Centaur Utility Vehicle
The Centaur AKA the Imperium Special Delivery Taxi is a small armored utility vehicle that is used in a wide variety of battlefield roles and its relative cheapness, versatility and easy maintenance means that it is a pretty damned common vehicle in the IoM. How versatile are they? A Centaur can be a Command Squad transport, a communications vehicle, a light troop transport, a supply vehicle and sometimes used as an artillery tow vehicle during prolonged sieges of fixed enemy emplacements. This makes them a poor man's Salamander Command Vehicle, a poor man's Basilisk and a poor man's Chimera. The vehicle has a normal crew complement of only two which is a driver and a gunner, however its controls is so damned easy to learn that it can be crewed by just one in special circumstances. During sieges the Centaur can tow the lighter pieces of artillery and the crew can ride in the back until they reach their destination. Up to five passengers can ride in a Centaur's crew compartment like a glorified taxi.
The Centaur's main role is similar to that of a Trojan and the Atlas. However the Centaur is somewhat unique in that it uses a independent chassis that is not ripped straight out of a Leman Russ, Rhino and Chimera. In order to make its job more effective, the vehicle has a very powerful engine capable of pulling artillery pieces such as the Heavy Mortar Cannon and the Quad Cannon across the battlefield. It can also tow the much heavier Earthshaker Cannon and Medusa Siege Gun if you can't be bothered to buy an actual Basilisk, but only on flat terrain. A Centaur can also be assigned to a squad of Imperial Guard Grenadiers as a transport. In this case the vehicle is also modified with extra armor plating to protect its crew and passengers from enemy fire. When not being used to tow heavy weapons, the vehicle is capable of moving very quickly, at speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour off-road.
The Centaur is lightly armed with only a single Pintle-mounted Heavy stubber due to its role as a back line support vehicle, but can accept any heavy or special weapons that its passengers are carrying. The vehicle can also be upgraded with camouflage netting, extra armor, a mine sweeper, rough terrain modifications, a searchlight, track guards, and a smoke launcher. All in all, its a pretty decent vehicle and is considered a step up from the Trojan. It is the quintessential Jack-of-all-Trades vehicle and should be played as such.
The Centaur is quite clearly closely modeled on the real-world Universal Carrier(also known as a Bren Gun Carrier) of WWII, a British fully-tracked carrier that like the Centaur was extremely versatile and was used for everything from troop transport to a machine gun carrier. The Nazis even used captured ones as Tank Destroyers by fitting half-a-dozen anti-tank rocket launchers onto it.
On a more interesting note, its versatility as the Imperial Swiss Army Tank makes the Centaur incredibly popular with the Death Korps of Krieg as it is used in the thousands during the Siege of Vraks and the Orphean War.
