Legiones Astartes – Leman Russ

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Some weapons strike with such force that they cause terrible wounds that can lay low even the most formidable combatant.

Some weapons are capable of breaching armour with a terrifying ease, whether by specially designed munitions, careful targeting or sheer brute power.

A branch of weaponry now commonplace among the ranks of the Legiones Astartes, bolt weapons are based on a robust Terran design, refined from the weapons used during the Emperor’s battles to conquer Old Earth. These brutally efficient weapons fire a caseless, self-propelled and mass reactive munition, more akin to a miniature rocket than a simple bullet and easily capable of eviscerating most foes against which the Space Marines of the Imperium find themselves matched. Such was the success of these weapons that they would eventually come to replace the more complex Martian weapons that had once dominated the arsenals of the Legiones Astartes.

This class of grenade contains only a small explosive charge, and is intended primarily to disorientate and distract the foe while closing on a fixed position.

Certain plasma weapons are designed not just to break the target with the sheer power of its initial strike, but also to burn and short-circuit the internal workings exposed. The superheated matter emitted by plasma cannons serves ideally for this purpose, continuing to sear and burn long after impact.

This datasheet has Primarch Battlefield Role. Full list of Legiones Astartes units sharing same Battlefield Role follows:

Primarch

• Lion El’Jonson

• Jaghatai Khan

• Leman Russ

• Rogal Dorn

• Sanguinius

• Ferrus Manus

• Roboute Guilliman

• Vulkan

• Corvus Corax

• Fulgrim

• Perturabo

• Konrad Curze

• Angron

• Mortarion

• Magnus The Red

• Horus Lupercal

• Lorgar

• Alpharius

The greatest commanders of the Space Marine Legions are all but peerless in their strategic and tactical abilities. The genecraft of the Emperor that created them, honed by individual talent and the experience of countless battles, has sharpened their acumen to a preternatural degree.

• Rites of War: If a Detachment with the Legiones Astartes Faction includes at least one model with the Master of the Legion special rule then that Detachment may select a single Rite of War. Rites of War are presented in the Legiones Astartes Rites of War section.
• The Few and the Proud: An army may only include a maximum of one model with this special rule per 1,000 points. This counts across all Detachments of an army. Thus, an army that totals at least 1,000 points may include only a single model with the Master of the Legion special rule, and an army that totals at least 2,000 points may include up to two models with the Master of the Legion special rule, etc.
• Retinue: A model with this special rule may also include a Legion Command Squad, Legion Cataphractii Command Squad or Legion Tartaros Command Squad as part of the same Force Organisation slot as the model with the Master of the Legion special rule.

Whether pledged to the Emperor himself as the rightful leader of Mankind or to the dream of the Imperium that he intended to create, some warriors swore to fight and die for the Loyalist cause and no other.

Only when outnumbered in the press of the melee, can these weapons be wielded to the greatest effect.

Among the most ancient of weapons employed within the ranks of the Legiones Astartes, flame has always been a potent weapon against creatures that lurk in darkness. Many of the Space Marine Legions consider the cleansing power of flame a key part of their arsenal, and indeed the ability of these weapons to rout the enemy from fortified positions has proven pivotal in any number of battles.

Capable of focusing microwave beams to such a fierce heat that even the sturdiest of armour runs like water, melta weapons are among the most fearsome anti-tank weapons available to the warriors of the Emperor. The origins of this technology are unknown, for it was in common use among the armies of Old Earth, Mars and Jupiter long before the Emperor unified Sol. However, it has been in use within the Legiones Astartes since their inception and every Legion bears examples of this venerable and fearsome weapon.

Understood only by the secretive Tech-Priests of Mars, these weapons unleash projectiles of super-heated plasma capable of melting both armour and flesh with equal ease. Kept contained by temperamental magnetically sealed flasks, the plasma that feeds these weapons is as dangerous to the wielder as to the foe and deadly leaks or even explosions are far from unknown. Yet, such is the destructive power of these weapons that even the risk of such detonations does not outweigh their value.

The Armour Elavagar

The warplate of Russ is a suit of unique artificer power armour whose origins can be traced back to the mysterious period of bitter warfare which shrouds much of the Legion’s history in the decades after the Primarch took over the VIth, and is accounted for now within the Legion’s chronicles by obscure metaphor and strange and macabre allegories impenetrable to outsiders. Within its shell are strange exothermic field generators, otherwise unknown of in the Imperium’s arsenal of technology, which bleed energy, specifically heat and kinetic potential, from their surroundings when triggered, with the effect of creating an aura of murderous chill around the Primarch at will. It is this effect which gives the armour its name to the Fenrisians —‘Elavagar’— a wave of killing frost.

The Axe of Helwinter

Russ’ favoured axe, though less strange and potent than his darkly-fabled blade, was no less a weapon of great beauty and lethality. It was a frost axe, a prince among its kind, its edge made with the kraken teeth of the mighty beast, which gave the axe its name; a legendary menace slain by Russ himself before the coming of the Emperor to Fenris. Its murderous edge was further amplified by a disruption field generator which was a masterwork in its own right, so that a well-placed blow could split the armour plate of a battle tank.

The Sword of Balenight

A weapon of truly ancient mystery, the sword of Russ has gone by many names. To the Remembrancers of the Great Crusade, it is called ‘Balenight’ —a name itself a commonplace derivation of the High Terran ‘Maledica Nocterum’— a dark legend carried during the Age of Strife where it passed through the hands of warlords and tyrants one after the other. But, to the Wolves of Fenris, it has always been ‘Mjalnar’ —the fang of the Wolf King— taken in battle as a blood-bought prize of victory. Ultimately, the Sword of Balenight is a weapon of unknown origin, a thing of terror and blood against which no armour can stand, as the sword’s silver-white blade inexplicably darkens as it kills, first to the deep red of heart’sblood, and then to a fathomless, glittering black.

Scornspitter

Once simply a Legion bolter, Scornspitter had been re-worked by no lesser hand than the Primarch Vulkan to form an outsized but perfectly balanced pistol suitable for the hand of the Wolf King. Though Russ and his Legion often stood apart from their fellows during the Great Crusade, this gift was one of honour, given after the two Primarchs’ Legions fought the bitter campaign at San Katos together, and Russ held it and its giver in high regard.

First and foremost, Leman Russ was a warlord; like some barbarian king of ancient myth he strode into battle at the head of his army, proving to all who followed him that he feared nothing, be it man or xenos, warp-spawned horror or self-proclaimed god. He was then to his Legion a paragon of what they should strive to be, just as much as he was their commander and their liege lord. He was a being they would have rather died for than disappoint or be shamed before.