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"All things must wither and die. Let root rot and bower blight, to feed the pestilence of abandoned hope."

— Aghalor, the Bringer of Poxes
BlightDrone04

A swarm of Nurgle Blight Drones in flight.

A Blight Drone, also known as a Bilecyst, is a Daemon Engine dedicated to the Chaos God of pestilence and disease, Nurgle. The Blight Drone is a seemingly weird conglomeration of insect larva, flying machine, and Daemonic entity.

The maddening, incessant droning buzz of their rotor disks echoing across the battlefield has become recognised as an omen of death by soldiers of the Imperium of Man.

Stories from the maimed and rotting survivors of Blight Drone attacks are quick to spread through the ranks of Astra Militarum regiments that engage them in battle, each story having negative effects on morale and spreading fear and panic amongst the soldiers which has become a great concern for commissars.

The threat to the morale and overall stability of a regiment has been deemed so serious that any guardsmen caught retelling these tales faces immediate arrest and transportation to a penal unit.

History[]

Grim Origins[]

Vultarax Unit Nagri 9937

A Vultarax Pattern Stratos Battle-Automata; Unit Nagri 9937, of House Malinax. This drone served as a part of the Censure Host during the First Battle of Prospero; it was from the corruption of Battle-Automata such as this that the Blight Drones were created.

The origin of this foul Daemon Engine of Nurgle lies back over ten standard millennia earlier, during the Horus Heresy. Blight Drones are believed to be twisted perversions of Vultarax Pattern Stratos Battle-Automata.

The Vultarax was a robust, multi-role robot which was both heavily armed and remarkably swift. It was based on pre-Imperial STC templates for autonomous aerial machines and constructed around a powerful variant of the Cybernetica Cortex used in most Imperial Robots.

The Vultarax was conceived during the Age of Strife on the Forge World of Anetarbraxus and later given up in tribute to holy Mars. From the Red Planet, it quickly spread to other Forge Worlds in the solar decades after Anetarbraxus' reunification with the Imperium.

By the time of the Horus Heresy, it was one of the rare testimonies to the Forge World's existence, as Anetarbraxus had been reduced to molten slag during the Great Mandragoran Incursion.

The designs of these rare aerial Battle-Automata were more than likely spirited away by their Dark Mechanicum masters when they fled into the Eye of Terror after the Heresy ended. Within the Eye, these once noble machines became corrupted by the decaying touch of the Plague God Nurgle, becoming fly-like mechanical horrors known as "Blight Drones."

These hideous war engines bear rusting plates and rot-iron armour, their hulls overflowing with putrescent foulness. They drift towards the enemy, riding the high air currents over the battlefield on droning turbines, before dropping down to slaughter the enemy with cannon fire and feed upon their seeping corpse-fluids.

Siege of Vraks[]

BlightDrone02

One of the first recorded pict-captures of the Blight Drone, this image was taken during the Siege of Vraks.

The very first recorded contact between the armed forces of the Imperium and Blight Drones was during the Siege of Vraks in 813.M41, where the Blight Drones were encountered in large swarms fighting alongside the Vraksian Traitor Militia and their Chaos Space Marine allies.

The first sightings of Blight Drones, often recorded from the tales of badly maimed survivors, led to their initial misidentification, with some of them being labelled a conventional aircraft of some kind or as massive, Warp-mutated insects.

Eventually, the scholars of the Inquisition were able to piece together various pieces of evidence, and the truth that they were facing a new form of Daemon Engine became abundantly clear. The creatures themselves were usually encountered in large clusters or swarms, acting much in the manner of carrion flies and ambush predators.

The drones seemed to appear on the battlefield where there were large concentrations of the dead as much as they appeared to be ordered into combat by some unseen force. Whereever the Daemon Engines passed the air grew thick with poisonous fumes and the soil itself blistered and rotted.

There exist unconfirmed reports of Blight Drones coming down to rest upon piles of corpses seemingly to feed, liquifying the carcasses of the dead and the dying, and sucking up the decaying sludge, perhaps to fuel themselves or maintain their presence in the physical universe. There exists no evidence of Blight Drones landing anywhere or needing any form of maintenance, nor did they ever return to any base of operations.

