Okay, so what are the differences between the following militant arms of the Adeptus Mechanicus:
- Skitarii Tech-Guard
- Secutors
- Myrmidons
I keep confusing them
Which one would be encountered as guards? which are soldiers? which are police officers and/or special operatives? Which ones are elite warriors?
The Skitarii seem to be the standard troops, in use both as military and civil enforcers. Secutors are militant techpriests, a little higher up the ladder.
Cifer said:
The Skitarii seem to be the standard troops, in use both as military and civil enforcers. Secutors are militant techpriests, a little higher up the ladder.
As far as I'm aware, the term Skitarii (the plural of Skitarius) is both synonymous with Tech-Guard and is essentially the same in terms of usage as "Imperial Guard" it refers not to a specific type of soldier, but to an armed force. Skitarii are line soldiers and vehicle crews and heavy weapons operators and artillery and elite troops and everything else that makes up an army. We know, from old sources, of a few common varieties of Skitarii...
The most basic form of Skitarii - equivalent to normal Imperial Guard Infantry, though significantly augmented, often to suppress emotion - are Hypaspists.
Providing fire support for Hypaspist maniples (an a term for squad formerly used by the Legio Cybernetica; it isn't officially used in this context, but I feel it to be appropriate) are Sagitarii, who form dedicated heavy weapons units.
Balisteria units provide artillery fire for Tech-Guard forces, with the term used to describe both the machines (which range from Thudd Gun/Heavy Mortar size, up to the massive Ordinatus engines) and the crew that operate them, as flesh and metal must work as one in the Machine God's service.
Cataphractii are the armour of the Tech-Guard, crewing vehicles that range from light transports through to super-heavy tanks and larger. The crews are often implanted into the vehicles.
Praetorians (a term also used for heavy combat servitors; likely, the Mechanicus has different terms for them in their own languages) are Skitarii elites, varying based on the whims of the Magos Militant in command of them to be anything from augmetically-boosted Stormtrooper equivalents, up to massive and lethal warriors fitted with a huge array of powerful weapons, and sometimes used as infantry escort for Adeptus Titanicus forces (someone has to keep people from clamping meltabombs to the ankles of Titans).
Skitarii Tribunes fill low-level leadership roles, equivalent to the field officers (anything below a Colonel) of the Imperial Guard, subordinate to the wills of the Magi who command their forces.
What Skitarii are was already more or less mentioned. They are basically the rank and file soldiers (and thus could also be guards) of the Mechanicus, though the so called Skitarii-Provosts act as sort of police officers on Forge Worlds and other Mechanicus domains.
The Secutors are mostly described as elite storm troopers and/or the first rank of the Mechanicus Militant and are comparable to low ranking Tech-Priests (though more Tech-Guard than Tech-Adept) in a way.
The (Auxilla) Myrmidons are the weapon masters and warsmiths of the Ordo Reductor, also known as siege-engineers or war-savants. This militant Mechanicus faction is largely independent and often seeks out and destroys enemies of the Mechanicus’ by their own or in bands (occasionally in a kind of ‘special operatives’ way).
A lot of stats for Skitarii are in Frozen Reaches (RT) and the Emperor Protects (DW).
N0-1_H3r3 said:
Cifer said:
The Skitarii seem to be the standard troops, in use both as military and civil enforcers. Secutors are militant techpriests, a little higher up the ladder.
As far as I'm aware, the term Skitarii (the plural of Skitarius) is both synonymous with Tech-Guard and is essentially the same in terms of usage as "Imperial Guard" it refers not to a specific type of soldier, but to an armed force. Skitarii are line soldiers and vehicle crews and heavy weapons operators and artillery and elite troops and everything else that makes up an army. We know, from old sources, of a few common varieties of Skitarii...
The most basic form of Skitarii - equivalent to normal Imperial Guard Infantry, though significantly augmented, often to suppress emotion - are Hypaspists.
Providing fire support for Hypaspist maniples (an a term for squad formerly used by the Legio Cybernetica; it isn't officially used in this context, but I feel it to be appropriate) are Sagitarii, who form dedicated heavy weapons units.
Balisteria units provide artillery fire for Tech-Guard forces, with the term used to describe both the machines (which range from Thudd Gun/Heavy Mortar size, up to the massive Ordinatus engines) and the crew that operate them, as flesh and metal must work as one in the Machine God's service.
Cataphractii are the armour of the Tech-Guard, crewing vehicles that range from light transports through to super-heavy tanks and larger. The crews are often implanted into the vehicles.
Praetorians (a term also used for heavy combat servitors; likely, the Mechanicus has different terms for them in their own languages) are Skitarii elites, varying based on the whims of the Magos Militant in command of them to be anything from augmetically-boosted Stormtrooper equivalents, up to massive and lethal warriors fitted with a huge array of powerful weapons, and sometimes used as infantry escort for Adeptus Titanicus forces (someone has to keep people from clamping meltabombs to the ankles of Titans).
Skitarii Tribunes fill low-level leadership roles, equivalent to the field officers (anything below a Colonel) of the Imperial Guard, subordinate to the wills of the Magi who command their forces.
NO-1_H3R3,
I remember about a year or so ago you posted some stuff you were working on for a fan made product. But since you are writting now, will be perhaps see it sometime in the future?
Salcor
Salcor said:
I have always intended to keep working on my various fan-projects, though I have to be a little more circumspect about some things, and I don't (obviously) have as much time as I used to. However, the truth of the matter is, I'm more likely to complete something if it's part of an assignment (deadlines and structure help matters quite a bit, while it's very easy to get distracted or sidetracked doing fan material), so if something does come up where I can use my backlog of ideas, I'll take advantage of it (as I did with the Orks in Into the Storm - I'd already pondered the idea over a year before, so I'd already laid out the groundwork for myself).
I cannot say for certain what will be seen in the future - mainly because the few projects I know about that you guys don't is limited primarily to things I'm actually working on or have worked on (and thus can't talk about yet), and I'm not given info about anything more than the things I need to know.