Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So i'm trying to figure out if the Onager Dunecrawler would be available to Mechanicum forces during the horus heresy; what i have so far...

1)the onager was developed by arkhan land - skitarii codex p31 paragraph 2 lines 2 and 3
2)it was quickly repurposed as a tank - skitarii codex p31 paragraph 2 lines 7 and 8
3)it was produced en masse and sent to conflict zones straight away - skitarii codex p31 paragraph 2 lines 9 and 10
4)arkhan land found the STC for the 'land raider' and grav-platforms in the librarius omnis on his first expedition - imperial armour volume two second edition p27 paragraph 1 lines 1 to 4
5)he disappeared on his second expedition - imperial armour volume two second edition p27 paragraph 1 lines 13 and 14
6)early land raiders were probably taken on the great crusade right from the start - imperial armour volume two second edition p27 paragraph 2 lines 1 to 3
7)land's raider was produced in such large numbers during the great crusade that All human forces had them - imperial armour volume two second edition p27 paragraph 2 lines 3 and 4

that's all i can find in my books but the wikia revealed some more (unconfirmed to me) 'facts'

8)200 years after the second expedition someone finds a vox-log which just details members of the expedition getting picked off blair-witch style
9)no more discoveries came from it
10)the first (presumeably the second too?) expedition happens in 'late M30'
11)the horus heresy begins in the 4th year of M31

i've e-mailed forgeworld with this info, so waiting to see what they say, but anything else you guys can remember/pluck from ancient data-banks will be greatly appreciated!

Due to the fact he disappeared prior to the Heresy he almost certainly developed the Onager prior to the Heresy.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Due to the fact he disappeared prior to the Heresy he almost certainly developed the Onager prior to the Heresy.

my gut feeling is everything in the skitarrii 'dex predates the IoM

BrianDavion wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Due to the fact he disappeared prior to the Heresy he almost certainly developed the Onager prior to the Heresy.

my gut feeling is everything in the skitarrii 'dex predates the IoM

the chicken-walker things aren't they are 'early M33', seeing that and this...

http://battlebunnies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/codex-skitarii-search-for-30k.html

....made me think that there would be no crossover models, but the Onager fluff mention of Arkhan Land makes me think that Grey Templar is bang-on the money.
However i am very wary of letting the wish become father of the thought - plus official confirmation would be so f^£~king awesome for all the other mechanicum players too!

It could be both you know. The design gets found by Land but for whatever reason it lingers in limbo until officially approved for production. Like how the Lightning strike fighter design from FW was found but it took centuries of review before it was sanctioned for actual production.

Iracundus wrote:
It could be both you know. The design gets found by Land but for whatever reason it lingers in limbo until officially approved for production. Like how the Lightning strike fighter design from FW was found but it took centuries of review before it was sanctioned for actual production.

You know, IoM must have the longest DMV lines, I imagine a sort of office and claims receivership as they did in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Part of the delay sounds like it is from theological wrangling. Most of these designs are recovered in varying states of decay or fragments, and there could be doubt as to whether they are truly a "real" STC design. The Adeptus Mechanicus have set up a theological paradigm where the STC is the holy grail of all knowledge. All knowledge worth knowing has already been found and stored in the STC according to this religious view. Innovation and new invention is anathema because it is hubris to think one could think of something the ancients had not already thought of. Therefore all approved designs have to be deemed compatible as a design or acceptable variant within the STC design system...whether or not this design was truly ever an STC design.

A lot of the arguing and reviewing over the years for any design could consist of theological argument over the STC-ness of the design, or how to justify to the wider world how this design is actually STC compatible.

Before the skitarii codex i would be agreeing with you, but the 'ironstrider engine' section of the 'synodian dragoons'says that it was perfected by a tech-priest called Aldebrac Vingh in M33, so there is at least one precedent for technological development after the horus heresy; and an advanced one too! shame the old fluff then kicked in and suddenly everyone that mattered died and didn't make a note of how to do it again.

Come on FW, give us the Spider Tank!

 SirDonlad wrote:
Before the skitarii codex i would be agreeing with you, but the 'ironstrider engine' section of the 'synodian dragoons'says that it was perfected by a tech-priest called Aldebrac Vingh in M33, so there is at least one precedent for technological development after the horus heresy; and an advanced one too! shame the old fluff then kicked in and suddenly everyone that mattered died and didn't make a note of how to do it again.

Come on FW, give us the Spider Tank!

There has been technological development, and there has been even in the BFG rulebook, however it has to be cast as "re-discovery" or touching up on an original idea by the ancients. Even a genuinely original idea would still have to be shoehorned into this paradigm, since it is held as an article of faith that the ancients had already discovered everything worth knowing and put it in the STC.

"Oh no I didn't just invent an entirely new vehicle. I just restored fragments of an old obscure variant STC design."

There's a little bit in the IA Article on the Land Raider

http://redelf.narod.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_sm_landraider.html

 Pilau Rice wrote:
There's a little bit in the IA Article on the Land Raider

http://redelf.narod.ru/w40k/ia/w40k_ia_sm_landraider.html

Nice! so he took 3 years searching the 'librarius omnis' and has a pet 'psyber-monkey'!

I like this guy - anyone who has a modded jockaero is alright by me!

Short answer yes with a but.

Long answer:
Yes, given the timescales, Arkhan Land's discoveries were pre-heresy; either during the Great Crusade or predating it entirely, because two of his three named discoveries (Land Raider, Land Crawler) were in Legion service during the crusade.

His third discovery, the Land Crawler, was never a military vehicle - it's a prime mover tractor that some siege regiments use to cart artillery around.

