As the WK-3 sub-automata swarms commenced their operations, the Necron remains scattered throughout the various corridors were recovered and ferried back to the factory district with preternatural speed. When encountering the Tech-Priests and servitors who were also scavenging the battlefield, the WK-3s would utilize their superior kinetic output and low profiles to simply bowl over the competition, scooping up the Necron scrap before speeding away.
Confronted by these small, antisocial machines, many of the Tech-Priests expressed a profound sense of bewilderment, followed quickly by an urge to disassemble them.
As their objectives neared completion, over a dozen WK-3s came to a halt near the production line. They were trailed by a large, inquisitive crowd of Tech-Priests, but the moment the gathered clergy saw Cawl standing at the factory entrance, leaning on his Omnissian Power Axe, their excitement was instantly tempered by reason.
"Perhaps these are new creations of the Archmagos... or some manner of experimental technology."
"Bleep— The Archmagos seizing Necron scrap for himself seems... highly irregular."
After a series of brief, piercing binary exchanges, the following Priests beat a respectful and disciplined retreat.
Outside of the corridors cleared by Axion and his Aegis Protector, there was precious little Necron scrap to be found. Aside from a few Necron Warriors so utterly pulverized that their phase-out protocols failed, the xenos left almost nothing behind.
Once the salvaged materials were stockpiled, the small robots formed orderly queues beside the raw material intake. As soon as the Necron wreckage was fully deconstructed, they would be the next in line for the furnace.
Watching from the side, his vocal synthesizers murmuring prayers for the Omnissiah's blessing, Cawl observed the Necron scrap being rapidly processed. Soon, larger, more imposing silhouettes began to emerge from the production line.
Twelve of these massive mechanical units were manufactured, each standing at a uniform height of six meters. These war machines differed fundamentally from the Aegis Protectors. They possessed a six-legged hexapedal chassis, reminiscent of a Skorpekh Destroyer, but their upper torsos were entirely non-humanoid. Their signature feature consisted of four independently articulating mechanical arms capable of omnidirectional fire or converging for devastating saturation strikes.
These were the Erratana-class Armored Wardens.
These medium-scale units had once formed the backbone of the Iron Men's planetary surface forces. The recent encounter with the Necrons had granted Axion sufficient tactical data: energy weapons could annihilate Necron forces, but the output had to be overwhelming. Failing that, solid-projectile weaponry was the only alternative.
Axion was uncertain if he would encounter another functional Standard Production Line in the future. Rather than worrying about the logistics of replenishing physical ammunition, it was more pragmatic to produce high-output energy weapons now. While he could analyze the structural design of a Standard Production Line, much of his internal data remained fragmented. Even with a structural schematic, the specific manufacturing sequences were often missing. Furthermore, a production line required a massive Industrial Mother-Machine for its own fabrication.
Constructing a full Standard Factory, or even a single line from scratch, was currently an impossibility. Technical research and fundamental R&D were not Axion's primary directives. His design purpose was the reconfiguration of existing data, the utilization of standard factories to manifest entities tailored to specific theaters of war, and the strategic command of those assets in battle.
The hallmark of Iron Man warfare was an inexhaustible tide of automata advancing without fear of death or exhaustion. This was the precise nature of the Erratana-class Armored Wardens now stepping off the assembly line.
The first six units were outfitted with two light Particle Shredder Cannons and two Particle Disintegration Blades on their four arms, protected by directional energy shields. These were specifically designed by Axion to deal with Necron Warriors, which he categorized as equivalents to light combat automata.
The latter six units were equipped with twin Atomic Pulse Cannons and Deflector Field Shields. Unlike conventional energy shields that projected a static defensive barrier, these deflector fields utilized an exotic geometry that caused energy to flow at high velocities around the unit. The design was intended to catch both solid projectiles and energy bolts in the kinetic slipstream of the field, redirecting the attacks away from the chassis. While it consumed less power, its defensive efficacy remained formidable.
The Atomic Pulse Cannons possessed sufficient yield to neutralize Necron Skorpekh and Lokhust Destroyers. Even the hardened Lords of the xenos could be torn asunder by the concentrated fire of several such units.
This configuration was a necessary compromise. The Erratana-class lacked the internal volume to house a power plant capable of simultaneously fueling twin Atomic Pulse Cannons and a standard high-intensity energy shield, even with their standard-issue Quantum Reactance Cores. Given his lack of numbers, Axion was forced to prioritize raw firepower.
Axion regarded the Necron scrap as rightful spoils of war, but the quantity was insufficient. The resource consumption of an Iron Man legion was staggering. His decision to manufacture the Erratana Wardens rather than Enforcer-class Heavy Tanks was not merely due to resource scarcity, but also because the colossal scale of the latter exceeded the capacity of a medium-sized production line.
As for Titans, he might have scraped together enough resources by dismantling this entire Ark Mechanicus, but that was patently unrealistic. Such God-Engines were not "standard units" and lacked independent STC templates in his database.
Axion briefly considered adding "deformation mechanisms" to the Erratana Wardens. After all, ripping the heads off Necrons had proven to be a highly efficient method of permanent neutralization. Compared to the massive energy expenditure required to disintegrate or atomize a xenos target from a distance, a specialist unit designed for "mechanical decapitation" might be more cost-effective.
However, after querying his internal archives, he discarded the notion. He found a schematic for a heavy component-manipulator designated B-8, which resembled a multi-tentacled organism from ancient Terra—an "octopus." Its flexible supports and omnidirectional claws were ill-suited for the modern battlefield. Lacking shields, it would be trivial for Gauss flayers to strip it to its core before it ever closed the distance. Such a specialized target would be prioritized and destroyed as "battlefield refuse."
Cawl stared at the Erratana-class Armored Wardens, his remaining biological eye nearly bulging from its socket. They looked like miniaturized Excindio Battle-Automata. Though their upper chassis differed from the records of the "Scourge" units used by the Dark Angels, their profile was terrifyingly similar to those forbidden relics of the Dark Age.
Cawl did not realize that the Excindio and the Erratana were fundamentally different concepts. The Erratana's defining traits were its streamlined weaponry, lower energy requirements, and minimized resource cost. Had Axion attempted to build Reaver-Eviscerator Armed Reconnaissance Automata, he would have found himself critically short of materials. While the Reaver-Eviscerator possessed far greater lethality, its role as a scout required massive auxiliary power and a host of complex sensor modules that the Necron scrap could not yet provide.