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Been reading a lot about this, as I really want to find a way to make Dragoons and Ballistarii useful in games. I know they are not the top-their unit for AdMech, but I love the models and the image of giant robot walkers crashing into enemy lines on a charge.

My idea is to run an outrider Stygies detachment of 2 units of single Ballistarii with lascannons and 1 unit of Dragoons with 3-5 models. Deep strike the Dragoons for a big blob screen and first turn charge, and have the Ballistarii take some of the load off my Onagers by picking off hard targets. The price investment for this is pretty steep, north of 650 points depending on how many Dragoons.

I’ve read that Stygies is the best way to get the most out of Ironstriders, but I am wondering what kind of support I need to bring along to get the most out of them. If the Dragoons all get wiped the first turn then that’s over 300 points wasted, save for a minor delay. Anyone had any success running Ironstriders?

Dragoons are actually part of the top tier units of the army, they are highly mobile and hit like a truck in close combat.

Run them as stygies for a nice -2 to hit by shooting attacks.

Use conqueror doctrina imperative to give them +2 to hit and trigger their explosive hits on a 4+, the more model in the unit, the stronger this is.

You can use stygies's infiltration to move them 9" before the game begins (it no longer is a deepstrike stratagem), this coupled with their 10" movement almost guarantees a T1 charge.

Ballistarii are better as backfield objective holder, park either variant on an objective and keep harassing the opponent. i run them in single model units but you can also run full sized and use conqueror doctrina to remvoe their penalty to advance and shoot.

VladimirHerzog wrote:
Dragoons are actually part of the top tier units of the army, they are highly mobile and hit like a truck in close combat.

Run them as stygies for a nice -2 to hit by shooting attacks.

Use conqueror doctrina imperative to give them +2 to hit and trigger their explosive hits on a 4+, the more model in the unit, the stronger this is.

You can use stygies's infiltration to move them 9" before the game begins (it no longer is a deepstrike stratagem), this coupled with their 10" movement almost guarantees a T1 charge.

Ballistarii are better as backfield objective holder, park either variant on an objective and keep harassing the opponent. i run them in single model units but you can also run full sized and use conqueror doctrina to remvoe their penalty to advance and shoot.

Huh, I was under the impression that both variants of Ironstriders were not very well thought of in the current meta. I don’t play in hyper competitive environments, and will take models that I like simply because I like them. But I also like to make sure I’m maximizing everyone’s potential.

And good catch on the Stygies strat, just hit the books to check and realized I had misread, which also means I accidentally cheated in my last game (oops).

Would you recommend not using Clandestine Infiltration if you don’t go first? I ran a game where I tried it with a unit of 2 Dragoons and my buddies Khorne Berserkers smashed them in T1 with a boatload of attack’s.

From what i see their are two common mechanicus builds the less successfull players tend to opt for a castellan castle built around cawl and onagers with skitarii or guard as a moat. These players are quite vocal but you never see them doing well at events they would only take balistarii to fill out a brigade

The second common build focuses on useing mixed subfactions or multi different subfaction detatchments to get the most out of different units one unit of 3-4 dragoons with lances would be included ideally in a stygies detatchment for the extra move strat and extra -1 only one unit is taken though because it needs the strats to hit effectively


As to clandestine infiltration you generally want to be closer but you dont have to move he full 9 if you want to stay just far enough back for the -1. Their are situations when you want to not use it such as your opponent having CC army.