Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Classes in Darktide
As many of you know, we just started dropping our class spotlights, and with that came a wave of feedback, thoughts, and questions. It quickly became apparent that we must clear up some of the confusion and better answer your questions.
So, here we go. While we won’t be able to address everything (still in development and working through things), we hope this is a start.
First, Classes are a new thing in Darktide and something we are really excited about. They are perfectly suited for the 40k universe and allow us to extend the play experiences in a better way than previous games like Vermintide’s careers.
While similar, classes are not the same as careers (in Vermintide). Some of this will become clearer as you jump into our Closed beta this weekend, but most of it won’t show up until the full play experience closer to launch. More specifically, you can expect a deeper narrative experience, greater range, and more options in character customization. There’s also a more profound and wider progression in weapons.
We will start with 4 classes and 70+ weapons available at launch. We really wanted to focus on quality, depth, and differentiation first - and less on the number of classes. Each class has a personality that affects your character’s development in the narrative, what cosmetics you can attain, and how they interact with teammates on their strike team. Weapons are more robust, each with their individual stats and traits specifically designed for that weapon.
While we are not ready to announce specific dates, it is safe to say that we aim to release one new class every quarter.
We haven’t fully decided if we will charge for new and upcoming classes, but that is an option we are discussing. This isn’t our way of trying to bait and switch anyone. Fatshark has always prided itself on being very player-centric. We want to stay true to that in our monetization practices. We never intend to split our player base - you can expect in-game content, such as new areas, game modes, and missions, to remain free. We’ve learned a lot, and we think we have done a good job in Vermintide with our monetization of cosmetics and careers, and we are looking to that and other areas of feedback before we make a final decision.
We hope this clears things up a little, and look forward to your feedback!
Final call for sign-ups for the Closed Beta Test
Congrats to all the Rejects who have already been chosen to lay down their lives for the Emperor. We’re certain you’ll accomplish great things in Tertium this weekend.
As we all know, the Emperor provides - so we have now opened up for sign-ups via Steam as well. Navigate to our Steam page and click the “Request Access" button for another chance to be included in this weekend’s Closed Beta Test.
Selection is based on the same criteria as the website sign-ups were - we’re looking for a broad range of different systems/specs to test the game, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get access by signing up.
Don’t forget to follow our socials and jump in to our Discord to keep up to date with the latest Darktide news.
Class Spotlight - Veteran: Sharpshooter
Last week, we talked about the Zealot: Preacher class. This time we’re shifting gears to an anticipated fan favorite: The Veteran: Sharpshooter class - inspired by the soldiers of the Astra Militarum – perhaps better known as the Imperial Guard.
This blog marks the halfway point for our class spotlights, exploring each of the 4 classes that will be available at launch.
THE VETERAN
“Just another day in the Imperial Guard. Official name’s the Astra Militarum, but you know what? I can’t even fragging spell that one on the regular, and my mother - Throne rest her foul-mouthed soul - told me never to use words that I couldn’t paint in the blood of my enemies. It’s good manners, ain’t it? Thing is, I’m not even part of the Guard any longer, not since that business with the commissar, the court-martial, and the holding cell.
Now I’m part of Inquisitor Grendyl’s merry band of maniacs, for better or worse. Still figuring out what that means, exactly, but most of it seems to be putting the boot in on the Emperor’s enemies and not getting summarily executed for meeting the wrong stare funny, so I guess I’m better off. At least, so long as the ammo and grub don’t run out.”
The battle-hardened soldiers of the Astra Militarum are the foremost defenders of the Imperium. They are the Hammer of the Emperor, an unstoppable mass of bodies and war machines that overwhelm the enemy with combat discipline, tenacity … and most of all, sheer weight of numbers. Life in the Imperial Guard is lived in trenches, behind bastion walls, and in the teeth of a bayonet charge. Only the very best - or luckiest - of their number survive long enough to become Veterans.
Pictured: Early concept art of the Veteran: Sharpshooter
IN GOOD COMPANY
More than anything else, Veterans are survivors. Some persevere through discipline and strict adherence to the regs. Others beg the Emperor of Mankind to see them safely through their battles. Yet more are just plain lucky. But most live on their wits and comradeship. Service in the Imperial Guard teaches you to trust the soldier standing next to you, and a Veteran - more than any - understands the benefits of teamwork.
Though they won’t always admit it, Veterans are happiest in battle, where “kill or be killed” is the only rule. They’ll stand the line with anyone who can point a gun in the right direction … though, of course, given a choice, they’d prefer to work with others of their kind. Failing that, most Veterans love fighting alongside Ogryns, who often have enough military training to grasp the idea of following orders and are invariably keen to prove themselves. Zealots are mostly welcome, though a true Veteran often becomes irritated by these holy “warriors” pretensions to martial ability.
And Psykers? Well, you can trust them for a while, but you never know when one’s going to turn …
VETERAN: SHARPSHOOTER CLASS
Veteran: Sharpshooter artwork by Miguel Iglesias
Sharpshooters epitomize the Astra Militarum’s combat doctrine: overwhelming firepower honed through training and delivered unflinchingly in the heat of battle.
The Sharpshooter specializes in ranged combat drills, keeping the foe at a distance while bringing firepower to bear against high-priority targets. Though they can spray and pray with the best of them, the Sharpshooters are at their most dangerous when they take the time to place their shots where the enemy is vulnerable. Breathe in. Breathe out. Blow them away.
Pictured: Snapshot of the Veteran: Sharpshooter's Progression Gear
LOCKED & LOADED
Drawing from extensive military experience, Veterans fight tirelessly to defend the Imperium from any heretical foes that may threaten it. The Sharpshooter, in particular, has trained long and hard in ranged combat, drawing preference for longer-range weapons such as the lasgun or autogun.
Upon activating their ability, their movement is slowed in a trade for increased weak spot damage, accuracy, and handling. It also sharpens the senses of the Veteran, helping them identify non-ogryn elites and special enemies in a crowd or from afar.
Their Frag Grenade is all about area of effect; it is a heavy impact explosive that is used to establish control in dire situations - tearing through hordes of clumped-up foes, and disrupting dug-in enemy positions. It has a fuse timer and those that master the Frag Grenade with tactical placement and proper timing will be well-rewarded when a huge horde of heretics is turned into a bloody pulp in an instant.
The Sharpshooter class may be a good fit for those previously unfamiliar with the Tides-franchise, as it leans heavily into the standard shooter trope.
