Tactica Mechanicus - FAQ Out

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**Ideasweasel**

Wulfey wrote:
rvd1ofakind wrote:
Well the "characters" part doesn't really matter? It's only a downside for tyrants

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Feel free to add a third edit about poxwalker BS where admech can't handle 250 bodies

Poxwalkers: I actually think we can handle huge body count lists. My basic guard/admech list has access to a good 120-150 shots a turn and a poxwalker list will give me 2 solid rounds of shooting from my dakkabots. I am fine with that.

Dark reapers tho ... uh ... you need specific melee support to handle those. When I faced them previously just took the 6+ to hit and shot my robots at them to make sure they died. Robots at str6,-2, ignore cover are actually great if they can get LOS. But the entire rest of the dex suffers badly.

And flyrants ... like yikes I just don't know. I think the answer is shield captains on bikes. Dragoons have a great mathhammer swing against a flyrant, if your opponent gives you the chance. I just don't see a competent player feeding you a flyrant when they have the option of blocking your charge so easily.

For next month, I will be finishing up detailing all the missile pods on my onagers and will be going all in on icarus. Neutrons are amazing if you think you will face guard parking lots. But I think those days are done. The real enemies have FLY.

EDIT: if this wasn't clear from previously, I am coming at this from a competitive ITC standpoint where I expect to see copies of the adepticon lists next month. Tournaments cost 20 bucks to get in, but I always impulse buy like 100-200 bucks of plastic and paints leading up to it to trick out my list to keep up with what is good/meta. And then there is the good 10-20 hours of modeling time to get ready. Then 10 hours of intense tournament fighting. I am a busy guy and I regard that as a serious investment and take it seriously. If something sucks, I am not bringing it to something that costs me so much. I play at least 50% admech, so my goals are always a 2-1 record. I know the limitations of the dex.

Welcome to the Icarus club. Does your new list have 3 Icarus crawlers or 2. I would love to try some tournaments in the uk. It does seem like you have a thriving scene stateside. I will have to have a look at what the uk has to offer.

**Wulfey**

Most likely I am going 2 dunecrawlers, 5 dakkabots, 3 shieldcaptains, celestine, and cawl. Then the rest of the points in scout screens and a company commander. Contrast 3 possible units:

160 point Biker shield captain -- a character who is a beast in melee when he charges, brings his own aura, 7W, T6, 3 or 4++, 5 str 8, -3, d3 damage swings on a charge. Has a hurricane bolter to help with screens. Because he can FLY, he can get to all the sneaky models that abuse terrain.

130 point Icarus onager - a tough for the points shooting platform that threatens most targets in the game (but not T8). 10 shots, but a poor choice for wrath of mars.

110 point dakkabot - point for point best shooter in the game with wrath of mars and cawl. 18 shot with just the right amount of AP and volume. Inefficient versus T8, but can still make it work with wrath.

The bikers help out against all possible lists that aren't 8 guard tank parking lots or 3 knight lists. And the bikers have a great responsiveness with their 14" move and broadly threatening profile. The onagers are ... onagers. They shoot. They scoot. 5 robots makes it so my opponent must shoot the robot herd. Which I don't actually mind on the first turn. But boy is that 130 point onager tougher than the 110 point robot. THis is all going to be reevaluated on tuesday when the big update drops. EDIT: the models who really got eaten are my basilisks. I think the shieldcaptains will do more than the basilisks. As much as I want to like the basilisks, if i am going scouts ... what do the basilsks bring that the bikers don't? Range and non-LOS is good. But they get dumped on by -1 modifiers. And the basilisks are vulernable to getting tied up in a way the bikercaptains aren't.

**em_en_oh_pee**

Not sure why Flyrants are an issue. Three Wrathbots drop on in a turn if I recall. I'm more worried about Reapers, but I figure they'll get a nerf soon.

**Ideasweasel**

Wulfey wrote:
Most likely I am going 2 dunecrawlers, 5 dakkabots, 3 shieldcaptains, celestine, and cawl. Then the rest of the points in scout screens and a company commander. Contrast 3 possible units:

160 point Biker shield captain -- a character who is a beast in melee when he charges, brings his own aura, 7W, T6, 3 or 4++, 5 str 8, -3, d3 damage swings on a charge. Has a hurricane bolter to help with screens. Because he can FLY, he can get to all the sneaky models that abuse terrain.

130 point Icarus onager - a tough for the points shooting platform that threatens most targets in the game (but not T8). 10 shots, but a poor choice for wrath of mars.

