Skitarii and Mechanicum HARD DATA review

[MajorNese]

I do not know what the prefered enemy helps them. Hitting is not the problem with BS 4 and the Doctrina, but you wound only on a 4+ .

At least you can reroll 1s to wound. So, 1 rerolls, 2&3 failed, 4+ wound. If you want to keep your warlord alive by placing him in a backfield squad, that little bonus would be included.

[DeStinyFiSh]

Lol, I have never read the reroll wounds, I only rerolled to hit all the time

Than it makes sence !

[Terminus]

My experience with Vanguard, Rangers and their loadout:

 

10 Vanguard with 3 Plasma and the Warlord in cover is one of the best units on the table. My opponents agree. I also like to attache the Tech Priest to tank some wounds.

 

I also run a 5 man squad with 2 Arc Rifles and an Arc Pistol. If you start the game you can deploy them on the very front, scout 6 inch and then move 6 inch. With the help of some cover you should be able to shoot the vehicle you want latest turn 2. With an Omnispex they always got their 115 points back.

 

Rangers with Arquebus: I just have 5 man with 2 Arquebus. They did nothing against infantry, but with the reroll AP relic of the Tech Priest they have been very good at stripping down hull points and finish of a predator for example.

I do not know what the prefered enemy helps them. Hitting is not the problem with BS 4 and the Doctrina, but you wound only on a 4+ .

 

The small squad with pistol and two rifles does seem like a good option if you don't want to waste rad carbine fire shooting at vehicles. I wonder about their survivability though, given their high threat against targets of choice and not much else, and relative fragility. Seems like if they would be a problem for your enemy, he would take the time to wipe out 5 T3 Sv4+ dudes. I would be tempted to make this unit into Rangers for Move Through Cover. 

 

Regarding preferred enemy, as stated, it lets you re-roll hits and wounds. Even with doctrinas, I like knowing that pretty much every single sniper shot will at least hit the target. Also, getting to re-roll the 1 gives you an extra chance to roll a 6. Same thing with wounding, getting to at least re-roll the 1s and having another chance to roll a 6 is pretty good. Of course, straight re-rolls would be better, so you could always bring a divination psyker along, and leave the Preferred Enemy stuff to Plasma Caliver Vanguard.

[MajorNese]

Okay, more hard data...1750p against the terminator ultra strikeforce formation. Some cheap allied IG for bodies, and to fill the points. Maelstrom (hold objectives to get maelstrom cards) and Ultra null deployment, combined with lots of bodies on my side, gave me a huge advantage of victory points until turn 2, so we turned to just smash stuff.

 

And yes, IG was worth all points invested. The 50 recruits blunted the first deep strike wave, and provided cover saves for all units across 3x24". The infantry squads didn't do much but kill the one or other terminator, but effectively blocked them from the more valuable units.

 

Vanguard, this time with 3x arc and omnispex, and one bare squad. Bare squad shot several termies and only lost a few models to leftover stormbolters, as well as provide rad saturation for the infiltrators. Arc squad had rather bad targets, the opponent kept his LandRaider out of range due to counter deploy, so they mostly ran or shot at termies.

 

Arc breachers (1x3) were more interesting in that regard, with their range and a good firing position, they shot down the LandRaider to 1 hull point. In the remaining rounds, the LR just hid behind buildings to not get shot, so that worked out well. Arc instead went on and snap shot at the stormraven, it lost 2 hull points and kept jinking for the rest of the game. All in all, a second squad would be probably worth its points, to finish off vehicles, as well as to maximize area coverage. 36" arc is incredible, there has only been one round (out of 6) they couldn't fire, and that was due to not getting out of their cover.

 

Grav kataphron (1x4) didn't do anything. Stood in cover with the techpriest, failed to grav the LandRaider (just 2 had LoS, counter-deploy) and the entire unit was shot to pieces. Next time, I'll probably try 2x3 gravs to spread them more.

 

Plasma kataphron (1x3) were great. Wiped out most of a deep striking terminator squad, and some spare terminators later on. The remaining terminators always pre-measured so they couldn't be shot by them (only out in the open and in range when failing charges), so that kept some off from closing in. 24" is a bit suboptimal, but at least they just lost one wound to overheating, and consistently killed stuff.

 

Infiltrators (1x5) were good. Took cover on a center building and waited to counter-charge. After the enemy captain's squad finally exited the LR, and the combined charge of 3 termi units wiped the recruits, the infiltrators and vanguard charged the squad. With T3 (rad saturation) and S6, they instagibbed the remaining 2 terminators + captain. They lost 2 models to ranged fire (even with vanguard providing cover), and charged the next termi squad. Bad rolling only killed 1 termi, and the hammernators killed the remaining 3 infiltrators in return. All in all a solid unit, have to try it out more.

 

All in all, the cheap IG bodies proved their worth a lot. Recruits blunted the main assault and left the attackers out in the open. Autocannon HWS did kill a VenDread, except for that they just killed one or 2 models each, and blocked them from more valuable units. Which is okay, as they are bog cheap. And holding 4 objectives total, they freed the AdMech units to engage whatever target. That in turn worked well to kill all but one termi squad (deep strike mishap, landed in the middle of nowhere, just shot stuff) and almost kill (and drive off) both transports. Next time, more long-range arc with breachers, and free up the vanguard to just shoot infantry. And consider modelling appropriate IG allies when the current stuff is done...

[Tiger9gamer]

Hope I'm not to late to provide some HARD DATA for my brothers, but here is the report of my first true game of 1,000pts 40k against grey knights.

 

Arc Vanguard Squad (squad of 10 with omni-spex) So this squad wasn't really bothered throughout the game, and didnt do much damage because I have abysmal rolling when rolling for wounds this game. They did however kill a Rhino one turn getting me a point, and they did finish off 2  purifiers while only losing 1 vanguard. And I have to say 18" is a surprisingly good range for them, as only a few times they lacked range.

 

Warlord Arc Vanguard ( squads of 10 with omni-spexs)  So this squad I took as a warlord because I do not have a good inquisitor model yet to have a min-warlord, so I used a prime as one arming him with a power sword and Refractor field. It was a bad mistake as Turn 1 a terminator squad came down and absolutely wrecked them, killing the warlord and finishing them down to 4 models. They ran away for two turns so didn't do much the rest of the game aside from kill a purifier.

 

Plasma Vanguard Squad (5 man with omni-spex) They managed to kill a paladin, and honestly I brought them because I needed points. again my wound rolling was bad this game but I can see how good this plasma gun would be even if It's just 1 or 2 in a squad.

 

Arquebus Ranger Squad (5 man with omnispex) I will just say it. the Arqubus is wasted points in my oppinion. every time they needed to wound it either failed or was saved easily. Maybe it was bad luck but man... Honestly the regular guns did way more damage conistantly, managing to wound a vindicare assassin twice by themselves.

 

Neutron laser Onager  So the laser was knocked out turn 1 from a stunned result but the next few turns it managed to constantly wound and even wiped out half a squad by itself. I like this thing a lot so far, and Plan on picking up at least 1 more in the future.

 

Knight Errant: you know what they do, but for this game It absorbed so much attention that would have killed and wiped out my army, so I like it as a brick. It managed to kill the warlord and his final terminator scoring me two points, and survived with 1 hull point left. I liked it as a means to draw fire.

[cleverghost]

Great Post.

 

I ran the Cohort at the Little Rock Comic Expo and took down a Stormwolf with the Refractor. The Judge said it was the "Kill of the Night". He was running an Imperial flier army, and I ended up losing by 1 pt. I had a Knight with Twin-Icarus, but didn't take the Array with my Dunecrawlers (I wish I would have).

 

I am really enjoying AdMech. I will say that the Vanguard is amazingly hard-hitting. My vanguard with 1 Arc and 2 Cavs took down a Demon Prince my 3rd game :). 

[minigun762]

This is a great resource, so thanks for compiling it!

I didn't see much discussion regarding the melee upgrades for Vanguard or Ranger squads. Is there any utility to them?

[DeStinyFiSh]

I always use the taser but I can not remember any CC with it.

