AHRIMAN

‘Knowledge is power, but power is nothing without purpose. You may hold in your hand the power to remake all things, but if you do not know what you would change, then you hold nothing at all.’

- Ahriman of the Thousand Sons

Ahriman is the most powerful Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. An exile from his own Legion, he is doomed to wander the Eye of Terror, and beyond, in search of knowledge. Wielding the Black Staff of Ahriman, and possessed of knowledge unequalled outside of the most exalted of Daemons, he is a figure of terrifying power. At his will, armies of lesser sorcerers, Warp-animated Rubricae, and countless other slaves to darkness make war across time and space. Uncounted souls have burned as the price for his need for forbidden knowledge, a need which has driven him since the earliest days of his Legion’s damnation.

SORCERERS IN AN UNKIND AGE

In the time before the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor still walked among his sons, Ahzek Ahriman was Chief Librarian of the XVth Legion of the Legiones Astartes – The Thousand Sons. Under the leadership of Magnus the Red, the Thousand Sons explored the limits of knowledge and psychic ability. To be a Thousand Son was not simply to be a warrior, but to be a scholar, a savant, an adept of the arcane and the transcendental. Where others fought the Emperor’s wars with bolter and blade alone, the Thousand Sons conjured lightning from the air, burnt armies in typhoons of pyromantic fire, and cracked the walls of citadels with the power of their minds. As they conquered, so too did they amassed knowledge, building great libraries of rediscovered lore and plundering the learning of lost worlds. Yet even as they ascended to the heights of knowledge, they were cast down.

In the Age of Strife, psykers had cast a long shadow on Mankind, and the Thousand Sons’ fixation on occult knowledge drew the attention of other Legions. Censured by the Emperor, the Thousand Sons were forbidden to explore or wield the arts they had spent so long cultivating. But the Thousand Sons could not resist the power of the Warp, and broke the Emperor’s decree. In response, the might of the Space Wolves Legion was unleashed on the Thousand Son’s homeworld of Prospero. In the burning ruin of their crystal cities, with the dead littering the shores of bloodstained seas, the Thousand Sons turned to the Warp, and the Warp heard their call. It is said that the skies of Prospero became fire, the seas acid, and that the shrieks of Daemons rolled around the shattered pyramids of their cities. As the psychic storm broke, the surviving Thousand Sons were ripped out of existence and transported through time and space to a planet within the Eye of Terror: the Planet of the Sorcerers.

MASTER OF THE RUBRIC

Reality in the Eye of Terror is a twisted and mutilated thing. Within its ragged bounds, the laws of the physical are slaved to the whims of the Warp: dreams and thoughts reshape matter, Daemons walk unbound, and time flows like the currents of a storm churned sea. Within this realm of nightmares and possibility, the Thousand Sons made their home. Unfettered by the restrictions of mortal law or base reality, their sorcerous powers climbed ever higher, but as their power grew, they began to change. Mutation seethed through the Thousand Sons, fusing flesh and armour, melting the features of once noble warriors into twisted horrors.

Ahriman watched as his battle brothers devolved and knew that he could not allow his Legion to fall further. In secret, he drew together a cabal of the most powerful of his brothers. Some came reluctantly, but saw that there was no choice; some came wholeheartedly, believing in Ahriman without question. Others were drawn to him by desperation, knowing that time was running out – but all shared Ahriman’s hope that, together, they could save the Thousand Sons. Drawing on the Book of Magnus, Ahriman created the Rubric, a spell which would undo the changes wrought upon the flesh of the Thousand Sons, and shield them from such mutations in the future. At last, their great work prepared, the cabal unleashed the Rubric.

Daemons howled and laughed over the towers of the Planet of the Sorcerers. Sheets of multi-coloured lightning descended from the skies. Darkness became light, light darkness. The Rubric touched each of the Thousand Sons, and in that moment, every one of them was remade. The mutation wracking the Legion vanished, burned away in the Rubic’s fire, but what remained was not what the cabal had intended nor expected. Those whose psychic powers had been weak or non-existent had become spirits sealed in sigil covered armour. Inside their shells the echoes of their souls howled and rattled in voices of dust. These were the Rubricae. Those who had possessed greater power still lived, but found their powers multiplied and increased. Looking on the results of his attempt to save his Legion, Ahriman saw that he had both succeeded in every way, and failed utterly.

