Skitarii - thoughts on the dawn of another 40K faction

Like everyone else all I have at time of writing is the new White Dwarf with the Rangers and the Vanguard and the two forms of Ironstrider walker, so this is very much 'today, right now, what I'm thinking'....

 

Firstly, the things we don’t know yet that are important:

How big is this faction going to be? Is it going to be something that can stand alone? Meaning… is this the first fully rounded ‘new‘ faction since Necrons, way back in the early 2000s?

My local GW store manager/old friend brought up the possibility that we could have Mechanicus Knights as a unit entry.

This is before I noticed the photograph that clearly shows two Knights in Mechanicus livery standing behind the models revealed so far (and which looks awesome). True the picture on the back cover is all that plus Ultramarines… but wouldn’t read too much into that.

Just looking at this the thing that’s missing most pointedly is a transport option. So much depends on that in other armies.  

What’s the codex even going to be called? Logically something GW can copyright… so probably not 'Legions of Mars' or 'Scions of Mars'… and mostly likely either ‘Adeptus Mechanicus’ or simply ‘Skitarii’.

Will there be a HQ unit?

And this is where it could get interesting because, reading this fluff, it does say the Skitarii get their directions from command centres that stay out of the battle zone. Is it even conceivable that they could have come up with a body of rules that allows for there to be no HQ?
I would like to see a HQ slot. The weight of everything else in 40K seems to demand it.
But reading this fluff…

“Skitarii cohorts are rarely accompanied by the Tech-Priest overseers when they march to war. Instead, their masters remain aboard their exploratory vessels, not for their own safety, but so they can experience the full panoply of war through the senses of their troops…”

 

This boxed out in red with this nice artwork of two tech-priests standing next to a very alien looking head in a vertical tank, looking a bit like a Spacing Guild navigator from Dune. Though… I have checked and the picture is a classic bit of art:

 

What we do know:

25mm bases. Not 32mm.

That… seems to say GW does not have a strategic long term position on the new 32mm size other than what the hobbyist chooses to do.

Looking at the rest of this issue of White Dwarf the conceptualisation of the Skitarii models in incredibly detailed. Every hanging or swivelling thing has a name and implied purpose.

There is tons of fluff in this issue, I haven’t read it all yet. And this is exactly what we want. We want to be drawn into their mystery, the motivations, their potential for schisms. These guys are not straight forward Emperor fearing ‘nid-food. They may be Imperials but they are not at the party for the same reasons as everyone else.

Mars!

On the ‘reveal’ video that GW puts on their site and YouTube – before they cut to the models -  is a picture of a red(?) looking planet surrounded by a humungous artificial ring.
Surely… Mars… and hopefully we will be treated to it being presented in some detail in the codex.

Finally…

Colour schemes that are not red? That’s up to theming of course but I wonder if GW will offer something up like theatre of war-specific camo-scheme robes or something. I’m not sure red is always the smartest colour to wear in the middle of a war on an ice planet or a jungle world, for instance.
I’m reminded of the two page spread for Imperial Guard from two codices back when plastic Cadians were new… That was terrific. That’s still one of my favourite books.

Maybe we’ll see something like that. We don’t necessarily want to see everyone with red Skitarii.

 

Well... another week of leaks and rumours and we'll know a little more.