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So im slightly confused when it comes to bringing units from different factions together into your army.

My brother is building an adeptus mechanicus army, so far he has 2 units of rangers and sicarian infiltrators, which i know are from the skitarii faction. He also has a tech priest dominus, which is from cult mechanicus, that he wants to use as his warlord.

Now what im trying to figure out is if this can suffice as a small force, with the dominus acting as warlord over the rangers and sicarians. If the dominus cannot be warlord, can he still be a part of my brother's army? Or does he need more units (to fill up any required slots) from cult mechanicus to even think about using the dominus along with his skitarii?

We're confused because we assumed that, being that they're both from adeptus mechanicus, they were from the same faction and had no limits working together. But after a bit more reading, I'm not so sure anymore.

Any model can be Warlord, HQs just usually make better ones.

But in order for an army to be Battle-Forged (aka not Unbound), all units need to be in a detachment.

If there is a detachment that allows for those 2 ranger units and infiltrators without any other Skitarii units, that part is fine, if not, review the detachments available to the Skitarii and see what he needs to add.

However, the only detachment I know of that allows a single HQ is the Inquisition, so more AM units will need to be brought in to support the Dominus in a detachment.

Of course, if you are fine playing Unbound, then he can bring anything he wants up to the points limit you both agree upon.

Charistoph wrote:
Any model can be Warlord, HQs just usually make better ones.

But in order for an army to be Battle-Forged (aka not Unbound), all units need to be in a detachment.

If there is a detachment that allows for those 2 ranger units and infiltrators without any other Skitarii units, that part is fine, if not, review the detachments available to the Skitarii and see what he needs to add.

However, the only detachment I know of that allows a single HQ is the Inquisition, so more AM units will need to be brought in to support the Dominus in a detachment.

Of course, if you are fine playing Unbound, then he can bring anything he wants up to the points limit you both agree upon.

So when you say more AM units (im guessing you mean adeptus mechanicus) to support the dominus, do you mean any unit from the adeptus mechanicus, such as skitarii? or do they have to be from cult mechanicus?

also i didnt know about unbound, that helps a bit.

Because of the weird way that GW split the Cult Mech. faction, we can't just take the simple option of having everything in a standard Combined Arms Detachment. However, we still have a few options:

1) Unbound. The easiest option, and allows you to use whatever you want, though you'll lose out on Detachment bonuses (like Objective Secured, for example).

2) A second detachment. This will require more Cult Mech. units. Remember that Formations are Detachments, so formations are another option.

3) Specific Formations. There are some formations available that include both Skitari and Cult Mech. units. For example, the new starter box for Skitari (the rules for which are probably available via other sources), or the big one that includes a Knight that I can't remember the name of.

 Quanar wrote:
Because of the weird way that GW split the Cult Mech. faction, we can't just take the simple option of having everything in a standard Combined Arms Detachment. However, we still have a few options:

1) Unbound. The easiest option, and allows you to use whatever you want, though you'll lose out on Detachment bonuses (like Objective Secured, for example).

2) A second detachment. This will require more Cult Mech. units. Remember that Formations are Detachments, so formations are another option.

3) Specific Formations. There are some formations available that include both Skitari and Cult Mech. units. For example, the new starter box for Skitari (the rules for which are probably available via other sources), or the big one that includes a Knight that I can't remember the name of.

I was thinking that may be the case, could that be fulfilled by getting 1 or 2 units of kataphrons to fill troop slots? My brother was thinking about getting them anyways and right now that seems like a real good option.

 Dtox wrote:

Charistoph wrote:
Any model can be Warlord, HQs just usually make better ones.

But in order for an army to be Battle-Forged (aka not Unbound), all units need to be in a detachment.

If there is a detachment that allows for those 2 ranger units and infiltrators without any other Skitarii units, that part is fine, if not, review the detachments available to the Skitarii and see what he needs to add.

However, the only detachment I know of that allows a single HQ is the Inquisition, so more AM units will need to be brought in to support the Dominus in a detachment.

Of course, if you are fine playing Unbound, then he can bring anything he wants up to the points limit you both agree upon.

So when you say more AM units (im guessing you mean adeptus mechanicus) to support the dominus, do you mean any unit from the adeptus mechanicus, such as skitarii? or do they have to be from cult mechanicus?

also i didnt know about unbound, that helps a bit.

Sorry, yes, more Cult Mechanicus units. I don't have access to either codex, at the moment, so I can't get in to specifics for each case to build it up to Battle-Forged.

Also to support Quanar's statements, Formations are detachments in their own right. The two biggest differences are that they are not very flexible (specific unit lists) and they keep their detachment bonuses in Unbound since they use Special Rules for the bonuses and not Command Benefits like the Combined Arms Detachment does.

Ad mech player here -

He needs 2 units for kataphrons run the basic Cult Mechanicus Battle Congregation. 1 TPDom and 2 Kata's

He has the basic Skitarii Maniple - 2 units of troops - Rangers/Vanguard.

Run both detachments, warlord is the TPDom - Skitarii access their Doctrinas and Cult Mech get canticles.

I don't think there is a formation out there that lets him run his TPDom with the skitarii units he has.

The closest one is the new starter army formation - 1 TPDom, 1 unit of Rangers/Vanguard, 1 onager