110 point dakkabot - point for point best shooter in the game with wrath of mars and cawl. 18 shot with just the right amount of AP and volume. Inefficient versus T8, but can still make it work with wrath.

The bikers help out against all possible lists that aren't 8 guard tank parking lots or 3 knight lists. And the bikers have a great responsiveness with their 14" move and broadly threatening profile. The onagers are ... onagers. They shoot. They scoot. 5 robots makes it so my opponent must shoot the robot herd. Which I don't actually mind on the first turn. But boy is that 130 point onager tougher than the 110 point robot. THis is all going to be reevaluated on tuesday when the big update drops. EDIT: the models who really got eaten are my basilisks. I think the shieldcaptains will do more than the basilisks. As much as I want to like the basilisks, if i am going scouts ... what do the basilsks bring that the bikers don't? Range and non-LOS is good. But they get dumped on by -1 modifiers. And the basilisks are vulernable to getting tied up in a way the bikercaptains aren't.

That list your making sounds quite fun to play. Nice mix of nuke from the back and punches up front

**Suzuteo**

Wulfey wrote:
rvd1ofakind wrote:
Well the "characters" part doesn't really matter? It's only a downside for tyrants

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Feel free to add a third edit about poxwalker BS where admech can't handle 250 bodies

Poxwalkers: I actually think we can handle huge body count lists. My basic guard/admech list has access to a good 120-150 shots a turn and a poxwalker list will give me 2 solid rounds of shooting from my dakkabots. I am fine with that.

Dark reapers tho ... uh ... you need specific melee support to handle those. When I faced them previously just took the 6+ to hit and shot my robots at them to make sure they died. Robots at str6,-2, ignore cover are actually great if they can get LOS. But the entire rest of the dex suffers badly.

And flyrants ... like yikes I just don't know. I think the answer is shield captains on bikes. Dragoons have a great mathhammer swing against a flyrant, if your opponent gives you the chance. I just don't see a competent player feeding you a flyrant when they have the option of blocking your charge so easily.

For next month, I will be finishing up detailing all the missile pods on my onagers and will be going all in on icarus. Neutrons are amazing if you think you will face guard parking lots. But I think those days are done. The real enemies have FLY.

EDIT: if this wasn't clear from previously, I am coming at this from a competitive ITC standpoint where I expect to see copies of the adepticon lists next month. Tournaments cost 20 bucks to get in, but I always impulse buy like 100-200 bucks of plastic and paints leading up to it to trick out my list to keep up with what is good/meta. And then there is the good 10-20 hours of modeling time to get ready. Then 10 hours of intense tournament fighting. I am a busy guy and I regard that as a serious investment and take it seriously. If something sucks, I am not bringing it to something that costs me so much. I play at least 50% admech, so my goals are always a 2-1 record. I know the limitations of the dex.

The problem is that more and more threats are only answerable with Dakkabots or something we bring for them. I find every list I make a challenge to squeeze 5-6 Dakkabots and 4-6 Dragoons in, along with 3x5 Scouts, 2-3 Basilisks, and 2-3 Icarus Crawlers.

Neutron is dead for ITC. Has been for months; everything that is a vehicle that does not fly is answerable with Dragoons. Long live Icarus.

**ultimentra**

Neutron is absolutely not dead. Minimum 3 damage is good, Strength 10 is good, and forcing invuln with the -4 is also good. The weapons on the Icarus array have gak for wounding power. You are at best wounding most worthwhile vehicles or monters on a 4+. Get this Neutron is dead bs outta and sit down.

**rvd1ofakind**

I mean, lascannon balistarii do the same damage per point... :(

I called slaanesh deamons the worst codex army in the game. Got this response ._.

"Also "worst in the game" Is a bit harsh in a world with ad mech / deathwatch"

**Ideasweasel**

Now now tech adepts. It could be worse. We could play grey knights!

**rvd1ofakind**

Grey knights ally in IG and do quite OK

Automatically Appended Next Post:
No psykers
HQs with anti-synergy (leading to a choice between low CP or a subpar list)
Half of the canticles are almost useless(which makes mars' trait terrible)
Low mobility
No fliers
No transports
No scouts
No deepstrike that isn't tied to a subpar forgeworld.
Really bad warlord traits and artifacts when compared to other armies
Fragile without shroudpsalm (turn 1 and roll later) and stygies (ignored by dark reapers and melee armies)

That's a long list

**Suzuteo**

ultimentra wrote:
Neutron is absolutely not dead. Minimum 3 damage is good, Strength 10 is good, and forcing invuln with the -4 is also good. The weapons on the Icarus array have gak for wounding power. You are at best wounding most worthwhile vehicles or monters on a 4+. Get this Neutron is dead bs outta and sit down.

