The Frag Cannon is a brutal short-ranged weapon that the Deathwatch prize above almost all other infantry ordnance, a man-portable engine of destruction that functions as little less than a personal artillery piece. Where a bolter picks out a single target, the Frag Cannon vomits a spreading storm of adamantium shards and armour-piercing shrapnel, tearing apart everything caught within its cone.
Such weapons are the province of the Deathwatch's heavy-weapon specialists, most often a seasoned Devastator drawn from a parent Chapter's long line of siege-breakers. Mastering the cannon's bulk and recoil demands a warrior of exceptional strength and discipline, for the weapon is as temperamental as it is deadly. Its shells behave with a capricious spite: the cloud of fragments they unleash can shred ceramite Power Armour with contemptuous ease, yet that same storm may be turned aside by the plating of even a lightly armoured vehicle.
Within the kill-team the Frag Cannon exists for one purpose above all others: the shattering of xenos hordes. When Tyranid broods boil forward or greenskin mobs surge from cover, a single discharge can carve a bloody avenue through the press of alien bodies, buying the hunters the space they need to complete their mission. Alongside the Infernus heavy bolter and the ever-reliable missile launcher, the Frag Cannon stands among the most iconic armaments in the Deathwatch armoury, a weapon whose roar heralds the ruin of the swarm.
Order of battle
