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.
Lord Invocatus is a master of swift raids, devastating counter-attacks, and relentless hit-and-run strategies. Also known as Khorne's Thunderbolt, this born marauder thunders through the air as if riding across solid ground, mounted on his massive juggernaut, Khal’guruth. Devoted above all to the Blood God's service, Lord Invocatus leads his warbands from one battlefield to the next with supernatural speed, seeking always to spill as much blood as he can.
Driven into battle by the frenzied need to kill, Khorne Berzerkers slaughter everything in their path and leave nothing but twitching corpses in their wake.
Jakhals are chosen from the strongest, most savage, and bloodthirstiest followers of the World Eaters. Though merely human, these elite cultists seek to emulate the frenzied purity of their gore-crazed masters in any way they can, and dive into combat with wild abandon. Each Jakhal goes to battle strapped with a tank of chemical stimms and tainted blood, which drives them into an unstoppable fury of hacking and slashing with their chain weapons as they strive to earn the favour of their bloody lords.
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.
Devoted to endless slaughter, the World Eaters are fanatical worshippers of Khorne – led by their bestial Daemon Primarch, Angron. These fearsome Space Marines are augmented by strange devices known as the Butcher’s Nails, which are embedded in their brainstems and hammer relentlessly at their minds, driving them to deeds of unmatched brutality. The Nails push their wearers to madness, compounded over many millennia by the influence of the warp and the macabre rituals of the World Eaters Legion.
The Eightbound are World Eaters possessed by an octet of Khornate daemons, all warring for dominance – but some amongst their ranks achieve a form of apotheosis, as their mortal soul conquers and merges with the daemonic presences that share its body. Heavily mutated by their long possession, these Exalted Eightbound face no internal competition for control, and so exhibit a purer and more focused rage – one that is directed entirely at their foes.
The Chaos Space Marines go to war armed with corrupted versions of the already-potent weapons and wargear they used as loyal warriors of the Imperium. They're accompanied by foul daemons, twisted war engines, and hordes of cultist thralls.
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.