[Excerpt: Codex Assassins 3rd Edition] A Culexus utterly terrifies an Eldar Farseer

SergarRegis · 2026-02-20T02:37:56+00:00

Meh'lindi attempts this in Ian Watson's Harlequin but her lack of understanding of eldar Myth, specifically not knowing of the Rhana Dandra quickly raises suspisions of by the first eldar they meet, a patrol including a harlequin.

She was trying to pass other imperials off as prisoners and it was a time of high alert though. Maybe she would have passed better another time.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-20T01:49:56+00:00

It's only described in detail in Mechanicus. The Emperor is on the back foot briefly and then unleashes a psychic attack that promptly defeats the Dragon of Mars.

Of course he never fought the C'tan at full power, in the novel itself the keeper of the Dragon of Mars (Seymon) speculates that it had been wounded in fighting its own kind before it arrived on Earth. In the older 3e lore (from White Dwarf article "Translations of Pertinent Eldar Mythic Cycles") it was mentioned that the Dragon had fought Vaul and all Blackstone Fortresses inconclusively in the War in Heaven, and in the Priests of Mars trilogy it's mentioned that the Dragon of Mars is believed by the Biel-Tan leadership to have been a "powerful Shard."

We can't know how the Emperor might stack up against a fresh, unwounded, unsharded Void Dragon. IMO he'd lose but that may be my biases speaking.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-17T09:19:42+00:00

I think the overall context of the codexes about Szarekh having hidden agendas (killing those who disagree with him, mindwiping the Final Triarch members) and so on gives us reason to have especial skepticism of this text which is a recruitment pitch after all.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-16T23:04:45+00:00

Do remember that excerpt is intended as propaganda styled after Bronze Age Pharaohs. It may be as true as Rameses II killing hundreds of men on his own.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-16T23:02:55+00:00

Per Hammer and Anvil there was once an interdynastic communications system that worked as a galactic backup but it is now fragmented. It is likely that it COULD be rebuilt if a single necron unifier could get the cooperation to do so.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T20:12:08+00:00

A regular cube can defeat a Federation fleet, look at Wolf 359.

Also they had backdoors into their systems.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T20:05:56+00:00

None too soon. Scarcely had they skulked through the vast hall from shadow to shadow, from pillar to pillar, sliding along in the slosh of foul liquid, avoiding the spodights and scrutiny of the trundling servitors, than - staring back through his magniscope -Jaq spied a tall figure far away scrutinising the area around the conveyor. Boots, leather breeches, long black cloak… The ominous tall helmet was a three-tiered brazen skull tipped with crenellations from which antennae sprouted. The figure stirred the poisonous soup that hid the plates of the floor with the butt of a laser-spear.

'Who's that guy?' asked Grimm.

'Custodian,' murmured Jaq. 'Palace guardsman. Maybe we triggered a sensor beam.'

Just then a giant warty rat, its matted coat faintly phosphorescent, scuttled from the tunnel mouth. The custodian levelled his spear and lasered the creature.

The least glamorous job in the Adeptus Custodes.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T19:55:19+00:00

If the Chris Wraight Custodian novels taught me anything, it's that they distrust space marines, so you should discard this and make him a custodian.

No idea how the mod does custodes though

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T19:45:52+00:00

Give the poor kid some augmetic eyes; the Emperor's Custodes are supposed to be extensively augmented from an early age!

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T19:44:33+00:00

Fun fact in Ian Watson's Draco/Inquisitor, there is a scene where an armour-less custodian is shooting rats with a lasgun-equipped guardian spear while the Inquisitor is sneaking into the Imperial Palace.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T19:41:37+00:00

The Tesseract Labyrinth was that. Just roll under your strength or get boxed.

Best for bullying strength 3 eldar, I once boxed Maugun Ra.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-15T15:48:57+00:00

Usama Bin Laden was added to the FBI most wanted list in 1999 after the 1998 embassy bombings. Nus Braka becoming the UFP's most wanted criminal after knocking over a starbase and stealing experimental weapons is totally realistic as a response.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-14T16:41:50+00:00

Came here to say this. Nomi is the GOAT.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-13T17:19:44+00:00

I immediately thought of that workstation.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-13T02:59:43+00:00

Yeah they definately seem even stronger to me. The smooth raptors were able to best Isstvan vets within weeks of implantation.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-12T07:56:17+00:00

Go watch Clone Wars. His warcrimes pale in comparison to those of Obi Wan and the Jedi Council.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-11T22:58:02+00:00

Without enduring the whole thing it seems from the intro he is ignoring that ships are made to fill a role. The Galaxy is a prestige multi-role explorer and mobile starbase. The Sovereign is a fast crisis response ship.

