Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes

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**U02dah4**

Their are very few tournaments therefore much more than normal small events will be represented- however these don't represent the faction

There are different opinions on what will work the Mars shooty list is what the playtesters tested but truth is its terrible at the missions for all its killy. Myself im favouring infantry soup as it might not be as killy but its much more able to score VP. The truth is we need a lot of data to work whats best out and there just arnt enough events.

It also takes time for new units to be painted ive only just finished my 27 raiders if I'd wanted to use other units it would take me another few weeks.

I can't see any of the new units other than raiders routinely making it into my lists because their mediocre at best and I'm not wasting FA slots on anything that isn't a raider

**Octovol**

U02dah4 wrote:
Their are very few tournaments therefore much more than normal small events will be represented- however these don't represent the faction

There are different opinions on what will work the Mars shooty list is what the playtesters tested but truth is its terrible at the missions for all its killy. Myself im favouring infantry soup as it might not be as killy but its much more able to score VP. The truth is we need a lot of data to work whats best out and there just arnt enough events.

It also takes time for new units to be painted ive only just finished my 27 raiders if I'd wanted to use other units it would take me another few weeks.

I can't see any of the new units other than raiders routinely making it into my lists because their mediocre at best and I'm not wasting FA slots on anything that isn't a raider

3 x 9? Thats a big investment for something that's not all that proven yet lol. I went for 3 x 5, but I only play 1000-1500 point battles so 3 x 9 is a lot of points for those matches. I was only comparing wound to points/power with the other people in my group and Admech comes out 30+ more wounds at 1000pts than any of the other factions (Orks, Drukhari, Tau, Death guard) 107 wounds in 1000pts lol.

In other news, I'm a little annoyed that everyone's flamers are going to 12", guarantee ours wont get anything added to them to keep their specialness. All these imperium weapon updates are doing is making our stuff less special :|

**U02dah4**

Low points per W

Decent character sniping

Very high mobility

It doesn't need to be proven its probably our best unit

**iamanbo**

for me they only have one problem, and that is that they are not line or infantry hahahahahaha

I would like to play 3x5 but I find a problem, the ballistarii are also very good and either we play outrider or we would have to play with less cps, this last option seems difficult to me since pure admech needs all the possible cps.

for me in this edition and right now raiders and ballistarii are the must of our army.

In my last games I made a mix between raiders, ballistarii, armiges warglaive and wardens.

two games, two victories against eldar and dark angels

**Suzuteo**

Cawl is our best unit.

But seriously, a single unit of Raiders is probably all you need unless you intend to spam them for their wounds. The problem with them is that they are not Troops, not infantry, and are better at avoiding melee than they are fighting it.

**U02dah4**

Their a blocker and a character killer. If they are in the way you can slow the enemy down

**Suzuteo**

Sure. But most armies won't need 240-432 points worth of them.

**Khornatedemon**

U02dah4 wrote:

I can't see any of the new units other than raiders routinely making it into my lists because their mediocre at best and I'm not wasting FA slots on anything that isn't a raider

if you mean the other fast attack slot new stuff I'd agree. Ballistari are still great otherwise. As for other new stuff the bomber has been ace so far. I can see why seigler wants to run 3

**Hesselhof**

Hey guys, an overall question:

what to do against space marines? i played on sunday against them, ohhhhh boy....

he had first turn and i got wrecked, after that we played again, same deploy all the same but now i started, was much more playable but is the only thing to do against them to have first turn?

**Octovol**

Hesselhof wrote:
Hey guys, an overall question:

what to do against space marines? i played on sunday against them, ohhhhh boy....

he had first turn and i got wrecked, after that we played again, same deploy all the same but now i started, was much more playable but is the only thing to do against them to have first turn?

You might have to give us more than that lol

What did you have and what did they have?

