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Titanicus is probably my favourite 40k novel. In it, the Skitarii are depicted more as the Mechanicus' answer to Space Marines than Guardsmen. They're techno-barbarians, hulking muscle as much as mechanical augmentation. They wear ceremonial feathers, bones, and beads.

On a related note, I remember an understated part of the Mechanicus was their biology division. It's pretty important, as it's responsible for all the gene-therapy for aristocrats and Space Marines alike. However, it seems like most of that information in wh40k.lexicanum got purged and replaced with the new rule books, which are very limited in scope.

Where did that kind of depiction of Skitarii end up after the Mechanicus books expanded their lore?

In that book there are two titan legions. In one, the princeps have to spend their lives in fluid tanks and in the other the machines accept hard plugs. The two legio get into a shooting war over religious differences. Orestes is also a forgeworld totally different to the famous ones like gryphonne or mars because they share the control of the world with imperial citizens and and imperial governor. Even in that same book there are big differences between forge worlds.

The history of the mechanicus is that machine cults spread out all over the galaxy during the DAoT and the forge worlds developed separately for thousands of years, until they were reunited with Mars at the same time as the Great Crusade. So they’re all culturally different.

You can also review the 30k mechanicum infantry units for the Horus heresy game. They are another type of ad-mech “space marine” equivalent who are different than the ones in Titanicus. The mechanicus forces are all really different from each other I don’t know what else to say. I’d like to convert an army of Legio Invicta’s bestial skitarii from Titanicus.

Yeah, I'm toying with the idea of converting some and wanted to see if they'd be explicitly instated or outdated with the current lore. The closest I can find is GW formally calls Skitarii that work with Titans "Secutarii".

It looks like if I was going to try it, I'd use green stuff to bulk up some Ogryn or Ogres to counts-as Kataphron Destroyers/Breachers.

keep in mind Skitarii also wheren't when the novel was written fleshed out with a mini line, thus authors could basicly go crazy

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind Skitarii also wheren't when the novel was written fleshed out with a mini line, thus authors could basicly go crazy

Right, which is why I'm asking. I'm just checking if this particular depiction was integrated into the lore, or explicitly ret-conned out.

I guess I should have been clearer, I was super deep into the lore up until about 6th edition. I fell off the wagon around the time the Necrons got reworked to have real personality.

 DarkHound wrote:
I'm just checking if this particular depiction was integrated into the lore, or explicitly ret-conned out.

It's not been explicitly ret-conned out, just not mentioned much. The original Codex: Skitarii (and the later Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus) deal with the Skitarii Legions from Forge World Mars, and not much else is mentioned.

For those curious, I dug out my copy of Titanicus and used Lexicanum's references to find chapters with the Skitarii. Here's the description of the Skitarii commander in chapter 8:

He was resplendent in hawked threat-armor, his feather edged cloak whipping out behind him. Ivory chevrons were inlaid on either side of the Icon Mechanicus on his blood gold breastplate. A dappled panther pelt dressed his massive shoulders over the feathered cape, and tusk spikes rose from the wings of the crimson steel half-mask that framed the hololithic yellow slits of his eyes. He had raised the iridescent fan of quilled skin around the back of his skull to accentuate his menace.

He was vat-grown from a eugenics program for size, strength, and aggressiveness. He's described as having an integrated las-weapon in his right arm, while his left wielded an axe-bill and a personal void shield. He also uses his augmented jaw to bite enemies to death (thus only the half-mask instead of a helmet). This passage also implies he can raise or lower a halo, made of his own skin, around his head. You can see why I'm disappointed with 'more dudes in red hoods' by comparison. I should point out that none of this impairs his intelligence at all; he is involved in the politics of his titan legion, and it's specifically noted that his logic centres of his brain are augmented to remain calm despite his other rage-inducing combat stims.

A watching moderati notes:

He had once been told no infantry combat, not even the Guard or vaunted Astartes, could match a skitarri versus skitarii war for frenzy and fury.

The battle is described with more hacking and dismemberment than las-fire. It also notes gaudy armoured giants lead the charge, followed by more common "hypaspists" (meaning shield-bearing) armed with pikes. Given that the titan guard are now called Secutarii, this sounds exactly like the Forgeworld's Secutarii Hoplites which are armed with arc lances and inverter shields. The skitarii army also fields dozens of heavy weapon servitors (with four and six legged variants), and a squadron of Malcador heavy tanks.

The 7th Ed codex pushes the idea that Skitarii don’t have a single design template. So the Techno-Barbarian Skitarii aren’t invalidated by the newer ones.

It seems to be more akin to what constitutes their upgrades rather than the patterning of the upgrades.

Less of a lore question, but I'm struggling with 1: the rules that would best represent the army as described in the passage, and 2: the models that would best serve as a base. I'm envisioning something ogryn sized, but it's hard to make that take up the same amount of space as a Kataphron Destroyer for a viable counts-as.

Frankly, it's better to just ignore Titanicus and the like at this juncture.

"Skitarii" used to be used as a kind of catch-all term for AdMech ground forces, ranging from Guardsmen with targeters on their helmets wielding lasguns and having bionics to things like what you described.

There’s a third party kataphron that you might like, maybe if you added some feathers and beetle wing carapace
http://berserkerbladeblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/squaduary-2018-wargame-exclusive_27.html?m=1


For skitarii a little smaller than destroyers the best rules could be Tyranid warriors.

Those models are absolutely perfect, thank you. I could easily greenstuff and plasticard some body armour and details. I can use them as Breachers and a Techpriest Dominus to represent Praetorians, with Kataphron Destroyers as regular heavy weapon servitors, with a bunch of Secutarii Hoplites to fill out the middle. Toss in a Knight Titan and I'd call that a faithful representation.

pelicaniforce wrote:
In that book there are two titan legions. In one, the princeps have to spend their lives in fluid tanks and in the other the machines accept hard plugs. The two legio get into a shooting war over religious differences. Orestes is also a forgeworld totally different to the famous ones like gryphonne or mars because they share the control of the world with imperial citizens and and imperial governor. Even in that same book there are big differences between forge worlds.

So yeah.... most of that is not how the book actually went.

The two legios are Invicta and Tempestus, both proximus pattern legions. The princeps of BOTH legios use amniotic capsules in their warlords, but the warhounds are free plugged.

Orestes is like many other forgeworlds in that it has a governor and an Adeptus Seniorus. It was not supposed to be unique.

They do not get into a shooting war at all, it becomes an armed stand off between the two legions in the field, but stops short of shots fired.

My knight force is based from Legio Invicta, the book is sitting beside me on the table atm.

By the way, if anyone is interest I've started work on converting some models. I ended up deciding Sicarian Infiltrators fit the profile better: strong and fast and vicious, but different than a Space Marine. Using this fan art concept, I settled on the idea of using Warhammer Fantasy Blood Warriors kitbashed with the spare half of a Skitarii box (the Warriors have surprisingly little Chaos iconography). I'm going to cast the Skitarii legs from the shin down, then replace the Blood Warriors' shins with double jointed legs and their shield arms with integrated guns at the elbow. I'll use mostly spare Skitarii heads, and some extra sculpted details, and they should look like right techno-barbarians (and act like it too). I'll start a blog on Dakka once I have something on that front to show, but quarantine is slowing everything down.