Is it just my imagination, but does it seem that the more realistic you attempt to make a middle ages style walking robot the more unrealistic it seems?
I guess it’s because obviously we’re all looking at it in a real world history context?
Things like pistons to move limbs and flexible cables etc. They are possible in warhammer tech, but the more I attempt to think ‘ok, how would this join work without this’, the more I have to rely on the whole 'just ‘cause it’s magical’ excuse to make it seem more warhammery.
Looking at the Warmachine range, almost all the warjacks should be possible in warhammer tech as it’s based on steam power afaik (+ a bit of magic for intelligence). Yet would they seem too advanced?
Human-style locomotion is a terrible design for any kind of machine. This is just a fact of physics. We’re unstable and unbalanced and we only walk as well as we do because of aeons of practice by our ancestors and because the evolutionary advantages we derive from it (better field of vision, stamina, arms free to manipulate things) outweighed the evolutionary pressures against it. If you try to build a machine like that, it’s monstrously challenging - indeed, the only reason to do it is to make a human-like robot because you think it’s worthwhile doing that - and it’s an even worse idea for something intended for combat since a bipedal gait has all kinds of vulnerabilities. Just shoot the hips, you know?
So the reason these things never existed in history is because they don’t work. No one in their right mind would make anything like a 40K Dreadnought or Titan or a Warmachine Warjack and expect it to do anything but fall on its arse and get blown up.