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 Aaranis wrote:
... and have to buy 80 Skitarii.

Ironically enough, that might be a thing in the future. Running 60 skitarii at least could be a viable build, if not more...

Aren't units of 20 still kinda prone to dying excessively fast ? I played 2 games of 9th months ago so no experience, but Blast is still a thing, and getting a 20 unit stuck in melee or something is more bothersome.

Personnaly I don't think I'll run more than 10 but that's mainly because I have 33 Vanguards, and 6 of them are Alphas and 3 of them Plasma gunners.

 Aaranis wrote:
Aren't units of 20 still kinda prone to dying excessively fast ? I played 2 games of 9th months ago so no experience, but Blast is still a thing, and getting a 20 unit stuck in melee or something is more bothersome.

Personnaly I don't think I'll run more than 10 but that's mainly because I have 33 Vanguards, and 6 of them are Alphas and 3 of them Plasma gunners.

You can stack so many +sv on them that I don't think they will. Take Logos Holy Order to ignore AP1 and 2, then +1 Sv Doctrina, and maybe slap on Shroudpsalm if you're Mars. You can get them very beefy for a turn or two.

Hey, by the way, what's the deal with the successor Forgeworld. Goonhammer said they get the Dogma, Stratagems, and Warlord traits of a main one, but not the relics? So... what do they get in return? Why not just say "counts-as-Mars" for your homebrew?

 Aaranis wrote:
Yeah Starter sets are usually nice but after having 3 Onagers and 60 Dominus you run out of reasons to buy them. Though the current Start Collecting with a Skorpius instead is nice I guess, I'd buy these instead of just the Skorpius box (didn't buy a single box yet as 60€ for less than 100 pts for the transport version is mad I believe).

I wonder when we'll get Secutarii rules.

you mean secutarii hoplites and peltasts? that got 9th ed rules in the Imp armour compendulam last year?

Will the Termite Drills need any kind of keyword FAQ updates to remain relevant in the new codex, or are they good to go as is?

MOST blast isnt really a danger becuase its on a weapon that doesnt wanna hit infantry.
keyword...most....

 Aaranis wrote:
Aren't units of 20 still kinda prone to dying excessively fast ? I played 2 games of 9th months ago so no experience, but Blast is still a thing, and getting a 20 unit stuck in melee or something is more bothersome

And then dont forget that ruins usually are defensible, so you get set to defend and overwatch on a 5+... charging those 20 guys is not something to be taken lightly. Depending on the strat, if you can do the RF2 thing on them in Overwatch too, that's gonna hurt most things.

I haven't played in over a year (thanks Covid!) And my poor Metallica army has been in a display case figuratively gathering dust. Now I hear they'll be viable and I really am excited!

Can someone elaborate on their interaction with House Raven? I need very little excuse to build and paint knights, so nudge me in that direction please.

As far as I know the gist of it was that a HOUSE RAVEN KNIGHT could be taken in your army and it would gain canticles and the AdMech Keyword and could be repaired by a METALICA TP just as well as a standard AdMech vehicle via a WLT.

But it looks like the new AdMech Codex already throws that out of the window and gives it to basically every FW.

Not precisely. House Metallica and House Raven work together a little better than other combinations. AdMech let's you take a Knight Superheavy Aux Detachment without losing their canticles, but that's about it.

Metallica can give a House Raven Knight the Knight of the Iron Cog ability, or more than one Knight at 1 CP each. This lets the Knight not disrupt canticles AND benefit from the canticles as it it were an AdMech unit itself. There is also a warlord trait for Raven knights that gives the Knight +2 wounds and allows AdMech units to repair the Knight as it it were an AdMech unit (usually 1d3 wounds restored instead of a flat 1).

Other than that, Metallica offers some really useful strategems that help Knights, such as turning off rerolls in combat to a nearby unit or turning off a units ability to benefit from Aura abilities.

More broadly, Knights offer a shock or battle-line unit to AdMech. AdMech can do similar things with the chicken-tasers or bit units of Kataphrons, but Knights are probably a little tougher than those and can stick around on an objective longer.

 DarkHound wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
Aren't units of 20 still kinda prone to dying excessively fast ? I played 2 games of 9th months ago so no experience, but Blast is still a thing, and getting a 20 unit stuck in melee or something is more bothersome.

Personnaly I don't think I'll run more than 10 but that's mainly because I have 33 Vanguards, and 6 of them are Alphas and 3 of them Plasma gunners.

You can stack so many +sv on them that I don't think they will. Take Logos Holy Order to ignore AP1 and 2, then +1 Sv Doctrina, and maybe slap on Shroudpsalm if you're Mars. You can get them very beefy for a turn or two.

Hey, by the way, what's the deal with the successor Forgeworld. Goonhammer said they get the Dogma, Stratagems, and Warlord traits of a main one, but not the relics? So... what do they get in return? Why not just say "counts-as-Mars" for your homebrew?

