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1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
The Onager Dunecrawler is a combat walker used only by the Skitarii Legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It began as the Mars Universal Land Engine, or M.U.L.E., built by the famed techno-archaeologist Arkhan Land from technology dating back to the Dark Age of Technology. Land modelled it on a bad-tempered, insect-like beast of burden that he believed had once carried its masters across ancient Terra. It was meant as a workhorse to escort the Mechanicus safely across the red deserts of Mars. It did that job so well that it was soon rebuilt as a weapon: renamed, given an emanatus force field, copied by the millions and sent to the front.
The Dunecrawler of the late 41st Millennium still carries formidable weapons, and the miniature fusion generator at its rear lets it outlast even the rugged vehicles of the Adeptus Astartes. Its guns are hard-linked to extensive databanks that record every kill until they are as full as a tick bloated with stolen blood. That data streams straight to the Tech-Priests above, and in return their commands flow through the walker to the Skitarii around it. It is a gun platform and a data conduit at once.
Who sees it changes what it is. Astra Militarum troopers, impressed by how much firepower is packed into such a small frame, call Dunecrawlers walking guns. To the Skitarii, an Onager is a walking reliquary protected by the Machine God. To the Tech-Priests it is just a tool of destruction, though one tempered in the fires of history. Squadrons are common in every Skitarii legion. They clank to war in long columns that move in uncanny unison, climbing over ruins and wading through toxic run-off without breaking stride.
Appearance & wargear
The Dunecrawler is an ornate, four-legged walker with a scuttling gait and bristling appendages that make it look like a predatory insect with a mighty sting. It carries a searchlight, sensor probes and a broad-spectrum data-tether. An overlapping emanatus force field shimmers around it, and its fusion generator is mounted at the rear. Forge worlds such as Mars, Agripinaa, Graia, Lucius, Metalica and Ryza field them in their own colours.
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Battlefield role & tactics
In battle, Dunecrawlers fan out into a gun line. A standard Onager carries an eradication beamer, which can be swapped for a twin heavy phosphor blaster, a neutron laser with a cognis heavy stubber, or an Icarus array of twin autocannons, gatling rocket launcher and Daedalus missile launcher for anti-air work. These weapons let it blast aircraft from the sky, punch holes in Traitor war engines or atomise enemy commanders in beams of blinding blue light. Its two crew are bound to the machine in a symbiotic cybernetic link. A Skitarii Ranger gunner looks through auto-scryer lenses, and a Vanguard driver floats in an electro-amniotic tank, using his resistance to harmful energies to commune with the machine spirit.
Notable battles & users
- Arkhan Land: the techno-archaeologist who designed the original M.U.L.E.
- The Icarus array: the Onager's dedicated anti-aircraft fit.
- Squadrons: Dunecrawlers fight in squadrons of one to three walkers.
- Living batteries: Vanguard drivers are worn out by the electrode soup and simply replaced, and they go to that fate without complaint.
Related
Characters (1)
Belisarius Cawl · Archmagos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus
