Mechanicum as allies

[AekoldHelbrass]

I need some advices on allied Mechanicum detachment. My main army is Orbital Assault, so I obviously lack some firepower.

 

I really like Castellax, I have 5 of them with maulers/darkfires (magnetized) and 1 with multi-melta and power blades (will be Pragon and fire magnet). Now I have a choice:

1. run Legio Cybernetica, but Magos does not have Independent Character and may be killed sooner than I'd like.

2. run Thagmata, but drop that lonely Castellax and take either Thallax or Adsecularis because Castellax cannot be taken as mandatory troops.

Not having Independent Character is really bad, but I'm not sure how bad is it...

 

Another question is heavy support. I'm deciding between Thantar and Myrmidon Destructors. Thantar is super-cool and will look great with Castellax, but Myrmidons look more effective on paper. Would be glad to see any experience actually running them against other Legions and Pride of the Legion. I like Krios more than those 2, but that will force me to take Thagmata, I'd prefer to have a choice between Cybernetica and Thagmata.

[Chronozoah]

I would use Taghmata and take a MSU Thallax Cohort with either a Multi-melta or a Photon Thruster, depending on your preference. A combination of the Darkfire Cannons on your Castellax maniples and the Photon Thruster in the hands of the Thallax Cohort would provide you with some long-range, blinding firepower. In addition, the combination of a kitted-out Magos, a Thallax Cohort and Castellax Battle-automatas will provide you with a very durable core allied force with plenty of firepower.

 

The Thanatar Siege-automata is incredibly difficult to break being a multi-wound MC with T8 and a 2+ save and it's Hellex Plasma Cannon is deadly. A S8 AP2 pie-plate will hurt almost anything you throw it at. 

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Agreed with Chrono. Also, put Paragon of Metal on your Thanatar. Its brutal as hell, especially if you kit your Magos out to repair it (cortex controller+machinator array). 

[heron]

I agree that the Taghmata list is better to base an allied contingent. I think that a small unit of thallax set up for vehicle hunting (I use 4 thallax with a multi-meltas and 3x heavy chainblades) combined with some Darkfire Castellax is great. One thing I would suggest is to squeeze a little more firepower into the list by taking a Triaros transport with the thallax. They don't have to embark in it and it adds another marine killing gun to your list.

[GrandMasterAralia]

I know this idea doesn't include your castellax, but it could be pretty brutal anyway:

 

Magos prime makrotek (tech priests as troops), more or less vanilla, maybe gear him for repairs. Min unit engineer tech priest with servo armed servitors as troops. And a thanatar!

 

That's basically 500'ish points for a small back field artillery thanatar and a troop for OS camping. With the possibility of repping the thanatar if it gets shot up.

 

Don't know if its viable compared to rest of your army... But the thanatar IS brutal no matter how you look at it ;)