Fine. To be fair, Neutron is only dead as the default choice. If you need dedicated anti-tank in your army, they are a good option. But Icarus is so clearly superior against virtually all of the top threats in the meta at the moment. I mean, minimum 3 damage is good. Strength 10 is overkill. AP-4 is also overkill; you don't need that much to force invulnerable saves. But the Icarus wounding power is great. Here's a list of everything Icarus is better than Neutron against: Eldar, Tau, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Smash Brothers, Flyrants, most infantry in general.

And every other army pretty much can be managed by Kastelans, Basilisks, and Dragoons, which should be the bulk of your force anyway.

**Ideasweasel**

rvd1ofakind wrote:
Grey knights ally in IG and do quite OK

Automatically Appended Next Post:
No psykers
HQs with anti-synergy (leading to a choice between low CP or a subpar list)
Half of the canticles are almost useless(which makes mars' trait terrible)
Low mobility
No fliers
No transports
No scouts
No deepstrike that isn't tied to a subpar forgeworld.
Really bad warlord traits and artifacts when compared to other armies
Fragile without shroudpsalm (turn 1 and roll later) and stygies (ignored by dark reapers and melee armies)

That's a long list

What’s your go to build just now? Assuming you were playing in a competitive environment. I wonder if they might FAQ in a scout rule or bring us something spicy. Probably not, but you never know eh

**rvd1ofakind**

For pure admech (I consider agents pure as they can't be an army themselves)

Mars
Cawl
3x6 rangers (1 with arc)
4 DakKastelans
2 Icarus Onagers + stubber

Stygies
2 enginseers (dominus just seems meh for only 15 vaguard)
3x5 vanguard (+1 dude on one of them)
2x3 dragoons

Vanguard
Inquisitor (psyker,spec)
Callidus
Culexus
Eversor(or 2nd Cullexus by removing 15 pts of skitarii)

OR

instead of assassins, get more dragoons, dakkastelans and skitarii

**Aaranis**

I like your list, not spammy, not cheesy, and I tend to have a love for an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with my Stygies, fits the fluff think. With the upcoming Deathwatch codex I'd love to see if I can include some to get a really anti-Xeno force, crunch and fluff-wise.

**Ideasweasel**

Did you guys paint your stygies differently to mars, if you went into a tournament - What would the requirement be to make them identifiable. Would different coloured bases be enough?

**rvd1ofakind**

All you need is to paint the rim of the base differently. Red and black/grey. Simple enough

**Ideasweasel**

Oh wow, that’s awesome. I really like Lucius but like Cawl in my list. For experimenting and trying out stuff painting models differently seems extreme.

That’s cool it’s so easy

**Orodhen**

Hey Dakka!

I have an upcoming Narrative Campaign Match against a Necron player, but seeing as I've never played against Necrons before I'm unsure how to outfit my Onagers!

I currently have 2 set up with Neutron Lasers and another one with the Icarus systems. I'm considering changing one of the Neutrons for a Heavy Phosphor to deal with Warrior blobs that might cause me some issues.

What are your thoughts for good Necrons counters with their new Codex?

**Tyr13**

I havent had a look at the new codex yet, but I dont think QS have changed... if so, youd be best served with leaving the neutron laser at home. If they can roll under your damage value, they can ignore it, iirc. So high damage is only rarely useful against necron vehicles, those without QS excepted (like the Monolith). The Icarus array seems like a better idea, since all necron vehicles outside of the stalker have fly, and most have low toughness as well.

To deal with warrior blobs, I think the Onager is the wrong choice in general. Better go with Dakkastelans, or anything else that shoots a lot. Melee can be an option too, but... probably not for Mechanicus.

Just focus fire and you should be alright.

**Suzuteo**

Ideasweasel wrote:
Did you guys paint your stygies differently to mars, if you went into a tournament - What would the requirement be to make them identifiable. Would different coloured bases be enough?

I did not. But it's only my Dragoons usually. One Enginseer at worst, and I tell them which one. (I have both a 30k Enginseer and a 40k one.)

**Aaranis**

Orodhen wrote:
Hey Dakka!

I have an upcoming Narrative Campaign Match against a Necron player, but seeing as I've never played against Necrons before I'm unsure how to outfit my Onagers!

I currently have 2 set up with Neutron Lasers and another one with the Icarus systems. I'm considering changing one of the Neutrons for a Heavy Phosphor to deal with Warrior blobs that might cause me some issues.