Yeah but if you make them resilient with all these buffs, they're not getting their shooting/melee buffed in the meantime. There's still many many weapons and units that can obliterate 20 T3 4+ wounds. But we'll have to see after a few months of data of course.

AdMech projects this weekend:

Build some more rangers - I have a bunch unbuilt in boxes which I have never really needed to use, but only somthing like 7 non-special weapons/non-alphas built (plus another 15 or so basic vanguard - again I have more with special weapons) (Mainly play cult mech).

Ordered some more corpuscarii (to take me up to a squad of 10) & 5 pteraxii for the deep strike, action/shoot jump away... (in addition to codex/marshall/cards/dice)

Locate where my 10 infiltrators, 5 ruststalkers & 4 Dragoons have been boxed away due to the previous codex...

bmsattler wrote:
Will the Termite Drills need any kind of keyword FAQ updates to remain relevant in the new codex, or are they good to go as is?

They're good to go as-is. They are non-Core Skitarii vehicles.

But damn are Ironstriders good at everything now or what? I am definitely running 5x Autocannon Ballistarii and 5x Dragoons, perhaps with 2x Neutron Crawlers. Mars for the shooting, and a Ryza Patrol for my melee options.

I'm a little nervous about autocannons. People are turning to dreadnoughts for anti-Drukari, and Deathguard is a thing in my area.

Speaking of Cognis weapons, do they automatically use full ballistic skill for overwatch, or are they -1 to hit, or is that a strategem? I'm away from my books right now, apologies.

The special weapons change is REALLY unfortunate for my Skitarii. I pretty much only have units with the same three specials.

Trying to understand the wording on the skitarii special weapons.
can someone please clarify/confirm how many specials you can take at the following squad sizes:

5-9man

10-man

11-19man

20-man

my understanding is:

5-9man: 1 special of any type, but only 1

10-man: up to 3 specials, but only 1 of each

11-19man: same as 10-man

20-man: up to 6 specials, but only 2 of each

is this correct?

So, just curious, are there any dogmas or strategems or such that would be great on say a Castellan or knight if you included it in your admech army under the new rules ? Like can I have a Knight with a 2+ save or -1 to hit from doctrines or something?

 The Forgemaster wrote:
my understanding is:

5-9man: 1 special of any type, but only 1

10-man: up to 3 specials, but only 1 of each

11-19man: same as 10-man

20-man: up to 6 specials, but only 2 of each

is this correct?

Seems so, yeah.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So, just curious, are there any dogmas or strategems or such that would be great on say a Castellan or knight if you included it in your admech army under the new rules ? Like can I have a Knight with a 2+ save or -1 to hit from doctrines or something?

Only with exactly Forgeworld Metalica and Knight House Raven. Metalica can spend 1cp per unit of Knights to give them Canticles, so they get buffed by things like Shroudpsalm along with the rest of your mechanicus cult. At lower points I plan to spend 4 CP to bring 3 Armigers in a Superheavy Auxiliary detachment and use that strat on the combined unit. At higher points I'll make the Knight my Warlord in a Superheavy Detachment, and pay 2 CP for my AdMech patrol and 3 CP for Canticles on each.

Besides that, for each detachment of AdMech you can also take one Superheavy Auxiliary detachment of Knights with the Mechanicus Oath and keep your Canticles/Doctrina (they otherwise require pure AdMech). That doesn't let the Knights use those buffs, and you still have to pay 3 CP for the Aux detachment. Bear in mind, Knights in an auxiliary detachment don't get their House Tradition (but do get stratagems and you can pay for relics and traits).

Really specifically, House Raven is the only House that can justify a Castellan because Order of Companions is so strong on it (I think my math showed like a 60% damage increase). Adding Canticles to it would make it nuts. If your main force was AdMech, you'd spend 3 CP to bring the Aux detachment, 1 on Knights of the Iron Cog for canticles, then 2 more for Ion Bulwark trait and Cawl's Wrath relic gun for 6 total. Then you'd plan to spend 3 CP per turn on Order of Companions. It's not bad, per say, but you gotta plan your turns out.

I made a copy of that handy spreadsheet we were using when 9E first came out. It has all of the 9E Codex values if you guys are tired of squinting at the page: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lTE1nNTVCxlrZ5Jap5sG8VQ6yoCsQzJYCmXOebnP-s4/edit?usp=sharing

Here is also my first draft for a Ryza list:

Dominus + Marshal A move down field to provide rerolls and bonuses for the melee. Marshal B hangs back to give the Ballistarii rerolls and to remove any penalty from Doctrina.

Raiders fulfill more a support role. They scout move to get ahead of the Dragoons, can snipe characters, and have a new stat line with 5++, an extra attack each, and T4 W2. Temporcopia lets them make an enemy within 3" fight last. They also got Tactical Obliqua, which you can cheapen to 1 CP with Logi.

