The Dark Mechanicum, for me, allow you to indulge in some dark/mildly terrifying narratives for your Headquarters elements. Reinforcing this, their models are often high in body horror and low on humanity – and are ripe for conversions. This is before we even get to the lore, where we see such things as the creation of Adsecularis Tech Thralls in Titandeath – for those who haven’t read it, Ettan Bok will stay in my memory for a long time.

Normally, I’d run Scoria as my Warlord in a Cybernetica army. This is because I’ve always loved the lore of Xana and frankly pre-ordered the beauty of a model that Scoria has the second it went up. However, sometimes there’s a reason you can’t run a named character, and that isn’t a problem – some of the best Heresy games I’ve played have been “no named characters”. However, I do like a good bit of narrative behind models on the table.

Having the Night Lords as another Heresy army makes me naturally lean into a Dark Mechanicum force that uses its own version of terror tactics – and I don’t just mean putting twenty Myrmidons on the table pre-game. I’ve always had a vivid imagination that’s lingered on the darkness, preferring unknown motivation horror, psychological horror and Lovecraftian influence over gore. Subtle horror is often the most effective. Clearly, the army is painted in Xana II, but this doesn’t mean they fall under a strictly defined narrative, especially without Scoria at the helm, so the intent is to draw up a whole back story, without breaking too far from the mood. So with this in mind, I took ten minutes out from writing my latest University module output to brainstorm some narratives for the next event I attend.

The Order of Oblivion

In a failed attempt by the Loyalists to chastise Xana II for covertly supporting the Warmaster, and strike a blow at the Sons of Horus attempting to take materiel from the system, much of the system was reduced to ruin. From the ashes Anacharis Scoria rose from the prison-forge on Xana-Tisiphone to begin Xana’s rebirth into the first true Hellforge of Chaos.

It didn’t take long for the arcane energies to begin reconstructing the Forgeworlds and Weapons Testing Planets into diabolical analogues of their previous forms. Those Commanders who survived the onslaught from the Loyalist Astartes found themselves under a new Master and needing new armies. As the disparate forces coalesced into fully fledged forces, these Commanders were dispatched by Scoria to begin overt operations supporting the Warmaster.

One of these forces became known as The Order of Oblivion, a Cybernetica Cohort commanded by Taragus-441. It was supplemented by a small element of Myrmidons and tanks, which made up an adhoc Ordo Reductor complement, a cohort of heavy House Malinax Knights and a large number of Adsecularis Tech Thralls. This fairly wide mix of supporting forces saw The Order of Oblivion marked as Taghmata Tratoris – however this was rapidly reassessed by the Loyalists during The Orders first combat action when they were overwhelmed by automata.

Archmagos Dominus – The Shrike

Known as Taragus-441 prior to the Xana Incursion, the then Magos Dominus was an overseer for several security and construction automata at the Prison-Forge on Xana-Tisiphone. A small and unassuming individual, Taragus had a penchant for taking his time during the conversion process of the slaves into Adsecularis. Adsecularis were semi-lobotomised during the process of conversion, allowing them to have their pain receptors were dulled, but no control of their actions, which were dictatted by an Overseer Magos. Part of Taragus’s experiments would see his victims impaled on immense pain spikes as he worked to attmept to adjust their synapses so they would feel everything: pain, terror, horror, whilst retaining control of them as an Overseer Outwardly, he stated that the pain, terror and horror amplified and honed their combat abilities. Inwardly, he liked the contortions their faces made as they slid onto the spikes and lost all control of themselves, whilst experiencing abject misery and fear.

Taragus was wounded horrifically by the Loyalist Astartes, being hemisected by a chainsword. Surviving by rallying his automata to his side and having them sustain his motive power by ramming huge electrical conduits from the Forge directly into his spinal shunts, Taragus clung to life whilst attempting to push back the Astartes. When the battle was over, Taragus was placed into a recovery suite and received multiple cybernetica grafts – so badly wounded he was, including two small spinal shunt electrical pickup vanes that would see him survive, but condemn him to a life within the Forge complex forever.

However, Chaos energies were running amok in the year post the Xana Incursion, and as Scoria rebuilt the Forges, Chaos supplemented them. The spinal shunts became warped into huge warp-fuelled vanes that meant he could leave the Forge and he wore his craving to induce fear as his external visage – his life support mask fused permenantly to his face and baleful energies glowed from his eye and mouth sockets.

