Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Olthannon**

Warhammer Community wrote:The Adeptus Mechanicus is another faction that has received a suitable amount of tinkering as we try to improve their win-rate relative to the other armies in the game. Kataphon Breachers and Destroyers now receive the CORE keyword, and every unit with Bionics improves its invulnerable save to 5+. That includes Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard, Kataphron Breachers and Destroyers, smaller Servitors, and both flavours of Ironstrider Engine.

We hope that this latest round of improvements will boost the Machine Cult’s performance and help them claw their way up from the bottom of the win-rate rankings!

So what do we reckon?

**Vineheart01**

55pt dragoons make me happy as i have 4 of the frickers lol

**Vortenger**

I also have 4 dragoons and I am here for this, especially with the new bionics rules. Looks like Kataphrons are great now and Onagers at 100 with wargear look solid. I'm really excited to get my tin men on the table after these changes

**em_en_oh_pee**

I guess this is proof that if I wait long enough, my formerly useless army will be (somewhat) useful again.

RIP Knights of the Cog. My Metalica army is very sad.

Anyone have any list ideas? I've been out of action so long, I'm not sure where to begin.

**U02dah4**

I'm considering swapping back in after playing my sisters for a long time thinking of trying 3x onager 3x disintegrator 3x warglaive probably with Raiders filling up the mid board and a couple of vanguard or corpuscarii for the Mars strat

Your probably saving about 150pts compared to pre changes on the onagers disintegrators and characters.

**Thairne**

but is it enough though? The codex is stilll deeply complicated. Other armies got huge pts drops and buffs as well.
Nephilim style CP is still around. Veteran Cohort has one advantage for free, the others are gone.

**U02dah4**

That is the question and it's difficult to know without data

Not all factions were buffed my other army was Sisters where your looking at pts increase, mission nerf and loss of AoC they are clearly worsening significantly.

I'm looking at a 8.5% points reduction buffed secondaries an extra Hvy slot no Troop tax and no cp for my knights or reserves and not having to deal with AoC so our guns are more lethal vs a third of the field.

There are two big CP changes from nephillim. One is that reserves are free if your looking for a vanguard/ corpuscarii + mars strat to come in from the side that's a reduction.

Also the super heavy aux is free if you want to freeblade a knight or some armigers also since they are now agent of the imperium your not limited to mechanicus knights so while yes the raw CP numbers are the same the demands on them have decreased

I think it's clear that in armies like Sisters the win percentage will drop while in admech the win percentage will rise the question is how much comparatively. Ask yourself would you rather be playing a midrange dropping faction or a rising one that we dont know by how much

**em_en_oh_pee**

Cobbling together a list from what I have painted, partially built, and in box:

Rough list idea:

Spoiler:

Just basically a little bit of everything... which I guess is good for a faction? I don't really want to run Skitarii, but have some if that becomes a necessity.

Thoughts? Ideas? What is everyone else thinking?

**U02dah4**

This is what I'm thinking of more Skitarii focussed

Although it amuses me you don't want to run skitarii and suggest 9 units with the skitarii keyword

If I was to critics your list your spending to much on HQ 365pts is a big chunk of your army

Spoiler:

I would note I'm spending 5CP pregame

However previously this build would have been 8CP pregame and 2254 pts so that's quite a difference and doesn't even include the cost of reserving the Vanguard which is now free

**em_en_oh_pee**

lol I mean Skitarii proper - rangers and vanguard. You know, the dudes. They're not very exciting to paint.

**ph34r**

For regular Skitarii, the vanguard and ranger Alphas now get a free melee weapon basically? And the special weapons all went down 5 points, so a plasma caliver is 5?

Will 50 points for 5 vanguard with a caliver and power sword be kinda good?

**U02dah4**

If your taking them the free weapon is a given.

Generally the caliver is a worth while spending of 5 pts but it's not essential and if all you want is a back field objective holder I can justify not takeing it just to min the cost of the unit

**FoxHybrid**

In the same vein as the question about the plasma caliver, does the points change improve the Transuranic Arquebus’ viability in units of Rangers? I have two for Killteam, and I’m wondering if they’re one of the better Skitarii special weapons.

**ph34r**

I think it's worth considering at least. It's still 10 points, but it's a good gun. I'm thinking about building one to try it. I used to have one but I disassembled him.

