Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes

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**Suzuteo**

Okay, so I have a weird idea:

Spoiler:

If infantry and boats are not that great anymore, why not a list comprised pretty entirely out of the only three most viable units left in the codex?

Shove 4, 5, or even 9 Dragoons in their face while 4 Robots and 3 Grators gun down anything that tries to stand in their way.

Only real downside is how screwed I am if the map is filled with enclosed ruins really. I could drop the 5x Dragoon unit and stick in 11x Fulgurites in a Drill for that; the 12th seat goes to an Enginseer Mask caddy. Or 2x10 Hoplites in two Boats. But then I'd be back to square one.

**Iago40k**

lash92 wrote:
Just had my first game against IH, oh lord...
Those repulsors are disgusting

I'm not quite sure sure of the boat approach is the right way, as they can be killed so easily by the repulsors (even Shroudpsalm won't help, as they will be AP -5, and the infantry inside will just be picked up by the small arms of the remaining repulsors plus TFC (man' those things are disgusting as well).

There are no real things to threaten the repulsors in the list to be honest.

they are disgusting. there are several threads in the list for repulsors. breachers, dragoons, hoplites. Yet its not that important to kill everything the opponent has. the boats can harass, they can deliver, yet they can do what they were made for in the first place. secure units and stay mobile. Especially in ITC. Thunderfires are a problem but oh well, there has to be one right?
This is a toolbox list so it can deal with pretty much everything. even though there are a ton of SM players, we cannot build a list that is only good against them.

**lash92**

@tneva82

Dont worry, IF will get a +1DMG against vehicles for heavy weapons in devastor doctrine

@Iago40k
Maybe I was a little bit salty after my game yesterday, so there´s that

I like your list in 90% of all match ups, dont get me wrong. It is a good toolbox, just to few tools against the dominant IH matchup in the future.
Breachers can threaten Repulsors as they have D6 dmg true, but thats it to be honest. (Plus 1 round of shooting from infiltrators).
Dragoons won´t cut it due to T8, 4+ against them and just 1 dmg. And hoplites even less as they will have real problems getting delivered into CQC.
Even dragoons aren´t that hard to kill anymore due to BF2+ and the ability to get Cawl-grade rerolls.

@ Suzuteo:
Whats the deal with Stormtalons? Haven´t faced them yet.
Seems like a lot of S5/S6 AP-2 shooting, which shouldn´t face our vehicles much and makes even Shroudpsalm worth it.

**VladimirHerzog**

tneva82 wrote:I'm just praying remaining supplements don't manage to one up the IH. It's already brutal enough I decided to take complete pause from competive tournaments and stick to the casual tournaments here.

preach, i'm doing the same over here. Iron hands is just stupid, and even casual games aren't safe for me because people here think cheesing = friendly for some reason. (Legit had a guy bring the repulsor deathball vs a player that plays purely casual, and the repulsor wielding gakker was the one to suggest a "casual" game too).

Honestly i don't know wtf GW was thinking when they made iron hands. And i'm sick of marines players calling the buffed thunderfire "a balanced unit".

**tneva82**

lash92 wrote:
@tneva82

Dont worry, IF will get a +1DMG against vehicles for heavy weapons in devastor doctrine

Yes i know. Ih neutralises that for weapons that gets biggest benfit though plus rest so i actually prefer facing if. More reasonable than ih

**Suzuteo**

@Iago40k
Prepping for IH is like prepping for Castellans. They are such an extreme list that if you don't prep for them, you will just run splat into them. Every other list is tolerable by comparison, and many lists that were meta last month are going to radically change soon.

@lash92
Basically, you give Ironstone to a Bike Captain, who gets 20" move when he advances. The Stormtalons have a minimum move of 20" as well. Maybe bring 2-3 Stormhawks as well. So you have this mobile flying ball of death with T6 W10 3+/6+++, -1D, and -1 to hit durability going around mowing down units. Extremely difficult to hide from, what with their height and their mobility. Extremely hard to kill given all their durability bonuses. On top of this, you have Scouts, Snipers, Aggressors, and/or TFCs on the ground supplementing them. Imagine if they made Wave Serpents into flyers, but also gave them +1 to hit against ground, +1 AP, 6+++ FNP, no Heavy penalty, and rerolls to hit and to wound.

