Canoptek Tomb Sentinel

A Canoptek Tomb Setinel

In the ages old Necron panoplies of war, a Canoptek Tomb Sentinel, also known as simply a Tomb Sentinel, is a truly unusual innovation; for it is one of the last war machines designed by the Cryptek artificer Tohlok the Blinded and was given over to the Triarch Praetorians before the Great Sleep for dissemination to the other Necron Dynasties at the Silent King’s demand. Designed both as a guardian and aggressor, a Canoptek Tomb Sentinel is a heavily modified variant of the insectile Tomb Stalker which forgoes the war engine’s facility in close assault in order to mount a compact exile weapon able to render a battle tank into oblivion. Phasing phantom-like through the paltry defences and fortifications of lesser races, it can deploy its Exile Cannon within the close confines of an enemy stronghold or even within a landed starship with devastating consequences.

A Tomb Sentinel is an enormous mass of living-metal carapace teeming with flashing legs and possessed of a murderous will. Easily the size of a dozen men, this centipede-like construct makes use of arcane phase-generators, allowing it to stalk the Tomb Worlds of its slumbering lords; burrowing through solid ground. They are swift and relentless engines of murder that know neither pity nor remorse. Differing somewhat in scale and form, Tomb Sentinels and other similar constructs primarily serve in guarding their Necron masters’ during their sleep; eternally vigilant in their search for intruders that might disturb the dread tombs in which they slumber.

Forward view of a Canoptek Tomb Sentinel and its Exile Cannon

Tomb Sentinels can detect the pulse of life and sense the frenzied rhythm of a panicked heartbeat through hundreds of metres of solid rock, and they use this ability to home in unerringly on their victims. This is due to the powerful sensors built into their primary sensor cluster which can work in all conditions; such as in complete darkness. The Sentinel’s immense size combines with its natural capacity for regeneration to create a nearly indestructible war construct. Even beyond the more common warriors of the Necron legions, these insectoid creatures continue to thrash and fight with deadly ferocity despite damage or dismemberment. The individual segments of the killing-machine seem drawn to one another and will reconstitute themselves to reform the whole should they come back into contact. Indeed, only the massive use of force is capable of wounding a Tomb Sentinel in the first place.

Tomb Sentinels are extraordinarily fast and employ a form of in-built phase field generator to pass through inert matter as if it were water, bore their way through rock and stone, and effortlessly move through the debris and rough terrain that often litters a battlefield. Because of their agile and speedy nature, and their ability to move swiftly underground, Tomb Sentinels are capable of appearing directly underneath an enemy. Erupting from the earth itself, a Tomb Sentinel can attack without warning; firing its cannon into its prey and bringing its mass and multitude of limbs to bear. After having banished the enemy enough with its powerful weapon, a Tomb Sentinel will then disengage from combat and burrow underground again to strike elsewhere; leaving nothing in its wake. Their phasing capability pairs with their unerring sensor-array and advanced multi-targeting protocols to make them fearsome hunters of important personnel. Given its nature of its Exile Cannon, a Tomb Sentinel is capable of banish everything from battle tanks to the most immense Xenos creature or daemonic entity.

Armament

All Tomb Sentinels are armed with the following:

• Exile Cannon - An Exile Cannon is a powerful and arcane Necron weapon that uses similar technologies to smaller Transdimensional Beamers. An Exile Cannon can be used as a convenient method of banishing large amounts of unwanted debris, machinery and failed experiments from Tomb Worlds and battlefields into a pocket dimension outside of the normal space-time continuum. However, these arcane ray projectors can also just as easily unleash their energy beams to blast and banish foes, tanks, and creatures to a long and horrifying death from starvation by casting them into other dimensional realms beyond the material universe.
• Blades and Claws - A Tomb Sentinel can attack its foes with its myriad of blades, limbs and claws; using its brute strength and fast movement to erupt ghost-like from solid earth before smashing into the enemy lines, ripping to shreds anything that dares to flee in a storm of bladed limbs.

Some Tomb Sentinels may be upgraded with the following:

• Sepulchral Scarabs - Sepulchral Scarabs are specialised forms of Canoptek Scarabs that some Canoptek Tomb Sentinels have been known to carry into battle. If the Tomb Sentinel is damaged, Sepulchral Scarabs will emerge from their hiding places to quickly repair the construct; granting the Tomb Sentinel immense regenerative properties.
• Gloom Prism – A Gloom Prism can generate energy fields which create zones that are shrouded and shielded from Warp-spawned powers, such as that of psykers.

Trivia

The term "canoptek" is a play on the word "canoptic", an adjective used to refer to an ancient Egyptian vase, urn, or jar, often known as a canoptic jar, that is used to hold the viscera of an embalmed body. The Necron's flavour has been heavily reworked in the 5th Edition to be even more evocative of ancient Egyptian cultural references.

Sources

• Imperial Armour - Volume Twelve - The Fall of Orpheus, pg. 121