The Book of Magnus

The Book of Magnus was created by the Primarch of the Thousand Sons during the Great Crusade. Written both by Magnus’ own hand, and the hands of mind-slaved serfs, it was the summation of his knowledge and understanding. In the wake of the Thousand Sons’ fall, the Book of Magnus became a book unbound by physical laws. The knowledge within its pages crawls as though alive, constantly changing, and constantly growing. If a mortal could open its pages twice and live, he would never find its contents the same. There have been several copies of the Book of Magnus, or at least it has manifested several times; such is its Warp infused nature that it may be a single book existing in many places and times. Ahriman possessed a copy of the Book of Magnus before his exile, and others are known to have existed. Kallimakus, once scribe to Magnus the Red, fled the burning of Prospero with a partial copy. Others may exist, but if so, their mark on history has long been burnt away and consigned to oblivion.

EXILE OF THE THOUSAND SONS

As the echo of the Rubric faded, Magnus the Red descended from his tower to confront Ahriman and his Cabal. Some say that in that moment, Ahriman pronounced himself satisfied, and that Magnus’ wrath was only diverted by the intervention of other powers. In a realm of lies, the truth cannot be known, but the outcome of that last meeting is certain. Ahriman, and all those who had stood with him, were banished from the Planet of the Sorcerers for eternity.

Within the Eye of Terror, what one soul may live as an eye-blink, another might experience as many lifetimes. Within such a realm of paradox, questions such as loyalty and truth dissolve in the screams of delusions made real. To walk the stars in such a place is to be walking the path of Chaos to glory or utter destruction. Legions have died there and been reborn, mighty lords become slaves, and mortals ascended to sit beside the Dark Gods of Chaos. In this realm, Ahriman walked alone, cut from the Legion he had sought to save, doomed to an existence on the margins of insanity. Some say that, in this time, he lived nine thousand lives of mortals, tricked truths from the lips of Daemons and became lost in paths of dreams. How long Ahriman wandered the Eye of Terror after his banishment is a question that can have no answer. Time is a fragile thing in the Warp’s grip.

No matter the truth, Ahriman rose from the ashes of the Rubric and the shame of exile with renewed purpose. Understanding and knowledge had always been the fire at the core of Ahriman’s soul, and so it was still. The Rubric had failed, but its intent was untarnished, and what could have been the cause of its failure but imperfect knowledge? With pure understanding and perfect knowledge, Ahriman could complete the salvation of his Legion.

SEEKER OF IMPOSSIBLE KNOWLEDGE

Across a thousand worlds, Ahriman has sought the keys to save what he has already destroyed. The scars of his obsession have made his name a curse in the mouths of humans and aliens alike. Scraps of lore, artefacts both obscure and profane, and rare souls draw him like a raven to a corpse. To the Eldar, he is the carrion scribe who eats the souls of their dying race for secrets, to the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus he is the lightning rod which brings a storm of Daemons, amongst the servants of Chaos he is a flame of power and trickery as likely to burn those drawn to his light as to illuminate them.

A master of subtle manipulation, Ahriman has seeded cults on a hundred worlds, and bent the desires of the powerful to achieve his ends. With conspiracies and plots spread across the galaxy, he coils between them, a puppet master pulling invisible strings. When such subtle means are impossible he wages a sorcerer’s war, forcing armies to kneel with visions of terror, shattering war machines with invisible forces, and ripping the souls from mighty heroes. He knows the true names of 9x9x9 daemons, and possesses pacts which can bring armies flocking to his call. Worlds have burned at his command, billions have fallen to the hunger of the Warp, and reality has bled at the fury of his power.

DREAMS, WARS AND BLOODSHED

Amongst Ahriman’s countless atrocities, there are those that stand as true testaments to his subtlety, power, and ruthlessness.

The Harvest of Calliope

Calliope was a world of lost knowledge; an entire planet given over to the archiving of records from the earliest days of the Imperium all the way to its uncertain present. Stacks of rotting parchment filled caverns extending far beneath its crust, dataspool stations ringed its orbits from pole to pole, and its cities sprawled around the Index Vaults. Every soul on Calliope existed for the archive, from the hunters who stalked vermin in the deep parchment stacks, to the scribes who fought for control of the hundreds of contradictory indexes; all were bound to the ecology of the archive. So it had been for a time since before any could remember, and so it seemed things would continue. Until something changed.