VETERAN: SHARPSHOOTER FACT SHEET
[table]
[tr]
[th]Key Features[/th]
[th]- Ranged Combat
- Headshots
- Good vs. Elites & Specials
[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Starting Loadout[/td]
[td]- Melee: Standard-issue Munitorum Sapper Shovel
- Ranged: Kantrael Mk VII Lasgun [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tactical Action[/td]
[td]Frag Grenade[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Passive[/td]
[td]- Increased weak spot damage
- Increased ammo capacity [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Class Ability[/td]
[td]The Sharpshooter slows down their movement to take careful aim, increasing weak spot damage as well as accuracy and handling[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Coherency Bonus[/td]
[td]Increased chance of not using any ammo[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
Short story: The Veteran
Veteran
By John French
The past was waiting when the soldier closed her eyes.
Flash…
A blink of white just above the trench. Then the blast wave. Sound so loud it became silence. Then the world turning over and over, blurring, shivering in orange and red before she hit the trench wall. A long sliding second. Ears ringing.
‘Medicae! Medicae!’
Shouting.
The buzz-zip of rounds and las bolts.
Another flash in the air, red, orange, smoke billowing up to smother the dying sun. The air shivering and then the ground rolling like an ocean wave as the shockwave ripped through it. Red mud bubbling up between seams in the trench plating as the blood soaked earth liquified. And the shouting went on, louder than the roar as another blastwave spilled over the trench lip. She could not feel her lasgun in her hands. She needed her gun, needed to get up, needed to stand.
'Medicae!'
There was a hand in front of her. It was red.
'Medicae…' Quieter. 'Medic…'
Why could she hear that voice?
Then she realised that the red hand in front of her eyes was hers
___________________________________________________________________
'Closing in on the drop zone! Two minutes!' The pilot's voice cut the memory away.
She opened her eyes. The amber light of the gunship's crew compartment replaced the remembered blood. The gunship was shaking. She could feel the engines fighting gravity as it cut down through Atoma's thickening atmosphere.
'Pleasant dreams?' The witch smiled at her from across the compartment. The psyker's pupils are ragged bullet holes in yellow irises.
'We have a visual of the drop zone,' came the pilot's voice over the cabin vox. 'Standby for depressurisation.'
The soldier fastened her rebreather mask, hands moving smoothly over buckles and catches. Two of the others were doing the same: the priest fumbling with the catches, the psyker's thin fingers moving like spider legs as they settled the mask over their mouth. Only the ogryn didn't bother.
'You're just going to hold your breath?' asked the witch. The ogryn nodded. The psyker shook his head. 'Amateurs… A miracle if we survive five seconds' The witch looked at the soldier again. 'Cadian, right?' There was mockery dancing in his eyes.
'Depressurise in Three,' said the pilot. 'Two… One.'
The light in the compartment blinked red.
___________________________________________________________________
Red.
Her hands were red.
She did not have her gun.
'A Cadian without a gun is a traitor to their training!' shouted the remembered voice of her sergeant at the back of her skull. She had been ten. One of hundreds standing on the drill ground while the ice wind spiralled snow from the grey sky. 'A Cadian is a soldier! A soldier is their weapon!'
First lessons, first truths, learned long ago…
But she could not see her weapon, just the wet red of her fingers and the strobing blink of explosions above the trench lip.
'Medicae…' she tried to shout, but the word came out as a gurgle of pink froth. This was it. No rifle. No strength to stand. Pathetic. Loathsome. Weak. Not a Cadian. Cadia had died fighting. A whole world with its death grip still on the trigger, and she… She had survived that only to die here without a weapon, calling for a medic that would not come.
She had been born to fight on a world that existed for war, another daughter in generations of billions who stood on the edge of Hel and said to its horde come no further. People talked about the Emperor's Angels, the Space Marines who brought death like divine lightning, about how they were humanity's shield. They were real, and terrible, and beyond human, but for all their strength they could not shield mankind; mankind had to be its own shield. Armies of flesh and blood and iron and fire. Armies that could shake worlds with their tread and the voice of their guns. Armies that failed in their purpose only because of weakness… the weakness of a last soldier bleeding out in a trench without even a gun in her hand.
Bits of body and armour lay in the red mud around her. A blink before there had been a platoon in that space, orders snapping the air, gear harnesses clinking, message runners trying to force through the press. Now everything was unmoving beneath the churning sky. unmoving and torn and glossed crimson.
She felt something tapping her on the shoulder, slow, insistent. She forced her gaze up. A hand hung from the rung of a trench ladder above her. She could see the numerals tattooed on the digits and the prayer beads still twined in its grip. Blood was dripping from the curled ring finger to tap her on the head.
She saw the enemy then. They were on the lip of the trench above, ragged shapes in mismatched armour, dark and barbed, faces hidden by curtains of chain mail, finger bones tied to gunstocks. They moved quietly, carefully, ghosting down into the trench. She could see the markings of Imperial units under the eight pointed stars scratched and burnt onto their armour.
Weakness… in the end that was the real enemy. Weakness that let a soldier think that they had a purpose other than to fight and die. Weakness that let treachery become betrayal. Weakness that kept her down here in the red mud…
One of the enemy troopers was just two steps away from her. She could see the rust pocks on the shin plate of his armour. Strange… the rust was almost a pattern. The trooper took another step. It had a flamer. Drops of burning, green liquid drooled from the weapon's muzzle. The weapon and the enemy's gaze turned toward her…
She came up off the ground. She did not try to hit the enemy. She went for the flamer. The enemy squeezed the weapon's trigger. Liquid flame joshed down the trench. The rest of the enemy troops were shouting now. The trooper tried to rip the flamer free from her grip. She held on, then rammed the crown of her helmet into the enemy' face. Bone shattered behind chainmail mask. She struck again, and now the enemy was falling and she wrenched the flamer from their grip.
The other troopers were just three paces away, guns aimed, fingers pulling triggers. She looked at them for an instant, saw the tight press of figures in rusted armour and tattered fatigues. Weakness… despair and false hope and the promises of false gods. She triggered the flamer, and the world became bright.
___________________________________________________________________
The gunship's assault ramp opened. Air hissed out as sunlight poured in. The Soldier heard the Ogryn gulp a breath of air. Blue sky filled the widening gap. The gunship banked.
'Enjoy the view…' came the pilot's voice. 'Emperor's blessed and most valued world of Atoma. You get to see its best before you get to meet its worst.' Fog lay in a golden shroud across the curve of the ground below. Huge needle hive structures rose from the murk. Each one was the size of a mountain. 'That one just on our left as we come round – that's our girl.'
