Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes

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**xerxeskingofking**

only changes that affect us directly on those FAQs was they changed Secutarii to form 8th ed canticles to doctrina imperitives, apart form that i cant see anything. of note, the Secutarii are non-CORE, so cant benefit form many of the doctrinia, unless i am mistaken (?).

**Vineheart01**

Theres also the charge change.

Charging counts as a "fight first" rule and such rules do not stack. So anything that charges a unit that says they fight first the charging player starts with their unit and then they alternate.

I dont recall any Fight First in our codex, but it does enable us to charge Fight First gits and still actually swing before them.

**Suzuteo**

Also, if I were to make the more competitive version of this list, it would probably be:

Spoiler:

Basically, two Marshals to disable the negatives twice. Raiment to remove shooting penalties even further; you can run Rangers in this build, but I am not so sure you can afford the CP. Technoarchaeologist is an aura caddy that shuts down deep strike and enables charge-cycling.

Vineheart01 wrote:
Theres also the charge change.

Charging counts as a "fight first" rule and such rules do not stack. So anything that charges a unit that says they fight first the charging player starts with their unit and then they alternate.

I dont recall any Fight First in our codex, but it does enable us to charge Fight First gits and still actually swing before them.

Yup. Finally settled. There is now a soft initiative system in the game.

Fight First - Active Player's Initiative
Fight Normally - Inactive Player's Initiative
Fight Last - Active Player's Initiative

Charge is also considered a form of Fight First. So that means Archived Engagements is not too great anymore. Temporcopia and Electro-Shocked are the way to go.

**DarkHound**

Suzuteo wrote:
DarkHound wrote:That list looks absolutely tough, so I'm imagining how I'd approach it with mine.
Looking at your list, I am immediately going to prioritize keeping my Ballistarii safe. Deploy them out of LOS as best I can.

Spoiler:

I can use Benevolence to essentially cut your Fusilave's MWs in half, so I am not particularly worried about it; in fact, I sorta expect you to use those MW against the Vanguard, not my vehicles. This is because they will be camped in the backfield waiting for Flare, so you will probably not be able to shoot first with your infantry, even with your magic advance. So weakening their volume of fire will be key.

I would try to keep your Knight out of Full Tilt range with the Infiltrators and Raiders. I doubt I can prevent them from shooting. Probably only lose 2-3 Ballistarii if I use Transhuman on them: 8x Thermal Lance shots, 5.33 hits, 2.665 wounds, 1.77*3.5= 6.22 damage, plus another 2.5 MWs from the plane. Crusader can finish one and might be able to take another out. I don't expect the Dunecrawlers to be able to shoot them at all, given their low movement; they will probably look for the Vanguard. Not sure if people realize how crazy Lucius's Transhuman is yet. It basically takes any weapons targeting a single unit and reduces it to the toughness of the target, which can be any Core unit. (Really, the big question mark for me is whether or not I want to use it on my Vanguard blob or the Ballistarii that I know you need to focus on.) Anyhow, cutting down the damage on the wound step is the most important thing you can do in stopping any-tank weapons. I actually would expect that you would shoot at my Dragoons instead. Probably can kill all of them.

The new Lascannons are fierce: 10 shots, 9.72 hits, 7.56 wounds, 3.78*5 = 18.9 damage on your Knight if I get to shoot first. I probably would not bother though. I would focus on killing the plane first (assuming it did not bail) and then 2 Warglaives. Flare my Vanguard blob into your infantry and start blasting. If you weakened the Vanguard blob, it will not be a blowout, but then I will be charging with my Infiltrators and Raiders, which will always fight first (and probably wipe your MSUs each time). If my Dragoons are still alive, they will pop an additional Warglaive a turn, but I doubt they will be.

Turn two, you probably will get both the Ballistarii and the Dragoons. But then I drop the Corpuscarii and Vanguard deathballs to swarm the objectives with infantry that I know you cannot kill fast enough. And then it becomes an inevitable structural victory after that point. You will have 2 Warglaives, a Knight, and 2 Crawlers. I will have pretty much everything but my Ironstriders, maybe one chewed up Vanguard unit that I will be looking to tarpit your Crawlers with.

It's really interesting to hear the opposite thought process, thank you. We both forgot stuff and made different assumptions, so it's great to see the game can't be played entirely in theory. Honestly, I totally forgot about Lucius Transhuman. On my end, the shooting re-roll canticle basically doubles all the damage. The Knight can get 20" movement, and the Warglaives can advance, which makes hiding from them difficult.

