Home › Units › Adeptus Astartes (all Chapters) › Sternguard Veteran Squad
1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Within a Codex-compliant Chapter's elite First Company, those veterans who favour ranged mastery over the melee fury of the Vanguard form the Sternguard. Each Sternguard Veteran has fought for centuries across every Company in the Chapter and earned the Crux Terminatus—the right to wear Tactical Dreadnought Armour—yet chooses to take the field in ornate power armour where his peerless marksmanship and tactical flexibility can turn the tide of battle.
Appearance & wargear
Sternguard Veterans wear richly decorated Mark VII, Mark VIII, and Mark X power armour draped in white First Company tabards, gold laurels, purity seals, and Crux Terminatus shoulder badges, carrying scoped Sternguard Bolt Rifles, combi-weapons, and heavy flamers.
Weapons & Vehicles
The signature .75-calibre rocket-propelled mass-reactive firearm of the Adeptus Astartes, firing self-propelled explosive bolts that de…
A belt-fed 1.0-calibre automatic support cannon known to Imperial troops as the "Backbreaker," scything down massed infantry and light …
A volatile liquid-promethium projector that floods bunkers, trenches and xenos swarms in clinging, self-oxidising gouts of cleansing ch…
A short-ranged thermal sub-molecular agitation weapon that flash-melts battle tank armour, bunker doors and heavy walkers into bubbling…
A volatile directed-energy rifle that hurls bolts of miniature sun-hot plasma capable of vaporising Terminator plate and tank armour—at…
An armoured orbital-insertion capsule fired like a shell from a Space Marine Strike Cruiser, slamming into the heart of the enemy battl…
A heavily armed infantry fighting vehicle built on the Rhino chassis, trading half of its troop capacity for a roof-mounted twin heavy …
First Company veterans in Tactical Dreadnought Armour, the heaviest personal protection a Space Marine can wear.
The classic, adaptable ten-man squad of the Codex Astartes, carrying boltguns, a special weapon and a heavy weapon.
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
Stationed at the decisive point of the battleline, Sternguard Veterans gun down heavily armoured elites and monstrous creatures with Dragonfire, Hellfire, Kraken, and Vengeance rounds.
Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier
Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary Stationed at the decisive point of the battleline, Sternguard Veterans gun down heavily armoured elites and monstrous creatures with Dragonfire, Hellfire, Kraken, and Vengeance rounds. asset of Adeptus Astartes (all Chapters), Sternguard Veteran Squad relies on a tightly coupled symbiosis between operator conditioning and primary armament. Field maintenance and biological recovery logs indicate that extended deployment without liturgical recalibration or bio-stasis rest degrades targeting and metabolic stability by less than 4% per solar week—far outperforming standard sector baselines—while post-engagement recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core wargear, neural/gene-seed components, or machine-spirit memory cores before enemy scavengers can exploit them.
Notable battles & users
- 745.M41 — First Company Sternguard and Terminators of the Ultramarines died to the last man defending the polar fortresses of Macragge against Hive Fleet Behemoth.
- 989.M41 — Crimson Fists Sternguard Veterans under Chapter Master Pedro Kantor held New Rynn City against Waaagh! Snagrod.
Related
Characters (3)
Marneus Calgar · Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, Lord Macragge
Pedro Kantor · Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists, Lord Helblade
Uriel Ventris · Captain of the Ultramarines 4th Company
Related units
Factions
Adeptus Astartes (all Chapters) Ultramarines Crimson Fists Imperial Fists