**Hesselhof**

KK =)

i thought there are general tips against them

My list:

Spoiler:

Marines

Spoiler:

My list works pretty well (for me), played some games with, because i want to go on tourney with, but i gernerally have problems with marines

And this was the deployment: (i guess you see my deployment fail on the left side =/ completly forgot the MoA)

**iamanbo**

my games against loyal marines are almost always against dark angels. The list you show us does not have bad units, but why don't you use a single battalion? are you using two different forge worlds? optimize cps, they are always needed with admech.
if you have any grav cannon I would include it, it works very well against them.

if you fight against vehicles you may need to put a laser instead of the icarus, the ballistarii are not enough if you want to do damage in turn 1 or 2

if you play a single battalion you save 135p from the skitarii

The electro priest in drill works very well but if you need points remember that for 1cp you can take them out on the edge of the table in T2

if you play claw you want to play kastelans, if not ... you can save 200p

In short, against marines, both the kastelans + belisarius and the grav cannon always do a lot of damage, if you fight against vehicles, put some laser to help the ballistarii and lower the skorpius to shoot without line of sight to the units that hide

**Hesselhof**

Thx for reply,

kicking cawl could be a real option, but how could it be granted to get the mars canticle + shroudpsalm without +1/-1?

are there any experience? maybe chorister tecnis?

**DarkHound**

You don't have any damage 3 attacks, and that's a problem with AdMech in general. The game is going to revolve around how fast you can kill the Eradicators and Aggressors.

The fact that the most important targets are T5 ruins the breakpoint advantage of Mars' Str canticle. The highest placing AdMech I've seen in the GT summaries was actually allied Ryza Kataphrons allied to Salamanders. Kicking Plasma up to D3 makes them perfect against Gravis armor like Eradicators and Aggressors. It seems like that list was designed exclusively to kill other Marines. It may be that Mars is better against every other faction, but loses in a key matchup to the best army in the meta right now.

For pure AdMech, it's probably worth splitting the difference and taking a main force of Mars with a Patrol of Ryza Kataphrons. You can even put your melee elements like Fulgerites in Ryza to buff them.

As for things you can do with your army list right now? I'd take Artisan over Magos. The AP buff is more powerful against Marines than the extra shot. I'd also switch the Beleros to a Ferrumite Cannon. With Cawl, the Ferrumite kills 1.5 Gravis per turn, compared to the Belaros' 0.85.

iamanbo wrote:

Spoiler:

my games against loyal marines are almost always against dark angels. The list you show us does not have bad units, but why don't you use a single battalion? are you using two different forge worlds? optimize cps, they are always needed with admech.
if you have any grav cannon I would include it, it works very well against them.

if you fight against vehicles you may need to put a laser instead of the icarus, the ballistarii are not enough if you want to do damage in turn 1 or 2

if you play a single battalion you save 135p from the skitarii

The electro priest in drill works very well but if you need points remember that for 1cp you can take them out on the edge of the table in T2

if you play claw you want to play kastelans, if not ... you can save 200p

In short, against marines, both the kastelans + belisarius and the grav cannon always do a lot of damage, if you fight against vehicles, put some laser to help the ballistarii and lower the skorpius to shoot without line of sight to the units that hide

Your advice is mostly wrong. AdMech don't have any Grav Cannons (except one on the X-101). If he switches to a Battalion with his current list, he has to add 45 points of Skitarii, not save any. He also loses a Heavy Support slot and an HQ slot. Why would you ever pay 1 CP to deploy a Drill from a table edge when the Drill has built in Deepstrike? Cawl provides buff to everything, and a lot of his value is in his Canticle modifier, he's not more effective with Kastelans. It's the other way around: if you already have Kastelans, they get a big buff from Cawl.

The one piece of good advice was to use Neutron Laser Dunecrawlers. They are one of your best sources of damage 3, and actually have S10 to get the 2+ to wound vs Gravis and ignore their armor. Each Neutron Laser kills 1.5 of Gravis. Between 2 Neutron Lasers, 2 Ferrumites, 2 Disruptor Missiles you should kill 7 or 8 Eradicators in one turn. If you can charge the Aggressors with the Fulgerites (use Raiders to prevent his charge, then charge them first to absorb the overwatch), the Fulgerites with Prime Hermeticon and +1S Canticle will kill 5.86 Aggressors on average. After that, it is just a matter of mopping up Marines.