**bmsattler**

Suzuteo wrote:
@Iago40k
Prepping for IH is like prepping for Castellans. They are such an extreme list that if you don't prep for them, you will just run splat into them. Every other list is tolerable by comparison, and many lists that were meta last month are going to radically change soon.

@lash92
Basically, you give Ironstone to a Bike Captain, who gets 20" move when he advances. The Stormtalons have a minimum move of 20" as well. Maybe bring 2-3 Stormhawks as well. So you have this mobile flying ball of death with T6 W10 3+/6+++, -1D, and -1 to hit durability going around mowing down units. Extremely difficult to hide from, what with their height and their mobility. Extremely hard to kill given all their durability bonuses. On top of this, you have Scouts, Snipers, Aggressors, and/or TFCs on the ground supplementing them. Imagine if they made Wave Serpents into flyers, but also gave them +1 to hit against ground, +1 AP, 6+++ FNP, no Heavy penalty, and rerolls to hit and to wound.

Break out those snipers. Remove the Ironstone and you're doing better. Not good, but better. Infantry will not keep up with this group, so their 'look out sir' version will not protect the captain as well as a Repulsor wall would.

**lash92**

TFCs shred Skitarii :(

**Iago40k**

I just don't see how a gunline alone could work against IH. They kill as in the shooting game. We need 2 ways of aggression and more ways to play them.
Maybe it's not dragoons but priests in boats or something. And maybe we need to be more repetitive. What is best against IH? Take a lot of it. Could be one way.
Yet we will not go 4:1 with a list like that

**Suzuteo**

bmsattler wrote:
Break out those snipers. Remove the Ironstone and you're doing better. Not good, but better. Infantry will not keep up with this group, so their 'look out sir' version will not protect the captain as well as a Repulsor wall would.

Except you would need to go first and have 12 Arquebuses in LOS. Otherwise, the TFCs, their snipers, or the flyers' bolters will shred your snipers the next turn.

Iago40k wrote:
I just don't see how a gunline alone could work against IH. They kill as in the shooting game. We need 2 ways of aggression and more ways to play them.
Maybe it's not dragoons but priests in boats or something. And maybe we need to be more repetitive. What is best against IH? Take a lot of it. Could be one way.
Yet we will not go 4:1 with a list like that

Agreed. It has to be 4 Robots and some melee threat. Dragoons seem like a natural choice because they actually hit hard enough to take down Executioners and Dreadnoughts. It's also a lot harder for them to kill them >12".

**Suzuteo**

Thoughts about this? Cut one Dragoon and downgraded one Vanguard unit for a Dunerider to help secure objectives.

Spoiler:

**Ideasweasel**

8 dragoons, interesting.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So what delights do we think psychic awakening will have in store for us?

I can’t believe crimson hunter exarchs get a 5++. Lucky for us our heavy hitters tend to be quantity over quality but still. Those planes are even stronger now

Hope we have some shiny toys to come

**Suzuteo**

Nothing. We'll probably get something after?

By the way, the Top 8 at the first GT since Iron Hands became legal are all Iron Hands. (Some are listed as Adeptus Astartes, but they're also pretty much Iron Hands.)

So yeah, not an exaggeration to say that the only thing you should be prepping for is Iron Hands.

Unless GW hot fixes them in their FAQ, which is overdue.

More details, most successful lists ran:
- 2x Mortis Dreadnoughts with Lascannons, buffed by March of Ancients
- 3x Stormtalon with Typhoons, sometimes with Stormhawks
- Assault Centurions

Repulsors seem rare. The invincible Dreadnoughts taking preference. Levis nowhere in sight. TFCs seem to be in moderate quantity.

One Eldar broke into the first page. But still 90% IH. It's bad out there.

**Ideasweasel**

I had a practice tourney game against a trip repulsor +dread list and just managed to scrape a win - but I did seize and roll hot.

It’s a tough but to crack alright

**Tastyfish**

Ideasweasel wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So what delights do we think psychic awakening will have in store for us?

