Yeah, but the comment was the relic for melee rerolls. Which means he needs to be 6" away AFTER the charge. i dont see that happening unless the dragoons are somehow alive turn 3-4 because it'll take that long for him to hoof it up there or get out of a transport up there. Be epic if that new rumormill is indeed admech and its some character on "bike" lol then he could keep up easily for that relic
Vineheart01 wrote: Yeah, but the comment was the relic for melee rerolls.
Which means he needs to be 6" away AFTER the charge.
i dont see that happening unless the dragoons are somehow alive turn 3-4 because it'll take that long for him to hoof it up there or get out of a transport up there.
Be epic if that new rumormill is indeed admech and its some character on "bike" lol then he could keep up easily for that relic
infiltrate both the dragoons and the manip, 9"
advance the manip, 7" + 4"
move up the dragoons 10"
charge, then fight from two rows 10"
the manip can easily be in range for his aura, but you gotta pay a cp for it.
Vineheart01 wrote: Technically if you infiltrate him you dont have his aura.
His aura is at the start of the movement phase, hes not on the board till the end.
clandestine infiltration leaves him on the board.... It happens pregame
Vineheart01 wrote: Yeah, but the comment was the relic for melee rerolls.
Which means he needs to be 6" away AFTER the charge.
i dont see that happening unless the dragoons are somehow alive turn 3-4 because it'll take that long for him to hoof it up there or get out of a transport up there.
Be epic if that new rumormill is indeed admech and its some character on "bike" lol then he could keep up easily for that relic
Even without the Stygies, Manipulus speed is 8+d6" with the 6" aura from relic or his own bolster. Meaning 14+d6" aura range. Assuming Dragoons charge happening at 9" you can catcg their 5" base regardless of the second row. With a second row it's another 5", meaning additional 10" from the actual combat target.
To be honest, I don't think you need that much movement.
I personally have been studying how Cyle Thompson, Lewis Stolburg, and Mark Hertel play. All of them play mechanized AdMech, with 3-6 Boats and 1-2 Drills. Cyle and Lewis run Cawl as a Warlord; Cyle is 100% Mars; Lewis only runs his tanks as Mars (but might be forced to change because of painting rules) and has Ryza or Stygies supplements; Hertel plays Stygies.
Thompson plays a very midboard-focused game. A large part of his game plan is aggressively moving embarked infantry onto objectives to score the bonus. He doesn't really care if they blow up his vehicles because he moves into spots where he can emergency disembark Rangers and Fulgurites through walls and crates to avoid follow-up LOS. He always tries to get his Fulgurite save improved with an early kill as well (he burns CP to double-fight), then spends time just hunkering down with them using Acquisition. His single Drill is usually reserved to Deep Strike to achieve Recon and bonus objective on turn two; his shooting is focused around removing threats and setting up for the next turn.
Hertel is pretty much the opposite. He runs Stygies and fills his list with Calivers. He just shoves the Boats upboard to physically block assault and disembarks the Calivers behind them to do trades. His tanks murder anything that is mobile. Alas, he recently has been playing more Marines.
Stolburg is more balanced and has a high degree of troop variety; you see him bringing Boats, Drills, Calivers, Infiltrators, Breachers, Dragoons, you name it. He plays aggressively as well, especially with trying to get his Boats into melee. He uses Deep Strike much more than the other two; he drops Drills with Calivers and Infiltrators to just dump wounds onto a target. But otherwise, his game is much less predictable tournament to tournament.
I don't think Manipulus as the bearer of the aura will ever be outrun, and that was my only point. Maybe in turn 3, or when Dragoons have Advanced on Dunestrider.
As for the mobile Admech - this approach has merit, and I start to see why people switch to spam boats lately. Having only 4, and wanting to run 2 Belleros at least, I can't go full in. But I'm already seeing benefits with fast obsecs moving across the board. If only I could get 2 more I would be running obsecs and Fulgurites at the same time. Stygies Breachers Infiltrated into mid-board was also a happy accident I discovered previous weekend to be very handy - although I only have 15 models (and was fielding 10 that event), I could grab middle ruins and threaten overly optimistic Titanic from getting into threat range and LoS.
I agree that Manipulus will not ever be outrun by Dragoons for MOVEMENT. However, charging and then fighting are totally different matters.
Yeah, Breacher spam was fierce a few months back when nobody was rocking power armor. But now, everyone has something set aside for killing Centurions, who have the same profile as Breachers. So it's not as good as it used to be. Mechanized works really well because it marries the durability of our transports with the ObSec and efficient weapons of our Skitarii.
I run 2 Boats and 2 Drills myself, but if I am going to switch to Mars, I might just do 3 Boats and 2 Drills to make sure all 30 Skitarii and 20 Fulgurites can fit. One nice thing about that setup is that I can Deep Strike one of the Drills for Recon purposes and use the other as a shield. Downside though is that Mars is not nearly as hard to kill as Stygies (-1 to hit and T8 is infuriating) and there's no opportunity to infiltrate, which is useful situationally; I am not the type to just shove the entire army forward. But hey, Shroudpsalm and one other Canticle at all times is nice.
Suzuteo wrote: I agree that Manipulus will not ever be outrun by Dragoons for MOVEMENT. However, charging and then fighting are totally different matters.
Yeah, Breacher spam was fierce a few months back when nobody was rocking power armor. But now, everyone has something set aside for killing Centurions, who have the same profile as Breachers. So it's not as good as it used to be. Mechanized works really well because it marries the durability of our transports with the ObSec and efficient weapons of our Skitarii.
I run 2 Boats and 2 Drills myself, but if I am going to switch to Mars, I might just do 3 Boats and 2 Drills to make sure all 30 Skitarii and 20 Fulgurites can fit. One nice thing about that setup is that I can Deep Strike one of the Drills for Recon purposes and use the other as a shield. Downside though is that Mars is not nearly as hard to kill as Stygies (-1 to hit and T8 is infuriating) and there's no opportunity to infiltrate, which is useful situationally; I am not the type to just shove the entire army forward. But hey, Shroudpsalm and one other Canticle at all times is nice.
Drill doesn't benefit from canticles anyway. So either Ryza or Stygies for me.
Suzuteo wrote: I agree that Manipulus will not ever be outrun by Dragoons for MOVEMENT. However, charging and then fighting are totally different matters.
Manipulus will never be outrun by Dragoons even after the charge if you are positioning correctly.
The Dragoon base is MASSIVE, especially in length. And the back-most Dragoon doesn’t need to be within 1” of the enemy it’s fighting, it only needs to be within 1” of another Dragoon in the same unit that is itself within 1” of the enemy. Therefore the Manipulus can stand close to 15” away from the charge target and still be in range to buff a unit of Dragoons in which all models can fight.
Suzuteo wrote: I’ve had my Dragoons exit my Mask radius before. All it takes is a bad advance. But yeah, generally speaking, you can manage it if you try,
Even a 1” advance should be fine.
They start together, since both moved 9” from the deployment edge.
Dragoons move 11” (10+1), Manipulus moves 9” (6+1, then +1+1 foe the advance), so Manipulus is now 2” behind the dragoons.
Dragoons charge a target 12” away (though they have a +1 to their roll, they cannot choose a target outside 12”) and sit 1” away to be in combat.
The back-most Dragoon stays 1” away from the front-most Dragoon.
Now their bases reach back 2” and two Dragoon bases back from the enemy. How long is a Dragoon base in inches? 3? 4? Let’s say 3.
So the enemy was 14” away from the Manipulus to start. Now the Dragoons span 8” back from that unit (first Dragoon is 1” away, its base is 3”, the next Dragoon is 1” back, its base is 3” again). Manipulus is 6” back from that 8” point, so they fit precisely on the edge of the aura with the maximum charge distance and the minimum advance roll.
However, our movement is never this precise so you’re likely to lose half an inch or so from the fact that the Manipulus started slightly to the side of the Dragoons and had to move inward slightly to end up precisely back from the back-most Dragoon in a straight line.
So seems like a very niche situation (basically just the charge target being a full 12” away and the Manipulus rolling an advance of 1) that makes it undoable. If a Dragoon base is longer than 3” then it might never be possible to charge something the Manipulus’s aura can’t be in range of after an advance of 1!
Double checked, Dragoons base is 4" long. Meaning in base to base contact Dragoons are adding 8" to the aura range effectively. 9.999" if you're trying to take advantage of an "within an inch" combat rules.
So as long as you deploy the Manipulus right by the Dragoons you should be very nearly guaranteed to be able to have them in the aura for any possible first turn charge. But yeah, deployment does need to have them close, and you do need to leave one hanging back within 1” of the frontline fighters.
Oh yes. My "fun" list is Stygies assault with Hoplites and Dragoons. Definitely infiltrate the Manipulus behind the transports.
But competitively, it's risky. You have to decide what you are infiltrating before you know for sure who is going first or where everything is. At the same time, you have to consider if you want to do Prepared Positions or not, but you still need to save enough CP to swing twice and do maybe two turns of Acquisition. (I tend to not do it, but I can see the advantage of having essentially three Canticles.)
I actually think infiltrating the Manipulus is a protection rather than a risk - if they seize and go first then you just use the 9” move to put him out of LoS.
As for CP, I’m not running breacher lists so never use Acquisition.
Well, he's always next to a brick of Dragoons and a Drill, so I find that he is usually pretty safe.
Fulgurites abuse Acquisition. You can advance them, Acquisition, and just watch them fall back. A lot of people don't even bother trying to shoot a -1 to hit, 2++/5+++. Though I guess with Mars, there is no minus to hit, but you get my point.
Suzuteo wrote: Well, he's always next to a brick of Dragoons and a Drill, so I find that he is usually pretty safe.
Fulgurites abuse Acquisition. You can advance them, Acquisition, and just watch them fall back. A lot of people don't even bother trying to shoot a -1 to hit, 2++/5+++. Though I guess with Mars, there is no minus to hit, but you get my point.
I’ve not managed a first turn charge with fulgurites ever, let alone one that nets them a unit kill and leaves them on an objective for Acquisition. So haven’t encountered this situation! My opponents may be too savvy to my use of Fulgurites.
Suzuteo wrote: Oh yes. My "fun" list is Stygies assault with Hoplites and Dragoons. Definitely infiltrate the Manipulus behind the transports.
But competitively, it's risky. You have to decide what you are infiltrating before you know for sure who is going first or where everything is. At the same time, you have to consider if you want to do Prepared Positions or not, but you still need to save enough CP to swing twice and do maybe two turns of Acquisition. (I tend to not do it, but I can see the advantage of having essentially three Canticles.)
Why is this, yeah you spend it before you know who's going first etc, but you decide where to move them after you know, and if you know you're spending the CP pregame you can spend that CP without worry and choose not to move the units.
In my eyes it's the same as using servitor manipul and the extra invulnerable save and never needing it, you factor it in when list building.
The little test of Ruststalkers in both loadouts. And... they still suck combat wise, no surprise. AP0 on their weapons is a joke, no points drop will change that.
They might have merits however. 1: They can perform as a cheaper Elite slots filler. 2: 8" movement is no joke - they don't need transport to go into places, especially in Stygies. Their speed nad Infantry keyword allows for early spread on the table, giving access to otherwise unobtainable objective markers - a huge thing for ETC. And they can perform as a cheap carnifex - 30 attacks with S5, mortal wounds on 6s and high speed will attract more attention then they deserve.
dadamowsky wrote: The little test of Ruststalkers in both loadouts. And... they still suck combat wise, no surprise. AP0 on their weapons is a joke, no points drop will change that.
They might have merits however. 1: They can perform as a cheaper Elite slots filler. 2: 8" movement is no joke - they don't need transport to go into places, especially in Stygies. Their speed nad Infantry keyword allows for early spread on the table, giving access to otherwise unobtainable objective markers - a huge thing for ETC. And they can perform as a cheap carnifex - 30 attacks with S5, mortal wounds on 6s and high speed will attract more attention then they deserve.
i've tried them only once and their problem really cannot be fixed by points unless they become basically free.
i like the idea that Ruststalkers are basically mortalwound dealers as the odds of them doing damage outside of that is unlikely...
but it shouldnt be on a 6+
Suzuteo wrote: Oh yes. My "fun" list is Stygies assault with Hoplites and Dragoons. Definitely infiltrate the Manipulus behind the transports.
But competitively, it's risky. You have to decide what you are infiltrating before you know for sure who is going first or where everything is. At the same time, you have to consider if you want to do Prepared Positions or not, but you still need to save enough CP to swing twice and do maybe two turns of Acquisition. (I tend to not do it, but I can see the advantage of having essentially three Canticles.)
Why is this, yeah you spend it before you know who's going first etc, but you decide where to move them after you know, and if you know you're spending the CP pregame you can spend that CP without worry and choose not to move the units.
In my eyes it's the same as using servitor manipul and the extra invulnerable save and never needing it, you factor it in when list building.
Spending say 4 CP on turn one to infiltrate is a strong option, but it carries opportunity costs:
1) I am running Fulgurites now, and making them swing twice and then Acquisitions is VERY expensive. I think virtually all of my CP is spent on making them impossible to kill so I can hold objectives and such. One nice tactic I have come to appreciate is to pin something big and keep most of my guys >1" away from the people doing the pinning.
2) If I am playing Mars, I might want the option to do Prepared Positions. It gives cover in the open for 2 CP. This is Shroudpsalm, essentially. But since I am Mars, I can also roll two dice to get another two Canticles on top of this. Having three army wide buffs on turn one is really strong. It almost puts us at Space Marine levels of bonuses.
I actually find that it is unnecessary and possibly even dangerous to infiltrate too aggressively. In fact, if I go second, infiltrate usually means moving into cover.
Then again, I also tend to do this in deployment:
It's funny, I took this picture earlier today to explain it to someone. And I've used it three times already. Basically, my current thinking is Skitarii in the Drills, Fulgurites in the Boats. If the enemy are directly in front, they have to kill a Drill and a Boat to kill one unit of Fulgurites. If they kill a Drill, I usually deploy survivors between the Boats or into an adjacent ruin. (I try to hug a wall with the infiltration, but sometimes, you just want to shove them into their face.) Most of the times though, this arrangement forces them to move to the side.
VladimirHerzog wrote:
dadamowsky wrote: The little test of Ruststalkers in both loadouts. And... they still suck combat wise, no surprise. AP0 on their weapons is a joke, no points drop will change that.
They might have merits however. 1: They can perform as a cheaper Elite slots filler. 2: 8" movement is no joke - they don't need transport to go into places, especially in Stygies. Their speed nad Infantry keyword allows for early spread on the table, giving access to otherwise unobtainable objective markers - a huge thing for ETC. And they can perform as a cheap carnifex - 30 attacks with S5, mortal wounds on 6s and high speed will attract more attention then they deserve.
i've tried them only once and their problem really cannot be fixed by points unless they become basically free.
Hoplites are strictly superior to Ruststalkers if we're talking low points infantry.
Vineheart01 wrote: i like the idea that Ruststalkers are basically mortalwound dealers as the odds of them doing damage outside of that is unlikely...
but it shouldnt be on a 6+
oh the concept behind them is awesome, its just that if i want melee mortal wounds output, ill just get myself some fulgurites.
If ruststalkers had something like they gain +1 to wound for every turn they've been in combat with the unit theyre fighting would be a good start.
Vineheart01 wrote: i like the idea that Ruststalkers are basically mortalwound dealers as the odds of them doing damage outside of that is unlikely...
but it shouldnt be on a 6+
oh the concept behind them is awesome, its just that if i want melee mortal wounds output, ill just get myself some fulgurites.
If ruststalkers had something like they gain +1 to wound for every turn they've been in combat with the unit theyre fighting would be a good start.
Or give them their grenades back
Or both, I mean they literally have grenades on their models...
I also don't get why they have such low LD, they almost died once already and are full of hatred.
I thought you infiltrate with Stygies after knowing which one has turn 1?
Vineheart01 wrote: i like the idea that Ruststalkers are basically mortalwound dealers as the odds of them doing damage outside of that is unlikely...
but it shouldnt be on a 6+
oh the concept behind them is awesome, its just that if i want melee mortal wounds output, ill just get myself some fulgurites.
If ruststalkers had something like they gain +1 to wound for every turn they've been in combat with the unit theyre fighting would be a good start.
Or give them their grenades back
Theres that too.
Ruststalkers are technically cheaper than Fulgurites but...not 1/3 the damage potential cheaper.
Really all Ruststalkers have going for them is theyre a bit faster. Not a very strong bonus when you arent exactly resilient or killy.
Probably the only unit in the codex i'd say is a dud even casually. Im pretty much only continuing my use of them because atm i still have pointgaps to fill lol. (being rather lazy on building/painting everything...)
They need to give them another attack at the very least. That or make a Sicarian specialist detachment, with an ability to make them have 3D6 charges or something.
theres also the stigma that FW is basically cheesemode.
In my area FW is sorta risky to try and use. My orks can get away with it because quite frankly none of it is all that amazing and looks sick, but i bet if i ran hoplites in drills id get a lot of snide looks lol.
I just had an interesting thought: If I take the Xenos Inquisitor with Chainsword and Bolter with Esoteric Lore and the Blackshroud relic, I can probably make back a lot of my CP. Thing is, I would need to add a red stripe to my tanks or something to show that they are Mars and the rest of my army is Stygies. One major downside though is that with two Drills (and I don't own another two Boats), I cannot fit Calivers into the list. Sigh.
Vineheart01 wrote: theres also the stigma that FW is basically cheesemode.
In my area FW is sorta risky to try and use. My orks can get away with it because quite frankly none of it is all that amazing and looks sick, but i bet if i ran hoplites in drills id get a lot of snide looks lol.
Which is incredibly daft. It’s a decent unit with major drawbacks, like many units in our dex (and weaker than some). It’s not as if FW-enhanced admech are tearing up the competitive circuit in ITC.
They’re running on a 7th edition mindset and it’s embarrassing they haven’t been keeping up. The only brutal FW units are a couple of space marine dreads and at one point that Custodes grav tank. Even those aren’t as strong as some GW units have been this edition.
Thats kinda the problem because prior to 8th thats the main units that got used, and in 8th they became godlike.
People have a bad habit of focusing on one or two things and not the whole.
Knowing me i'll get some hoplites at some point both because im a collector..i like to have all the units just because i can (why else would i own a friggen Squigbuggy...) and i love the shield/spear aesthetic of Hoplites. But with all these out-of-codex releases....might be awhile lol
I'm curious, what is everyone thinking about the new 2 point arc rifles? I really like them already on my min sized (5-6 models) Ranger units, even those for screening, but at 2 points they seem like quite a steal considering the +2S, guaranteed -1 AP and the D3 against vehicles (and there a bunch of those). Seems to me like paying the extra 4 points for every min sized ranger units is more than worth it, except for Arquebus units and maybe one unit which only serves to sit on home base objectives.
Calivers still seem way better on Vanguard and the go to upgrade for any Vanguard unit, so tossing a bunch of Arc Rifles on Rangers seems a smart way to spread out an additional layer of AT throughout the army, while also making our cheapo infantry more of a threat to all those T5/T6 models running around.
To me theyre auto include now. I seem to never NEED those 4-12pts anyway and if i did i can always axe them freely.
So do people think meleebots are any better now that fists got a price cut? im in the middle of magnetizing my bots and i just thought about if i'd ever even use the fists. I think theyre forced to be Stygies for the infiltrate strat (basically gives them a pretty reliable charge if a manip is behind them T1).
Not that i'd forego magnetizing, these things are probably the easiest admech model to magnetize.
Ragnar Blackmane wrote: I'm curious, what is everyone thinking about the new 2 point arc rifles? I really like them already on my min sized (5-6 models) Ranger units, even those for screening, but at 2 points they seem like quite a steal considering the +2S, guaranteed -1 AP and the D3 against vehicles (and there a bunch of those). Seems to me like paying the extra 4 points for every min sized ranger units is more than worth it, except for Arquebus units and maybe one unit which only serves to sit on home base objectives.
