From the resplendent balcony of Einar’s throne room, Kato Katsuro watches the parade. He composed every note of this martial symphony himself—a military masterpiece carefully calibrated to instill pride in Einar’s subjects and strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. First to march through the kara-mon and onto the parade grounds are Einar’s exalted samurai. The courtyard echoes with the thunder of hooves and the rhythmic tramp of feet as Einar’s mightiest Human warriors take the square. Despite the grandeur of the spectacle, Katsuro allows a flicker of a frown to crease his face. In the old days, he could have filled the entire courtyard with thousands of samurai. Now they number but a few hundred—the tip of a spear thrust into battle time and time again.

His reverie breaks as a legion of gold-masked Kyrie dive from the sky, alighting on parapets and crenelations in eerie silence. They stand motionless, twin swords crossed over bronzed chests, still as statues. Next come the ashigaru foot soldiers—thousands of them—yaris leveled, tanegashima gleaming. Once, Katsuro would have called their drilled precision immaculate. But that was before he beheld the Skordyre. He has saved Einar’s newest host for the crescendo.

As the samurai and ashigaru pass beyond the far gates, the square begins to fill with Skordyre infantry. They glint in the summer sun, emerald exoskeletons gleaming beneath hammered bronze breastplates. Rank after serried rank pours forth, each step synchronized, each movement replicated with mechanical exactness. They march in perfect unison—a perfection no Human host could hope to replicate, even with ten lifetimes to drill.

The parade grounds are swiftly overrun but the Skordyre just keep coming, tens of thousands strong, an unstoppable tide of insectile automatons.

Katsuro gives his soldiery one final salute and turns away. His heart is glad to see such a mighty host at Einar’s command, but he has to wonder—what place does mankind have in this new Imperium?

Skordyre Infantry is available in the Skordyre Soldiers Common Army Expansion!