Obscure Weapons You Should Know

Summary

• Unique PH Warhammer weapons like the Shokk Attack Gun, Nightmare Shroud, and Celestial Orrery are terrifyingly creative.
• From Ork to Eldar, these weapons offer distinct and lethal capabilities that challenge traditional notions of 41st-millennium warfare.
• Xenos tech like the C’tan Phase Sword and plasma burners add a layer of intrigue to Warhammer 40,000 lore.

Every Warhammer 40,000 fan knows the Boltgun, Lasgun and Chainsword. They’re staples of the setting and used by most of the characters that players love. They all have dozens of variants, named artisan versions, and versions mounted on vehicles. They’re used by multiple armies and factions, with Eldar Striking Scorpions using the Chainsword, Genestealer Cults wielding Lasguns and the forces of Chaos having huge supplies of Boltguns.

But the weapons of the forty-first millennium are not limited to traditional sci-fi weaponry and fully automatic rocket launchers. There are many weapons that players might have seen, but know little to nothing about. Others threaten to tear down the fabric of reality and turn the Imperium to ash. There are hundreds of types of weapons in the forty-first millennium, but here are just a few.

10

Shokk Attack Gun

Alien, But With Goblins

One of the cruelest weapons in the Orks’ massive arsenal of creative tools of destruction, the Shokk Attack gun uses living ammo to eviscerate even the most heavily armored targets. It is a weapon forged by the Meks of the multitude of Ork WAAAGHs bearing down on humankind and a myriad of other civilizations.

Channeling the energy of the warp, the Shokk Attack gun catapults the smaller members of the Orkoid species, the grots and gretchin, into the bodies of their foes. The Grot loses its sanity in transit, exposed to the eldritch horrors of the immaterium, and comes out frothing and flailing in the guts of the target.

9

Nightmare Shroud

A Night Lord’s Dream Weapon

Fear is a powerful thing, but can it be used to kill outright? According to Warhammer 40,000, it can.

The Nightmare Shroud is one of the Necron’s most destructive and terrifying weapons, manifesting the fears of enemies nearby into being and unleashing them upon their respective victims. Typically, they’re used by Crypteks, the engineers and scientists of the Necron people. But they are sometimes found draped over the frame of a Necron lord. Regardless of the wielder, this weapon is an example of the Necron’s technological supremacy. It would be an extremely fun weapon to use in a Necron-focused video game.

8

Disintegration Weapons

Like Mars Attacks

This was one of the original weapons seen wielded by space marines all the way back in 1987. Disintergration weapons have all but entirely fallen out of the setting, despite their status as some of the most powerful weapons wielded by humankind.

A relic even during the Great Crusade, this is a piece of Archaeotech from the Dark Age of Technology, when humans were much more technologically advanced than the modern day Imperium. It’s so advanced that not even the Votann, who have a trove of Dark Age Tech, have any.

7

Conversion Beamer

Helping Heretics Be The Light

One of the most technologically advanced weapons still semi-common on the battlefields of the forty-first millennium, the Conversion beamer is only available to some members of the Mechanicus, the advanced Votann, and the chief Techmarines of lucky chapters. Another Dark Age of Technology relic, the beamer works by converting the matter that makes up its target into antimatter energy. This essentially disintegrates and explodes the target simultaneously.

Much like its disintegration-based counterpart, the weapon was not in common use even during the Horus Heresy. It was, however, coveted by a small sect of the Mechanicum known as Myrmidon sect.

6

Blight Grenade

Dead Heads

Ever wondered why those stick grenades wielded by Plague Marines have human heads on the end? That’s because they’re not normal grenades. They’re instruments of Grandfather Nurgle to spread his diseases far and wide.

The weapon functions in three parts. When it detonates, it acts like a regular grenade, spreading shrapnel and wounding or killing nearby soldiers. But that’s where the Blight grenade’s unique properties come in. Those wounded by the grenade will die slowly and horribly, consumed by bacterial infections and possibly even Nurgle’s Rot. Those armored well enough to withstand the shrapnel are not safe either, as the explosion spews viscous fluids and fungus-filled gases into any crack in their plate.

5

Harlequin’s Kiss

Who’s Laughing Now?

The Harlequin’s Kiss is wielded by the Eldar Harlequins, the servants of the last free and alive Eldar god: Cheogorach. This horrific weapon can turn even the most heavily armored or towering foe into a mass of quivering giblets.

While it looks like some kind of wrist-mounted firearm, the Kiss is in fact a melee weapon designed to turn a single well-placed thrust into certain death. Once the kiss is inside the body, the coil of wire contained in its rear unspools. The razor-sharp wire then flails through the unfortunate victim’s body, ripping them apart from the inside. It’s no wonder that these guys have taken on Custodes and won.

4

Phosphex Weaponry

The Smell Of Phosphex In The Morning

Phosphex is Warhammer 40,000’s answer to Napalm. Of course, in true Warhammer fashion, it’s much more brutal than even that terrible weapon. Known as Phospor in the forty-first millennium, it is banned among all but the scions of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

The weapons were heavily utilized by the Space Marine Legions during the days of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. The weapons release a toxic gas that ignites when excited by movement, and burns so hot it burns through ceramite, the armor of a Space Marine. These weapons are so toxic that the Space Marines that used them had massively shortened lifespans and turned landscapes into unlivable hellholes.

3

C’tan Phase Sword

Heresy, But Cool Heresy

When talking about humans using Xenos weaponry, the discussion usually involves factions such as the Deathwatch, an army of veteran space marines from across the galaxy that are usually the only ones allowed such weapons. But others do make use of Alien tech.

The Callidus Assassins, for example, are the shapeshifting merchants of death that the Officio Assassinorum deploy to deal with particularly well-guarded or careful targets. The C’tan Phase Sword they all carry can phase in and out of reality at the will of its wielder, meaning it can penetrate any armor or shield it faces.

2

Plasma Burners

Weapons Of The First Legion

The Dark Angels were infamous during the Great Crusade for their grim role. Each Legion had a specialty, and theirs was the Emperor’s personal extermination force. Their job was to annihilate eldritch horrors, things that lurk in the dark, and anything else he deemed necessary to eliminate before it came into contact with the wider Imperium.

To do this, they were given access to weapons held in the vaults upon Terra. Among them were the radioactive Plasma Burners, weapons that spit superheated tank-melting plasma like a flamethrower. These weapons were extremely useful in destroying the most terrifying of threats, but they took a heavy toll on their wielders, hortening their lives from functional immortality to a few decades.

1

Celestial Orrery

The Most Powerful Weapon In Warhammer

The Ceslestial Orrery is not technically used as a weapon. It is a map of the galaxy that is connected to each and every star through some unknown method. It is watched over by the Oruscar dynasty, who protect it at great cost, with many other dynasties attempting to wrest the Orrery from them. The Dynasty view themselves as stewards of the galaxy, and refuse to use the Orrery for destruction.

Should it fall into the wrong hands, however, nobody could stop whoever held the Orrery. Because it isn’t just connected one way. Should someone snuff out one star on that map, the real counterpart would detonate in a supernova. Should the Necrons tire of slogging through the Imperium’s armies, all it would take is a single poke at our solar system to cast humankind into a new Age of Strife. With weapons like this, it’s no wonder the Necrons are among Warhammer 40,000’s strongest factions.