Monofilament Weapons
This article only describes Warhammer 40,000 weapons. For mono-filament weapons in any other sci-fi setting or game, see Monowire.
Monofilament Weapons are a type of weapon used by the Eldar and Dark Eldar. They fire a razor-sharp monofilament web, wrapping around the enemy and slicing through flesh and bone with ease. Enemies get stuck inside the webbing and try to pull themselves free, causing them to tear themselves apart. The downside of the weapon is the low speed of its projectile it has a limited range for direct combat, and has next to no armor penetrating capabilities.
Eldar
Harlequin's Embrace
The smallest monofilament weapon and considered the 'pistol' of the family. The Harlequin's Embrace is a wrist-mounted close combat weapon utilized by the Harlequins. And when we mean close, we mean it literally, like body touching close. It boasts the same technology as the death spinners of the Warp Spiders. The second before the wearer charges into close combat, they are triggered and project the cloud of monofilament wire that wrap around the victim, ripping it to bloody mess in just a second or two.
The Harlequin's Embrace gives the Harlequins a much needed boost in close combat as well as acting as a nasty surprise face blender to any unsuspecting and unarmored foe (Although a fully helmeted Space Marine would scoff at it....unless he is one of those morons that goes without a helmet cause....reasons).
Harlequin's Kiss
The Harlequin's Embrace' 'bigger' brother (Big in the loosest sense of the term). The Harlequin's Kiss (Eldar: brathu-angau, translated "kiss of doom" or "kiss of evil") also known as Sting, is a tubular wrist-mounted Monofilament Injector.
As the name suggests it is widely associated with the Eldar Harlequins. The Kiss is only effective in close combat. It contains a tightly-coiled retractable monofilament wire which is around 100 metres in length. When activated (often with a forward punching motion) the wire is violently released. Capable of piercing armor, if the wire penetrates its victim it instantly uncoils and lashes around violently, liquefying bones and internal organs, and causing immediate death. The wire then retracts back into the Kiss.
Death Spinner
The most common weapon used by the Warp Spider aspect warriors. Often just referred to as a 'Spinner', it uses the same basic technology as weapons such as the Harlequin's Kiss and the Shadow Weaver, projecting a long thread of single-molecule chain, or monofilament wire. The weapon uses a magnetic containment field to spool the wire together and discharge it as rapidly expanding mist-like mass called a "spinner cloud". The Death Spinner then casts webs of razor-sharp material over the target, making it cut itself apart.
Even Chaos Space Marines wearing Power Armour can thus be reduced to tiny pieces when enmeshed within these clouds of razor-wire. Some Exarchs of the Warp Spiders use a modified version of this weapon, allowing them to use two of them at the same time.
Spinneret Rifle
A variation of the Death Spinner, this weapon instead fires a single strand of webbing, capable of punching through nearly anything hit. It is unknown how a ball of tightly packed wires is sharp enough to punch through thick armor due to the wire acting more as a constricting weapon than an anti-armor. For it to be sufficiently punch armor, the wires needs to be a single solid projectile with a point rather than a mass of easily malleable wires. A possible explanation is that the Rifle itself changes the molecular structure of the wire to behave like a solid projectile.
Nonetheless, the Spinneret Rifle has often been the butt of jokes for looking like a longer and more phallic looking weapon, which attracts compensation snark amongst some. Despite this, it is unsurprisingly way more effective against armor, but with a lower rate of fire than the regular Death Spinner.
Shadow Weaver
Designed for indirect fire, the Shadow Weaver casts a large web into the air which rains down on the enemy, cutting through them with as little force as the pull of gravity. It creates a dense monofilament mesh from an organo-polymer compound, which is kept in a liquid state within a magnetic reservoir.
This mesh is released through thousands of microscopic firing ducts and woven into a web-like cloud by spinning gravity clamps. The clouds are forced high into the air before they drift downwards, where they slice through flesh and bone even as targets caught within these clouds struggle to free themselves.
It is more or less a light artillery version of the monofilament branch of weapons and it is considered the smallest child of the 'Heavy Monofilaments'. As such, whilst it does not have the same devastating affects found on its larger cousins, it compensates this for being highly maneuverable and cheaper to boot.
Usually fielded by a few Guardians who aren't busy mounting other heavy weapons or each other.
Doom Weaver
The Doom Weaver is the Shadow Weaver on steroids.
Mounted on the Night Spinner Grav Tank, the Doom Weaver casts a massive web that not only cuts through entire swathes of enemies in a single shot, but remains on the ground after landing obstructing enemy movement. Anyone who tries to walk through it will find their feet suddenly shredded apart, which would probably cause them to fall on it and finding out if their face will blend. After a long enough time the web will settle into a solid blanket that can safely be walked over.
The Eldar refer to the threads as the Chain of Vaul, after the unbreakable bonds in Eldar legend
Void Spinner Array
Doom Weaver on steroids.
Designed and fielded by the Biel-Tan Craftworld, the Void Spinner Array is found on the Void Spinner super heavy grav tank that uses a modified version of the Doom Weaver. The monofilament web that it sprays out is covered in super-powered bacteria and wraithbone parasites that put the Tyranid's eating habits and the Necron's killing standards to shame: Where they stop at any organic matter, these wraithbone parasites and super bacteria keep going and eat the rock and metal the planet is composed of.
Of course they don't keep going till they destroy the world, they do die off after a while. The rest of the Eldar think that the Biel-Tan are monsters for creating such a machine, the Biel-Tan say that they're justified in using whatever they need to reclaim their empire.
Deathshroud Cannon
The biggest Monofilament weapon to date and the biggest Fuck You! to horde armies.
Utilized by the rare Skathach variant of Wraithknight, these titanic weapons fire off massive explosions of monofilament webbing to eviscerate hordes of infantry at a time. Similar to the armament of the Night Spinner grav tank, the deathshroud cannon projects a dense field of monofilament wire which leaves only unrecognisable gore in its wake. Given the scale of these cannons, it should come as no surprise that these cannons have the greatest range of all the Monofilament weapons, and often come in pairs to ensure that anything shorter than its knees is completely and totally blended into a fine mist.
Dark Eldar
Shredder
Basically the dark and edgier version of the Eldar Monofilaments. Employed by the Dark Eldar, the Shredder is a weapon used primarily by Dark Eldar Warriors. When the gun is fired at its target, it unleashes an expanding mesh of monofilaments with miniscule barbs along their length to maximize pain. The mesh entangles the victim in an invisible net that slices apart the target as it struggles.
Being the only monofilament weapon of the Dark Eldar, the Shredder acts as the DEldar closest equivalent of a Flamer. As the Dark Eldar needs to be light on their feet, the small size of the Shredder is favored over the much larger monofilament variants found in conventional Eldar armory. Furthermore as a bonus, if the victim somehow survives the deadly entanglement, the Dark Eldar bags him/herself a free living fuck toy to bring back home.