue of a space marine from the Blood Angels chapter probably outside a store to promote the game etc. Next to the marine is poor old Ethel, conscripted into the Imperial Guard no doubt to fight the enemies of the Imperium across the galaxy. Godspeed Ethel :)

This shows an Inquisitor, an Assassin from the Vindicare Temple who are expect markmens and what i believe is a Sister of Battle (although it could be another Inquisitor) fighting of some Blood Letters, which are lesser Demons of the Chaos Blood God Khorne. The Inquisitor is either from the Ordo Malleus which is the demon hunting arm of the Inquisition or from the Ordo Hereticus the heretic and witch hunting arm. The reason i dont automatically say his from the Ordo Malleus is because its possible these demons were summoned by some heretic his trying to track down. Which would explain the assassin as well.

This is actually a piece of concept artwork for the upcoming 40k mmo. I just had to post it because as you can tell from my previous post i am really into the whole depressing/dystopian cityscape thing.

A depiction of the 3rd war on the planent Armageddon. An Imperial hive world with atleast 100 billion inhabitants it was attacked by the largest Orc WAAAGH (army) ever assembled in the galaxy. This picture shows 2 Warlord Titans, some space marines and some Lemon Russ battle tanks. Unfortunantly i cant make out the chapter the marines come from and since over 20 chapters participated in that campaign it could be a little difficult. The most striking aspect of the picture are the titans ofcourse. Each titan belongs to a titan legion and each titan legion typically hails from its own forge world. It can take hundreds if not thousands of years to make a single titan and as such they represent a massive investment by The Imperium and many are considered holy relics. For lack of a better explanation, they litterally blow the shit outa anything that stands in their way.

Hey guys this is a couple Blood Angel space marine chapter Thunderhawk transports and a couple Rhino armored personel carriers. What i really like about this picture is the dystopian city scape in the background. I think that fits the Warhammer 40k universe very well. I am gonna try and and start giving more info about worlds and campaigns which feature in the art work if i can. Unfortunantly i couldnt track down any of that for this piece.

One of my favourite images. This is a Space Marine or Adeptus Astartes Chaplain from the Black Templars Chapter. His wielding a power sword in his right hand and a bolter in his left. You can tell his from the Black Templars because of the black cross on his left shoulder which kinda looks like the contemporary Maltese cross. His armor is more intricate then normal space marine armor so its probably artificer armor which is common for chaplains. Furthermore he has a rosarious above his head and his helmet is skull shaped another indicator of a chaplain.

The Golden Throne

A nice contrast to the previous image. This well known piece shows The Emperor after his "ascension" to the golden throne. This was required due to mortal wounds sustainted in a battle with one of his sons during the Horus Heresy. What is left of his body is sitting on the throne, the various tubes etc you see are keeping his few remaining living cells alive so that his soul has an anchor in The Warp from which to guide humanity from.

"The Emperor of Man + Retinue"

On the left you can see members of the Adeptus Custodus or the Custodian Guards wearing pre Horus Heresy armor and on the right you can see the Sisters of Silence. Not to be confused with the Sisters of Battle the Sisters of Silence existed well before them and were all "blanks" meaning their presence could null the presence of the warp and as such the abilities of psykers were restrained or completely un usable in their presence