combo army concept - viable?

[MajorNese]

Greetings, fellow followers of the omnissiah.

 

As I am currently starting a 40k mechanicus army with both skitarii and cult mechanicus, and most tactics articles seperate them, I could use a second opinion.

 

My army is currently planned around skitarii squad and kataphron kits, as they are exactly how I imagine a mechanicus army. The breachers are great, the destroyers look a bit un-armoured and thin, so I'll represent them with skitarii heavy weapon squads. Detachment-wise, I'd use a skitarii detachment (2+ vanguard squads, no problems there) and a regular cult detachment (dominus, 2+ kataphron = 1 HQ, 2 troops). Formations in general are hated around here, with all the buy-one-of-every-box nonsense to get insane rules, so I won't plan on any of them.

 

Tactics wise, I'm thinking of barebone skitarii vanguard squads for simple weight of fire and bodies. 30 shots hitting on 2+ and wounding anything is greater than on paper, and Scout gets them where they are needed. Classic skitarii tactics would give them arc rifles, or maybe some plasma calivers, but the squads are so flimsy, I personally see it as a waste of points in most cases, as skitarii are just carapace armoured IG vets in profile, and will die to any decent support weapon.

 

Which brings me to the necessary anti-tank and anti-2+. Anti-tank should be quite easy with arc rifle breachers, as a 42" threat range is awesome, and haywire doesn't care about high AV. A bare squad of 3 breachers equals 3 haywire hits per round, while staying at far greater range than skitarii squads, and being considerably more resilient. Not splitting fire also means all arc rifles can focus on vehicles, while all radium carbines can target infantry. Fun part, breachers are designed for rather close combat, but it would be unnecessary with that kind of range.

 

Anti-2+ should be quite easy with the destroyers, as 6 shot/3 hit grav per model should do the job, and the phosphor blasters could add Luminagen with a bit of luck. Plasma culverin seems a bit more useful against non-2+, hordes and light vehicles, but I'll have to test them. Anti-3+ could be done easily with shooty castellans, with the added benefit of a Luminagen gun that actually gets through most infantry armour (unlike the skitarii ones).

 

Next point would be hordes. Only large blast template would be the dunecrawler's eradication beam on longer range, which has the necessary strength to wound mass armies easily. Combining 2 dunewalkers would give both a 5+, while placing both blast templates simultaneously before removing casualties would result in lots of hits. Only upgrade would be the cognis stubber, 5p for a 50:50 cance to save the main weapon during weapon destroyed is a no-brainer, while piling the one or other wound on the horde target.

Other anti-horde unit would be the vanguards, as the weight of fire will kill something, and they provide comparably cheap speedbumps.

 

For anti-air, most would use dunecrawlers, but those are almost useless against non-flyer targets, so I don't like them. One option would be to give the magos dominus the relic that gives his unit's weapons the cognis rule, making breachers hit flyers on a 5+, not that bad in a large enough squad.

 

This would be my army core so far:

-squads of bare vanguards

-arc breachers

-grav destroyers

-eradication beamer/stubber dunecrawlers

-shooty castellans

-magos dominus with cognis relic

 

Possible additions would be some CC castellans as battering ram and some sicarian squads as harrassment unit. Electro priests and dragoons are not my style without conversions, so I don't plan on them yet.

 

So...any thoughts about it so far? Some ideas to make it better? Weak points?

[Terminus]

For whatever it's worth, I like arc rifles on Vanguard. It gives them something to do before they are in carbine range, and even when firing against infantry having a few S6 shots in the mix is never a bad thing. For whatever it's worth, the cost of a min-unit of arc breachers covers 3 arc rifles and an omnispex for both units of Vanguard, and leaves 40 points left over.

[Frater Cornelius]

I like naked Vanguard. Very solid for their points. What I do not like about the Breachers is that if the opponent plays mech-heavy, then he needs to kill your Breachers and you will have few options of damaging his tank. Having a back-up plan is always good, which is why I like Neutron Laser donkeys. They can damage anything short of flyers and are reasonably costed. I find Eradication Beamers too flimsy with their range limitations.

[MajorNese]

Both points are valid. I guess putting at least a few arc rifles in the vanguard squads should be useful, making the vanguard a real threat to mech armies, and adding redundancy in case the breachers get pulped. Also, could be an impromptu AA unit with enough arc rifles, throwing more dice at something usually works. The point why I am quite fond of the breachers (at least on paper), they have T5 (ID only with S10), 3+ armour, and can stay at a far greater range than vanguard. The one game I played against mono skitarii, all vanguards were dead at turn 3, as even bolters/heavy bolters will devastate them.

 

Neutron laser donkeys, well...quite costly, and I don't see them as useful when combining both mechanicus sources. They provide great ranged anti tank, but the breachers do that too, while not relying on a single shot. They provide high-strength AP2, but the destroyers do that too, with at least half-a-dozen templates if necessary. If you intend to burn TEQ, a plasma culverin shot has the exact same effect as the neutron laser, just not IDing the target, but saturating the entire area with templates instead.

[Frater Cornelius]

Laser donkey is solid if you have Knights, for example. They knock Wraithknight or Dreadknights down to I1. I agree that they are less useful as dedicated tank-hunters when you have loads of Arc though. Still, a durable, mobile back field scoring multi-purpose unit is always solid. Either that, or Icarus.

[mmimzie]

Your going to want one of the strider varentscwith a cult/skit list

 

You need something that can run all over capturing objectives. They are so fast when you make them run its great. Also can provide some ap 2with some las cannon action

 

Crawler can be cool but the army will already feel alittle slow. That said I think the crawler is the best ap 2 option with torsion cannons being okay

[Charlo]

The greatest thing is that somewhere off in the Imperium there will be a world that actually uses Laser Donkeys...