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How do!

So I’m going down this road regardless, but as a pair of Consuls of suddenly greater affordability and appeal, I felt they needed a highlight reel type thread.

As individual fighters, they’re of course pretty average. So we’re not thinking of them when we might want a murder machine. But, they do allow us to include some Mechanicum toys without resorting to allies.

The Praevian allows Castellax or Vorax. The Forgeworld allows up to three units of Thallaxi.

What are your reckons on these lads? A fun bit of variety, bedrock of a very cunning plan, or something strictly for laffs?

No idea if they are any good on the table, but seemed like a great excuse to buy and paint some of the new plastic ad mech stuff without starting a new army. Currently converting up a Praevian out of an iron hands deathwatch guy, spare bionic hand from a devastor box and comm padd looking thing from the MKiv box.

In the context of running the Mechanicum units, you could definitely have some fun with the Forgelord/Thallax as a tank hunting unit.

Forgelord w/Jump Pack and Powerfist or Thunderhammer (dealers choice) come out at 145/150pts. Combine that with the Machinator array which provides both a flamer and a meltagun, plus two additional melee attacks which have shred and armourbane and the forgelord himself is a bit of a menace to tanks.
Add in the unit of thallax which can take 1 multi-melta per 3 and you've got a pretty effective tank hunting unit. Of course a unit of 9 kitted-out Thallax is upwards of 400pts, so not cheap.

Unfortunately the Thallax Incunabulan jetpacks are sort of neutered here by the fact that the Forgelord can't take one, so they lose a lot of their usefulness. However they do still provide deepstrike, which the Warhawk jetpack also has. So you can still deepstrike the unit up the back near that pesky scorpius or sicaran parking lot. You might have to run the Interceptor gauntlet, but both Forgelord and Thallax are fairly tough so I think the chances of them coming through are reasonable.
Add on to that that the Thallax benefit from the Legion Astartes rule of the attached Forgelord, which in the case of the Dark Angels is the Hexagrammaton. Which means you can also give the Forgelord (and thereby the Thallax) the Ironwing rule, which allows them to re-roll failed to hit rolls of 1 against vehicles. Not so useful for the Multi-meltas which are twin-linked, but the Forgelord would benefit greatly as would those lightning guns firing (Strike) shots.

Pretty spicy when all said and done.

I’m tempted to at least try a force including both. Whilst Castellax seem fairly average, Thallaxi seem pretty handy when used with a bit of cunnin’.

Thalax above the rest. Unless you feel the need to go for a daemonengine, then you require the other one, whch, why would you?

Because Castellax look really, really cool!

I am gonna nip down Chaos Cards though, grab a box of Thallaxi.

I've been running Darkfire Castellax with my Iron Hands Praevian as a 'fluffy' alternative to a Lascannon squad. Bit of a points sink but it's fun.

Yeah I've been considering the Castellax, but not quite sure what to make of them. Now I approach this as someone who is not a Mechanicum player and has little Mechanicum experience, so maybe I've missed the mark on them.

At the casual glance they seem kinda not great at anything in particular. But looking at the profile I think you could make a decent tarpit unit out of them. At T6 and W4 a piece is pretty chunky, and for 85pts a pop, rather cheap. I'd be taking them in a squad of 5 and sans-upgrades and then throwing them at whatever enemy unit you need to stymie for a couple of turns. Or use them to choke bottlenecks or deny objectives, etc.
I'd give the Praevian a cyber-familiar and a Terranic Greatsword or Paragon Blade/Thunderhammer and use him to challenge anyone who might pose a proper threat to his robot mates.
Again a big unit of Castellax with no upgrades still going to cost 400+ points, but 2 kitted out contemptors costs the same, so take that as you will.


Vorax on the other hand I have been on the receiving end of a couple of times. One of the local lads runs them with his World Eaters. He runs a squad of 4 and uses them to guard his flanks and they're quite effective. Deceptively so sometimes.
At 65pts a pop they're cheap enough that it's worth seeing if you can slip a few into a list here and there.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because Castellax look really, really cool!

