Icelus Pattern Dreadnought

Icelus pattern dreadnoughts are a specialised covert operations dreadnought design fielded by the community-developed Emperor's Nightmare chapter. They are mainly deployed with Battle Group Secundus, as they are well adapted to covert infiltration and surveillance operations, but are equally at home in any of the Nightmares' marine companies.

Fluffy bits

Stealthy and lightweight, the Icelus pattern dreadnoughts are based on the STCs for the smaller, more nimble and less heavily armoured pre-Heresy dreadnought marks. The Master of the Forge and the chapter's most senior techmarines personally master-craft the hydraulics, joints, limbs and so forth, allowing for very high precision locomotion and great flexibility. This allows the dreadnought to quickly contort into odd shapes to more closely hug terrain, and leap and bound as quickly as possible when no enemy eyes are upon it.

In order to provide the Icelus pattern's improved surveillance capabilities, many long sensor spines and optical mechadendrites protrude from the dreadnought's back like a layer of porcupine quills. These can be deployed upwards while the the dreadnought is in a hull-down position in order to gather observation data without revealing the dreadnought's characteristic silhouette.

The built in stummers project a small cone of unnerving silence around the machine and multiple redundancies ensure at least one will always be running. In addition to this the armour itself is plated with active camoflauge. Deployed alongside all companies, Icelus Dreadnoughts excel at hiding from enemies' sight, using their incredible perception to work out where the opponent is not looking and simply stand there.

Icelus dreadnoughts have three hard points on which weaponry can be secured. Each arm may accommodate one of any of the weapons available to terminators: Lightning claws, powerfists, chainfists, thunder hammers, storm shields, combi-weapons and storm bolters. In addition to the two arm-mounted hardpoints, a Mind Impulse Unit controls a ranged weapon mounted on the shoulder. In tactical variants the Astartes sniper rifle is standard issue, but this may be replaced with a grenade launcher or plasma gun or with an Astartes shotgun, flamer or meltagun for close assault. Heavy weapons may be mounted but greatly impede the suit's locomotion.