The Lascannons versus Warlgaives is an interesting problem. 6 buffed Lascannon shots deals 11.3 average damage to a Warglaive with Rotate Ion Shields, so slightly worse than 50% chance to kill. 4 Lascannons into a 5++ Warglaive only deal 10.1 on average. You have to allocate the shots first, then I can pick which to buff, so I can even dodge the coin flip and Shield the 4 shots to ensure only 1 dies. It would be really hard to kill two. I assumed I'd have to hide from your shooting, so that's also why this theorizing is great; in practice I'd know to deploy aggressively anyway.

Anyway, you're right it would come down to the infantry. Hell, maybe I should just spend 3 CP to reserve everything and wait until the vehicles start to make a dent. It's definitely an interesting puzzle, and I'll keep an open mind about drastic reserve plays in the future.

**Suzuteo**

DarkHound wrote:
It's really interesting to hear the opposite thought process, thank you. We both forgot stuff and made different assumptions, so it's great to see the game can't be played entirely in theory. Honestly, I totally forgot about Lucius Transhuman. On my end, the shooting re-roll canticle basically doubles all the damage. The Knight can get 20" movement, and the Warglaives can advance, which makes hiding from them difficult.

The Lascannons versus Warlgaives is an interesting problem. 6 buffed Lascannon shots deals 11.3 average damage to a Warglaive with Rotate Ion Shields, so slightly worse than 50% chance to kill. 4 Lascannons into a 5++ Warglaive only deal 10.1 on average. You have to allocate the shots first, then I can pick which to buff, so I can even dodge the coin flip and Shield the 4 shots to ensure only 1 dies. It would be really hard to kill two. I assumed I'd have to hide from your shooting, so that's also why this theorizing is great; in practice I'd know to deploy aggressively anyway.

Anyway, you're right it would come down to the infantry. Hell, maybe I should just spend 3 CP to reserve everything and wait until the vehicles start to make a dent. It's definitely an interesting puzzle, and I'll keep an open mind about drastic reserve plays in the future.

Aside from the Fusilaves, which I think would be a huge mistake to try to use on the Ironstriders because of the AdMech Benediction stratagem, I think your thinking is correct. You need to deploy aggressively, even if it means taking it on the chin if you go second because if you don't get into firing positions, you'll be locked out of the midboard AND you will be behind on shooting.

Note that in the competitive version of this list, I would probably be packing 10 Ballistarii, so it's not as easy a problem to unwind. Your comments do make me wonder if it's better to run them as two units of 3x Lascannons and 2x Autocannons each rather than 5x Lascannon and 5x Autocannon separately.

Ultimately, I think Lucius is going to be very competitive simply because of structural advantages. I have forward deployment tools to reserve an 18" area of the board between my deployment and an objective. I can see who wins the roll off before applying defensive buffs to control the flow of the first turn. I can control where my Flare unit is going to be. I have great counter-charging with multiple ways to force the opponent to fight last. I have bombs to reinforce my infantry as needed.

**JNAProductions**

Is there ever a point to the Arc Claw on Breachers? Like, ever?

**Octovol**

What do we think of the wording on the 'Assassin Constructs' strategm:

until that fight is resolved, add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of models in that unit.

No mention of phases, does that mean as long as they remain in engagement range they retain that +1 to Attacks? And if so, if I charge the unit in my charge phase, use the strategm, and my opponent then charges something else into them in their charge phase, I can use the strategm again to give them an additional +1? Is there any precedent for what 'until the fight is resolved' means?

That's similar to how their transonic weapons used to work in 7th where after the first round of combat they just stayed better until they charged something or were charged again.

**StarHunter25**

Well, since the only change to Secutari is they get Doctrina instead of Canticles, but DIDNT get core, they seem pretty dead now, especially since hoplite weapons didn't get the new arc rule. Sad, I really like the models and have... 30... of them........

**Thairne**

Not unexpected. Secutarii are titanguard and dont follow the regular skitarii things.. They dont get a dogma, they dont get CORE... They're a fringe FW model and will probably remain that way until they go poof or legends...

**Tiberius501**

Hmm, Onagers aren’t super good for anti-tank are they? Maybe Balistarii are too good for their points? Lol

I have a bunch of Onagers and not many Ballistarii and I’m not in the habit of buying the new hotness. So I shall make do.

