Wulfen Dreadnought

Like all Dreadnoughts, a Wulfen Dreadnought is a veritable mountain of iron and adamantium. But where other Dreadnoughts stomp towards their foe with robotic stiffness, the joints and servos of a Wulfen Dreadnought twitch and spasm like the muscles of a crazed animal. Leaning forward as it begins to charge, the Wulfen Dreadnought is consumed with a singular, predatory intent, and seeks only to maul and eviscerate the enemies before it. The rampant devastation is accompanied by baleful howling, and the savagery continues until the metallic beast is eventually stared down by their Wolf Lord.

Wulfen Dreadnoughts are bellicose, even by the standards of the Space Wolves, and their weapon loadouts are hence adapted by Iron Priests. Ranged armaments are replaced with massive implements of closequarters slaughter -- namely the Fenrisian great axe and great wolf claw. Some Wulfen Dreadnoughts bear a blizzard shield, its powerful force field allowing them to weather even more punishment as they plunge into battle.

Each of the Dreadnoughts housed deep beneath the Fang contains a great Space Wolves hero shorn of his warrior physique. But an even crueller fate awaits some of these entombed warriors. Though their bodies are all but lifeless, they still bear the genetic heritage of their Primarch, the Canis Helix, and in rare cases the sleeping beast within their psyche is awoken. The Curse of the Wulfen afflicts the warrior bound within the Dreadnought; sometimes it will distort his crippled body even as it ravages his mind, forcing the Iron Priests to refit the sarcophagus so his gnarledfeatures glower and snarl from within. The animal fury of the battle-brother provokes the Dreadnought’s machine spirit, adding to its simmering rage a mindless hunger for violence and transforming the walking war engine into a Wulfen Dreadnought.

Notable Wulfen Dreadnoughts

 * Murderfang - It was Logan Grimnar’s Great Company that found the feral Dreadnought known as Murderfang. On the hell world of Omnicide the Champions of Fenris were locked in a roving campaign against the Alpha Legion, with battles raging throughout the spine of acid-spewing volcanoes that encircled the planet. The Space Wolves fully expected to be ambushed as they followed the duplicitous Chaos Space Marines further into the mountain ravines, but instead of a deadly trap they came across a slaughter. A stampeding mechanical beast was hurtling through the already thin Alpha Legion ranks, its massively brutal claws tearing the remaining traitors limb from bloody limb. The monstrous construct bore the heraldry of Fenris, though no battlebrother recognised the specific markings. The Space Wolves joined in the melee, quickly dispatching the last of the Alpha Legion, but even with their common foe gone the fury of the Dreadnought didnot subside. Attempts to communicate with the entombed battle-brother were met with metallic snarls, and all efforts to calm the berserk machine only enraged it further. Only by using helfrost technology were the Space Wolves able to freeze the Dreadnought, placing it in stasis so that it could be taken back to Fenris and studied by the Iron Priests in the Fang. The metal-skinned monster is now believed to be the culmination of the Curseborn Prophecy, its arrival having been foreseen nearly two hundred years ago. Though it resembles a Space Wolves Dreadnought, and must once have had a name, the identity of the once noble hero within its sarcophagus is long lost, consumed by the bestial thing that now leers from its facade. Named Murderfang by the Space Wolves, it is a force of untamed destruction. In times of great strife, such as when Fenris itself was beset by a daemonic incursion, the machine-beast is released from its glacial prison and set upon the foe. Unleashed, Murderfang claws and stamps until nothing is left but ruin. At battle’s end, the Space Wolves freeze it with helfrost technology once again, hoping that Murderfang’s wrath can be stayed for long enough to see it contained in the caverns beneath the Fang. Yet all know that as the Time of Ending approaches, the white heat of its rage will be needed more than ever.

Source

 * Codex Adeptus Astartes - Space Wolves (8th Edition), pg. 54