The Gloomspite Gitz are cunning and vindictive in the extreme, their deranged grotty minds forever spinning up fresh tricks and vicious ploys. Dismiss the cackling cruelty of the grots, the hungry ferocity of their squigs, and the thoughtless strength of the cavern-dwelling troggoths at your peril – these are the true children of the Bad Moon.
Veteran squig-herders who muster ravening packs of cave-beasts, Squigbosses don’t so much command their fungal herds as offer incentives of potent mushrooms, balanced by occasional jabbings from their squig-krooks. Most go to battle accompanied by loyal Gnasha-squigs, who gleefully chomp at anything that gets too close – this predatory pet is often their closest friend, for other grots find anyone that even a squig won't eat to be deeply suspect.
Snarlfang Riders prowl at the flanks of a Gloomspite horde, mounted atop cruel, wolf-like beasts raised as steeds from birth. These opportunistic cavalry-grots gleefully hunt down the enemy, loosing volleys of barbed arrows before their ferocious Snarlfang partners pounce upon the foe and tear them apart with fang and claw. Estranged from their subterranean Moonclan cousins, the plains-dwelling Gitmobs join Gloomspite throngs as mercenaries and outriders in a grudging truce fuelled by shared hatreds.
When covert operations are required, Primaris Space Marines go to battle clad in Phobos armour, a lighter variant of Mark X armour designed for stealth and agility. Armed with a variety of specialised wargear, these lethal squads use surprise and overwhelming force to end any skirmish as quickly as it begins – whether pursuing independent missions as a Phobos Strike Team, or securing vital objectives on a wider battlefield.
Once soldiers of the Astra Militarum, these brutal killers have rebelled against the Imperium, heeding the promises of power offered by the Chaos Gods. The deadliest veterans of the Traitor Guard are known as the Blooded, and put their training and equipment to terrible use, fighting against those who were once their allies. Often pressed into service in the armies of the Chaos Space Marines, the Blooded are all too eager to claim dark glory on far-flung killzones or warp-marked battlefields.
Foul warbands afflicted by a gruesome techno-organic plague, the Gellerpox Infected are nightmarish meldings of festering flesh and malignant machinery. These hideous beings may once have been loyal servants of the God-Emperor, plying the void beneath the safety of a geller field – such days are long gone, wiped away by supernatural sickness and a gleeful compulsion to spread their infection across the stars.
On the ruined agri world of Moroch, amongst prefab colony habs, archeotech mines, and fronteris compounds, the ambitious Traitor Guard of the Blooded have all but overthrown their shocked Imperial overseers. Yet loyalist reinforcements have arrived in the form of an elite Phobos Strike Team, whose Space Marine operatives have commenced a hit-and-run campaign to take down the traitor forces one bloody gunfight at a time. Now, transhuman warriors battle degenerate, Chaos-worshipping renegades through the ruins of Moroch’s blasted frontier, each seeking nothing less than the wholesale annihilation of their enemies.
The war in the shadows escalates! Amidst ruined cityscapes, carnivorous jungles and hidden strongholds, new kill teams join the fray. From the gruesome Gellerpox Infected to the noble Elucidian Starstriders, each band of warriors brings their own method of war to every desperate battle – in struggles that seem more varied and deadly than ever. Expert assassins and saboteurs slip through patrols of enemy sentries, hoping to complete their bloody tasks and slip away before they are detected, while bands of grizzled warriors faced with impossible odds choose to make their last stand, taking as many of the foe as they can with them to the grave.
Deathmasters are the greatest assassins of the Clans Eshin, trained in the shadowy arts of stealth and contracted to slay those whom influential skaven deem too dangerous to live. Armed with poisoned ‘weeping blades’ and toxin-laced throwing stars, these supernaturally dextrous killers have slain kings and warlords beyond count.
The Nachmund Gauntlet – a relatively stable realspace corridor through the tumultuous warp storms of the Great Rift – is one of the most strategically important locations in the Imperium. It would be a dangerous place even without the countless millions of pirates, criminals, heretics, and traitors of a dozen and more species fighting relentless wars for supremacy and wealth. Among these are the Heretic Astartes – traitor Space Marines in thrall to the Chaos Gods – and the Corsair coteries – Aeldari who seek a life of independence and freedom and care little for others.
The Voidscarred are hardened veterans of a life of piracy. These Corsairs have travelled the stars for centuries, and they have seen the worst and the best the galaxy has to offer. Many have developed unique skills and fighting styles over the years, carrying specialist wargear into battle.
Not even the Space Marines are safe from the lure of Chaos. Whether they hail from the dark days of the Horus Heresy or turned traitor more recently, these baleful warriors combine their gene-given gifts with dark blessings and malefic sorceries, transformed by years of battle into fearless, superhuman reavers.