One thing I will say is AdMech seem real cheap! I can fit a hell of a lot of stuff into even just a 1k list.

**Thairne**

Onagers and Balistarii are two sides of the same coin.
Neutron laser is still the best loadout sans against flyers, but it is a good chunk more durable than ballistarii.
You could say a Onager is a beefed up Balistarii with the point difference going into defenses.

**DarkHound**

Unfortunately, Dunecrawlers are only more durable out of context from the rest of the book. Ironstriders are core units, which means they get access to all the buffs: Firepoint Telemetry Cache, Logos ignore AP-1 and 2, Lucius Transhuman. This is the way the book is going to be for a couple years, so it's probably worth investing in 4 or 5 of them.

**Thairne**

thats true, but you wont always have those things available as they're limited supply and all in all sometimes costly in pts.

Onagers are more of a "stand alone" thing that can stand on its 4 legs without support.

Are chickens better? Definately. But that doesnt mean you cant stack chickens and onagers if you happen to need those buffs for other things that are important. En contraire, if you stack all those buffs on chickens, the enemy is somewhat likely to ignore those and shoot the rest of your army. And it cant hurt if the rest of your army has at least some resilience left.

**Suzuteo**

You can buy Helverins and convert them into Ballistarii if you want them slightly cheaper.

I have my 10 from way back, so I know what I will be running.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a side note, the new Core Rulebook FAQ has a new ruling for Rare Rules stating that when it comes to "Defensive Rules that Apply to Attacks with Specific Characteristics." The bullet point rule added to Core Rules is that we always use the modified damage characteristic (regardless of timing) of such attacks. So Lucius Bombers with Chaff Launcher get +1 to save against D2 weapons now.

So that means I need to modify my list again. 2+ against D1 and D2 weapons on top of Hard to Hit sounds glorious...

**Thairne**

Considering the Chaff launcher is pretty expensive and it removes the anti-aura ability it better be.
But that means pretty much only single-shot anti-tank is good against those and thats some good news!

**Ideasweasel**

I don’t know if this is just me and it’s anecdotal evidence but I always found seismic bomb to be the more useful trick.

Even pre aura nerfs the amount of times I excitedly wanted to turn something off - only to be told “it’s not an aura it’s a contagion etc” meant I thought bugger it the damn thing has such finite applications I’m not fussed

Hyperbole in full effect but you get the idea

**laam999**

bombers with a chaff launcher served me well until the codex comes out, I plan to try and keep these going ahead. They soak up fire, score engage on all fronts, deal mortal wounds and slow down a lot of fast/scary targets.

**Suzuteo**

Seems there's a lot of weird debate about the ruling. I honestly don't see the problem. But apparently, there are three interesting questions:

1. Does Lucius dogma apply to D2 attacks when they are allocated to a target with Chaff Launcher?
2. Does Lucius dogma apply to Grav-gun? Corollary: Does Grav-gun go to DD3 because of Lucius dogma?
3. Does Chaff Launcher apply to Grav-gun?

All of this is resolved neatly if you assume we apply all of the modifications to the attacks first before checking if defensive abilities apply to them, but people love the Sisphyean task of trying to make GW rules make sense.

**JNAProductions**

Suzuteo wrote:
Seems there's a lot of weird debate about the ruling. I honestly don't see the problem. But apparently, there are three interesting questions:

1. Does Lucius dogma apply to D2 attacks when they are allocated to a target with Chaff Launcher?
2. Does Lucius dogma apply to Grav-gun? Corollary: Does Grav-gun go to DD3 because of Lucius dogma?
3. Does Chaff Launcher apply to Grav-gun?

All of this is resolved neatly if you assume we apply all of the modifications to the attacks first before checking if defensive abilities apply to them, but people love the Sisphyean task of trying to make GW rules make sense.

1) I think so, with the new FAQ.

2-Nitpick) Aren't Grav Guns D2 against 3+ targets, not Dd3?

2) Grav Guns go off the save characteristic. Lucius doesn't modify that-it only adds to the save roll.

**Octovol**

Suzuteo wrote:
Seems there's a lot of weird debate about the ruling. I honestly don't see the problem. But apparently, there are three interesting questions:

1. Does Lucius dogma apply to D2 attacks when they are allocated to a target with Chaff Launcher?
2. Does Lucius dogma apply to Grav-gun? Corollary: Does Grav-gun go to DD3 because of Lucius dogma?
3. Does Chaff Launcher apply to Grav-gun?