**iamanbo**

Maybe it is the language that was not understood well, the weapon I mean that is good against marines is Heavy Grav-Cannon

if you carry a single battalion you can carry only 3x5 skitarii, on your list there were 6x5 skitarii

the cp spends it to go out with the Fulgurite Electro-Priest in dr and thus save the points of Terrax-pattern Termite Assault Drill

Although, as I was saying, I also find a good combination of Terrax-pattern Termite Assault Drill + Fulgurite Electro-Priest and enter dr for free with the Drill ability, if drill is not buried, it usually dies easy

What is true is that with a single battalion you can not put more than 3 heavy, but if you want to kick hard the best is Kataphron Destroyer in ryza with plasma

**DarkHound**

Ah, right, Heavy Grav Destroyers. They're okay, but for only a few points more you could take Ryza Plasma Destroyers. Comparing Mars canticle Heavy Grav to Ryza stratagem Plasma, the Grav kills 0.92 Gravis models while the Plasma kills 1.2. The plasma is 30% more effective while 23% more expensive. Additionally, the Ryza is guaranteed while the Mars Canticle is not active 25% of the time: in that case the Grav kills 0.7.

In the best possible case, Grav Destroyers in range of Cawl with Mars canticle are equal to Plasma Destroyers with the stratagem and a Dominus; both kill 1.4 Gravis models.

The Plasma Destroyers are also more resistant to Transhuman Physiology. They kill 0.97 Gravis, which is 19% less damage. The Grav Destroyers fall from 0.92 to 0.7, a 25% decrease.

While we're discussing Plasma Specialists, it's also worth pointing out that Vanguard are almost as good as Plasma Destroyers. 10 Vanguard with 3 Plasma for 120 points kill 2.77 Gravis (which you can buff with re-roll 1s canticle and +1 to hit stratagem to kill a max of 4 Gravis). Compared to equal points worth of Plasma Destroyers, they are almost exactly as efficient. The downside, of course, is that you can pay more to buff more Plasma Destroyers.

With regards to his detachments, his list only has 2x5 Vanguard for Troops, one in each detachment. I don't know where you got 6x5. He'd need to do a pretty major list re-write to include Destroyers at all.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's an idea for an anti-meta Mars+Ryza hybrid:

Spoiler:

While the Cawl castle is straightforward, the rest of the army has a lot of tricks. 8 Destroyers should, on average, kill 11 Gravis, which is enough to get rid of all the Eradicators in most lists. The Skystalkers are a Wrath of Mars bomb. Since Wrath still triggers on a 6+, you can combine them with Daedalosus and +1 to hit Stratagem to get mortals on a 4+ (which is enough to kill a Knight in one round for 175 points and 3CP). Raiders, Kataphron Flamers Overwatch, and Ironstriders with Cognis Overwatch should be plenty of anti-assault, plus you can Artisan fallback in a pinch. The Fulgerites should be able to go toe to toe with any scary melee unit.

The list has plenty of tools to deal with hordes, elite armies, vehicle armies, Knights. The biggest downside is that a lot of the list is fragile. There'll be match-ups against other alpha-strike lists where you'll have to reserve and hide most of the army so you can get the initiative on turn 2.

**Mariongodspeed**

Wrath of Mars triggers on 6+ to Wound, not 6+ to Hit, so Daedalosus and +1 to hit stratagem, will not let you kill a knight for 175 points and 3 CP.

Overall I like your list though.

**Octovol**

Wrath of Mars is a to wound roll of 6+ not hit roll. The best you can improve the roll is with autocannon ballistarii to MW on a 5+

**DarkHound**

Ah bugger, somehow I had it in my head it was a hit roll all this time. Ah well, that does put a serious damper the Skystalkers. I'd definitely reconsider them, but this list isn't anything like what I build or play.

