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I hate the Centurion models and all they stand for (they are what Terminators should be) so I refuse to play them, but they are undoubtably effective on the table top. I'm trying to think of a cool counts-as unit that will satisfy my fluff, modeling AND gaming desires, all at once.

One idea I had was for Black Dragons -- the guys with the mutated geneseed that mostly grow bony projections from their arms but sometimes grow absurdly tall (even for a Space Marine) and have to wear custom armor. Even though it's never been explained as such, I could imagine you might give these guys your best/heaviest weapons and have them go to work.

What does everyone think?

And are there other fluffy alternatives?

Well, Centurions ARE the fluffy version of Centurions, like it or not.
Either way, I like your Black Dragon alternative, you could easily create souped up Terminator armour and say that it's your Chapter's experimental Devastator Terminators?

Blood Ravens Dread Knights. They were obviously gifted.
But really, I don't see the hate for Centurions, they are cute and obviously better than Dread Knights.

Imperial Robots don't get enough love, fluff-wise.

You could easily deploy something from the Legio Cybernetica and have it count as a Centurion, especially as many Imperial Robots apparently share much of the same technology as Dreadnoughts, to the degree that either can be cannibalised to repair the other, so use Astartes-standard tech in that regard.

Robots are not bad, actually. Iirc, there was a chapter that had specifically been mentioned as having robot members or being robot-friendly. I will have to comb lexicanum.

Edit: looks like I was thinking of the Desert Lions. They conveniently have very little other information available about them apart from their robot-using nature.

For size purposes, maybe a scyllax variant?

 BattulBruvaCat wrote:
But really, I don't see the hate for Centurions, they are cute and obviously better than Dread Knights.

"If the Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device" reference?

Don't really have many suggestions on this, but if you don't like them in fluff/model-wise, don't feel like you need to make use of them on the tabletop. Many armies get by just fine without them, anyway.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

 BattulBruvaCat wrote:
But really, I don't see the hate for Centurions, they are cute and obviously better than Dread Knights.

"If the Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device" reference?

Do you want it to be one?

 BattulBruvaCat wrote:

Do you want it to be one?

Well, was mostly just curious really.

In the time of the crusade alot of legions has cybernetica support for places that were too deadly for even marines. I recall in a wordbearers HH novel that one of the robots was offically inducted into the chapter and the marines treated it like a battle brother.

Modified castellax, or convert them into robots.

I would have some concerns about using robots, considering the "current-day" Imperium's attitude to AIs.

The Imperium has no problems at all with their robots. They use AIs all the time similar to the Imperial Robot AIs, but they just call them Machine Spirits instead, and they're not regarded as sentient.

The issue the Imperium has with AI is AIs with free will and independent thought. Imperial Robots don't fall under that category. Land Raiders are capable of self-driving and identifying and taking out targets if the crew is killed using the same technology, and Titans can even develop minor personalities.

None of these are seen as problematic, and their current bans on true AI were present during the Horus Heresy too. They developed those rules after (and as a reaction to) the Age of Strife. There's no fluff-wise issues with Imperial Robots at all, in the current era or any other.

Regarding chapters, pretty much any can use robots unless they have a specific aversion to them. The Iron Hands, being very tech-focused, would no doubt use them widely.

Thing being it seemed like "machine spirits" were not full AIs, hence why Land Raiders still have pilots and the Kastellan Robots need Techpriests to give them orders.
Centurion proxies would need to be able to "think" for themselves and function without someone nearby guiding their every move, which would seem to require a higher level of AI than what's allowed.

Given the comms and control gear available in all power armour, then they could just get given orders by the nearest marine, or the force commander directs them personally. Centurions aren't really built for any kind of subtlety so a simple engage or assault order and a target would likely suffice.

Hierophant wrote:
The Imperium has no problems at all with their robots. They use AIs all the time similar to the Imperial Robot AIs, but they just call them Machine Spirits instead, and they're not regarded as sentient.

The issue the Imperium has with AI is AIs with free will and independent thought. Imperial Robots don't fall under that category. Land Raiders are capable of self-driving and identifying and taking out targets if the crew is killed using the same technology, and Titans can even develop minor personalities.

