Chaos Androids in 30K?

[Pacific81]

Hey guys - was painting up a few of these little dudes (Chaos Androids) the other day and it made me wonder have Androids (as a concept) remained in 30K (or 40k for that matter) or has the concept just disappeared? These are the Epic miniatures (image from miniwars.co.uk). I believe the concept was that they were a sort of 'rogue AI', perhaps a bit like a Dreadclaw, or were otherwise daemon-infused, and so were ultimately really unreliable. They had one of Epic's most hilarious rules where you had to roll off each turn to see who got to give them orders (meaning that they often just did a lot of sitting around!)

 

 

These are based on the earlier Space Crusade miniature (pictured below). From memory there may have been a 40k miniature also (metal) which I am sure I once saw in the pages of a White Dwarf, from late RT era but I can't say for sure. 

 

 

To me it seems very likely the idea (which is essentially 'Terminator') was eventually subsumed into Necrons - the early Necron sculpts in particular looking very similar. There was no mention of Chaos Androids by the time the 2nd edition 40k Chaos Codex arrived. 

But, has there been any mention in any of the Black Books or other material since? I thought it would be worth asking, as GW has been so busy plumbing the depths of the old lore and bringing it back with a new twist. Or, has the concept of this just been taken and expanded upon into the 'Dark Mechanicum' and similar?

Edited January 2, 2023 by Pacific81
broken link

[Cactus]

I don't know which image you tried to link to on that blog but I suspect the metal model was the first necron, given away with White Dwarf in about 97 or 98 before 3rd ed launched in 99. Chaos androids haven't been mentioned since that I can remember.

 

The visual design of Chaos androids became necrons and the corrupted tech concept as you say is now the realm of the Dark Mechanicum.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Cactus

[LameBeard]

Isn’t the Gaunts Ghosts story where they end up in this complex which turns out to be a corrupted STC-type-factory which then starts churning out what are effectively Chaos Androids? I thought that was a ‘soft’ way of rehabilitating them into the lore.

[Pacific81]

Thanks for the replies guys! @Cactus - that makes sense. I guess once you had Necrons available it kind of didn't make sense to have them in a chaos force any more. You would have lots of "why do you have Necrons fighting in your chaos cult are they friendly ones?" which would definitely have been confusing! Perhaps there is a little room for them in 30k as the Necrons haven't woken up yet, although still could lead to the same confusion! And then someone comes along who knows The Terminator but that's all, and they have absolutely no idea what's going on!

@LameBeard - that sounds like a very cool story! I will have to look it up, I did enjoy Gaunts Ghosts but its a few years since I have read any of them. 

[LameBeard]

It’s one of the early ones I think. I guess the implication is originally they were non-chaos androids, but that could be pre-imperial, and would have been suppressed by the edict banning machine intelligence had they been discovered. I prefer @Cadmus Tyro’s take on the Men of Iron.  

[Noserenda]

They are effectively tiny automata, later daemon engines so i could see them getting models as but of the Dark mech whenever they get around to them, GW/FW have been on a bit of a retro kick recently after all.

But yeah Necrons and to some extent Thallax have stolen their role.

[Brother Sutek]

This idea is now very much in the realm of Dark Mechanicus and even they have barely scratched the surface as the stories tend be of giant warmachines being tainted and less toaster sized doohickies. For all othe chaos forces they seem to be doubling down on more organic changes which again is interesting but limited.