Scanners (or multi-scanners, or Auspexes) are Imperial short-ranged devices used to detect motion, invisible gases and energy emissions throughout a wide spectrum, such as heat, radiation and most forms of energy given off by vehicles and living troops.[1]
Overview
Their main tactical use is to reveal otherwise hidden troops and allow them to be fired on. The standard range of a handheld scanner is fifty,[1] five hundred,[8] or fifteen hundred metres,[9] although walls more than fifty centimetres thick as well as certain shielding materials are able to block them.[1] Longer-range, bulky, auspexes have, depending on craftmanship, a range of five or ten kilometres and can penetrate walls up to a metre thick.[6a] Ground vehicle-mounted auspexes can have a range of fifty kilometres.[6b] Aircraft-mounted auspexes can have a range of a hundred kilometres.[11]
Auspexes mounted on spaceships can easily scan the orbit and surface of a planet from the edge of a system at the Mandeville point, the collected data visually represented with the help of a hololithic projector[10a] or pict screens,[10b] after being processed by cogitators and mono-task servitors.[10a]
Scanners can take the form of separate hand-held viewscreen devices, or they may be built into a helmet such as in the case of Terminator armour.[7] The Imperial Guard uses scanners known as surveyors. Space Marines and other forces use the auspex.[Needs Citation]
Augury Scanner
This energy scanning device has the effect of alerting the user to the concealed presence or imminent arrival of enemy troops in the vicinity.[4b]
Known Patterns
- Noospheric Interlopers - Used by Vanus Assassins.[4a]
- Explorator Augury Web - A complex web of augurs, scanners and atmospheric probes used by Space Marine vehicles to gather a wide variety of valuable battlefield information.[12a]
- Helical Targeting Array - A complex system of Augurs and tracking baffles used by Space Marine vehicles. It is designed to enable a war machine's weapons to strike true, even against the most evasive targets, and to penetrate even the most esoteric of shrouds.[12b]
Energy Scanner
This type of scanner detects energy emissions indicating the position of vehicles, robots, functioning equipment, weapons, etc. It would not detect ordinary life functions, but psychic activity will detected as an extremely hard reading. However radiation sources will not show up as distinct from other energy emissions.[5]
Known Patterns
- Divinator Class - Used by Incursor Space Marines[2]
- Lodestar Class - Used by Phobos Strike Teams. This ancient and little-seen model provides exceptional strategic inloads, almost the equal of having a spaceship scanning the region from on high.[3]
See also
Sources
- 1: Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, pg. 143
- 2: Codex: Space Marines (8th Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 70
- 3: Kill Team: Moroch Rules Manual, pg. 49 - Phobos Strike Team - Strategic Assets
- 4: Liber Imperium:
- 5: Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, pg. 121
- 6: Rogue Trader: Into the Storm:
- 7: Warhammer 40,000: Wargear (2nd Edition), pg. 73
- 8: Voidsong (Short Story) — Planetkill (Anthology)
- 9: The Curiosity (Short Story) — Crucible Of War (Anthology)
- 10: Dominion Genesis (Novel):
- 11: Double Eagle (Novel), Day 253 — ‘'Over the Makanites. 12.01’’
- 12: Liber Astartes, pg.142
