Jackal-class Raider

A Jackal-class Raider is a type of Necron starship, and appears to have been part of every Necron fleet so far encountered by the Imperium of Man. Necron fleets have so far always included numbers of smaller ships roughly equivalent to Imperial Escort vessels. Although there have been two instances of such craft operating on their own, this seems to be the exception rather than the rule, and it appears that they are usually very closely controlled by the Tomb Ships or Harvest Ships in the fleet. The Jackal is the slightly larger of the two types of Necron Escort vessels so far encountered, with the other being the Dirge-class Raider.

As with all known Necron vessels, Jackals 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. Jackals 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 Jackals 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 Jackals 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

 * 796.M41 Adinbur Prime – Jackal-class Raiders ambush the Patrol Group Tiryns near the planet of Adinbur Prime. Luckily for the Imperial contingent, Battlefleet Artemis was nearby and was able to reinforce the beleaguered vessels and repel the assaulters successfully.
 * 992.M41 Orphean War – During the Orphean War, numerous Jackals were encountered by Battlefleet Orpheus. Belonging to Kutlakh the World Killer (who was the Phaeron of the Maynarkh Dynasty), they destroyed many times their number in Imperial ships and basically shattered Battlefleet Orpheus by the time they had disengaged.
 * 998.M41 Mars – Jackal-class Raiders provided diversionary targets at edge of the Sol system, causing substantial attacks by Imperial defenders to ensues in an attempt to repel them. A plea for aid from the Tethrock Quay naval base was the first indicator of their attacks, and the Lux Imperator disappeared and the warship Solar’s Fury was destroyed soon after. These attacks culminated with a suicide rush by five Shroud-class Light Cruisers to Mars itself.

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.
 * Portal – Portals vast stone gateways within a Necron ship, and are able to be used for boarding enemy vessels. More precise than conventional Imperial teleporters, they are most commonly used to flood enemy ships with a relentless host of Necron Warriors and swarms of Canoptek Scarabs.