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Hi folks,
With the official list of what is being released, check out what armies are in what books:

Index Imperium 1: Space Marines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Deathwatch, Legion of the Damned

Index Imperium 2: Astra Militarum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial KNights, Imperial Agents, Talons of the Emperor

No reference at all to Cult Mechanicus.. does it seem reasonable to assume they have been rolled up under the Adeptus Mechanicus 'codex'? I really really hope so - on their own, the forces are so thin on the ground in terms of the different units available to them.

Yes. Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus will now be simply Adeptus Mechanicus.

Praise the Omnissiah!

Yes. And thank goodness, too.

All minor factions will be merged.
Militarum Tempestus is another example.

Since this thread is about to be locked here's something to contemplate:

Heretic Astartes - Chaos Daemons - Questor Traitoris

One of these is not like the other... Voices in my head said something about traitor knights but they are very hard to understand sometimes

Skitarii and Cult mechanicus could still be faction keywords. A skitarii could very well have three faction keywords: imperium, adeptus mechanicus, skitarii, the same way an ultramarine is imperium, astartes, ultramarine.

They should roll the Knights into the Ad Mech while they're at it.

 Crimson wrote:
They should roll the Knights into the Ad Mech while they're at it.

Not all Knight households are Mechanicus aligned though.

Plus, there are independent Knights Errant who more or less do what they want.

I willing to bet that Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus will show up as keywords (similar to Age of Sigmar).

 D6Damager wrote:
I willing to bet that Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus will show up as keywords (similar to Age of Sigmar).

This is likely true, and if it is the case, I will be grumpy.

I never understood why they were separate anyway, other than a rather cynical attempt to sell two books instead of one.

Considering that we know Thousand Sons and Death Guard are their own factions, but they aren't listed on the cover of the Chaos book, I wouldn't take the cover as meaning anything for Ad Mech.

Aren't the Index books just stopgap items until proper army books can be released anyway?

pgmason wrote:
I never understood why they were separate anyway, other than a rather cynical attempt to sell two books instead of one.

That's all it was originally. Now there's even less of a reason for the separation.

pgmason wrote:
I never understood why they were separate anyway, other than a rather cynical attempt to sell two books instead of one.

I don't think there was any other reason.

pgmason wrote:
I never understood why they were separate anyway, other than a rather cynical attempt to sell two books instead of one.

Totally different game mechanics, totally different background/army theme, etc...

The Skitarii are, effectively, the Imperial Guard of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They're disciplined, operate tactically, and have a fairly rigid battle structure. Hence the "Doctrina Imperatives" for example.

The Cult Mechanicus are effectively the retinue of high ranking Techpriests, with arcane weaponry and what amount to "forceful converts" in the form of their Battle-Servitors. They're ad hoc forces where it's less "I'm going to need Dave's squad to accomplish this objective" and more "I can trust Dave and his bunch of rabble(Electropriests) and his trusty lobotomized minions(Kataphron)". There's even a spiel in the Cult Mechanicus book that it isn't unheard of for Kastellan Robots and their Datasmiths to just...show up, like Caine from Kung Fu, when a battle is underway. The only thing really tying them all together is that they have their faith--hence "Canticles of the Omnissiah" and its mechanics.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Totally different game mechanics, totally different background/army theme, etc...

If you think that's the reason they split them up then I've got a small bridge to sell you, just to see if you're interested, and then another smaller bridge to see if you like that too, and if you buy them then I'll fully commit to selling you my plans to demolish them and replace them with a much bigger bridge.

Subtle enough?

so bummed I have to buy both books because I have SM and some knights. LAME

 gainsay wrote:
so bummed I have to buy both books because I have SM and some knights. LAME

Meh. I need all 5 for my armies and my wife's armies.

So are the 5 indexes just temporary until they get around to new 8th edition codexes? Are they gonna have the unit stats for free like the AOS warscrolls, so you technically don't need the books?

I don't wanna buy them if they're gonna do codexes eventually.. I don't play often enough that I need the books right away, so PDF warscrolls would be good enough to hold me over till a full codex comes along.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Totally different game mechanics, totally different background/army theme, etc...

If you think that's the reason they split them up then I've got a small bridge to sell you, just to see if you're interested, and then another smaller bridge to see if you like that too, and if you buy them then I'll fully commit to selling you my plans to demolish them and replace them with a much bigger bridge.

Subtle enough?

Only if all the bridges lead to the same actual destination.

Too subtle then, it seems.

My point was that the two books were done as a small way of testing the waters. I suspect the next time GW looks at AdMech properly we will get a bunch of new stuff added to make the two armies cohesive and they'll also re-scale everything to make current Skitarii minis obsolete.

The idea that they were sold as different books because the army rule was different is a little naive in my mind.

 gainsay wrote:
so bummed I have to buy both books because I have SM and some knights. LAME

All you need to buy is the rulebook and possibly the tactical objectives deck as they indicated free rules online will be condensed and not include advanced rules or missions. All the units will be online too. The indexes are just so you can have a paper copy of the unit rules in one place. There was no indication that any of the forces would receive formations or special rules in the index...just dataslates.

In that case I'll just get the big rulebook and download the dataslates I need, and just wait for a proper codex to come later. I do like how they are mushing both together into 1 faction though. Hoping the list will include that big tech priest fella from the Triumvate .. Belisarius Cawl. Is he sold separately? I haven't seen it, seems like he just comes in the Triumvate set. Don't really want those other minis, just him.

As of right now Cawl is still part of the Triumvirate boxed set, but maybe later onwards?

Let's not fragment conversation like this, especially within N&R.