When the Mechanicum ends up making a better supersoldier than your precious power armour-clad...

>when the Mechanicum ends up making a better supersoldier than your precious power armour-clad, geneseed mary sue male powerfantasy soldiers

JUST

Mechanicum automata are not capable of independent action (or only in very limited scope), need regular maintenance and functional supply chain.

Meanwhile, you can drop half dozen Marines one a planet with nothing but a loincloth and orders to bring it under Emperor's rule and there's a decent chance they will succeed.

You don't recall the Men of Iron? How that nearly wiped out humanity?

In their day, the AI revolt came closer to destroying humanity than Chaos has ever done.

>Thallax
>automata

>Highly unstable supersoldiers

The Emperor realized this was a bad idea when he decommissioned the Thunder Warriors.

>I have a mouth but I was ordered not to scream anymore

>their brain rots over time

This sure isn't a fatal flaw.

Brains are the cheap part. Grow a new one in a vat and just jam it in.

Grown humans are forbidden.

They're akin to Dreadnoughts.

On asidenote, GW really doesn't like cleaning their illstrations anymore.

Afriel

Except not.
Kriegers come from vats (iron wombs).
Servitors are also made of vat-grown organisms specifically intended for servitorization.

Clones are heresy. But vat-growing individual body parts is okay. IIRC Magos Biologis can have one swappable hemisphere that can change depending on needed expertise. The personality is retained in the other and in the lower brain (w/e is it called anatomically).

No, they just lose more and more of their personality and "self" over time until they have the personality of a piece of cardboard/Master Chief.

Vitae-womb is not a clone vat. It's more of drugged up accelerated (but otherwise natural) pregnancy.
Clones for servitors are a possibility but it's usually not worth it, making them from criminals and other undesirables is considerably cheaper.

> vitae-womb
It's left unclear as to what it actually is. I assume this is so your imagination can fill in whatever grimdark option you choose.

Chaos has the grimdark birthing vats covered.

So great they were that virtually none exist today, while you have Marines dating back to the Heresy among us.

It's also mentioned to be tech-heresy. The redt of the Imperium is either unaware of Krieg using the tech, or looking the other way because Krieg produces too good soldiers for them to tell them to stop.

Wasn't it confirmed that the AdMech is still making them albeit in more limited numbers?

They're pretty much their equivalent of Space Marinec.

Them digits!

Vitae-wombs have two lines in the fluff and are left ambiguous. Your interpretation isn't less valid than another, but it isn't law.
The Afriel soldiers were clones, cherubs are vat-grown, and the land raider machine spirit is a vat-grown cybernetic brain.

It's simply that the Imperium doesn't lack manpower in the slightest, so the magos biologis usually have other things to do.

...

>They're pretty much their equivalent of Space Marinec.
They always seemed to me more like heavy weapon platforms.
Marines are more about flexibility and shock tactics, Thallax just go around with big guns.
Like devastator marines, but with more dakka.

>Like devastator marines, but with more dakka.
And jet packs user, and jet packs.

It was clarified in the krieg novels.

>in b4 black library isn't canon because it goes against muh headcanon

>The Afriel soldiers were clones,

The guys from WD 303? The afriel strain were an attempt to create perfect soldiers by combining the DNA of many imperial heroes. The end resut were albino super soldiers who were cursed with bad luck. Not naturally born but they are not clones.

>land raider machine spirit is a vat-grown cybernetic brain

Is this actually stated anywhere? I know there is the picture of the "M32 Cyclops-class Machine Spirit" sphere thing but that doesn't give any further detais on what that actualy is apart from being a black sphere thing.

>when the mechanicum ends up making a better special character than your precious power armour-clad, geneseed mary sue male powerfantasy primarchs

JUST RIGHT

>inb4 "user was banned for this post"

That is downright horrifying

It's not explicitly stated for the land raider itself, but it's well established from many sources that complicated machinery is directed and controlled in part by biological components. Cognators are effectively lobotomized brains in a jar. It is also established, IIRC in an Imperial Armor volume, that most such components are vat grown to simplify the manufacturing process and reduce the possibility that scraps of memory or personality from the brain's prior life might manifest in the machine spirit.

So, is the mechanicus the new IMPURIAL GUARD BALLS OF STEEHL now?

>But vat-growing individual body parts is okay.

Brains aren't just "body parts." It's LITERALLY what a human being is. They are essentially growing an entirely new person minus all non-essential hardware.

If it works for the emperor it will work for us too

Mmm, yeah, I think I'll just stick to the super smurfs and company.

nah,they were always the mad scientists and everybody love mad scientists

>It's LITERALLY what a human being is.
Wrong, as far as the Imperium is concerned. A human being is the Soul: everything else is meat.
Creating a full body's worth of meat and pretending it's a person is abomination because no part of the cloning process creates a soul, and therefore cloning doesn't create people.

M'kay.

Just tell me how that works out when a single Ursarax wipes a tac squad.

You say this like the admech aren't some of the most rules-lawyer-y individuals you're ever likely to meet.
If they can get away with something on a technicality, they will

Clarified as being full clones, or just really sped up mechanical wombs?