The hive was suddenly there, close enough that she could see the broken pylons and exhaust chimneys dotting its flanks. Rust and corrosion glittered on its skin.
'Lovely isn’t it?' chuckled the pilot. 'Grand and glorious and rotten in ways it doesn't even know.'
The Valkyrie banked hard. The priest lurched and made a sound as though they were trying not to throw up. Their grip on the grabrail slipped. The ogryn's hand caught the priest’s shoulder and yanked them back from the open door.
'Blessings of the Throne be on you,' gasped the priest. The ogryn nodded. The big-man's face was reddening as he held his breath. The gunship slammed into a spiral and dived. The side of the hive loomed close.
Then the Soldier was down the assault ramp, running through the cloud of rust dust billowing up from the downdraft, gun in hand. Above the light of the sun was clear in the blue sky. Ahead the needle of the hive spire rose to stab the heavens. The gunship rose into the sky. The ogryn drew a breath. The psyker shifted, the priest straightened. The spire rose above them, a crooked finger of metal beckoning. A hatch once used to maintain the hive exterior, sat open just a few paces away. Rust clumped its hinges. For a second the Soldier thought she saw a pattern in the corrosion, three irregular dots, whirling and repeating across the metal. Then she blinked and could not see it anymore.
'Doesn't look much like the frontline of a warzone does it?' said the psyker.
'This is the Imperium of man,' she said, and shrugged. 'Everywhere is the frontline.' She moved forwards
Class Spotlight - Zealot: Preacher
When creating your reject, you choose between 4 Archetypes: Zealot, Veteran, Psyker and Ogryn. Each Archetype has its own unique characteristics, allowing you to match your reject to your own particular playstyle.
This week we’re talking about those fanatical adherents to the Imperial Creed: the Zealots.
THE ZEALOT
“What I cannot rouse by example, I’ll instill through spilt blood. For is it not said that if ten thousand feckless souls burn in the flames of perdition to awaken the fervor of one righteous man, then the Emperor rejoices? Aye, it is. And with good reason, for life without faith is mere existence beneath the all-consuming shadow of heresy, without so much as a candle to hold that darkness at bay. It is the fate of some to pass from this life as mere kindling, whereas mine is to light the flame. And I see that I am needed in this place, at this hour.”
Zealots are unyielding in their faith and dedicated to lifelong service to the Emperor of Mankind – whom they hold to be not only the ruler of the galaxy-spanning Imperium, but a living god who guides and protects humanity.
Fuelled by an unyielding desire to serve their Master, these holy warriors fight in the thick of the foe, smiting the heretical foe with thunder hammers, chain axes, and power mauls.
Pictured: Early concept art of the Zealot Archetype
HOLY WARRIORS
Zealots heed only the word of the God-Emperor, be it delivered through scripture, sermon or prayer. They care little for mortal laws, and disdain those who offer anything less than complete devotion to their divine master. They are unsullied champions in a galaxy seething with corruption, commanded to purge the heretic, the apostate and the mutant.
Accordingly, Zealots make for effective team mates, if not companionable ones. Ever alert for the taint of heresy, they judge their allies by their own high standards, and invariably find them worthy of rebuke, chastisement … or outright threat.
Ogryns, they deride as easily led simpletons and Psykers as freaks forever teetering on the brink of heresy and madness (not necessarily without reason). Veterans might find themselves spared a tongue-lashing … at least, so long as they prove themselves faithful and determined. Only a fellow Zealot can be expected to understand the weight of one’s burdens and, more importantly, can be trusted to remain righteous and unswerving in the face of the enemy.
PREACHER CLASS
Preacher artwork by Miguel Iglesias
You can further refine your Archetype’s playstyle by choosing a Class, gaining a unique range of skills and abilities. The Preacher is the Class for the Zealot Archetype.
Preachers yearn for the release of death and arrival before the Golden Throne. Alas, it seems the Emperor yet has need of them in the mortal world and so they fight on, blows emboldened by pious rage as their lifeforce ebbs, and fury heightened by the knowledge that each scrap of pain brings them closer to reward.
Preachers care not if they live or die, so long as the foe is vanquished. Their faith hardens as they suffer injury, empowering attacks with holy wrath and strengthening their will to fight on!
Pictured: Snapshot of the Preacher’s Progression Gear
PURGING HERETICS
With their passive effect of increased melee attack speed, these unyielding fanatics opt for a more practical, close-quarters confrontation as opposed to fighting at a distance. The Preacher’s affinity for close-range combat is also reflected in their starting loadout, which is an Autopistol and a Combat Axe.
Players who prefer a more aggressive, in-your-face type of playstyle may find the Preacher to be a good fit. It is important that you learn how and when to quickly switch between ranged and melee combat, since the flow of combat can be particularly hectic when you actively put yourself in the thick of it.
When the team finds itself overwhelmed, the Preacher’s class ability sends them charging into the thick of the fray, rushing their chosen target and quickly locking them in melee. It may also be particularly useful in times when they need to swiftly move out of harm's way or reach an ally in need.
In short, as a Preacher you’ll do well against swathes of enemies as well as deal significant damage to sturdier, more armored enemies. It is crucial however to keep an eye on your health - the lower the health, the greater the damage... But if you reach zero health you will, unfortunately, die (most of the time).
PREACHER FACT SHEET
[table]
[tr]
[th]Key Features[/th]
[th]- Health Management
- High Damage Melee Attacks
- Good vs Armor
[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Starting Loadout[/td]
[td]- Melee: Combat Axe
- Ranged: Autopistol [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tactical Action[/td]
[td]Stumm Grenade[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Passive[/td]
[td]- Melee damage is increased based on missing health.
- Resists death on taking lethal damage
- Increased melee attack speed [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Class Ability[/td]
[td]The Preacher dashes forward, locking their target in melee.[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Coherency Bonus[/td]
[td]Decreases Toughness damage taken[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
Short story: The Zealot
Aqua Vitae
By Jude Reid
The heat was stifling.
It was Brona Norvok’s first time inside the water reclamatorium, and if she had her way, it would be her last. The air burned her throat with each breath, the metal plating scalding even through the thick soles of her work boots. In the last ten minutes, sweat had soaked her bodyglove to salt every inch of her skin. It seemed impossible that anyone could work in these conditions, let alone the capering, scrawny fool at her side.
Brona wiped the stinging sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Exactly how much longer do you expect this wild grox-chase to take?”
“Only a little further.” The labourer flashed a toothless, apologetic smile. “Patience, I beg you, honoured enforcer.”
