With the notorious Murder Servitors + Teleportarium combo well known, I've been wondering: has anyone attempted to provide stats for the class of servitors known as "Murder Servitors" for use in standard combat between PC's and NPC's?
Granted there are a few servitors described with stats in the Rogue Trader rulebook, and aside from those there's also the Arco-Flagellants from Diciples of the Dark Gods and Praetorian Battle Servitors listed in Inquisitors Handbook to consider using as substitutes... But I don't know, some of them seem sort of inappropriate. The Flagellants for instance, while certainly matching the sheer ferocity I imagine Murder Servitors to have, they seem somewhat "meatshieldy" and single-minded to be an effective strike force supposed to plant and detonate melta charges aboard enemy vessels. Sure as pure suicide bombers they might do the trick, but from their purpose and design they seem to be intented to just slaughter large amounts of meaty targets rather than acheiving special objectives.
The Praetorian Battle Servitors however do seem to possess the sophistication, but from their description (both in IH and the "Mechanicum" novel of the Horus Heresy series) they seem to be rather heavy, tank-like versions of battle servitors (often using tracked engines as locomotion). So for an effective hit and run attack they seem a little too slow and heavy.
My vision of a Murder Servitor (using my imagination combined with what little has been used to describe these cyborg beasties) is something of a crosbreed between a Praetorian and an Arco-Flagellant, designed to swiftly and efficiently "saw" through certain masses of ship rating defenders, plant the explosives and return to the automated assault boat where a few tech-adepts and the coordinating assault leader (the PC leading the H&R attack) are entrenched and who coordinate and guide the actions of the Murder Servitors. Or failing that, make the servitors activate the melta charges in a timely fashion and thus self-destruct but allowing the assault boat time to withdraw.
What do you guys think? Should we perhaps post a few drafts of what stats these things could have? God knows that they could sure be useful for interesting encounters in Rogue Trader games (like when some nasty pirates or rival Rogue Traders manage to flood the inner sanctum of the bridge with Murder Servitors, or perhaps when a botched warp transition makes some of the PC's own Murder Servitors in cryo stasis thaw and go haywire).
Let's put our heads together and make up something that we can prodly call a purebred/built "Murder Servitor" so we GM's don't have to settle for sluggish substitutes, shall we?
So first topic, do you agree with my assessment that a Murder Servitor would be a sort of cross between a Praetorian and an Arco-Flagellant, or does anyone beg to differ? If so please motivate your opinion and we'll discuss it further.