Also its how to make them playably different from IG, most of the army would be humans, or heavily altered mech humans so may not offer a huge variety. And having a techpreist enginseer (or whatever) lead the army doesn't sound hugely appealing.
Actually, they would and need to be radically different as the
AM are as alien to the human nature of
40K as Tyranids are alien to the humans. Dig really, really deep in the background and you'll see. The Necron Codex has some good stuff.
I worked on my own
AM list for quite some time back in '04-'05 and still muck about with it once in a while when I catch my fancy.
The
AM has its own independent army and wouldn't be led by a Techpriest enginseer or similar boring fixing types.. though they'd be a part of the arrmy. It would have its Magos Militantus Generalis whom would have had years of psycho-training to render him the most efficient leader of armies.
Wargear - Mechanadendrites - -1 Attack to each model in base to base contact as the flailing mechanadendrites whirl about grasping opponents arms and weapons and blocking blows.
MIU - Mind Impulse Unit - (my personal favorite and many thanks to Graham McNeill for the assistance on this one) This allows indirect fire weapons to fire counting line of sight from the Magos as if it was its own line of sight.
Skittarri - While human beings in most aspects, they've had substantial modifications to their persons such as augmented vision, hearing, breathing, etc. All would have gone pyscho-conditioning and should have a
LD of 10 to represent it.
BS 4 should be considered due to enhance sighting optics and hot links to their weaponry. Save is probably a 4+ due to armor, bionics and such. Spam cannons and such would not be unheard of for the army. Combat cogitators as a special unit upgrade character could give the units a re-roll of a shooting dice.
Servitor mobs - armed for combat and shooting. Picture units of 10-20 models armed to the teeth. I'd say they should have the Feel No Pain rule after their 4+ save.
Praetorians and Heavy Praetorians - Heavy armored and armed tracked servitor models (think Ogryn size models on small Goliath style tracked units). Units of 3-5. 3+ saves, Feel No Pain.
That's all I can recall from the list at the moment but its a good one.
I'm sure Forgeworld's stuff will be great when it finally arrives.
This is an army that could net
GW substantial amounts of money if they spent some time on it.
Graham McNeill's Dark Mechanicum novel will certainly bolster the ranks with folks want to do
AM or DAM (Dark
AM gone to Chaos in the
HH) armies after reading.
There are certainly some great ideas and lists of
AM out there! And nice models like the ones above!
