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The Tyranid hive fleets are rapacious alien swarms that flow from beyond the galactic fringe to devour all life. When the Tyranids attack they do so in unstoppable numbers, unleashing nightmarish bio-weapons upon their victims.
Termagants are fast, agile and cunning creatures. When a Tyranid Hive Fleet descends upon a prey-world, Termagants scuttle forward on four legs whilst unleashing torrents of fire from the bio-weapons that serve as their forelimbs.
The Soviets were visionaries in the development of airborne troops and tactics, first forming a brigade-sized airborne unit after successful trials in December 1932. More units followed and by June 1941 five Airborne Corps existed in the Soviet order of battle, undoubtedly the strongest airborne force in the world. However in the desperate fighting of the early campaign these formations were pressed into service as regular infantry and virtually consumed.
‘Popular regimentation’ or the ‘people’s militia’ (Narodnoe Opolcheniye or Opolchenie) is a Russian tradition dating back to the 16th century and a powerful part of the national heritage. In times of emergency, a militia was selected from volunteers to serve alongside the regular army and defend their homes.
In 1941 the Soviet Union’s fortified borders were manned by units of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs). These units were almost entirely destroyed in the first weeks of the campaign. After this, NKVD troops were chiefly used for internal security, but could potentially fight on the frontline as they did at Stalingrad in 1942 and during the Crimean Offensive in 1944.
Shortages meant that Soviet formations were sparsely served when it came to transport and rear-echelon support. Pioneer detachments were a notable exception. Their expertise was too essential to do without: bridge-building, demolitions, fortification construction and minefield placement and clearance. These all required skills the conscripted masses did not have. Assault engineers were specialists tasked with liquidating enemy strongpoints during an advance and clearing obstacles to allow tank units to breakthrough. This was extremely dangerous work with a high casualty rate (even by Red Army standards) and assault engineer units were sometimes equipped with SN-42 body armour to give them a fighting chance.
Neurolictors are nightmarish living weapons of psychological warfare, engineered to implant mind-altering parasites and project a neural disruption field that provokes atavistic terror responses in even the most hardened prey. As an offshoot of the Lictor bioform, Neurolictors possess a nigh-supernatural ability to evade notice – which renders their sabotage all the more terrifying, as these insidious effects often seem to emerge from out of thin air.
Swooping on leathery wings, Parasites of Mortrex use their barbed ovipositors to drive Ripper gestation pods deep into their victims’ bodies. These swiftly-growing creatures soon chew themselves free from their unfortunate hosts. Such was the fate of the defenders of Imperial planet of Mortrex, the world first cursed by the Parasites’ onslaught. Now they wreak havoc on the foes of the Hive Fleet by soaring over defences and seeding unlucky souls with nascent Rippers.
Neurogaunts scuttle forward in seething masses, driven on by the parasitic neurocytes that cling to their backs. Their primary purpose is to protect the synaptic node-beasts coordinating invasion swarms, while projecting their command signals throughout the wider swarm. It is a task they go about with single-minded savagery, slashing, biting, and dying with mindless vigour.
The armies of the Soviet Union had many weapons at their disposal to counteract the threat of German armoured formations – from orthodox anti-tank rifles, oddball 'Molotov Cocktail’ throwers and the unconventional use of dogs as living anti-tank mines.
Like the soldiers they commanded, many Soviet officers were inexperienced and lacked training at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Stalin’s ruthless purge of officers of the Red Army in 1937 had denuded the organisation of leadership and left deep scars in the survivors’ minds.