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I'd like to have a broad discussion of the Skitarii infantry because points values have changed, the meta has changed, and frankly searching for old information on Dakka is an exercise in futility.

The decision tree as I see it:
Rangers or Vanguard?
5 or 10 men?
Special weapons or not?

There are cases where the optimal choice is straightforward: if you want the minimum to fill out a Battalion, you take 5 Rangers. If you want to use Arquebuses, you take 5 Rangers with 2. In those cases, you're effectively discarding the normal Rangers, or at best treating them as extra wounds. In what cases do you take the Rangers for the Rangers? Do you ever bother taking more than 5? Do you ever take a Caliver or Arc Rifle with Rangers? (Do you ever take an Arc Rifle at all?)

What about Vanguard? They're 12.5% more expensive, but are better than Rangers at 16" to 18" which the lines up nicely with the 18" Plasma Caliver. Unlike the Arquebus, a squad with the Plasma Caliver is vulnerable to return fire. Is a 5 man squad enough to protect the investment of 2 Calivers? (The guns themselves are worth a third of the unit.) Is there a sweet spot between 5 and 10, or do you go to 10 and take 3 guns? Do you ever take Vanguard by themselves?

Then there's the matter of Forgeworlds. The only ones I see mattering to the infantry are Graia, Stygies, and Metallica, with a small honorable mention for Mars. Graia is probably the most versatile Forgeworld, in that it provides protection from any kind of damage. Stygies provides a similar amount of protection, but only from shooting at more than 12". That seems to make it a poor choice for Vanguard, whose targets can often close within 12". Conversely, Metallica seems like a great choice for Vanguard supported by a Manipulus, while being a poor choice for Rangers as it removes their double shots.

I don't think you choose a forge world based on Skitarii. They're just not integral enough to the army to justify it. You choose your forge world based on what the units in your army that actually matter are going to do, and then the Skitarii just come along for the ride.

The one thing they do do that nothing else can is ob-sec, so I think the best thing you can do when choosing which variety and how to arm them is to keep that in mind. If your list needs something to sit on objectives far from the action, rangers. If your list needs the ability to snag an objective out from under the enemy, maybe vanguard, though there's an argument that rangers are just better period most of the time.

With that in mind, arquebuses are usually a trap, because they just interact so badly with ob-sec. You don't want to be feeling like you can't move because you'll be wasting points if you do. I want to like them, but in practice it seems like one game in 3 where they actually do anything at all, and in the other two they're just a big waste of points. An arc rifle is a trap too, but it's such a cheap trap that I don't think it really matters one way or the other. There's no point to calivers on rangers.

Calivers on vanguard are more interesting, because they actually work with the unit's purpose. I think taking them can make sense, if the rest of your list means that extra firepower is actually serving a useful function, and if your list has enough other stuff in that area of the board that they aren't just going to be cleared off with 24 inch range firepower that has nothing better to shoot at.

Unless you have some very specific plan for them, there's little reason to go up to units of more than 5 IMO. Again, it just isn't playing to their strengths very well.

Some armies have troops so good you build your list around them. I just don't think skitarii fall into that category.

Metalica is hot garbage and you ought to avoid their rules at all cost.

If you aren't adverse to multiple detachments, I've found Vanguard cooler as Graia and Rangers as Stygies. People point to MSU but their Strats make me run them as 10 man, and truth be told they and their special weapons are cheap enough that it doesn't get expensive, nor has morale been an issue to me.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:If you aren't adverse to multiple detachments, I've found Vanguard cooler as Graia and Rangers as Stygies. People point to MSU but their Strats make me run them as 10 man, and truth be told they and their special weapons are cheap enough that it doesn't get expensive, nor has morale been an issue to me.

What stratagems do you typically use on them, and how many do you field?

yukishiro1 wrote:The one thing they do do that nothing else can is ob-sec, so I think the best thing you can do when choosing which variety and how to arm them is to keep that in mind. If your list needs something to sit on objectives far from the action, rangers. If your list needs the ability to snag an objective out from under the enemy, maybe vanguard, though there's an argument that rangers are just better period most of the time.