“For the last time, I’m not an enforcer,” Brona muttered. Proper enforcers — not lowly factorum guards, hired by the overseer to keep the labourers in order on their journeys between their work and the sprawling downhive hab blocks — had better things to do than investigate spurious rumours of stolen rations. “What exactly do you need to show me?”
The labourer nodded, almost grovelling in his eagerness to please. Brona wasn’t a tall woman — no one downhive was — but Hannek barely reached her shoulder, the bones beneath his synthweave robes as fine as a bird’s. If what he had said when he had brought his complaint to the overseer was to be believed, he was a shift supervisor with ten years of experience. Not many labourers made it to a full decade of service in the reclamatorium, which made his wild allegations come as even more of a surprise.
“Look.” Hannek pointed a scrawny finger down the passageway, his other hand tugging at Brona’s sleeve. “There.”
“Touch me again and I swear by the Throne I will end you.”
“Forgive me.” The labourer bowed his head, his rheumy eyes still fixed on the darkness. “But you do see them?”
Brona squinted down the narrow passageway, her eyes acclimatising to the gloom. Three robed and hooded figures were attending to the steaming copper pipes that ran along the walls. “I see diligent labourers about their business, Shift Supervisor. Surely that can’t be what you’ve brought me down here to witness.”
“But do you see them?”
There was a desperate intensity in the little man’s voice. Brona shook her head, frustrated, then stopped as one of the labourers reached overhead, causing her hood to fall back.
The contrast with Hannek’s fragile frame could hardly have been starker. Where the shift supervisor was skin and bone, the labourer at the pipes was solidly built, her wrists broad and her neck corded with muscle. Fine tattoos snaked across the big woman’s face, vanishing into close-cropped pale hair.
“They must be stealing food, honoured enforcer.” This time she let Hannek’s mistake go uncorrected. “No one could sustain such vigour on our allotted ration.”
“Should I take that as a complaint, shift supervisor?”
Hannek lifted his hands and wheedled out an apology. “No, honoured enforcer. I am grateful for the Overseer’s generosity. I wish only to see these thieves punished appropriately.”
Brona shot a glance down the corridor. The burly labourer had disconnected a section of pipe, and was holding up a heavy-looking replacement for her fellows to weld into position.
“And how do you know they’re thieves? Not just blessed by the Emperor with a sound constitution, or buying extra food in the markets?”
She knew her question was stupid before it left her mouth. No one here had the God-Emperor’s blessing, and the pittance the labourers earned each month after rations and accommodation were deducted would barely have been enough to buy a single extra meal, let alone enough to maintain the strength she had just witnessed. Either the labourers had found some way to conjure nutrition out of empty air, or the repugnant little shift supervisor was correct.
Hannek’s toothless mouth was stretched wide into a grin of triumph. “Because I’ve seen where they hide their stolen goods.”
“You swear it?”
He met her gaze without flinching. “I swear it.”
“Then take me there. Now.”
___________________________________________________________________
The door didn’t look like much, just a single sheet of metal set into the plascrete walls of one of the upper gantries, the sort that might have led to an alcove for storing cleaning equipment or machine parts awaiting repair.
“They keep their stores there?” she asked.
“Yes.” Hannek was nodding hard enough that his scrawny neck looked about to snap. “In and out, in and out, all the time. They must be punished, honoured enforcer. Punished for their theft and for their lies.”
The sooner this matter was laid to rest, the sooner she could be out of the reclamatorium and out of Hannek’s loathsome company. She put a hand to the door and shoved, and it swung open with a creak of ancient hinges. The closet inside smelled damp, with an undercurrent of decay that the heavy smell of cleaning unguents couldn’t quite mask. Brona stepped inside and activated her flash-lumen, then stopped, her breath catching in her throat. Light was gleaming from an open pair of eyes, staring directly back at her from the gloom.
The flash-lumen dropped from her hand, its beam casting wild shadows across the cramped confines of the alcove. “Shit—!”
“What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing.” Brona drew a deep breath and stooped to recover her flash-lumen, her heart thudding. “Just a broken servitor and a pile of old junk. If your colleagues are storing stolen goods somewhere in the factorum, it’s not here.”
Hannek elbowed his way inside the cramped space, his face creasing with disbelief. “That’s not possible. They come here all the time. I don’t understand—”
Something in Brona snapped. “You useless little shit. I’ve got better things to do than indulge your workplace squabbles!” ” She grabbed his coveralls in both fists and shoved him into a bundle of broken mop-handles, but instead of meeting the resistance of the wall behind she encountered only a filthy plas-tek sheet hung across empty space. She thrust Hannek roughly to one side and drew back the drape.
A gust of warm, foetid air met her face, the smell rank enough to bring bile flooding into her mouth. Beyond the space beyond opened up into a cramped passageway filled with pipes and valves that led further into the darkness. She played her lumen-beam across a glistening trail of slime marked with smeary booted footprints.
“Close the door,” she said, then drew her stub-gun and squeezed herself into the narrow passageway between the pipes and the wall.
___________________________________________________________________
The quality of the light changed as she squeezed her way along the pipelines, turning to an oily grey that only made the shadows deeper by comparison. The heat was close to unbearable now, pressed close around her like a tangible force.
“We should go back,” Hannek murmured from behind her, his knuckles bloodless where he gripped a broken mop-handle.
Brona shook her head. “You’ve dragged me out this far. No turning back now.”
But why not turn back? It would be the easiest thing in the world to retrace their steps, for Brona to report to the Overseer that nothing had been found to substantiate Hannek’s allegations and for the shift supervisor to receive his allotted punishment. But her curiosity was piqued, and the thought of returning to the endless monotony of her shift was an unwelcome one. Here she almost felt like the enforcer that Hannek had mistaken her for. Here she could imagine her actions had meaning, something that might grant her the merest modicum of favour in the God-Emperor’s sight.
Ahead, the source of the dim light became apparent, as the passageway opened onto a grid of gantries suspended above one of the manufactorium’s enormous tank rooms. Pipes swarmed down from overhead, discharging freshly purified water into an open-topped steel tank that was large enough to hold a small hab-block. Overspill from the pipes fell in glittering waterfalls like a benediction, and she tilted her face upwards to wash the sweat from her skin.
It would have been easy to miss the little shrine. It had been placed on the gantry overhanging the very centre of the room, the glow of its candles warm and welcoming by comparison with the grey light seeping through the dirty glassine roof.
“Don’t you have a labourer’s chapel?” Brona asked.
“Of course, honoured enforcer.”
“Then why —” Brona waved a hand. “This?”