Calivers still seem way better on Vanguard and the go to upgrade for any Vanguard unit, so tossing a bunch of Arc Rifles on Rangers seems a smart way to spread out an additional layer of AT throughout the army, while also making our cheapo infantry more of a threat to all those T5/T6 models running around.
From the pure points-effectiveness Arcs beat the Calivers vs any target, as a single Caliver can buy you 5,5 Arcs. So in exchange of 2 plasma shots points-wise you can have 10 shots of the lesser brother (in RF). Calivers are however still superior if you don't need those points saved but would rather have a special weapon slot having a solid punch. Personally, I'm dropping Calivers from the Duneriders squads for test running Arcs instead, as my Skitarii serve me best when rapidly advancing on markers, hiding behind a wall scoring me points in ETC - shooting only to finish the job my gunline failed; meaning clearing objective marker from enemy obsecs (thus I don't need my infantry to be killy, but cheap and numerous; but then I'm not playing ITC and I don't bother to think about kill mores). I might pump fewer points from switching in total, as I'm meditating adding Omnispex on my Vanguard squads - Rad Carbines benefits from ignoring cover quite a lot tbh, and that's vs most targets. In yesterday's practice game my 10 Vanguards has popped the BA Captain from full to zero wounds with Rads alone. But that's just another reason for me to drop pricy Calivers (leaving plasma an option for DS goons squad, or Ryza specialists).
Ragnar Blackmane wrote: I'm curious, what is everyone thinking about the new 2 point arc rifles? I really like them already on my min sized (5-6 models) Ranger units, even those for screening, but at 2 points they seem like quite a steal considering the +2S, guaranteed -1 AP and the D3 against vehicles (and there a bunch of those). Seems to me like paying the extra 4 points for every min sized ranger units is more than worth it, except for Arquebus units and maybe one unit which only serves to sit on home base objectives.
Calivers still seem way better on Vanguard and the go to upgrade for any Vanguard unit, so tossing a bunch of Arc Rifles on Rangers seems a smart way to spread out an additional layer of AT throughout the army, while also making our cheapo infantry more of a threat to all those T5/T6 models running around.
From the pure points-effectiveness Arcs beat the Calivers vs any target, as a single Caliver can buy you 5,5 Arcs. So in exchange of 2 plasma shots points-wise you can have 10 shots of the lesser brother (in RF). Calivers are however still superior if you don't need those points saved but would rather have a special weapon slot having a solid punch. Personally, I'm dropping Calivers from the Duneriders squads for test running Arcs instead, as my Skitarii serve me best when rapidly advancing on markers, hiding behind a wall scoring me points in ETC - shooting only to finish the job my gunline failed; meaning clearing objective marker from enemy obsecs (thus I don't need my infantry to be killy, but cheap and numerous; but then I'm not playing ITC and I don't bother to think about kill mores). I might pump fewer points from switching in total, as I'm meditating adding Omnispex on my Vanguard squads - Rad Carbines benefits from ignoring cover quite a lot tbh, and that's vs most targets. In yesterday's practice game my 10 Vanguards has popped the BA Captain from full to zero wounds with Rads alone. But that's just another reason for me to drop pricy Calivers (leaving plasma an option for DS goons squad, or Ryza specialists).
Your math is still wrong, it doesnt work that way.
You have to take the base cost of a ranger as well as substitute the base weaponr's dmg.
I'm not accounting Rangers because there's no way I will ever run an equivalent of the 8 Calivers in Arcs . The comparison goes only weapon-to-weapon because I will be running 2, maybe 3 Duneriders (if I buy more) with the very same amount of Vanguards inside. So, for me at least, the Skitarii cost is baseline the same in both loadouts. The only difference comes from the Caliver/Arc cost, and the savings I can do on Calivers to buy something else for the army, instead of the 2 plasma shots on a fragile body (and there's a lot of goodies that I can buy for 72 pts difference from 2 boats of Arcs - it's like having a free Dunerider).
Putting the special weapons aside, have anyone tried running 5 Vanguards and 5 Sicarians in a Dunerider? It doesn't have to be Ruststalkers, Infiltrators with tesla could also work. I know I know, we pay for their DS ability - but they rarely come into combat from DS, while transports can carry a W2 model along Vanguards, for the same ratio of model per slot. And they would actually combo very well, Vanguards reducing Toughness of Primaris, while Infiltrators (aside from 5 shots per model) having a S6 tesla and Doctrina for 5+ activation. And the Ld debuff could actually come into play as well - heck, maybe even Metalica stratagem
^ I do like the idea of running infiltrators in transports actually. I run mine as a unit of 10 in a Mars Auxiliary detachment with Flechette/Taser so they can deepstrike and pump out mortal wounds with Wrath of Mars, but outside of Mars their shooting isn't amazing. And now at 150pts for 10 I was thinking 10 with power swords/stub carbines (as two units of 5) could be a real threat to marines with Invocation of Machine Might. On a side note, I think with their points drop we can look to infiltrators to fill out brigades now.
Infiltrators actually don't Deep Strike very well anymore. Marines pretty much can delete them with Auspex Scan.
It's yet another reason why I now usually just put 2x5 Rangers and an Enginseer into a Drill and drop them somewhere on round two. Secure Recon and maybe a bonus objective if I set it up right in round one. Once the Drill is down, the entire squad is really hard to remove, actually.
That being said, Corpuscarii might be the best Elite choice for Mars transports if you want to shoot. Not only are they more competitively priced now, but Daedalosus allows their shooting to explode on 5+. Given a unit of 10 has 30x attacks, the math works out to be 40x hits on average. Still no AP, which hurts, but S5 is a solid number for killing some Centurions or MEQs/PEQs. They also have got mortal wounds on the charge and 5++/5+++.
Heavy Support - 333 1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
Heavy Support - 304 1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber, Smoke Launchers
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber, Smoke Launchers
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Smoke Launchers
No Detachment Slot - 85 1x Inquisitor Greyfax
Total: 1999 points 13 CP
Plays very consistently. Has well-rounded and durable threats. Is tough for Eldar and Tau to hose with Doom+Jinx or Markerlights. Greyfax provides anti-psyker and combat support, including Terrifying and then locking vehicles in combat.
But I also was tinkering with my old BAO list and have a second option is pretty much the complete opposite; it leans into Gangbusters and denies BGH.
Spoiler:
Mars Battalion Detachment - 1179 Cybernetica Cohort
Heavy Support - 333 1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
No Detachment Slot - 100 1x Hector Rex
Total: 1991 points 13 CP
It's actually a lot closer to what I am used to playing. Ironstriders and Breachers form a wall for the Dakkabots and Grators to shoot from behind. Eight snipers keep characters' heads down. Problem is that this list does not take an alpha well; it's pretty easy for Repulsors, Riptides, etc. to focus down a Cawlstar. Not to mention how vulnerable this list is to Fists. These are all of the reasons why I switched to mechanized.
Jury's still out on whether or not Hector Rex is legal though.
Do people prefer the tank or the walker for shooting? Also how long is the scorpius relative to rhino? Furthermore has anybody here done a kataphron based list? How did it look?
i think the Skorpius is technically superior to the Dunecrawler in everything except raw durability (invul w/ reroll 1s being the main difference)
But theyre both so cheap you can easily run 3 of each really lol.
Alkaline_Hound wrote: Do people prefer the tank or the walker for shooting? Also how long is the scorpius relative to rhino?
Furthermore has anybody here done a kataphron based list? How did it look?
the big draw to the skorpius is the movement it has, the onager is a tankier platform.
theyre both really good, but the mortars on the skorpius makes it the first tank that i go for a 3-of.
kataphron breachers are good midfield holders if you stick them in cover and this strategy was winning many games before marines became OP and armies adapted to be able to kill centurions (and therefore also breachers).
kataphron destroyers are a big nuke button but are quite fragile, run them in as ryza with plasma (for plasma specialist) or as mars with grav cannons (for wrath of mars).
Alkaline_Hound wrote: Do people prefer the tank or the walker for shooting? Also how long is the scorpius relative to rhino? Furthermore has anybody here done a kataphron based list? How did it look?
My Kataphron List (note it was 2k before CA 2019) If I had a couple more Skorpius I would have taken out 3 of the Destroyers to put two more boats in.
Anyone know why Battlescribe doesn't allow us to give Daedalosus any relics? He's an adeptus mechanicus character so I don't see why not or do the relic assignments have to be <forgeworld>?
Alkaline_Hound wrote: Do any of you run knights with your forces? Which knight (including FW) synergizes the best with admech?
ive personally done worse everytime i included a knight in my lists. Giving the opponent one obvious "must kill" target isnt something i like. I play my admech with the mindset that most of my units are expendable since i have multiple contingencies in place.
That said, i know that before the nerfs, suzuteo had a great experience with the knight styrix
i dont run ITC so i have a couple warglaives around my knight as well, which allows me to use House rules since its not an auxiliary detachment.
Taranis + the 4++ warlord trait + a dedicated fixer kinda makes that knight annoying to remove at a distance. It sacrifices a fair bit of offense so its more a distraction carnifex but it works for me in non-tournament settings. And its still a threat without the Krast shenanigans, just not as big a one.
Everytime I look at including my Knight Styrix I look at the 3 Disintegrators/onager and ~200pts spare I could have instead of it and wonder why I would bother?
We have so many low cost high powered alternatives knights arent even that much a bullet sponge anymore.
I could take 3 distintegrators with 3d6 missile, 3d6LoS ignoring energy cannon and 27 stubber shots for like 330 points, thats with 36 wounds at T7 with a 3+ save. A much better balance than a knight that gains T8 and an invuln over drastically reduced firepower.
Octovol wrote: Everytime I look at including my Knight Styrix I look at the 3 Disintegrators/onager and ~200pts spare I could have instead of it and wonder why I would bother?
We have so many low cost high powered alternatives knights arent even that much a bullet sponge anymore.
I could take 3 distintegrators with 3d6 missile, 3d6LoS ignoring energy cannon and 27 stubber shots for like 330 points, thats with 36 wounds at T7 with a 3+ save. A much better balance than a knight that gains T8 and an invuln over drastically reduced firepower.
Tbf the knight does get melee, but you still have points leftover with admech to cover that niche easily usually.
I've had a lot of fun with warglaives in the past, back before we had the skorpius as a fast tank to move up with my Metallica infantry. I still run them from time to time and the points drop on them is nice, but they're not really a great thing for ITC due to how all the restrictions and missions work. For stuff like maelstrom though they were great. I'd use them to grab objectives, hunt a specific target, or even just as distractions since Raven ones can have up to a 50" threat range with those meltas if you leave them alone. I feel like if you're doing anything other than ITC warglaives and hellverins are probably worth a try. Bare minimum they're a lot of fun and their profile perfectly matches admech armor, helping with saturating that key t7 bracket with invulns to boot.
Really the more I play the more I hate ITC. I get it's a competitive ruleset but the way it's secondaries work really punish any play other than hyper elite armies that kill everything. Armiger's are a good example of that, they're not a bad unit at all in regular games because they can do things besides just kill stuff, they just suck in ITC because you can't really do anything with them without going soup and you can't even get CP for taking them. But that's a rant for another time.
Are robots really they only answer we have to numbers lists? White Scars are seriously pissing me off in that they just spam bikers and generic marines, i simply dont have enough RoF to kill them through the 2+ cover bs, as everything with AP has crap RoF. And of course, turn3 = auto lose if they arent crippled in numbers thanks to that +1 damage bs. Legitimately just had my knight go from 20 wounds to dead in 1 round of combat from ~10 tactical marines and a couple moderate characters (not even insane ones, just S6 5-6 attacks). Gotta love it when a basic troop suddenly threatens a LoW. GJGW...
@MrMoustaffa
Honestly, I think they could improve the ITC experience A LOT, but they're just dragging their feet.
I would propose:
1) Get rid of all of the kill secondaries. All they do is penalize certain people for bringing certain units. Furthermore, rewarding people for killing in such a killy game widens the gulf between the strong and weak armies.
2) Get rid of the scenarios and make new secondaries out of them. Base objectives on your deployment or just do one in each quadrant and each player places one.
3) Old School is mandatory. You pick two secondaries.
4) Reduce the points cap to 1500.
5) Mandatory chess clocks.
Yeah, i really need some fulgurites.
I initially was going to buy 20 of them when i bought admech but that anti-graia faq made me go "Nope, nvm"
Now that theyre a lot cheaper i want'm again.
Im assuming no larger than 10 in a transport would be ideal since i really, really dont want them shot at lol. They dont demand stratagems to function at least so having 2x10 isnt a bad thing (yes theres the fight again, not necessarily needed depending on timing)
Heavy Support - 333 1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
Anyone managed to snag one of the tech priest grombrindall models yet and able to share pics? Thinking of buying one but the prospect of flyer in the new year and possible flying infantry means it's gonna have to be a super nice model.
Octovol wrote: Anyone managed to snag one of the tech priest grombrindall models yet and able to share pics? Thinking of buying one but the prospect of flyer in the new year and possible flying infantry means it's gonna have to be a super nice model.
I wanted to share my converted Fulgurite Tech-Ghouls. I finally got around to painting them:
I decided to go with conversions because I cannot stand the stock kit at all. Also, these ended up being cheaper. I made them from a hodgepodge of inexpensive bits.
From top to bottom:
-Fulgurite Electro-Priests headdresses
-Bionic Skulls from Anvil Industry
-Single Curve Gothic Shoulder Pads from Anvil Industry
-Flagellant weapons
-Bloodletter torsos (spines sculpted out of Green Stuff)
-Mantic Ghoul legs
Incognito15 wrote: Hey guys. Brother is looking to play his admech again but hasnt touched them since the astra militarum book released (however long that was ago.
Is there a good summary you can point him to or a good review. Was combing thru the taxtics and didnt see anythi g but might have missed it.
As im building my army for the escalation league im not sure where to go with 750 pts.
Im thinking of putting Corpuscarii Electro-Priests (10 of them) or Fulgurite Electro-Priests (9 of them) in to the breacher drill to mess something up.
My current list is this:
@Araablane
Yeah. At low points, stratagems like Plasma Specialists makes your army ridiculously killy. And there's also the dogma for fighting rerolls.
Suzuteo wrote: @Araablane
Yeah. At low points, stratagems like Plasma Specialists makes your army ridiculously killy. And there's also the dogma for fighting rerolls.
Yea, you are absolutely right, thanks Where do people get Plasma calivers from or how do you kitbash them, im lacking 4 at the moment
Suzuteo wrote: @Araablane
Yeah. At low points, stratagems like Plasma Specialists makes your army ridiculously killy. And there's also the dogma for fighting rerolls.
Yea, you are absolutely right, thanks Where do people get Plasma calivers from or how do you kitbash them, im lacking 4 at the moment
They’re very difficult to get hold of from bits sellers as they’re so popular and in low supply. If I need extra calivers for a list I just proxy my arc rifles as them and don’t take any actual arc rifles in my army list to reduce any possible confusion.
Vortenger wrote: It's just marketing. Just keep buying more kits . After you've got around 100 skitarii, you have enough specials to cover just about anything.
Yea.. no.. yea.. not going to happen.
Arc rifle idea is good but still leaves me missing a few, this will be a smaller army not my main.
I only have 11. Need one more to equip two Battalions.
Anyhow, a technicality that I have begun appreciating since beginning to play pure Mars:
At the start of the first Battle Round, I roll two dice for Canticles. Because of the wording of the AdMech FAQ, if you run pure Mars, you get to roll both dice simultaneously and decide whether to +1 or -1 in sequence while knowing the both results. Then, if I am going second (which I usually choose to do), I can decide if I want to Prepared Positions or not. Because I may miss Shroudpsalm in my two rolls or I might want RR1s in fighting and +1S (Canticles 3 and 5).
Alas, I also have begun realizing that my 2x Drills are not nearly as good as Mars. When they were Stygies, I could at least make use of the dogma to make them annoying to kill. But Drills lack Canticles, so there's no benefit to double Canticles.
To this end, I have been trying to figure out if mixing Stygies is worthwhile:
Gave up on the vanilla Inquisitor. He does almost nothing. Greyfax is much more handy in a variety of situations, but the Xenos Inquisitor I pretty much just hide under a rock and Smite stuff.
Anyhow, here's hoping our Thopters come in at 60 points or less. I would probably put three into my list with Calivers, replacing my Drills and Greyfax. Stygies, of course, to get maximum annoyance. Though I'm open to pure Mars if the gunship version comes with a lot of dakka.
With the news that Shadowsun can command any Sept in the Tau PA update, I REALLY hope this is a trend that follows for models like Cawl. I dislike Mars greatly, for the same reasons I dislike Ultramarines for marines. It's the vanilla faction, less interesting.
Octovol wrote: With the news that Shadowsun can command any Sept in the Tau PA update, I REALLY hope this is a trend that follows for models like Cawl. I dislike Mars greatly, for the same reasons I dislike Ultramarines for marines. It's the vanilla faction, less interesting.
Well it actually does make sense lore wise for Cawl.
I dont really know why he commands mars armies anyway, Mars doesnt trust him much anyway. Yes, he was born on mars some 10k+ years ago, but he commands armies from other forgeworlds trading in knowledge.
Well, any kind of update would come in handy now. after playing a load against SM, I am really frustrated with AdMech atm. Stygies is worth so much less since chapter master is a thing. Breacher spam with dragoons still works okay but i think i will take the ally route and put some BA and Custodes in the mix. Rangers and Vanguards are basically just easy points for TFCs. Thats why i am already skeptical about the flyer. it is going to be t6 at best and it will transport units that are just not good in this meta...
Of course, the CSM codex 2.0 and Psychic Awakening didn’t change their legion traits despite Word Bearers having the worst in the game. So could be our FW traits are left untouched and any buffs we get are those we have to pay CP for.
Pomguo wrote: Of course, the CSM codex 2.0 and Psychic Awakening didn’t change their legion traits despite Word Bearers having the worst in the game. So could be our FW traits are left untouched and any buffs we get are those we have to pay CP for.
CSM Codex wasn't a 2.0 though. It was a "2nd edition", that collected the Shadowspear+Vigilus Ablaze units into the book. It's why the cover flatout has a skull with "II" on it while a whole new codex would end up with a new cover or something similar.
The only "2.0" book we've seen has been Codex Space Marines.
Well, we either get a new codex or have our new units lumped in with PA. I would think we're getting a new codex but given the stuff some armies have gotten it's entirely possible were getting a PA book that changes canticles, throws in all the new units, and consolidates the old ones too.
I'm not sure which Id rather have. We desperately need new WLT, relics, and dogmas, but I don't want to spend a $100 on books to update my army, especially if they're back to back. I'd like to hope we get lucky and they just stick our PA stuff in a new codex and call it a day but when would GW ever pass up the chance to sell us two books instead of one?
Kanluwen wrote: We have enough stuff, period, missing that it isn't beyond belief we might get the Sisters of Battle treatment and get a Codex instead of a PA book.
That said...I've said, and will continue saying, that PA is our lead-in to a new/updated edition.
I'm not saying we don't have enough, what I'm saying is what we have needs to be tweaked.
I don't want new dogmas, I want the ones we have to work. Metallica just needs to be switched to "advance and fire any weapons as if you hadn't advanced". Bam, done. The others need similar tweaks aside from Stygies and maybe Mars.
I don't want new relics so much as the ones we have to actually be useful (i.e. the Metallica fist gets more than one swing for example) we have so many terrible relics many aren't even worth it as joke items.
We don't need the canticles to be replaced, just fixed a bit. I.e. Litany of the electromancer to not be hilariously garbage, maybe its a chance to do MW on any charges or receiving any charges for the rounds on a 6 or 5+, so you can control it and not have it be completely useless turn one.
You get the idea. Admech have a ton of stuff that doesn't really function that needs to be tweaked. I don't want a brand new codex so much as something like space marines got where they looked at it, went 'ah, this ability was trash' and fixed it. Id prefer were not as busted as new marines, just get the options to be viable, unlike now where half our flavor options are so bad a new player can spot them in about a 5 minute read.
