I'll start by saying that I don't know admech stuff very well, so take all my feedback with a few extra grains of salt.
My overall impression is that this guy is kind of impossible to price because his stats can be all over the place over the course of the game. Like, if this guy manages to snag a warlord, he's potentially a T11 model (6 + Vital Data Transfer + Assimilate Samples + Fear the First) instead of a T6 model. His baseline melee stats look decent but not silly-good, but then there's also a chance that he has +2 Strength (functionally +1 to-wound most things given his base Strengths and common breakpoints) and up to 100% more attacks on his various melee weapons. And baseline, he's got both a very swingy melee weapon (1 that only hits 1/3rd of the time, but is precision and has a decent chance of one-shotting a character if it hits) AND a weapon that might only make 3 normal to-hit rolls but also might potentially generate as many as 27 hits.
So it seems really tough to put a points cost on this guy given that he can both opt into some wildly different builds and also just has some very swingy profiles baked in baseline.
I'll also say that this guy seems like he requires an unusual amount of bookkeeping (up to 3 abilities with 4 possible options each if you include "no current buff.")
His mechanics also don't tell me a clear story by themselves. The reference to Cawl and his base stats make me think he's like... a vaguely Cawl-shaped tech priest who specializes in "shape-shifting" by reconfiguring his machinery Transformers style and also specializes in assassinations?
Some more specific stuff:
First of the First
While this model is within 3” of one or more other friendly ADEPTUS MECHANICUS character units, this model has the LONE OPERATIVE ability
This is fine, but feels like an odd way to do things. He needs to stay near other units, specifically ones that have characters leading them, in order to avoid being targeted, but he doesn't actually lead those units himself, nor does he have any rules suggesting he's a commander type. Is there a fluff thing going on here?
Vital Data Transfer
At the start of your command phase after Mnorian, First Vitarchitect holds an objective, permanently gain one of the following abilities
+1 to Advance and +2 to Charge rolls made by this unit, -1 toughness.
+1 Toughness and STEALTH, This model cannot shoot.
This Model can preform actions and charge in the same round, take a battle shock test.
To clarify, do you *choose* which ability he gains? I assume so and will assume the same for his other special abilities. I also assume you can't stack the same ability multiple times.
The first option is fine.
The second option is okay but feels like a bit of a trap. Stealth is kind of nice, but also you already have lone
op, so there's some amount of anti-synergy there. And +1 Toughness is normally nice, but his base Toughness of 6 means he'll be going to T7, and relatively few weapons care about T6 vs T7. So the second option isn't bad but just seems very context dependent including being more or less useful based on whether you've nerfed your Toughness with the first option and whether you have or are about to get a +2 or +4 Toughness boost from the other rules.
Just to confirm, that *is* meant to be shoot and charge in the same turn, not shoot and charge in the same turn that he *advances*, right? Just wondering because of the wording on one of the Fear the First options. Will get to that later. The third option is fine, but it will feel bad if you choose it only to fail the shock test and not be allowed to do actions anyway. I also feel like this guy is too expensive to generally be the unit doing actions. Like, it's nice to have him take care of that sort of thing if he's the only one who can, but surely admech have some sort of action monkey unit that generally handles actions?
So option 1 is fine, option 2 is hard to comment on because how useful it is will vary a ton, and option 3 feels like it's a nice-to-have that you probably shouldn't *need* that might also backfire on you if you're unlucky.
Assimilate Samples
If Mnorian, First Vitarchitect destroys an enemy character model, Mnorian Permanently gains one of the following abilities.
+1 to attacks and +2 to strength characteristics of melee attacks made by this unit, Mnorian takes d3 mortal wounds.
+2 toughness and Reroll saving throws of 1, -4” movement and -2 to advance rolls, Mnorian loses FLYING.
Reroll hit rolls made by this unit, -1 toughness and -1 to save rolls.
So the first option is probably fine, but it also does wonky things to the math of his weapons. An extra attack means more chances to generate sustained hits *and* means that his Tyrant's Wrath is now making 200% as many attacks as before. And +2 Strength pretty much translates to +1 to-wound against most things you weren't already wounding on 2s anyway. And I'm guessing (based on past editions) that admech have ways of messing around with their units'
WS stats which would screw with the math on this guy even further. There's a big difference between an A1 WS5+ version of the Tyrant's Wrath and an A2 WS4+ version.
Second option is *probably* fine, but again, this guy's level of durability can just be all over the place depending on context. I will point out that making this guy T8 with a rerollable 2+, Stealth, and Lone
Op does make him nigh-invulnerable to bolters and most other small arms, but that's not necessarily a problem with a high enough price tag.
The third option has some obvious downsides, but I again worry about how much rerolling hit rolls changes the math on his melee weapons. Up to 9 attacks with full to-hit rerolls and Sustained Hits 2 can get a crazy number of hits, and rerolling those precision Tyrant's Wrath attacks can take it from a weapon that maybe hits once a game to a weapon that's reliably wiping out characters every turn.
Fear the First
If Mnorian destroys the enemy WARLORD, this unit gains one of the following abilities until the end of your next fight phase.
Scourge and Tyrants Wrath melee weapons equipped by this model gain +2 AP and +1 damage.
+2 to movement and charge rolls, Mnorian can shoot and charge in the same round, if the whole enemy unit has been destroyed, move Mnorian 6 in any direction.
+2 toughness, Mnorian gains a 4+ FNP
The time limit on this does help with some of the bookkeeping and with some of the wombo-combery.
The first option, again, just creates yet another way for his melee to wombo-combo. With one or more of the other melee buffs in effect, this guy will be comfortably soloing whole
meq squads and probably taking big chunks out of tanks even without the Tyrant's Wrath. (I have not run the numbers to back this up.)
The second option has some wording issues that need cleaned up. Units can shoot and charge in the same turn* (not round) by default. I assume this was meant to be the same turn that they advance? See previous statement about Vital Data Transfer. I also assume that the intent here is that if you kill the warlord and are then no longer within engagement range of an enemy unit that you can make a 6" move? Otherwise you get into weirdness with this rule being less good against characters with bodyguard units, etc. Otherwise, this is fine. It gives you a crazy threat range for the next turn if you kill the warlord on your opponent's turn (potentially a 6" bonus move + 14" move +
d6+1" advance followed by a
2d6+4" charge range for an average of a 35.5" charge threat range), but for a single turn with all the requirements for getting there, I *think* this option is okay.
The third option will make him really difficult to kill before the end of your next fight phase specifically, but one turn of being hard to remove efficiently probably isn't the end of the world. But again, my previous notes about how variable this guy's durability is stilly apply. This guy *could* be a T4 Sv3+ guy with no friends nearby to grant lone
op who's also down to 3 wounds because he dealt d3 mortals to himself *OR* he could be a T11 Lone
Op Stealth 2+ rerollable save guy with
FNP 4+.
I'm not sure what this guy's lore is, but I wonder if it might be better to give this guy like, 3 different datasheets that are theoretically similarly useful and thus cost the same or similar points, and then give them each a special rule that lets you swap datasheets (but keep damage sustained thus far) when you meet a certain condition (ex: killing a character unit.) That way, you could have more control over each datasheet to avoid some of the more extreme wombo-combos, and you'd also be able to let him transform more thoroughly/quickly; that is, you could just give him all three "tiers" of his abilities at once when he changes datasheets because you know each datasheet is reasonably balanced.
