Ad Mech in 8th Edition

[Yoda79]

Spearhead

Cawl

3 neutron

2 icarus

2x2 dragoon

 

Supr h aux

 

Lancer

 

Vanguard +1

 

Tempestorprime

Greyfax

 

Cullexus

Temp comm squad 4xplasma

Ratlings

 

5cp all moving non stop. Best i can so far but still wont win all for me. I still gotta repeat Cawl reroll all shots not only failed ones is a buff that deals with that -1 to hit many armies fliers will bring. Scenario etc. If you get tar pit you prolly loose.

 

So i decide my army rocks in range shooting maybe the best v seen so i invest more. Stationary but more effective wont have the pimp knight but i pass most enemies more efficient cause in the end each army has strong points and weaknesses. I prefer to become a dakkaline thats the best i see in ad mech so far. And to make it i need even the 5 points i miss.

[Suzuteo]

@Yoda79

I agree that we're probably going to eventually need to make better use of CP. I think there was a Warhammer TV that teased the idea of an AdMech stratagem that lets you Explode a vehicle. That would be very powerful, and I would want to make every Dragoon a living bomb.

 

If we're looking at Imperium Soup, I think the best AdMech combinations are AdMech + Knight or AdMech + Conscripts + Scions. The only problem is that we aren't allowed to mix units without giving up Canticles. =(

 

@Heliomanes

I have not had positive experiences with the Rangers. You're basically taking 100 points to kill 30-60 point units that usually don't pose a major threat to you anyway. (I mean, if some guy shows up with a Guard army, you aren't going to be able to kill the Commissars with your Rangers before your Kastelans kill the Conscripts with sheer volume of forced failed saves.)

 

I also think 6 Kastelan robots is too many. I think one to two units of 2 Kastelans is the ideal number. The Mathhammer definitely shows they are our most efficient unit on paper, but in practice, they're vulnerable to a lot of stuff and exacerbate our weaknesses in poor mobility and reactivity. Fact is, your opponent isn't going to be stupid and stand in place while your robots set up and table them. They are going to get in close to lock them in CC, kill them with artillery, or simply avoid them and attack other parts of your army while your guys are stuck in place protecting the one-third of your army that can't move. This is borne out in tournaments and many of the battle reports that I've seen.

Edited August 16, 2017 by Suzuteo

[Heliomanes]

I haven't used rangers before in this edition. I'm paying for the ability to threaten support characters like lieutenants, exalted champions etc. Not necessarily kill them, but to intimidate the opponent into playing a bit more restrictive with them. (And they have been horrifying in most games so far). And to have something comparatively cheap to put on backfield objectives while my army maneuvres around. Not sure how it will work out, but point for point kill ratio isn't going to be impressive, I have no illusions on that regard.

I see your point on kastelans. Well said. I'll amend my list a bit and use them in 2 squads of 2 as you suggest.

Anti psyker defence hasn't been much of an issue here so far. My other army is Thousand Sons with Magnus, and I'm honestly never worried by anti-psyker defence when I play them. Quite the opposite. I find myself being quite happy that the opponent has spent points on that rather than bringing more guns along.

On the subject of knights - I've been underwhelmed so far. They seem to need to be fielded in groups to be truly effective rather than a single knight allied to mechanicus elements. That could of course be because of the massive number of lascannons people tend to field around these parts, but it's the same against me. I'm rarely worried by them, and the neutron lasers are often happy to have big multiwound targets to take care of. The shootiest knights seem to be best off, since stomp is pretty much better than any other knight close combat weapon in almost every circumstance. So having a shooty weapon in both hands seems a lot better than halving that firepower just to get another melee weapon you'll rarely get any benefits from. And I say that as the owner of a few FW knights myself. Would be happy to hear contrary opinions though.

[Suzuteo]

I haven't used rangers before in this edition. I'm paying for the ability to threaten support characters like lieutenants, exalted champions etc. Not necessarily kill them, but to intimidate the opponent into playing a bit more restrictive with them. (And they have been horrifying in most games so far). And to have something comparatively cheap to put on backfield objectives while my army maneuvres around. Not sure how it will work out, but point for point kill ratio isn't going to be impressive, I have no illusions on that regard.

 

I see your point on kastelans. Well said. I'll amend my list a bit and use them in 2 squads of 2 as you suggest.

 

Anti psyker defence hasn't been much of an issue here so far. My other army is Thousand Sons with Magnus, and I'm honestly never worried by anti-psyker defence when I play them. Quite the opposite. I find myself being quite happy that the opponent has spent points on that rather than bringing more guns along.