Also I agree PA is definitely leading up to something. Interesting question is is it 8.5 or an actual 9th.
They sort of would have to revamp them to improve them. lot of them are basically inferior versions of various rules or other traits. Theres traits now that is literally Lucius, but with extra crap slapped on for example.
Then theres Ryza which just..makes no sense...
I want new relics because a lot of the ones we have are just generic extra attacks or strength of an existing basic weapon, or a rule that has no place. Heck the only relic i even see as usable is the Mask so my dragoons can reroll hits in melee. Not once have i thought about spending CP for another relic.
I also dreadfully want the canticles to get revamped. Half of them are worthless, and a 4th is massively situational (reroll 1s in melee) while a 5th is a character aura army-wide, which is useful for sure but most of my army has that reroll anyway.
Kanluwen wrote: We have enough stuff, period, missing that it isn't beyond belief we might get the Sisters of Battle treatment and get a Codex instead of a PA book.
Who says Sisters won’t get stuff from PA in addition to their codex? The sheet of faction logos GW released saying “These factions will get new stuff from PA” included the Sisters emblem.
Kanluwen wrote: We have enough stuff, period, missing that it isn't beyond belief we might get the Sisters of Battle treatment and get a Codex instead of a PA book.
Who says Sisters won’t get stuff from PA in addition to their codex? The sheet of faction logos GW released saying “These factions will get new stuff from PA” included the Sisters emblem.
Yeah, and purportedly the Sisters of Battle army pack had "Faith and Fury" tagged on it.
I'm not saying we don't have enough, what I'm saying is what we have needs to be tweaked.
We might be talking past each other. When I said "we have enough", I'm referring to the actual units. Between the Manipulus, the Skorpius and its variants, the new flyer, the new Knights(if they decide to put them back into the codex), and what looks like at least two new Skitarii units(the Galvanic rifle looking rumor engine being one and the wings being another) I feel we have enough units for a codex relaunch like Marines or Sisters.
I don't want new dogmas, I want the ones we have to work. Metallica just needs to be switched to "advance and fire any weapons as if you hadn't advanced". Bam, done. The others need similar tweaks aside from Stygies and maybe Mars.
I fully expect Stygies to get changed to be Raven Guard's current setup. It won't be beneficial to vehicles, sadly, but our infantry will get some "oomph".
I don't want new relics so much as the ones we have to actually be useful (i.e. the Metallica fist gets more than one swing for example) we have so many terrible relics many aren't even worth it as joke items.
We don't need the canticles to be replaced, just fixed a bit. I.e. Litany of the electromancer to not be hilariously garbage, maybe its a chance to do MW on any charges or receiving any charges for the rounds on a 6 or 5+, so you can control it and not have it be completely useless turn one.
You get the idea. Admech have a ton of stuff that doesn't really function that needs to be tweaked. I don't want a brand new codex so much as something like space marines got where they looked at it, went 'ah, this ability was trash' and fixed it. Id prefer were not as busted as new marines, just get the options to be viable, unlike now where half our flavor options are so bad a new player can spot them in about a 5 minute read.
That's what happens when you jam two distinct armies into one book with little to no thought as to how it gets worked.
Our relics are a weird mishmash of things that were intended to be placed onto Skitarii Alphas/Princeps and things that would have been considered "Meh" at best in the Cult Mechanicus book. Most of our relics are also, at best, things I would consider roughly equivalent to the new "Special Issue Wargear" we've seen in the Marine supplements(as they can be taken by characters or sergeants with a specific stratagem).
Canticles were designed to be a 'stepped' mechanism that scaled based upon the number of units you had on the board. It's literally why Cult players whined last edition that "they had to take Convocations", because their army was "too expensive" otherwise. Apparently in the transition to the combined book, someone said "HOLD UP SKITARII ARE CHEAP! THIS WILL BE OP!" or something similar and prevented the stepped mechanism from being present.
And that's not even getting into all the stuff just yanked from Skitarii, period. We lost our free Scout move, our Galvanic Rifles lost their Precision Shots trait, our wonderful little Doctrina Imperatives, our Ironstriders with guns lost their Precision Shots, and our ace in the hole in the form of Onager Squadrons(which was just...no. Whoever's responsible for that needs a serious reprimand) and their overlapping Emanatus Shields.
Also I agree PA is definitely leading up to something. Interesting question is is it 8.5 or an actual 9th.
Psychic Awakening seems to be Malign Portents, broken up based upon the feedback for Malign Portents. One of the big feedbacks that I kept seeing was "It would have been nice to have the event staggered more". It was a one and done release, effectively, with short stories released for awhile after/before the actual release of the Grand Alliance characters and book(which was for everyone).
Suzuteo wrote: I also hate that our special relationship with Knights became more of an afterthought.
Pft. No, it really didn't. If anything our "special relationship with Knights" is overblown to the point we had them put into our Codex--which I, personally, believe is a source of some of the issues with the book. It was an issue with that stupid Convocation that everyone kept insisting "broke" Skitarii("OMG! SKITARII GET FREE UPGRADES! IT'S BROKEN!", remember that wonderful rallying cry? ) and Knights shouldn't have been put into our book without an explicit "Oathsworn" style setup, where they don't ruin your army benefits but also don't benefit from them.
I would not mind more restrictions as long as they were more tightly integrated. I really do think Imperial Knights should be their own thing and Mechanicus Knights just a part of AdMech. Half-measures like what happened with Knights "in" our codex were just totally unhelpful.
Knights, period, should be in their book. We got the 'OG' Knights added to our Codex at launch, then Armigers came in with Forgebane.
And then they got Household benefits, which really screwed everything up.
Hopefully any new AdMech book just flat cuts Knights out of the mix. We can still have the "Knight of the Cog" Stratagem in our book certainly, but since Questor Mechanicus is something that could realistically be placed into an Imperial Knights book--there is no downside.
Replacing Stygies with RG’s tactic wouldn’t be giving our infantry some oomph, it would be an unmitigated disaster. What does admech need with a THIRD way to grant army-wide cover? And a mechanic that asks us to put units into terrain anyway to gain a bonus? It would make Canticles almost completely pointless, instead of its already sorry state now. I know GW designs some books and bonuses seemingly without understanding the army, but this would really take the cake.
I’m hoping that like Eldar and CSM, they leave our Stygies alone.
@Kanluwen
I honestly don't even think there should be an Imperial Knights codex or Super-Heavy detachment at all. Nor household traditions or relics for that matter. Because what EW essentially did when they created these things is allow people to take a handful of homogeneous high-points units, which introduces inherent structural advantages and/or disadvantages. This is detrimental to the health of both narrative and matched play, as we saw for the better part of a half-year where nobody ran any non-flyer vehicles at all in matched play because they would all be wiped off the map or charged within two rounds. And then, after the Castellan nerf and the abundance of flyer spam lists, we pretty much saw Knight lists dry up.
It would be much easier to balance within the detachments framework if they were merely a part of another army, such as Guard (as Auxilia) for Imperial Knights and AdMech for Mechanicus Knights. This way, people could just bring one or two as they would any other super-heavy unit.
I'm slightly editing your post to reply to your points in a fashion that flows better with my early morning thoughts. I hope you don't mind, but the first and last two seem to have a flow/patter that is easier to reply to at the same time.
Suzuteo wrote: @Kanluwen I honestly don't even think there should be an Imperial Knights codex or Super-Heavy detachment at all. Nor household traditions or relics for that matter. Because what EW essentially did when they created these things is allow people to take a handful of homogeneous high-points units, which introduces inherent structural advantages and/or disadvantages. It would be much easier to balance within the detachments framework if they were merely a part of another army, such as Guard (as Auxilia) for Imperial Knights and AdMech for Mechanicus Knights. This way, people could just bring one or two as they would any other super-heavy unit.
I disagree that the codex shouldn't exist. It's a unique and interesting book, but it's a weird one in that Imperium and more recently Chaos are the only ones to have a composition like that. I realistically do not think that these units had a 'problem' with the introduction of Relics, Household rules, etc.
Ideally, the big 'fix' is to remove the fact that the Auxiliary Superheavy Detachment(the detachment granting a single Lord of War) is uniquely immune to the "Auxiliary Detachments cost you a Command Point to take" thing that the others have. Additionally, another solve is to add a rule that Knights can't share in Command Points from non-Knight Detachments.
This is detrimental to the health of both narrative and matched play, as we saw for the better part of a half-year where nobody ran any non-flyer vehicles at all in matched play because they would all be wiped off the map or charged within two rounds. And then, after the Castellan nerf and the abundance of flyer spam lists, we pretty much saw Knight lists dry up.
It's important to remember that "half-year where nobody ran any non-flyer vehicles at all in matched play" also coincided with: a) Command point surplus soup lists of Loyal 32+Castellan, where the Loyal 32 were just there to supercharge up the Castellan. b) Suicide Scion lists packed to the brim with plasma c) No real "Rule of 3" to limit spammy things like Smashcaptains that could, again, get supercharged by Loyal 32.
The biggest issue there wasn't the Knights(and I say this, btw, as someone who doesn't own a Castellan) it was the ability for these things that clearly weren't intended to have those amounts of CP easily. They still haven't gotten the grit, seemingly, to hardlock CP to factions. We saw similar issues last edition when IK first dropped in that people would cut down their army to the barebones in order to squeeze a Knight in...and outside of Eldar and Orks, not many factions really had superheavy units(and Wraithknights were considered a whole other beast entirely since they were Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures and had protections that the others didn't have) in their army lists.
I feel like the Castellan nerf and the flyer spam lists are getting credit for 'Knight lists drying up', but didn't ITC do a bunch of nonsense that also affected them? There was also the introduction of GSC which, from my understanding, shook things up a bit.
Sure. But it's a problem when the best counter to fire is fire. People ran Castellans, which were vehicles that countered vehicles, so the things that countered Castellans also countered vehicles. I ran 4x Kastelan Robots plus Dagger Ryzaphrons, then a Krastsader and 4x Las Striders. I was 100% a part of the problem, but there was no way around it. Haha.
I think there were many issues that contributed to the fall of Knights, but the problem was that they were set up in such a way that they had to fall in order for the rest of the meta to develop. GW clearly messed up and designed Knights in isolation rather than as a part of a system. Thus, people immediately found ways around the limitations that GW expected to keep them in check. The only way to restore balance was pretty much to nerf problem units into the ground; in terms of the meta, we had to wait for another dominant strategy to arise to make them non-viable. This is the reason why I am so against the Knight codex and SH detachment now. Had they never existed, you would see one or two Knights as a part of a healthy metagame rather than the stark divide between zero Knights or nothing-but-Knights that we see now.
Example: If Valiants were simply designed to be a part of Guard Brigades and Castellans a part of AdMech Brigades, then they would be able to take into account how much CP they would have access to and have far fewer stratagems, relics, etc. Thus, Castellans would be more like our version of the Baneblade rather than a part of the Imperium Soup terrors that we experienced earlier this year.
And had GW left the Ion Shields to operate the way they originally had(you picked a facing), there's a very good likelihood that the 'Knight meta' wouldn't have existed. Had GW made it so CPs couldn't be used by Knights from the rest of the army? Likely not an issue.
The Superheavy Detachment in and of itself wasn't an issue, the Knights weren't necessarily an issue. ITC played a big chunk of the issue, IMO, as did the nature of netlists and the 'batteries' that people were able to bring for their Knights.
eh i feel personally the ion rotating effect just kept melee variants from existing.
Long range castellan or crusaders would still be a problem if that was the only difference and all other rules remained in place. Their base is wide, that front arc at a distance is incredibly difficult to get around. Sure a few would sneak past it but with say 80% of the army plinking off a 3++ and 20% either not being reliable against T8 or only doing 1-2 or D3 damage but not hitting an invul at all....it would still be a major problem.
Thats kinda how i felt before when it was a rotate. If it stayed at a distance it was annoyingly hard to get rid of but the moment it closed to melee i could just sneak around and poof its in trouble. Assuming i still had threats in its face to keep that shield forward, that is.
I blame stratagems for the issue. Too many effects that should have been one-shot rules are instead 1-2CP stratagems. For most units thats annoying because it limits how many can actually use that rule, but for a knight theres generally only 1 anyway so it gets ALL THE RULES and you have the CP to keep doing it. If i had to pick one thing to change in 8th, the way stratagems work would be it. I enjoy the idea, i think they did it in a pathetic way.
Vineheart01 wrote: eh i feel personally the ion rotating effect just kept melee variants from existing.
Long range castellan or crusaders would still be a problem if that was the only difference and all other rules remained in place. Their base is wide, that front arc at a distance is incredibly difficult to get around. Sure a few would sneak past it but with say 80% of the army plinking off a 3++ and 20% either not being reliable against T8 or only doing 1-2 or D3 damage but not hitting an invul at all....it would still be a major problem.
Thats kinda how i felt before when it was a rotate. If it stayed at a distance it was annoyingly hard to get rid of but the moment it closed to melee i could just sneak around and poof its in trouble. Assuming i still had threats in its face to keep that shield forward, that is.
Truthfully, I was under the impression that when we got the second Knights book(that introduced the Warden, Gallant, etc) that the Gallant was a pretty popular choice for its Thunderstrike Gauntlet and the Reaper.
I blame stratagems for the issue. Too many effects that should have been one-shot rules are instead 1-2CP stratagems. For most units thats annoying because it limits how many can actually use that rule, but for a knight theres generally only 1 anyway so it gets ALL THE RULES and you have the CP to keep doing it. If i had to pick one thing to change in 8th, the way stratagems work would be it. I enjoy the idea, i think they did it in a pathetic way.
There's definitely something to be said for this, but I don't think it's "a pathetic way". There was an okay concept in there(taking army wide rules or weird cornercase situations and making them into a thing) but whoever was in charge of changing rules into stratagems seemed to have had their hands tied and I wouldn't be shocked if part of it was from feedback from a certain group of players
A good example of this, in my opinion, is the Skitarii Doctrina Imperatives. What was an army wide rule with three different subrules(two of which had downsides associated with the benefits) instead became one unit a turn with no downside and the requirement of a piece of gear practically nobody took unless they were building using spares. The better way to have done it would have been to make it so that there were three steps and it affected everything keyworded "Skitarii".
Additionally, I always found it odd that we got a "Rotate Ion Shields" Stratagem...when they removed the need to rotate them.
A good example of this, in my opinion, is the Skitarii Doctrina Imperatives. What was an army wide rule with three different subrules(two of which had downsides associated with the benefits) instead became one unit a turn with no downside and the requirement of a piece of gear practically nobody took unless they were building using spares. The better way to have done it would have been to make it so that there were three steps and it affected everything keyworded "Skitarii".
This is kinda what i mean. Theres a lot of stratagems that sure they should be limited use stuff such as bombardments, fight again, shoot again, or various heavy-impacting effects that a unit doesnt bank on to be useful, such as Elimination Volley
But then theres a BUNCH that feel like they should have just been a base rule, such as the strider/dragoon advancing stratagem or Deafening Assault. Admech arent the worst offenders of this issue but its still a thing. (orks suffer from this way more than admech but wrong thread)
Its more that some stratagems that cost 1cp are millions of times better than others that cost the same though. As orks theres a lot of stratagems i'd love to use, but simply cant spare the CP because its such a mediocre effect.
Honestly, I would really cut down on army-wide bonuses and drastically limit stratagems in general. Quickest fix would just be to increase the baseline cost of all stratagems to 3 CP, double all CP pools, and either limit CP use by faction or apply more strict faction rules (which GW should have done given their approach to designing codexes). EDIT: I say we should increase costs simply because it would be a more flexible baseline to balance around. Going from 1 to 2 to 3 are all very harsh penalties.
But then theres a BUNCH that feel like they should have just been a base rule, such as the strider/dragoon advancing stratagem or Deafening Assault. Admech arent the worst offenders of this issue but its still a thing. (orks suffer from this way more than admech but wrong thread)
Its more that some stratagems that cost 1cp are millions of times better than others that cost the same though. As orks theres a lot of stratagems i'd love to use, but simply cant spare the CP because its such a mediocre effect.
Every army suffers from this. Do you think I would ever spend 1CP to turn a Chimera into a vox for an officer just to order a single unit?
To an extent, we are seeing some of these concepts rolled back into units. The Haywire Mines on the Incursors, the Manipulus' abilities, Infiltrator Omni-Scramblers, GSC stuff, etc.
It just seems like we might be waiting until 8.5 for the changes to really take root.
I'd much rather Strategms utilised a kind of deck builder system where your detachments + characters determine your pool of command points and each card is worth X cp as it is now. But you can only use/take into battle the cards whose CP adds up to less than or equal to your CP pool, with each card being single-use and the deck having only so many available. Then you restrict use of stratagems used per turn by how many your HQ options allow you to use.
For example, lets say a Battallion gives you a pool of 20cp.
From your available deck you take
3 x Protector Doctrina (3cp)
3 x Conqueror Doctrina (3cp)
1 x Wrath of Mars (3cp)
1 x Electro-priests fight again (3cp I forget the name lol)
2 x Aquisition at all costs (4cp)
3 x Double repair (3cp)
1 x Cognis overwatch (1cp)
For your 20cp allocation.
Say a dominus allows 2 per turn and an enginseer 1. Cawl might allow 3, I dunno.
Obviously the card deks would have to be re-worked to include duplicates of the strategms you can use multiple times but I think this is a much more strategic way of allowing moments of glory. It even give them the options of including units that are purely their to bolster command abilities or increase cp pool. It also reduces the amount of crap you take into battle, instead of having that entire deck of strategms and having to remember whats useful, you build your deck in advance as part of your army build and only take those cards.
Auras and rerolls should be kept to a minimum, prevents castling and less time rerolling around, which takes ages.
The only cool way for the stratagem case, is that it should give a rare moment of glory and unique stratagems to show the uniqueness of the forgeworlds for example, like ours are ( except metallica)
But the way stratagems are right now, is that a lot of units are picked solely on their synergy, which gets spammed every round with detachment batterys. There really is a simple fix for this.
Roll back CP farm, make those moments rare and not spammable, lessen detachment cps for this manner, especially battalion and brigade.
Lack of fluff ( which is already really present in 8th, at least for admech) can be fixed by giving units their rules back and not have them fixed to stratagems, like tech priests dataspike for example
Dataspikes were on Sicarian Ruststalker Princeps, not Techpriests.
It's worth mentioning, again apparently, that every army has lost big chunks of what they had. Auras and rerolls aren't as big of an issue as being made out as.
im fine with multiple buffs from a character being around but i dont think they should be auras.
Even if all HQs with an aura got a bit of a hefty price reduction but their auras only affected 1 unit (nominated at the start of their turn, remains until next turn) it wouldnt be as bad as it would fall under previous editions of a character is brought to buff a single unit up, not an entire army.
Castling would be much less likely, more focus on keeping that important unit alive rather than giving maximum reroll potential army-wide.
Also @Octovol, so something similar to what Apoc does, only not quite as random? (smaller deck, repeat cards, etc)
One thing i like about apoc is almost all of those really powerful rules are in a card, not a datasheet. So odds are it only happens once, but you also dont really know WHEN since he may not even have the card yet.
Auras being limited to "one unit" defeats the purpose of an aura.
Serious statement time:
A lot of the complaints about "castling" are complaints that have existed before auras and other factors like that. We had a similar problem with characters in units, similar problem with indirect fire weapons, etc etc etc.
Agreed on that bit about auras just being the convenient target. Really, the way to solve castling is to remove all the killy secondaries, add anti-aura rules (basically, rules that penalize things for being in aura range, like the blast templates of old), and force people to move around.
I think the new CA19 missions help against castling. Although I never played ITc, only watched a battle rep once.
It helpes in 4 ways:
1. Being 2nd isnt as bad anymore ( CA18 helped with the deployment and fixed going first rule) as you often score at the end of the battleround, so you can position yourself and shoot at the enemys units objective holders.