A faction arose within the caste of indexers. This faction called for the unification of all the indexes into an endlessly extending formula. They called themselves the Summation. Where the idea had first come from none were certain, but once it took hold it bloomed like a flower in sunlight. The Summation’s power grew generation by generation until its rule of Calliope was uncontested. Centuries passed and billions laboured to further the Summation’s goal. At last, they succeeded. On the day of the Emperor’s Ascension, in the High Hall of Indexes, a scribe wrote the final line of symbols to complete the formula, and in that instant Calliope fell silent.

When an Imperial ship arrived at Calliope a decade later, it found a few starved people living amongst the dry corpses of the dead. None of the survivors could remember anything for more than a few seconds. Stranger still, the great archives were blank, every datastore empty, and every page of parchment bare. The only mark remaining to tell of the algorithmic seed Ahriman planted, and then harvested millennia later, was a single image, hovering in the lost memories of the survivors’ blasted minds: the image of a figure in a horned helm wreathed in flame stepping from a wound in the air.

The Death of Dianixis

Ahriman had long sought the skull of Lepidus, a dead hero of the Second Black Crusade, for reasons that remain his own. The skull, dipped in silver and engraved with ten thousand words of detestation, lay in the polar shrine city on Dianaxis. A conspiracy to obtain the skull by guile had already failed, so Ahriman turned to more direct means.

Since the end of the Scouring, countless billions have fought and died in the shadow of the Eye of Terror. For almost eight millennia the remains of many of these honoured dead lay on Dianaxis. Heaps of charred bones, the serene bodies of martyrs, and the polished skulls of Space Marines all came to the mausoleum world. On the surface of Dianaxis, the plains of bones extended from shrine city to shrine city, and grew ever deeper with each passing year. The cities themselves were built from the skulls and bones of the most heroic dead. So sacred and revered was Dianaxis that a dozen Space Marine Chapters maintained honour guards and bastions on its surface. Star fortresses ringed its approaches, and millions of troops stood sentinel over the skulls of those who had died to hold the darkness in abeyance.

Across the reaches of space, Ahriman burned worlds and sent souls shrieking into the Warp. As the murdered worlds spun into alignment with each other they created an arcane pattern in the stars with Dianaxis at its heart. As the great design locked into place, Dianaxis’ sun was pulled from reality, leaving a howling wound in the sky of the mausoleum world. Blood and fire spread across the heavens. The bones of the dead howled the last thoughts of their lives, and rainbow fire crawled across the ossuary towers. Daemons poured through the hole that had been the sun, tumbling onto the mausoleum world like falling stars. The defenders screamed as the children of Chaos ate their souls.

Amidst the slaughter, Ahriman appeared outlined in lightning, ringed by sorcerers and rubricae. Power rolled from the circle of sorcerers and they strode through the battle, killing the defenders and dissolving Daemons with arcane fire. The Chapter Honour Guard came against him, but were reduced to ashes and silent screams with a gesture. Fire Bane, last Warlord of the Legio Officium, strode to war from its shrine. The cry of its warhorns echoed across the damned world, and its weapons burnt a path towards Ahriman’s circle. Drawing together the power of his fellow sorcerers, Ahriman forced the war machine to its knees, before pulling the core of its plasma reactor through its carapace. At last, Ahriman held the skull of Lepidus in his hand, as the battle between men and Daemons raged around him. Raising the skull to his eyes he found the one word he sought etched on the skull’s surface. Letting the skull fall from his hand, he and his forces vanished, leaving the world of bones to the howls of Daemons and the cries of the dying.

FATE’S END

Ten millennia have passed in the realms beyond the Eye of Terror, and still Ahriman walks his path of exile towards the promise of a distant salvation. Perhaps Ahriman has already tried to undo the damage of the past and failed, but, as the light of the Imperium gutters, his steps take him ever closer to the answers he has sought for so long. The shadow of secrets, lost since before humans ever stared up at the stars, lingers on the horizon in the elusive Black Library, calling Ahriman ever on, down the road into the future. Flames light that road, and the bones of the dead and the ashes of murdered worlds pave its course. None, except perhaps Tzeentch, who watches all and laughs the song of fate, know what awaits Ahriman at the end of that road, but if he should reach its end, the universe will tremble.

230 Points

UNIT TYPE: Infantry (Character).

WARGEAR: Power armour, bolt pistol, frag grenades, krak grenades, aura of dark glory, inferno bolts.

Power Armour: Power armour confers a 3+ Armour Save.