It was during his first combat action post the Incursion that Taragus ceased to be Taragus, and became the Shrike. After a successful engagement with Loyalist Imperial Army forces, he disppeared from the frontlines and was found in a large machinehall with adhoc stanchions forced into the floor at one meter intervals in a circle around him. Upon each and every one of these stanchions, was an Imperial Army soldier, being dismembered and refitted for combat operations under the Dark Mechanicum. After each conversion was complete, he tested for fear and pain reflexes, drawing the essence of their fear into himself via the warp vanes, and atomising their tears with intakes of breath into his rebreather. He then commanded their shuffling, halting, fear-wracked bodies out of the hall and into combat against their comrades.

From then on, Taragus was expunged from the records – and only The Shrike remained.

The conversion is minimal on this model – with the base being Vashtorr the Arkifane, and having a Photon Thruster shoulder mounted to bring some design symmetry to him and the Cybernetica constructs, a Meltagun in his fist and a Myrmidon Axe head in place of the Thunderhammer.

Magos Dominus – The Rake

Varic-370A was a Magos Dominus in command of a Thanatar Siege Automata cohort during the Incursion. Engaged by Loyalist Astartes, Varic found his position falling when the heavy black metal doors of the Ordinatus bunkers opened. When the Ulator opened fire, it was on his position.

His body was shattered by the immense power of the Ordinatus – what turned out to be a glancing blow. His mind was torn asunder as his brain was overheated and he withdrew into his machine cores to protect himself. As he lay there, soft rain of blood and atomised flesh pattering down around him, and his Siege Automata silent, Varic-370A slipped into the black.

He awoke days later, still laid in the same place, with his automata silent sentinels to him, though the blood rain had ceased. Silence punctuated by worker gangs movements and shouts for help was all he could perceive. The battle evidently was over. Attempting to emerge from his machine cores back into his flesh-brain resulted in corruption – an inability to verbalise and unhinged brutality came to the fore in place of a fully-operative psyche. The first work gang to find him found themselves torn to pieces by Varic’s sole working arm, a power-lance prosthetic. From there he was subdued using data-djinns and withdrawn to the medicae.

Once removed from his damaged bionics, and the dead flesh cut away, there was very little of Varic remaining. More had been put into the Lorica Thallax. However, he convinced the Enginseers to rig him up to a multi-segmented Abeyant that the Forge had been designing pre-Incursion. This Abeyant was designed to provide him with the best possible view of the battlefield, by enabling a far greater range of terrain to be overcome, as well as providing enhanced optics either by physically raising himself or via onboard augury suites. Once fitted he reassumed command of his Siege Automata cohort.

During the first action of The Order of Oblivion – he ranged ahead of his automata and was often noticed, pre-attack commencing, staring at enemy positions in perfect, silent repose. His hood obscured most of his face, but a single menacing red eye lens pierced the night as he sent calculations to the Thanatar cohort. He earned the name The Rake from this, the silent watcher, malevolently stalking his foes before bringing down absolute destruction upon them.

This conversion is made from a Necron Tomb Stalker, combined with the carapace from a Forgeworld Magos Dominus, the Conversion beamer tip from a Moirax and elements of Belararius Cawl (such as the power unit underslung).

Magos Dominus – The Mimic

Kalash-901 was a Magos Dominus in command of a reconnaissance cohort comprised of Vorax and Vulturax automata pre-Incursion. Kalash was slight of frame and heavy on augmetics, being close to seventy-five percent augmented. Most of these were combat orientated, with a specialised reconnaissance augury and sub-threshold communication systems to better deliver his outputs as a recce/strike cohort commander.

Kalash found himself broken against the second wave on Xana-Tisiphone, his Vorax left as smouldering ruins by a Dreadnought surging through the lines towards him. Unable to vector Vulturax to his position quickly enough, the Dreadnought pulped him into the ground before moving on without breaking stride.

Recovered post battle, Kalash was interred into a reconnaissance combat chassis with a pronounced sensor and communications package on the rear. His return to combat was rapid – used to reconnoiter for an assault against a Hive City on a nearby system. It’s here that Kalash turned from mere specialist into a monster.

Taking a full complement of one hundred Vorax with him, he arrived at the Hive outskirts and began probing into both the outer defensive lines, as well as into the Hive itself. Conducting collect from the communications networks running from the defences to the Hive, Kalash identified families and friends of soldiers and their geolocations. Once initial reconnaissance had been completed, Kalash took his Vorax and positioned them in ambush locations on patrol routes and buried them in sandy pits ahead of the main defences.

From there, Kalash went to the families and friends of the soldiers – isolated them and began to torture and kill them. In the process, he recorded their voice patterns and even spoke to the soldiers via communications lines in their now dead families and friends voices. With this acheived, he stored the voice print information in his communications pod and returned to the front lines – setting jammers at the main communications hubs to shut down lines of communication and better hide his activities.