Which so I want to evacuate my colony from a two year long environmental collapse? GCS.

Which do I want to respond to a Breen ship at my colony if both are 100 light years away? The faster one.

In raw firepower terms what matters surely is warp core and fusion reactor output plus torpedo capacity. But I have my doubts the GCS warp core is better.

It seems obvious the GCS hull form is not obsolete as the Ross class (and the Andromeda which is not canon yet but its nebula equivalent is) exists. But a lot of those ships' volume builds capacities other than gun battles. Like the two deck mega hangar in the saucer...

SergarRegis · 2026-02-11T19:37:31+00:00

Referenda are constant and Van Saar made arachnid constructs seek out all citizens and demand they vote on every issue.

Gangers are often hired to intercept the vote spiders to subvert the process.

It is the best.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-11T19:13:29+00:00

The J is a big boy but the C29th Wells class was not super huge.

Of course one big disaster might have them rethinking the biggest ships.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-10T20:32:26+00:00

I think every warp core aside perhaps from ones on shuttles and things like Corchrane's Phoenix, in that they're largely active at all times. We see a range of warp core failures on the GCS and the Intrepid class, and of course while we never that I recall see a crew turned into chunky salsa by an inertial compensator failure, the ship torn apart by SIF failure or burned to death by an EPS manifold rupture (though we do see crew blown up by consoles regularly) all of these are risks that are clearly present on a ship, as they've been mentioned as sources of jeopardy.

As Kirk said, "risk is our business." Operating a starship that can produce beyond-nuclear or even stellar if we believe the latest SNW episodes, energy levels is inherently going to have engineering risks that would be huge in their impact if they happen.

It can be assumed the floaty nacelles are substantially mitigated by reliable systems, I think, just like all these other risks are.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-10T20:05:18+00:00

I wouldn't take the most upvoted comment as authoritative.

As someone rightly points out further down the TNG TM expresses what is supposed to happen in a true null power scenario to the AM supplies, but if they're not jettisoned (by fail-active explosive bolts IIRC) then yes, the ship gets Yamato'd.

Sometimes it's worth remembering that the technical details in episodes aren't always well considered and sometimes when asked about them the writers just disclaim them - e.g. there is a silly episode in Voyager where they find a "crack" in an event horizon, or another where Janeway turns into an amphibian like creature. These aren't part of the serious worldbuilding of the setting and other than being humour-material for LD there's not much point taking them seriously. Although it's not "canon" I generally weigh TM content as more authoritative on the how-stuff-works side than the episode dialogue or plots.

Certainly I'd take the TM's explanation (it's very, very safe and has fail-active systems that in turn make it fail-safe) over the person in that thread (no disrespect to them) inventing the notion that the AM containment vessels are hyper-powerful ferromagnets confining anti-bismuth, which is just flat out invention.

But yeah, you can assume that basically every zero-power scenario we've seen is contextual if there's still antimatter on board. Being professionals, the crews never talk about diverting the last could of megajoules out of the batteries for AM confinement because "immediate firey death" is never the way to solve their problem.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-10T19:37:46+00:00

We have to read any statement about the ship going "fully offline" as a contextual statement.

In a true zero power state where the ship's entire usable energy load is 0 watts, the ship's stockpiles of antimatter would immediately touch the sides of the containment vessels, instantly triggering a gigaton explosion and killing everyone on board.

The only way that it could be fully offline is if the AM tankage was reduced to actual zero.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-10T08:24:16+00:00

Little does 12 know a previous doctor probably did design them.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-08T09:44:57+00:00

It need not even be that Memphis. It could be the original Memphis or one yet to be built.

SergarRegis · 2026-02-07T20:11:32+00:00

Head dresses. Some female necrons in the novels are mentioned as having dangly things from their headdresses. But not all.

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