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The wings are so wide there's little chance of you hiding it regardless lol

That gunship needs more options than heavy phosphor blasters though. Their final statement is that they all bring new tactical options...only the rules will tell I guess because right now we're looking at long range flechette blasters and flamers on the pteraxii 3 flyers with minimal visible firepower and cavalry with phosphor blast weaponry, arguably our worst tech in 8th, and fast scouts, which actually has the most potential imo.

Considering how huge our deployment footprint already is, putting that plane with those wings on a ground floor is very low on my priority list

dadamowsky wrote:
Considering how huge our deployment footprint already is, putting that plane with those wings on a ground floor is very low on my priority list

you dont have to jam them right in terrain, just position them so your opponents army cant all see it at the same time. It can help compared to having all the flyers visible.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Can't you park a transport on a Skyshield Landing Pad?

I wouldn't be shocked, in all seriousness, if this is a sign of things to come with a "Vertical Take Off or Landing" bit for flyers.

if you forfeit the 5++ that the skyshield gives, you can heal a flyer for D3 if it stayed for the whole turn on it. (meaning it only works with hovering flyers)
It still doesnt allow you to remvoe it from its base

Read where I said "sign of things to come"

Some differentiation between flyer types wouldn't be unwelcome in an 8.5, with things that can land actually able to.

The grenades on the Skystalkers might be interesting, they might even be little bombs for dropping during the movement phase. Less convinced over presumably Assault 5, 18" S3 shots though - if that's the assumed profile. Might have to run the numbers in case they're snipers though.
[edit] Hmm, then they'd be crazy doing 0.7 mortals each.

If the Sterylizors have longer than 8" range flamers, I'm sure they'll be interesting - not just for drop flaming or screen clearing, but to put within units as a charge defence.

Lot of phosphor coming out, which might have some stratagem coming out to boost it (like the old rule where things hit by it lost cover from other shooting). Though whether the flyers would be worth taking then I don't know - there's a lot of other potential sources of phosphor about.

only thing i got out of that article is the gargoyles do indeed have 2 variants, not just the cavalry.

Which is mildly annoying because they look way too thin to magnetize lol

It looks like it's just the guns that change, you could magnetize those at the arm socket pretty easily. It would be a lot tougher to do at the wrist.

I would build it on ground level with magnetized wings just for the transport options. =\

 Vineheart01 wrote:
only thing i got out of that article is the gargoyles do indeed have 2 variants, not just the cavalry.

Which is mildly annoying because they look way too thin to magnetize lol

We knew that with the Las Vegas Open though...just some people kept arguing that the flamer was more likely a "unit upgrade". The text from that event though made it fairly clear that both Serberys and Pteraxii were dual-kits.

The only really big thing to come out of today was names for the two Pteraxii variants and the three Archaeopter variants.

That and there's no other new mechanicus units in the video like there was with the genestealer cult. So that is probably the lot - probably no Skitarii HQs or Blackstone utilising nullifers (proposed from the rumour engine).

There's still a chance for a Skitarii HQ, ruleswise, to be introduced. But yeah things are looking gloomy for our intrepid legions...

Though of course, 7 new units across 3 new boxes isn’t exactly gloomy to begin with haha.

This will be the first PA book to release without a character if we don’t get a Skitarii HQ. So possibly we get the named Metallica HQ (boo unless Metallica get massive buffs in PA), or possibly Daemons get something (or a Chaos Knight character kit like the Imperials have Canis Rex!).

Good lord the flyer is a thing of beauty

I liked (not loved) the hounds, a bit less the Pteraxii, but man that chopper !

Octovol wrote:
The wings are so wide there's little chance of you hiding it regardless lol

That gunship needs more options than heavy phosphor blasters though. Their final statement is that they all bring new tactical options...only the rules will tell I guess because right now we're looking at long range flechette blasters and flamers on the pteraxii 3 flyers with minimal visible firepower and cavalry with phosphor blast weaponry, arguably our worst tech in 8th, and fast scouts, which actually has the most potential imo.