His ambushes comprised of pre-positioned automata laying dormant along patrol routes, and using aggressive mimicry to call out to soldiers on the patrols for weeks on end, tormenting them, Some gave in to the voices, in absolute exhaustion, and walked towards them, never to return to the patrol or their defensive positions. It didn’t take long for trench-stories to take hold and whilst the Loyalist commanders knew of the deaths of families and friends, they tried to keep it from the soldiers – placing their own jammers along lines of communication to stop the fear of those in the Hive from reaching the defences.

Kalash changed the game by hunting the commanders and sub-commanders next – giving orders for whole units to conduct patrol actions into ambush locations, or return to the Hive. The latter forced the Loyalist commanders to inform the soldiers of the deaths of their families and friends, shattering morale. Once the main fleet arrived – the Cybernetica of The Order of Oblivion ran into little resistance. Those who were not broken by the death and destruction of everyone they cared for, or the haunting calls for them to walk into the darkness in their families and friends voices, shattered at the sight of an unrelenting wave of stalking, diabolical automata, with baleful red glowing targeting matrices.

As Chaotic energies were drawn to him from his conduct, his already spider-like form twisted further into grotesque parody of a nightmarish arachnid. Kalesh ceased to be Kalesh – now only The Mimic remained.

The conversion is based off a Venomcrawler, GW Magos, Scorias legs, and some meltagun parts.

House Malinax – Senneschal Rabban Dukad

Rabban Dukad leads the Heavy Knight Cohort assigned to The Order of Oblivion from House Malinax. His Knight is a Mechanicum Atrapos experimental platform capable of sowing immense destruction and chaos in enemy lines. During the Incursion, Rabban fought off Loyalist Astartes at Setna Forge complex.

Rabban commands a sub-threshold cohort in terms of normal House Malinax deployments, but it more than makes up for the small number of Knights in terms of destructive output. The force comprises of:

• Three Mechanicum Cerastus Atrapos Knights (Including his own).
• Thirty Armiger Warglaives.
• Ten Mechanicum Knight Moriax.
• Four Acastus Asterius.
• Four Acastus Porphyrion.

It’s mostly used for spearhead actions, where it provides support to a larger Cybernetic construct force. Occasionally it has been used as a strikeforce core to deliver destruction to a target when the main fleet is not within effect range, but the smaller House Barque could project and achieve the objective. This has been most effective when combined with The Mimic setting the conditions with their reconnaissance forces.

The heavier Acastus Class Knights are always present with a retinue of Moirax, to give them the best chance of survival against concerted enemy efforts to destroy them. Rabban rarely deploys all of them at once, prefering to use one of each Acastus in a sector of battle to deliver overlapping supporting fire to each other. The Asterius class are used more aggressively than other House elements use theirs – reducing the effect of the Conversion Beamers by a small margin, but maximising psychological impact on the enemy, as well as ensuring the rad-munitions are capable of maximising target saturation. According to Rabban, nothing sows fear and malcontent better than knowing death is coming for you by being atomised into the warp, having your skin slough off due to radiation poisioning or to be compacted by your own mass in a singularity – and having no way of effectively fighting back.

Rabban has a penchant for theatrics as well as brutality, using night and inclement weather as a screen for his advance at low power, before fully powering up and sounding the warhorns at close distance as they emerge from the cover of darkness. fog or heavy/static rain. He thinks nothing of using the Graviton Singularity Cannon against civilian or military targets as long as the battle is won.

Rabban has been selected to lead other force elements within the wider Taghmata Scoria, but either refuses or returns once a select action has been carried out. He enjoys the nature of The Order of Oblivion and the manner in which they conduct operations and has no wishes to hand his preferrred command over, much to the chagrin of his subordinate commanders.

The Future of the Force Construct

I’m currently midway through finishing off my Moirax talons, whereby I’ll end up with four Moirax split between Grav and Claw, and C-Beamer gunboats. I still need to acquire at least four Armigers to attempt to field an optional Knight house alongside a Primary Mechanicum detachment. The intent here will be something like The Mimic’s force. Finally, I think despite every part of me screaming at how awful it’ll be, i’m tempted to rebuild my Ordo Reductor Army from 1.0 – using actual Reductor High Techno Arcana, instead of the Myrmidax one.

I hope you enjoyed this narrative post – the Dark Mechanicum are my current lead army of the three I own – so will be getting more focus on the blog. This is basically because they need some time in terms of painting and also Sons of Horus and Night Lords are starting to bore me a little!