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1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Warp Spiders are the Aspect Warriors who embody one facet of the war god Kaela Mensha Khaine: trapping, ensnaring and killing intruders in the realm of the gods. They take their name from the tiny crystalline creatures that live among the wraithbone trees of a craftworld's Dome of Crystal Seers. These sparkling arachnids can melt into the Infinity Circuit as pure psychic energy and re-form anywhere within the craftworld. They swarm towards any invading psychic presence and destroy it, much as white blood cells attack infection. The wraithbone core of a craftworld can support consciousness much as the Warp does, so it could in theory be corrupted by stray human souls or even a Daemon. The tiny spiders prevent that, and the Aspect models its arms and armour on them.
The Aspect stands for aggressive defence. A compact jump generator in each warrior's armoured backpack lets them make short leaps into the Immaterium and reappear in realspace in the blink of an eye, attacking from an unseen quarter before vanishing again. Each jump means a moment physically unshielded in the Warp, where Slaanesh hungers for every Aeldari soul that strays into its realm. For this reason the Warp Spiders are counted the bravest of all Aspect Warriors, since they risk their souls as well as their lives with every jump. They are also seen as strange and frightening, the furthest of all the Aspects from the normal Asuryani mindset. They tend towards a bleak outlook and rarely mix with warriors from other shrines.
Their origins are murky. Like several other Aspects, the Warp Spiders long seemed to have no known founder. The lore of Craftworld Kaelor speaks of Lhykosidae, the "Wraith Spider", a rogue Exarch said to appear every few millennia at Kaelor's moment of greatest corruption. One work claims his timely arrival won the Craftwars for Kaelor. The Phoenix Lord is now known as Lhykis, the Whispering Web, a daredevil even among the Asurya, who plunges repeatedly into the Warp and so has been missing for long ages.
Appearance & wargear
Warp Spider Aspect Armour is noticeably bulkier than that of other shrines, largely because of the jump generator, and heavier but slower as a result. Their teleportation more than makes up for it. It is traditionally a variation of red and black and is warded for safer travel through the Warp, which gives some protection against psychic powers. The helmet sweeps back to a slight point and has an external respirator for void or toxic atmospheres. Their ritual weapon is the Death Spinner. It extrudes a cloud of razor-sharp monofilament wire that a magnetic field spools together and hurls at the foe, where the wire's own tension makes it writhe and slice.
Weapons & Vehicles
The graceful wraithbone gravitic-accelerator firearm of the Craftworld Aeldari, slicing targets to ribbons with silent, monomolecular s…
A master-crafted blade sheathed in a crackling molecular disruption field that parts ceramite, bone and steel with effortless lethality…
The reality-tearing distort weapons of Craftworld Wraithguard and Wraithknights, opening miniature Warp-rifts inside a target to banish…
A towering wraithbone walker steered by two Asuryani twins, one living and one dead, who fight as a single mind.
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
Warp Spiders fight in squads of five to ten, normally led by an Exarch. They are masters of hit-and-run and guerrilla attacks, teleporting onto the battlefield in a storm of crackling lightning, striking an exposed flank and withdrawing before the enemy can respond. Exarchs refine these ambush skills over centuries and teach them to their squads. Some carry two death spinners or a spinneret rifle that fires a single rigid strand of monomolecular wire. Others fight with forearm-mounted powerblades, which leave both hands free.
Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier
Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary Warp Spiders fight in squads of five to ten, normally led by an Exarch. They are masters of hit-and-run and guerrilla attacks, teleporting onto the battlefield in a storm of crackling lightning, striking an exposed flank and withdrawing before the enemy can respond. Exarchs refine these ambush skills over centuries and teach them to their squads. Some carry two death spinners or a spinneret rifle that fires a single rigid strand of monomolecular wire. Others fight with forearm-mounted powerblades, which leave both hands free. asset of Craftworld Aeldari, Warp Spiders 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
- Shade Gate Shrine: bears only token flourishes of the Aspect's red and white, favouring all-black bodysuits. Its warriors smother foes in monofilament and then watch their doomed struggles from hiding.
- Slicing Skein Shrine: crimson-clad ambushers who strike from many directions at once, 'the thread of fate that severs all others'.
- Lhykis, the Whispering Web: the Phoenix Lord, whose four-armed Phoenix Armour carries a pair of death spinners and monofilament blades, and whose sword Vhattarkan (Weaverender) can cut microrifts into the Warp.
- Aluinnthralann: a Warp Spider Exarch named in the Valedor war zone.
Related
Characters (1)
Asurmen · Hand of Asuryan, first Phoenix Lord
