As the workhorse for the Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus, the Land Raider and it’s variants are ready to do battle and deliver troops when it counts.
Via our good friends at Lexicanum
The Land Raider (originally known as Land’s Raider) is a heavy tank and transport used primarily by the Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines, but also by the Adeptus Mechanicus, Inquisition and even especially influential Rogue Traders. It is capable of operating in virtually any kind of planetary environment. Its hull fully isolates its occupants from the environment and provides life support functions, allowing operation on inhospitable and airless planets from complete vacuum to on ocean floor.
The Land Raider is designed to move at a good speed while still carrying heavy armaments as well as a number of warriors within its armored hull. It is a Standard Template Construct vehicle, like many others in the armories of Imperial forces and has been modified several times since its rediscovery. The standard modern pattern of Land Raider however is known as the Land Raider Phobos which provided with non the less standard M32 “Cyclops” class battle cogitator.
The Land Raider has its origins in the Dark Age of Technology, when humankind expanded out of its home system. Its construction method was incorporated into the great STC system, allowing it to be built locally by colonists even if they lacked any great technical knowledge. With the widespread breakdown of human civilization during the Age of Strife, production of the vehicle ceased. During the Great Crusade the Land Raider STC design was rediscovered, allowing their manufacture.
The discoverer is commonly believed to be the Techno-archaeologist Magos Arkhan Land who, at the very birth of the Imperium, is said to have rediscovered the STC designs hidden beneath the surface of Mars. These vehicles were incorporated into the arsenals of the Imperium’s forces, used by both the Space Marine Legions and the Imperial Army. Such was the demand for the Land Raider that an entire Forge World, Anvilus 9, was devoted entirely to Land Raider production, supplying thousands upon thousands of Land Raiders to the Emperor’s holy forces.
However, at the outset of the Horus Heresy, Anvilus 9 along with other Forge Worlds were seized by the Dark Mechanicum aligned with Horus, while others chose to secede from the Imperium and remain neutral. This would prove to be a terrible blow to the Loyalists as their supply of Land Raiders began to dry up, especially since, in sufficient numbers, Land Raiders can take on and destroy even Titans.
With the dark clouds of the rebellion drawing closer to Terra, the Emperor ordered that all Land Raiders still in loyalist service were to be transferred and used exclusively by the Legiones Astartes, who were at the forefront of the fighting.
The Emperor was never able to annul the order, and consequently, even after the Heresy, the use of the Land Raider remained exclusive to the Space Marines.