2. Hordes and a little bit min sized units (for elite armies) get buffed by giving VP for holding more objectives.
3. Elites and max sized units get buffed by giving VP for killing more units than the enemy, so it evens out.
4. Playing Maelstrom(with cards) is less random and thus one sided as you now draw 5 cards and pick 3.
is there ANY reason to use a datasmith at all?
Dakkabots either just eradicate the enemy or dont live more than a couple turns after they "turret up" anyway so unlikely to need to move them again
Meleebots (hypothetical havnt actually used them) are going to leave the datasmith in the dust given they move faster and probably want the Stygies 9" scout as well.
Vineheart01 wrote: is there ANY reason to use a datasmith at all?
Dakkabots either just eradicate the enemy or dont live more than a couple turns after they "turret up" anyway so unlikely to need to move them again
Meleebots (hypothetical havnt actually used them) are going to leave the datasmith in the dust given they move faster and probably want the Stygies 9" scout as well.
Not that I can tell. Only real reason is fluff sadly. He's not a bad character for fighting stuff and has a neat pistol, but really until he becomes an HQ choice or can change their mode on a quicker basis he doesn't have much of a purpose.
0XFallen wrote: I think the new CA19 missions help against castling. Although I never played ITc, only watched a battle rep once.
It helpes in 4 ways:
1. Being 2nd isnt as bad anymore ( CA18 helped with the deployment and fixed going first rule) as you often score at the end of the battleround, so you can position yourself and shoot at the enemys units objective holders.
2. Hordes and a little bit min sized units (for elite armies) get buffed by giving VP for holding more objectives.
3. Elites and max sized units get buffed by giving VP for killing more units than the enemy, so it evens out.
4. Playing Maelstrom(with cards) is less random and thus one sided as you now draw 5 cards and pick 3.
Agreed! GW has done a really good job with the new missions/scenarios in CA2018 and 2019. I like them more than the ITC ones.
Vineheart01 wrote: is there ANY reason to use a datasmith at all?
Dakkabots either just eradicate the enemy or dont live more than a couple turns after they "turret up" anyway so unlikely to need to move them again
Meleebots (hypothetical havnt actually used them) are going to leave the datasmith in the dust given they move faster and probably want the Stygies 9" scout as well.
Vineheart01 wrote: is there ANY reason to use a datasmith at all?
Dakkabots either just eradicate the enemy or dont live more than a couple turns after they "turret up" anyway so unlikely to need to move them again
Meleebots (hypothetical havnt actually used them) are going to leave the datasmith in the dust given they move faster and probably want the Stygies 9" scout as well.
i play him in a lucius fistellan cybernetica cohort. I deepstrike the bots and lucius flare the datasmith near them so he can give them +3" to their charge.
Thats basically the only way i can see him being playable as he currently is.
LVO gave us the reveal we expected (flying skitarii) and a couple maybe we didn’t (robot horse skitarii cavalry)!
I assume/hope this means 3-4 new Fast Attack options, which covers one of our codex’s biggest gaps quite nicely! Brigades may have just got a whole lot easier and more competitive. With the new flyers too, now all we need is a non-repairbot HQ and we’re basically a fully fleshed out (non-psychic) codex.
I am hype, robo cavalry was an awesome surprise. I'm dreading the cost of the models but man they look awesome. Exactly what I had hoped for. Only shame is that cavalry appears to be 3 or 6 to a box and you know it's gonna be like $50 for them, like the GSC bikers that look so good.
Now, on to speculation, the cool thing is most of the weapons are stuff we've already seen or variants of it. For example, the batmen have the classic flechette blasters/taser Goad loadout of infiltrators, but also some sort of flechette rifle. Whether this just means more shots, more strength, some AP, range, or a combination of the above is anyone's guess. I'm assuming the flamer is an upgunned heavy flamer, possibly an incidine combustor like what Kastelans carry. Overall if they're priced right theyll be a much needed addition to pad out the fast attack slot. Unfortunately I feel they've made infiltrators and rustalkers even more pointless, but to be fair jump infantry were going to step on their toes no matter how GW did them. That said, these seem to mostly have rifles, with only the alpha getting the classic "sarge" style melee/pistol setup, so I guess the sicarians keep the niche of melee.
Onto the cavalry... Who I'm not really sure what niche they're supposed to fill honestly. I'd assume dirt cheap, fast scout unit that costs way more $$$ than it does points. They mentioned the mounts breathe fire, so you've got a unit of flamers armed with a variety of extra weapons and I'm assuming a decent amount of s3 attacks, essentially rough riders but for admech. The weapons are an interesting mix of phosphor for the vanguard, phosphor blast pistols, phosphor serpenta, and what appears to be a phosphor blast rifle. So flamers, a lot of weapons that hate cover, and a unit that in melee saps T hopefully. Might be fun, could be a handy support for dragoons or fulgurites charging up the board, especially since they should be fast enough to make the Vanguard T debuff actually matter. For example, charge them in to eat overwatch for fulgurites, along with the canticle for machine might. You now have S6 fulgurites wounding stuff like marines and orks on 2's, and wounding something like a Tau riptide on 4's. Might not be the best use of a canticle but just brainstorming.
For the Ranger equivalent, we can see what I can only assume is a lever action equivalent of the galvanic rifle and what is either a galvanic pistol or just a really sweet looking stub revolver. The only purpose I can think of is some sort of character Hunter unit, designed to move up the board and pick off weaker support characters or harass. I'm really not sure what else they can do without some sort of interesting aura buff like maybe a scouting effect, say lighting up a target unit for rerolls or something. Otherwise they're just rangers with more movement and flamers.
Curious to see what they end up having. They seem like units we need and can use, just need some stats to get a better idea.
I agree with most of that speculation but wouldn’t think the horse mouth flamer or wingpack flamer were anything more than regular flamers. Maybe some new variant like S4 AP-1. But certainly not the heavy profile of a Kastelan’s 12” S5 AP-1 in such a small model.
Similarly I expect these horde riders to be T4. I wonder if they’ll get any special rule to advancing (distance or being able to shoot).
Another knock-on effect from this post: they said all these datasheets and the flyer ones would be in our Psychic Awakening book. That makes me feel like we won’t get a new coded this year, or until after the new edition hits. So the only buffs we’ll see will be ones we have to pay for using strats/WLTs/relics, or a new monocodex buff like Cults/Doctrines/etc. No fixes to Forgeworld traits or Canticles.
Yeah, unsurprising since it’s tied to a Psychic Awakening book and we know which ones are coming in Feb and March already.
Also worth noting is their reveal of a new series of Forge World books, to replace the FW indexes. Rewritten rules, they say. Presumably these will include things like the Custodes 30k FW PDFs and Knights FW PDFs - so maybe this is where AdMech finally gets its long-delayed 30k Mechanicum FW datasheets?
I might get the robo-cavalry even if they suck, since they dial our army's ridiculously cool factor up to 11. Atompunk, dieselpunk, and now space western?
And yeah, they probably will suck, since they seem to have infantry weapons and probably will have the cavalry keyword, so they cannot do all of the cool infantry tricks. And unless they will give us some crazy strategem support, you will find that there's not much in our army for cavalry/outflank stuff. (Jackals are only good because they released with the new GSC codex, which had dedicated biker support.)
I foresee that maybe the cheapest flamer-dog will be used to fill Fast Attack slots?
The Batmen, on the other hand, definitely will have a use. Flying shooting infantry fill so many niches. Unless they are ridiculously overcosted, anyway.
Personally, still looking forward to the 5-man air transports.
But I cannot believe we have so many damn options. It's like getting a second army attached to our current army.
The cavalry threw me off.
I was fully expecting the gargoyle guys, that was probably one of the most obvious what it was rumor engines they've done to me. Also it looks like some sort of elongated flamer so kinda stoked to see what that does.
But the cavalry...i have no words other than "what?" lol. They look freaking sweet but ... what? anyone who said they were expecting that is one hell of a liar
The visual profile of the flamer looks impressive enough that it's likely to be more than just a stock flamer/cognis flamer.
What I'm the happiest with though is that these models actually utilize and expand on the existing admech ranged technologies, instead of:
1. Yet another weapon tech completely unique to a single unit.
2. Heavy stubbers on everything.
Good to see GW remember phosphor and ad mechs unique ballistic weapon tech.
Given we get pictures of 3 unique guys per unit/assembly, pretty safe bet they'll come boxed that way, which means MSU of 3. Depending on their points they would definitely be a competitive slot filler for brigades.
Madjob wrote: The visual profile of the flamer looks impressive enough that it's likely to be more than just a stock flamer/cognis flamer.
What I'm the happiest with though is that these models actually utilize and expand on the existing admech ranged technologies, instead of:
1. Yet another weapon tech completely unique to a single unit.
2. Heavy stubbers on everything.
Good to see GW remember phosphor and ad mechs unique ballistic weapon tech.
Given we get pictures of 3 unique guys per unit/assembly, pretty safe bet they'll come boxed that way, which means MSU of 3. Depending on their points they would definitely be a competitive slot filler for brigades.
12" flamers on deepstriking dudes would be cool.
I noticed that they have grenades too, maybe they'll get something like the swooping hawks have where they can do mortal wounds by flying over enemy units. They even have talons.
yeah i'll be surprised if they dont have a flyover attack or at least some kind of "extra melee" weapon. Those talons look a little detailed and in-your-face, one of them even looks like hes striking with them like a bird of prey.
Thairne wrote: holstered carbine on the Ranger rough riders, probably the Alpha that is wielding the sabre
Yeah , maybe, but we cant see it on the pictures we saw.
True, but the models carrying a Carbine DO have fitting holsters visible. While in theory there could be yet another release waiting, I'd say that is a bit of a far fetch.
Technically possible, but reasonably I'd consider that rumour engine pic solved.
The holstered gun is not solved thus far.
It has a scope attached to it, which none of the weapons have, or wasnt shown yet. Neither in the video nor in the pics.
Maybe its a yet different loadout option for either units or it is for a skitarii HQ fingers crossed.
There is also the Necron Blackstone with admech style metal holding it into position. Hopefully a Techpriest Hq, maybe even of stygian nature.
With AdMech and Imperial Knights vs Chaos Knights and Daemons - and a promise of "revelations of hidden sub-cults, twisted schemes and even more surprises…" I almost wonder if we'll see this is a Forgeworld in Civil War and a set of new subfaction traits for Dark Mech.
Had a look through the video where you can see the riders from more angles, the scope isn't there. But I could see a leader on a Serberys mount like the GSC one, either separately or as an alternative build. The GSC promo didn't reveal everything (but hinted at a few other units via artwork).
it would be a perfect time to release proper 40k dark mechanicus rules, instead of being forced to stay in 30k.
It also would somewhat line up with FW's books being revised. Theres a handful of 30k dark mech stuff that has no 40k rules.
Definitely would be nice to get an HQ like everyone else is getting with their Psychic Awakening book, especially since we still have a big gap of “skitarii, non-repairbot HQ” in our dex. But maybe that’s asking too much after all the rest!
It's looking like Pyschic awakening is all we're going to get. If so, this means that the canticles rework is coming with it too. Remember, the Inquisitor white dwarf specifically mentions that it doesnt break canticles when you take a single Inquisitor in your army. We thought this meant new codex but I guess this is what it was referring to.
This means in pyschic awakening we're getting some sort of rework to canticles. Best case scenario, all new canticles to fix litany of the electromancer (seriously whoever thought that was a good canticle should be fired). Worst case scenario we keep the current canticles but now they only work if we're mono admech.
Then we have the new units. With any luck the manipulus will have his stats in the book as well as the skorpius so we don't need to haul around instruction booklets. However, I don't think we're going to see a skitarii Alpha in this book. I'd love to be proven wrong, but now would've been the time to debut it. The alpha has been requested more than just about any unit except maybe the transport and flyer roles. If they had indeed developed one, why wouldn't they preview him now alongside all the other new hotness? That said we've not seen the other batmen variant yet other than a flamer, so maybe there's a 3rd wave of previews coming? Sounds crazy but we're in the age of plastic sisters and zoats, I'm kind of running out of things to surprise me at this point.
Finally, I'd assume PA is coming with some of the usual strats/relics/ and WLT's. I really really really want Metallica to get a fixed FW trait but I'll be honest I'd be lucky to get a new relic and WLT, maybe a strat that turns something into an assault weapon. I'd assume most of the strats will be focused on our new units though, stuff like outflanking the cavalry or giving the batmen some sort of reroll on deepstriking.
Anyone else have any theories? I'd like to say I called it on the batmen but that one felt like a no brainer. I think the holstered rifle is one of the cavalry and we're just at the wrong angle to see it. I would think we've seen everything at this point but I'd happily take the "I was wrong" award to get an Alpha in the HQ slot after all these years.
thats assuming whoever wrote the Inquisitor book didnt simply "think" canticles worked that way. Because quite frankly they do seem like something that would behave that way, even though most of them are crap. Wouldnt be the first time different authors strayed quite heavily on how something worked.
Quite frankly as long as they still allow knights i wouldnt care if they did do that with canticles. Knights having a stratagem to allow them to use the current canticle...suddenly not allowed to get it at all...is just weird. Plus all the other ones for QM knights.
They dont all have to be amazing but i hope theyre all at least useable. Like you pointed out "Litany of the Electromancer" is a prime example of a complete waste of time. I think ive had it cause damage twice...one of which i actually read it wrong so i rolled 3 times for a dread that was in my skiitari front line instead of once...and it still only worked once anyway lol.
Canticles do work like that if you switch 'army' with 'detachment', seems like an easy mistake to make if you've not double checked the wording.
I don't think I'd be that adverse to them changing though, other than starting with Shroud psalm and the occasional reroll 1s, I can barely remember when they featured that heavily in my tactics. Iron soul as a anti-psyker defence would be nice, either as a gamewide buff like the sisters or as they are now in combination with Gloria Mechanicus.
Switching Stygies's '-1 to hit' and Shroudpsalm's '+1 cover' could work as well to level the playing field between Forgeworlds, especially if Cawl also loses his pure Mars requirement.
Canticles could have been also more strategic if there was a single stratagem that allow us to switch between them (without the "previously chosen" or "not chanted" requirements), or in the ideal situation could be fired up at the end of any phase. 2CPs is somewhat steep, but if we could manipulate chants in any phase I'd be willing to pay it.
Juggling between cover, +1S, rerolls or even morale could be potentially beneficial to game changing, as you actually can build and plan around the canticles in that system. Even Electromancer (with a slight tweak, like a roll of 4+ instead of 6, maybe increasing the damage output) would make sense, without even touching the Canticles wording. Although I'd be very happy to see a rework. Maybe that could be Admech's way to provide a Chapter Master reroll (or Cawl being keyword released like the Shadowsun was, but I doubt it will happen).
2CP, even if its also a once per battle thing, to middle-of-the round switch the canticles would be worth it i'd agree.
Army-wide rerolls on your turn and shift to shroudspalm on the opponents turn would be awesome. Especially when im bringing a knight i REALLY want that reroll T1 because i spend a CP and the knight gets it, which massively helps. But i usually suffer if i didnt do enough damage because im not in "cover" army-wide now
Gloria Mechanicus is a 2CP middle of the round switch, isn't it? You just can't reuse them - but singing to get reroll 1s to hit on your doctrina imperative dragoons and then chanting the remorseless fist to get them up to S8 for the next dice roll is fine.
Or as you say, a first turn reroll followed by a switch to shroud psalm?
I'd also say that for 4CP, with Gloria Mech and Divine Chorus, you can immediately switch back to a previously used one, once per game. Which is a lot, but can't think you'd want to do it more than once anyway.
You're going to burn through you playlist pretty quick with those two though, and end up on shuffle by turn 3 though. I think Divine Chorus probably doesn't need the one turn only requirement, the 4CP ideal situation is pricey enough and burning 2CP a turn for cover you can get via movement or rerolls you can get with a dominus doesn't warrant the fear of Canticles on repeat.
oh snap youre right for some reason i thought that was a "before the battle begins" effect, which i always found odd when you could just pay 1 cp to reroll anyway.
Tastyfish wrote: Gloria Mechanicus is a 2CP middle of the round switch, isn't it? You just can't reuse them - but singing to get reroll 1s to hit on your doctrina imperative dragoons and then chanting the remorseless fist to get them up to S8 for the next dice roll is fine.
Or as you say, a first turn reroll followed by a switch to shroud psalm?
I'd also say that for 4CP, with Gloria Mech and Divine Chorus, you can immediately switch back to a previously used one, once per game. Which is a lot, but can't think you'd want to do it more than once anyway.
You're going to burn through you playlist pretty quick with those two though, and end up on shuffle by turn 3 though. I think Divine Chorus probably doesn't need the one turn only requirement, the 4CP ideal situation is pricey enough and burning 2CP a turn for cover you can get via movement or rerolls you can get with a dominus doesn't warrant the fear of Canticles on repeat.
Gloria works in round 1 mostly, as you can't use the Gloria on the psalm that has been already in use. So the first time you switch between the cover and rerolling, the bag of tricks has been emptied. Divine Chorus, on the other hand, is basically "Shroudpsalm again in round 2", this time due to limitations of "being previously chanted". Plus it's once per battle. So we end with two stratagems that are usable in a combo once per game, for 4CPs. Somehow I don't really believe 4CPs to manipulate rerolling 1s and cover round 1 is worth it that much in most cases . If this combo costed 2CPs - well, ok, decent even if not game-changing. 2CPs to simply switch the Canticle at the end of any phase, without silly limitations? Well, that's something I can use to boost my list potential.
Tastyfish wrote: Gloria Mechanicus is a 2CP middle of the round switch, isn't it? You just can't reuse them - but singing to get reroll 1s to hit on your doctrina imperative dragoons and then chanting the remorseless fist to get them up to S8 for the next dice roll is fine.
Or as you say, a first turn reroll followed by a switch to shroud psalm?
I'd also say that for 4CP, with Gloria Mech and Divine Chorus, you can immediately switch back to a previously used one, once per game. Which is a lot, but can't think you'd want to do it more than once anyway.
You're going to burn through you playlist pretty quick with those two though, and end up on shuffle by turn 3 though. I think Divine Chorus probably doesn't need the one turn only requirement, the 4CP ideal situation is pricey enough and burning 2CP a turn for cover you can get via movement or rerolls you can get with a dominus doesn't warrant the fear of Canticles on repeat.
Gloria works in round 1 mostly, as you can't use the Gloria on the psalm that has been already in use. So the first time you switch between the cover and rerolling, the bag of tricks has been emptied. Divine Chorus, on the other hand, is basically "Shroudpsalm again in round 2", this time due to limitations of "being previously chanted". Plus it's once per battle. So we end with two stratagems that are usable in a combo once per game, for 4CPs. Somehow I don't really believe 4CPs to manipulate rerolling 1s and cover round 1 is worth it that much in most cases . If this combo costed 2CPs - well, ok, decent even if not game-changing. 2CPs to simply switch the Canticle at the end of any phase, without silly limitations? Well, that's something I can use to boost my list potential.
Gloria as a first turn 2CP for cross army reroll 1s ahead of Shroudpsalm? It's possible but I'm not sure it's really worth it - the area a single Dominus can cover is pretty good, and I'd have thought the big units (Kat Destroyers and Robots) would prefer to get the +1-2 from those CP instead even if you can't get them in the bubble. 2CP for a reroll 1 on a Onager is too much.
You'd probably be pushing to be in range of plasma calivers on turn 1, so maybe save that once units have moved out of the starting auras and just go pure Shroud on turn 1.
2 CP to get reroll 1s on the rest of the army, and then double the wounds on a 6-9A unit with exploding 4+s by making it S8 D2 -1sv rather than S7 D2 -1 sv is tempting. 5 Dead primaris on average, or 7 wounds on a pred rather than 5.
I could see forgeworld-specific canticle benefits, like the marine chapters benefit more in certain combat doctrines. Stygies might benefit more under shroud psalm as they're extra sneaky as an example.
They could add something like combat doctrines with canticles as a part of it, but I'm coming up blank atm as to how they could make a similar mechanic feel fresh after such a short time introducing it for marines.