Bolt Pistol:

RANGE: 12"

STRENGTH: 4

AP: 5

TYPE: Pistol

Pistol

All Pistols are effectively Assault 1 weapons. A Pistol also counts as a close combat weapon in the Assault phase (pg 24 and 51 of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook).

Gunslinger

All models with two pistols can fire both in the Shooting phase. This follows the normal rules for shooting.

Frag grenades: Frag grenades are assault grenades.

Shooting

When a unit armed with assault grenades makes a shooting attack, one model can choose to throw a grenade, rather than using another shooting weapon.

RANGE: 8"

STRENGTH: 3

AP: -

TYPE: Assault 1, Blast

Assault

Models equipped with assault grenades don’t suffer the penalty to their Initiative for charging enemies through cover, but fight at their normal Initiative in the ensuing combat.

Krak grenades: Krak grenades are shaped charges, excellent for cracking the armour on light vehicles.

Shooting

When a unit armed with krak grenades makes a shooting attack, one model can choose to throw a grenade, rather than using another shooting weapon.

RANGE: 8"

STRENGTH: 6

AP: 4

TYPE: Assault 1

Assault

Unless used in assaults against vehicles or Monstrous Creatures, Krak grenades have no effect. When they are used in assaults against vehicles or Monstrous Creatures, krak grenades have the following profile:

RANGE: -

STRENGTH: 6

AP: 4

TYPE: -

Aura of Dark Glory: A model with an aura of dark glory has a 5+ invulnerable save.

Inferno Bolts: Shots from a boltgun or bolt pistol with inferno bolts are resolved at AP3.

WARLORD TRAIT: Master of Deception.

Nominate up to D3 Infantry units in your army before deployment. Those units gain the Infiltrate special rule.

Infiltrate: Units that contain at least one model with this special rule are deployed last, after all other units (friend and foe) have been deployed. If both sides have Infiltrators, the players roll-off and the winner decides who goes first, then alternate deploying these units.

Infiltrators can be set up anywhere on the table that is more than 12" from any enemy unit, as long as no deployed enemy unit can draw line of sight to them. This includes in a building, as long as the building is more than 12" from any enemy unit. Alternatively, they can be set up anywhere on the table more than 18" from any enemy unit, even in plain sight.

A unit that deploys using these rules cannot charge in the first turn.

Having Infiltrate also confers the Outflank special rule to units of Infiltrators that are kept as Reserves. If a unit with Infiltrate is deployed inside a Dedicated Transport, they may Infiltrate or Outflank along with their Transport, but if they do, they must deploy/move onto the table embarked within it. An Independent Character without the Infiltrate special rule cannot join a unit of Infiltrators during deployment.

SPECIAL RULES: Champion of Chaos, Fearless, Independent Character, Mark of Tzeentch, Psyker (Mastery Level 4), Veterans of the Long War.

Champion of Chaos: A model with the Champion of Chaos special rule must always issue and accept a challenge whenever possible. If there is more than one model in a combat with this special rule, you may select which model issues or accepts the challenge. Whenever a character with the Champion of Chaos special rule kills an enemy character, you must immediately check to see if the Dark Gods reward him. To do this, roll a D66 on the Chaos Boon table opposite – by this we mean roll two D6, one after the other, counting the first dice as ‘tens’ and the second dice as ‘units’. Then refer to the table opposite to see what boon (if any) your champion has gained. So, if you roll a 3 on the first dice and a 5 on the second, you would get a D66 roll of 35 – your champion would now benefit from the Mechanoid Chaos Boon. This boon lasts for the rest of the game; make a note of it on your army roster next to that character’s entry. If a boon is rolled that the character already has, the roll has no effect. If an enemy character dies as a result of multiple Wounds being allocated to it simultaneously, and one or more of those Wounds were caused by the champion, that champion still rolls on the Chaos Boon table. Note that destroying models in a Sweeping Advance does not confer a roll on the Chaos Boon table.

Fearless: Units containing one or more models with the Fearless special rule automatically pass Pinning, Fear and Regroup tests and Morale checks, but cannot Go to Ground and cannot choose to fail a Morale check due to the Our Weapons are Useless rule (pg 26 in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook).

Independent Character: Independent Characters can join other units. They cannot, however, join vehicle squadrons (see page 77) or units that always consist of a single model (such as most vehicles and Monstrous Creatures). They can join other Independent Characters, though, to form a powerful multi-character unit!

