Radium Weaponry
Radium Weapons sometimes called Rad Weapons are deadly and highly dangerous weapons that are used exclusively by the forces of the Skitarii Legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Think of them as nuclear rifles. Radium Weapons are so volatile that they eventually kill their wielders. Although quite frankly, having a gun that just ends up killing you seems to venture more into Grimderp territory more then anything else. Their baroque beauty belies a singularly vile function; not only to strike, but to render the battlefield as deadly as the rad-wastes of Mars. Each weapon's bullet cylinder is so thoroughly bathed in radium that a volley can cause a localized rad-storm. Those inside such a storm soon find their flesh blackening and sloughing away.
On tabletop, generally speaking, Rad Weapons have a low strength of 3 as basic, but a to-wound of 6 causes two (instead of one) auto-wounds which must be saved separately. Mathammer-wise this means when it fired en masse it deals exactly as much damage as your standard S4 AP5 guns against anything but T6 and T7, against which it's twice as good. "Auto-Wounds" means it can wound even if the enemy's Toughness should be too high, which is nice for piling the saves on big wraith constructs and Iron Arm-protected daemons.
Imperial Variants
There are three types of Rad Weapons in the Imperium.
Radium Pistol
A small pistol that uses scaled down radium technology, usually used by Skitarii Vanguard and Ranger Alphas. These nuclear armed hand cannons are unfortunately not as rad (Hah! See what I did there?) as one might think. You're better off ponying up the points for the Phosphor Blast Pistol instead, unless you *have* to have radium. The PBP costs the same and is more generally useful.
Still, it is quite capable at getting the job done when absolutely needed.
Radium Carbine
A rapid firing weapon capable of a punishing rate of fire, it is the main armament of Skitarii Vanguard. If you want to roleplay as Fallout in WH40K, this is the gun for you. On the table, at 18" range and Assault 3, the Radium Carbine usually means lots of hits at short-mid range with the potential of cascading effect when they start causing additional wounds later.
The basic weapon of the Skitarii Vanguard as mentioned before. With 10-man vanguard units, this weapon causes so much wounds that can potentially delete a squad or even a MC.
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Bottom View
Radium Jezzail
A motherfucking nuclear sniper rifle. The Radium Jezzail is a long sniper-like weapon that is sometimes used by Sydonian Dragoons instead of a Taser Lance. On the table, it's a two shot sniper version as a weapon choice for the Dragoon, in place of its Taser Lance, for free. To Wound of 6's cause two AP2 wounds instead of 1 which, we will remind you, you get to allocate if you also get a 6 on your To Hit.
Basically, if you're going to be taking these on Dragoons, you will have to commit to it; as in they're all gonna be sniping. By and by, pretty good for close range heavy infantry/monstrous creature sniping. Could be fun against Riptides with a little luck.
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Irradiation Projector
An Irradiation Projector, also known as a Rad-Cleanser or Irad-Cleanser, are specialized Adeptus Mechanicus weapons. A potent anti-infantry relic of the Dark Age of Technology, the weapon itself is a dish-like projector connected to a bulky generator which unleashes a powerful blast of cross-spectrum radiation.
Victims caught in the blast suffer horrendous deaths as they are boiled alive from within and blasted apart on a cellular level. Though less effective against vehicles or targets with heavy armor, the target will likely die later from radioactive contamination.
The biggest users are Thallaxes whose enclosed cybernetic harness means that they are less susceptible to radiation poisoning.
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Magos Dominus -
Myrmidon Destructor
Rad Missile Launcher
The big cheese of the Imperium's Rad Weapons.
Rad Missile Launchers were a type of Rad Weapon deployed during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. These Terran-derived missiles are a horror of the genetic wars waged during the Age of Strife, using custom loaded-warheads which combine high explosive fragmentation charges lined with radioactive isotopes.
The effect is to create an intensely toxic radiation weapon that inflicts a hideous death on its victim no matter their resilience. Because of its contaminating and hideous nature, it was deployed sparingly, most commonly by Destroyer Space Marines.
Tl;dr, it's a missile launching dirty bomb.
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Tau Variants
The Tau Empire only utilize one type of rad weapon in which only the Vespids are known to use.
Neutron Blaster
The primary weapon of the giant cockroaches. Neutron Blasters are some type of rad weapon that fires irradiated neutrons. The Neutron Blaster is one of the most bizarre and impractical weapons ever conceived by Games Workshop. This is due to the fact that in order to fire it, you need a constant, ultrasonic tone emitted only by the vibrations of the Vespid wing casings which perfectly modulate the energies contained within the crystals. Whilst some may claim that this allows only the Vespids to utilize these weapons which is a great enemy denial tool. It also presents the problems of the usefulness of this weapon in closed, cramp spaces which may render the weapon quite useless....whoops....
The Neutron Blaster in a sense, is a hybrid of Vespid and Tau technology, the bulk of a Neutron Blaster is of Tau manufacture as the Vespid have not yet attained the technical facility to fabricate it themselves. Mounted at the barrel of the weapon is a highly energetic and unstable crystal harvested from the lowest levels of the largest stalactite islands of the Vespid homeworld in the deepest reaches of Vespid's cloud seas. At such depths, the atmospheric pressures create all manner of exotic, bizarre and unique crystal formations, and it is only the larger female Vespid, those who form the leader class of the species, who have the constitution to descend to such depths and harvest the purest crystals.
Neutron Blasters are capable of emitting short-ranged but deadly streams of neutron radiation that are able to pass straight through all but the sturdiest of ray-shielded enemy armor to reduce biological matter or delicate machine circuitry to cinders.
For some reason, the Neutron it fires is a sickly green despite the fact that neutrons aren't known to come in green.
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Sergeant Variant