None of these are seen as problematic, and their current bans on true AI were present during the Horus Heresy too. They developed those rules after (and as a reaction to) the Age of Strife. There's no fluff-wise issues with Imperial Robots at all, in the current era or any other.

Regarding chapters, pretty much any can use robots unless they have a specific aversion to them. The Iron Hands, being very tech-focused, would no doubt use them widely.

No.
Real AIs are explictly forbidden in Imperium. Forever, ever, no exceptions. Its understandable, as last time they had AIs, they got reduced to stone age from civilization ruling whole galaxy.
Imperium uses two things, regular computers (which are usually also called Machine Spirits) without intelligence (IIRC, one of old rule books about Mechanicus included mapping out their actual programming), and actual Machine spirits, which are... brains in jars (remember those skulls they put everywhere? Guess what they contain...) that are also limited by programming, even if not as much. This is why Land Raiders can fight without crew and why those machines can fall to chaos, which also caused Imperium to restrict Adeptus Mechanicus from using Legio Cybernetica widely since a whole lot (like, most) of them joined Horus.

Actually, lots of innaccuracies there.

Firstly, the Imperium doesn't ban Artificial Intelligence - it bans Abominable Intelligence which is what it confusingly names AI, meaning sentient machines. We currently have Artificial Intelligence in the real world, and they aren't sentient, and that's what the Imperium uses. Any machine that can make decisions is an AI in real world terms, and that's the language I'm using. It's the difference between 'dumb' and 'true' AI. True AI is banned, dumb AI is used widely, and that's what Imperial Robots use.

Secondly, no more of the Legio Cybernetica dedicated themselves to Chaos than any other element of the Ad-Mech during the Schism of Mars. Actually, in the fluff, it states the ones that did were mainly following orders from their chain of command, and were not dedicated to Chaos specifically, so were less corrupted than most factions, and rebelled out of loyalty to their superiors rather than any increased susceptibility to Chaos.

And as you say, Land Raiders can get corrupted equally as they use the same tech. So why are there no prohibitions on using Land Raiders? For the same reason there's no prohibition on Imperial Robots either. Or Space Marines for that matter, who fall to Chaos as a matter of routine it seems. The only reason they're rarely spoken of in the fluff or seen on the tabletop is because the models aren't that popular.

We don't have AI in real life. That's a colloquial term used to reference code that attempts to mimic a thinking being in the scenario... it could, possibly, be called "pseudo-AI" because it's not a real AI, which has not been invented yet.

Secondly, yes, "Silica Animus", the thinking machine, is definitely banned by the AdMech. On pain of far, far worse than death.

However, most of what would be considered "true AI" in 40K is not actually artificial at all, there's an organic brain in that machine driving its decision-making processes.

This is where we get into semantics again.

We DO have AI in the real world. We don't have free-thinking machines or computers, but we do have a field of computer science that has widespread applications that is referred to as AI. Whether anyone doubts the accuracy of the label doesn't matter. It's called Artificial Intelligence. It isn't colloquial, it's the actual name given by actual scientists to actual code running today.

That's why we have the term True AI, to distinguish between the literal interpretation of the term (which doesn't exist) and the dictionary definition, which mirrors actual use, and is far less strict, referring to relatively mundane software used everyday.

As far as I'm aware, True AI barely exists in the 40k universe, and if it does, it does in the shadows. The Imperium has outlawed it, and none of the other races seem to utilise it, probably for similar reasons, despite the Necrons, Eldar and possibly Tau likely being advanced enough to. None seem to have sentient robots.

Which is not what is meant by "AI" in the 40K sense. In that sense, they are talking about a self-aware system that has expressed "I think, therefore, I am" and has gone on from there.

AI of this sort is banned throughout the Imperium by writ of the Adeptus Mechanicus, referred to as "Silica Animus", following the War of the Iron Men that ended the Age of Technology and brought about the Age of Strife, bringing Mankind to the brink of extinction.

The mention of organic brains gave me a thought....
For the "Fluffy counts-as Centurion", how about an Imperial Robot with a dead/dying Marine's brain inside, like a mini Dreadnought?

Not really something they would use, or build. A Gun-Servitor equipped with Grav Weapons (or anything else, really) would be more the AdMech's style.

So use the stat-line of a Cent and fluff it as a gun-servitor.

Also works.