Although the Blight Drone's first confirmed encounter with the Imperium was during the Siege of Vraks, and their true origins remain unknown, it was far from the last. Since the Siege of Vraks, Blight Drones have been encountered in several other battles, notably fighting alongside Heretic Astartes warbands such as The Purge and other Death Guard splinter factions.

Additionally, unconfirmed reports have placed these obscene weapons as part of Daemonic incursions in both the ongoing conflicts in the Charadis Rifts war zone and the Auralis war zone, and they were also sighted during the fall of Hive World Mitra, the invasion of Forge World Graia, and during the 13th Black Crusade.

Armament[]

BlightDrone09

A closeup view of the Blight Drones Reaper Autocannon, located beneath the drone's Mawcannon.

The Blight Drone's macabre and deadly reputation was more than matched in dreadful fact by their effectiveness on the battlefield. The drone is armed with a Reaper Autocannon, and a Mawcannon.

The Mawcannon is a smaller version of the weapon found on the mighty Soul Grinder Daemon Engines, and fires out gouts of corrosive toxic bile that is powerful enough to eat through metal and liquify flesh in solar seconds as opposed to the Soul Grinder's preferred Warpfire. The bile from the drone's Mawcannon was extremely effective against the entrenched infantry and vehicles on Vraks, while troops out in the open had little cover from the drone's Reaper Autocannon.

The creature's Mawcannon is also capable of spitting out large, roiling masses of mutating phlegm at a distance, destroying entire enemy squads in one great blast.

The Blight Drone's seemingly squat and bloated form is also unusually resilient against attacks, especially for a skimmer of its size. This quality is attributed to the living flesh and rusted armour plating of the drone, as well as the will of whatever dark intelligence is guiding them.

If a Blight Drone is destroyed in combat it invariably detonates in a shower of bile and pus, and is capable of causing extreme damage to everything caught within the blast.

Ordo Malleus Departmento Analyticus Technical Specifications[]

The technical specifications of the Blight Drone have not yet been determined by the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition.

See Also[]

Sources[]

  • Codex Heretic Astartes - Death Guard (8th Edition), "Grim Origins," pg. 50
  • Imperial Armour Volume Seven - The Siege of Vraks - Part Three, pp. 35, 151-153, 189, 210
  • Imperial Armour Volume Thirteen - War Machines of the Lost & The Damned by Andy Hoare with Alan Bligh & Neil Wylie, pp. 131-133
  • Imperial Armour Apocalypse II, pg. 65
  • Imperial Armour Modelling Masterclass II, pp. 80-81
  • Imperial Armour Aeronautica, pg. 74
  • Labyrinth of Sorrows (Audiobook) by George Mann
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (Video Game)
  • Forge World Webstore: Blight Drone of Nurgle

Gallery[]