All of this is resolved neatly if you assume we apply all of the modifications to the attacks first before checking if defensive abilities apply to them, but people love the Sisphyean task of trying to make GW rules make sense.

it's pretty straight forward after that FAQ, the people questioning it either havent read it or have disregarded it. Apply all modifiers first, then determine abilities. Easy. They're caught up on this 'at allocation' step and seem to refuse to acknowledge any alteration to it.

Yet we're all happy that 'fight last after all eligible units from your army' is functionally equivalent to 'fight last' despite the wording difference.

**TheArchmagos**

Hi all,

Finally got my new codex and wow, I'm absolutely blown away at the amount of synergy and the sheer breadth of builds that seem possible. I love it, but the codex is laughably complex in some ways

That being said I'm wondering if this would be a viable, not tourney winning but at least competent, 1500pt list to start off with while I build up to a 2K list which will probably require more chickens or something.

Spoiler:

My main questions are would it be better to run the squad of 10 rangers as 2 of 5 and is it worth giving any of my alphas warlord traits or relics? Any tips or feedback would be very helpful!

**DarkHound**

That all seems perfectly reasonable. The Rangers should definitely be 2 units of 5 so you can spread out ObSec and complete more actions. The only thing I worry about is your list has very little melee ability. You may run into situations where you can't push an enemy off an objective.

You should definitely take Firepoint Telemetry Cache and Battle-sphere Uplink on the 20 man squads (doesn't matter which, they can exchange them with the tether). That gives you cover and ignore Heavy and Assault penalties. I'm not so big on giving Skitarii relics, but the Skull of Elder Nikola on the Raiders would be a hilarious spoiler pick when going first against vehicle heavy armies like Drukhari.

The list would benefit tremendously from upgrading the Enginseer to a Manipulus. The Skitarii are some of your biggest damage dealers, so that buff performs way better than +1 BS on one Dunecrawler. You can make the point difference by dropping the extra stubbers on the Neutron Dunecrawlers and dropping one Raider.

**TheArchmagos**

Thanks for the feedback! That makes a lot of sense, to be honest I had completely overlooked the manipulus and that ability seems incredibly strong on the rangers, I will definitely find the points for that.

And yeah I was worried about the lack of melee too and when I expand to 2k I was thinking about adding priests but for now I can probably clear chaff in combat alright with the raiders' newly improved melee abilities.I think the eversor can fill that role too if I use it as more of a countercharge piece against agrressive lists rather than a distraction. Since he makes 8 attacks on the charge with bonus attacks for every model killed and a fight twice stratagem he can kill hordes quite well and with his power sword he can probably kill some tougher things. In fact he seems pretty good against a skitarii blob actually

**Suzuteo**

Octovol wrote:
it's pretty straight forward after that FAQ, the people questioning it either havent read it or have disregarded it. Apply all modifiers first, then determine abilities. Easy. They're caught up on this 'at allocation' step and seem to refuse to acknowledge any alteration to it.

Yet we're all happy that 'fight last after all eligible units from your army' is functionally equivalent to 'fight last' despite the wording difference.

Agreed. I don't know why they are complicating things. This isn't like MTG where logic is hardwired into the game.

DarkHound wrote:
You should definitely take Firepoint Telemetry Cache and Battle-sphere Uplink on the 20 man squads (doesn't matter which, they can exchange them with the tether). That gives you cover and ignore Heavy and Assault penalties. I'm not so big on giving Skitarii relics, but the Skull of Elder Nikola on the Raiders would be a hilarious spoiler pick when going first against vehicle heavy armies like Drukhari.

Is Battle-sphere Uplink worth it? I suppose it would be if I ran Rangers? Firepoint Telemetry Cache and Multitasking Cortex are my mandatory picks. The former to give Ballistarii cover in the open, and the latter to make Banners viable for a horde.

Temporcopia on an Infiltrator unit is great. Combined with Corpuscarii, you have two big units that can force fight last.

**Ideasweasel**

Looking at all of the options available to us

I really wish 3k was the standard lol

Arrrghh I can’t fit everything in!

**Thairne**

which is a very good sign since it means the internal balance is quite nice

I've run into the same problem.. and after realising ruststalkers can get a 1+ vs ranged before blending gak things didnt get much better...