What are your thoughts for good Necrons counters with their new Codex?

Hi, welcome !

Do you own Kastelan Robots ? If you do, they'll be fine against the Warrior blobs, the Onager is best suited with the Laser or Icarus Array, the Phosphor is redundant when you have Robots because they do the same job better (more shots and double shot mode). I believe you'll want both, as their vehicles are fairly resilient, and a good chunk of them has the Fly keyword. Didn't have a look at the new codex yet, so can't really advise you on that.

**Wulfey**

So it looks like flyrants will be adjusted based on adepticon. 8 of top 16 had 5 flyrants or more. Which shows something is obviously busted. But this could mean shield captain bikers may also get his with the nerf. Really they need to just make the flyrant wings more then 20 points. At 20 points ... why would you take a tyrant that moves slow and can't deepstrike?

**MrMoustaffa**

To be fair I think we're going to see a "Tau commander" style Nerf for many armies. It's not just Have tyrants after all, we see tons of daemon princes, IG commanders/tank commanders, Shield Captains, etc. Etc. A lot of busted stuff can come from the HQ sections so I wouldn't be surprised if GW just decides to lay down a blanket rule for "commander" style units where they are limited to one per detachment. If this does happen, it's going to be rough on admech if the dominus is included. All the starter sets come with dominuses and I haven't seen any bundles that come with the new techpriest, which means I'll need to buy a few at base cost.

I kind of need to figure out what I'm going to do with all these spare dominus anyways. I've got probably 5 by now and the two I've already built are magnetized. I guess I'll just use them to convert up techpriests and as a source of bitz.

**Suzuteo**

I think they are moving closer and closer toward just making all HQs and characters unique to their detachment.

Also, super salty that the Deldar (does anyone still call them that or am I late to the Drukhari/Drucchi bandwagon?) got such cool detachment rules when we don't even get our defining 7E army-wide scout rules.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Suzuteo wrote:
I think they are moving closer and closer toward just making all HQs and characters unique to their detachment.

Also, super salty that the Deldar (does anyone still call them that or am I late to the Drukhari/Drucchi bandwagon?) got such cool detachment rules when we don't even get our defining 7E army-wide scout rules.

This is more showing how uninspired certain codices are. AdMech and Vanilla Marines are the most guilty of this travesty.

**MrMoustaffa**

Suzuteo wrote:
I think they are moving closer and closer toward just making all HQs and characters unique to their detachment.

Also, super salty that the Deldar (does anyone still call them that or am I late to the Drukhari/Drucchi bandwagon?) got such cool detachment rules when we don't even get our defining 7E army-wide scout rules.

I'm more annoyed that galvanic rifles lost their snipe ability for synergy with arquebuses and our overall lack of relentless nowadays. Used to be we could fire anything on the move no problem with skitarii, now we have to stay still to fire the arquebus, one of the only weapons in the game that requires you to do so.

Also, I really want a skitarii HQ. We used to be able to take proper Alphas but now you can't make a proper skitarii army without at least one techpriest running around which is annoying since the lore flatout states they exist.

**rvd1ofakind**

If after the FAQ, soup isn't reigned in somehow I'll bite the bullet and get scouts as they are a MUST.
What's the default detachment?
Librarian/Tiggy
?
Scout
Scout
Scout

**PiñaColada**

rvd1ofakind wrote:
If after the FAQ, soup isn't reigned in somehow I'll bite the bullet and get scouts as they are a MUST.
What's the default detachment?
Librarian/Tiggy
?
Scout
Scout
Scout

Are librarians really worth it? I don't play space marines but they've always struck me as sort of underwhelming. Around codex release people seemed to be singing Greyfax's praises, why did that stop?

Oh and I just hope that in addition of tweaking detachment rules that they get rid of the supreme command detachment in matched play, it's almost the one constant offender in the super strong spam lists.

**rvd1ofakind**

Well a lot of top imperium lists have 1 librarian. They're pretty useful. Plus what else will you take from spacemarine HQs. You don't wanna lose the traits.

**Suzuteo**

rvd1ofakind wrote:
If after the FAQ, soup isn't reigned in somehow I'll bite the bullet and get scouts as they are a MUST.
What's the default detachment?
Librarian/Tiggy
?
Scout
Scout
Scout

I do a Soup Battalion with Company Commanders. I don't expect the Scouts to do anything but act as a speed bump and die, so I don't want to waste points making them combat-worthy.

**rvd1ofakind**

But company commanders literally do nothing, no? I have 0 astra militarum.
I think a librarian is better