More useful relics and WT is a minimum I would want, only 2 or 3 of ours are even worth taking.
One of the Pteraxii had goad and flechette pistol the same as infiltrators. I imagine the rifle version poetically just greater range, maybe some ap of we're lucky.
As to what the multi kit alternative model could be... I'm going with a melee only version. Seems like they're essentially flying sicarians, even the base sizes are the same.
I really hot they have some interesting rules, tied off coming up against other armies that have so many options available to them.
Octovol wrote: I could see forgeworld-specific canticle benefits, like the marine chapters benefit more in certain combat doctrines. Stygies might benefit more under shroud psalm as they're extra sneaky as an example.
They could add something like combat doctrines with canticles as a part of it, but I'm coming up blank atm as to how they could make a similar mechanic feel fresh after such a short time introducing it for marines.
That's a bandaid fix and most people if being honest would tell you such. Canticles is, and will continue to be, trash. There's a reason that the time it was "strong"(War Convocation) last edition involved Skitarii boosting it up. Unless they go and add 'tiers' to Canticles again or wildly overpower them? They're trash. Gimme back my Doctrina Imperatives for my Skitarii, gimme my Alpha Primus and I'll forget this dark time.
More useful relics and WT is a minimum I would want, only 2 or 3 of ours are even worth taking.
Because a good chunk of the Relics were copy/pasted from the Skitarii book and were designed to go on Skitarii Alphas. They weren't meant to be on characters. A simple fix is to give us a stratagem allowing for Skitarii Alphas and Princeps to take gear as well as characters. Maybe allowing for them to take Warlord Traits as well.
One of the Pteraxii had goad and flechette pistol the same as infiltrators. I imagine the rifle version poetically just greater range, maybe some ap of we're lucky.
As to what the multi kit alternative model could be... I'm going with a melee only version. Seems like they're essentially flying sicarians, even the base sizes are the same.
I wouldn't put much stock into what the pictures are...I'd say look at the video. The Pteraxii with Goad and Flechette Pistol seems to be an Alpha and the unit has carbines, assuming 0:45 is correct showing off 4 carbines to one with pistol+goad.
I'd assume that the alternative model is the flamethrower one.
I really hot they have some interesting rules, tied off coming up against other armies that have so many options available to them.
Frankly, we just need the Skitarii to get their old rules back and weapons to get their old rules back as well.
U02dah4 wrote: Canticals as they presently are written are really good stop complaining
I have one a lot of games on low terrain tables through haveing my whole army in cover for 3 turns.
Not to mention reroll 1's for your whole army is really strong if your not in a circle around cawl.
So thats 3 turns there great and after that you still get lucky
Thats the problem, also low terrain games are really boring imo.
Shroudpsalm is good, especially because it works on vehicles.
Rerolling in shooting is good in a vacuum, but most of the time not needed so its situational.
Rest is either a little bonus, outright bad, or uninteresting statboosts.
I wish there was some utility in there too, back when we could reroll charges with phosphor.
I'd just like us to get some kind of availability for buffing something other than hit rolls. My opponents are pulling out all sorts of shenanigans with wound rolls, saves denying saves, overwatch, charging after advancing making things untargetable, re positioning them. The y list goes on. Meanwhile we get a million ways to ensure we hit on a 3+ or better.
Anything we get will be bandaid to the bigger more intrinsic problems we have. It's not a new codex, or a supplement, though it could be the number of units we're getting. Just some more variety would be nice.
Shroudspalm is basically the canticles rule. Its always great as its insanely rare to never get shot at in a turn period.
Reroll shooting of 1. Uh, dominus aura? Yeah its nice to give it to the flankers too but in general its not really needed thanks to a dominus (or for that matter cawl)
Reroll melee of 1. We have 3 units that melee at all to any degree of threat (Dragoons, Infiltrators, Fulgurites) and 2 more that can melee but arent a major threat (Ruststalkers or Robots...robots because yeah they hit hard but they are inaccurate and laughably weak compared to the shooty variant). So again, nice, but in general not needed since so much of our army basically doesnt benefit from it.
Reroll morale. I have never once failed a morale test with Admech unless i was dumb enough to run 10man squads of rangers/vanguard, which case i virtually autofail anyway because i lost 6-7 dudes so D6-1 go away. 5man squads near a datatether never get to a dangerous threshold, they just get wiped before it matters.
+1str in melee. Really the only time this is gonna help is if Dragoons are hitting a T8 target, outside that yeah rangers wounding on 4s is nice but also pointless since extremely low RoA and no ap anyway, if they even get to swing at all.
And....litany...is so unlikely that even if my entire army is locked in melee i'd want something else.
1 amazing, 2 highly situational, 1 extremely situational, and 2 completely useless does not make canticles amazing. Thats why we want them buffed.
Also, low terrain? that really bugs me when people try to claim things are fine or broken (strong or weak side of that word) because their games usually have no true LoS blocking terrain and area terrain is scarce. The game is suppose to be rather dense in terrain, and there should always be 1-2 tall things in the center-ish of the board. Always.
1) Give Cawl the Shadowsun treatment and let him lead any Forge World; only force Mars if he is selected as the Warlord, I guess.
2) Both of the specialist detachments buff Cult Mechanicus units. Give us a Skitarii specialist detachment! With a Skitarii scout move! Base it off Eldar Phantasm stratagem. 2 CP to redeploy. (That way, you can still Stygies infiltrate afterward.) And maybe a -1 BS and +1 WS or vice versa Doctrina to go with the other two Doctrinas.
3) Not useless relics. Our relics are atrociously bad. The dogmas and WLTs may be okay now that we're getting more variety in our units.
I recognise different tournaments have different standards of terrain not everywhere uses the same standards and there is a big difference between the NOVA/LGT L's and the terrain at the Scottish GT and majors I more regularly play at. Density of terrain has a big impact on how important cover is.
So Cover for whole army a solid buff i mean even on just 2 turns a game I would be counting it as rediculously strong - how many SM players pick stealthy.
RR1 to shoot not interesting but if you are not running a cawl star its really strong. Not every list is 6 bots. Im running 1 squad of mars infiltrators 1 squad of deepstriking curpuscarii and my hoplites and vanguard will often be out if my 1 dominous range.
RR1 in fight is a neich option but occasionally can be usefull omniscient mask is the biggest argument against
The others dont really matter its a free bonus on top of dogmas such as stygies -1 to hit that are good
Could it be better always but as mechanics go ts powerfull for atleast 2-3 turns and thats good enough would i swap one of the lesser ones for a 3" move buff absolutely but GW tend break things and its already good enough
We have some good relics
Eye of xi lexum agripinaa mandatory in agripinaa
Solar flare lucius great for that 3rd enginseer to grab that objective
Omniscient mask - Broken- try this one with hoplites/dragoons
So I haven't been in the loop with the Ad Mech meta in a while. Are Breachers really that good now and if so what should they be used for? Are Destroyers still worth taking in a non-Ryza detachment? Are the Belleros Energy Cannons really that much more better than the Ferrumite Cannon on the Disintegrators?
While i havnt played any tournaments i still feel i can say ive been having oddly good luck with Grav-phrons, since i wanted them anyway for the Bot-Bro-Team stratagem +1 to hit for them and robots. I took the gravs because theyre cheaper than plasma now and since i wasnt putting them in Ryza i didnt want them.
Grav cannons are slightly shorter range which is annoying but man they cut through marines....D3 damage has good chances to cut through primaris too. Also the fixed number of shots is nice. Technically even non-ryza plasmas would be better for this but the fixated 5shots each makes up for that imo (especially since it axes the self-nuke risks if they fire w/o any +1 to hit)
Probably outflanking, T3 2A 2W models.
They might tie up a backfield unit, but unless those are power weapons which no skitarii so far wielded I dont see them doing anything significant damage wise. They might chop-chop a backfield hiding character thi
Thairne wrote: Probably outflanking, T3 2A 2W models.
They might tie up a backfield unit, but unless those are power weapons which no skitarii so far wielded I dont see them doing anything significant damage wise. They might chop-chop a backfield hiding character thi
Sicarian Infiltrators have Power Swords or Taser Goads as options.
It's amusing that people seem to forget Skitarii have melee units...people just don't like them.
There was a bit of talk(take with salt) that the Raiders(the non-flamethrower horse variants) are a harassment unit with deployable mines and/or a forward deployment blocker.
Thairne wrote: Probably outflanking, T3 2A 2W models.
They might tie up a backfield unit, but unless those are power weapons which no skitarii so far wielded I dont see them doing anything significant damage wise. They might chop-chop a backfield hiding character thi
I don't see why we think these are gonna be T3 and only 2w. An ironstrider is T6 with 6w with two autocannons for 60pts.it still has a regular skitarii riding it.
These come in what appears to be min squads of 3, same as kataphrons and most other army's T5 3W models. I mean if they're dead quick, like 14" quick, id see them at T4 but I reckon at least 3W regardless.
Surely they also have to have the vehicle keyword... Its a robotic mount that most definitely will not be AI controlled or have a will of its own. Though without the infantry keyword prime hermeticon won't work with them
Automatically Appended Next Post: So many things in our current rules could inadvertedly screw these new models up because of our lacking synergies.
They wouldnt be T3.
Even Eldar become T4 when riding those scrawny jetbikes.
Anything more than T4 is ambitious imo but theres no way theyre T3.
Striders/goons are T6 yeah but quite frankly i dont understand why. They look like they should be T5, and im actually wondering if/when we get a codex 2.0 they'll drop to T5.
ah god damnit, the taser goad is such a superior option that I totally forgot about the swords.... that's gonna sting for a bit
As for why T3 - the clostest thing I can think of are IG Rough Riders which are T3/2W models...
So far skitarii have GEQ stats with better BS, save and an invuln. So putting them on a mount feels the same and might well follow the same route.
Their Rough Riders, although recently delegated to Legends, cost 10 PPM with a minsize of 5.
So... lets say 12 ppm for a similar statline puts them at round about 40 points per unit. 120 pts to fill out Fast Attack puts our cheapest Brigade at 780 pts.
Thairne wrote: ah god damnit, the taser goad is such a superior option that I totally forgot about the swords.... that's gonna sting for a bit
As for why T3 - the clostest thing I can think of are IG Rough Riders which are T3/2W models...
So far skitarii have GEQ stats with better BS, save and an invuln. So putting them on a mount feels the same and might well follow the same route.
Their Rough Riders, although recently delegated to Legends, cost 10 PPM with a minsize of 5.
So... lets say 12 ppm for a similar statline puts them at round about 40 points per unit. 120 pts to fill out Fast Attack puts our cheapest Brigade at 780 pts.
The preview showcased units of 3, and I guess that's how boxes and min squad will be looking. I do actually agree it might become a T3 in the end, but I still hope for T4 and W2+
You're looking at T4 or 5, at least, for our stuff. They're riding cyborged mounts, unlike Rough Riders who are riding unaltered beasts...who additionally had no real update with their porting over into the Index.
If one looks over at the Death Korps of Krieg and their Death Riders(which are modified beasts)? You're looking at T4 with 2W each.
I'm guessing T4 with 4-5W, a 4+ save and our usual invulnerable.
All the cybernetics do for skitarii is giving them the 6++ via the Bionics ability.
5W is excessive, especially since chickens have 6... That would put them at the level of a mechanised walker or sentinel.
We MIGHT get T4, but I doubt it. So far +1T has only been used for bikes as I am aware?
Thairne wrote: All the cybernetics do for skitarii is giving them the 6++ via the Bionics ability.
Okay, and? The mount is what has been heavily enhanced--which is how it was reflected in the DKoK statline. DKoK guys aren't natively T4.
5W is excessive, especially since chickens have 6... That would put them at the level of a mechanised walker or sentinel.
And these aren't something that you could see coming similarly? They're not exactly tiny, seemingly coming on the 60x35mm oval bases GW's shifted cavalry in AoS to.
We MIGHT get T4, but I doubt it. So far +1T has only been used for bikes as I am aware?
I think the hounds will be T4 W3 minimum, coming from sizeand amount of bionics.
Regarding the ranger rider variant, they seem to have some additional backpack equipment and a galvanic rifle variation, perhaps they are 7th edition galvanic rifles with ap - 1and can snipe
DKoK Deathriders rules were made by the FW guys though, different studio. They might have had different ideas and principles... They also had a FNP against S4 or lower due to their "augmented mounts" rule.
So we either get T4 and augmented mounts for consistency with FW models or T3 and nothing which would be consistent with GW rules.
I know where I'd place my bets Anyway, it's guesswork and either way something good will come from it - it will be either cheap or durable.
My guess would be toughness 4, 2 wounds, 4+ 6++ save, BS 3, WS 4, movement 12", costing around 14-16pts when comparing them to similar bike models. They definitely won't be cheaper than Infiltrators, I know what GW is like with pointing new units......
deffrekka wrote: My guess would be toughness 4, 2 wounds, 4+ 6++ save, BS 3, WS 4, movement 12", costing around 14-16pts when comparing them to similar bike models. They definitely won't be cheaper than Infiltrators, I know what GW is like with pointing new units......
2W would have them too fragile for a unit that comes in multiples of 3. How many Wounds are Thunderwolves?
2W would have them too fragile for a unit that comes in multiples of 3. How many Wounds are Thunderwolves?
It's an awful generous assumption to make: that GW would take such things into consideration when designing a kit. Remember that they design the kit first, then assign rules to them. They don't think about whether the kit fulfills a needed role for the army, unless it happily aligns with the early concepts that they feel good about.
I mean you don't expect, by your logic, for the pteraxii who also may be in sold in sets of 3 to be more than 2w apiece?
2W would have them too fragile for a unit that comes in multiples of 3. How many Wounds are Thunderwolves?
It's an awful generous assumption to make: that GW would take such things into consideration when designing a kit. Remember that they design the kit first, then assign rules to them. They don't think about whether the kit fulfills a needed role for the army, unless it happily aligns with the early concepts that they feel good about.
And the rules writers usually look at the kit when designing the rules...if you think that looks like a 2W model, you're kidding yourself.
I mean you don't expect, by your logic for the pteraxii who also may be in sold in sets of 3, to be more than 2w apiece?
No, because they're more likely in sets of 5 if one watches the video GW put up. Check out 0:24 there. There's one of the Pteraxii variant units there, set up with 4x Flechette Carbines and an Alpha or something akin to it with a Blaster and Taser Goad.
The flamethrower toting variant is something different...and not even in the video from what I can tell.
And the rules writers usually look at the kit when designing the rules...if you think that looks like a 2W model, you're kidding yourself.
Not especially? The trend is pretty well established, mounted units get +1 T and +1 W over their infantry equivalent, the only exceptions we've had are for mounts which are monstrously sized (which Thunderwolves certainly are). I can see them having other upgrades thanks to the nature of their mounts, maybe an upgraded save (normal or invuln), but a third wound seems inappropriate.
No, because they're more likely in sets of 5 if one watches the video GW put up. Check out 0:24 there. There's one of the Pteraxii variant units there, set up with 4x Flechette Carbines and an Alpha or something akin to it with a Blaster and Taser Goad.
While not definitive, I'll concede that's a distinct possibility. The dual build nature of the kit coupled with the community sites previous pattern of debuting models/kits with photos that reflect how they will be sold made me assume a box of 3 instead of digging deeper.
deffrekka wrote: My guess would be toughness 4, 2 wounds, 4+ 6++ save, BS 3, WS 4, movement 12", costing around 14-16pts when comparing them to similar bike models. They definitely won't be cheaper than Infiltrators, I know what GW is like with pointing new units......
2W would have them too fragile for a unit that comes in multiples of 3. How many Wounds are Thunderwolves?
How many wounds do Windriders, Shining Spears, Reavers, Warbikers, Space/Ravenwing Bikes, Atalan Jackals all have? 2. They all come in boxes of 3 dont they aswell?
Thunder wolves, Jugganauts, Nob Bikers and Sky Weavers are the only 3+ wound bikes/cavalry in the game.
These horses are more like a space marine bike instead of a thunder wolf. Toughness 4 with 2 wounds would be my bet. 3 wounds is a stretch and so is toughness 5.
i think people are expecting those numbers because the Ironstriders are T6 6W when they kinda feel like they shouldnt be that durable (model-aesthetics not points)
Ironstriders look T5 4W imo.
And the rules writers usually look at the kit when designing the rules...if you think that looks like a 2W model, you're kidding yourself.
Not especially? The trend is pretty well established, mounted units get +1 T and +1 W over their infantry equivalent, the only exceptions we've had are for mounts which are monstrously sized (which Thunderwolves certainly are). I can see them having other upgrades thanks to the nature of their mounts, maybe an upgraded save (normal or invuln), but a third wound seems inappropriate.
And what makes you think these aren't "monstrously sized"? Thunderwolf Cavalry are on 60mm round bases currently...these are seemingly on the 60x35mm ovals(comparing to the 40mm bases that the Pteraxii are on).
No, because they're more likely in sets of 5 if one watches the video GW put up. Check out 0:24 there. There's one of the Pteraxii variant units there, set up with 4x Flechette Carbines and an Alpha or something akin to it with a Blaster and Taser Goad.
While not definitive, I'll concede that's a distinct possibility. The dual build nature of the kit coupled with the community sites previous pattern of debuting models/kits with photos that reflect how they will be sold made me assume a box of 3 instead of digging deeper.
I'd imagine that they wanted to save something for another potential reveal/tease in March.
That said, it didn't even really require me to do too much digging. It's right there in the video, multiple times(0:24 is just the 'best' shot showcasing the Princeps who is the only one rocking the blaster+goad), showcasing them as a unit of 5 instead of 6.
How many wounds do Windriders, Shining Spears, Reavers, Warbikers, Space/Ravenwing Bikes, Atalan Jackals all have? 2. They all come in boxes of 3 dont they aswell?
Thunder wolves, Jugganauts, Nob Bikers and Sky Weavers are the only 3+ wound bikes/cavalry in the game.
Jackals are boxes of 5, featuring 4 Bikers(one can be built as a leader or standard Jackal) and 1 Wolfquad(which is an optional unit upgrade).
The reason I asked about Thunderwolves is that I literally didn't know. I don't own the Space Wolves book, I don't know anyone who plays them to borrow it off of, and frankly I don't like referencing online stuff. If someone knew, they'd answer and we could work a discussion from there..
These horses are more like a space marine bike instead of a thunder wolf.
We don't really know what they're like. That's the whole reason everything is speculation right now. It's why I brought up DKoK Death Riders as an example, why I brought up Thunderwolves, etc.
Toughness 4 with 2 wounds would be my bet. 3 wounds is a stretch and so is toughness 5.
For the record, I did say that I figure T5 would be the high side and that T4 is more likely...and that led to the whole thing about how they'd have to be T3 cause Rough Riders are. I could MAYBE see the Vanguard-based version(Sulphurhounds) having a higher Toughness or Save value for some weirdly worded reasoning.
And what makes you think these aren't "monstrously sized"? Thunderwolf Cavalry are on 60mm round bases currently...these are seemingly on the 60x35mm ovals(comparing to the 40mm bases that the Pteraxii are on).
I've got a pretty reliable scale reference since the riders are skitarii infantry comparable to vanguard/rangers. So yeah they don't look to be of a size that would compare to something like a Thunderwolf.
And what makes you think these aren't "monstrously sized"? Thunderwolf Cavalry are on 60mm round bases currently...these are seemingly on the 60x35mm ovals(comparing to the 40mm bases that the Pteraxii are on).
I've got a pretty reliable scale reference since the riders are skitarii infantry comparable to vanguard/rangers. So yeah they don't look to be of a size that would compare to something like a Thunderwolf.
To compare: Thunderwolf Cavalry
Spoiler:
vs Serberys Sulphurhounds
Spoiler:
Both are on 60mm bases, with the Thunderwolves on the 60mm round while the Sulphurhounds have 60x35mm ovals. In case you're unfamiliar with said base, it's the one used for the Transauranic Arquebus model:
Spoiler:
Remember that the riders for the Thunderwolf Cavalry aren't Primaris-sized. They were done in line with the 'old' Space Marine range and are roughly the same size as a Skitarii.
