Alliances2

The Cult Mechanicus abides no bargain with those who strip the fallen for scrap. Against any gang whose economy is built on scavenging the dead — the corpse-robbers and metal-takers who would prise a sacred machine apart for parts — no map-level non-aggression is possible. Where the Cult and such a gang would hold adjacent territory on the campaign map, one border between them must always be contested; the maniple presses the claim rather than share ground with those who desecrate the wreck of a fallen construct. To the Cult a broken machine is a soul to be reconsecrated, never salvage to be sold.

The two armies of one Omnissiah stand together. When a Cult Mechanicus maniple and a Skitarii maniple of the same forge world both hold ground on a contested world, they may muster as a single combined force for a battle fought over a shared objective. In that pact the Cult is the anvil: it supplies the construct wall and the Rites of Repair the Skitarii's mobile gunline manoeuvres behind. This is a campaign muster only — neither gang joins the other's battle roster permanently, and no Skitarii fighter enters a normal Cult gang list. The alliance opens only once both Mechanicus gangs hold ground on the same world, in the local phase before the Endgame, and the combined maniple is capped and fielded for that single game alone.