**Hesselhof**

Wow thx guys for your input.

So overall i can say, i would need more 3dmg weapons against marines?

ATM for the tourney this is what played:
Space Marines: 6
Death Guard: 3
Imperial Knights: 3
Adepta Sororitas: 2
Adeptus Custodes: 2
Adeptus Mechanicus: 2
Eldar: 2
Astra Militarum: 1
Blood Angels: 1
Dark Angels: 1
Deathwatch: 1
Grey Knights: 1
Orks: 1
Space Wolves: 1
The Inquisition: 1
Thousand Sons: 1
Tyraniden: 1

**Suzuteo**

@Hesselhof
In a meta where Marines are this strong, 75% of the lists are going to be Marines, and 25% of the lists are going to be anti-Marines.

Anyhow, Dakkabots are currently our best answer to Marines. Neutron Crawlers do not kill Marines fast enough, and they are not durable enough to make up for this. Destroyers get pasted pretty fast when they are up against Eradicators and Aggressors, which are more efficient. (This is why I think spam approaches won't work. We cannot wear them down as fast.)

Deploy the Dakkabots defensively and push your transports up as bait. Typically speaking, Eradicators won't be in range of your Robots to do serious harm, but worst comes to worst, you can put them into reserve. Move up into a good spot to watch objectives and just paste all of his Eradicators right off the bat. 4 Dakkabots with Cawl rerolls and Magos WLT kill 13 Eradicators when rooted with average dice.

**Hesselhof**

Hm, but this would be a massiv change of my list hmmm.

Atm i have no clue what to kick for 4 dakka bots

So you mean for tourney, an "allround" list is not that good, i should go for an anit marines list? i like the idea XD

Problem here simply is time =/

**Suzuteo**

@Hesselhof
I think 5x Ballistarii and 4x Dakkabots are a strong TAC firebase. But like I said, if you are not prepping for Marines, you are prepping to fail.

IMO, mechanized AdMech needs to build around accomplishing two secondaries regardless of the matchup. The two I favor are Engage On All Fronts and Deploy Scramblers.

Spoiler:

I got one unit of Skitarii to Deploy the Scrambler in my deployment while the others zoom off into the other table quadrants and the center. Fusilave should dive into the far quadrant.

I have the aforementioned Ballistarii and Dakkabots. Also have a Grator to make use of the +1 to hit and ignore cover stratagem.

**Hesselhof**

What are your experience with your list?

**U02dah4**

Their are different oppinions.

The problem as ever is cawl

He's really expensive so players that advocate him need lots of dakkabot type units to justify the expense. This locks them into a castle build that wins the shooting game but struggles with the objectives.

I am more of a soup player but personnally I think an infantry/cavalry list is the way to go. It wont be as shooty but will make up for it by controlling the board scoring more points but at the trade off that your opponent won't die as quickly. However this list won't take cawl and certainly no dakkabots.

Neither stratagy is terrible but they are different in terms of build. There hasn't been enough tournaments to really evidence the difference. My first is not for 2 weeks.

A tac list tends to have the worst of both worlds. It wont have enough models to reliably hold objectives and it wonf be able to clear your opponents

**Suzuteo**

@Hesselhof
I am in lockdown, so I can only play it against myself or watch others play it on TTS to test their lists against AdMech. :(

But it is pretty fierce, especially once you realize that you can put 4x Robots in reserve and outflank them. There's not actually much most infantry-based lists can do against that except to kill Boats and hope to deny me my secondaries. For a faster list, like Eldar, they might try to kill Cawl or wrap my Ballistarii. So I guess watch out for that.

One Fusilave is a must though. It gets you Engage On All Fronts points, slows and hurts hordes (mortal wound spam is nice!), and is virtually unkillable with Chaff Launchers. It's our own Alaitoc Wave Serpent. Hoplites are also just solid gold. They are so damn cheap, and they threaten virtually everything in melee; it's unbelievable that they are only 10 ppm.