Therefore his expeditions were crusade-era or earlier. Therefore anything he discovered existed during the crusade, therefore the mechanicus probably fielded them.

Now the "but": The Mechanicus fielded them. The Horus Heresy army lists may well not include them because the specific branch of the Mechanicus' armed forces involved didn't.

There are eight big branches of the Mechanicus' military, each of which is built around a different core element:

Titan Orders (titans)
Skitarii (Scouts and support units for the Titans)
Quaestoris Knight Households (knights)
Centurio Ordinatus (war engine-scale guns)
Ordo Reductor (siege guns and thallaxi)
Legio Cybernetica (battle-automata)
Taghmata Omnissia (myrmidons and tech-thralls)
Navitarii (battlefleet)

Just because one branch fielded onagers doesn't mean they all do, just like not all variants of the thallax are employed by the three branches who use them. Equally, not all weapon-variants of the onager necessarily existed. The Neutron Laser, for example, was something that was newly miniaturised for a non superheavy tank at the point the sicaran venator was developed; it wouldn't have been available as a standard issue weapon on a small walker prior to that point, which wasn't long before the dropsite massacre.

locarno24 wrote:
Short answer yes with a but.

Long answer:
Yes, given the timescales, Arkhan Land's discoveries were pre-heresy; either during the Great Crusade or predating it entirely, because two of his three named discoveries (Land Raider, Land Crawler) were in Legion service during the crusade.

His third discovery, the Land Crawler, was never a military vehicle - it's a prime mover tractor that some siege regiments use to cart artillery around.

Therefore his expeditions were crusade-era or earlier. Therefore anything he discovered existed during the crusade, therefore the mechanicus probably fielded them.

Now the "but": The Mechanicus fielded them. The Horus Heresy army lists may well not include them because the specific branch of the Mechanicus' armed forces involved didn't.

There are eight big branches of the Mechanicus' military, each of which is built around a different core element:

Titan Orders (titans)
Skitarii (Scouts and support units for the Titans)
Quaestoris Knight Households (knights)
Centurio Ordinatus (war engine-scale guns)
Ordo Reductor (siege guns and thallaxi)
Legio Cybernetica (battle-automata)
Taghmata Omnissia (myrmidons and tech-thralls)
Navitarii (battlefleet)

Just because one branch fielded onagers doesn't mean they all do, just like not all variants of the thallax are employed by the three branches who use them. Equally, not all weapon-variants of the onager necessarily existed. The Neutron Laser, for example, was something that was newly miniaturised for a non superheavy tank at the point the sicaran venator was developed; it wouldn't have been available as a standard issue weapon on a small walker prior to that point, which wasn't long before the dropsite massacre.

Epic fluff-scrying there! The key to happieness is clearly magnetization then.

One thing to consider is that Land did NOT design the Onagar, he designed the MULE. from which the Onagar was derived. the MULE was designed as a "work horse that could escort it's masters across the dunes of Mars in reletive safety" we know the sheilding that gives an invul save, where part of the militarization BTW. given the novel mechnium, I suspect the most dangerous thing regularlity encountered on Mars where rogue servators, and the like, infantry scale threats. thus the MULE likely had an anti-infantry weapons package (perhaps the Phospher blasters where the original weapons package?) and where not intended for front line military service.

So.. what changed that would have brought the MULE to the forefront eneugh for it to be put on the front lines?

My theory? The Horus Heresy. The Fabricator general sided with Horus, as did many of the titan legions etc. it's likely that loyalists may not have been in position to be too chosy about their weapons of war, and this would have forced them to employ the MULE on the front lines. Where is proved itself to actually be pretty good, thus in the aftermath of the Heresy, when the admech had to rebuild and reform anyway, it's likely they turned to a militerized MULE, the Onagar, to work as armor support for their infantry.

the fun thing with this is it could mean FW rather then simply saying "ohh yeah take Onagars" they could get creative and show us it's sucessor

That link with the land raider info was interesting, you can definitely see the progression of the fluff. The idea of a tech-priest concerned with baldness is pretty silly now, although maybe at the time tech priests were less crazy about making as much of their bodies machines as possible.

My Question to Forgeworld:

"Would this unit [Onager Dunecrawler] be in use by the Skitarii Legions during the great crusade?"

Reply from Forgeworld:

"In all honesty we don't have an official answer to this one. I think this is where the rule of cool is far more important. It's your hobby to enjoy, if you want to represent the Onager in your army then go for it. I can't think of any reasons why the Mechanicum wouldn't have something that was like it a the time of the heresy. In fact the Mechanicum love nothing more than ancient tech.

I hope you enjoy using it in your collection!"

Thats good enough for me!


"spider-tank, spider-tank, does whatever a spider-tank does...."

 SirDonlad wrote:
My Question to Forgeworld:

"Would this unit [Onager Dunecrawler] be in use by the Skitarii Legions during the great crusade?"

Reply from Forgeworld:

"In all honesty we don't have an official answer to this one. I think this is where the rule of cool is far more important. It's your hobby to enjoy, if you want to represent the Onager in your army then go for it. I can't think of any reasons why the Mechanicum wouldn't have something that was like it a the time of the heresy. In fact the Mechanicum love nothing more than ancient tech.

I hope you enjoy using it in your collection!"

Thats good enough for me!


"spider-tank, spider-tank, does whatever a spider-tank does...."

They actually responded? Wow, that's really cool of whoever took the time out of their day to answer a fan question!

"Can it swing, from a thread?

No it can't, it's a tank..."

The Forgeworld team are pretty swell guys. They will almost always reply when you ask them something.