There was design sketches and the like of the Archaeopter at LVO that showcased the weapons for the gunship. Wasn't just heavy phosphors.

Whether we'll get them or not remains to be seen. I can't find the stuff anymore, which is irksome.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKnS-nhX0AEdoK3?format=jpg&name=large

It does look like the fighter variant will get lascannons although this could be the transport

If the fighter can replace its 2 heavy phosphor blasters with 2 more lascannons then this maybe and ok replacement for ironstriders, 4 lascannons and 2 heavy stubbers with an innate -1 to hit if it gets that. Maybe strafing run too for +1 to hit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Octovol wrote:
The wings are so wide there's little chance of you hiding it regardless lol

That gunship needs more options than heavy phosphor blasters though. Their final statement is that they all bring new tactical options...only the rules will tell I guess because right now we're looking at long range flechette blasters and flamers on the pteraxii 3 flyers with minimal visible firepower and cavalry with phosphor blast weaponry, arguably our worst tech in 8th, and fast scouts, which actually has the most potential imo.

There was design sketches and the like of the Archaeopter at LVO that showcased the weapons for the gunship. Wasn't just heavy phosphors.

Whether we'll get them or not remains to be seen. I can't find the stuff anymore, which is irksome.

here you go!

https://spruesandbrews.com/2019/11/30/warhammer-40000-open-day-2019-reveals-new-mechanicus-flyer/

There's no "fighter" variant. The one with the lascannon is the gunship variant apparently.

Ah yeah I remember now. Still lascannons are kinda pointless on something that flies imo. Shorter range with more flexibility would be better. Most of the time models with 48"+ range don't even move for most of a match which is wasted on highly mobile platforms.

Twin or quad eradication ray would have been fun instead of all those stubbers and boring lascannons

Lascannons are definitely boring, but there's a reason they're the most common anti-tank weapon in the game.

yeah because they take the least amount of thinking to balance them.
No fancy rules, no wonky prices, no unusual rate of fire or range. Just a 20pt S9 Ap3 D6 damage gun at 48" range.

I would have rather it gotten an even heavier variant of the Arc weaponry.

Reckon we’ll get some stat previews this weekend?

As much fun as the warhammer community showing us their painting table and where they walk their dogs...cold hard numbers are always appreciated

I don't think we'll get stat previews this weekend. That seems to be part II of the Adepticon preview, which would likely be model related not rules. Rules are usually incidental when it comes to the seminars.

We might get them next Monday though.

Here is hoping.

Theory crafting lists on battlescribe keeps me entertained when I’m supposed to be working

 Ideasweasel wrote:
Here is hoping.

Theory crafting lists on battlescribe keeps me entertained when I’m supposed to be working

Tell me about it.

Until I see new models, there's not much I can tinker with other than flavors of Boatspam. Lol.

Yeah hard to know without seeing the rules for the new models, but I do think all the sculpts are gorgeous, particularly the cavalry. Hopefully they aren't all competing for the same role in the army.

Apart from the exciting new models, what are people hoping for from the book? Personally hoping for a few more playable warlord traits and relics and maybe a stratagem to make Infiltrators and Ruststalkers a bit better.

 TheArchmagos wrote:
Yeah hard to know without seeing the rules for the new models, but I do think all the sculpts are gorgeous, particularly the cavalry. Hopefully they aren't all competing for the same role in the army.

Apart from the exciting new models, what are people hoping for from the book? Personally hoping for a few more playable warlord traits and relics and maybe a stratagem to make Infiltrators and Ruststalkers a bit better.

Some WT and Relics that actually support the army might be nice I'm sure there will be some strategms but until we get some units with some tactical flexibility nothing is really going to beat the ones we use already for pure reliable multipliers.

What we really need imo:

Mobility + battlefield coverage
Some ways of actually messing up our opponent's plans
Some surprises, we're very static in terms of strategy at the moment

Already, even without rules, we can infer that flying and deep-striking units gives us some surprises and coverage improvements. Combat ability we already have a bunch of good shooting options so I'm not really wanting for more of those, unless what those shooting attacks do is something more than just damage. Something to slow enemy units down from the flying troops would be an awesome tactical advantage for us.