I do wish they'd give us some kind of preview, ruleswise, like they're doing for the Lumineth.
The weapons on the sulfurhounds have some interesting shapes that you maybe didnt notice, look at the one on the left. Maybe im imagining things but it looks like some kind of assault cannon.
Besides, the ranger variant (AKA Serberys Raiders) dont have a flamethrower like the shulphurhounds do, I don't think im crazy when I believe they have some kind of special ability (look at those binoculars and antennas) or a decent melee attack, even thought it would be strange as the ones that alawys want to get near melee are the vanguards.
With the pteraxis I would say that they are some kind of shock troop, with the regular ones having special weapons like incendine combustor, meltas(?), and other different ones, and the princeps being stuck with default sicarian weapons
Thairne wrote: Probably outflanking, T3 2A 2W models.
They might tie up a backfield unit, but unless those are power weapons which no skitarii so far wielded I dont see them doing anything significant damage wise. They might chop-chop a backfield hiding character thi
Sicarian Infiltrators have Power Swords or Taser Goads as options.
It's amusing that people seem to forget Skitarii have melee units...people just don't like them.
There was a bit of talk(take with salt) that the Raiders(the non-flamethrower horse variants) are a harassment unit with deployable mines and/or a forward deployment blocker.
I honestly think there's a lot of merit to Infiltrators, who can shoot something and be just in range that the opponent WANTS to deal with them first, and on top of that I favor Graia so the Strat is easy to pop off. Their only real issue is why would anyone use the Swords when the Goad just works?
Leucaruth wrote: The weapons on the sulfurhounds have some interesting shapes that you maybe didnt notice, look at the one on the left. Maybe im imagining things but it looks like some kind of assault cannon.
Besides, the ranger variant (AKA Serberys Raiders) dont have a flamethrower like the shulphurhounds do, I don't think im crazy when I believe they have some kind of special ability (look at those binoculars and antennas) or a decent melee attack, even thought it would be strange as the ones that alawys want to get near melee are the vanguards.
With the pteraxis I would say that they are some kind of shock troop, with the regular ones having special weapons like incendine combustor, meltas(?), and other different ones, and the princeps being stuck with default sicarian weapons
Pretty sure its just the rifle version of the phosphor blast pistol, there's better pictures of it elsewhere. I don't blame people for not recognizing it, the pistol is pretty bad, the only thing it's really better than is the rad pistol, and that's only because the rad pistol is actually pointless when the alpha can take a rad carbine and a melee weapon.
So I'm in a weird position lately as far as armies go. I like dark eldar. I really do. That said they never get new units except for resculpts and then usually lose units or heroes they had like trueborn and bloodbrides and about 4 heroes. Also I've been playing them a little too long probably and need a change.
Genestealer cult sounded fun but they tend to be infantry heavy and very fragile when I fought them.
Skitarii sound fun but I might just be effected by new army cool factor with the new units. For this reason I might wait a month or two and see how these new units pan out and if the awesome feel of the new army doesn't wear off too much.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So I'm in a weird position lately as far as armies go. I like dark eldar. I really do. That said they never get new units except for resculpts and then usually lose units or heroes they had like trueborn and bloodbrides and about 4 heroes. Also I've been playing them a little too long probably and need a change.
Genestealer cult sounded fun but they tend to be infantry heavy and very fragile when I fought them.
Skitarii sound fun but I might just be effected by new army cool factor with the new units. For this reason I might wait a month or two and see how these new units pan out and if the awesome feel of the new army doesn't wear off too much.
That's the best solution for now. I've stopped a deeper dive into Kataphrons, as the cavalry, planes and jump troops just look so sweet. At the same time I realised I'm not that much of a powergamer as I thought, and competitive gamer for that case, as I want at least a box of these no matter how the rules are going to be. Besides PA book might change a relative power of certain units/combos, and since there are no leaks or previews...
i was just about to order 2 boxes of fulgurites, a killteam box (for a 2nd manip and 5 infitrators since the price is so good) and another box of infiltrators before those announcements showed up.
U02dah4 wrote: What do we think of the rustalkers now they have had a points reduction in CA ?
I'm testing them and the few conclusions so far:
- Blades over Razors/Cordclaws, unless Ryza for RR1 to wound. But...
- They do very little damage to MEQs in either setup due to W2 and 3+, and no freaking AP. But they are fairly decent against Orks and GSC (and the usual T3 soft infantry). They might fall flat against Sisters, better wounding will not help vs 3+ save, but haven't had a chance to test them
- They work best for me as an early screening rush, pushed via Stygies. 17" of movement with Infantry keyword is not too shabby, it allows me to push DS and Dajumps away from the main line, for quite a decent price (5,5 pts per wound). It demands a little bit of terrain though, you don't want to be shot turn 1 (TFCs won't care anyway) as the usual T3 and 4+ save will be easily killed (even with W2 and -1)
- Thus, their niche IMO are Orks and GSC - push the DS/Jumps back, to buy yourself space and time to counter-act. But as Orks and GSC are not very meta picks now, you might be better without them
What would make a start to fix them? AP. Any point of AP, preferably a special rule of ignoring armor/invuln save (like Assassins do). Preferably, Razors could ignore the invulns while having a power sword AP, while Blades could ignore the armor - that would make for ANY reason to bring Razors/Cordclaw loadout
i dont think ruststalkers will ever be good unless their mortals trigger on a 4+ or they give them some native AP.
They wound a lot even at S4 but with 0 AP it means very little. And they cant advance/charge so despite being Mv8 theyre kinda sluggish for a pure melee unit
the problem with ruststalkers is that we have fulgurites that do the exact same job but better (drop mortals in combat) or we have the infiltrators + wrath of mars that can do the same thing with shooting.
There needs to be an actual reason to take rusts because in all games ive played with them, i wouldve wanted fulgurites instead.
Fulgurites might be better in combat but the difficulty with fulgurites is reliably making the charge so they can be tanky i know my tourneys have lighter terrain and so they are a struggle to hide
6" move + 9" stygies + manipulous 2 + charge avg 7 =24" only just gets you there if they are on the line
Conversely rust stalkers have 8"move gives you a little bit more leeway secondly 30 points cheaper for 10 with 2 wounds much tankier vs small arms
Sure you can add transports but it adds cost
Infiltrators are definitely more effective but 150 pts vs 110 is quite a points difference given no extra survivability so they should be.
Corpuscarii are preferable to fulgurites as atleast they shoot and they are almost as effective as tazer infiltrators in shooting/CC for 30 pts cheaper
Infiltrators + WoM are a seperate fase as they are a one off unit sure they are broken but you can only do it once per turn.
Ruststalkers had a role before in that they were our only unit with grenades(and those grenades were nasty). If they give them back, that alone opens up something new.
Interestingly enough, something I keep coming back to is a notation in the formation "Sicarian Killclade" about the interaction between the Infiltrator helms and the Transonic weaponry: the transonics apparently amplified the helms' output and created a weird, scarier interaction. Oh, and the whole "the helmets create an uplifting chorus" bit.
Think Ruststalkers would be interesting if they could boost up the Infiltrator Neurostatic Aura and if the Infiltrators came with Broad-Spectrum Data Tethers?
Rustalkers will never be good simply because of their innate mobility issues. Mobility is the name of the game, as it always has been. Any other time someone already brought up Priests, which get more benefit from external goodies.
If Ruststalkers had 4 attacks base they would be a good horde clearer, an actual role. And with more attacks the MW component becomes more effective as well.
Their mobility is fine, it's better than fulgurites and they're arguably our best unit.
6" move + 9" stygies + manipulous 2 + charge avg 7 =24" only just gets you there if they are on the line
Sure you can add transports but it adds cost
Even just starting them on the ground, they can act as a decent distraction carnifex if your opponent knows what they do. Before we got transports, i used to stygies a big blob in my opponent's face, it protected the rest of our army.
With transports being as cheap as they are, i have no trouble fitting at least one in my lists and getting an extra 3" on my priests, effectively making them need only a 4" charge.
But i agree that the rustalkers have better innate mobility and are cheaper, but these are the only two positives i can find.
2 of the ranger riders can actually be seen with swords, the alpha and the guy with binoculars during the video. So the whole unit could be equipped with them, thoughts?
0XFallen wrote: 2 of the ranger riders can actually be seen with swords, the alpha and the guy with binoculars during the video. So the whole unit could be equipped with them, thoughts?
Depends on the rest of the statline - even mounted Skitarii won't be worthwhile to bother with a WS4+ S3 and power sword costing additional 4pts.
True, I think alphas melee weapons should cost 0 or 1 point.
However, if the riders melee weapons are mandatory they should have come up with a viable solution to that problem.
So do we actually leaks on the new Skitarii stuff or what? Speculation and wish listing is fun and I do it all the time. However without concrete stuff to actually talk about maybe the News and Rumors thread would be the best place to discuss that.
Just to be a hypocrite though I really hope that Flyer transport thing counts as Open Topped for shooting and/or charging. That would be a new breath of life for new shenanigans for an army that's, let's be honest, kinda dull now that they've been figured out.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: So do we actually leaks on the new Skitarii stuff or what? Speculation and wish listing is fun and I do it all the time. However without concrete stuff to actually talk about maybe the News and Rumors thread would be the best place to discuss that.
Just to be a hypocrite though I really hope that Flyer transport thing counts as Open Topped for shooting and/or charging. That would be a new breath of life for new shenanigans for an army that's, let's be honest, kinda dull now that they've been figured out.
No official leaks, most of the discussion has been going over the photos in great detail and determining what they're armed with. We've been able to get a good read on most of the loadouts of the models, lots of Phosphor weapons for the Vanguard horsemen, some sort of flechette rifle for the batmen, Rangers have some sort of Galvanic carbine and powerswords, etc. But you're probably right, we should probably keep the discussion in another thread. Other than trying to come up with potential tactics that they'll be able to be used for, like the Vangaurd cav making a great addition to a first wave assault to lower enemy T values, there really isn't much else to talk about that is concrete yet. I'd imagine we're at least a month out from proper leaks on any of the wargear and abilities these models have.
As for the flyers, I would give up any hope of Open Topped coming back. That rule is functionally dead for any army but Orks and Eldar to my knowledge, maybe GSC have something too. If the Dunerider didn't get it with a literal open topped compartment, an enclosed hull flyer definitely isn't getting it. You'll take your sponson heavy stubbers and you'll like it young man Best I can tell, the only way a model gets open topped is if the model is essentially standing on top of the vehicle completely in the open. Anything less and it's closed top.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: So do we actually leaks on the new Skitarii stuff or what? Speculation and wish listing is fun and I do it all the time. However without concrete stuff to actually talk about maybe the News and Rumors thread would be the best place to discuss that.
Just to be a hypocrite though I really hope that Flyer transport thing counts as Open Topped for shooting and/or charging. That would be a new breath of life for new shenanigans for an army that's, let's be honest, kinda dull now that they've been figured out.
No official leaks, most of the discussion has been going over the photos in great detail and determining what they're armed with. We've been able to get a good read on most of the loadouts of the models, lots of Phosphor weapons for the Vanguard horsemen, some sort of flechette rifle for the batmen, Rangers have some sort of Galvanic carbine and powerswords, etc. But you're probably right, we should probably keep the discussion in another thread. Other than trying to come up with potential tactics that they'll be able to be used for, like the Vangaurd cav making a great addition to a first wave assault to lower enemy T values, there really isn't much else to talk about that is concrete yet. I'd imagine we're at least a month out from proper leaks on any of the wargear and abilities these models have.
As for the flyers, I would give up any hope of Open Topped coming back. That rule is functionally dead for any army but Orks and Eldar to my knowledge, maybe GSC have something too. If the Dunerider didn't get it with a literal open topped compartment, an enclosed hull flyer definitely isn't getting it. You'll take your sponson heavy stubbers and you'll like it young man Best I can tell, the only way a model gets open topped is if the model is essentially standing on top of the vehicle completely in the open. Anything less and it's closed top.
Even the Necron Ghost Ark isn't open topped anymore. The rule has really been left behind, which I think is sad, but that's just my opinion.
How do Forgeworld knights do these days, in comparison to GW knights?
Are they really bad, takeable but suboptimal, good?
I was thinking about giving my Imperial knight some upgrades in terms of more converted arms to play other FW variants to spice things up and make them feel more mechanicus rather than imperial.
I was particularly looking at the 2 Questoris knights Styrix and magaera, and the 2 cerastus knights lancer and castigator. ( are the Cerastus knights on the same base and are they a similar size, if not would it make a difference as they are so huge anyway?
Until GW re-writes the Forge World Index, the FW knights are overpriced/underpowered. I'm hoping they get better with the new rules.
The Cerastus knights are significantly taller than the questoris knights, but honestly when was the last time you saw a Questoris knight hidden from line of sight behind terrain?
It#s funny because while the Styrix had it's 4++ it was considered competitive, now it doesnt have it, it's not. But the weapons are the same (The siege claw actually improved) and the cost is the same and the reasoning given is that they dont have the firepower.
I guess that's compared to the changing meta at the time but still. I do think they're a little over priced, the styrix and magaera should be comparable to a crusader I think. The only things they gain over regular knights are 5++ in combat and ignore cover.
So all those extra points are being justified for those abilities, I dont think the weapons are actually any better than the standard GW ones, they just have different uses and quirks
The styrix was a souped up errant what made it worth the points increase was the survivability when it lost that it had to justify its increase on shooting alone.
I am a big fan of the Moirax. Dual lighting locks against Marines, and Graviton Pulsars against Custodes have both been awesome. I like the idea of the claw but I haven't had much success with it.
How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
So with all of the new units AdMech is getting this year, we are very likely to also get a new "2.0" codex. Do you all think a new codex will include datasheets and stratagems for Imperial Knight models, like the 1.0 codex has?
My gut tells me no, that GW will take those units out of the AdMech codex so that we have to buy the separate Imperial Knights codex. But it would be nice if they did include such units and focused more on the synerigies between AdMech and Questor Mechanicus Knights, and left the "Imperial" Knights codex to focus just on the Questor "Imperialis" side.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mr. Funktastic wrote: How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
I personally like them after the points drops (a squad with the stratagem that adds two to hit is nice), but I would take the other mentioned units first.
Mr. Funktastic wrote: How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
It depends on your mission format in ITC they are an instant max of gangbusters to your opponent
Outwith ITC Dunecrawlers are more survivable but once you hit rule of 3 they are ok. The only big advantage they have is the +2 to hit strategem and how usefull that is very much depends on your opponents list
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gnarlly wrote: So with all of the new units AdMech is getting this year, we are very likely to also get a new "2.0" codex. Do you all think a new codex will include datasheets and stratagems for Imperial Knight models, like the 1.0 codex has?
My gut tells me no, that GW will take those units out of the AdMech codex so that we have to buy the separate Imperial Knights codex. But it would be nice if they did include such units and focused more on the synerigies between AdMech and Questor Mechanicus Knights, and left the "Imperial" Knights codex to focus just on the Questor "Imperialis" side.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mr. Funktastic wrote: How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
I personally like them after the points drops (a squad with the stratagem that adds two to hit is nice), but I would take the other mentioned units first.
Why would they not put it all in the campaign book thats covering admech and knights
U02dah4 wrote: Why would they not put it all in the campaign book thats covering admech and knights
The Psychic Awakening campaign book will likely not revise fundamental rules like the Canticles and Forge World rules, which IMO need a serious overhaul. A new codex could/should do that.
Mr. Funktastic wrote: How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
I personally like them after the points drops (a squad with the stratagem that adds two to hit is nice), but I would take the other mentioned units first.
Do the other anti tank options really stack more favorably compared to ironstriders? I was under the impression that Neutron Dunecrawlers were too swingy and people are more enamored with the energy cannon over the ferrumite cannon on disintegrators?
Mr. Funktastic wrote: How are Ironstriders these days? I know they can be formidable when taken with lascannons in groups of 3-4 but they seem pretty fragile even when taken in Stygies and given we have Neutron Laser dunecrawlers, Ferrumite Disintegrators, and Plasma Destroyers, is it still worth it to invest in them as a primary or secondary anti-armor option?
I personally like them after the points drops (a squad with the stratagem that adds two to hit is nice), but I would take the other mentioned units first.
Do the other anti tank options really stack more favorably compared to ironstriders? I was under the impression that Neutron Dunecrawlers were too swingy and people are more enamored with the energy cannon over the ferrumite cannon on disintegrators?
Dunecrawlers with their recent points drop are just so much more durable in comparison; less than 30 additional points to upgrade to a Neutron Dunecrawler from a twin Lascannon Ironstrider and you get more Toughness, almost twice the number of wounds, a better invulnerable save (even better with another Dunecrawler nearby), and no penalty to hit when moving. That being said, a unit of several ironstriders with the +2 to hit stratagem is still a lot of good mobile dakka.
Unrelated question, fellow seekers of knowledge and efficiency: how do we identify the difference between a heavy stubber and a phosphor/heavy Phosphor blaster? Just still thinking about the loadouts for the Archaeopter.
Colonel Cross wrote: Unrelated question, fellow seekers of knowledge and efficiency: how do we identify the difference between a heavy stubber and a phosphor/heavy Phosphor blaster? Just still thinking about the loadouts for the Archaeopter.
They both can look quite similar, with most models having a barrel shroud with holes for cooling like a lot of real machine guns. Personally I wouldn't raise any WYSIWYG issues if you said one was either.
U02dah4 wrote: Why would they not put it all in the campaign book thats covering admech and knights
The Psychic Awakening campaign book will likely not revise fundamental rules like the Canticles and Forge World rules, which IMO need a serious overhaul. A new codex could/should do that.
Canticals are strong and the guard one gave custom regiments so thats possible
Colonel Cross wrote: Unrelated question, fellow seekers of knowledge and efficiency: how do we identify the difference between a heavy stubber and a phosphor/heavy Phosphor blaster? Just still thinking about the loadouts for the Archaeopter.
The phosphor weapons have a horizontal notch on the end.
The biggest advantage Ironstriders have is your 3 heavy slots in a battalion are in high demand. 3 disintigrators takes all of one battallions slots.
That +2 to hit on ironstriders isn't the only advantage. they also have the cognis overwatch strat which is a huge huge deterent to people trying to tie them up. You can also advance ironstriders 2d6 and still fire at +1 to hit if you wanna blow 3cp. Your squad of 4 twin lascannon or twin autocannons being able to hit overwatch on 3+ is massive. They are just much less durable at range than a dunecrawler.
Dunecrawlers come last in my heavy choices. I would always pick disintigrators and robots ahead of them.
Octovol wrote: The biggest advantage Ironstriders have is your 3 heavy slots in a battalion are in high demand. 3 disintigrators takes all of one battallions slots.
That +2 to hit on ironstriders isn't the only advantage. they also have the cognis overwatch strat which is a huge huge deterent to people trying to tie them up. You can also advance ironstriders 2d6 and still fire at +1 to hit if you wanna blow 3cp. Your squad of 4 twin lascannon or twin autocannons being able to hit overwatch on 3+ is massive. They are just much less durable at range than a dunecrawler.
Dunecrawlers come last in my heavy choices. I would always pick disintigrators and robots ahead of them.
I'm starting to find that robots are too expensive and CP hungry for my taste and if I'm not running them as Mars I may as well not bother unless I know I'm coming up against a horde army. Dunecrawlers are relatively around the same tier to me as disintegrators, trading some firepower for durability. I want to experiment running 6 Ryza Plasma Destroyers, plasma vanguard, 2 Neutron Dunecrawlers, and 2 energy cannon disintegrators and if I'm finding that's not enough for my ranged anti armor needs I might look into replacing the Dunecrawlers with 4 lascannon ironstriders.
In addition to the devastation caused by the forces of Chaos, there are many other ongoing battles that centre around blackstone, also known as noctilith. This psycho-active material enhances or suppresses psychic phenomena and is in great demand by both xenos and Humanity (especially the Adeptus Mechanicus, at the urging of Belisarius Cawl). The full properties of this mysterious substance are only now becoming apparent, and possession of enough blackstone could lead to the galaxy’s salvation. Or its doom…
Taken from today's PA catchup. What's Cawl up to with all that blackstone then? Anti psykers weapons and armour? Anti psykers fields?