Is it really true that they are better at holding objectives? Sure, they have the Soldiers of the Machine God, but that implies the enemy has more models within 3". If you only have a few squads of 5 men, how often do they actually make it to an enemy held objective? How often do they hold out against enemies assaulting their own objective? (Those are serious questions.)

Conversely, any artillery piece, such as Dunecrawler or Scorpius can hold backfield objectives just as well as Rangers. If the objective is totally line of sight blocking, you could drop an Enginseer on it for fewer points.

The power of ob-sec is that when going second you can move a unit with it onto an objective and steal it out from under the feet of an enemy, which can often be a hugely significant points swing in ITC. Sure, they're usually guaranteed to die next turn (unless you do it on the bottom of turn 6, a real mic drop kind of thing when you manage it), but they accomplished their purpose. I have won many games thanks to a 2-3man strong troops unit getting me hold more and denying it to my opponent.

You really don't want an artillery piece on objective duty, unless it has fully ignore LOS shooting; you are then pulled between prioritizing the objective and not shooting some of your guns efficiently, or prioritizing shooting at the cost of the objective holding. It can work when you either don't really need the objective or don't really need the shooting because of how the game is set to play out, but it's not ideal as a primary plan.

I should make clear all my comments are built on an assumption that you play on boards that have tournament-level terrain setups. If you don't have much terrain, troops become even more worthless; most of their value comes from being able to use terrain to their advantage instead of disadvantage. This is also more applicable to ITC than to classic maelstrom play.

 DarkHound wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:If you aren't adverse to multiple detachments, I've found Vanguard cooler as Graia and Rangers as Stygies. People point to MSU but their Strats make me run them as 10 man, and truth be told they and their special weapons are cheap enough that it doesn't get expensive, nor has morale been an issue to me.

What stratagems do you typically use on them, and how many do you field?

yukishiro1 wrote:The one thing they do do that nothing else can is ob-sec, so I think the best thing you can do when choosing which variety and how to arm them is to keep that in mind. If your list needs something to sit on objectives far from the action, rangers. If your list needs the ability to snag an objective out from under the enemy, maybe vanguard, though there's an argument that rangers are just better period most of the time.

Is it really true that they are better at holding objectives? Sure, they have the Soldiers of the Machine God, but that implies the enemy has more models within 3". If you only have a few squads of 5 men, how often do they actually make it to an enemy held objective? How often do they hold out against enemies assaulting their own objective? (Those are serious questions.)

Conversely, any artillery piece, such as Dunecrawler or Scorpius can hold backfield objectives just as well as Rangers. If the objective is totally line of sight blocking, you could drop an Enginseer on it for fewer points.

I had a list with 60 total, 3 ×10 Rangers with 3 Arqs and 3 ×10 Vanguard with Calivers, either scooted up with the Strat or with Drills. Strats include obviously the Stygies one, surprisingly the Lucius one (not as good though as Stygies), the Imperatives, Acquisition, and the Auspex copycat. In a Skitarii themed list, the Strats have bigger impact with bigger units posing bigger threats.

 DarkHound wrote:

Then there's the matter of Forgeworlds. The only ones I see mattering to the infantry are Graia, Stygies, and Metallica, with a small honorable mention for Mars.

Then Ryza managed to sneak below your radar : if you're not willing to sink your points in Kataphrons, then Plasma Caliver squads are decent targets for the strat. You'll probably want them on Vanguards, as there's a range synergy and they risk being in combat sooner or later so the radiation is better to have, and the FW trait may even have an anecdotal impact

Either run as 5-man to have redundancy and adapt to the situation (but less efficient), or as 10-man to maximize the CP investment.
A transport might be welcome.

