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Do Raiders get their equipment re-fitted? That is, can a Godhammer pattern be rolled into the workshops and come out as a Crusader?

And what do you see as the relative mental strengths of the machine spirits? I have a story in my mind to write, and to make the story work, think it will be something like:

Bike = attack hamster (Mr Tongue, meet Mrs Cheek)
Rhino = dog
Razorback = wolf
Predator = lion
Land Raider = close to human

There's also some fluff in a book or codex (can't remember which one off the top of my head) about a Land Raider that proceeded with a war on its own after losing its crew - can anyone remember where, to save me trawling through everything when I get home?

Many thanks.

Not everything has a machine spirit...
Bikes probably don't.
Rhinos might do though i'm not sure...
Everything in between... they might do...
Land Raiders do for sure (Rynn's Might fought a warband of Orks with no crew)

Not sure, wouldn't have thought so.

Relative mental strengths depends not on the vehicle but on the specific components. Despite what some people may think, the Machine Spirit is more than just a simple AI using AI commands, it has a personality, and is aware of it's surroundings.

The specific Land Raider was Rynns Might, a Land Raider of the Crimson Fists chapter. Without a crew, it managed to survive and defeat an Ork warband, controlling all systems.

wulfric_1066 wrote:
Do Raiders get their equipment re-fitted? That is, can a Godhammer pattern be rolled into the workshops and come out as a Crusader?

There's also some fluff in a book or codex (can't remember which one off the top of my head) about a Land Raider that proceeded with a war on its own after losing its crew - can anyone remember where, to save me trawling through everything when I get home?

Many thanks.

There was just 1 pattern once....
Generally, Land Raider are based on STC and are constructed of interchangable parts. ( same for rhino based vehicles. )
Its maybe deemed to complicated or as a starting point for endless debate with the machine spirit to alter the pattern at a whim.
But it wouldn't be impossible to change the vehicle for a campaign to come.
Surely the crusader is a "altered" standard LR. ( first by Black templars, then accepted as new pattern when nobody could stop the marines from using it...). So it depends on the will to spent time and ressources.
Alternatively, a pattern could change if the original setup is too damaged but other weapons are available.

A lot of info on Land Raiders was on the "release-poster" of the actual model and in Index astartes.

wulfric_1066 wrote:
Do Raiders get their equipment re-fitted? That is, can a Godhammer pattern be rolled into the workshops and come out as a Crusader?

New patterns of Land Raiders started out as old patterns that were modified due to conditions (as shown in codex space marine)

Looking at the poster, a "phobos" pattern Land Raider has a M32 cyclops class machine spirit.

Plus, another story to add to the CF one:

White Scars fighting on Radwl. One Land Raider was sunk in a gas-swamp.
The machine dug itself out in the following 18 years and reported back to be picked up again.

And having dug out the current codex - the LR has a better machine spirit than lesser tanks, so I think that the Rhino chassis does have a spirit of sorts.

Thanks everyone.

I'm not sure if LR have interchangeable weapons.

It is true that most (if not all) LR variants were originally standard LR that saw their equipment changed to answer a specific tactical situation. But it seems that the equipment of a LR is not changed between missions. Indeed, we are always told about "land raider variants" and not "land raiders with specific weapon configurations".

In other words, it is probably possible, but it is a rare practice.

Most SM vehicles are fitted with a machine spirit. Some vehicles (like bikes or land speeders) are obviously too small to house an AI cortex. Predators and whirlwinds are equipped with relatively advanced machine spirits that notably aid in the weapon handling and aiming (for instance, predator sponsons are controlled by the machine spirit). I'm not sure concerning rhinos, since they are relatively crude vehicles that don't really require AIs.

Land Raiders, however, are fitted with extremely complex AIs compared to their size. It is said that Land Raider AIs represent the pinnacle of imperial science in this domain. Indeed, their machine spirits are almost as advanced as Titan AIs. As a result, LR are known to be able to operate without any crew and their machine spirits have complex and unique personalities.

