Home › Units › T'au Empire › XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuits
1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Towering more than three times the height of a Space Marine yet capable of vanishing in open daylight, the XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit is the apex of Earth Caste stealth and electronic-warfare engineering. Although its design — closely related to Commander Shadowsun's experimental XV22 Stealthsuit — was completed at the dawn of the Third Sphere Expansion, Ethereal Supreme Aun'Va ordered the project kept strictly classified until its public reveal could deliver maximum propaganda impact across the Empire.
Hand-picked veterans extracted from XV25 Stealthsuit teams were spirited away to a covert facility on J'ka'vo Station on the fringes of the abandoned Sept of N'dras. Operating in total secrecy under Aun'Va's direct orders, the first generation of Ghostkeels carried out deniable black-ops strikes across Imperial space, including the sabotage of Vadenfall Station and the assassination of Cardinal Bocsh, earning the whispered moniker the "Ghosts of N'dras" before finally being unveiled alongside the Riptide during the War Zone Damocles campaigns.
Because a Ghostkeel Shas'vre spends months at a time isolated deep behind enemy lines, the cockpit houses a sophisticated artificial intelligence that helps run the suit's electrowarfare systems and monitors the pilot's psychological health. Over long solo deployments, many Ghostkeel pilots grow so introverted and deeply bonded to their suit AI and their two attendant MV5 Stealth Drones that they shun the company of living T'au even after returning home.
Appearance & wargear
Standing taller than an XV88 Broadside Battlesuit, the XV95 Ghostkeel features a sleek, curved torso housing a full cockpit that swings open at the chest, topped by a multi-lensed sensor head and twin repulsor-jet packs. Its matte armour is studded with disruptor emitter nodes that dampen its electromagnetic signature in passive mode or ripple into a nigh-invisible active camouflage projection of the surrounding terrain, reinforced by the overlapping stealth fields of two accompanying MV5 Stealth Drones. Its left arm mounts an AI Electrowarfare Suite, its shoulders house Holophoton Countermeasures and twin Burst Cannons, Flamers or Fusion Blasters, and its right arm carries either a six-barrelled Cyclic Ion Raker or a tank-melting Fusion Collider.
Weapons & Vehicles
A short-ranged thermal sub-molecular agitation weapon that flash-melts battle tank armour, bunker doors and heavy walkers into bubbling…
The superior Ancestor-Core STC weaponry of the Leagues of Votann—from Mor'tonium-powered Ion Blasters and Magna-Rail Rifles to life-snu…
A volatile liquid-promethium projector that floods bunkers, trenches and xenos swarms in clinging, self-oxidising gouts of cleansing ch…
The long-range electromagnetic plasma induction rifle of the T'au Fire Caste, outranging and out-punching the Imperial bolter without o…
Towering T'au heavy battlesuits powered by experimental dark-matter Nova Reactors that can outmanoeuvre Imperial walkers and shrug off …
The Fire Caste's forward scouts, whose markerlights paint the targets for every gun in the cadre and who die more often than any other …
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
The XV95 Ghostkeel is the living embodiment of the Mont'ka killing blow delivered from unseen quarters. Slipping undetected behind enemy lines, a Ghostkeel shimmers into view for a heartbeat to vaporise an armoured column with its silent Fusion Collider or atomise an infantry platoon with its Cyclic Ion Raker. When surviving enemies try to return fire, the Ghostkeel's Electrowarfare Suite floods their auspexes with scrap-data while its Holophoton Countermeasures blind gunners and trigger rebellious machine-spirit safety locks with a strobe barrage of friendly-target holo-decoys, allowing the suit to fade back into thin air.
Notable battles & users
- J'ka'vo Station at N'dras — The secret Earth Caste facility where the 'Ghosts of N'dras' were trained and deployed on Aun'Va's covert orders, including the sabotage of Vadenfall Station and the assassination of Cardinal Bocsh.
- Campaigns on Prefectia and Agrellan — Ghostkeel wings ambushed Space Marine and Astra Militarum columns during the War Zone Damocles wars.
- Shas'vre Nado — Ghostkeel pilot who fell defending the Sept World of Vesh'yo against invading Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Fleets.
Related
Characters (3)
Commander Shadowsun · O'Shaserra, Supreme Commander of the Fire Caste
Aun'Va · Ethereal Supreme
Commander Farsight · O'Shovah, Commander of the Farsight Enclaves
