With outlawed knowledge of the deeper mysteries of the machine, Warpsmiths maintain their warband’s arsenal of armoured vehicles, empowering engines with utterances of corrupted code. Fused with a writhing nest of semi-sentient mechatendrils, they seek not only to employ technology for their diabolical ends, but to subjugate it entirely.

A Lord Discordant is a machine-obsessed heretic who scuttles across the battlefield atop a Helstalker mount, all the while exuding a palpable aura of anarchy. His mere presence short-circuits machinery not already riddled with daemonic entities – actuators and servos whir erratically, and targeting augurs simply cease to function. The Lord Discordant siphons off the pained spirit of dying vehicles, using the harvested energy to reinvigorate other Daemon Engines or releasing it as a screaming beam to infect the systems of other enemy vehicles. The most famous among the Lords Discordant, Vex Machinator, brought anarchy to the hivesprawls of Vigilus during the War of Nightmares.

Vashtorr is the Soul Forge King, a daemonic demigod of unrestrained invention and abominable artifice. When the Arkifane takes physical form, it is as a horror of pallid flesh stretched over infernal mechanisms, soaring to battle amidst a cloud of lightning and smog. Vashtorr deals destruction with every whirring step, unleashing techno gheist curses upon his foes even as he fashions enhancements for his indentured daemon engines from the raw stuff of realspace.

Haarken Worldclaimer takes a heinous joy in his role as the mouthpiece of Abaddon, for it is he who proclaims the death of worlds. He does so not with some quotidian threat or hollow boast, but by driving his weapon, the Daemon-touched Helspear deep into the heart of citizen and soldier alike. He is a dark omen given form, and the otherworldly destruction he heralds is the coming of the Warmaster himself.

Dark Communes are the pooling evil at the head of any Chaos Cult, led by Cult Demagogues who preach insidious mantras cunningly laced with promises of power. These infernal priests command a retinue of devoted followers – the fanatical Blessed Blades, tasked with guarding against interlopers, the Iconarchs, who carry foul sigils infused with malefic influence, and Mindwitches, unsanctioned psykers whose powers comes at a terrible cost.

Chaos Cultists are the mortal devotees of the Dark Gods, ordinary men and women fallen to promises of temporal power who take to battle in huge numbers. Bearing a motley collection of improvised, stolen and makeshift weapons, they can overwhelm even determined enemies with sheer weight of numbers.

For ten thousand years, the Chaos Space Marines have waged near-constant war on the galaxy that cast them out. Once the defenders of humanity, the Heretic Astartes have pledged themselves to the Dark Gods. Led by maniacal leaders such as the fanatical Dark Apostle, bitter warbands of Chaos Space Marines roam the battlefield, armed with an array of vicious weapons. Barricades and defenders alike are torn asunder by the devastating heavy armaments wielded by Havocs – and the frenzied swipes of a lumbering Helbrute.

The power-hungry veterans known as Chosen are amongst the most experienced and ruthless fighters of the Heretic Astartes. Granted – or having seized – their warband’s most powerful weapons, these warriors undertake the most glorious and dangerous missions, and are the bane of all that lives.

Clonefather. Primogenitor. Spider. Fabius Bile has laboured under many epithets during his long and wicked life, but none truly convey the unrepentant evil of this heretic crypto-scientist.

Sorcerers of Chaos shape the destiny of the galaxy with forbidden rituals and unspeakable pacts. They channel the soul-blasting energies of the warp into potent hexes and blasts of flame, as they mould the material universe with little more than a hate-filled curse.

For some Chaos Space Marines, simply dedicating their souls to the gods is not enough. Pledging themselves fully to the service of Chaos, they allow daemons to possess their bodies, becoming willing hosts to these immaterial creatures.

Amidst the thunderous tumult of battle, a Master of Executions strides unflinchingly forwards, his mind focused on the gruesome decapitations he will soon administer.