Shroud-class Light Cruiser

A Shroud-class Light Cruiser is a type of Necron starship, and has only recently appeared in the makeup of Necron fleets so far encountered by the Imperium of Man. The Shroud class was first recorded in 992.M41 during an engagement with Battlefleet Pacificus of the Imperial Navy. In the six years immediately after, vessels of this configuration were observed on three occasions, and each time disengaged before Imperial vessels could bring them under fire. It was believed that either the class or the crew of the ship was being tested in some way. Any such preparation almost definitely ended in 998.M41 when five Shrouds launched a suicidal assault on the Adeptus Mechanicus’ Mars installation and landed near the Noctis Labyrinth. Since the Mars gambit, Shrouds have been identified on six occasions acting as the long-range eyes and ears of the Necron fleet. They excel at this task as they are especially stealth vessels. Their hull shape is a further refinement of normal Necron designs, making it very hard to detect; so hard in fact that orbital mines will even fail to activate with their passing. Because of this, no Imperial ship with any chance of catching a Shroud could possibly defeat one if they actually caught it. Shrouds are also equipped with superior sensors which are capable of relaying information gleaned to the rest of the fleet, making them suitable for long-range recon. The Imperial Navy has designated Shrouds to be a grave threat posed to their installations, for if they can penetrate the defences of Mars with such ease, then there is no base which can be considered safe.

As with all known Necron vessels, Shrouds possess Inertialess Drives that make the ship capable of interstellar travel without the need to enter the Warp, instead using advanced technology that makes the craft inertialess and able to travel at extreme speeds and with extreme acceleration, whilst also giving the spacecraft an agility that few other ships can match. Shrouds are also made nearly entirely out of Necrodermis, a unique sentient metal with which nearly every Necron is constructed out of. The material’s regenerative properties and hardy nature means that Shrouds are immune to the detrimental effects posed by celestial phenomena such as solar flares, radiation, gas clouds and nebulae, and are also able to repair their armour at a rapid pace during an engagement. However, standard Necron combat protocol dictates that a clean disengagement is preferable than a fight to the end, and Shrouds will do this by ‘fading out’, where the vessel in question dematerialises and drops out of normal space; taking it out of the battle.

Notable Encounters

 * 992.M41 Various Locations in Segmentum Pacificus - Shroud-class Light Cruisers are encountered for the first time in a series of multiple contacts with patrol fleets of Battlefleet Pacificus.
 * 996.M41 Bora Culpa Incident – Shrouds are identified by non-combative observation before the Bora Culpla’s population mysteriously disappears.
 * 998.M41 Mars – Five Shrouds Light Cruisers somehow manage to slip past Sol’s defences and penetrate the formidable planetary defences of the Adeptus Mechanicus homeworld of Mars. After pursuing the invaders to the Noctis Labyrinth, a mine complex in the planet’s northern reaches, defence ships were finally able to catch the Necron vessels. Though all five were destroyed, it was only at a fearfully high cost, and one of the Shrouds actually managed to land on the blessed red soil of Mars itself before being destroyed. What the Necrons hoped to gain is a mystery, and various local members of the Adeptus Mechanicus have voiced wildly differing opinions regarding the future of the mine complex, ranging from its total destruction to the enforcement of a Perdita zone. Fresh from his expedition from the Dead World of Naogeddon, Magos Prime Reston Egal proved most strident in his cries for the site’s destruction with fusion bombs and its sealing with ferrocrete, but thus far his demands have been overruled by the higher echelons of command.

Armament

 * Lightning Arc Batteries – Lightning Arcs use stored solar energy and, when activated, release it as a forest of living energy tendrils which envelop targets and probing for weaknesses. Lightning Arcs act as the main weapon batteries for Necron ships, but are different from other race equivalents in that the arcs they fire are able to split up and guide themselves into their own targets, allowing for a mass-strike ability like no other. A Lightning Arc battery is usually able to cover all angles of approach except for the rear.