Tactica Mechanicus - FAQ Out

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**U02dah4**

And yet with a 0.0657 the cadian guardsman with frontrank fire second rank fire old grudges in rapid fire range comes in first so all hail the lasgun of knight killing.

The problem with just looking at damage values is it tells you nothing of reality.

In real game survivability and positioning matter. For the guardsmen of knight killing you need a perfect board state and you wont see it often if ever

**rvd1ofakind**

Do you not understand the concept of using damage and durability mathhammer to help evaluating units?

That is not the be all and end all. You evaluate using similar units. You compare their movement, damage, durability, special abilities, utility, stratagems, combos to find the most optimal combination.

**Pomguo**

Octovol wrote:
I'm intrigued; How do you 'reliably' deep strike on turn 2 or 3? Your opponent knows you have units incoming and can still prevent the same deployment as you would have done turn 1. Also given you can't move after disembark/deep strike you're either a risky 9" charge with no charge bonus or re-rolls or with a drill a 6" charge. Neither of those options are as reliable as the pre-nerf infilatret, move and charge within 1-3".

More reliably than a gamble for going first that if you lose, you end up in a way worse position than deepstriking turn 2 or 3 - and have paid a CP for the provilege of shooting yourself in the foot!

You can’t only compare deepstriking to infiltrating when the first turn gamble pays off - you also have to compare it to the times you fail to get first turn. In which case this is a safer tactic, imo. The internet likes to overrate gambles with big payoffs and ignore the downsides when they don’t pay off, imo, and it results in a preferance towards risky unreliable tactics. So I’m not too surprised people are calling Stygies dead now that their favourite gamble has been taken out, even if I think tactically it makes them more reliable (though obviously not as effective as getting turn 1 with the old strategem, risk is no longer involved).

**Hesselhof**

Hey guys, i want to start play competitiv.

following list i want to try =)

Spoiler:

32 points left =/

Tactic: the infantry should hold objectivs or the stygyies ranger screen the bots and onagers.
The mars detetchmant, i gues no need to explain what they should do^^

you guys know how to fill or what to replace? Or change the whole list XD

These modells i got left in my collection:
1 dominus
1 datasmith
4 ranger with arkebuse
3 ranger with arc rifle
6 vanguard mit plasma
3 destroyer
10 fulgurites
5 ruststalker
15 infils with taser

**walkiflalka**

Pomguo wrote:
...people are calling Stygies dead now that their favourite gamble has been taken out...

I agree, I don't get why people are calling Stygies dead. Stygies doesn't have brokenly good alpha strike now, but it remains a competitive choice. I've only ever run my Admech as Stygies or Lucius, and I only ever used the Stygies infiltration stratagem once to put some rangers on an objective — something that is still facilitated by the reworked stratagem.

IMO they are still a very strong Dogma, an army that gets -1 to hit all their units AND can start with army wide cover is much harder to kill than people tend to assume. I played my first tournament of 8th edition with them and did reasonably well without once using their stratagem and at no point did I feel like the Dogma wasn't helping. If anything I can put my mind to ease no longer being tempted to buy 20 electropriests.

--

Also, advice on the list above in terms of using the 32pts remaining: I would buy 2 plasma calivers for the vanguard (in separate squads for redundancy), and either an arc rifle for a ranger squad or a phosphor serpenta for a dragoon.

**U02dah4**

Stygies protected your artilery and let you Alpha it didnt have big cawl taxes so you could soup effectively

Mars maximises a pure artilery admech list but requires big cawl taxs so your running a pure list.

Stygies still protects your artilery but a pure artilery list will be better in mars.

As to the -1 being good well it gets shut off if the enemy get close so in a soup army now your enemy just targets your ally while you spend two turns running your fulgurites up then shoots the fulgurites without a -1. Point is ot doesn't help your infantry which is why you took stygies.

Having done some testing im thinking agripinaa or graia for an infantry soup component.

**Hesselhof**

Also, advice on the list above in terms of using the 32pts remaining: I would buy 2 plasma calivers for the vanguard (in separate squads for redundancy), and either an arc rifle for a ranger squad or a phosphor serpenta for a dragoon.

Hey thx for reply, sorry my english is not sooooo good =P

so you mean replace 1 vanguard in two units for an plasma, so they are still 5?

Yap if i would give one ranger an arc rifle and 2 vanguards plasma, its on point 2k ^^

But is it uesefull? or just to fill the 32 points

**Suzuteo**

It wasn't just that Stygies got nerfed. Mars got buffed indirectly by all the nerfs to flying.

