Hell-Knight

A squad of Hell-Knight Daemon Knights

A Hell-Knight is a highly-specialised type of Daemon Knight found among those Knight Households that have been corrupted down the millennia by Chaos. Hell-Knights are wholly dedicated to the Pleasure God Slaanesh.

The crews of these Daemon Engines have long since died but their souls live on as daemons, floating within the shells of their war machines. The Knights themselves have also mutated due to exposure to the energies of the Warp, sprouting claws, tails and other horrendous weapons.

Role

Hell-Knights are one of the most specialised types of Daemon Knights. Aside from Bolters, their main weapon is a rapid-firing Thermal Lance which, albeit short-ranged, has enough power to pierce almost any armour plate with relative ease. Hell-Knights are often used to hunt down enemy Knights and Titans, exploiting their speed to attack from the flanks and overwhelm opponents. In addition, they are perfectly suited to perform ambushes, a tactic at which they excel.

A notable exploit of the Hell-Knights took place on the Hive World of Kado as part of a massive daemonic incursion. Imperial forces and the Titans of the Legio Crucius suffered grave losses in the defence of that world's capital hive city. As the Titans fired upon the advancing hordes of Chaos, felling hundreds upon hundreds of daemons and Heretics, a large force of Slaaneshi Daemon Knights infiltrated the hive city's massive subterranean transportation network.

As the battle raged above them, the Chaos walkers sped through the dimly-lit tunnels and corridors, quickly obliterating any resistance they encountered. On the second day of the hive city's siege, the Daemon Knights emerged from beneath the ground and burst into the main streets and arcades, indiscriminately destroying everything, killing thousands of helpless citizens.

The transports of the Adeptus Arbites arrived, but these too were defeated and the Hell-Knights fought their way back to the surface. They emerged within firing distance behind the Titans of the Legio Crucius. With a single massed salvo from the Daemon Knights' Thermal Lances, nearly the entirety of the Loyalist Titan battlegroup was destroyed, the august forms of the Titans turned into molten slag. Amongst the victims of this attack was the colossal Praeco Deictus, an Imperator-class Battle Titan which had survived the grim days of the Horus Heresy and brought victory to the Imperium on over a thousand worlds.

As Hell-Knights are super-heavy walkers, they cannot be defeated in combat except by other super heavy vehicles or Titans. Anything smaller than this is simply pushed aside by the massive war machine. Hell-Knights are excellent at infiltrating enemy positions, setting ambushes for enemy supply columns and attacking enemy support detachments and artillery.

Powers and Abilities

The Daemon Knights of Slaanesh are surrounded by a glittering wall of energy. This is a result of the Warp-interface which keeps the daemonic spirit within them in the material universe. This shifting, swirling aura is called the Glamour of Slaanesh and makes the Daemon Knights very hard to accurately target. As the Glamour of Slaanesh is an interface with the immaterial universe of Warpspace it also provides a certain amount of protection from attacks that use the power of the Warp, such as Vortex Missiles and psychic powers.

Ordo Malleus Departmento Analyticus Technical Specifications

The Ordo Malleus has not yet determined the technical specifications for this Daemon Engine, if such a thing is even possible.

See Also

• Chaos Vehicles

Sources

• White Dwarf 190 (UK), "Epic: Slaanesh War Machines," by Gav Thorpe, pp. 27, 29