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Whilst building a Predator for my Thousand Sons army I did what seemed natural and stuck a spare Rubric Marine head on the hatch gunner. However, this made me wonder exactly what are the limitations of these guys in terms of the tasks that they can perform?

The Rubricae are frequently described as 'mindless automatons' that are largely incapable of doing anything but following the order of their Sorcerers. I assume that manning a mounted combi-bolter would be within their capabilities, but does this imply that there is a Sorcerer somewhere else inside the tank puppeteering the gunner at all times? Or can an order to 'shoot enemies' be given back at base and then the gunner can be trusted with target identification and distinguishing friend from foe? Are there range or time limitations involved? Does the Sorcerer need to understand how the gun operates for any of this to work?

In an even more advanced scenario, what if a Rubric Marine and a Sorcerer found an abandoned Stormtalon gunship or similar. Can the Sorceror just tell it to fly the thing and strafe some corpse worshipers? What if the Sorcerer stuffed himself behind the seat to keep issuing orders during the flight? Can the Rubric Marine figure out how to operate an aircraft without specific instructions if it is told to do so? Or is it incapable of these sorts of complex tasks under any circumstances?

Interested to hear what people think

In... I think it's Talon of Horus, the main character orders some rubricae to hang out in a land raider or rhino or something and puts them on guard duty. We also know that rubricae can serve as guards with enough "intelligence" to let some people into a room but not others. They're also presumably capable of relative dextrous motions like reloading their bolters.

So with all that in mind, the impression I get is that rubricae are able to operate vehicles provided there is a psyker in the general area to tell them to move in the right direction. We've seen single psykers control large groups of rubricae, so I assume you just need one sorcerer per battlefield to direct all the rubricae; not one psyker per tank. Otherwise, I'd expect Thousand Sons tanks to be shooting lightning out the hatch or something.

Otherwise, they seem to have roughly the level of sophistication of a D&D skeleton. That is, you can tell them to guard an area, follow a road, etc., but you can't really program in especially complicated instructions or expect them to put much personality into their actions.

Or can an order to 'shoot enemies' be given back at base and then the gunner can be trusted with target identification and distinguishing friend from foe?

It seems so. We know they can be put on guard duty and can distinguish one individual from another. Now, if you're asking them to decide who does and doesn't count as an "enemy", you might get some whacky results.

Are there range or time limitations involved?

Time? It doesn't seem so. Like a D&D skeleton, I'm pretty sure that rubricae told "shoot anyone who comes down this hallway" and then left without further orders will still be poised to shoot a thousand years later. Range? The psyker has to be in range to psychically issue commands. What that range is will vary from psyker to psyker. But rubricae don't seem to stop following orders once you leave a certain range (thus why the sorcerer in the book can leave his vehicle behind with the rubricae guarding it). If you tell a rubricae to march, they'll keep marching forward until they hit the coast, and then they'll probably start marching through the ocean. Although you can see why this might be a problem if, for instance, you're on a planet full of lava flows.

Does the Sorcerer need to understand how the gun operates for any of this to work?

Technically, I think it's more that the *rubric marine* needs to understand how the gun operates. Like, if you psychically made a sorcerer forget how guns work, I'm pretty sure he could still order rubricae to shoot their guns. Although hypothetically a sorcerer could walk a rubricae through the movements of complex actions step by step. You could technically probably teach a rubric to break dance, but you wouldn't be able to tell it to "do the Robot" if it doesn't already know that dance.

In an even more advanced scenario, what if a Rubric Marine and a Sorcerer found an abandoned Stormtalon gunship or similar. Can the Sorceror just tell it to fly the thing and strafe some corpse worshipers? What if the Sorcerer stuffed himself behind the seat to keep issuing orders during the flight? Can the Rubric Marine figure out how to operate an aircraft without specific instructions if it is told to do so?

Sure, I don't see why not. Pretty sure aircraft piloting is a standard part of marine training. If they could pilot it in life, they could probably pilot it in undeath.

Can the Rubric Marine figure out how to operate an aircraft without specific instructions if it is told to do so?

I don't think so. They don't seem to retain information in the long-term, and they don't have the will/drive/initiative to like, read a manual or experiment with controls.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Very interesting

I guess the short version is “whatever the Sorceror tasked them with”.

Squads being lead into battle may be a necessity, because you need your infantry to be reactive and responsive to emerging threats.

But, one could carefully pre-programme a gunner beforehand, and leave them to it. The same for pilots and drivers, potentially.

I say this as I think there’s a difference between needing a form of programming, and only being able to handle a limited programme. And that difference could simply be the time it takes.

So a pilot, gunner or driver automata may have had the necessary programming hardwired into them, so they know how to drive, fly and target, and even some form of discretion in those areas to stop them being overly predictable. So whilst they may lack that vital spark of creativity for random acts to confuse and confound the foe, they’d still be otherwise rather skilled.

It’s even possible there are different levels to the Rubric Marines. Remember, the Rubric dusted non-psychic Marines, and those who’s powers were only slight. Purely speculation, but what if the “only slights” ended up more flexible when it comes to being given orders, that faint glimmer of power allowing them to be given more complex instructions than their entirely non-psychic brothers.

I don't think it's exactly a matter of "programming" the skills into them. In the same way that rubricae seem to "remember" how to shoot a bolter and punch people in melee, I imagine they'd retain other similarly-complex skills. I've never driven a tank, but I imagine the level of complexity is in the same ballpark as operating a car, which in turn seems like it would be in the same ballpark as knowing how to reload a bolter and shoot at enemies.

