Contemptor Dreadnought

A Contemptor Dreadnought of the Alpha Legion was a secret kept in adamantium, for the XX guarded the identities of its interred ancients as jealously as it guarded every other truth. Housing the preserved mind of a fallen veteran, such a war-engine brought the Legion's cunning to bear from within a frame of near-impervious armour, and it was as likely to be deployed in ambush or disguised advance as in open battle. The Alpha Legion delighted in the unexpected, and a Dreadnought erupting from a position the enemy had dismissed as secure, or bearing the false colours of another Legion entirely, was exactly the kind of stratagem the XX favoured. Behind its guns lay a mind that remembered the Legion's earliest deceptions and applied their lessons with the patience of the long-dead. In a brotherhood that trusted nothing to chance, these ancient warriors were both a reserve of overwhelming force and yet another piece in schemes whose full shape only the twin primarchs could see.