Æonic Orb
A rare and ancient piece of Necron artillery, the Æonic Orb is a floating construct built during the War in Heaven to counter the forces of the Old Ones. This ungodly beast of a weapon is to a Monolith what a Monolith is to a Scarab. Why is this thing so hueg, one might ask? Because, my friend, it has really hueg guts. The main weapon on the Æonic Orb is, in fact a fragment of a star! Not just any star, mind you, the star in question is typically stolen from a particularly disgraced or hated race or kingdom's solar system, relinquishing the planets and remaining population to fly off into space, frozen and dark, coasting forever.
Keep in mind the Imperial Guard (and lesser militaries) face this thing and still win. 40k folks, it's batshit insane all around.
- Height: 25-30m; approx
- Mass: 15 kilotonnes; approx
- Crew: 0-3 crew; approx
So what is this Orb of unstoppable rape and carnage
To put this in detail, the Æonic Orb itself is merely a container for the star fragment, which has been heavily compressed using spatial and dimensional manipulation, and modified via the addition of fresh hydrogen and removal of waste elements from the big ball of fiery death, making it a small ball of even more fiery death. Other systems include solar energy collectors on the inside of the star chamber to collect enough energy to power all of the various systems, drives, and functions of the Orb. The containment systems keep the star both contained (big surprise) and mobile, as well as isolating the gravity field of the imprisoned star to, you know, stop the thing from imploding the Æonic Orb and any planet it sits on.
It floats along the ground much like a Monolith, but at a higher altitude. Since GW never released an official (or unofficial) model for the thing, nobody knows quite what it looks like. Maybe it is camera-shy. Or kills all witnesses. Probably the latter. Either way, it is big and somewhat circular. It has no other weapons besides the star.
Oh, wait, did we forget to mention the star fragment is the main weapon? BECAUSE IT IS. This monstrosity uses a part of a STAR as a weapon! You see, the containment field on the Æonic Orb can be breached on command, releasing all of the power and fury of a literally unchained fusion reaction in any direction it chooses. Plasma wishes it was this cool. Kurzgesagt actually did a video on this subject about what would happen if you brought a fragment of the sun to the earth: the result of there Maths was: you die. It's basically the same as 4 Billion tons of TnT going off. Set it off in Paris, London melts. Not only do you get a blinding light, a burst of raw plasma, and a heat so searing that magma starts to look like ice, you also get a blast of every conceivable kind of radiation, meaning that if by some miracle of miracles you survive your "stellar" experience, you will probably have no totally-intact strand of DNA left in your body, and literally every organ in your body will fail, get cancer, lyse, and/or boil. Not always in that order. But most likely that would not happen ,because you will die.
It can fire in a Solar Flare or Solar Burst. The former is designed to pierce the heavens and burn through any defense, even the earth itself, sublimating all matter with impunity, in what can only be described as a continuous, beam-like explosion. The latter is designed to bathe infantry and vehicles, turning the area inside the blast into an inhospitable hellhole of heat and radiation so intense organic life boils and pops like a balloon (if not already instantly burned to hot ash) while tanks melt like butter into hot, gooey slag. The only caveat is that the star powers the containment field, so the Æonic Orb must stop and recharge after each shot or risk a total solar breach and release a supercharged, super-compressed star onto the battlefield, permakilling Necron, Foe, the entire Planet it was standing on and severely fucking up the whole star system with its gravity in short order.
Which brings up an interesting point. There is no way to defend against this rape-machine. Consider: the Imperial Navy gets its hands on 4 Black Stone Fortresses (or Planet Killers whatever). Even if they were able to breach the armor of the Orb, the fragment could resume its original dimensions, swallowing part of the planet or fly apart in a sort-of mini-nova and kill everyone. Even in the mild, "resume normal size scenario," the gravitational changes in the solar system following the escape of the star fragment from the Orb would butt fuck even Jupiter sized planets in the system. Those planets that didn't get swallowed would be launched into interstellar space. The only way to destroy it without getting destroyed is to use Warp Weapons in order to send the sun to the warp and let the Daemons burn instead. Which would still be quite a Story Breaker since only the Imperium, the Eldar, (technically the Orks) and Chaos have Warp Weapons, and Chaos itself won't be keen on sending such a massive amount of energy into the Warp.
And of course, nothing this awesome could be made by GW (thank you, I was always rather proud of it), even in Epic scale where the rules for it were released. Necrons rarely, if ever, draw upon the Æonic Orb in battle. It is considered a critical resource by current Necron forces, and only in an all-out war will they send this deathmachine to battle. And let's be fair, the Necrons haven't faced an all-out war since they gobsmacked the Old Ones.
If you DO decide that you have to make an apocalypse entry for this thing so that you can use it in your army, the Energon edition of Unicron the Planet Eater in planet form is PERFECT, well, assumedly. Nothing else in the universe is probably a better estimated match than this grimdark void manifestation for ages 3 and up. It's a big, black and green death orb of planetary destruction. It even has little scarab pincers and an opening to its interior that can clamp open and shut. If you have a Necron army and don't already own a Unicron action figure, get one. The only way this Transformer could be beat is if the official release for the Æonic Orb is as big as your typical playing board; unlikely, but probably to scale.
