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Hi all,

I want to get into AdMech, but I'm not quite sure what makes them tick given I'm very new to 8th (and never played them in 7th). My army is, as yet, unbuilt, so I'll list the minis I have and we can go from there:

1x Cawl
4x Tech-Priest Dominus
3+ Tech-Priest Enginseers (I have one of the newer plastic ones, and lots of the old metal ones)
12 Karaphrons
80 Skitarii
10 Electro-Priests
20 Sicarians
2 Datasmiths
3 Ironstriders/Dragoons
4 Kastelan
4 Onagers

(I also have a Taghmata army, but I think they're just 30K with no 8th Ed rules yet - let me know if I'm wrong)

That’s a lot of models already purchased for an army that you’re not sure how it ticks. You have plenty. Do you have the codex? If not, that’s what you really need.

You don’t really need a fourth onager; you can only field 3 of each data sheet. Nor will you need four dominus models (2 is enough) and more than three enginseers. Again, three of each data sheet max. I suggest selling the extra models.

Also, I suggest magnetizing the kataphrons, onagers, robots, and ironstiders weapons to allow you to build all variants. I’ve done it with mine and it’s not that difficult.

I like the FW drills as deep striking transports that can punch like dreadnoughts as well. The new transports/tanks are popular but I personally don’t care for the models.

 Gnarlly wrote:
That’s a lot of models already purchased for an army that you’re not sure how it ticks. You have plenty. Do you have the codex? If not, that’s what you really need.

I bought them when they came out. Have the Codex. Need to know how the army ticks.

 Gnarlly wrote:
You don’t really need a fourth onager; you can only field 3 of each data sheet.

That's for "Organised Play" and largely irrelevant in all other circumstances.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Adeptus_Mechanicus(8E)
Try this

Cool. Thanks for the help.

Anyone else?

Admech doesnt tick one way it has a few strategies that are different but require different units

Castle centered around cawl and kastelans can see middleing competative performance but its the most popular historically a bit more itc style missions than etc focussed as it lacks the mobility to board control than etc requires.

Stygies based around 1 unit of 4x dragoons 3 onagers, 3 disintegrators sometimes with a knight crusader (mono mechanicus by itc definition. Useing the -1 to hit to win a shoot out (i've come 2nd in a gt with this in etc style missions but it struggles in itc as it shells secondaries)

Mixed - one unit of ryzaphrons 1 mars infiltrators 1 stygies dragoons 1 agripinaa breachers + brigade usually stygies agripinaa or mars to cover the CP costs - capitalise on our really good strategems at the expense of dogmas - very complicated list (not to mention painting in tournaments) but can be highly effective but more so than the others requires an expert player.

Infantry spam featureing some combination of electropriests, vanguard hoplites and infiltrators - an interesting variation now possible due to points reductions and transports however it hasnt really seen the testing of the others but has had at least one promiseing result

Is this stuff built already or is it on sprue? Also have you decided on a Forgeworld you like? I see you have Cawl but you could always paint a custom FW and just run them as whatever. As for the models

Sicarians for example are best as infiltrators at the moment. I'm partial to the taser/flechette ones but the stub/sword ones are solid if a bit boring.

Other stuff like infantry heavily depend on your forgeworld. For example I run Metallica, most of my guys are vanguard (protip, don't play Metallica) meanwhile an army like Stygies prefers rangers. A safe bet would be to build all the arquebuses you got as rangers, all the plasma as vanguard, then pad some squads out with riflemen to complete both. Some barebones 5 man rangers squads aren't bad either for screening and objectives.

I thought you were working on your Nids, you filthy Imperial.

Thanks for the information everyone, especially this bit:

MrMoustaffa wrote:A safe bet would be to build all the arquebuses you got as rangers, all the plasma as vanguard, then pad some squads out with riflemen to complete both.

This helps quite a bit, as I've got a lot of special weapons with all the kits I have, but no clue who to make as what type.

I'll probably end up making my own Forge World and change around depending on how I feel - I tend to make a new list every time I play rather than just the same thing over and over again, so I'm open to experimenting with combos and weird unit ideas. Plus I have enough that I can build a bit of everything, even if it's not the best option (except Kataphrons with Torsion Cannons... seriously, what were they thinking with those rules?).

 Ratius wrote:
I thought you were working on your Nids, you filthy Imperial.

I think it's plainly clear that I am working on everything.

I'd grab an Imperial Knight. would make a nice centerpiece and they're pretty solid units.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd grab an Imperial Knight. would make a nice centerpiece and they're pretty solid units.

I have 3 Knights... plus 2 Helverin, 2 Warglaives, a Valiant and a Castellan.

All unbuilt, naturally.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd grab an Imperial Knight. would make a nice centerpiece and they're pretty solid units.