Nostro wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Then there's the matter of Forgeworlds. The only ones I see mattering to the infantry are Graia, Stygies, and Metallica, with a small honorable mention for Mars.

Then Ryza managed to sneak below your radar : if you're not willing to sink your points in Kataphrons, then Plasma Caliver squads are decent targets for the strat. You'll probably want them on Vanguards, as there's a range synergy and they risk being in combat sooner or later so the radiation is better to have, and the FW trait may even have an anecdotal impact

Either run as 5-man to have redundancy and adapt to the situation (but less efficient), or as 10-man to maximize the CP investment.
A transport might be welcome.

Ryza is a gimmick running on specialist detachments and 1 Strat. It isn't good to build the army around it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Ryza is a gimmick running on specialist detachments and 1 Strat. It isn't good to build the army around it.

Not what I was saying, and also: (emphasis mine)

 DarkHound wrote:
I'd like to have a broad discussion of the Skitarii infantry [...]

So there.

Out of mono-FW armies, a Ryza battalion with 3x5 Plasma Vanguard can fit in without breaking the bank. Also, mixed-FW detachments are a thing, it's not hard to slot a 5-man Ryza squad alongside a Solar Flare Lucius Techpriest and whatnot.

Nostro wrote:Out of mono-FW armies, a Ryza battalion with 3x5 Plasma Vanguard can fit in without breaking the bank. Also, mixed-FW detachments are a thing, it's not hard to slot a 5-man Ryza squad alongside a Solar Flare Lucius Techpriest and whatnot.

Initially I thought it'd be dumb to blow a CP on a 62 point squad. But actually, with support such as Daedalosus, the four overcharged shots hit 2+, wound 2+ (T5-7), and then 3 damage each. That against a T7 3+, the Strategem takes the average damage from 3.6 to 6.8 wounds. Throw it on 2 squads and vaporize a tank. That's actually a huge amount of value for 1CP. You're bound to have 4-6 of these squads roaming together which means your opponent can't deny you the opportunity to use the Stratagem. The only issue is that the Stratagem only improves Overcharged shots against Infantry with 3 wounds. I guess that means you can vaporize Interceptor squads, so maybe that's a good enough reason.

Both the Ryza Warlord trait and Relic find a great home on a Dominus. The only part of the animal left over is the Dogma, but hell, I dunno, run Infiltrators or Dragoons or something?

Except at that point you're not getting a lot for the CP spent. Might as well just go the Plasma Robots at that point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nostro wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Ryza is a gimmick running on specialist detachments and 1 Strat. It isn't good to build the army around it.

Not what I was saying, and also: (emphasis mine)

 DarkHound wrote:
I'd like to have a broad discussion of the Skitarii infantry [...]

So there.

Out of mono-FW armies, a Ryza battalion with 3x5 Plasma Vanguard can fit in without breaking the bank. Also, mixed-FW detachments are a thing, it's not hard to slot a 5-man Ryza squad alongside a Solar Flare Lucius Techpriest and whatnot.

Yeah and Ryza is already terrible for Skitarii Infantry, even the melee ones!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Except at that point you're not getting a lot for the CP spent. Might as well just go the Plasma Robots at that point.

Yes, you can maximize the output of a single CP by spending it on a massive expensive squad. In general, a 1CP strategem gives +1 to hit, or re-rolling 1s, or gives some kind of exploding dice. The value of most 1CP strategems is generally not transformative, while this one makes a 62 point infantry squads delete tanks.

I think you're looking at the question backwards. You're asking 'how do I maximize this stratagem' where I'm asking 'how do we maximize these units we have to take?' The big reason you wouldn't take Destroyers is if you're trying to fill out a battalion for the CP bonus. A single Troop slot of Destroyers is 144 points, while three slots of Vanguard is 186.