So it's less than the rubricae are literally robotic and in need of step-by-step explanations of tasks, and more that they just sort of... lack the drive to do anything proactively. Sort of like me when I'm groggy and can follow direct instructions but am too tired to properly work out the reason behind said instructions.

On that, there’s driving and there’s driving.

For instance, I’ve had my licence for over 20 years now. I’ve driven small cars, big cars, people carriers and courier vans. I’ve only had two accidents, both super early on. I’m confident provided it’s a manual (stick shift) I can be given the keys to anything short of a HGV, and be able to drive with competence.

But, I’d still be a liability on a race track, or in a high speed pursuit.

Likewise, I could probably figure out how to drive a tank given a couple of hours. Steering might be tricky to get used to, but provided it’s automatic? I can likely get it to go at least forward.

But combat manoeuvres? That’s a much higher skill set I almost certainly entirely lack.

I agree programming is a poor choice of wording, as it’s not really descriptive. But we know the squads are lead so the Sorceror can wrangle the Rubricae and enhance their responsiveness. What I’m proposing is vehicle crew of any stripe may have that enhancement put in place ahead of time through a ritual or what have you, strengthening what I guess I’m gonna call the incumbent spirit’s link to the physical world. Something to focus its consciousness and grant it at least temporary and ersatz reactionary capacity?

The Ahriman series has a few scenes about utilizing rubric marines and there is something not unlike programming. Before battle the sorcerers will enact long rituals of spell binding on the rubric marines. Presumably for things like unit cohesion and security against opposing sorcerers and psykers. I would also assume that enough spells could properly bind a rubric marines to more complicated tasks.

It terms of time, one of the cooler book moments was when they left rubric marines on a planet for a few millennia. The Inqusition built a fortress there and would later find themselves being attacked from buried marines, necron-style.

Now I'm imagining Imperial psykers 'hacking' a bunch of Rubric Marines that a lazy Sorcerer didn't bother to bind properly

 Bilge Rat wrote:
Whilst building a Predator for my Thousand Sons army I did what seemed natural and stuck a spare Rubric Marine head on the hatch gunner. However, this made me wonder exactly what are the limitations of these guys in terms of the tasks that they can perform?

The Rubricae are frequently described as 'mindless automatons' that are largely incapable of doing anything but following the order of their Sorcerers. I assume that manning a mounted combi-bolter would be within their capabilities, but does this imply that there is a Sorcerer somewhere else inside the tank puppeteering the gunner at all times? Or can an order to 'shoot enemies' be given back at base and then the gunner can be trusted with target identification and distinguishing friend from foe? Are there range or time limitations involved? Does the Sorcerer need to understand how the gun operates for any of this to work?

In an even more advanced scenario, what if a Rubric Marine and a Sorcerer found an abandoned Stormtalon gunship or similar. Can the Sorceror just tell it to fly the thing and strafe some corpse worshipers? What if the Sorcerer stuffed himself behind the seat to keep issuing orders during the flight? Can the Rubric Marine figure out how to operate an aircraft without specific instructions if it is told to do so? Or is it incapable of these sorts of complex tasks under any circumstances?

Interested to hear what people think

Both, but, I'd mostly lean on the Sorcerer is somewhere inside the tank commanding it. Thousand Sons weren't really short on psykers when/if it comes to Tank Commanders leading Rubricae. The other option is that the tank is entirely crewed by Sorcerers, so I'm totally on board with a Sorcerer Tank Commander ordering around 3 Rubricae crewmen.

I dunno. I used to imagine my Predator (and my Dreadnought) being entirely closed and piloted by Rubrics - since I couldn't give either psychic powers.

To simulate this, I'd give it Daemonic Possession - disturbing the dust inside isn't going to perturb the spirit driving the vehicle very much.

Here’s another thought. What if the Rubricae don’t undergo rituals and that to enhance their congition, but to limit?

I for one would be furious if I was once a hale and healthy Astartes, and am now some sentient Fizz-Wizz locked into my armour forever.

Breton wrote:
Both, but, I'd mostly lean on the Sorcerer is somewhere inside the tank commanding it. Thousand Sons weren't really short on psykers when/if it comes to Tank Commanders leading Rubricae. The other option is that the tank is entirely crewed by Sorcerers, so I'm totally on board with a Sorcerer Tank Commander ordering around 3 Rubricae crewmen.

Thousand Sons kind of are short on psykers though. Sure all the living 'Sons are psykers, but there aren't a ton of those. Plus, your average Thousand Sons psyker seems to be so powerful that using him to do a job that could be accomplished by their mortal servants (like Tzaangor or Spire Guard) seems like a waste.

Plus, we've seen psychic tank commanders in the form of Grey Knights. The lack of psyker keywords or powers on 'Sons rhinos makes me think whoever's piloting them either isn't psychic or isn't physically present inside the rhino. I know Ahriman is an exceptional example, but there's at least one scene of him micromanaging fleet-wide boarding actions. Telling a tank column which way to drive and giving Star Craft style orders to rubricae seem like reasonable feats for a 'Sons sorcerer.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Here’s another thought. What if the Rubricae don’t undergo rituals and that to enhance their congition, but to limit?

I for one would be furious if I was once a hale and healthy Astartes, and am now some sentient Fizz-Wizz locked into my armour forever.

That seems unlikely giving how much time we see sorcerers (especially Ahriman) desperately seeking some sign of intellect or personality in the rubricae and brooding over its absence. I think Ahriman would weep with joy if the rubricae suddenly had enough brains and personality to consider limiting them.