Talos Pain Engine

This article is about the Dark Eldar Pain Engine; for the Night Lords Legionnaire, see Talos Valcoran.

Dark Eldar Portal

The Talos is a Dark Eldar Engine of Pain. They are semi-sentient, part organic and part mechanical monsters that slowly drift along on anti-gravitic motors.

Overview

Talos Pain Engine^[1]

Talos are the most numerous and common Engine of Pain, and while each is distinct to their master's signature they are broadly similar. Each is always well-equipped to visit hideous retribution upon those that earn their master's ire. They perform several other roles, such as mobile torture devices, to guardians, to shields to absorb fire from its master. They are also frequently used to accompany Haemonculi in Realspace raids, where they are normally used to collect samples. This can include devouring a specific creature or subsuming a Planetary Governor. If a Talos fails in these tasks, or consumes the wrong type of genetic specimen, they are deemed impure and often dismantled and discarded by their master.^[2]

Their armament consists of a variety of unholy weapons, horrible surgical tools, and a metallic shell that makes it all but impervious to enemy fire. They are created by the Haemonculi and seen as the pinnacle of the Haemonculi's art. For their Haemonculi masters, they serve as both guard-creatures as well as mobile torture chambers that inflict horrible agonies upon their victims.^[1] The razor-sharp blades used by Talos engines are capable of cutting up even an Ogryn with ease, and they wield high-tech weaponry that can devastate foes.^[2]

Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught by a Talos will by rapidly dissected by an array of manipulators, scalpel-keen claws and surgically sharp tools. As the Talos gruesomely flays its victim layer by layer, it feeds and draws every removed part into itself, invigorating itself with even greater power as well as at the same time putting on an amusing display of torture for its owner. After battle the constituents of its victims are siphoned out from within its metallic shell and used by the Haemonculi to create exotic potions and elixirs.^[1] However due to the mastery of biochemistry the Haemonculi wield, they can often bring these victims back later for questioning or torture.^[2]

Armaments

A Talos is usually equipped with a twin-linked Splinter Cannons and one or two Close combat weapons such as a Chain-Flail or Macro-Scalpel.^[2]

It can exchange one of its Close-combat weapons for one of the following:

• Ichor Injector — used to inject their foe with the Talos's own boiling ichor.
• Chain-Flails — Multiple-barbed chains used to flail enemies.

It can exchange its twin-linked Splinter Cannon for one of the following:

• Stinger Pod — Fires pulses of raw agony.
• Twin-linked Haywire Blaster
• Twin-linked Heat Lances
• Twin-linked Liquifier Guns^[2]

Variations

Taloses are the creation of a Haemonculus's mad genius and vary greatly in their design. Some well-known variations are known to exist.

• Chainghoul — A clanking Talos favoured by the Prophets of Flesh.^[1]
• Shrivener — A drill-legged Talos found as guards of The Everspiral.^[1]
• Hatemaker — Talos with chain-flails and twin-linked splinter cannon.^[3f]

Images

• 

  Talos miniature (5th Edition)

• 

  Talos miniature (3rd Edition)

See a;sp

• Cronos Parasite Engine
• Haemonculi Covens

Sources

This article contains text passages or images with citation issues. The concerned content is marked with "Citation issue" tags. Please help to improve this article by fixing those issues as described in the corresponding Help article. Do also note that it is absolutely forbidden to add new information or content to these marked passages as long as the pre-existing citation issues have not been completely resolved.

• 1: Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Edition), pg. 40
• 2: Codex: Drukhari (8th Edition), pg. 72
• 3: Haemonculus Covens - A Codex: Dark Eldar Supplement:
  • 3a: Disciplines of the Haemonculi - The Black Cornucopians
  • 3b: Shadows in the Night
  • 3c: A Fortress Awakened
  • 3d: Monsters and Machines
  • 3e: The Banquet Denied
  • 3f: The Pageantry of Evil
  • 3g: Corpsethief Claw
  • 3h: Dark Artisan