"Æonic Orbs" in Classic Scifi
In classic science fiction there exists a even more awesome parallel called the "Nicoll-Dyson Beam", marking perhaps the first time that something in 40K isn't the most EXTREME example of what it's supposed to represent. A Nicoll-Dyson Beam directs the energy output of an entire star towards a specific direction, which can be used to move entire stars (AKA a Shkadov Thruster), or incinerate a distant planet from light years away. In fact, very serious people have had very serious discussions about one of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that the first civilization in a galaxy to reach sufficient level of technology to build such a thing would use it to eradicate any other technological civilizations that may one day rise to challenge its dominance.
8th Edition Rules
This unit contains 1 Æonic Orb (Power Rating 300).
| Name | M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Æonic Orb | * | 6+ | * | 16 | 18 | 150 | * | 10 | 2+ |
| Remaining W | M | BS | A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 121-150+ | 24” | 2+ | 6 |
| 91-120 | 20” | 3+ | D6 |
| 61-90 | 16” | 3+ | 3 |
| 31-60 | 12” | 4+ | D3 |
| 1-30 | 8” | 5+ | 1 |
Wargear:
- Repair Nanoscarabs: Each time a model with Repair Nanoscarabs loses a wound, roll a D6; on a 5+, the model does not lose that wound.
- Star-Cage:
Weapon Range Type S AP D Abilities Star-Cage (Solar Burst) 72" Heavy 3 * * * This weapon can target up to three different units in the shooting phase, choose how many hits to allocate to each unit before rolling. For each attack that its roll one D6 for each model in the target unit; on a 3+ that model suffers 3 mortal wounds. Each time you roll a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, the target suffers 3 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage. Star-Cage (Solar Flare) 180" Macro 1 * -5 24 This weapon wounds on a 2+. Your opponent must subtract 3 from every kind of save used against attacks from this profile. Each time you roll a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, the target suffers 6 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage. If this attack hits, roll a die for every unit within 9" of the target; on a 3+ that unit suffers D6 mortal wounds.
Special Rules:
- Advanced Living Metal: At the beginning of your turn this model regains D3 wounds lost previously in the battle.
- Banishment Security Measures: If this model is reduced to 0 wounds, roll a D6 before removing it from the battlefield. On a 4-5, each unit within 3D6" suffers 2D6 mortal wounds. On a 6 the security protocols fail to banish the compressed star into a pocket dimension, each unit within 36" suffers 18 mortal wounds.
- Blinding Light: Non-Necron that have line of sight of this model subtract 2 from their hit rolls during the Shooting phase.
- Containment Field: This model has a 3+ Invulnerable save. Each time this model fails a saving throw, roll a D6. On a 6, this model suffers D6 additional wounds.
- Giant Construct: This model can Fall Back in the Movement phase and still shoot and/or charge during its turn. When this model Falls Back, it can move over enemy models that don't have the TITANIC keyword, though at the end of its move it must be more than 1" away from all enemy units. This model can fire its shooting weapons even if there are enemy models within 1" unless those enemy models are TITANIC. In this case, it can shoot the enemy unit that is within 1" of it or any other visible enemy unit that is within range and more than 1" away from any friendly models. In addition, this model can move and fire Heavy weapons without any penalty to its hit rolls. Finally, this model only gains a cover bonus to its armour save if at least half of it is obscured from the firing unit.
- Stellar Gravity Core: At the start of your Shooting phase, roll a dice for each non-Necron unit that can Fly and is within 24" of this model; on a 4+ that unit suffers D6+6 mortal wounds. Roll two dices and pick the highest result if the target is a Flyer.
Keywords:
- Faction: <Dynasty>, Necrons
- Lord of War, Æonic Orb, Titanic, Vehicle, Fly
The Official Version
Some heretics over at Specialist Games once claimed that the Orb contained only a fragment of a star, and looked something like this:
However they never finished it beyond a playtest draft, and they went out of business, so what do they know.
Gallery
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3D print on Shapeways
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Courtesy of Wargaming Workshop on this "What could've been" design of the unholy testicle of doom.
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Unicron has pyramids on top and, according to his name, is a 'cron. It is time our long lost battle-brother rejoin the ranks of its army!
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| Vessels of the Necrons | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spaceships | ||
| Space Station | World Engine | |
| Battleships | Tomb Ship | |
| Cruisers | Light Cruiser - Harvest Ship Grand Cruiser | |
| Escorts | Escort | |
| Landships | ||
| War Machines | Tesseract Vault Æonic Orb - Abattoir | |
| Mobile Commands | Megalith | |
| Superheavy Tanks | Doomsday Monolith | |
| Airships | ||
| Flying Fortress | Night Shroud - Obelisk | |