 

And still, I hope somebody can tell something about the Electro Priests soon ;)

[Emperor's Furor]

I don't get why people are firing Transuranic arequbus at infantry, they are anti tank weapons, they can penetrate up to AV 16...

[BassWave]

I don't get why people are firing Transuranic arequbus at infantry, they are anti tank weapons, they can penetrate up to AV 16...

The TA is in an awkward spot of being mediocre against infantry and vehicles. The fact that the plasma caliver and the arc rifle each do the TA's job much better only highlights how crappy TAs are.

 

On the topic of electro priests, I love my corpuscarii! I've been bringing Iron Hand allies in order to use a landraider crusader for their ride. It really helps being able to transport all 10 of them safely as their biggest weakness is that they're T3. They're probably one of the best anti infantry unit that Admech has access to. I've killed entire hormagaunt squads, 5 man thundernator squads, and everything in between. The fact that their fluff and models are so cool makes them almost perfect :D

 

My favorite litany to pop off in an important charge is the litany of the electromancer. 20-30 automatic s4 hits plus however many priests get their HoW, all at I10 is serious business. This really helps against units that strike before their I3 normal attacks. Combined with the E-priests feel no pain and invulnerable saves, they should survive relatively unscathed when they retaliate with their regular attacks.

 

The only thing that hate is how expensive these guys are, especially with how fragile they are. The lack of tranport in the codex only highlights these problems. I feel allying some sort of assault transport is mandatory for these guys.

 

As for Fulgurites, I have no idea how you can make them work. They don't have low ap weapons to make them dangerous enough against elite units and they dont have enough attacks to kill anything else. On top of this, they are just as expensive as Corpuscarii while being nowhere near as useful :(

[Emperor's Furor]

 

I don't get why people are firing Transuranic arequbus at infantry, they are anti tank weapons, they can penetrate up to AV 16...

The TA is in an awkward spot of being mediocre against infantry and vehicles. The fact that the plasma caliver and the arc rifle each do the TA's job much better only highlights how crappy TAs are.

I don't get why you think TA is worse than the others if anything it's just as good, it has a massive range and does 2d6 pen with a strength of four.  Yeah you may have to roll high to get the tougher vehicles but you do it from the safety of cover way in the back field perhaps sitting on an objective.

[DeStinyFiSh]

TAs work very well with the AV scanning Relic of the tech priest dominus

Just yesterday they disappointed again. 1500 points against a sort of flying circus. 5 Rangers with 2 TA managed to kill...... drum roll...... 1 Pink Horror after 7 turns of playing

[Charlo]

On the topic of electro priests, I love my corpuscarii! I've been bringing Iron Hand allies in order to use a landraider crusader for their ride. It really helps being able to transport all 10 of them safely as their biggest weakness is that they're T3. They're probably one of the best anti infantry unit that Admech has access to. I've killed entire hormagaunt squads, 5 man thundernator squads, and everything in between. The fact that their fluff and models are so cool makes them almost perfect

Super glad to hear this! They've always jumped out at me as sort of Imperial Orks, drowning the opponents in dice while taking a bit of punishment back but not lots. Obviously the numbers aren't the same but:

1d4chan:

Keep in mind that, in theory a single Corpuscarii in a Numinous Conclave with Canticle of the Electromancer who shoots and then charges can cause a potential twenty-two S4 hits (9 from shooting, 9 from attacking, 1 from Hammer of Wrath, 3 from the Canticle). On average, it's still 11.75 hits.

You can get your opponent in a really dicey situation

Plus they are pretty rad models. While my current project shelf is full of Blood Angels, Ad Mech are slowly creeping into my view (I mean, I bought a box of Skitarii) and these guys are on the radar as awesomesauce.

[BassWave]

 

 

 

I don't get why people are firing Transuranic arequbus at infantry, they are anti tank weapons, they can penetrate up to AV 16...

The TA is in an awkward spot of being mediocre against infantry and vehicles. The fact that the plasma caliver and the arc rifle each do the TA's job much better only highlights how crappy TAs are.

