Home › Units › Adeptus Mechanicus › Skitarii Rangers

1 / 4 · Click to enlarge

Original illustration generated for Lore of the Warp. This is fallback art, not official artwork.

Imperium of Man · Unit

Skitarii Rangers

The cybernetic soldiers of the forge worlds who track their quarry relentlessly and destroy it with long-range galvanic rifles.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Category: Troops
Faction: Adeptus Mechanicus
Related characters: 1

Fan art to see: Skitarii Ranger by Shrapnel (on the artist's page, not hosted here)

Lore & origins

Skitarii are the soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicus, warriors rebuilt with cybernetics and controlled by their Tech-Priest masters through data-link. Rangers are the hunters among them. They track their quarry for weeks or even months until it can run no more, then destroy it with long-range fire from their galvanic rifles.

The Skitarii are ruthless. When enemies escape, Rangers close in again and again until the job is done, for to them the original engagement never ended. Their sensors and augmetics let them survive in hostile environments that would kill ordinary soldiers.

Tech-Priests hunt knowledge, and Rangers hunt enemies. Instead of striking from orbit, they track their prey across solar weeks and months with relentless endurance, in the manner of ancient human persistence hunters. At first the enemy, whether pirates or xenos warhosts, escapes their gunfire easily. But the Rangers march on in silent lockstep through trenches and ruins, tightening the net every night until the exhausted prey turns and is cut down.

The origins of Skitarii are a closely kept secret. Some are vat-grown or cloned, and some are repurposed. All of them have pale, puckered flesh studded with ceramic valves and adamantium sockets. Their augmentations are wildly inconsistent: a punch-card skull slot sits next to leather bellows lungs. It is said that a rendered-down Skitarius would contain traces of nearly every known element.

Rangers' suits secrete a gel that coats the inside, preventing abrasion and giving some protection from their own weapons' emissions. Those who survive long enough may rise to the rank of Alpha Primus, overseers who can operate independently for years if necessary. A Skitarii carrying an enhanced data-tether is obeyed without hesitation by the others, as a mouthpiece of the Tech-priests.

Appearance & wargear

Rangers wear hooded robes over armour, with their faces masked and their bodies covered with augmetic implants and breathing apparatus. They carry galvanic rifles, and some carry special weapons such as arc rifles, plasma calivers and transuranic arquebuses.

Rangers wear hooded, cloaked robes in forge world colours with rebreather masks and clusters of optics. They carry galvanic rifles, and special weapons such as arc rifles, plasma calivers and transuranic arquebuses. Each forge world has its own livery, for example Mars red, Lucius sandy orange and Stygies VIII black.

Weapons & Vehicles

Standard Armament & Combat LoadoutRangers wear hooded robes over armour, with their faces masked and their bodies covered with augmetic implants and breathing apparatus. They carry galvanic rifles, and some carry special weapons such as arc rifles, plasma calivers and transuranic arquebuses.

Plasma Gun & Plasma IncineratorRanged Weapon

A volatile directed-energy rifle that hurls bolts of miniature sun-hot plasma capable of vaporising Terminator plate and tank armour—at…

Power SwordMelee Weapon

A master-crafted blade sheathed in a crackling molecular disruption field that parts ceramite, bone and steel with effortless lethality…

LasgunRanged Weapon

The rugged, ubiquitous directed-energy laser rifle of the Astra Militarum—modest on its own, but capable of felling any foe in the gala…

LascannonHeavy Weapon

The Imperium's premier long-range anti-tank laser cannon, firing a blinding lance of coherent light that punches cleanly through battle…

Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.

Battlefield role & tactics

Rangers provide long-range firepower and objective control. They pin enemies with accurate fire while other Skitarii and war engines close in.

Rangers are mid-to-long-range marksmen who hold objectives and screen the army. They take advantage of tireless stamina and precision optics. They are flexible, fight best in co-ordinated cohorts under doctrina imperatives, and are tougher than their size suggests. However, they are not built for prolonged melee.

Rangers are long-range Skitarii infantry. Galvanic rifles pin and pick off enemies. A transuranic arquebus can punch through a tank from one side to the other, and its pressure wave pulps anyone inside. They hold objectives and lay down accurate fire at range, but they are vulnerable in close combat.