In general though, AdMech needs to fight for objectives right off the bat while protecting the firebase.

@U02dah4
Actually, I think the reverse is the case: it is very easy to overdo the assault teams and not have enough of a firebase left alive after turn one to outshoot your opponent. Especially if you are taking Raiders (which in practice are not that good for objectives, but great at screening) or a Fusilave.

My list dedicates 1360 points to shooting and support, and the rest is concentrated in extremely efficient melee in transports.

**Octovol**

Whelp I have my first 9th casual match this Saturday. Only 1000pts/50PL so atm I just wanna try out some stuff. I'm planning:

Mars Outrider
Manipulus with Artisan
3 x 5 Raiders
1 x 10 Sterylizors
4 x Auto Ballistarii
1 x Fusilave
And either 1 Stratoraptor or 1 Belleros disintigrator, they kind of server the same purpose but I think the Disintigrator edges it on firepower but the Stratoraptor has the mobility and is much harder to take down.

I'll adjust after this, but 1000pts isn't a lot to play with to get a feel for the new stuff.

The problem I have with following a lot of the advice on here is there's virtually no way to find a balance for less points. You literally cant reduce the sizes of any of those units or not take the transports or anything and them still function. its' 2k or nothing the lists scale very poorly. Ballistarii is about the only exception as our greatest all round unit.

4 dakkabots + Cawl is 700 on it's own are we thinking we wont see many vehicles or high wound targets at the moment? Any less and its not even worth taking cawl imo, just too many points.

I know most of the marine meta is on gravis infantry atm, but just about any weapon will take those down, they're just tough marines in extremely small unit sizes.

**U02dah4**

Suzuteo wrote:
@Hesselhof
I am in lockdown, so I can only play it against myself or watch others play it on TTS to test their lists against AdMech. :(

But it is pretty fierce, especially once you realize that you can put 4x Robots in reserve and outflank them. There's not actually much most infantry-based lists can do against that except to kill Boats and hope to deny me my secondaries. For a faster list, like Eldar, they might try to kill Cawl or wrap my Ballistarii. So I guess watch out for that.

One Fusilave is a must though. It gets you Engage On All Fronts points, slows and hurts hordes (mortal wound spam is nice!), and is virtually unkillable with Chaff Launchers. It's our own Alaitoc Wave Serpent. Hoplites are also just solid gold. They are so damn cheap, and they threaten virtually everything in melee; it's unbelievable that they are only 10 ppm.

In general though, AdMech needs to fight for objectives right off the bat while protecting the firebase.

@U02dah4
Actually, I think the reverse is the case: it is very easy to overdo the assault teams and not have enough of a firebase left alive after turn one to outshoot your opponent. Especially if you are taking Raiders (which in practice are not that good for objectives, but great at screening) or a Fusilave.

My list dedicates 1360 points to shooting and support, and the rest is concentrated in extremely efficient melee in transports.

I'm not taking a firebase as such and not trying to outshoot my opponent- thats why I argue those strategies are polar. Im trying to swarm the objectives using raiders to screen and block my opponents advance to try and hold objectives for 3 Turns+ to win

The admech list portion i use consists of vanguard corpuscarii raiders and if FW is permitted hoplites. I don't take any of the firebase units.

Conversely I agree that for the cawl list to function it needs to be havy on the firebase and that the middle ground is less effective

**Suzuteo**

@U02dah4
Ah. So the Nurgling approach?

My concern there is that you might get out-swarmed or lose the battle of efficiency/attrition. But keep us informed. It worked for us in the past with Breacher spam, which is very similar to the current Gravis spam.

**U02dah4**

Pretty much the nurgling approach only i have an absolute ton of low S firepower so unlike the nurgling I have a good chance of shutting down the obsec section of my opponents army. Im not too worried about being out swarmed for that reason and i will out swarm the elites

Getting wiped out is a risk with the most effecient shooting lists but if i can hold for 3 Turns I will win overall and im pretty sure i can survive that long