The Archaeopter Stratoraptor is a heavily armed variant of the Adeptus Mechanicus' distinctive ornithopter gunships, its rotor-and-wing configuration lending it an eerie, avian silhouette as it wheels above the battle. Where transport variants ferry Skitarii into the fray, the Stratoraptor is a dedicated gun-platform, festooned with heavy phosphor blasters, cannons, and rockets to rain destruction on ground targets and rival aircraft alike.
Controlled by rites of ancient flight-doctrina, it also releases swarms of drifting cyber-familiars and servo-skulls that mark targets and disrupt the foe. The Mechanicus prize the Archaeopter pattern precisely because so much of its function is a half-understood mystery, its true STC lineage lost to time, yet its lethality is beyond doubt. Deployed to establish air superiority and shatter armoured spearheads, the Stratoraptor screams over the battlefield as a hunting bird of the Machine God, loosing its payload and banking away before the enemy can bring it down.
Order of battle