It's probably too optimistic but I really just want something to shake things up a bit. Our army is flat on the battlefield at the moment, we can kill anything with guns and point priests at just about anything in combat to kill it. We need ways of preventing stuff getting to us, or lessening the impact when they do; Ways of giving us greater coverage, for the most part I never make it out of my own half of any map lol; And ways for our HQ units to better support our army, because right now they might as well be a banner or an instrument that can repair stuff.

Something for enginseers and datasmiths to do.

Something that's a unique thing for our army that isn't repairing, the way repairing works at the moment isn't a good force multiplier in today's meta and it's not something that's unique to us. There's so much damage being flung around 1-3 extra wounds here and there makes little difference. If they removed the once per model restriction so several tech priest could essentially bring a vehicle back from the brink then that's a better ability.

At the moment the only time repairing becomes a significant asset/threat is if we take necromechanic and spend a cp to repair twice. That's too much setup to make an ability all our HQs have significant though and that's only if your opponent doesn't focus fire everything down to nothing. If my 12w tank gets knocked down to 2-3 wounds in a single turn and I have an HQ that then heals it for 4-8 wounds, that's somewhat useful. But eventually you run out of cp and it becomes 2-4 which is less useful.

Essentially when I see my opponents characters and HQ choices the majority of them have abilities that make me want to get rid of them other than them being a warlord point or mission objective. Pyskers need to go, anything issuing orders has to go, melee experts have to go. Nobody cares about a dominus, manipulus or enginseer, from a battlefield perspective they're almost dead weight. Dominus are amazing at shooting but have crap short range weapons. They have good melee weapons but low attacks and combat abilities. They're not mega durable and do almost nothing for the army.

So if I had to pick one or two things it would be better HQ force multipliers and ways for us to ruin our opponents plans.

Agree, especially on how lame Ad Mech HQs are. They are definitely the weak link in the army. They feel like a leftover from the sort of thing you used to have in 40k 4 or 5 editions ago, back when you still had lots of characters that were just their stat-line and not much else.

That said, I think the trouble with the army is that although it's really lopsided right now...the units that are good are *really, really good*. To the point that I worry that they're going to struggle to find ways to make the army more interesting that doesn't take those already very good units and push them over the edge into problematic territory. Things like electro-priests for example would probably be seriously overpowered in just about any other army. They are overtuned in terms of basic stats and abilities precisely because the army is so lacking in ways to get more out of them. If you suddenly let Ad Mech have the sorts of tricks lots of other armies get...those priests become god-tier.

It's a tough balance to hit and I'm not sure I trust GW's ability to get it right.

I cannot stress enough that this is the issue with us having been designed as two separate armies and then mashed together and with a lot of the goodies from the books being stripped out.

My biggest hope for Engine War is extremely unlikely, in that I'd love a way to field a Skitarii HQ. Hopefully that will be the next Codex, with a Skitarii 'Command Squad' option as an Elite choice.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I cannot stress enough that this is the issue with us having been designed as two separate armies and then mashed together and with a lot of the goodies from the books being stripped out.

My biggest hope for Engine War is extremely unlikely, in that I'd love a way to field a Skitarii HQ. Hopefully that will be the next Codex, with a Skitarii 'Command Squad' option as an Elite choice.

Giving us a Skitarii HQ doesn't improve much though. The biggest gains we could see are actually to the cult mechanics side, they are all so underwhelming we throw all sorts of other units and strategms at them to make them useful. Sure our Skitarii forces don't have anyone to lead them, but what do our Skitarii forces even need? All the Skitarii units are great without even any leaders supporting them. The units that need help are the BS/WS4+ cult mech units with mismatched stats and rules. The thing I don't get with the cult mech units is sure they're below average BS and WS but what are they getting for that? WHere's the upside to this equation? If it were offset accordingly the BS/WS4 and the other downsides would be more palatable.