Vorax Automata

The Vorax Automata were the hunting hounds of the Legio Cybernetica, swift quadrupedal war-robots built to range ahead of the slower battle-line and run down whatever fled before it. Where the Castellax ground forward with grim patience, the Vorax bounded across the battlefield on piston-driven legs, its cortex-mind fixed on the simple, savage imperative to pursue and destroy. It bore rotor cannon to scythe down massed infantry and lightning-tipped claws to tear apart whatever it caught, and it hunted in packs that fell upon isolated units and broke them before support could arrive. Cheaper and more numerous than the heavier automata, Vorax cohorts screened the advance, harried the enemy's flanks, and exploited every breach the main line opened. Their scuttling, predatory movement unnerved even hardened troops, for there was nothing of mercy or hesitation in a Vorax: only the relentless machine-logic of the hunt. In the Schism they proved as eager to hunt Martian kin as any other prey.