Daemon Engines
Chaos Undivided Calamity EngineDeath WheelDecimatorDefilerForgefiendHeldrakeInfernal BombardMaulerfiendSoul GrinderVenomcrawlerWirewolf
Khorne Blood ReaperBlood SlaughtererBlood Throne of KhorneBrass ScorpionCauldron of BloodDeath DealerDoom BlasterKytanLord of BattlesLord of SkullsSkull Cannon of KhorneTower of Skulls
Nurgle Blight DroneContagionFoetid Bloat-droneMyphitic Blight-haulerPlague HulkPlague TowerPlagueburst Crawler
Tzeentch Æther RayThe AuruntaurDoom WingFire LordMirrorfiendSilver Tower
Slaanesh Hell-KnightHell-ScourgeHell-StriderQuestor Scout TitanSubjugator Scout Titan
Chaos Space Marine Forces
Command Chaos LordExalted ChampionChaos ChampionAspiring ChampionSorcerer LordDaemon PrinceDaemon Prince of NurgleDaemon Prince of TzeentchDeath Guard Lord
Specialists Exalted SorcererSorcererWarpsmithDark ApostleMaster of PossessionMaster of ExecutionsLord DiscordantWarsmithDeath Guard SorcererLord of ContagionMalignant PlaguecasterPlague SurgeonTallymanScarab Occult SorcererScarab Occult Terminators
Troops Chaos Space MarinesHavocsChosenChaos TerminatorsPossessedGreater PossessedKhorne BerzerkersPlague MarinesNoise MarinesRubric MarinesObliteratorsMutilatorsChaos SpawnFallen AngelsNoxious BlightbringerFoul BlightspawnBiologus PutrifierBlightlord TerminatorsDeathshroud
Fast Attack Chaos Space Marine BikersChaos Space Marine RaptorsWarp Talons
Chaos Dreadnoughts HelbruteFerrum Infernus DreadnoughtChaos Contemptor Pattern DreadnoughtSonic DreadnoughtBerserker DreadnoughtLeviathan Dreadnought
Vehicles and Daemon Engines Chaos RhinoChaos PredatorInfernal Relic PredatorChaos VindicatorChaos Land RaiderChaos Land Raider ProteusInfernal Relic Land Raider AchillesLand Raider Hades DiabolusRelic Sicaran Battle TankMaulerfiendForgefiendDefilerBrass ScorpionBlood SlaughtererBlight DroneFoetid Bloat-droneKytanPlague HulkVenomcrawlerMyphitic Blight-hauler
Heavy Vehicles and Daemon Engines Spartan Assault TankFellbladeDecimatorTyphon Heavy Siege TankLord of SkullsDeath WheelPlaguereaperPlagueburst CrawlerSilver Tower of Tzeentch
Aircraft HeldrakeStormbirdThunderhawkChaos Storm EagleChaos Fire RaptorHell BladeHell TalonHarbingerChaos DreadclawKharybdis Assault ClawFire LordDoom Wing
Summoned Daemons BloodlettersPlaguebearersHorror of TzeentchDaemonetteNurglingsBeast of NurglePlague DroneFlamerScreamer
Lost and the Damned Chaos CultistsPoxwalkersPestigorPlague ZombiesPlague OgrynThrall WizardTzaangorTzaangor EnlightenedTzaangor ShamanDark Disciple
Champions Magnus the RedMortarionAbaddon the DespoilerKharn the BetrayerTyphusAhrimanHuron BlackheartFabius BileCypherHaarken WorldclaimerInvocatus
Chaos Daemon Forces
Khorne BloodthirsterHerald of Khorne (BloodmasterRendmasterSacred ExecutionerSkullmaster) • BloodletterBloodcrusherBlood SlaughtererBrass ScorpionFlesh HoundJuggernautBlood Throne of KhorneSkull CannonSkull Altar
Nurgle Great Unclean OneHerald of Nurgle (PoxbringerSpoilpox ScrivenerSloppity Bilepiper) • Battle FlyBeast of NurgleNurglingPlaguebearerDaemon Prince of NurgleRot FlyMolluscoidBlight DronePlague HulkPlague DroneFoetid Bloat-droneFeculent GnarlmawGlitchlingPlague ToadPox Rider
Tzeentch Lord of ChangeHerald of Tzeentch (ChangecasterFateskimmerFluxmaster) • Daemon Prince of TzeentchDisc of TzeentchFlamerHorrorScreamerBurning Chariot of Tzeentch
Slaanesh Keeper of SecretsHerald of Slaanesh (Infernal Enrapturess) • DaemonetteSeeker Chariot of SlaaneshFiendSteed of SlaaneshSeekersHate-AngelContorted EpitomeLady of the VoidsRuination of Imperfect Beauty
Other Daemons Daemon PrinceFuriesSoul GrinderDaemon EngineChaos SpawnChaos BeastMutalith Vortex BeastDaemon BrutesDaemon ShrikeDaemon Behemoth
Notable Daemons AmnaichAn'ggrathBe'lakorBlue ScribesChangelingDoombreedEpidemiusHorticulous SlimuxKairos FateweaverKa'BandhaKaranakKu'gathMasque of SlaaneshM'karN'KariRotigusShalaxi HelbaneSkarbrandSkulltakerSyll'EsskeVashtorrZarakynel
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