I have 3 Knights... plus 2 Helverin, 2 Warglaives, a Valiant and a Castellan.

All unbuilt, naturally.

a pity I'm not in your neck of the woods, I'd offer to help build stuff, putting together kits if proably one of my fav parts of the hobby

Cool thing is most admech stuff is easy to magnetize. Hell I didn't even magnetize my Kataphrons, the weapons can slot in as dry fit. Other than the phosphor/flamer that is, they're just dry fit guns, and if you don't mind their armor being "wrong" you could magnetize all options.

Same for bots, onagers, skorpius, almost everything is either easy to magnetize or doesn't even need magnets at all.

Dry fit hey? I'll look out for that when I put 'em together.

BrianDavion wrote:
a pity I'm not in your neck of the woods, I'd offer to help build stuff, putting together kits if proably one of my fav parts of the hobby

For me it's building terrain. It's the thing I love the most, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Ive found that in a casual scene i can run pretty much anything with Admech and as long as i dont do stupid things like run dragoons and never use the +2 to hit strat or mono-ryza/metallica i do fine.

Imo the only dumb unit is Ruststalkers and Corpuspriests. CorpusPriests have their uses, but i'd rather use Infiltrators if i wanted that role for the built in deepstrike. Ruststalkers....feel like they should be good but no ap on their weapon kills them. I dont get why they dont have a base AP of 1 or 2 when their weapons "hum with an eerie sonic noise that slices through armor with ease"

What's wrong with Dragoons?

I think stupid thing he meant is taking them and NOT using the stratagem. Aka with stratagem they are good(exploding hits on 4+), without it's just waste.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Ive found that in a casual scene i can run pretty much anything with Admech and as long as i dont do stupid things like run dragoons and never use the +2 to hit strat or mono-ryza/metallica i do fine.

Imo the only dumb unit is Ruststalkers and Corpuspriests. CorpusPriests have their uses, but i'd rather use Infiltrators if i wanted that role for the built in deepstrike. Ruststalkers....feel like they should be good but no ap on their weapon kills them. I dont get why they dont have a base AP of 1 or 2 when their weapons "hum with an eerie sonic noise that slices through armor with ease"

Now corpuscarii have gone down 2pts in CA they can be quite effective in lucius - they can still deep strike for a CP a squad of 10 comes in at 120 as oppossed to 150 for the infiltrators and 30 S5 tripple hitting on 6's is more effective than 50 S3
(Yes in a single unit the mars strat on infiltrators will be better) but for multiples there is a solid case for corpuscarii now

Yeah thats exactly what i meant.

When i initially got the codex i thought dragoons were stupid. Yeah, S8 Ap1 2D on a fast somewhat annoyingly resilient platform sounds awesome but it isnt gonna kill anything unless your rolls are lucky as crap.

Then i found out about that stratagem and that my affinity with the Ork codex made me blind to "hit of a 6+" rather than "unmodified hit of a 6+"
They went from mediocre (price making me not want them at all) to HOLY CRAP and i immediately bought 4 lol. And yeah, Stygies strat to move them 9" with a Manip around for +1 move (and charge) they get a T1 charge super early and just annihilate whatever they ran into with exploding 4s. 2nd time i got that off i had all but 1 of the 12 dice roll 4+ lol.... and as long as i didnt charge them into the center of the enemy lineup the majority of their army is outside 12" still so -2 to hit unless he wants to completely ignore the rest of my army and close in on them.

And like i said, Corpuspriests have their uses. But considering how expensive this army is i dont see myself making any of them. Unless their shoulders are big enough to magnetize (which im not used to doing with infantry, used to it being far too small to drill into. Dont have any priests yet)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Cool. Thanks for the help.

Anyone else?

Cawl: good
Dominus: not necessary unless you want to do a no-mars list. not great, but at least they cost less than they used to.
enginseers: good, lets you take more Battalions which are valuable for the command points. certain admech units will absolutely drink command points.
karaphrons: I hear they are good now, the destroyer versions not the breachers though.
skitarii: good, cheap, battalions. bigger squads with special weapons are a "if they have a transport or deep strike method" option
electro-priests: good supposedly, ditto above about transport or deep strike
sicarians: infiltrators, the 5 shot pistols, wrath of mars
datasmiths: bad/not needed
dragoos: good-ish in Stygies VIII. the shooty ones are good with lascannons
kastelan: all phosphor blasters, all shooting. 36" range only. tech-priest manipulus helps here. wrath of mars is great on these guys. they will often be a core of a list because once you put them into double shoot mode, they are probably stuck standing still.
onagers: icarus array is great, neutron laser is good but aircrarft are way more dangerous to us in my opinion.