I can’t believe crimson hunter exarchs get a 5++. Lucky for us our heavy hitters tend to be quantity over quality but still. Those planes are even stronger now

Hope we have some shiny toys to come

I could see another character, but apart from that we've already got Duneriders, Disintegrators and the Manipulus to go into a new book. And that's ignoring the technoarcheologist Daedalosus.
We don't even know why they're called Disintegrators yet, despite some variants seeming to only have solid shot weapons.

**Suzuteo**

Well, the energy mortar is a microwave laser of some sort?

I still have no idea what to bring to my next Major with all these OP Iron Hands lists floating around. They just have so many buffs. Any crappy Space Marine unit becomes tier 1 once you put them in an IH army. Lol.

**Hesselhof**

I was testing this list last weekend agaisnt IH with 3 invictors, 2 executioner and and and, and Chaos with knights and 60 plague bearers:

Spoiler:

Was very niceagainst IH we needed to stop after 3rd round because he needed to go and he won but he said if we had played the full 6 round he had lost

Against chaos it was a 23-24 for him with 3 models left and a few mistakes of me, that cost me the win^^ )i only lost the 4 robots and a pair of single skitarri and kataphrons)
In both games i failed with secondarys, rly need to fix this =P

I rly rly like the list but i recognized that i am freaky not mobile XD (and i dont have duneriders or the drill) so i decided to maybe switch to following:

Spoiler:

What do you think? i guess 3 Bots are enough beacuse i trade 18 shoots for 50 shots from the infils, the stratagem for +1 to hit i did not need both games beacuse of cawl, so i decided to kick the dominus and get the points for the infils and in both games - 8 CP are more then enough

**lash92**

Suzuteo wrote:
Nothing. We'll probably get something after?

By the way, the Top 8 at the first GT since Iron Hands became legal are all Iron Hands. (Some are listed as Adeptus Astartes, but they're also pretty much Iron Hands.)

So yeah, not an exaggeration to say that the only thing you should be prepping for is Iron Hands.

Unless GW hot fixes them in their FAQ, which is overdue.

More details, most successful lists ran:
- 2x Mortis Dreadnoughts with Lascannons, buffed by March of Ancients
- 3x Stormtalon with Typhoons, sometimes with Stormhawks
- Assault Centurions

Repulsors seem rare. The invincible Dreadnoughts taking preference. Levis nowhere in sight. TFCs seem to be in moderate quantity.

One Eldar broke into the first page. But still 90% IH. It's bad out there.

To add to list: the top list ran IH successor with the old salamander trait and counting as being in cover when over 12".

But I think it's actually good that we see Stormtalons and not Repulsors as we can deal better with them.
Those talons are just T6 IIRC and there is a pretty good answer in our arsenal for this :p

More problematic is how to deal with those Centurions that prevent us from engaging the Dreads.

**Suzuteo**

@Hesselhof
The math says 4 Dakkabots. On average dice, you take out an Executioner while rooted. In a list built around 2-3x Executioners, that is a very big blow. You can also just clear an entire Stormtalon detachment. If you go second and they killed 1-2 Robots, you can still wipe all of his infantry and Warsuits off the board and play objectives; keep your guys alive as long as possible and go the distance.

@lash92
Dakkabots ask: What cover?

I feel like nothing in IH is as straightforward as it seems. But yes, I mentioned this before, but even the old 2-3x Crawler + 3x Grator lists can successfully handle Stormtalon spam.

As for Centurions:

Sort of like Disco Lords, the solution is to not fight them at all. They have a crapton of Flamer and Bolter shots, not to mention they wreck vehicles in CC. (Not to mention, they have a melee weapon almost tailor made to kill Kataphrons.) So keep your distance until you can shoot them off the board. It's not hard since we have a lot of really strong S6 shooting; though I suppose target selection can be tough. Furthermore, I think Scouts are way more annoying to deny you assault.

On a side note, both WS and the rumored IF Assault Centurions are going to be way scarier than IH Assault Centurions. The former being very mobile and aggressive and the latter just smashing vehicles left and right. I might actually reconsider my Dragoons in light of IF Devastator Doctrines.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, best AdMech at BFS was #21 with a respectable 4-2:

Spoiler:

**Hesselhof**

Thx for reply.

So you mean, in my case the 4th bot is much important than the 10 infils?

