The Arlatax Battle-automata are amongst the most aggressive constructs the Mechanicum fields, war-engines built around volatile reactor systems that channel incoming punishment into raw destructive frenzy. The harder an Arlatax is pressed, the more furiously it strikes back, its lightning-wreathed limbs and integrated guns lashing out with mounting violence until either the automaton or its foe is destroyed.
Deployed as close-support engines, they stalk ahead of the slower battle-maniples to duel enemy walkers and shatter fortified positions. Their machine-spirits are notoriously difficult to master, and only skilled adepts dare command them, for an Arlatax pushed past its tolerances becomes a whirlwind of indiscriminate slaughter. In the forge-wars of the Heresy they were unleashed where a foe had to be broken quickly, an embodiment of the Cult Mechanicus' capacity for sudden, overwhelming aggression.