If I go 2nd I can have cover for my entire army for three turns irrespective of terrain, two turns if I go first. That is ridiculously strong as a bonus on top of forgeworld/ chapter tactic etc. Many other factions would love that guard, knights, SOB etc.
As someone who plays MSU board control using skitarii and vehicles, the ability to give the whole army reroll 1's to hit when shooting is also really strong. If im going 2nd I will combine this with prepared positions so 3 turns cover with entire army rerolling 1's t1 its strong. (Sure you won't see this as strong if you sit in a small castle round Cawl but thats a function of your build not the strength of the buff).
So at worst I find I get a huge buff for the first 3 turns of the game and for many games the first 3 turns decide the result of the game.
Turn 4 you role for it and 1/3 of the time your getting either of the strong abilities (so over a 6 turn game that's an expectancy of 1 more). Sure the others are nowhere near as strong but they are still options that can occasionally do something. Reroll moral has certainly saved me some models and the 3 CC buffs can help in the right situations, sure most of the time they are weaker but they are a FREE BONUS. Could they be made stronger - yes- Is that the best way to fix the armys weaknesses probably not. Plus GW could just as easily nerf them imagine if they changed the wording to match doctrines for example so no soup in a faction meant to soup with knights
One of our main problems is Rule of 3 and having a limited number of units to pick from, they are fixing that with a host of new options.
the others being arc weapons, non robot phosphor weapons and ruststalkers need a complete rewrite.
a single good canticle out of 6 does not make canticles good.
That ONE is good, canticles as a whole is garbage. I wouldnt even be upset if the "2cp use a canticle you already selected this battle, one use only" strat if all 6 were actually useful.
Global reroll 1s is situational at best, largely unneeded. The other 4 are completely unneeded and worthless.
The fact that 3 of them are focused on being in melee when very little we have actually want melee makes them bad as a whole. I have never, ever "rolled" the 3 melee canticles when i actually wanted them.
My biggest problem with canticles is that it's just a dull mechanic. Just like all our useful strategms, relics, warlord traits and support abilities. Mostly dull. Useful, but dull.
Bring back the excitement of interesting rules interactions.
it sort of goes back on why i hated rolling for warlord traits in the past. Included in the same stupid list you rolled on were things that only helped melee, or things that only helped shooting. Canticles are the same way, why are half of them restricted to being in combat, and two in shooting (technically cover is shooting only)? I hate that, because when you roll randomly you seem to almost always get a result that does absolutely nothing for you. Random determination in general needs to go away. 8th largely removed it but some still exists. Its a fun mechanic when all the results are at least useful in any circumstance, but if you can call upon that random list of events and some are 100% useless (as in, does NOTHING not doesnt do anything meaningful), it shouldnt be random. Daemon psyker powers in the past come to mind, they'd literally lose before the game started if their powers were bad.
Vineheart01 wrote: a single good canticle out of 6 does not make canticles good.
That ONE is good, canticles as a whole is garbage. I wouldnt even be upset if the "2cp use a canticle you already selected this battle, one use only" strat if all 6 were actually useful.
Global reroll 1s is situational at best, largely unneeded. The other 4 are completely unneeded and worthless.
The fact that 3 of them are focused on being in melee when very little we have actually want melee makes them bad as a whole. I have never, ever "rolled" the 3 melee canticles when i actually wanted them.
If all 6 were really strong canticles would be overpowered
2 strong ( +1 to hit in shooting ) and (cover) if you dont think reroll 1's to hit is strong let your opponent playing knights have reroll 1's to hit for his whole army for a turn or two I bet they consider it a buff. If you don't think its strong because everything benefits from cawls Aura then thats your build not the strengtg of the canticle.
As to melee again I come back to build. Your saying we don't want to be in melee but Hoplites, Infiltrators, dragoons, breachers both varietys of electropriest, ruststalkers and vanguard in synergy with the others are all units with passable melee capabilities and equal to about half are units. Sure you can say I don't take them but that doesnt mean there shouldn't be a buff for them if anything it means they need a bigger buff.
I don't deny that 3 melee focussed ones is less than ideal (ideally there would be a movement buff)
Plus your argument I never roll melee buff when I actualy wanted it - well if you wanted why not pick it their are 3.
Eh, I feel reroll 1's is still quite strong, you just need to be running an army that takes advantage of it. With my mobile Metallica force compromised of tons of plasma skitarii advancing about and robots sprinting up the board, dominus can have a hard time keeping up with everything, so it lets you stay on the move while keeping up the firepower. Yes, no unit is gonna be as strong as a Cawl castle would be, but I can have way more board control while keeping my firepower up. May not be a big deal for ITC but critical in stuff like chapter approved missions.
And yes, I get that chapters like Imperial Fists exist, but just because a couple armies invalidates it doesn't mean it stops being useful the other 95% of the time.
Vineheart01 wrote: it sort of goes back on why i hated rolling for warlord traits in the past.
Included in the same stupid list you rolled on were things that only helped melee, or things that only helped shooting.
Canticles are the same way, why are half of them restricted to being in combat, and two in shooting (technically cover is shooting only)? I hate that, because when you roll randomly you seem to almost always get a result that does absolutely nothing for you.
Random determination in general needs to go away. 8th largely removed it but some still exists. Its a fun mechanic when all the results are at least useful in any circumstance, but if you can call upon that random list of events and some are 100% useless (as in, does NOTHING not doesnt do anything meaningful), it shouldnt be random. Daemon psyker powers in the past come to mind, they'd literally lose before the game started if their powers were bad.
Melee units benefit from cover most because often they are the ones set up outside terrain not to mention if they kill there target or it falls back.
As to random its semi random but if you build an army designed to sit in a corner round cawl you are not leverageing many of the mechanics so 1/6 are good rolls and 5/6 dont help. If you take dragoons, hoplites and DS infiltrators with your disintegrators spread out throughout midfield your going to find 2/6 are good 1/6 are medium 2/6 are situational and moral sucks.
I also agree with the above that ITC are a big factor in why some units dont see more play - looking at you dragoons (gangbusters) but while that may incentivise the cawl build in that format - ITC isnt the only format
I find it funny that people are complaining about the Iron Hands doctrine being too good when we basically get it for free in our army, on top of a -1 to hit on all our stuff. Canticles are good, they just need a rebalancing so each of them has some use.
Right now we have 3/6 that are good, one that is situationally good and two that are garbage, thats not bad for something that costs us nothing.
And people saying admech has no place in melee should really be playing our super strong melee units (dragoons and fulgurites). The reroll 1's in melee is actually super useful since its our only reliable source of it. And the +1 strength is good when fulgurites are fighting T5 (centurions and stuff) or our dragoons are fighting T8.
its really only the first and second that are garbage. If the second was changed so that every unit you own that is in combat makes you roll for it, AND it triggered at the beginning of combat instead of beginning of the turn, it wouldnt be that bad.
IMO, our warlord traits, relics and our dogmas need a rework. We basically only have stygies as a good pick, and mars is only there for Cawl + wrath of mars. Make the underdogs useful.
Ryza's dogma is good, but for any melee units, you'll want to infiltrate them with stygies, which means ryza is only there for the stratagem.
Agripiina is a third of modern day chapter tactics, and the stratagem pretty much got invalidated with the servitor maniple.
Lucius is a third of modern day chapter tactics, the stratagem and relic are good, but do you really want to forfeit a dogma for them in non-casual games (i have a soft spot for fistellans)
Metallica works on like 2 of our units and the stratagem affects the most useless stat in 8th edition. (If only it was worded "Any model that advances is treated as if it had only moved" so that our dragoons/skorpius could shoot with no penalty)
...
Oh, and i almost forgot Graia. The dogma used to be good with fulgurites exclusively (running big blobs of them was fun) but then GW nerfed it even though in their own forgeworld preview, they mentionned the interaction as beign the key strategy. They strat is good, but now that we have assassins + inquisitors, i can see it being less useful.
Maybe because our kastelan are a joke VS the hq dreadnought. They cost only a bit more but have great shooting, while hitting on 2s and even have great melee with more attacks and hitting on 2s while even having more hp.
To the forgeworld comment
Yes stygies and mars are the best as a base just as cadians and catachans are for guard or ironhands white scars and ravenguard are better than the rest tfor SM thats not a problem
Why limit yourself to one forgeworld I reguarly take a mixed detatchment filled out with some hoplites
We have a lot of tool box units from different forgeworlds
Lucius offers the ability to deepstrike corpuscarii and yes the solar flare is great for the HQ that 3rd enginseer becomes an objective grabber
Agripinaa stratagem is broken on breachers provided you have CP Ryza plasma destroyers
Stygies dragoons
Mars infiltrators
Graia psychic denial
In my next tourney im 2 stygies battalions
But a mixed vanguard
Lucius enginseer solar flare
Lucius corpuscarii DS Mars infiltrators WoM
2x Hoplites
That faq saying graia doesnt work with fulgurite fnp pissed me off.
Straight up "nah stop doing that" type faq. The two rules are completely different so i fail to see how they deny each other. Losing a wound vs death/flee is not the same trigger. If Graia was a proper fnp i wouldnt be bothered by it.
But i'd agree, if anything needs renovating its the dogmas/relics not canticles. Canticles are at least usable, the only relic i get any milage out of is the Omni Mask (Manip following dragoons ftw) and since i dont own Cawl or have a big kataphron destroyer blob yet the only dogma i ever use is Stygies lol.
The only reason i dont run mix dogmas is because i find it annoying to keep track of what is what. I always forget one unit was actually this dogma, not that one.
U02dah4 wrote:To the forgeworld comment
Yes stygies and mars are the best as a base just as cadians and catachans are for guard or ironhands white scars and ravenguard are better than the rest tfor SM thats not a problem
Why limit yourself to one forgeworld I reguarly take a mixed detatchment filled out with some hoplites
We have a lot of tool box units from different forgeworlds
Lucius offers the ability to deepstrike corpuscarii and yes the solar flare is great for the HQ that 3rd enginseer becomes an objective grabber
Agripinaa stratagem is broken on breachers provided you have CP Ryza plasma destroyers
Stygies dragoons
Mars infiltrators
Graia psychic denial
In my next tourney im 2 stygies battalions
But a mixed vanguard
Lucius enginseer solar flare
Lucius corpuscarii DS Mars infiltrators WoM
2x Hoplites
oh, dont worry, i know that mixed detachments are super strong, it only further proves my point, our stratagems are good, the dogmas arent. And all the strategies you described are carried by the forgeworld's stratagems (except for stygies dragoons because they benefit from both aspects).
And i'm pretty sure i was one of the first to bring up using the solar flare on an enginseer in a mixed detachment on this thread.
My usual mixed detachment is :
Ryza Dominus + master biosplicer
Lucius enginseer + solar flare
As a tourney player that doesnt work at a lot of events.
Most like mars infiltrators dont change very often i just painted them slughtly differently from the start
U02dah4 wrote: As a tourney player that doesnt work at a lot of events.
Most like mars infiltrators dont change very often i just painted them slughtly differently from the start
The rubberband or different base rims was accepted until recently when FLG added that each detachment MUST have a different paintjob. Which is one of the many reasons why i dont attend big tournaments. Gatekeeping people by forcing them to repaint their armies sucks IMO, and i never have a fixed list, some units might always be X bu i still dont wanna have to be forced by color scheme since i like changing lists often.
Yeah it urks me having different paintjobs in my army.
I make exceptions for big named characters (new Ghaz model will not be yellow lol) but the army itself being different schemes is annoying to me.
I know a lot of people that used to play tournaments and that rule change pushed them out because they refused to repaint their already excessively time-devouring paintjobs just to shut up a judge about a technicality that doesnt even affect the game.
U02dah4 wrote: As a tourney player that doesnt work at a lot of events.
Most like mars infiltrators dont change very often i just painted them slughtly differently from the start
The rubberband or different base rims was accepted until recently when FLG added that each detachment MUST have a different paintjob. Which is one of the many reasons why i dont attend big tournaments. Gatekeeping people by forcing them to repaint their armies sucks IMO, and i never have a fixed list, some units might always be X bu i still dont wanna have to be forced by color scheme since i like changing lists often.
It really only comes up if you're running different FW/chapter/regiment in the same army, and it's a fair call. Rubber bands looked awful and painted bases can mean many things. It really wasn't unreasonable to say "hey if you're running multiple traits in your army, they need to be visibly different at a glance". I get it sucks if you're figuring your list out at first but at a tournament you should know what everything is going to be and commit. It's part of why I never recommended new players do the weird mixed FW lists, all it takes is one little errata or FAQ and you'd have to repaint your army for major events. And it'll be annoying to play against in pickup games if your army is mono scheme but "these guys are stygies but THESE guys are Mars". Easy to mixup for both players.
I can still go to an event and run my Metallica as stygies if I wanted, nothing really changed there last I had heard. The only requirement I've heard of was all units of a <trait> must match, to stop people from just snatching up a ton of random, poorly painted Centurions for example and running them alongside their Raven guard. It catches some people in admech just trying to keep up with the meta in a crappy place but it is ultimately necessary if you want good looking events and easy to ready armies. No different than making a chaos player mark which gods his units belong to really.
The LVO guidelines "You may have models painted in the same paint scheme count as different <Factions> so long as you clearly visually distinguish them. For example, if you have an army all painted in the same scheme using Cadian models (or whatever models) but distinguish them using something like Squad Marks (who will have a booth in the vendor area of the LVO) that IS acceptable. Something like colored rubber bands put on to models is NOT acceptable but wrapping them around the base IS.
It's not hard to put a colored rubber band around the base of most models, you shouldn't have to worry about repainting your models.
if the only tournament you attend is the LVO your good then but lots of my tournaments rule differently
Yes I usually use base colouring to differentiate squads quickly
Visual information is important to your opponent especially what is -1 to hit
You can still have a cohesive army with different paint schemes.
my metalics are the same army wide as are my secondary colours and basing but primary colours vary by subfaction this means if I need to repaint I don't have to repaint the whole model just change the cape from blue to red. There is also nothing to say which subfaction each colour is so I have run my destegrad blue scheme as agripinaa or stygies list depending
but some units that rely on a particular subfactions strategem are not going to change colour I either run them in there subfaction or i don't run them its really not a common occurance to repaint
Different faction detachments is my biggest bugbear of this entire edition. if all the relics, strategms and warlord traits worked for every faction there would be no need in all this dodgy multi-faction shenanigans.
Q: Can a Graia model that has the Refusal to Yield ability also make use of rules that allow them to ignore lost wounds, such as Fanatical Devotion?
A: No.
Im positive someone didnt like this and bombarded the FAQ email with this and since we know the faq and codex arent always handled by the same person the guy behind the faq just went with it since they sounded similar. They dont conflict...at all..yet they arent allowed to work together. Absolute BS indeed.
That Faq makes no sense, but I have to say i'm happy they didnt faq'd yet that you can use Acquisition at Any Cost to improve the invulnerable save on fulgurites to 2++
Leucaruth wrote: That Faq makes no sense, but I have to say i'm happy they didnt faq'd yet that you can use Acquisition at Any Cost to improve the invulnerable save on fulgurites to 2++
I'm pretty sure that's already happened, I just don't have a source lol. Fulgurites were already absurdly undercosted BEFORE the latest CA reductions. I'd call you a liar if you said you expected them to get reduced in cost before last CAlol. Everyone expected corpuscarii and ruststalkers but fulgurites are already way too strong. I'd expect their cost to go back up in the next adjustments.
Leucaruth wrote: That Faq makes no sense, but I have to say i'm happy they didnt faq'd yet that you can use Acquisition at Any Cost to improve the invulnerable save on fulgurites to 2++
I'm pretty sure that's already happened, I just don't have a source lol. Fulgurites were already absurdly undercosted BEFORE the latest CA reductions. I'd call you a liar if you said you expected them to get reduced in cost before last CAlol. Everyone expected corpuscarii and ruststalkers but fulgurites are already way too strong. I'd expect their cost to go back up in the next adjustments.
Fulgurites are hands down our most efficient and dangerous infantry unit in a Space Marine dominated meta. Once they get souped up, they are virtually unkillable with Acquisition, -1 to hit, and Shroudpsalm bonuses stacked on them. They also vomit out mortal wounds and attack twice, so they can do some ridiculous trades. The piece that was missing was an extremely wound efficient transport, which we got with the Dunerider. All of my lists begin with 2x10 Fulgurites and 2x Dunerider nowadays.
Fulgurites are hands down our most efficient and dangerous infantry unit in a Space Marine dominated meta. Once they get souped up, they are virtually unkillable with Acquisition, -1 to hit, and Shroudpsalm bonuses stacked on them. They also vomit out mortal wounds and attack twice, so they can do some ridiculous trades. The piece that was missing was an extremely wound efficient transport, which we got with the Dunerider. All of my lists begin with 2x10 Fulgurites and 2x Dunerider nowadays.
Exactly, the list i'm running lately that is doing great for me, and uses 2x10 fulgurites and 2 duneriders as you say, is the following:
- Heavy Support
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
IMO, we still want Cawl as your Warlord for the reroll bubble. The tanks don't actually need Stygies. Hell, you can even do 100% Mars.
Anyhow, I am glad the new ITC rules got rid of the alternating deployment. I had to skimp on infantry just to load up all of my characters. Another interesting point to consider now is that Kataphrons no longer count for Gang Busters in ITC.
Fulgurites are hands down our most efficient and dangerous infantry unit in a Space Marine dominated meta. Once they get souped up, they are virtually unkillable with Acquisition, -1 to hit, and Shroudpsalm bonuses stacked on them. They also vomit out mortal wounds and attack twice, so they can do some ridiculous trades. The piece that was missing was an extremely wound efficient transport, which we got with the Dunerider. All of my lists begin with 2x10 Fulgurites and 2x Dunerider nowadays.
Exactly, the list i'm running lately that is doing great for me, and uses 2x10 fulgurites and 2 duneriders as you say, is the following:
- Heavy Support
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
Skorpius Disintegrator: Belleros Energy Cannon
I'm still not sure which side of balanced fulgurites sit on. There are loads of high cost elite infantry in other armies that don't even come close to the output fulgurites spew forth along with their durability.
I think they're too cheap. But I also think the others are too high cost. 150pts feels right for fulgurites. Nothing else in our army or any other I can think of comes close. They'd still be cheap at 150 compared to others and still far out damage and last equivalents.
Dunno. Fulgurites are a really weird unit in the AdMech lineup to begin with, being a dedicated melee unit. Without a transport, they actually can be quite bad; if they can't get close enough to fight and have to stand out in the open, they are pretty much extremely overpriced Guardsmen.
That being said, OP or UP is relative. We are in a Space Marine meta where T4 3++ is extremely common, and these guys counter that.
I would pick hoplites over fulgurites. Fulgurites are better once they soup up but they have to soup up first and with no range and no rerollable charge a skilled opponent will stop them before they get there.
Suzuteo wrote: Dunno. Fulgurites are a really weird unit in the AdMech lineup to begin with, being a dedicated melee unit. Without a transport, they actually can be quite bad; if they can't get close enough to fight and have to stand out in the open, they are pretty much extremely overpriced Guardsmen.
That being said, OP or UP is relative. We are in a Space Marine meta where T4 3++ is extremely common, and these guys counter that.
But that depends on if they point them in a vacuum, which judging by the points REDUCTION on fulgurites AFTER we got a cheap transport suggests they absolutely do.
Regardless of the meta, or scenario, 14pts for a fulgurite is insanely cheap for what they do. Literally every other melee only unit I can think of does less damage and is less survivable for many many more points per model. Just because at the moment a lot of space marine armies have overpowered shooting phases doesn't reduce the written value of a model. The subjective value of a unit yes, because there are many factors that go into it, but if you put a single fulgurite against a single other melee-only elites choice without support there's a good chance it'll come out on top.