Dragoons are amazing again. In addition to the bonuses from Ryza, they also have great stratagem synergy:
-First turn Dunestriders to catch up with the Raiders
-Logi to ignore AP1-2; with Bulwark Protocol (Marshal cancels the Deprecation penalty) and Incense Cloud, it's extremely undesirable to shoot
-Archived Engagements to fight first
-Reroll 1s to hit and wound from Dominus and Marshal
-Citation to get AP2
-Omniscient Mask and Chain-Taser Protocols to explode 2 hits on 5s, 3 hits on 6s to hit
-Machine Superiority to get S9
-Crushing Weight for a reliable 4 MW after a successful charge

Fulgurites and Drills are the only units in this list with Canticles, and they both make good use of any of them. I sorta expect the Drill to either lose the Skitarii keyword or lose Canticles for Doctrina in the future (fine either way). Fulgurites lost the ability to fight twice, but there is a stratagem now to make a unit they are in melee with to fight last.

Las Ballistarii are my firebase unit. I will use them to snipe enemy transports and vehicles and let my melee do the heavy lifting in the midfield.

Sicarian Infiltrator for forward deploy (protects me from a lot of shenanigans) and Circuitous Assassin abuse.

Still trying to figure out what my Troop composition will look like. Right now, it's a bunch of MSUs to hold objectives, maybe outflank three units for secondaries. There is a chance I might use Corpuscarii or even more Vanguard instead of Fulgurites because it might be harder to get the buff on them, which was nerfed. Enriched Rounds (auto-wound against non-vehicles on 4+ to hit) is also ridiculous if I have a giant blob of Vanguard. Almost no chance I run Plasma Kataphrons. Did the math, not worth it without some sort of rerolls, and the new Plasma Specialists is extremely expensive for its effect.

Secondaries will pretty much always be Eradication of Flesh, Engage On All Fronts, and Raise the Banners High.

How do you use Temporcopia on the Raiders ? It's a relic, they're not characters ?

You can assign up to two relics for squad leaders, with a stratagem. That's intresting set with Ryza, though unfortunate for Kataphron units, they are miles behind their former glory. The agripinaa seems a strong contester for Kataphron gunline, perhaps combined with warzone: charadon rules.

I'm considering a 9-man Raider unit with Mars. You can get them to a 2+ save pretty easily that can also ignore AP 1 and 2. Throw Wrath of Mars on them to combine with their native mortals on 6 to wound, and they can threaten a lot of tough things with plink mortals.

Flamer units like Sulphorhounds and the Sterylizors would also be interesting for Wrath, and they have their own tricks they can do as well.

20-man infantry blobs look kinda scary now, with some deep-strike opportunities to get them suddenly into position.

Here's what i've been planning;



This covers most of the models i've got, i'll still have to wait for the codex so I could make 2k lists, but so far, it seems that Mars dogma wants to play with msu units.

Anyone think Dragoons are worth using now? Or is it just: spam Rangers/Vanguard and Ballistarii?

The army I am considering at the moment.




Game Plan:

Honestly, I'm digging the idea of doing a Reignited Forge World.

So is the data horde forge world a dead duck now?

Tiberius501 wrote:Anyone think Dragoons are worth using now? Or is it just: spam Rangers/Vanguard and Ballistarii?

See my Ryza post. I would not run Ryza without a unit of 5.

Razerous wrote:So is the data horde forge world a dead duck now?

It doesn't have the super exploding Arc weapons anymore.

 Aaranis wrote:
How do you use Temporcopia on the Raiders ? It's a relic, they're not characters ?

There is a stratagem for to give Princeps and Alphas a relic.

Temporcopia is really good as a charge screening tool because even if the Raiders are charged, at the start of any Fight phase, you can make an enemy unit attack last. (Correct me if I am wrong, but the rule is that if they have an ability that makes them attack first, they cancel out and it's resolved in the non-charging fight order?)

What forge world / rules work best with Kataphron Servitors now?

Since we're sharing lists, I'll throw my hat in the ring because a few people have asked about Knight allies. My group typically played at 1500, so here's my rebuilt half Knight, half AdMech list:The idea is the Crusader, Vanguard, and Manipulus are a rock solid firebase together. The Vanguard are sturdy due to Logos and screen for the Crusader, and the Crusader can be repaired by the Manipulus. The Warglaives are the spearhead and principle assault threat, while the Raiders and Infiltrators provide board control and the Dunecrawler sits at the home objective.

The list should be really flexible and fast. Pretty much everything can advance and shoot, which helps positioning after a conservative deployment. It can go Shroudpsalm to weather an alpha strike, or it can deliver one with Benediction. It can also reach waaaay out to touch somebody with Invocation of Machine Vengeance and Full Tilt for 2D6dl advance and 3D6dl charge: an average of 27" charge before re-rolls. Hell, the Vanguard can also get launched like a missile to steal an objective, potentially moving 15" with auto-advance 6" and +3" from the Doctrina.

I'm not sure how I'd expand it up to 2000pts. I could either add a second Knight, or a fourth Warglaive and a Fusilave and some infantry. I'm also really considering a Marshall, but I have a strong feeling I can play around the Doctrina negatives without all that investment.