Her feet clattered on the metal gantry as she moved along the grid of hanging walkways towards the makeshift shrine. It was made of an old copper vat polished to a gleaming, iridescent shrine. She stopped close enough that she could see the gilded reliquary on top, its lid lying open. A prickle of unease ran down her back.
“Honoured enforcer?” Hannek’s silhouette flickered in the corner of her vision, and she waved him irritably away.
“Wait.”
Brona leaned forward. Nestled inside the reliquary lay a skeletal finger, far too large to come from any normal mortal. Shreds of ancient, mummified skin still clung to the discoloured bone, and the stench of decay rising from the reliquary lingered in the back of her throat. A puddle of purulent fluid had collected around it and was dribbling through the reliquary’s base, down the copper of the shrine, dripping through the gantry floor and into the great open-topped vat below.
“Honoured enforcer, please!”
The gantry creaked behind her. Brona turned sharply to see a group of three labourers advancing towards her, led by the burly woman she had seen on the lower level.
“Come to worship at Grandfather’s shrine?” the woman said.
Brona took a step back and aimed her stub-pistol. “Stay back.”
The woman smiled pleasantly, and took another step forward. In the light from overhead, what had seemed like health and vigour was revealed as something unnatural, something malevolent. The woman’s flesh was doughy and pale, skin stretched tight and gleaming over swollen tissues beneath. What Brona had taken for tattoos on the woman’s face were blood vessels, a dull grey-green as though a fungal soup was running in her veins instead of blood. “I can’t let you stop what we’re doing here.”
Brona took aim at the labourer on the woman’s right, and fired. The stubber kicked in her hand, and the bullet punched a neat hole through the skin just above the man’s right eye. He dropped like a stunned grox. The big woman gave a roar of anger, lowered her head, and charged. Brona fired into the woman’s chest — once, twice — but the labourer didn’t slow. Hannek stepped forward and swung his mop-handle into the other labourer’s face, and then the big woman hit Brona like a speeding groundcar, driving her into the altar, sending the reliquary flying, and then slamming her into the ground. A brawny hand locked around Brona’s wrist and slammed her hand into the ground again and again, but she kept her fingers locked tight around the pistol.
The cultist’s weight on her chest was making it difficult to breathe. Brona shoved upwards with her free hand, and her thumb sank into something soft and yielding. The woman recoiled with a shriek, wet red jelly seeping down her pallid cheek.
“My eye! You bitch, my eye!”
The momentary distraction was enough. Brona scrambled to her feet and brought the pistol round again. “Hannek! Down!”
The scrawny labourer ducked just in time. The bullet struck his assailant in the shoulder; the man staggered back, off-balance, and the momentum was enough to take him over the hand-rail, still screaming as Brona turned her pistol back to the leader.
“How many of you are there?”
“Our name is legion, for we are—”
Brona fired again. The shot hit the woman in the thigh, and she shrieked, a high, animal shriek that almost made Brona pity her.
Almost.
“How many?”
“You’re too late.” The woman smiled, her teeth scarlet with blood. “You can kill me, destroy the holy relic, but this water is sanctified by Our Grandfather himself. Every labourer in this factorum has drunk of his essence. Soon the whole hive will know his blessings.”
The woman’s gaze darted to the side. Brona followed it to the suppurating finger bone, lying free of its reliquary on the edge of the gantry. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but the cultist was too quick. The cultist’s hand closed around the blasphemous relic, her face lighting up with triumph — then she plunged over the side into the waiting waters below.
“Shit.” Brona scrambled to her feet. Hannek was supporting himself on the hand-rail, doubled over and breathing heavily. “Where does the outflow from this tank go? What does it supply?”
“The whole factorum.” Hannek’s voice was flat. “The workers here have been drinking from it for months.”
“What about the city? Does it drain into the city’s water supply?”
He shook his head. “Not directly.”
Brona leaned her weight on the railing, the metal hot to the touch, her mouth dry. Had she drunk water since setting foot inside the reclamatorium? Uncertainty was an uncomfortable state to be in when a single drop would bring corruption.
“Honoured enforcer.” Hannek’s voice was soft, shorn of the wheedling edge she had come to expect. “I must ask you for a favour.”
“What?”
He motioned to the stub pistol in her hand. “For the Emperor’s mercy.”
Brona shook her head. “No. We take this to the Overseer. She can—”
“Honoured enforcer.” Hannek managed a resigned smile. “You know what will happen to everyone who works within this place. You and the guards outside may yet be spared, but for the labourers, only death waits. I would prefer my death now, if you would be so kind.”
He closed his eyes, lips moving in silent prayer. Brona searched her thoughts for a prayer of her own. She cleared her throat.
“God Emperor, have mercy on this man, your faithful servant.”
For a moment, she would have sworn that she saw Hannek’s face bathed in light.
The pistol’s report echoed through the vast, empty hall, and the light died.
___________________________________________________________________
The image on the screen was grainy and dark, but the figure sitting in the centre of the cell was visible enough. A woman, kneeling at prayer, her head so freshly shaven that the nicks and scrapes on her bare scalp were clear despite the low-quality vis-augurs.
“You’re sure this is the one you want, my Lord Interrogator?” the acolyte said, eyes flicking down to her dataslate. “Brona Norvok. She’s a simple factorum guard. If the team needs more muscle, surely one of the hive enforcers —”
The acolyte’s master raised a hand, and the acolyte fell silent. “Tenacity. Courage. A kindling spark of the true faith. She has faced damnation and emerged with her soul unstained, which is more than can be said for those luckless manufactorium workers whose pyre-smoke is filling the air with stench.” He rose to his feet and sniffed disdainfully. “Have her brought up from the Penetentium, and tell the pilot to make the gun-cutter ready to depart.”
“Yes, Lord Interrogator.”
“Our newest companion has endured her first test of faith.” The hint of a smile crept across the Interrogator’s face. “Let us waste no time in finding her a fresh challenge.”
END
Creator Program
Join an exclusive community of creators and work your way through the ranks to earn access to content previews, pre-seeding and collaboration opportunities for content based around Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
Apply here
Stay tuned for more details and don’t forget to follow our socials to keep up with all the news leading up to launch.
Dev Blog: Voices of the 41st Millennium
In today’s blog we bring fresh insights into the characters you’ll be playing in your battle to save Atoma. Whether you’re taking to the hive city streets as a hard-bitten veteran, ranting zealot, haunted psyker or hulking ogryn, you’ll be able to pick the voice profile that suits you best!
To dive into the detail, we asked the members of our writing team (Matthew Ward, Mark Latham, Sarah Cawkwell, John French, Victoria Hayward, Jude Reid & Jeremy Vetock) to tell us a little bit about what makes these reluctant defenders of Atoma tick.