I don't get why you think TA is worse than the others if anything it's just as good, it has a massive range and does 2d6 pen with a strength of four. Yeah you may have to roll high to get the tougher vehicles but you do it from the safety of cover way in the back field perhaps sitting on an objective.

Against vehicles, I need a 2+ to cause a hull point with an arc rifle, regardless of armor. With a TA i need at least a 7 to even glance a rhino. Anything tougher than that requires intense prayer to the omnissiah. Against infantry, its pretty much the same situation when comparing TAs to plasma. Sure the TAs have a longer range, but thats about it.

[Terminus]

 

 

I don't get why people are firing Transuranic arequbus at infantry, they are anti tank weapons, they can penetrate up to AV 16...

The TA is in an awkward spot of being mediocre against infantry and vehicles. The fact that the plasma caliver and the arc rifle each do the TA's job much better only highlights how crappy TAs are.

I don't get why you think TA is worse than the others if anything it's just as good, it has a massive range and does 2d6 pen with a strength of four.  Yeah you may have to roll high to get the tougher vehicles but you do it from the safety of cover way in the back field perhaps sitting on an objective.

 

Vs. vehicles, the arc rifle is the undisputed king, because it ignores armor value. As for the Caliver, S7+D6 vs S4+2D6 averages out to be roughly the same, although the Arquebus can spike higher. On the other hand, the Caliver has 3 shots.

 

Vs. infantry, the caliver is the undisputed king, and against anything in less than power armor, the arc rifle isn't far behind. The Arquebus has a serious problem wounding since it's always on a 4+, and again only has one shot. You occasionally get to live the dream with a precise rending shot, but then it just gets Look Out Sir!'d. You could always nominate your Arquebus unit to have your warlord for preferred enemy, so you can count on pretty much always hitting, and get a slightly better chance at doing damage since you can at least re-roll the ones.

 

At the end of the day, the Arquebus is an expensive weapon that doesn't really have a specialty like the other, erm, special weapons (no pun intended). Caliver wrecks infantry and can be serviceable against lighter vehicles, Arc Rifle wrecks vehicles and can be serviceable against lighter infantry, Arquebus is meh to okay against both.  The main advantage of the gun is the range, which may be all the more reason to make that unit hold your Warlord.

[Emperor's Furor]

I guess it's probably down to me facing eldar so much that possibly alters my opinion on them. I'd love to get my range 24 arc rifles into range of the eldar vehicles but that's not going to happen, where as I only need a combined roll of a 6 on 2D6 to cause a hull point and I can reach them over the entire board if I can see them I can shoot them.

[Terminus]

So.... vipers are giving you fits? Just take Balistarii with autocannons then. :P

[Emperor's Furor]

He has three Venoms, and two Raiders and they basically dance at the back of the field throwing countless poisoned shots at me, he also has two D-Cannons which basically rip anything to shreds. Admittedly last game it was my space marine allies with a lascannon that took out the two raiders and 3/4s of the shots from my TA's despite hitting nearly all the time I rolled less than 6 >.< I still think they are decent though.

[sizzlebutt666]

I'm about to start down the path of the Omnissiah. TBH, before I did forum research I was already sold on the Vanguard since using radiation as a weapon is pretty grimdark and very fluffy, IMO much cooler than bolts and lasers. I'm really hesitant on how to model my Vanguard with weapons though, seeing as its a very once and done thing. The plan now is to get three boxes of the fellas so I have plenty of special weapons and the option to use the Ranger bits for other things (like that War Convocation). 

 

 

Anyways how effective would this Troops unit be:

Skitarii Vanguard x10 - Troops

Arc Rifle x1 Arc Pistol x1 Phosphor Blast Pistol x1 

Refractor Field

-- 140pts

 

The plan, I guess is to make at least ONE model out of the 10 into a gunslinger. The dudes are getting charged, charging, up close in cover, or dead in every scenario so I don't mind the short range. Two Arc weapons, while one is middling, is still two Arc weapons and IMO has a decent chance of causing another glance to a vehicle. I've never liked nor trusted Plasma tech in 40k so I'd honestly just keep, trade, or sell off my Calivers, it's a personal preference. Definitely considering having another potential squad with 3 Arc Rifles, since that's pretty damn deadly. 

