The Ossiarch Bonereapers are a military force like no other – organised and efficient, led by generals created by the Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead, and lent a measure of his necromantic power. These terrifying bone constructs march forth in macabre splendour to claim the bones of the Mortal Realms so their numbers may continue to swell.
The Ossiarch Bonereapers are one of the Great Necromancer Nagash’s greatest achievements – an elite army of soldiers, crafted from the bones and souls of the dead. These terrible constructs are efficient, loyal, and inexorable, and they grow stronger with every enemy army they defeat, harvesting their very bone-matter in death.
Mortisan Ossifectors are dedicated to fashioning the mightiest constructs of the Bonereaper hosts, from the grotesque firing mechanisms of Mortek Crawlers to the dense bone-matter employed in the dread Morghasts. These necrotic engineers can be found developing their craft even in the midst of battle, sculpting grimly ingenious refinements and applying sorcerous augmentations to their monstrous charges.
The Ossiarch Bonereapers are masters of war, disciplined legions of bone-constructs who slaughter the living with clinical efficiency. Created to serve as the foremost warriors of Nagash, tyrannical god of the dead, they are creatures of magically sculpted bone and cruelly spliced souls, constructed from the harvested remains of the mortals they kill. Their empire has spread far, all in service to the Mortarch and military genius Orpheon Katakros. Detached and merciless, the Ossiarch Bonereapers grind down their enemies with tactical supremacy before seizing their bones to craft new legions of conquest.
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.
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 the officers of the Red Army in 1937 had denuded the organization of leadership and left deep scars in the survivors’ minds. Throughout the war, showing initiative was seen as a dangerous trait, and most Soviet officers would follow their orders to the letter even if they meant marching their men to certain death.
The T-34/76 first saw action in late 1941, and was a significant leap forward in tank design – a rugged, no-nonsense anatomy and wide tracks enabled it to cope with the mud and snow of the Eastern Front. It married the perfect combination of thick, sloped armour and an efficient gun, along with extreme sturdiness, reliability, ease of manufacturing and maintenance.
The T-34 series, with its sloping armour, changed the principles of tank design during the war. The sloping, angular layout of the T-34 increased the effective armour thickness and also saw a larger proportion of shells deflected away than penetrated its armour. The introduction of the T-34 into action saw German tank design follow suit with similarly angled armour on the likes of the Panther and King Tiger. As German tank design came to the fore, the Soviet war machine once again raised the bar with the T-34/85.
What do you do when you are told to upgrade an already giant metal monster that took a whole new generation of tank to actually deal with? You make it bigger and make it louder. The IS-2 is that very same beast, made as a competent replacement for the KV series and it was a far better designed machine than its predecessor.
The KV-1 is a huge monster of a vehicle weighing at 45 tonnes it was one of Russia’s first heavy breed of tanks used within the second world war, it was famed for it’s near impregnability. The German anti-tank weaponry of the time had nearly no way of penetrating its armour, only the lack of training and manoeuvrability allowing it to fall foul of superior German tactics.
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.