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Greetings.

After some years I've decided that it's time to sell that liver (or was it the kidney that was double? ) and get my own army project started. As my favourite faction in the Warhammer 40k is Adeptus Mechanicus and enjoying the lack of HQ bs in Skitarii I decided to pick them. Although I don't regret buying the Codex (big spider-tanks! lightning guns!) I have some problems with them (seriously? complete lack of transport despite Onager being refitted transporter?). Mainly:

Weapons. They suck from the lore perspective in my opinion. Radioactive guns that give your enemy and you a space-cancer? What? I am big sucker for lore (that's how I got into it) but I also want some of the good stuff.

Like Volkite weaponry.

They are energy weapons that are basically the missing link between the melta nad lasguns mass produced during the Great Crusade but then replaced by cheaper and easier to manufacture bolters. Seriously, they are badass. They work around imparting so much heat that you fry in your armor. Effective? Check. Completely redundant? Check. Breaking every convention ever devised by man? Check.

There is only a tiny problem - they are supposed to be super ultra rare in W40k. Outfitting entire centuria of Skitarii with them is out of the question. So I came here to ask on how to integrate them into the settings without turning lore upside down.
Here is what I came up with:

Let’s say that certain gifted but mostly unnoticed Magos was to come across a faint emergency signal coming from a comet during his exploration of mostly uncharted sector in proximity of (but still in a safe distance) Eye of Terror. Intrigued he followed it to find that a small derelict outpost was drilled inside it - moreover, it was an outpost dedicated to weaponry tests.
During the Horus Heresy it got blown off its course although without being noticed in all of that chaos. On board there was found an absolute Holy Grail of all Magos - an ancient design (not an actual STC, just various notes with manufacturing instructions of the prototype) of a Volkite pistol.
Unfortunately, it is incomplete. Lacking some less (there is only the inner machinery descripted without the case) or more (no power core) important features. Research inside outpost was undertaken with almost no contact with the Adeptus Mechanicus due to various interference in communication (but enough to make out that additional help is needed) and took some time, as the comet was coming in dangerous distance of the Eye. Unfortunately, his presence was noticed by the Renegades. Traitorous curs under the lead of fanatical Champion decided to move in and assault the vessel of Magos though he had plenty of time to prepare due to state-of-the-art sensors it was outfitted with.
Reluctant to forfeit the possible findings of his life and the Mechanicus fleet being too far away he decided to transmit his incomplete research on encoded channel in case of his failure while he prepared to face the traitors. But knowing that his forces are underequipped to face that danger (his Skitarii were disciplined marines manning his vessel not an actual assault force) he committed cardinal sin of Mechanicus - he tampered with the design.
He put together an adapter that would power the old and underpowered pistol using the standard Imperial power supply that his Skitarii were using. Forging both the weapons of war and evidences to cover his sin he prepared to face the enemy and the possible retribution for his deeds. Although the attack came sooner than he could outfit whole crew with obsession fuelled weaponry, it was enough to defeat the Heretics as even the weakest of Volkite weaponry fired upon the unarmoured foe was enough to create a human torch screaming in agony among their brethren, instilling fear in their minds.
After the defence the Magos was beset by his fellow brothers with questions of the design and his actions. Why he “forgot” to include something so important as the adapter in the designs during the initial transmission? How “convenient” for it to be able to draw power from the available to him power supply rather than being of some ancient design. During his prosecution by the Adeptus Mechanicus the design (or rather the forgery of it) was deemed plausible, although there is still much of distrust towards it with many Magos debating the usability of it, while the weapon itself although very interesting and commendable - too resource and time hungry. Nevertheless, young Magos fuelled by his obsession and feeling of inviolability continued to tinker with the design in secret - even more carefully and using the less common parts in addition to various auxiliary inventions that were in no doubt original design, changing the way it behaved on the field of battle.

What do you think of my excuse for dealing with Volkite weaponry? Is it literally raping the canon or is it plausible like the design itself?

I'm not sure what you're asking exactly and I'm unfamiliar with the codex. Are you saying you want to violate the rules on how much volkite weaponry you can have, using a fluff excuse? Or are you trying to fluff explain legal wargear purchases for your army?

From my perspective, if you're not violating the rules, I could not careless what your reasoning is.

I don't own the AM Codex, so I'm not certain if Volkite Weapons are considered basic troop wargear, heavy weapons, special weapons, are limited to X per unit/number of models/army, relics-found-unique-to-one-guy or what...

But, for fluff reasons, just because Volkite weapons are "rare", it's a fething huge galaxy, so fifty guys having them, out of uncounted-quintillions, is still fething rare. Just say they found them, dropped by migratory Explorator Fleets.

If your Codex says "only 1 in 40 models can be equipped with Volkite weapons" or "A squad of killer cyborgs can purchase 1 Volkite Weapon per 5 members in the squad" or "Only Arch-Magos Bee'saad can equip a Volkite Relic"... then all the fluff in the world isn't going to let you take more. Those are the rules your army functions under. Now, you and your local group might create a House Rule to let you take more but, if that is the case, don't whine if the SM player wants to equip all of his Space Marines with grav-cannons, or every space-elf in the army is riding a grav-bike or throwing Eldritch Storms.