U02dah4 wrote: I would pick hoplites over fulgurites. Fulgurites are better once they soup up but they have to soup up first and with no range and no re-rollable charge a skilled opponent will stop them before they get there.
I don't rate that 3++ unless you're sitting them on an objective and can acquisition them. Against weight of numbers with anything str 5+, most infantry handling guns, a 3+ save on them is no better than the 3+ save on a marine as you wouldn't be shooting at them with stuff that has better ap than -2. The 5+++ is nice but fundamentally if you haven't got them on that 2++ they go down as easily as a marine, which coincidentally they're about the same cost as now.
Hoplites over fulgurites? depends what you want them for. Hoplites dont put out the same damage as fulgurites, there's no contest and they only have a +1 better invuln saver, but only in combat. They dont even really wound all that easier. Sure they're cheaper but if what you want is a squad to pile out of a transport and wreck something, hoplites arent gonna do that. If you want something to sit back and protect shooting units, hoplites are more efficient at that. But you want something dead that shoots it doesn't even really matter what toughness it is a squad of fulgurites will wreck it.
U02dah4 wrote: I would pick hoplites over fulgurites. Fulgurites are better once they soup up but they have to soup up first and with no range and no rerollable charge a skilled opponent will stop them before they get there.
Going 12.5% cheaper pretty much obliterated the cost advantage that Hoplites had.
Octovol wrote: But that depends on if they point them in a vacuum, which judging by the points REDUCTION on fulgurites AFTER we got a cheap transport suggests they absolutely do.
Regardless of the meta, or scenario, 14pts for a fulgurite is insanely cheap for what they do. Literally every other melee only unit I can think of does less damage and is less survivable for many many more points per model. Just because at the moment a lot of space marine armies have overpowered shooting phases doesn't reduce the written value of a model. The subjective value of a unit yes, because there are many factors that go into it, but if you put a single fulgurite against a single other melee-only elites choice without support there's a good chance it'll come out on top.
I agree that they are undercosted in a straight comparison, mostly because of mortal wounds and the ability to fight twice. But merely stacking the most point efficient units does not win you games. There's a lot of meta considerations. It's only when you put Fulgurites into Boats that their strengths become clear. The Boat protects them from volume fire, moves them into position, and also helps soak up Overwatch and tie down anti-infantry threats
That being said, at the risk of coming off as a hypocrite, my current list is pretty much just stacking point efficient units:
Heavy Support - 333 1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
Basically, I dropped an Inquisitor and a Drill then rammed 2x4 Breacher units in. Going to IGOUGO deployment makes two Drills less appealing because I don't need to further reduce deployments anymore. Breachers also no longer count for Gang Busters, which pretty much was the only thing keeping me back; they are not nearly as invincible as they used to be, but their guns are pretty much the ideal profile to kill Space Marine light vehicles and pick off Centurions.
I also increased the diversity of my tool box. 2x10 Fulgurites always go into the Boats. The spare Boat and Drill take in a unit of 2x5 Rangers for Maneuvers or 2x5 Plasma Vanguard to help to kill stuff. I generally favor putting the Plasma Vanguard into the Drill for a ton of S8 shooting coming down on top of someone.
Hello everyone. So, I'm pretty close to starting an admech army (either that or a necron army but I'm leaning towards admech more), but going through the forum, I'm having trouble deciding on where to start. A lot of the discussion appears to be about more competitive games and around 2k points, which is all way over my head and a bit of an information overload.
My meta usually runs 1000-1500pt games and that's about the point level I'm looking to build. I have Cawl and plenty of the HQ's (I love the look of those models), but nothing else. My tentative 1,000 list is as follows:
My thought is that Cawl walks around with the Dunecrawlers for the rerolls and repairs. Rangers hold the backline. The Vanguard and Fulgulites are in the Duneriders going for mid-field objectives. Alternatively I was thinking of dropping the Fulgurite and a Dunerider for more Rangers and a Disintegrator.
Would a list like this be a good start or am I missing something? Is Cawl a trap at low points? What else would be good to have when i go to 1500?
Suzuteo wrote: Dunno. Fulgurites are a really weird unit in the AdMech lineup to begin with, being a dedicated melee unit. Without a transport, they actually can be quite bad; if they can't get close enough to fight and have to stand out in the open, they are pretty much extremely overpriced Guardsmen.
That being said, OP or UP is relative. We are in a Space Marine meta where T4 3++ is extremely common, and these guys counter that.
But that depends on if they point them in a vacuum, which judging by the points REDUCTION on fulgurites AFTER we got a cheap transport suggests they absolutely do.
Regardless of the meta, or scenario, 14pts for a fulgurite is insanely cheap for what they do. Literally every other melee only unit I can think of does less damage and is less survivable for many many more points per model. Just because at the moment a lot of space marine armies have overpowered shooting phases doesn't reduce the written value of a model. The subjective value of a unit yes, because there are many factors that go into it, but if you put a single fulgurite against a single other melee-only elites choice without support there's a good chance it'll come out on top.
U02dah4 wrote: I would pick hoplites over fulgurites. Fulgurites are better once they soup up but they have to soup up first and with no range and no re-rollable charge a skilled opponent will stop them before they get there.
I don't rate that 3++ unless you're sitting them on an objective and can acquisition them. Against weight of numbers with anything str 5+, most infantry handling guns, a 3+ save on them is no better than the 3+ save on a marine as you wouldn't be shooting at them with stuff that has better ap than -2. The 5+++ is nice but fundamentally if you haven't got them on that 2++ they go down as easily as a marine, which coincidentally they're about the same cost as now.
Hoplites over fulgurites? depends what you want them for. Hoplites dont put out the same damage as fulgurites, there's no contest and they only have a +1 better invuln saver, but only in combat. They dont even really wound all that easier. Sure they're cheaper but if what you want is a squad to pile out of a transport and wreck something, hoplites arent gonna do that. If you want something to sit back and protect shooting units, hoplites are more efficient at that. But you want something dead that shoots it doesn't even really matter what toughness it is a squad of fulgurites will wreck it.
Whats missing from your analysis is
7 fulgurites = 11 hoplites thats 4 extra wounds in hoplites favour
Sure the melee invul is +1 (with a 1/6 MW) but what your missing is the 4+ Armour save. With canticles thats a 3+ vs 0AP 66% vs 55% 5++/5+++ single wound.In hoplites favour till you soup up.
As to dmnage 11 12" 3+ S6 hits doing 1 dam/d3 to vehicles vs 0 shots in hoplites favours
Melee 23 3+ s6 Ap1 1 dam d3 vs vehicles + benefits from omiscient mask
Vs
14 3+ s5 Ap2 D3 dam with 11% of attacks triggering mortals
Sure you can fight twice for 3 cp
So factor mask and strat 18.6 hits fulgurite vs 21.3 hits hoplites. the mw of both in melee is similar 16% defencively or 11% offensively. This gives the hoplites the slight edge vs single wounds infantry similar performance vs vehicles while fulgurites are stronger vs multiwound non vehicles. however the strat only works on one unit and so the second hoplite unit outperforms the second fulgurite unit.
So hoplite +defence
+range
While in melee fulgurites only compete with the strat and that comes with a big CP cost and even then only boosts 1 unit
Sure fulgurites become defencively stronger once they kill something but thats not a guarentee
shamroll wrote: Hello everyone. So, I'm pretty close to starting an admech army (either that or a necron army but I'm leaning towards admech more), but going through the forum, I'm having trouble deciding on where to start. A lot of the discussion appears to be about more competitive games and around 2k points, which is all way over my head and a bit of an information overload.
My meta usually runs 1000-1500pt games and that's about the point level I'm looking to build. I have Cawl and plenty of the HQ's (I love the look of those models), but nothing else. My tentative 1,000 list is as follows:
My thought is that Cawl walks around with the Dunecrawlers for the rerolls and repairs. Rangers hold the backline. The Vanguard and Fulgulites are in the Duneriders going for mid-field objectives. Alternatively I was thinking of dropping the Fulgurite and a Dunerider for more Rangers and a Disintegrator.
Would a list like this be a good start or am I missing something? Is Cawl a trap at low points? What else would be good to have when i go to 1500?
Looks like a good start. Cawl is not really necessary at 1000 points but if you’re going Mars you’ll probably want the model to include as you go to higher points values and besides, the model is great. Having both a Dominus and Cawl is probably a waste of points as Cawl let’s you +1/-1 to both Canticles (if you randomly determine them) so it’s quite likely you can get the re-roll 1s to-hit for your units not inside his bubble of you need it. If you’re building optimally Cawl is really only mathematically worth it over a Dominus when he’s buffing something like 700/800+ points of gun line. He is however much more durable than a Dominus and better in melee, so he’s a better problem solver in that regard.
Removing the Fulgerites and a boat completely changes how you can play your list and I would argue that if you’re playing Maelstrom games it would probably be detrimental to your list. For games like that you really need some ability to take and control parts of the mid-board or you’ll be bullied into only holding your deployment zone and won’t have the units to shoot and fight your way out of it.
Basically I think your list is perfectly adequate to start with, will be fun to play and is a good collection to start expanding from but if all you want is a solid 1000 points list to keep unchanged and not add to you might want to make some tweaks to lean towards greater efficiency. Mars isn’t greatly suited to small games - Stygies VIII is better for that (but there’s no reason that will stay the same in the future). What I do, because my opponents are happy about it and do the same, is just change my Forgeworld depending on my list even though my models are painted up as Mars.
@U02dah4
It doesn't matter. Because you can only fit 10 Hoplites in a Boat. Without the Boat, both of these units are not viable. You will find yourself in a race to the bottom for point efficiency and end up running naked Rangers or Breachers. (Which is actually not bad.)
In any case, paying 50 points to upgrade 10 Hoplites into 10 Fulgurites is super worth it. I would pay up to 100 points actually. Indeed, considering we used to have to pay 70 points, with the cost savings, running 2x10 Fulgurites makes more sense than running 10/10 Fulgurites and Hoplites or just 2x10 Hoplites like we used to.
As for the CP cost, you should look at my list. It is built around the Fulgurites. I spend the majority of my CP giving them Shroudpsalm or +1S multiple times, making them fight twice, giving them Acquisition. They can single-handedly win games.
And keep in mind that my point is not to say that Hoplites are bad. It's to point out that Fulgurites are just ridiculously good. They can fight twice with a profile that absolutely murders Space Marines, then power up to become virtually unkillable. They are a massively disruptive melee threat that are very difficult to play around due to the mobility conferred by the Boat. Primaris Marines, Assault Centurions, Smash Captains. You name it, they don't want to be in the same table quadrant as a Boat packed full of Fulgurites; they don't want to charge into any such unit either.
During the first battle round, the Devastator Doctrine is active for your army.
• During the second battle round, the Tactical Doctrine is active for your army.
• At the start of the third battle round, select either the Tactical Doctrine or Assault Doctrine: until the
end of that battle round, the doctrine you selected is active for your army.
• During the fourth and subsequent battle rounds, the Assault Doctrine is active for your army
Other notable changes:
• Adaptive Strategy removed
• Centurions cannot ambush anymore
• Duty Eternal nerfed
• Cogitated Martyrdom doesn't work on vehicles anymore
I honestly don't think Canticles are a problem. They aren't great, but I will take something mediocre over something bad like our relics. Or the SM Doctrines now. Lol.
So if one was looking to get the most out of plasma vanguards being transported in a drill, would it be better to run two units of 5 vanguard with 2 plasma calivers each or one full 10 man squad with 3 plasma calivers and a data tether to better take advantage of protector doctrina imperative and/or plasma specialists?
Mr. Funktastic wrote: So if one was looking to get the most out of plasma vanguards being transported in a drill, would it be better to run two units of 5 vanguard with 2 plasma calivers each or one full 10 man squad with 3 plasma calivers and a data tether to better take advantage of protector doctrina imperative and/or plasma specialists?
Generally Id say 2 min squads are better, to score behind enemy lines, scatter for objectives.
If you put them in ryza however, which I often do with the drill it might be worth it to max them out and pop both stratagems for 2 cp, however if you are already running low on cp because of your other unit synergies I wouldnt take them.
On a similar note.
Lately I tend to use arcrifle rangers next to my drill for several reasons.
1 they are cheaper and you would trade the vanguards guns either way and dont need to run and gun as much
2 they are already at rapidfire range
3 its cheaper than plasma and they need to hold their ground on the outer edge of the table most likely
4 the drill already has a lot of high value weapons
5 in boats the plasma is more likely to get rerolls, if used defensively.
Mr. Funktastic wrote: So if one was looking to get the most out of plasma vanguards being transported in a drill, would it be better to run two units of 5 vanguard with 2 plasma calivers each or one full 10 man squad with 3 plasma calivers and a data tether to better take advantage of protector doctrina imperative and/or plasma specialists?
Depends. The best setup is a Ryza Drill with a 10-man squad of Plasma Vanguard. You can stack Doctrina for +2 to hit then Plasma Specialists.
However, a Stygies Drill with 2x5 Plasma Vanguard is more flexible. I sometimes switch them up and put 2x5 Rangers in instead. If you find the points, you can give these guys Arc Rifles too.
Can someone tell me a short overview what the current admech meta is? Popular units? Forgeworld etc.
Would be great and awesome
The dominant setup right now is Boat spam. It's a firebase of Cawl + 3x Crawler + 3x Grator, then a mix of Fulgurites, Skitarii, and Boats, maybe with a Drill. Fulgurites are used for counterpunching Space Marines, though that suddenly became less relevant due to the nerfs to RG and IF. The Skitarii can be naked Rangers, Rangers with Arc Rifles, or Vanguard with Plasma Calivers. You can also bring bricks of Breachers, since they now do not give up Gang Busters.
Alternatively, you could bring a Krastsader to replace parts of your firebase, but flyers are still definitely a big part of the meta. And we're still waiting on our new Fast Attack and Flyer roles. That may finally open up Brigades to us.
What are people’s feelings on the omnispex in these plasma/arc units in transports? I definitely like them on 10 model special weapon units dropping in drills and take them when points allow on the 5 model squads. I hate to see radium carbines plink off 2+ saves when the target is in cover.
xlDuke wrote: What are people’s feelings on the omnispex in these plasma/arc units in transports? I definitely like them on 10 model special weapon units dropping in drills and take them when points allow on the 5 model squads. I hate to see radium carbines plink off 2+ saves when the target is in cover.
I never take it because I would rather have the data-tether for the +2 Doctrina.
Can someone tell me a short overview what the current admech meta is? Popular units? Forgeworld etc.
Would be great and awesome
The dominant setup right now is Boat spam. It's a firebase of Cawl + 3x Crawler + 3x Grator, then a mix of Fulgurites, Skitarii, and Boats, maybe with a Drill. Fulgurites are used for counterpunching Space Marines, though that suddenly became less relevant due to the nerfs to RG and IF. The Skitarii can be naked Rangers, Rangers with Arc Rifles, or Vanguard with Plasma Calivers. You can also bring bricks of Breachers, since they now do not give up Gang Busters.
Alternatively, you could bring a Krastsader to replace parts of your firebase, but flyers are still definitely a big part of the meta. And we're still waiting on our new Fast Attack and Flyer roles. That may finally open up Brigades to us.
Thank you! So just a mars spearhead or pure mars (what i would prefer =p)
That a krastsader has a "comeback" is also nice
xlDuke wrote: What are people’s feelings on the omnispex in these plasma/arc units in transports? I definitely like them on 10 model special weapon units dropping in drills and take them when points allow on the 5 model squads. I hate to see radium carbines plink off 2+ saves when the target is in cover.
I would only bring omnispex with arquebuses, otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Generally Id say 2 min squads are better, to score behind enemy lines, scatter for objectives.
If you put them in ryza however, which I often do with the drill it might be worth it to max them out and pop both stratagems for 2 cp, however if you are already running low on cp because of your other unit synergies I wouldnt take them.
Depends. The best setup is a Ryza Drill with a 10-man squad of Plasma Vanguard. You can stack Doctrina for +2 to hit then Plasma Specialists.
However, a Stygies Drill with 2x5 Plasma Vanguard is more flexible. I sometimes switch them up and put 2x5 Rangers in instead. If you find the points, you can give these guys Arc Rifles too.
Thanks for the responses! I was originally going to run a full squad of 10 Plasma Vanguard in my Ryza list but I had thought about splitting them up into two units of 5 which would save me around 30 pts in my double Battalion list as I could've dropped a Ranger squad. Not sure what I could've done with those 30 pts except upgrade one of my Arc Ranger squads to an Arquebus squad, but I've heard you should be running at least 4 arquebuses or none at all (confirm/deny?). At least running the 10 man Plasma Vanguard option gives me some more bodes on the board which is never really a bad thing!
Which inquisitors would you guys prefer?
I am primarily trying to add one, so I can boost the LD of my skitarii and sicarians, helps with destroyers LD too
xlDuke wrote: What are people’s feelings on the omnispex in these plasma/arc units in transports? I definitely like them on 10 model special weapon units dropping in drills and take them when points allow on the 5 model squads. I hate to see radium carbines plink off 2+ saves when the target is in cover.
I never take it because I would rather have the data-tether for the +2 Doctrina.
Do you find +2 to hit rolls much more important than a +1 on a deepstriking unit? I haven’t found it really made much difference in my games so swapped the data-tether to an omnispex quite a while ago.
@Hesselhof
It's most because Big Game Hunters got merged with King/Titan Slayer. So if you bring a Knight with a ton of vehicles, there's no big difference.
Oddly enough, a Castellan might be good again too.
@Mr. Funktastic
Actually, I think 6-8 Arquebuses is ideal if you run them at all. The characters these days aren't Company Commanders anymore.
The jezzei or whatever it is rifle that comes with dragoons is almost exactly the same gun, its just missing that little ring at the end and the clip is slightly different looking.
You could easily spam them if you got a bunch of those lying around as arq snipers, just gotta get the odd size base.
Yep, arquebuses seem to be an all-in type thing. The dangerous characters are very difficult to kill with them these days. It’s a shame that jezzails are so bad really, it’s often quite hard to get solid LoS with multiple arquebuses at once.
Skorpius Disintegrator [6 PL, 111pts]: Belleros Energy Cannon, 3x Cognis Heavy Stubber
Skorpius Disintegrator [6 PL, 111pts]: Belleros Energy Cannon, 3x Cognis Heavy Stubber
Skorpius Disintegrator [6 PL, 111pts]: Belleros Energy Cannon, 3x Cognis Heavy Stubber
++ Total: [156 PL, 12CP, 1,997pts] ++
Played at this weekend a few games, worked quite well, but do you guys got some tipps? I swichted the breacher to 2x3 and 1x 8
maybe replace the fulgurites? but for what, if i cut them i dun need two of the 4 dunerider =/
Octovol wrote: Arquebus are a good bit longer than a jezail, but You'd probably get away with it as long as EVERY arquebus you field looks the same.
I've seen people convert them into arquebuses, with the right base and something to prop the rifle on theyre very similar and the average player would never know the difference. Gave my jezzails to a local new admech player for that reason and his turned out well.
@Hesselhof
In my opinion, you should cut the Maniple investment.
Drop the Dominus and Servitors, go to 3x4 Breachers, add the fourth Ranger unit to fill the second Boat, maybe switch the Spearhead to Mars and put in Cawl. Ideally, make the Battalion that the Breachers is in Mars as well. The reroll aura is pretty much what makes the firebase so competitive. We have a very versatile and consistent firebase composed of cheap/efficient units.
Another reason why is that you need to burn a lot of CP to make Stygies Fulgurites do their work. Competing with Breachers is not a good idea.
Sounds to me like there's at least one more unrevealed AM model, either a Metalica named Skitarii Vanguard character, or a generic Skitarii Vanguard character, or one that can be built as either.
. After you've got around 100 skitarii, you have enough specials to cover just about anything.
) and Knights shouldn't have been put into our book without an explicit "Oathsworn" style setup, where they don't ruin your army benefits but also don't benefit from them.