 

 

One more question: Has anybody tried the Phase Taser upgrade? At 15pts its pretty decent for having the potential to 1-hit a Daemon Prince or Chapter Master. 

[mmimzie]

I'm about to start down the path of the Omnissiah. TBH, before I did forum research I was already sold on the Vanguard since using radiation as a weapon is pretty grimdark and very fluffy, IMO much cooler than bolts and lasers. I'm really hesitant on how to model my Vanguard with weapons though, seeing as its a very once and done thing. The plan now is to get three boxes of the fellas so I have plenty of special weapons and the option to use the Ranger bits for other things (like that War Convocation). 

 

 

Anyways how effective would this Troops unit be:

Skitarii Vanguard x10 - Troops

Arc Rifle x1 Arc Pistol x1 Phosphor Blast Pistol x1 

Refractor Field

-- 140pts

 

The plan, I guess is to make at least ONE model out of the 10 into a gunslinger. The dudes are getting charged, charging, up close in cover, or dead in every scenario so I don't mind the short range. Two Arc weapons, while one is middling, is still two Arc weapons and IMO has a decent chance of causing another glance to a vehicle. I've never liked nor trusted Plasma tech in 40k so I'd honestly just keep, trade, or sell off my Calivers, it's a personal preference. Definitely considering having another potential squad with 3 Arc Rifles, since that's pretty damn deadly. 

 

 

One more question: Has anybody tried the Phase Taser upgrade? At 15pts its pretty decent for having the potential to 1-hit a Daemon Prince or Chapter Master. 

Only 1 pistol per unit of troops.

 

If your not in warconvation i'd recommend reducing upgrade cost as general upgrades aren't worth it. That said the arc rifle and plasma caliver are very good.

 

Calivers work on skits because for the first two turns with docs you can reroll 1s.  Not to mention Vanguards live and die by their first round of shooting so if you need 2AP give it to them. I think it's the best source of AP the skits have after using it these paste few weeks.

[Tiger9gamer]

So played another 1,000 point game today against chaos space marines, and I have a new batch of data to tell! This time I used space marine allies of a lvl2 librarian, a scout squad and a tactical squad along with a fast attack drop pod. the skitarii were the real stars though. The enemy consisted of a squad of beserkers and Khârn, a land raider, and a squad of chaos space marines.

 

 

10 man Vanguard Squad with three arc rifles and omnispex: I brought two to this game, the first one had my librarian in it, but they scouted up out of deployment and my opponent stole initiative. They were, needless to say, killed to a man once caught in combat. my second squad though, took a drop pod and landed behind a land raider, and destroyed it with all the haywire they had. Then they took out four or five marines from the chaos marine squad in short order, helping a tactical squad finish them off.

 

5 man Plasma Caviler squad: They were surprisingly the ones who helped win the game. The plasma didn't miss once and it helped cut down the beserker squad turn 1,  and then next turn ended up killing the bastard Khârn once and for all. Survived the game too!

 

5 man Ranger squad with arquebus: Arquebus did nothing. Just tossing that out now, and didn't do much besides kill one beserker.

 

Neutron Laser Onager: Also one of the stars of this game. Killed the beserkers until only Khârn and one beserker left, and also helped cut down the chaos marine squad. 

 

 

All in all a nice table victory for me! next time I may have more info on the dragoon squad but for now, it's going fairly well. I have to say skitarii are squishy though.

[BassWave]

Interesting that rangers with TAs have been consistently sad in everyone's game. There's gotta be a better way to make them work aside from making them the warlord unit.

[clanfield]

i would argue that the ta is for more the likes of nids /elder opponents. latterly sniper teams with neutron laser and arc winning hands down vs armour,balistarii vs transports

 

just a few observations of my own chaos/meq is always going to be a tough grind for skitarii even with allies

[DeStinyFiSh]

TA together with the Scryerskull Perspicatus works pretty good against AVs.

But I agree, no good against infantry... sadly

[mmimzie]

yeah but if your gonna  spend all those points to deal with av you may as well bring a handful of arc rifles for the same price with better effect.