**Ideasweasel**

Game 1 versus nids

91-25

Man Lucius is strong

Automatically Appended Next Post:
“My list”

For anyone bored

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Adeptus Mechanicus) [98 PL, 1,999pts, 9CP] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)

Detachment Command Cost

Forge World Choice: Forge World: Lucius

+ Stratagems +

Stratagem: Archeotech Specialist [-1CP]: Archeotech Specialist

Stratagem: Artefactorum [-1CP]: Artefactorum

Stratagem: Mechanicus Locum [-1CP]: Mechanicus Locum

+ HQ +

Skitarii Marshal [3 PL, 45pts]: Relic: Exemplar's Eternity, Warlord, Warlord Trait (Codex 5): Firepoint Telemetry Cache

Tech-Priest Dominus [6 PL, 110pts]: Logi, Macrostubber, Mechanicus Locum, Relic (Lucius): The Solar Flare, Volkite Blaster, Warlord Trait (Lucius): Luminescent Blessings

Tech-Priest Manipulus [5 PL, 95pts]: Artisans, Magnarail lance

+ Troops +

Skitarii Rangers [8 PL, 170pts]: Enhanced Data-Tether, Omnispex
. Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle
. 19x Skitarii Ranger: 19x Galvanic Rifle

Skitarii Rangers [4 PL, 80pts]
. Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle
. 9x Skitarii Ranger: 9x Galvanic Rifle

Skitarii Rangers [2 PL, 40pts]
. Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle
. 4x Skitarii Ranger: 4x Galvanic Rifle

Skitarii Vanguards [8 PL, 170pts]: Enhanced Data-Tether, Omnispex
. 19x Skitarii Vanguard: 19x Radium Carbine
. Vanguard Alpha: Radium Carbine

+ Elites +

Corpuscarii Electro-Priests [12 PL, 300pts]
. 20x Corpuscarii Electro-Priest: 20x Electrostatic Gauntlets

Sicarian Infiltrators [8 PL, 170pts]
. Infiltrator Princeps (Flechette/Taser): Artefactorum, Relic: Temporcopia
. 9x Sicarian Infiltrator (Flechette/Taser): 9x Flechette Blaster, 9x Taser Goad

+ Fast Attack +

Ironstrider Ballistarii [20 PL, 375pts]
. Ironstrider Ballistarius: Twin Cognis Lascannon
. Ironstrider Ballistarius: Twin Cognis Lascannon
. Ironstrider Ballistarius: Twin Cognis Lascannon
. Ironstrider Ballistarius: Twin Cognis Lascannon
. Ironstrider Ballistarius: Twin Cognis Lascannon

Serberys Raiders [4 PL, 80pts]: Serberys Raider Alpha
. 4x Serberys Raider: 4x Cavalry Sabre, 4x Clawed Limbs, 4x Galvanic Carbine

Serberys Raiders [4 PL, 64pts]: Serberys Raider Alpha
. 3x Serberys Raider: 3x Cavalry Sabre, 3x Clawed Limbs, 3x Galvanic Carbine

+ Flyer +

Archaeopter Fusilave [7 PL, 150pts]: Chaff Launcher

Archaeopter Fusilave [7 PL, 150pts]: Chaff Launcher

++ Total: [98 PL, 9CP, 1,999pts]

I say my list lol but it’s heavily inspired from our in house list wizard Suzuteo

**Thairne**

Well...
Taking that list against tyranids is... not fun for your avg nids enjoyer to say the list. Not surprised by the result.

**ryzouken**

This seems like a good opportunity to ask:
The big five brick of ironstriders. Did you encounter issues getting LOS/maneuvering through terrain and the like? Did you just string them across the back of the field? How effective were they and would autocannons instead have been more effective in this match?

I'm trying to figure out how I want to set up my units and whether I want 2x3 lascannon with 1x4 autocannon, or just go nuts with 3x5 lascannons. I'm just a bit concerned about the logistics of pushing those units of huge bases around.

**Ideasweasel**

@thairne

Oh I didn’t list tailor if that’s what you think. This is my list going forward I didn’t know I’d be playing this friend today.

He is also 6/6 wins against me recently so don’t feel too bad for him haha

@ryzouken

Yes. I effectively buggered myself in deployment and the las chickens spent a couple of turns just trying to get into position

I won the game with rangers not even needing to fire a shot

We are very good at clearing out chaff.

Vanguard 1 shotted a dima it was a brutal first turn

I quite like the idea of outriders 2, 2 ,2 las chickens maybe as a Mars detachment for the rerolls

Much easier to sneak round corners - more testing required though

Custodies and marines next