Aeldari Skitterers

## Skitterers

One of the smallest of the Aeldari God Machines, Skitterers are fast moving units designed to eliminate enemy infantry. Rather simplistic intelligences, even animalistic, they are knife limbed quadrupeds that stand nearly twice the height of an Aeldari; Though they ‘scuttle’ and ‘crawl’ at a low gait. Skitterers are not scouts, they are there to eliminate heavy infantry and rely on simplicity and numbers to achieve it; Their knife limbs able to cut through thick armour and a simple railgun within their central mass is more than capable in scything through power armour. The Skitterers’ body holds a sizable amount of excess wraithbone crystal on their back that the Skitterer can slice off and fire through the cannon. In drawn out battles they can and will collect battlefield ‘junk’ to fire through instead and have been known to actively repurpose munitions they find on opportunity (Some known to pile it on their backs). Skitterers are known to be unnervingly fast, even to the Aeldari, though awkward in melee such that they have no advantage within, they simply are not outpaced in the sprint. Skitterers are fragile, armoured but unshielded, they were never meant to be a long standing presence but have endured beyond their tenor of the War in Heaven.

## History

### War in Heaven

Skitterers were used en masse in the War of Heaven to break and destroy the Necrontyr infantry screen, or at least tie them up. They made excellent skirmishers and were expendable thanks to their simplicity. They were also lethal to any target that underestimated them, and critical to many victories throughout the long war. Their simplistic AI did not issue any sense of nobility or higher function, they were closer to working animals and treated as such by the Aeldari.

Such that at the war's end most of the survivors were ‘adopted’ by Aeldari Houses and kept.

### Obscurity

The technology to build or maintain Skitterers was never lost, they simply went out of fashion. They suffered massive attrition in the war, but their numbers were enough that they were still a not uncommon sight. They became ornaments, relics, conversation pieces or convenient security options. While the Drukhari were not one to keep them initially, they have become a particularly highly sought commodity of theirs; They make loyal and impartial guardians in addition to the reasons above. For those reasons in the era beyond the fall Skitterers are often seen alone or in small groups as the ‘lap dogs’ of Corsair Princes, Archons, or prominent members of Aeldari family houses.

## Specifications

Standing at 2 metres high if they stretch to their full height, Skitterers have long slender limbs and a small hollow body. Their lower leg half's resemble knives, which can interchangeably switch from a soft to a hard edge. The hollow shell of their body holds within a simple railgun that has a modular calibre. Rarely during the War of Heaven but more often with post fall productions, a Skitterer will instead be armed with a needle weapon, or similar splinter or shuriken cannon.

## Combat Role

While in the War in Heaven Skitterers may have been massed skirmishers and infantry elimination screens, post fall they are honour guard and companions.