Many magos biologis might disagree, as they are pretty strict on the fact that *everything* about a human is replaceable as long as you don't fuck with the soul.
To that point, Holy Human Form. You get a lot of shit that can claim to have a working human brain inside (such as a Land Raider), but that doesn't make actually human.

If they were clones their combined fuck-awful karma would have screwed over their eintire subsector in one go.
ONE clone is enough to spell doom for an entire planet, entire regiments of them are stuff the Highlords have nightmares about.

maximum grimdark

In 40k you are defined by your soul. A strong enough soul can transcend the limitations of its packaging in a staggering number of ways.
You can take one of the possibly greatest beings ever, Horus, and create a *perfect* clone of him and it wouldn't mean jack shit, since the damn thing is a soulless abomination that the universe hates relentlessly.
Meanwhile Brains are a dime a dozen and are used for the most mundane shit, such as anything above basic computing. Remember, actual computers have a bad track record of suddenly breaking out into AI, and AI is ALWAYS BAD NEWS. Nobody wants another Iron Men situation.
And even if you don't just go and xerox a couple thousand pounds of grey matter over the course of an afternoon, people is the one resource the Imperium has in plentiful supply. You don't even need to abduct some poor manufactorum workers or gangers in the dead of the night for that (though you certainly can if you're into that sort of shit), but you can literally just put out an add and people will fight each other over the right to be turned into parts for your new rig.

>even the spider drone thing's eyes glow

That's a necron scarab.

It isn't though

Why are clones unlucky in 40k? Is it because the Warp hates having soul duplicates lying around?

Sure, buddy.

I mean, he only has a weapon with a rule called Entropic Destroyer.

Totally not Necron.

I just wanted to like the glowing bug thing. Why do you spergs insist on turning everything into a fucking argument

Fine, its a necron thing, who gives a fuck. Lay off.

Nobody knows why for sure.

All they know is that clones have reliably and predictably proven to be bad luck generators.

Clones get no souls and souls are everything in 40k. Without a soul the universe is activly trying to eradicate you. More so than usual, I mean.

Or they do have a soul and its an exact copy of the original but the universe is operating on a THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! sort of deal.

>Better supersoldier
>In so much constant pain it suffers brain death faster and need to be replaced faster

Good joke m8.

That wouldn't explain the Horus thing, where Emps eradicated his soul but the clone Fabulous Bill made still was a pile of bad luck.

I would argue being made by Dr Bile already generates 100% bad luck all on its own.

What would happen do you think if you made Horus clone with no brain and put a Space Marines brain in there?

Most servitors are vat grown. The point why it's ok by the AdMech is that they have no higher brain functions.
It's mass production organic parts of decent quality for their technology, not mass producing super soldiers or geniouses that can replace mankind.

...

Clones have no soul. Same for ressurected people.
That is the main reason why the Necrons are doomed.

This is entirely heretical.

A very tall, very strong and very handsome marine. Marines being pre-disposed to grand heroics and larger-than-life behavior I'm sure he'd be a significant commander or some such, but it'd not be enough to actually make a primarch.

>excise emotional centers to ameliorate pain

Why not just cut out the pain receptors or flood the fucker with morphine

>or flood the fucker with morphine
Because that's how you get Third Impact.

>when the Mechanicum ends up making a better supersoldier than your precious power armour-clad, geneseed mary sue male powerfantasy soldiers

How do you know they are better?

Yeah, Space Marines are free from sin and never ever were on the edge of wiping out mankind.

why would it be aganoizing if you already chopped off all his nerves?

I read it as more existential loss-of-humanity pain (alongside good old fashioned "let's jam your nerve endings into a steel she'll" physical pain), and removing the emotion centers makes them blasé about everything (including said physical pain).

It still has a nervous system and a brain, enough to feel some sort of pain when its strained with all the augments jacked into those nerves/brain.

>Why not just cut out the pain receptors
Because then subject is no longer under pain and agony, it is too humane and not GRIMDARK enough.

>psyche doesn't mean brain user

I got you.

>In so much constant pain it suffers brain death faster and need to be replaced faster

Not saying he is right but look at it this way, creating a Space Marine is a difficult process. It is difficult in the sense of the huge amount of screening it requires to find suitable candidates and then selectively filtering out all but the few that are perfectly fit for it.

In case of the Admech they can mass produce the bodies, and put in another disembodied brain into it. Considering the ridicules amount of servitors existing around the imperium, preparing a brain and nervous system and implanting it into the exo-armor should be a simple routine process, regardless that the subject was a real person or grown.

Even if one needs to constantly replace these guys that still should be significantly faster than keeping up the numbers of Space Marines.

In that case guardsmen are better considering you have a virtually endless supply of troops and ammo who literally replace themselves and require almost no upkeep.

They're good. But saying they're better than space marines is like no shit. They cost 3 times as much in terms of points. Who knows how much the sacred machines cost the admech to fabricate fluff wise.

They're more equivalent to Cataphractii Terminators, which is much more of a toss up on who's better. On one hand they Thallax are more mobile but more shooty. On the other hand the Terminators are way more armored, but are more choppy.

