The Legion Land Raider Proteus was the elder pattern of the Imperium's mightiest battle-tank, and in the Word Bearers it served as a rolling reliquary as much as a war-machine. Its hull graven with the litanies of Colchis and hung with the icons of the Legion's faith, a Proteus of the XVII carried the brotherhood's most treasured warriors, Terminators, the Gal Vorbak, and the champions of the dark priesthood, through the fiercest fire to the place where their zeal could be unleashed. To Lorgar's sons the crossing itself was a kind of sacrament, the armoured shell a blessing that delivered the faithful intact to the slaughter their gods demanded. Its lascannons gutted enemy armour as it advanced, but its purpose was always the cargo within, disgorged amid the foe with prayers already on their lips. Where a Word Bearers Proteus ground to a halt and dropped its ramp, a congregation of killers spilled out to make an altar of the battlefield.
Order of battle
