Looking to play ad mech. need advise.

[Vanerk]

Greetings brothers and sisters. I am looking start an ad mech army of sorts. Nothing has been purchased atm. I was thinking maybe of doing the war convocation. Basically I looking for input as to what upgrades to take as well what sort of knight to use and anything else you can think of. Also my group plays apocalypse from time to time. So it would also be allied with my BA. So any help at all would be great.

[Jarl of Wulfen]

I'd say start with the tech priest and 2 boxes of cataphractii. That will cover the cult mechanicus part of the convocation. I'd run one squad with grav and one with plasma (but that's just me). If I remember, the skitarii part is one of every unit. As for the Knight, I like the double gun (crusader I think).

[Vel'Cona]

We have a great tactica thread regarding the Imperial Knights and configuration (posted by Immersturm, credit where it's due).  As for the Cult Mechanicus side, I agree with getting the minimum requirement first (Dominus and two Kataphron boxes).

 

Finally, the Skitarii Maniple Formation will require the following minimum investment:

2 Skitarii boxes (Vanguard and Rangers)

2 Sicarian boxes (Ruststalkers and Infiltrators)

1 Ironstrider box (Ironstrider Ballistarii OR Sydonian Dragoons)

1 Onager Dunecrawler box

 

So you should plan accordingly.  That said, while the War Convocation is a pretty cool formation, with lots of free upgrades and several significant benefits (Canticles of the Omnissiah for all units, no Gets Hot! from Plasma, re-roll your Warlord's traits, etc.), it's also very limited in terms of redundancy since you're using so many points to fill formation requirements.  It also necessitates taking some sub-optimal units, too.

[Cactus]

You can do it with just one ranger/vanguard box if you take 5 man squads. Not sure why you would, but it's the bare minimum.

[Vel'Cona]

Good point.  It would be a nice way to save an extra hundred points or so for an Allied Detachment or additional Formation.

[Lichschool]

You'd need two ironstrider boxes,as the battle maniple requires 1 dragoon and 1 ballistarius. I'd recommend you field more of each though, as otherwise they tend to just get smoked.

[mmimzie]

You'd need two ironstrider boxes,as the battle maniple requires 1 dragoon and 1 ballistarius. I'd recommend you field more of each though, as otherwise they tend to just get smoked.

It's one dragoon or ballistari.

[Frater Cornelius]

War Convocation with Fleshtearers got second place in BAO 2015, right after Daemons (typical). It is definitely solid. Not sure how effective it is without the Pods though.

[mmimzie]

Pod make the list so freaking good its stupid. Destroyers and vanguard more or less get equaly eradicated by any weapons fire. (If you do the math most enemt infantry units can reduce a kataphrons or vanguard unit's to 30% effectiveness).

 

With the pods this isn't a problem, and the rest of your army hides in terrain very well. Being so mobile or close to the enemy its easy to be completely out of line of sight with dragoons/ballistari, rustalkers, infiltrators, the knight, and even to a less extent the crawler. On top of this steaoh+shrouded is so strong on the first turn (reroll is kind of redundant because your skits will already be hitting everything and it's only help your handful of kataphrons)