The Deathwatch is a gathering of Space Marines unlike any other, as every Deathwatch warrior is pledged to its ranks by another Chapter. Together they form the lmperium's greatest weapon against the threats posed by xenos races.
The Adeptus Custodes are demigods of war, sworn to defend the Emperor until death. Joined in battle by the eerie Sisters of Silence, they are the most elite warriors in the imperium, clad in auramite armour and wielding some of the finest weapons ever created by Humanity.
The Thousand Sons advance into battle amid gouts of kaleidoscopic warpflame and bolts of raw sorcery. This sanity-blasting Legion fights to further the labyrinthine plans of its deity, the Chaos God Tzeentch.
Genestealer Cults consist of mutated acolytes, turncoat soldiers, and predatory alien monsters. Corrupted by Tyranid gene-taint, the cults fight with the coordination of swarming insects and the zealotry of true believers.
The Drukhari are a decadent culture of alien tormentors and raiders. Once part of a galaxy-spanning empire, the Drukhari now indulge in every macabre passion their supreme intelligence can conceive.
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.
Accursed Cultists have diverse and terrifying origins – whether born of dark ritual, empyric experimentation, or the predation of malign entities, these abberations are herded into battle as lurching shock troops, their tainted flesh reknitting grievous wounds with unnatural vigour. Once they reach close quarters, Mutants flail and lash at the enemy with claws or tendrils, while the horribly-warped Torments pounce with bestial hunger.
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.
Reliable, resilient and easily repaired, the Rhino APC has been the mainstay transport of the Adeptus Astartes since time immemorial. The Rhinos maintained by the Chaos Space Marines are grotesque shadows of these loyal troop carriers, daubed with terrifying symbols, smeared with the blood of the slain and covered in spikes – all the better to impale and intimidate the enemies of Chaos.
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.
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.
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.