The Veterans
For the Emperor!
Countless billions toil in the ranks of the Astra Militarum, more colloquially known as the Imperial Guard. They’re the hammer of the Emperor, responsible for crushing threats to the embattled Imperium – usually through sheer weight of numbers, invariably while suffering an eye-watering number of casualties.
All that said, it shouldn’t be surprising that Darktide’s veterans balance two key personality traits: duty, and fatalism. Whether they’ve been fighting the Emperor’s enemies for decades or a few short years, they’ve got what it takes to go into a meat grinder and come out the other side. For some, survival comes from sticking to your orders. For others, it’s about keeping your head down and taking whatever opportunities present themselves.
The Professional
Performed by Seroca Davis & Alex Jordan
Matthew: The Professional is the archetypal Imperial Guardsman: diligent, dedicated and just waiting for the round that’s going to take off the back of their head. They’ve seen plenty of action and lost a lot of friends along the way, but their faith in the Emperor has never faltered. They might not be in regular service any longer, but they’ve still got a duty to fulfill, and they’re not going to let a trifling thing like overwhelming odd and scummy rations get in the way … though it’d be nice if some of their teammates would act like real soldiers once in a while.
If you’re looking for a straight-up-the-middle (if fatalistic) soldier, then the Professional’s the way to go. They’re more tactically minded than most of their peers, and determined to make the best of a bad situation. After all, the Emperor’s watching, ain’t he? They’re the very best the Astra Militarum has to offer – if more folk were like them, then maybe Atoma wouldn’t be in its current state.
The Loose Cannon
Performed by Emma Ballantine & Aaron Neil
Matthew: Very much a different proposition from the Professional, the Loose Cannon is distantly aware that service in the Astra Militarum is a fool’s game. They’re always on the look out for an opportunity to make life easier (i.e. less suicidal) and maybe turn a bit of personal advantage along the way. But underneath it all, they’re still a proud soldier, and every bit as determined as their stuffier counterpart. And if their attitude rubs a few folk the wrong way? Keeps life interesting, don’t it?
As the name suggests, the Loose Cannon is a bit reckless, a little cavalier and very, very mouthy. While it’s an open question as to just how serious their threats of desertion actually are, they’re always ready with opinions, jibes and off the cuff remarks about everything from their teammates, to their handlers, to the fact that they’re off on a hopeless mission yet again. You can probably trust them. I mean, they wouldn’t be here otherwise, would they?
The Cut Throat
Performed by Devon Anderson & Helen Keeley
John: The Cut Throat is a terse, vengeful, professional. Their craft is a war, and they have been raised to know and execute skills of battle as though they were breathing. Their need for vengeance and bitterness comes from a single fact; they are Cadian. They have lost the world that bore them and shaped them, and that loss was not because of a failure by the people of Cadia, but because of the weakness of others. That failure cannot be forgiven or forgotten.
They absolutely do not care about anything other than their mission and getting revenge. There’s something just very cool about a stone cold killer who if they speak more than five words it’s a speech. Stone cold killer of few words – what could be cooler than that?
Sarah: The Cut Throat is a Cadian survivor, chock-full of bitterness, regret and a solid sense of injustice which manifests as cynicism and occasional sarcasm. While cantankerous and cynical, they are still trustworthy, steadfast and loyal – prepared to do whatever it takes. Frequently dispensing what they believe to be useful advice (which may or may not be the case), the Cut Throat is never happier than when there's something to complain about.
The Zealots
Untiring. Unyielding. Intolerant.
As an unabashed theocracy, the Imperium breeds zealotry like nothing else. When hatred is the doctrine of survival, and humanity’s dominance an unvarnished truth preached from every laudhailer and pulpit, there is never a shortage of men and women prepared to take up the sword and wage war in the Emperor’s name.
Some such zealots are formal initiates of the galaxy-spanning Adeptus Ministorum, indoctrinated into the mysteries of the Cult Imperialis. Some are firebrands and street preachers, bellowing the Emperor’s truth to all and sundry. Others still consider themselves as nothing more or less than vessels of righteousness, their higher purpose to bring fire and purpose to wherever it is needed most.
The Agitator
Performed by Clare Corbett & Adam Howden
Matthew: Just as the Professional is the archetypal Imperial Guardsman, the Agitator is the quintessential zealot: stern, unflinching and utterly convinced of moral authority. They have faith that can shatter mountains, and an unshakeable belief that they – and those like them – hold the key to humanity’s survival, because no one serves the Emperor as unfalteringly as they do … which, for better or worse, is likely true.
The Agitator is ideal for those who want to throw caution to the winds and fully embrace the Imperial Creed; to partake of the holy mission before them without fear, favour or doubt. You’ll doubtless not make many friends along the way – most of your teammates are a lot earthier and practical than you – but that, surely, is to their loss? Is it not said that to die for the Emperor is the highest calling? Fear not, because the Agitator always has a lecture at hand, delivered in the finest Gothic.
The Fanatic
Performed by Neil McCaul & Sophie Wilkinson
Mark: The Fanatic is perhaps the most practical and grounded of our three zealots – less inclined to fiery oratory, and more keen to teach heretics the error of their ways with fire and steel. They’re always ready with praise and encouragement for their fellows, whether that be an Imperial proverb or a hearty slap on the back.
But what I love about this character is their inner tension. The Fanatic is a ticking time bomb, ready to explode. When heresy rears its ugly head, their first thought is not of prayer, but of righteous vengeance in the God-Emperor’s name, and they set about this task with enthusiastic … well … zeal. (While shouting some choice bits of Scots language.)
The Judge
Performed by James Alexander & Haruka Kuroda
Jude: At their heart, the Judge is defined by absolute unswerving adoration of the God-Emperor. It's an interesting challenge to get into the headspace of someone who sees the Imperial Cult (appalling by modern standards of morality!) as not only something to be obeyed, but as an active force for good. They truly believe that the God-Emperor has a plan for everyone, that obedience to the faith is the sole means through which humanity can survive, and that the alternatives are infinitely worse... and they might even be right.
It would have been easier to write a character who was all about fire and brimstone and indiscriminate punishment of the even-possibly-guilty – but the more I wrote, the more the Judge developed into someone who genuinely wanted the best for the suffering masses of humanity. They're keenly aware of the social injustices of their corner of the Imperium, and see preaching their faith – and administering justice – as a way to begin redressing the balance of power.
The Psykers
Alone, Abused, Possibly Insane.
