Razorback

Lore & history

Whereas the venerable Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier is a pure battlefield taxi built to carry a full ten-man Space Marine squad under armour protection, the Razorback answers a different tactical need: mobile heavy fire support for small, hard-hitting combat squads. Developed from an incomplete Standard Template Construct recovered hundreds of years after the Horus Heresy by Chief Artisan Tilvius on Mars, the Razorback sacrifices four of the Rhino's passenger seats to install a central weapon-turret ring, heavy power capacitors and ammunition stowage racks inside the troop bay.

Across Codex-compliant Chapters, the Razorback is the favoured transport of five-man Combat Squads, Devastator fire-teams, Sternguard Veterans and Company Command entourages. While the embarked Space Marines advance toward an objective or hold a key crossroads, the Razorback circles beside them as a mobile pillbox, laying down concentrated anti-tank lascannon fire or scything down infantry swarms with twin heavy bolters and twin assault cannons.

Because it shares the exact same multi-fuel engine, track assemblies and ceramite hull plates as the ubiquitous Rhino, a Chapter's Techmarines can convert a Rhino into a Razorback—or vice versa—in the field in a matter of hours to match the enemy they face.

Design, mechanism & battlefield effect

Built directly upon the Mars-pattern Rhino chassis, the Razorback replaces the twin rectangular roof hatches over the troop compartment with a reinforced circular top plate supporting an automated, remote-targeted weapon turret. Rather than requiring a gunner to sit exposed inside the turret basket, the turret's heavy weapons are aimed and fired remotely from a targeter console inside the forward crew cabin by the Space Marine driver/gunner, assisted by the vehicle's onboard target-acquisition machine spirit.

Inside the rear compartment, the central ammunition hoppers and capacitor banks for the turret weapon occupy the middle of the floor, reducing embarkation capacity to six power-armoured Space Marines. Those six warriors can dismount rapidly through the hydraulic rear ramp or the two side doors, while the Razorback's multi-fuel engines—capable of burning anything from promethium to shredded wood or alcohol in an emergency—keep the vehicle moving alongside them.

Like all Rhino-derived vehicles, the Razorback incorporates automatic self-repair nanocircuits and secondary bypass conduits that allow its crew to restart a stalled drive train even after suffering penetrating hits.

Patterns, variants & doctrine

The Razorback's modular turret ring accepts a wide range of twin-linked heavy weapon configurations. The two classic Codex patterns mount either a Twin Heavy Bolter for sustained anti-infantry suppression or a Twin Lascannon for long-range tank hunting. A third widely used pattern combines a single Lascannon with a Twin Plasma Gun on the same mount to threaten heavy armour and Terminator squads simultaneously.

During the late forty-first millennium, Chapter armouries and Forge Worlds expanded the Razorback's options to include Twin Assault Cannons—turning the transport into a buzzsaw that shreds light vehicles and hordes—as well as Twin Heavy Flamers (favoured by the Blood Angels and Salamanders for close-range bunker clearing) and Multi-Meltas among the Black Templars and Space Wolves.

Notable patterns & relic examples

• Twin Heavy Bolter Pattern: The standard anti-infantry fire-support configuration for Space Marine Combat Squads.
• Twin Lascannon Pattern: Turns the Razorback into a mobile tank-destroyer protecting advancing Devastators or Command Squads.
• Twin Assault Cannon Pattern: A high-rate-of-fire turret variant favored by the Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Deathwatch for shredding massed infantry.
• Lascannon & Twin Plasma Gun Pattern: A versatile hybrid turret combining anti-tank punch with anti-heavy-infantry plasma volleys.

Wielded & Fielded By

Characters (5)

• 
  Marneus Calgar · Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, Lord Macragge
• 
  Uriel Ventris · Captain of the Ultramarines 4th Company
• 
  Jaghatai Khan · Primarch of the White Scars, the Warhawk
• 
  Cato Sicarius · Commander of the Victrix Honour Guard, former Captain of the Ultramarines 2nd Company
• 
  Ragnar Blackmane · Wolf Lord of the Space Wolves

Units (8)

Tactical SquadDevastator SquadScout SquadPredatorRhinoApothecaryGrey Knights Strike SquadGrey Knights Purifiers

Related weapons & vehicles

ChainswordPower FistPower SwordThunder HammerBolter & Bolt RifleMeltagun & Multi-MeltaPlasma Gun & Plasma IncineratorStorm Bolter

Primary Faction

Adeptus Astartes (all Chapters)