I am gonna nip down Chaos Cards though, grab a box of Thallaxi.

You realise that you can just ally in a mechanicum detachment with a dominus, which is specialised to babysit castellax AND get more toys ontop of it whilest only needing a singular techpriest and a bunch of the bots?

Allies might come later.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Allies might come later.

If you want castellax anyways the only thing you need is a priest That is hardly allies

And with your current speed that would be easily doable.

Still gonna stick with the Consuls for now. Keep it “pure”.

However, currently considering the paint job I want to do. I could do Legion colours of course. But if I do a variant, I leave options open to slowly expand Legion Assets into a more formal set of allies, and from there a second army.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Still gonna stick with the Consuls for now. Keep it “pure”.

However, currently considering the paint job I want to do. I could do Legion colours of course. But if I do a variant, I leave options open to slowly expand Legion Assets into a more formal set of allies, and from there a second army.

Standard colour deviation for close allies was common for mechanicus and legions / Titans. Shouldn't be too dificult, also DA share red and black with mechanicus.

I’m thinking more a Forest Green, with brass metallics.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m thinking more a Forest Green, with brass metallics.

Something like that with brass instead?
Could work.

Possibly


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Might grab a random model and test out a Contrast Type Green over Brass/Copper, see how I like it.

Thallax are GREAT but have two particular vulnerabilities. First is that they have LD7. This means they are prone to getting pinned. They are also hard to kill, but crap in combat, so they can get locked in drawn out combats.

The solution to both of these is a Delegatus with Command Squad with Warhawk jump packs nearby. They can lend the squad LD10 from the Legion Banner, Rally the Thallax using the Delegatus ability if they flee, and rescue the Thallax if they get stuck in combat.

Also they really don’t like Heavy Bolters, Autocannon or S10 Pie Plates. Like the Typhon kicks out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also they really don’t like Heavy Bolters, Autocannon or S10 Pie Plates. Like the Typhon kicks out.

To be fair nothing likes that.

Tanks tend to titter in its direction with its “puny” AP3! It’ll leave a dent, sure. But nothing a Techmarine can’t buff out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also they really don’t like Heavy Bolters, Autocannon or S10 Pie Plates. Like the Typhon kicks out.

It takes just over 7 Heavy Bolter hits to kill a Thallax without cover.
It takes 4.5 Heavy Bolter hits to kill a Marine, regardless of cover.

It takes 4.32 Autocannon hits (at S7 AP4 Rending [6+]) to kill a Thallax without cover.
It takes 2.57 Autocannon hits to kill a Marine without cover.

Admittedly, a Thallax is more expensive than a basic Marine. But even against AP4, they're durable until they hit S10 or Instant Death.

But when I can easily field a 10 strong squad of Heavy Bolters? Those odds aren’t that high, especially if the Thallaxi aren’t deep striking in, where I can make them feel every inch of my range (oooer!)

Certainly I’d expect them to perform well enough to start eroding a unit, or finish it off.

But of course, hypotheticals are hypotheticals. Autocannon would certainly wound more reliably, but Heavy Bolters remain cheaperer.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But when I can easily field a 10 strong squad of Heavy Bolters? Those odds aren’t that high, especially if the Thallaxi aren’t deep striking in, where I can make them feel every inch of my range (oooer!)

Certainly I’d expect them to perform well enough to start eroding a unit, or finish it off.

But of course, hypotheticals are hypotheticals. Autocannon would certainly wound more reliably, but Heavy Bolters remain cheaperer.

40 shots
80/3 hits
40/3 wounds
200/18 or 100/9 failed FNPs

A 10-strong squad of Heavy Bolters would kill around 3 Thallax and wound a fourth, on average. Assuming you can't get them cover.
Even a 5+ cover save cuts that to losing only two.

For a T5, W3 unit? That’s still considerable losses, with not inconsequential chances of much worse carnage occurring.

The Heavy Bolters can also knock significant holes in Skitarii and Tech Thralls.