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I guess not technically 40k, but I'm putting this here anyway, because let's be honest.


Has anyone played a Mechanicum list and found it to be bafflingly over powered? I just came out of a game of Orks vs Mechanicum/Iron Fists. The first 4 turns of the game went my way. No particular lucky dice or anything. Nob bikers with a warboss were doing well, lots of boys in trukks were gaining map and objective control, squig bombs were blowing up enemy vehicles. And then his Castellax got into shooting and melee range and three of these 85 point models defeated the entirety of my 1500 points of orks. Warboss and bikers bounced off them because they can't be over killed, have 4 wounds a piece, and are monstrous creatures so they're ap 2. If he buffs them correctly with the one mechanicum character they can have a ton of attacks per model. After murdering the bikes he shot and/or stepped on everything else I had.

Even just thinking about the unit, I can't figure out a weakness or a way to take advantage of them. They have too high a toughness to take out with weight of fire, and anything that has a high enough strength to actually wound reliably AND pen their 3+ armor comes with low numbers of shots. They're too good at shooting to just ignore, and they're too good in combat to send a stompy melee unit into them. They can have too many attacks if correctly managed to tar pit, too. At the end of the game my opponent felt really bad that they just easy moded through my army. Granted, I was playing the oldest book in 40k vs a forgeworld book, but even considering other armies options I can't find an actual solution for them. It's sad because they're really cool models but at such a low cost they seem actually broken. They're almost dreadknights, they have better toughness but a worse armor save, but they're cheaper and can be taken in SQUADS.

Maybe there's something that I'm not thinking of, but he's used them several times in other battles against other armies both 40k and 30k and every time they single handedly win him the game, even with average dice. Does anyone else experience this?

They're a hard-counter to orks, but then again so are Tyranids really- Orks just have weak anti-armor and weak anti-MC.

Mechanicum units are Space Marines on steroids- they're expensive, low model count and rely on their good armor saves (3+ saves in spades) and very high toughness to survive. How do you deal with that?

One word: rending.

I trashed a mechanicus army a few weeks ago with my slaanesh daemons list. Two seeker squads putting out 80 rending attacks on the charge each was just too much for his troops to handle.

What about armies that don't have rending? I have a 40k marine army and my other friend has a 30k emperors children army. Are we just out of luck? Th ss termies have to cause 12 wounds to kill 3. While not getting killed back. Even assuming no termies die it would take 5 about 3 turns to do that.

For Space Marines, I imagine your best bet against Mechanicus units is dealing with them the same way you handle monstrous creature spam; grav-guns.

Most Mechanicus units have 3+ saves. Grav guns/cannons will be ignoring their armor and wounding them on 3's, then.

I don't know enough about 30K Marines to really help you with that, sorry.

A pure mechanicum list is fairly weak against orks, since it simply lacks the weight of fire to take down larger ork mobs. A big pack of looters can tear through their troops at an astounding pace.

The Castelax are pretty much Dreadnoughts that can be taken in squadrons, and heavy tanks always have been the bane of ork armies. Aim the SAG at them and pray.

SM support though can tear apart ork lists pretty easily (volkite weapons melt ork mobs and vehicles alike).

I play 30K Mechanicum/Iron Hands so here are some tips I have learned.

Against Castellax just think about how you would deal with a squad of carnifex with devourers.

The mechanicum doesn't have a lot of Anti-Air unless they bring a flyer so dakka jets are a good option with the number of high S and decent BS skill. Lootas are another range option.

For CC, you need power klaws and volume to soak up wounds. Even with the buffs Castellax are only WS3 with maybe 3-4 attacks. They have 2 attacks base. If you get the charge your boys will hit on 3s and wound on 6s. Not great but a Power Klaw will still wound on 2s on the charge and 3s even without the charge. Castellax only have a 6++ in CC and don't have any characters to challenge. Use the boys to eat the wounds while the nob finishes them off. Even a nob squad might work with some cheap nobs eating the big hits.

To get into CC a battlewagon with a Deffrolla is always good. Unload the boys close by and Tank Shock the Castellax for D6 S10 hits.

My final suggestion would be to go after objectives. Mechanicum are tough but few in number (not counting the tech thralls which can be numerous but are easy to kill). Mechanicum are rather slow too. The Castellax don't have any quick way to move around the field. I've lost a few games with my Mechanicum army because the opponent just tied up my units for a few turns while holding distant objectives. I had no way to win after turn 4 because I would never reach the objectives in time or put out enough fire power to blow his units off the objective.

Against everything else, a good CC unit will always win out. 30K marines don't have ATSKNF so they can be swept in combat like any other Xeno race. Fearless is hard to come by and most mechanicum is stubborn at LD8 which isn't that tough to lose.

eje005 wrote:
What about armies that don't have rending? I have a 40k marine army and my other friend has a 30k emperors children army. Are we just out of luck? Th ss termies have to cause 12 wounds to kill 3. While not getting killed back. Even assuming no termies die it would take 5 about 3 turns to do that.

Grav guns, missiles, and snipers? Melta is good If you can close in, maybe combi-melta is a good answer...

Wait until you have this guy taking up his HS slots... Or should I say guys as they can be taken in a maniple IIRC. Happy Days

Hydrapup wrote:
Wait until you have this guy taking up his HS slots... Or should I say guys as they can be taken in a maniple IIRC. Happy Days

I like this...

I like this a lot.

What does this do? O-o

Messes stuff up pretty much...it has a s8 ap 2 large blast forcing re-rolls of cover saves