Rules5

Cursed is the Legion's faction weapon trait — not a weapon of its own, but a curse laid over every ranged weapon the dead carry. A Cursed weapon gains +1 to its Armour Penetration, biting one point deeper than its pattern should, and it never makes Ammo checks: a gun in dead hands does not jam, run dry or fail. This overlay falls on everything the Legion fires — the boltguns of the line, the archaic volkite of its specialists and the hull weapons of the Relic Damned Dreadnought alike. It is the Legion's own damned munitions, in place of the special-issue rounds a living Chapter would carry. The guns of the dead simply do not stop.

Dread (Fearsome) is the terror of facing the walking dead. An enemy that wishes to Charge a Damned fighter must first pass a Cool or Willpower test; fail, and the charge cannot be declared — the living simply cannot make themselves close with a thing already dead. Worse, any enemy within 3" of a Damned at the start of its own activation must pass a Cool test or it may not target that Damned at all that activation, its aim faltering as the grave-cold figure turns toward it. Against a band this small the effect is decisive: the few dead who march the field are wreathed in a horror that blunts every blow aimed at them before it is even struck.

Warp-Madness is the Legion's inherent curse — one rule wearing three faces, and it stands in place of any ordinary Marine's steadiness.

Unwavering: a Damned fighter auto-passes every Nerve test and can never be Broken or Pinned; And They Shall Know No Fear is subsumed wholly into it.

Compulsion (resistible): at the start of its activation, with an enemy in sight, the fighter must pass a Cool check — at -1 if an enemy is within 6" — to act freely; on a failure it must Charge the nearest enemy within reach, or else move at full toward the nearest enemy and take no other action. This is a Cool check, not a Nerve test, and Unwavering does not bypass it.

Empyrean Surge: at the start of its activation, roll a D6; on a 6 the fighter gains +1 Attack and its wounding hits deal +1 Damage that activation.

Together the three leave the Damned unbreakable, ungovernable and, at moments, terrible beyond reason.

And They Shall Know No Fear. The oldest and surest of the Astartes gifts: a battle-brother does not break. This rule is always in force. A fighter with it can never be Pinned by incoming fire, standing where a mortal soldier would throw himself flat. He automatically passes any Nerve test he is called to make, holding steady while lesser warriors rout around him. And once each round, should he be knocked Prone, he may Stand Up for free rather than spending an action to do so. Together these make the Marine a warrior who fights on through fire, terror and wounds that would shatter the will of anything less than transhuman — the durability of the Adeptus Astartes carried not in his armour but in his unbreakable mind.

Astartes Physiology. Beneath the plate a battle-brother is barely recognisable as a man. Two hearts, a lattice of grafted organs, ossified bone and skin cured against fire and blade make him a creature no unmodified human can match. So the line Marine stands at Toughness 5 with three Wounds, able to take blows that would kill a mortal outright and keep fighting. The Scout, whose implants are not yet complete, is the one exception, fielding the lighter Toughness 4 and two Wounds of a brother still in the making. The strength of a Chapter is written into its warriors' flesh: the body endures what the enemy cannot overcome.