Life in the 41st Millennium is rough for everybody. Between unceasing war, the ever-present possibility of heretical uprising, uncaring bureaucracy, xenos invasion and the thousand tiny horrors of living as a cog in a vast, callous machine, life expectancy isn’t the greatest.
But without doubt, psykers have it worst. Hunted, persecuted, expended as fuel to keep the light of the Astronomican blazing so humanity can navigate the stars … Oh, and then there’s the possibility of daemon possession whenever they use their formidable psychic powers. We can probably forgive them for not having the rosiest outlook on life. It might be that they’re just a little bit mad, you know.
The Loner
Performed by Zehra Jane & Greg Jones
Matthew: The Loner is a rare soul: someone who’s seen the truth of the Imperium and isn’t afraid to speak their mind. They’re not really trained for the kind of situations they’re being thrown into, but sheer determination – and a desire not to be killed by the obviously inferior sorts that comprise their opponents – generally carries them through.
A lifetime on the run has left the Loner cynical as to the motives of everyone … authority, most of all. But more than anything else, the Loner is convinced of their superiority, and not without cause. They’re bitingly intelligent, and their unusual perspective on the Imperium often grants an insight that their comrades lack. Of course, that’s not always the safest thing in the world. No one loves a critic.
The Seer
Performed by Rachel Atkins & Dan Starkey
Matthew: It’s fair to say that the Seer … well, isn’t quite all there. For one thing, they’re 90% convinced that they’re dreaming everything that’s going on around them, which makes for a slightly fraught relationship with their comrades – or as they see it, the figments of imagination that they’ve created to populate the dream. On top of that, the Seer has a very close relationship – or at least they think they do – with the Emperor. They’re convinced that their Beloved (as they call him) will permit no harm to come to them. I guess we’ll see.
The Seer’s easily the least military-minded of the group, but they’re also the most insightful. Though they lack the world-weary cynicism of the Loner, they’re not without insights … they can even be profound, when the mood takes them. Is this divine inspiration from their Beloved? A sliver of pre-trauma personality breaking through? The human equivalent of a thousand Pterra squirrels battering away on a thousand dataslates and accidentally reproducing the text of the Codex Astartes? We’ll probably never know.
The Savant
Performed by Tashinga Bepete & Jess Nesling
Victoria: A conflicting mix of pride and occasional resentment, the Savant wants to serve humanity and be a respected force for order. However, given their unfortunate risk of becoming a conduit for warp nasties, this is pretty unlikely. Despite this, the Savant remains committed to protecting the citizens of Atoma. They do get frustrated at anti-psyker jibes from their associates and in spite of (or perhaps because of) their ability to pop skulls, they’ve carefully cultivated a non-threatening, intellectual demeanour. Following their time embedded with local enforcers, they consider themselves a professional and get frustrated with sloppy behaviour from their associates.
Despite the hand they’ve been dealt, the Savant maintains a wry sense of humour and a genuine commitment to protecting citizens. They have incredible power at their fingertips, and despite the fact that most people fear and hate them, they choose to use this to prevent the tide of Chaos from overwhelming Atoma (not that anyone really has choices in the Imperium!). This fight is personal for them. In a deeply bleak setting, that little spark of hope is good to see, however futile!
Also, they can melt brains, which in my view firmly establishes them as the coolest character.
The Ogryns
You want something stomped?
Everyone’s favourite abhumans, ogryns are long on muscle … but not the deepest of thinkers. They’re physically powerful, incredibly tough, and definitely folk you want on your side when the going gets tough. Just don’t ask them to do anything complicated.
Lacking mental dexterity, our ogryns tend towards being very focused on particular tasks and interests. They’re often confused by the little people on their team, which manifests as anything from curiosity, to contempt, to a touchingly protective attitude. After all, even the grouchiest ogryn understands that you can’t be the strongest if you’re the only one left standing …
The Bodyguard
Performed by Toby Longworth
Matthew: The Bodyguard is an affectionate and cheery lug, always looking for the best in situations and the opportunity to prove himself to his teammates – which often means putting himself in harm’s way so they can see how impressive he is. He’s always ready with a helping, meaty hand, and is determined to be seen as a proper soldier in the eyes of any Astra Militarum veterans who might happen to be nearby.
I’ve no doubt the Bodyguard actually considers himself to be the leader of the strike team and just lets the others think that they’re in charge. After all, he is the biggest, and it is only right that the biggest is leader, yes? While plenty of the other characters have their own little quirks of humour, the Bodyguard’s possibly the only one who actually wants to be in the thick of things. It’s probably a better life than most ogryns get.
The Bully
Performed by Greg Jones
Mark: The Bully is a brutish, bad-tempered slab of muscle with a penchant for violence. Sure, he’s well-trained and loyal to his bosses, but ultimately the only things he really enjoys are fighting and eating. Sometimes he shows a modicum of respect for his comrades, especially if they visit some egregious violence on a tough enemy, but most of the time he cares little for the objective at hand, and just want to get on with the fun part of the job: tearing cultists limb from limb.
He can be tough to write, because he has to get his point across in very few words. But he’s also one of the most fun, especially when I get to see [voice actor] Greg Jones roaring like a maniac and laughing with glee as he rips off an imaginary daemon’s head.
The Brawler
Performed by Tom Dussek
Jeremy: Like all his kind, the Brawler is big, dumb and brutish but has undergone Biochemical Ogryn Neural Enhancement, commonly called a Bone 'Ead upgrade. This still leaves him well short of being smart, but he can count most of his fingers and understand some multi-syllable words … so in Ogryn terms he is frankly a bit of a genius. The augmentation process also increased his already rampant love of military authority and unshakable faith in the Emperor (or, as he would say, 'the Emp-rah'). Also, not sure if always being hungry counts as a personality trait, but it is best not to argue with a hulking creature that can chew bones like they were soft-skinned fruits.
As the saying goes, 'blessed is the mind too small to doubt'. Hulking strength and unquestioning loyalty makes for an ideal soldier of the Imperium, but remember – the Brawler has a Bone 'Ead upgrade! So he's on the verge of ... well, something. He often starts to say something, often something multisyllabic, with maybe grander strategic thinking than the average unmodified brute. But ... well, he is still an Ogryn, so it tends to get halfway out before getting garbled. But grut it ... he keeps on trying.
Also, as a leader of his kind - the Brawler is used to backsliding complaints of the less motivated, and so has learned a word to brandish upon them. Any complainers – even those quite legitimate – are labelled as 'snivellers' by the Ogryn. Combine that with the Ogryn's brutish nature and you get him telling a comrade that just lost a limb to enemy fire to “Stop snivelling …”
An Update on Darktide
Today, we decided to delay the launch of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide to November 30th for
PC. Xbox Series X|S will launch shortly after PC, with a specific launch date to come.