Saying they're better than a stock SM is dumb.

also
>costs as much as a terminator
>can be perforated by the one of the most ubiquitous heavy weapons in the galaxy

Space Marines are only rare because the Emperor went, as a specific point, of bio-augmentation instead of cloning. You go raven guard and clone those fuckers and you could shit Space Marines out like nothing.
Why'd he make it augmentation? He didn't want Space Marines to replace base humanity.

They get a FNP so they do get some survivability from heavy weapons. They are also always going to be getting cover due to jet pack.

To be honest, most mechanicum players don't even use them. IF they do, it's for the photon thrusters which are S:6 AP:2 Blind, Get's Hot Assualt 2 Range 48"

Inb4 ghost pains (aka amputees).

And their current method of reproduction is retarded as fuck.

>Why are we still here? Just to suffer? Every night, I can feel my leg... and my arm... even my fingers. The body I've lost... the comrades I've lost... won't stop hurting... It's like they're all still there. You feel it, too, don't you?

I use them! Though my army is a "my dudes" list made up of all the stuff across the Mechanicum and Skitarii lists that I liked. Here's hoping IA14 will make it less of a mess, though most people don't seem to have an issue with me marrying codices.

>Punished Cyborg.
>A soldier denied flesh.

>these are better super soldiers
>they're so shitty we have to make them like disposable mooks

If we were supposed to look at it your way, then the OP wouldn't be written the way it was.

>He didn't want Space Marines to replace base humanity.
Speaking of, why not?
As far as I can tell, Astartes are still fundamentally human after they outgrow their early hypnoindoctrination; they still feel rage and joy, surprise and sadness, and possibly even love if allowed to grow up like a normal human.
Their inhumanity comes from their indoctrination and training, not from their augmentations.

The picture there speaks of psychotic breakdown. That's pretty serious, like "Full Metal Jacket" serious.

Except they are huge cyber enhanced killing machines, not just some guy with a gun.

Acid spit

Doesn't change what it fundamentally means to be human. You could graft two extra sets of arms onto someone, and they'd still be human in mind and mannerism.

Something tells me a rotting brain in a can that has to be lobotomized just to not go apeshit nuts like the ED-209 prototypes isn't going to have the same amount of tactical flexibility and intelligent action as the emperor's chosen.

Still, good for the Mechanicus, I guess...?

Isn't that why they have those techpriests around to control them or keep them in check? They're basically marine level combat servitors.

They're augments. No more can Marines replace humans than dudes with bionic arms can. If a Marine could impregnate a woman, it'd just give you a normal human as if the Marine had never been implanted. You still need the gene-seeds.

You'd think the Emperor would know by now if rampant genetic engineering of the entire human race is a good idea or not. Seeing that he made Marines what they are, it's highly unlikely.

Thing is, marines live for centuries, even millennia, accumulating experience in every imaginable battle scenario; ostensibly, they also benefit from their faith, which is a complex thing I doubt a brain-jar with bits slap-chopped off can comprehend. I would assume that servitors like these ironically have a much smaller operational lifetime to accumulate experience in, as they'll eventually become vegetables lacking any combat effectiveness.

So sure, they might very well equal marines in terms of ruggedness, strength, and weaponry; but in many ways they seem like they might be pale imitations, prioritizing ease of manufacture and disposability over quality. Which might be what your looking for, depending on the situation at hand--better to throw a bunch of these into a for-sure meat grinder situation than to lose marines that take forever to replace, maybe.

The marines experience is definitely valuable, but it can be off set by the combat rites that are programed directly in.

Going off of tabletop which is the one of the few ideas we have of Thallax's power, they are vastly physically superior to space marines, and less likely to run.

They are also operating weapons that outclass what the average marine can bring with enhanced targeting. In addition to the superior maneuverability that the jet pack allows.

Perhaps the psyche degradation does eventually hurt the combat capabilities of the Thallax, but again, they are vastly easier to make.

Do you even consciously rejoice in your service and noble sacrifice for the God Emperor's eternal glory, you 4+ tin can?

I bet you like getting instant killed by krak missiles.

IF SUCH IS THE EMPEROR'S WILL

But then how will you keep up your 1000 members?

>not crusades eternally

F

>We made this thing like 80% machine.
>Why not just make it 100% machine. Or at least like 95%. I mean, exactly what parts in here can we not just replicate with mechanical stuff? And why? I mean, all this seems very advanced, why do we just holes in what we can do that seem specifically tailored to making this sort of thing as nightmarish as possible?
>[Sweating intensifies]

Because you don't want your super incredible death robot to insta turn into a chaos AI the moment it sees something vaguely evil looking or your solar system bankrupting snowflake bot turn into a pile of molten metal because it is so retarded it can't do shit.

Isn't it illegal to have androids?

These guys are my 30k bread and butter user. Thallax and Castellax cohorts all day, every day. I started the army because damn they look good. I keep using it because of the look on Legion players faces when they get in range and unload the Omnisiah's wrath on their poor, underdeveloped minds.