>>5346978The closest thing the Mechanicum consistently use for Dreadnoughts but not Dreadnoughts is the Domitar, but Arlatax predecessor that it would be based off of actually comes from Xana would be even better. Domitars are cool, I love their Graviton Hammer Knuckle attachments and think Talos would likely want them on his Kastellan arms. Those are true automata though.
Otherwise, as for "dreadnought for a human pilot/brain" something like that exists in the lore, but it's definitely not within our reach right now and would take a boatload of luck and effort.
In Leman Russ: The Great Wolf book, the planet Dulanian had infantry to vehicle sized "mech armor" which pretty much functioned like the name sounds. Not as agile as space marines, and their human pilots didn't think as fast, but they packed a punch
The Lords of Gardinaal from the Ferrus Manus books also had big hulking ones for their leader caste, just one of which was able to hold its own against Ferrus Manus for a time (it was bigger than him, but also very fast).
Both hailed from before the Old Night as human tech and thus were STC/Federation compliant.
I want to believe that QM could just substitute those things with the Datasheets of XV8 Crisis and Riptides because they seem to have fought similarly like those units in the books. However, unless QM even wants to include that let alone that we are so fortunate to have Russ/Manus let us know about their juicy tech finds, it's highly unlikely. But not impossible.
(Imo proof that humans can and did mechs thousands of years before those blue aliens even learned plumbing is cool. No one can claim that the Tau is any more advanced than humanity, they are just late to the party. Plus armigers are too big to fit in some hallways as battlesuits, and they're too heavy for jumpjets)