In Bt that Rhino based tanks can buy POTMS, but I'm guessing that they'd be a tad simple.

I reckon Land Raiders are quite bright though, but not human smart. They CAN feel emotion though, as a Crimson Fist Land Raider went on a rampage after it's crew was killed.

Didn't that crew-less land-raider then trick the warboss into entering it, then vented it's reactor on him?

Lord Harrab wrote:Didn't that crew-less land-raider then trick the warboss into entering it, then vented it's reactor on him?

Yeah, the land raider was so pissed that he farted in the face of the warboss.

The Land Raider is the only vehicle that has a true Machine Spirit (meaning a human brain slaved into the machinery, visible on a poster that was published by a WD years ago). I'd say lesser vehicles only have the usual cogitators + AdMech superstition.

Lynata wrote:The Land Raider is the only vehicle that has a true Machine Spirit (meaning a human brain slaved into the machinery, visible on a poster that was published by a WD years ago). I'd say lesser vehicles only have the usual cogitators + AdMech superstition.

I agree. Land Raiders are incredible vehicles.

purplefood wrote:Not everything has a machine spirit...

I thought that every machine within the Imperium was considered to have a machine spirit, fluff wise at least.

They think they have a spirit, that's where the Imperiums mystical dancing around the fire crap comes in. A Lasgun doesn't have a machine spirit, a Land Raider certainly does, so it's a good idea to keep it happy.

The more complex the machine, the more powerful the Machine Spirit. Titans are shown to have definite quirks and personality issues - in one comic a Titan that had seen it's crew killed was being refitted and ended up opening up on the Adeptus Mechanicus in a fit of grief and rage.

Land Raiders are old and powerful, and so are there Machine Spirits. As to whether that Spirit is some complex but loyal AI, a brain inside creating a ghost in the machine or something else is another matter.

Lynata wrote:The Land Raider is the only vehicle that has a true Machine Spirit (meaning a human brain slaved into the machinery, visible on a poster that was published by a WD years ago). I'd say lesser vehicles only have the usual cogitators + AdMech superstition.

CoughcoughTitanCoughcough

Titans and Landraiders aren't the only things that have machine spirits. All the ships do too as well as tech that necessarily isn't used in combat like the computers and things the mechanicus use, the powerful ones atleast. I'm sure their are more things in Imperial society that have them too. They aren't magical either and the only ones who perform rights for them are Tech Priests. They are simple AI's made with organic parts. Them chanting to the machines and performing the rights could be preprogrammed into the machine part of it to keep the emotional side under control and since someone outside the mechanicus wouldn't know that it seems magical

coolyo294 wrote:CoughcoughTitanCoughcough

Do those even still count as a vehicle?

But yeah, of course Titans definitively have one as well. Starships ... at least a cogitator-based one. I could see them having a brain-based one, too (given that at least the larger capital ships are pretty big and expensive and marvels of Imperial technology), but on the other hand I wouldn't be surprised to have them just use "normal" cogitator banks (if only because a starship cogitator may not need to have as much autonomy as was wanted for Land Raiders and Titans due to all relevant functions being tended to by thousands of human crew).
Any Battlefleet Gothic experts around here? I don't recall ever having read something about this in studio material, but maybe someone else can shed light on that aspect!

purplefood wrote:Not everything has a machine spirit...
Bikes probably don't.
Rhinos might do though i'm not sure...
Everything in between... they might do...
Land Raiders do for sure (Rynn's Might fought a warband of Orks with no crew)

Actually..... Most things do Everything that space marines use, anyway. Guardsmen aren't as aware of MSs as SMs. Boltguns, chainswords, power swords,(can't think of a PF or LC example), flamers (pasanius, maybe), rhinos, maybe bikes, all razorbacks/vindicators/predator variants, and definitely Land Raiders.