**Iago40k**

So we scratch kataphrons and going for cawl spearhead and some stygies melee?

**lash92**

Iago40k wrote:
So we scratch kataphrons and going for cawl spearhead and some stygies melee?

Seems like the most reasonable approach, and seems like a good approach against many armies.

**Suzuteo**

Hesselhof wrote:Thx for reply.

So you mean, in my case the 4th bot is much important than the 10 infils?

Yeah. They compete for the same stratagem anyway. Robots usually have a really heavy turn two and three, the turns you also want to drop Infiltrators.

Iago40k wrote:So we scratch kataphrons and going for cawl spearhead and some stygies melee?

That's what I am thinking. 4 Robots, 3 Grators backed by Stygies boat spam--or something like that. Which sucks because I have been gradually increasing my Breacher count for months.

But I think the best idea is to play the board while the opponent is forced to deal with our alpha strike. Any pure objectives strategy is doomed to fail. Any pure alpha strike strategy is extremely inconsistent.

**Iago40k**

With all the rerolls and the IF doctrine buff I am considering not using stygies and dragoons anymore. They don't help us in the SM match up at all (no infiltrating cause warsuits, infis and scouts). Mars is to much of a castle so we are building a list with a cohort in mind. 3x2 dakkabots, grators, icarus, Mars infis and hoplits. Dragoons are out, it's bots and boats, maybe all lucius.

**Suzuteo**

Yeah, every IH list I run into has the choppy Scouts out front to help their Smash Captain or Assault Centurions get stuck in. And IF is going to be popular because it's one of the only armies that can counter IH; they counter us too.

3x2 Dakkabots? Maybe 2x3. Two Dakkabots don't do very much work.

Not sure about Infiltrators. Hoplites look good though, mostly from a numerical perspective. 4++ in melee with high body count with S6 weapon, all for 9 points apiece make them a good way to tie down Assault Centurions; with Acquisition, they pretty much have Storm Shields. Going S7 with the Canticle plus Arc rule lets them kill Warsuits as well.

On that point, Electro-Priests also look good. S5 and mortal spam really lets them gobble up Space Marine bodies.

Thing is, running Robots, Grators, and Boats mean we give up 8 points to kill secondaries every game. Going to be very brutal.

**Iago40k**

3x2 works great since the dmg is the same as 2x3, yet they are more mobile.
I don't think secondaries are an argument during list building atm. We need to kill and to survive.
Electro priests are something to think about as well. They need a boat as well then.

**Hesselhof**

Suzuteo wrote:
Hesselhof wrote:Thx for reply.

So you mean, in my case the 4th bot is much important than the 10 infils?

Yeah. They compete for the same stratagem anyway. Robots usually have a really heavy turn two and three, the turns you also want to drop Infiltrators.

What do you think about the rest of the list? The breachers and the destroyers worked pretty well (just bought last week 3 boxes breachers lol) and with all the snipers made my opponet headache for moving^^

Problem could be flyer lists, but with elimination volley + Daedalosus and cawl, should work

**Iago40k**

Hesselhof wrote:
Suzuteo wrote:
Hesselhof wrote:Thx for reply.

So you mean, in my case the 4th bot is much important than the 10 infils?

Yeah. They compete for the same stratagem anyway. Robots usually have a really heavy turn two and three, the turns you also want to drop Infiltrators.

What do you think about the rest of the list? The breachers and the destroyers worked pretty well (just bought last week 3 boxes breachers lol) and with all the snipers made my opponet headache for moving^^

Problem could be flyer lists, but with elimination volley + Daedalosus and cawl, should work

I sense that Kataphrons will go the way of the Dodo tbh. MAYBE Lucius Breachers so you can hold them back. Still wounding everthing we want to see dead on 5s though.

**Hesselhof**

Dodos, Hehe XD

But can you explain me why? Only because of Hands?

We are not playing only against space marines

**Suzuteo**

Breachers were strong in a meta dominated by T3 infantry being cleared by S4 shooting. Now we are in a meta dominated by T4-5 W2-3 infantry being cleared by S5-6 AP-2 shooting. In other words, Breachers are average toughness now. With their mediocre shooting and fighting, it doesn't make sense to run so many of them because they cannot just sit in the midboard ontop of objectives like they used to.