Anyhow, Stygies is not dead, but merely being harder to hit just doesn't cut it for us. AdMech needs a raison d'etre. Why play them over some other shooting army in competitive? There are two good reasons:
1) Kastelan Robots are still some of the best artillery around.
2) You can do Imperium Soup, which gives us access to a large variety of options to shore up our weaknesses.

**MrMoustaffa**

Perhaps a bit less amazing point 3, almost no other shooting in the imperium that I'm aware of can guaranteed hit any flyig target in the game with a 2+ rerolling 1's like an Icarus Onager can. Not super important for some people but in my area negative hit mods are super common and it's about the only way I have to shut down things like altaioc flyers. With protector doctrina it hits a flyer on -1's on a d6 and non flying unit on 2's, before other modifiers. Thats a really nice bit of utility for something like IG or knights that don't have a lot of ways to get around hit mods.

I know it's not super flashy but my Onagers are consistently MVP's and I'm running Metallica of all things. I can only imagine Mars or Stygies Onagers blow them away.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Yeah Metalica is stupid bad outside the Warlord trait.

**Suzuteo**

If anyone is taking AdMech to a tourney, here's what I am thinking:

Spoiler:

I think Eldar and possibly Tau will be the armies to beat. They had already been strong before, especially Eldar, but all the nerfs to Knights and flying assault will make them a lot stronger.

Mortars to clear enemy chaff, Crawlers to remove flyers, Kastelan Robots for general-purpose shooting, Mephiston and Slamguinius to help kill Knights. You can take Soul Warden over Artisan of War if you are up against Eldar to get lots of solid Denies in. For most situations, you will want to deploy aggressively in the center and castle with Guardsmen. Forward deploy or screen with Scouts, who essentially have S8 attacks with Red Thirst.

**dadamowsky**

Two morale related questions:

1. Is the morale bonus from Admech's Broad Spectrum Data Tether stacking?

2. When is the morale bonus from BDST applied in relation to the Inquisition Ld aura?
" Unquestionable Wisdom: All Friendly IMPERIUM units within 6" of an Inquisitor can use the Inquisitor's Leadership characteristic instead of their own."

**MrMoustaffa**

dadamowsky wrote:
Two morale related questions:

1. Is the morale bonus from Admech's Broad Spectrum Data Tether stacking?

2. When is the morale bonus from BDST applied in relation to the Inquisition Ld aura?
" Unquestionable Wisdom: All Friendly IMPERIUM units within 6" of an Inquisitor can use the Inquisitor's Leadership characteristic instead of their own."

1. No, it just says infantry within a broad spectrum Data tether's range. This is similar to IG's flags, they don't stack either.

2. Using IG as precedence, no, they would not stack. We had a similar situation with commissars and abilities like standards and Catachan/mordian. The BSDT does not boost the Inquisitor's ld so you either get the Inquisitor's ld or the BSDT, not both. That's why it says instead of their own. That means either ld 8 through data tether's or ld 9 through the Inquisitor

**Ideasweasel**

fellow rules lawyers

healing things with Admech occurs at the end of the movement phase.

If I use the solar flare (Lucius relic) to teleport a character forward to heal say a knight....

both occur "at the end of the movement phase" Its working as intended to be able to teleport forward and then heal the target yes?

There was some discussion locally about this and I think I'm right but wanted to check.

**U02dah4**

If your going to ask a rules question do it in the ymdc thread

But yes as the player whose turn it is chooses sequencing

**Ideasweasel**

Cheers!

**lash92**

When is it worth it to upgrade an TPE to a TPD?

I'm fielding a Stygies Batallion with 2x Icarus Crawler and 2 Dakkabots and not really sure if the upgrade would be worth it.

**MrMoustaffa**

Well you're paying 80pts or so to reroll 1's, have a tougher character, actually be able to contribute a little with fighting, and Regen wounds. If that's your main firebase he'd free up your canticles to be used on melee stuff like Dragoons, and he ensures you have it every turn so you don't need to spend CP on keeping the reroll shooting canticle. I'd say that's usually worth the points.

For a pure or mostly pure force he's not a bad unit. Yeah I wouldn't be in a rush to take more than one but he works pretty well as a warlord. Never got all the hate he gets, mine have served me well. Especially in small games with the phosphoenix he can get a lot of work done. He's not super flashy but he reroll 1's for shooting and repairs my shoot stuff while being tough to kill, that's good enough for me.

**Suzuteo**

I think my math said you needed 300 points or so of BS4+ shooting to make the TPD's RR1 aura worthwhile? 700 for Cawl. (Reduce the point values of BS3+ shooting accordingly.)

**Slayer-Fan123**

The Dominus is still terribly expensive though. I do wish he were cheaper.

**lash92**

Thanks for the feedback, I will include him.
But he does feel pricy, like SlayerFan pointed out. It´s like paying for a Captain and a Tech Marine combined into one unit..