I'm not convinced that Ryza is necessarily the right choice, but it looks like an unexpectedly fine option. The biggest downside I see is that the only other plasma weapons are on the Servitors and Destroyers. So if you want to expand that battalion, then you're incentivized to just take Destroyers.

in 90% of lists vanguard are better but they are slot fillers 5 man no upgrades still 3 -6 squads fireing together at the same target will rip through a screen and provide great cc support for hoplites/allies vanguard should general be moving forward


rangers are for when you need to drop 5 pts off your list

rangers do one thing better and thats sit on a backfield objective where there range allows them to do something but vanguard will shoot most targets more effectivly and the one thing admech dont need is backfield objective siters we have onagers/kastellans/disintegrators/ironstriders for that

as to forgeworld it depends more on the list

mars lists sit in a castle round cawl

stygies is the most flexible with the strat supporting aggresive units and dogma a defensive buff for artillery




agripinaa requires heavy cp lists built around 6 man breachers that come back from the dead but can be effective when not up against a list spamming AP

ryza is occasionally seen in a mixed detatchment but not a whole army it gives you one unit of brokenly good plasma destroyers which die t2 so your opponent needs a target worth the investment up against knights awesome up against an msu horde with no vehicles a waste of pts

lucius great relic for that 3rd enginseer in a mixed detatchment. Can pull of a couple of nice tricks by deepstrikeing a maxed vanguard squad or corpuscarii but like ryza better suited to being a supplement than a full list

graia weak choice the anti psychic strat is ok as a small cp detatchment for another army but in any full admech list stygies does it better 99 of the time

metalica not worth it

DarkHound wrote:That's actually a huge amount of value for 1CP. You're bound to have 4-6 of these squads roaming together which means your opponent can't deny you the opportunity to use the Stratagem. The only issue is that the Stratagem only improves Overcharged shots against Infantry with 3 wounds. I guess that means you can vaporize Interceptor squads, so maybe that's a good enough reason.

Both the Ryza Warlord trait and Relic find a great home on a Dominus. The only part of the animal left over is the Dogma, but hell, I dunno, run Infiltrators or Dragoons or something?

Right, that's the whole idea. Cheap unassuming squads that you can supercharge where and when needed, or never if that's not required. They still do good work for their points without the strat so it's not wasted not to use it. Also, they're not losing CP-efficiency until they're reduced to 1 model so they need to be all deleted to deny you the use. And it's not like being good against infantry with 3 wounds is a bad thing at the moment...

The thing with Plasmaphrons is while you're maximizing CP-efficiency of the strat use, you're also making them the very obvious delete asap target, and that's a lot of points and firepower gone from your army when they go down. With the small squads, the opponent will have more pressing targets than to delete all your squads to prevent the use of the strat - or the threat of the use may make them divert firepower from other units in your army that you're happy to see some heat taken off of.

I do like weapon99, you'll want a Dominus to hang around supercharged plasma, might as well have him contribute to the shooting. There's competition for relics though.

DarkHound wrote: [...] You're asking 'how do I maximize this stratagem' where I'm asking 'how do we maximize these units we have to take?' The big reason you wouldn't take Destroyers is if you're trying to fill out a battalion for the CP bonus. A single Troop slot of Destroyers is 144 points, while three slots of Vanguard is 186.

I'm not convinced that Ryza is necessarily the right choice, but it looks like an unexpectedly fine option. The biggest downside I see is that the only other plasma weapons are on the Servitors and Destroyers. So if you want to expand that battalion, then you're incentivized to just take Destroyers.

Exactly, it's not about maximizing the strat, it's about getting improved return on a CP-farm Battalion that is not the main component of your list. As you said the temptation is to then want to expand it with other units that benefit from the strat, and I'd refrain from it, especially Kataphrons as it leads you on the path of maximizing the CP-efficiency of the strat, and next thing you know you're looking at a max squad and the vigilus det. I'd prefer keeping the strat as a cheap tool in your arsenal that can come handy at the right time.

I'd more readily look at units in your other detachments and wonder if they'd benefit from being shuffled to Ryza. Dragoons probably but not much more.