Dunno about machine spirits, but there's a wicked piece of fluff where an inquisitor captures a chaos land raider, and it's spirit slaughters the entire crew of the ship it was on after he fails to exorsize it...Bruta;!

+1 to above

Most weapons, like an Astartes boltgun or an IG lasrifle possess a specific form of machine-spirit often referred to as a warspirit.

Warspirits tend to be a bit more obstinate than other machine spirits, and demand less in the way of ritual attention than others, but the warspirit of an Astartes boltgun, for example, may refuse to fire if wielded by "lesser" people.

Psienesis wrote:Most weapons, like an Astartes boltgun or an IG lasrifle possess a specific form of machine-spirit often referred to as a warspirit.

Warspirits tend to be a bit more obstinate than other machine spirits, and demand less in the way of ritual attention than others, but the warspirit of an Astartes boltgun, for example, may refuse to fire if wielded by "lesser" people.

That's what I'm thinking of! Yeah, you hear various examples like "The gun's spirit spasmed in my hands", or "I felt the spirit's bloodlust manifesting in the hilt", although that second one sounds like something from dark creed

i think i've read somewhere that all technology has a machine spirit.

They think they have a machine spirit.
Not all machines do.
Rhinos might have one but bikes and the like probably don't.

Psienesis wrote:Most weapons, like an Astartes boltgun or an IG lasrifle possess a specific form of machine-spirit often referred to as a warspirit.

Warspirits tend to be a bit more obstinate than other machine spirits, and demand less in the way of ritual attention than others, but the warspirit of an Astartes boltgun, for example, may refuse to fire if wielded by "lesser" people.

In the 40k universe, with all that psychic power floating about just below the surface of reality, and unexplainable things happening everyday, I can see how all machines could be seen to have a 'spirit'.

I'd really like to think of the warspirits and all the associated rituals as the imperial equivalent of the Orks ability to get impossible machines to work by just by believing they will, 'If I believe dis wurks, den it duz.'

I think the 'machine spirit' is something the Imperial folk believe in, in the case of lesser tech like pipewrenches, even though it isn't there. Anything sophisticated enough to have a computer and programming does have a 'machine spirit,' which always sounded to me like the Imperial way of referring to computer programming.

I do like that some of the machines are powerful enough to have thoughts of their own. (Titans, starships, possibly Land Raiders?)

Personally I think its a combination of superstition and actual tech. The machine spirit is the programming a machine gets, that has been awakened by all the praying done to it. In 40k, you get enough people believing in something... it just might become true. Pretty much every human in the known universe who knows about tech prays to get it to work. they believe that theres a machine spirit. Lo and behold, the psychic abililty of all those people (and quantum mechanics ) make it actually true.

it isn't true AI, but it has been so completely programmed with automated responses that it might as well be completely intelligent.

if you could find something it won't react to, it won't.


It has programming to tell friend from foe and such. like it will always fire upon non-humans unless directly countermanded. Humans will be viewed as neutral unless they become agressive to the LR and its contents.

CoI wrote:Personally I think its a combination of superstition and actual tech. The machine spirit is the programming a machine gets, that has been awakened by all the praying done to it. In 40k, you get enough people believing in something... it just might become true. Pretty much every human in the known universe who knows about tech prays to get it to work. they believe that theres a machine spirit. Lo and behold, the psychic abililty of all those people (and quantum mechanics ) make it actually true.

Its not about the prayer it about the fact the land raiders actually have organic parts that allow it to make decissions on its own within certain framework.

Nearly everyone in the IoM believes that every item has a machine spirit, but not every item has one in actuality.

For us as the reader the problem is that we have no idea what the rites of activation, repair, etc are. For all we know it could be the over complication of normal procedure, the rune of activation could just be a device that starts the motors going that has just been layered in superstion and belief.

Also most humans do not have psychic abilities on the scale able to effect the material world.