Where the Rangers hold the line at distance, the Vanguard exist to close with the enemy and destroy them. These Skitarii are rebuilt for the horrors of short-ranged combat, their bodies hardened against the very radiation their weapons unleash. The radium carbine is their instrument of death, spraying charged particles that poison and disintegrate living tissue, killing not only through impact but through creeping, invisible corruption.
Such is the toxicity of a Vanguard cohort that the ground they occupy becomes hazardous to any unshielded foe. Their augmetics leak radiation as a matter of course, and enemies who engage them at close range find themselves sickened by mere proximity. Governed by their doctrina imperatives, the Vanguard advance without hesitation or fear, driving into enemy positions with mechanical resolve.
Vanguard cohorts often carry specialist weaponry to break enemy armour and fortifications, from arc weapons that overload machinery to plasma calivers of terrible power. They are the hammer of the Skitarii legion, an inexorable tide of cybernetic soldiery that advances through fire and death, leaving irradiated ruin in its wake.
Order of battle
