+ Brother Traum +
+ Familiarity breeds contempt. So says the wisdom of the ages; and it is true – using a word too freely of often will rob it of the impact and potency it may once have had. Dreadnought – 'fear nothing'. The term might simply seem a label; a signifier divorced from the sign. In these dark days, when Talons rake their way across the Five Hundred worlds, a demigods clash in battle, we need the simply reassurance that there are fearless heroes that are ranged against the nightmare enemy. +
+ A word of obscure origin, deredeo is mostly held to translate as 'god of destruction'; with 'dere' being an archaic term for damage or harm. It is a fitting title for this heavy support class of Dreadnought. The Deredeo bristles with weaponry, commonly mounting one or two primary weapon banks along with its' torso-held defensive weapons. +
+ The Deredeo stands apart from other dreadnoughts, (such as the Castraferrum, Contemptor, Adjurator and Leviathan patterns) in that it has a distinctly inhuman profile, with its deep flared hull and lack of articulated upper limbs. This occasionally causes difficulty in acclimatising pilots, who must adapt to the limitations of the structure. This is, however, more than outweighed by the sheer amount of firepower the dreadnought can generate. +
+ Perhaps surprisingly, the pilot's motor functions previously used to control his arms and hands are not commonly slaved to the main armament, but to the torso-secondary bank – an adaptation brought in for nearly all Deredeo dreadnoughts since the earliest iteration. Psy-probes and neural inloadlinks reveal the pilot 'feels' himself in a foetal hunch, his arms and fists clenched protectively in front of his torso; rather than unnaturally displaced when slaved to the main battery. It has been demonstrated that the pilot's proprioceptive homonculus (which allow the neural-web to function as naturally as possible) adapts more quickly and completely to this layout. The main battery is instead directly aimed by the visual cortex and operated via an equivalence of the shoulder and back musculature – an idiosyncracy which gave rise to the informal nickname of 'shrugfire' or 'spinetwister' Dreadnoughts. +
+ Astartes are adaptable and resilient, both physically and psychologically; and those able to wrangle the Deredeo's unusual interface find great reward in the punishment that can mete out to the Emperor's (or Warmaster's) enemies. +
+ This example, Traum, was piloted by former Brother Terminus during the Calth Atrocity. A relative newcomer to the chassis, and barracked with a training corps, he was yet to be upgraded with the top-mounted aiolos missile system that changed the Deredeo from a powerful firebase to a murder machine. His Legion and heavy support designation markings are on his kneepads; at a convenient height for his supporting infantry. +
2 comments:
Another nice post, cheers. How much of this just appears off the top of your head?
Also the sludgy snow on the ground is wonderful. Really looks trampled on.
In rare cases I plan a specific figure around something I want to write. Sometimes something interesting about the figure will occur to me while I'm painting, or I try to work out how to square two seemingly contradictory bits of info against each other.
Mostly, though, I just write as things pop into my head when I look at the pictures of the finished figure. I tend to use one or two ideas and run with them.
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