Delaying a game is perhaps one of the most difficult decisions a developer faces and one we
are not excited about making. Still, we hope this speaks to our commitment to taking the time
necessary and doing whatever it takes to get you the best possible game.
While we have been humbled by the great feedback on the game so far, we also need more
time to improve stability, performance, and to mature key systems. Each is critical to making
sure we have the best possible experience for you, the players.
We also want to invite you on this journey.
Soon, we will start a series of technical tests and betas in advance of our launch, to ensure we
deliver the best version of the game. If you’d like to participate, you can sign up for a chance at
https://www.darktide.live/signup
Thank you for all the excitement and appreciation you have shown us thus far - it really does
mean the world to us.
Martin Wahlund
CEO & Co-Founder
Dev Blog: Moebian Sixth
To me, in games just like novels, the bad guys have got to be interesting, not just cannon fodder, and that’s hard to pull off in a game because there are going to be a lot of them coming at you as you dig in and play, and some of them will be cut down quickly (if you’re doing your job right!).
It’s pretty much impossible to build them as characters, or establish any depth of personality, because there isn’t the space or the time, and you’re not going to have the sort of interaction with them you’d get in a novel or a piece of prose. You might get to learn about a bad guy’s motivation or impulses in a book, but in a game like this, they’re just going to loom at you out of the dark and try to kill you.
So what we’ve attempted to do instead is build, if not characters, then at least character types. The ‘character’ is the Moebian Sixth itself, the regiment, and the soldiers who make it up come in distinctly different ‘flavours’, with different looks and different behaviours. So you might not get to know them on a personal basis, but you’ll get to know their types, and from that, a picture of the Moebian Sixth will quickly build up.
The question, then, is who are they? Well, they’re Imperial Guard, which is to say soldiers of the Astra Militarum. They are - or were - humans, just like you and me. They are the sort of conscript troops who, in other circumstances, would be the heroes of a story, fighting to protect the citizens and unity of the Imperium. They may all be ‘uniform’ because of their, you know, uniforms, but they are individuals, with different skills and strengths, and different flaws and weaknesses.
There’s something chilling and sad about seeing a proud regiment of the Militarum filling the role of the enemy. These men were veterans: brave, well-trained, determined, and tough. Raised, for the most part, on Atoma Prime itself, they were sent away to war, and served long tours in the so-called Fringe War, a pacification campaign that has rumbled on for years in the feral worlds at the edge of the Moebian Domain. There are several Moebian regiments, in fact, but the Sixth is the most famous, the most decorated, and the most celebrated. Back home on Atoma, to the citizens of Tertium Hive, they are heroes. You don’t get lasmen any tougher than the Moebian Sixth.
They have spent their lives (and, in many cases, given their lives) to fight that campaign and keep the people of Atoma, and all the other populated worlds of the Moebian Domain, safe and free from invasion. Though it’s only a small chunk of the unbelievably vast Imperium of Man, the Domain is a significant tract of space. It’s a fiefdom of several important worlds, loyal to the Throne of Terra, ruled over by the Lord Margrave of Atoma. Think of it like a province or a self-governing state. It pays its tithes and taxes to Terra, it obeys the laws of Terra, and it manufactures vast quantities of goods for the Imperium. It’s important. It must not be lost, or invaded, or ever fall to the darkness that lies in the disputed territories it borders. Those territories, which are ‘parts unknown’, wild worlds outside the Imperium’s remit, are a hotbed of alien (“xenos”) and daemonic threat. To the average citizen of Atoma and its sister worlds, the nature of that threat is a mystery. It’s just called ‘the Darktide’, a boogeyman threat that must be kept at bay. That’s why they have the regiments of the Astra Militarum.
The Moebian Domain, like all worlds and world-groups of the Imperium, is responsible for raising, supporting and equipping its own armies, which fall under the auspices of the Astra Militarum. The young people recruited to regiments like the Sixth have no idea where they’re being sent, or what they will face. They are as ignorant of the ‘Darktide’ as any other regular citizen, for they were all citizens themselves.
They quickly learn. The galaxy of Warhammer 40,000 is not a friendly or safe place. There are brutal horrors out there - alien creatures, predators, xenos species, monsters, and worse - who want nothing more than to extinguish the fluttering flame of human civilisation. Out on the death worlds of the Fringe, the lasmen are thrown into the meatgrinder and come face to face with unimaginable danger. Their world-view changes. They learn the nature of the Darktide and fight it tooth and nail.
Sometimes, they learn too much.
Long tours result in trauma, both physical and psychological. Some are broken by the experience. Some are made bitter and resentful that the gruelling combat they experience is generally unrecognised back home, because the Imperial Administratum tends to keep all details of the ongoing conflict quiet so as not to generate public alarm. There might be a few news broadcasts about ‘great victories’, but the rest of the turmoil is screened by propaganda.
Some troopers, of course, serve brilliantly and bravely, and remain loyal. Despite everything they experience. But others fall prey to the insidious touch of the Darktide. They encounter the malevolent effect of the Warp, and it changes them. They become - literally, in some cases - the very thing they are fighting against
And they fight well. The ‘character’ of the regiment comes from the different units and specialisations. They have fierce melee troops who excel at close range and hand-to-hand. They have storm troops, snipers, flame-troopers, demolition units, heavy-weapon squads. They have everything you’d need in an armed unit if you wanted to take down a world.
So the Moebian Sixth is a regiment that’s turned traitor. They have been corrupted, by the trauma of their experiences, and by the polluting effects of the Warp. The guardians of Atoma have turned - in vengeance and hatred and spite - on the people they guard and the hive that raised them.
Ultimately, they are not just monsters looming out of the dark to kill you. They’re highly trained, highly-experienced veteran troopers, with full military gear. They have been seduced by the creed of the Darktide, and they have come home, not simply to kill and exact vengeance, but - more poignantly - to share the ‘truth’ they have uncovered. They truly believe they’ve seen the light, and that the dark ways they have discovered are far better and more liberating than the stagnant rubrics of the Imperium. They want to share that truth with you… with you, and every living soul on Atoma.
So there’s a tragedy there. They absolutely don’t think they are evil. They absolutely think they’re doing the right thing. And they will absolutely kill you if you try to stop them.
You don’t get lasmen any tougher than the Moebian Sixth, after all.
- Dan Abnett