Dirge-class Raider

A Dirge-class Raider is a type of Necron starship, and is the smaller and rarer of the two Escort sized Necron ships so far encountered and formally identified by the Imperium of Man; the other being the Jackal-class Raider. Whether its lack of numbers is universally the case or simply a matter of chance is unknown. Dirge-class Raiders, although never formally identified at the time, are now believed to account for many of the vessels occasionally sighted by Imperial Explorators even before the Yuctan incident and the first known Necron harvest. In 692.M41 an impenetrable layer of unidentified metal was found several hundred metres beneath the surface of Angelis, later to be revealed to be some form of alien spacecraft when the vessel rose entirely out of the sand and departed without trace. In the light of later events, it would seem probable that the ‘Angelis Boat’, as it was dubbed by the Explorator team researching it, was in fact a Dirge-class Raider.

As with all known Necron vessels, Dirge-class Raiders 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. Dirge-class Raiders 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 Dirge-class Raiders 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 Dirge-class Raiders will do this by ‘fading out’, where the vessel in question dematerialises and drops out of normal space; taking it out of the battle.

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.