**MrMoustaffa**

lash92 wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, I will include him.
But he does feel pricy, like SlayerFan pointed out. It´s like paying for a Captain and a Tech Marine combined into one unit..

Well I mean that's basically what he is, he's essentially a Terminator.

**U02dah4**

So like a terminator nice ib theory but priced out of usefullness

If you have enough artillery to make ot work your better off with cawl if you dont stick to an enginseer. The only other reason would be a fringe double battalion but im not keen on that.

**MrMoustaffa**

Well, that, or you don't run Mars, so Cawl isn't an option. For all the other forgeworlds, the dominus is your only option and if you're going to run Dakkabots or Onagers for fire support, you probably should have 1 hanging around to give you the rerolls.

That, or you have a smaller firebase that doesn't quite justify Cawl but you know you'll still want those rerolls. I'm not saying the guy is perfect, he could definitely stand to be a smidge cheaper, but he does have genuine uses. He's more useful than enginseer are, which are almost always purely a tax unless you can get some repairs off.

Unrelated question, but for people running FW other than Mars, how have the Dakkabots done for you? Was debating on picking some up but not sure what a good number is when you're not running Cawl and that crazy firebase. I was thinking 3-4 maybe, just to give me some weight of fire for hordes and to help deal with that new prepared positions strategem

**U02dah4**

Personnally I wouldnt run them but I tend to run admech in soup and wouldn't touch the artillery (theres better in other factions unless your going full mars and if your going full mars you don't have there spare points to soup).

The problem for me as well is what forgeworld to take stygies benefits the artillery but is of minimal benefit to your infantry graia and agripinaa and possibly lucious for the DS benefit your infantry but dont benefit your artillery.

**Slayer-Fan123**

MrMoustaffa wrote:
Well, that, or you don't run Mars, so Cawl isn't an option. For all the other forgeworlds, the dominus is your only option and if you're going to run Dakkabots or Onagers for fire support, you probably should have 1 hanging around to give you the rerolls.

That, or you have a smaller firebase that doesn't quite justify Cawl but you know you'll still want those rerolls. I'm not saying the guy is perfect, he could definitely stand to be a smidge cheaper, but he does have genuine uses. He's more useful than enginseer are, which are almost always purely a tax unless you can get some repairs off.

Unrelated question, but for people running FW other than Mars, how have the Dakkabots done for you? Was debating on picking some up but not sure what a good number is when you're not running Cawl and that crazy firebase. I was thinking 3-4 maybe, just to give me some weight of fire for hordes and to help deal with that new prepared positions strategem

If Dakkabots weren't BS4+ I'd be willing to try them as other Dogmas, but otherwise they need full rerolling to hit anything.

**Suzuteo**

Yeah, Kastelans need rerolls to be good. But if you were to take them Stygies, you can split them into smaller units and move them around with a Datasmith or two.

**lash92**

So I need help finishing a list for a local tournament in 2 weeks.

The rules regarding list building are:
- 1750 points
- max 2 detachments
- max 2 times the same unit (except troops / transports)
- max 1 LoW

To counter spam there is also a restriction regarding units with the keywords vehicle / monster / battlesuit which can contain more than 1 model per unit:
- base cost of the model is 61 or lower: The unit can contain 1-3 models
- base cost higher than 61: The unit can contain only the minimum amount of models

That means: Dragoons max in units of 3 and Bots max in units of 2.

Most of the opponents play either:
- Elder / Dark Eldar of some varity
- Knight Castellan with Guard Tanks and infantry screen
- Tau Riptide / Yvahra
- Nid hordes

I wanna take my Admech paired up with some Blood Angels, most likely something along the lines of:

Stygies Battalion:
- TPD + TPE
- 3 x 5 Skitarii
- 1 x 3 Dragoons
- 2 x Icarus
- 1 x 2 Bots

BA Batallion:
- Smash Captain
- Mephiston
- 3 x 5 Scouts

That leaves me with around 340 points to play with. Ideas:
- Add in Lemartes + DC with B&C
- Swap 1 Skitarii squad to 6 Plasma Kataphrons and change my forgeworld to Ryza. That would give me some serious ranged punch, but I would lose the -1 from Stygies. Not quite sure about that one.
Anyone some experience with them?

So lets hear your feedback and ideas

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also what was again the verdict on a Mars infiltrator bomb for WoM?
I could use it as an option for MW spamming, since I'm not really able to spam Bots.

**Suzuteo**

My inclination is to use MSUs of Kastelans wiith a Datasmith. Maybe Electro-Priests.

**lash92**

Mhh E-Priest post faq? I mean Dragoons are still good because they can move 10" but E-Priests?^^

Edit: Double post.