The Skitarii are the cybernetic foot-soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the tech-guard legions that defend the forge worlds and march to war in the name of the Omnissiah. Once ordinary humans, they have been remade through extensive bionic augmentation, their bodies stripped of frailty and rebuilt with weaponised limbs, augur senses, and cortex implants that bind them utterly to the will of their tech-priest masters.
Skitarii are divided into disciplined maniples, from the close-ranked Vanguard whose very presence corrodes flesh with radiation, to the far-striking Rangers who slay foes at impossible distances with galvanic and transuranic weaponry. Their minds are largely purged of individuality, filled instead with battle-cant and litanies of destruction transmitted through the noosphere.
In battle the Skitarii advance with mechanical precision, chanting binary hymns as they unleash the fury of the Machine God upon the enemies of Mars. They are the tireless legions of the Cult Mechanicus, expendable yet relentless, the iron fist of the priesthood of the machine.