**U02dah4**

The arquebuses problem was always numbers you needed about 9 to reliably kill small characters

If you only take 3 well one will fail to hit. 1.333 will wound a space marine or guard character with a 4++ that means 0.67 go through averaging at 2 dam if it does not enough to kill

(Now I know you will occasionally get a mw as a bonus but not often)

**U02dah4**

Didn't really take missions into account with my last attempt and definitely feel I needed more infantry for objectives

Spoiler:

**U02dah4**

Now pistols are free on vanguard/rangers whats the thoughts on them are they worth taking and in what circumstances

**FoxHybrid**

Of the pistols, I think the Arc or Phosphor Blast Pistol could be a viable choice, but mainly on Vanguard Alphas. I don’t think Rangers will see close combat often enough to warrant the Alpha having a pistol, better to just add to the volley of Galvanic Rifle fire.

**U02dah4**

for 5 man vanguard objective holders i was considering the arc pistol but I was torn with just going stock on the gun. Definitely arc maul all the way on the melee

**Mariongodspeed**

Id never take the Phosphor Blast Pistol. As a blast weapon you cant shoot it in combat, which is the whole point of taking a pistol in my opionion.

**ph34r**

I’m out of the loop, but I don’t have enough points to make 2000p of pure Adeptus Mechanicus, are knights still allowed (one free blade?) as Allies without breaking canticles and doctrines and everything?

**xerxeskingofking**

ph34r wrote:
I’m out of the loop, but I don’t have enough points to make 2000p of pure Adeptus Mechanicus, are knights still allowed (one free blade?) as Allies without breaking canticles and doctrines and everything?

short answer: yes.

longer answer: yes, but thiers a new detachment thats replaced the old patrol/battalion/brigade system for matched play, and warlord traits/relics are not free anymore. i would read up about the new army building rules here as it might affect your choices:

https://wahapedia.ru/wh40k9ed/the-rules/arks-of-omen-grand-tournament/#2.-Muster-Armies

**ph34r**

So the options are,

-a patrol of Votann
-a super-heavy auxiliary of exactly one Freeblade
-a single Agent of the Imperium i.e. Inquisitor, or
-a patrol of Agents of the Imperium, such as
--basically only Astra Cartographica can field an Agents of the Imperium patrol?

**xerxeskingofking**

ph34r wrote:
So the options are,

-a patrol of Votann
-a super-heavy auxiliary of exactly one Freeblade
-a single Agent of the Imperium i.e. Inquisitor, or
-a patrol of Agents of the Imperium, such as
--basically only Astra Cartographica can field an Agents of the Imperium patrol?

you can also take agents of the Imperium Auxiliary Support detachment can be any unit with the AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM keyword, which also includes the Navy Breachers, and i suspect the soon to be released Arbites.

or, like a lot of people, you can just skip the arks of omen stuff and put together a regular detachment. the arks detachment is strictly speaking only supposed to be used with the arks GT pack, and if your not using that it then its a moot point.

**U02dah4**

Think I've settled on a tournament list any feedback would be appreciated

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/808884.page

**em_en_oh_pee**

What would be the absolute best way to add a big boy Knight to an AdMech list. I want to lean into Kataphrons and Onagers, so I am thinking maybe Mars.

Trying desperately to get back into 40k, but lord has it been hard to justify since we've been at the bottom, so help would be appreciated.

**U02dah4**

Asside from the obvious that 3 armigers may be more effective than a singular big knight.

You could look at the list above as a vehicle heavy list as a starting template designed to be highly survivable. The conflict between that list and a big knight is that invariably you make Eradication of flesh harder to achieve which that list needs. (the little characters are to take Raise the banners if there is no kill missions). However, there isn't any tourney data for this build (till I run it next week and next month)

So your probably looking At Mars/Lucius/Ryza

Ryza is more melee focussed Mars more all round and Lucius more infantry focused.

I'm not sure there is a best at least not meta data wise whats probably more important is to build to the strengths of each. While aggripina would seem a nice match for your units the metadata says it underperforms.

**FoxHybrid**

With buffing characters mainly being attached to one unit at a time, how do you think the army will evolve in 10th edition. I feel like we may see some buffs to our lethality and durability as a whole, albeit maybe with some points increases. What are you guys expecting/hoping for going into this new edition of 40k?

**Olthannon**

It'll be interesting to see what the new vehicle rules do for us, hopefully our mighty crab tanks will get some benefit.

From what I've seen so far, we could be in for exciting times. But who knows?

**U02dah4**

We already know mass low ap firepower is buffed by cover changes as there will be a lot less 2+ so corouscarii vanguard get more favourable but all our characters except enginseer are liable for rewrites so its to early to tell much else it would be nice if one of our characters could actually become a viable melee unit