 

On the subject of knights - I've been underwhelmed so far. They seem to need to be fielded in groups to be truly effective rather than a single knight allied to mechanicus elements. That could of course be because of the massive number of lascannons people tend to field around these parts, but it's the same against me. I'm rarely worried by them, and the neutron lasers are often happy to have big multiwound targets to take care of. The shootiest knights seem to be best off, since stomp is pretty much better than any other knight close combat weapon in almost every circumstance. So having a shooty weapon in both hands seems a lot better than halving that firepower just to get another melee weapon you'll rarely get any benefits from. And I say that as the owner of a few FW knights myself. Would be happy to hear contrary opinions though.

 

Your entire army is going to be on backfield objectives for pretty much the entire game. In fact, I do 2 Icarus and 2 Neutron specifically so that I can split them up if necessary.

 

I don't worry too much about psykers either. I actually worry more about bringing dead points into a game.

 

Yeah, Feet > Gauntlet > Reaper in terms of flexibility. As I said before, I like the independence and versatility of a Knight Crusader. Lascannon spam is definitely one of the hardest matchups we have, since it's one of the few weapons with the range to threaten us. Using your Dragoons and Knights to tie up Razorbacks and whatnot is key then. If they have the alpha strike, you definitely are going to want to stay hidden out of LOS and then move and shoot; that's something Crawlers can do that Razorbacks can't.

[Vel'Cona]

 

I don't worry too much about psykers either. I actually worry more about bringing dead points into a game.

 

That's a good point about 8th edition; to some extent, the inability to stack "strong" powers in Matched Play has made the Psyker arms race less of a zero-sum-game than it was in 7th.  To some extent, if your models have enough Wounds or some form of "Feel No Pain" save you can just tank Smite spam for the most part.  If Psykers really do become a problem, you can always ally in Greyfax et al for a bit of counter.

[Heliomanes]

I've been considering painting up a few Primaris Marines in a bit. I like some of the new models details wise, and the idea of truescale marines. Any suggestions on a small allied detachment of Primaris marines that could be useful with a Mechanicus force? I've got some Iron Hands transfers lying around, and plenty of bionic bits...

[dogfender]

I've been considering painting up a few Primaris Marines in a bit. I like some of the new models details wise, and the idea of truescale marines. Any suggestions on a small allied detachment of Primaris marines that could be useful with a Mechanicus force? I've got some Iron Hands transfers lying around, and plenty of bionic bits...

Mentor legions, they test out new tech that other Astartes may or may not get

[niiru]

Has anyone had much luck running Kastellan Robots with their Fists instead? Just wondering how useful it is to have a squad of 50's style robot murder machines running up the field. I'm guessing its less effective/efficient than the Dakkastellans unfortunately

[SydonianDragoon404]

I've used them only twice, the second time around I rolled way too many 1s 2s and 3s to hit over the course of the game to want to use them again. 

[Tiger9gamer]

Has anyone had much luck running Kastellan Robots with their Fists instead? Just wondering how useful it is to have a squad of 50's style robot murder machines running up the field. I'm guessing its less effective/efficient than the Dakkastellans unfortunately

 Fist robots are a little harder to use than the dakka bots, mostly because of the protocols and the HQ's. get the dakkabots down in a good position with good support, activate the protector protocol for the next round and you are good to go. keep them next to a dominus or your Cawling card and it would be even better, and keeping them safe in a bubble wrap the best.

 

for fists the protocols are a lot more tricky. they have to walk across the field to do anything, and thus your opponent is going to shoot them even more. keep them in aegis protocols for protection against small arms fire and you will be good to go, but they are suffering because they can't punch nearly enough. Since protocol change happens in the next battle round you have to gauge whether you are close enough to change protocols at the start of your current movement phase whether or not you can get close enough to make full use of your fists. if you activate the fist mode and fail the charge, suddenly your sitting in the middle of the field with less durability with the enemy's guns staring right at you.  plus, if you make a charge in aegis protocol then your are only swinging three times at something rather than the glorious 6 times that is ideal.

 

another problem is that we have no buff outside of canticles that affect punching. unless you roll good on the chart, you can only get the CCW buff once per game, and even then the amount of 2's or 3's you can roll will make it a pain in the arse to actually hit something. I had two fist robots swing at a riptide in full protector protocols miss 11 attacks out of 12 even with the re-rolls.  With no chaplain esque buffs to our close combat we still are subject to bad-luck more than almost any other dedicated Close combat unit.

 

plus... our invuln is only against shooting. miss with our attacks against, say, a leviathan, and we can basically kiss our servos goodbye.