Volkites are rare because they were harder to produce than Bolters, but were in production during the GC. This means that Mars and, presumably, the Forge Worlds founded by it, had access to the STC. It wouldn't be that outside the box to assume that certain Forge Worlds might still have the STC.

10,000 yrs later, if any FW could still make them, they'd be back in mainstream operations. Might be worth looking at mechanicum in 30k if you want to use the weapons from the period. I'm not too familiar with their options as to whether they have troop or elite choices that can take volkites, but might be worth a look.

Might be hard to convince your opponent to let you take a squad full of them. Don't write the skitarii's guns off too easily though, they can be devastating, especially if you have a lot of shots.

 JamesY wrote:
10,000 yrs later, if any FW could still make them, they'd be back in mainstream operations. Might be worth looking at mechanicum in 30k if you want to use the weapons from the period. I'm not too familiar with their options as to whether they have troop or elite choices that can take volkites, but might be worth a look.

Might be hard to convince your opponent to let you take a squad full of them. Don't write the skitarii's guns off too easily though, they can be devastating, especially if you have a lot of shots.

Considering the fact that Forge Worlds jealously guard any and all unique STCs that they have, it would not be at all surprising if one or two Forge Worlds were producing Volkite, but were keeping the STC away from the rest of the AdMech in order to maintain their monopoly on Volkite weaponry.

Haha... Oh, man. That's why I rarely talko to people - I always get misunderstood because of my own sloppiness

I don't want to exchange guns of my troops for some overpowered options - I want to have guns with the same stat but fluffed as something else. (In this case the Rad-carbine would be Volkite-carbine, plasma culverin would be Volkite culverin etc.)
I just want to hear your opinion on how believable would a full on Volkite armed army be

 dusara217 wrote:
Considering the fact that Forge Worlds jealously guard any and all unique STCs that they have, it would not be at all surprising if one or two Forge Worlds were producing Volkite, but were keeping the STC away from the rest of the AdMech in order to maintain their monopoly on Volkite weaponry.

Hey, that's actually really cool idea. I kind of dig this kind of elite force using impossibly rare weaponry while keeping themselves in secret and killing any witnesses - either friend or foe.

Weapons. They suck from the lore perspective in my opinion. Radioactive guns that give your enemy and you a space-cancer? What?

Have to agree. As cool as many of the models are, the weapons for the Skitarii are pretty terrible from a fluff perspective.

Well personally I love the idea of the radiation guns but if you want to change them I actually recommend you just make up a new gun idea. The admech has tons of strange toys, so you have a lot more freedom to give them really exotic weapons. It also means you don't have volkite weapons with different profiles.

 dusara217 wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
10,000 yrs later, if any FW could still make them, they'd be back in mainstream operations. Might be worth looking at mechanicum in 30k if you want to use the weapons from the period. I'm not too familiar with their options as to whether they have troop or elite choices that can take volkites, but might be worth a look.

Might be hard to convince your opponent to let you take a squad full of them. Don't write the skitarii's guns off too easily though, they can be devastating, especially if you have a lot of shots.

Considering the fact that Forge Worlds jealously guard any and all unique STCs that they have, it would not be at all surprising if one or two Forge Worlds were producing Volkite, but were keeping the STC away from the rest of the AdMech in order to maintain their monopoly on Volkite weaponry.

This.


The Mechanicus, in my opinion and based on fluff hints, hasn't lost as much as they lead many to believe. Their cult has just become even more mired in orthodoxy in the 10,000 years since the Heresy. Treaty or no treaty, they are not as eager to share as they were during the Great Crusade.

If you are just naming the weapons something else, but keeping the appropriate stat-line, then go nuts. No one will care.

Even if you had 10,000 points of troops, that is still an infinitesimal drop in the bucket of the AdMech's forces.

My hated of kataphrons and bro-bot models has moved me to create skitarii versions of them out of ogryns and stormvermin respectively. Fluff wise my force is an explorator fleet who decided to maintain their Legio Cybernetica. Which is why I'll soon have a 30k Cybernetica force to go with my skitarii and 'cult skitarii'

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Weapons. They suck from the lore perspective in my opinion. Radioactive guns that give your enemy and you a space-cancer? What?

Have to agree. As cool as many of the models are, the weapons for the Skitarii are pretty terrible from a fluff perspective.

I was at first eh about it

But i think it would of been cooler if it wasn't radium which i believe the codex actually name drops

if it was a far more radioactive isotope then i could imagine instant fire and explosion from the heat alone then the aftermath of black death. and the mostly mechanical admech wouldnt give two feths about it.

Could imagine that being an amazing way to feth with space marines since its possible to damage gene seeds whole sale that way.

Maybe a simple answer is to say that it fires something like superheated bullets that cause nearby enemies to burst into flames, or maybe the bullets are charged and make the enemy go off in a cascade of dangerous sparks. More electricity would never hurt the fluff.

The radium weapons, like a lot of the codex, are a nod to classic science fiction (which is to say pulp-era) dealing with Martians, in this case the John Carter books.