Joining and Leaving a Unit

An Independent Character can begin the game already with a unit, either by being deployed in unit coherency with it or, if the unit is in reserve, by informing your opponent of which unit it has joined.

In order to join a unit, an Independent Character simply has to move so that he is within the 2"+ unit coherency distance of a friendly unit at the end of their Movement phase. If the Independent Character is within 2" of more than one unit at the end of its Movement phase, the player must declare which unit it is joining. If an Independent Character does not intend to (or cannot) join a unit, it must (where possible) remain more than 2" away from it at the end of the Movement phase. This is to make clear whether they have joined a unit or not. Note that, after an Independent Character joins a unit, that unit can move no further that Movement phase.

An Independent Character can leave a unit during the Movement phase by moving out of unit coherency with it. He cannot join or leave during any other phase – once shots are fired or charges are declared, it is too late to join in or duck out!

An Independent Character cannot leave a unit while either he or the unit is locked in combat, falling back or has gone to ground.

He cannot join a unit that is locked in combat or falling back. If an Independent Character joins a unit, and all other models in that unit are killed, he again becomes a unit of one model at the start of the following phase.

While an Independent Character is part of a unit, he counts as part of the unit for all rules purposes, though he still follows the rules for characters.

Look Out, Sir

Independent Characters pass Look Out, Sir rolls on a 2+.

Heroic Morale

A unit that contains one or more Independent Characters does not need a double 1 to Regroup if reduced to below 25% of its starting numbers, but instead tests as if it had at least 25% remaining.

Special Rules

When an Independent Character joins a unit, it might have different special rules from those of the unit. Unless specified in the rule itself (as in the Stubborn special rule), the unit’s special rules are not conferred upon the Independent Character, and the Independent Character’s special rules are not conferred upon the unit. Special rules that are conferred to the unit only apply for as long as the Independent Character is with them.

Independent Characters and Ongoing Effects

Sometimes, a unit that an Independent Character has joined will be the target of a beneficial or harmful effect, such as those bestowed by the Blind special rule, for example. If the character leaves the unit, both he and the unit continue to be affected by the effect, so you’ll need to mark the character accordingly.

Mark of Tzeentch: Models with the Mark of Tzeentch have +1 to their invulnerable save (to a maximum of 3+). If given to a model that does not already have an invulnerable save, this mark confers an invulnerable save of 6+. Additionally, a Psyker with the Mark of Tzeentch must generate at least one of his powers from the Discipline of Tzeentch.

For example, Thousand Sons have an aura of dark glory (5+ invulnerable save) and the Mark of Tzeentch, so have a total invulnerable save of 4+.

A model or unit may only purchase one Mark of Chaos. An Independent Character with a Mark of Chaos may not join a unit with a different Mark of Chaos. When a Mark of Chaos is listed in a unit’s special rules, its effects will have already been taken into account in its profile, where applicable.

Psyker (Mastery Level 4): See page 66 of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Veterans of the Long War: Models with the Veterans of the Long War special rule have the Hatred (Space Marines) special rule and +1 Leadership (remember that a model’s Leadership cannot be modified above 10). When Veterans of the Long War is listed in a unit’s special rules, the Leadership increase will already have been taken into account in its profile.

The Black Staff of Ahriman

The Black Staff has the profile below. It allows Ahriman to manifest up to three witchfire powers in the same Shooting phase, provided he has enough Warp Charge points.

RANGE: -

STRENGTH: +2

AP: 4

TYPE: Melee, Force.

Melee

Weapons with the Melee type can only be used in close combat.

Force

If a Psyker inflicts one or more unsaved Wounds with a Force weapon, he can immediately choose to activate it by expending a Warp Charge point and taking a Psychic test (pg 67 of Warhammer 40,000 rulebook). If the test is failed, or the bearer has no Warp Charge points to spend, then there is no additional effect.

If the test is passed, all unsaved Wounds inflicted by the Force weapon that turn have the Instant Death special rule (see the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook). Deny the Witch rolls cannot be taken against Force weapons.

Force weapons have no additional effect against vehicles or models that do not have a Wounds characteristic.

Instant Death: Unsaved Wounds inflicted by an Attack with this special rule automatically inflict Instant Death, regardless of the victim’s Toughness (see the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook).

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A GAMES WORKSHOP LTD PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

© Games Workshop Limited, 2013. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-78253-361-0

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