Some vehicles are not fully enclosed, but expose their crews to a hostile universe. There are many reasons for this - to give reconnaissance units a good field of vision, make embarking and disembarking passengers easier, or it may simply be impractical to enclose the crew. While crews and embarked passengers on open-topped vehicles have more freedom of movement and better arcs of vision, the lack of an enclosed crew space inevitably means that they and their vehicle are more vulnerable to incoming fire.

Most of the fastest vehicles on the battlefield are skimmers, such as I Space Marine Land Speeders. These are able to avoid terrain which I would slow down conventional vehicles. However, a few wheeled or I tracked vehicles are also capable of high speeds and are classed as I Fast Vehicles, mostly due to either their light weight or extremely powerful engines.

On any battlefield, there are places where conventional vehicles cannot go - built-up areas, dense forests, narrow tunnels, and so on. For this reason, many armies use vehicles that are propelled by two, or sometimes more, mechanical legs. These vehicles are usually capable of carrying as many weapon systems as a tank on a significantly smaller and lighter chassis. They combine the armour and weaponry of a tank with the manoeuvrability ot an infantryman.

White most vehicles travel across the ground on wheels, tracks or legs, some advanced machines are fitted with jets or anti-gravity drives that enable them to swoop and hover a few metres above the battlefield. This is not true flight, but rather a limited version of it. Often skimmers will also be categorised as Fast but this is not always the case.

Tanks are a common sight on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. Most races field some kind of heavily I armed and armoured vehicle, whether it be the huge and lumbering Leman Russ battle tanks of the I Imperial Guard, or the sleek and sophisticated grav-tanks of the Eldar. Tanks are often fitted for multi-role capability which will commonly include troop transportation, tank-hunting capability and infantry support.