Admech Infantry in 8th Edition

[Tiger9gamer]

I haven't been having any luck with my skitarii infantry in my past games. to be fair I haven't built my lists around them per say either, but for what they do right now It is hard to justify bringing them in my games. Maybe I am just having really bad luck with them, or maybe I am expecting too much, but right now I feel that they don't do as much as scions or other guard units while being more expensive at the same time. 

 

Is there any way to get more milage out of vanguard or Rangers?

[Spanish_Muffin]

I've been taking roughly the same 20 troopers every game I've played with a full Ad Mech list;

x5 Rangers /w 2 Trans Arqu and omnispex
x5 Vanguard /w 2 Plasma Cav and omnispex
x5 Vanguard

x5 Vanguard

 

Rangers sit on a backfield object in cover and starts pressuring High-Value targets with their rifles. They're less their to succeed and more there to put enough visible threat down that my opponent wants to kill them. For the amount of times that they've been shot at, rather than my opponent killing something more important, they're worth their 107 points.

Vanguard with Plasma Cav's move forward to midfield and attempt to hold objectives - important largely because most of our Ad Mech units that we really want to bring don't move to the forward objectives (price of the gun line). The Plasma cav's give them cheap value and the ability to plug some nice damage at MEQs.

The last 2 groups are basically deep-strike protection and bubblewrap. They sit out of LoS on either side my important units (Cawl, Kastelan, etc), and force my opponents deepstrikes to be 20+ inches away from things I care about, rather than within charge range of something I don't want to lose. 50 points each make them cheap as chips for simply keeping things off my other stuff, while the rest of my army gets to work. If they manage to not get charged on the rushing/deepstriking units, their assault guns give them decent oomph as they overwatch and then shoot and charge back on their turn.

Basically - using them to draw fire (distraction-carni-snipers), sit on objectives for cheap, and counter deploy against deepstrike or fast rushers.

[Charlo]

Only played the one game, but took 30 Vanguard, with each squad having triples of each special weapon (3x Plasma, 3x Arc and 3x Sniper etc) also had a Data Tether in there.

 

My inability to roll 6s on the rounds aside, they performed some very important jobs:

• Midfield firepower where it is needed - 24" effective range on all of the weapons means from turn 2 onwards they'll have a target.
• Screening for assault - they took charges like the man-borgs they are, got a couple nice hits in back (rad furnace is great) and then fell back when things got rough to open up my opponents units to the heavy firepower.
• Distractions - they're just tough and cheap enough to tie people up where needed or make a nuisance of themselves with dice volume. When shooting at Skitarii opponent are then ignoring your heavier guns.

I combo'd them with an Aegis wall for the first turn too - this means they have a 3+ base and because of this were a lot harder to put down with my opponents opening volley.

 

My snipers were pretty woeful but they had no decent targets so inconclusive.

 

Keep a plasma squad near Cawl/ Dominus to reroll ones and always overcharge, that stuff is pure murder.

 

Excited to try rangers next time.

[Vel'Cona]

I feel like Skitarii have the issue that they're just a bit too expensive for what they do, and just squishy enough that they'll fold under basic torrent weaponry.  Unfortunately, moving into 8th many players are discovering the power of torrenting fire, especially now that Orks/Tyranids are swarming up (IG too).  IMHO Skitarii should probably be shelved until the codex drops and gives AdMech a legit transport, and we should fall back on hard units like Kastelans/Onagers and cover-camping Kataphrons in the meantime.

[Baluc]

Yeah Skitarii seem extremely expensive for their level of durability. I think in this edition they need to probably be T4, at their cost. I've swapped out my almost all my infantry for guard infantry and the extra points have done me very well. I did keep a unit of 5 with 2 snipers for a while because I liked the gun so much, but even that just became two ballistarii with autocannons. 

[Charlo]

Won't say I've not considered running the Skitarii as Storm Troopers!

 

Hilariously the 6+ invuln actually saved a couple of clutch wounds for me in my last game though...

[gilt_imp]

^Ha! I was right in the middle of assembling a 30K Questoris Knight list with allied Imperial Militia (Survivors of the Dark Age) to represent a Knight World force, when 8^th Edition landed!

 

My Skitarii were going to be Grenadiers, but I put it all on hold and have been re-assessing everything I had planned as with all the talk about Heresy staying in 7^th vs 8^th it seemed best to wait. I realised though with 40k in 8^th I had even more freedom to personalise my force. Lucky I hadn’t assembled everything yet, but yes I see less of a need for heaps of Skitarii. I love the models so will still have some. For my list though, I can use faction <Imperium> and have Guard troops in a separate detachment and then some skitarii in their own so that’s great.

 

Mind you, if they get a boost in their own codex, or yes a transport of their own…

[Tiger9gamer]

I feel like Skitarii have the issue that they're just a bit too expensive for what they do, and just squishy enough that they'll fold under basic torrent weaponry.  Unfortunately, moving into 8th many players are discovering the power of torrenting fire, especially now that Orks/Tyranids are swarming up (IG too).  IMHO Skitarii should probably be shelved until the codex drops and gives AdMech a legit transport, and we should fall back on hard units like Kastelans/Onagers and cover-camping Kataphrons in the meantime.

 

they really do, and I feel compared to 7th the overall damage output is low too. Arc rifles seem to be just a stiff breeze to my opponents and the radium carbines bounce off everyone, and I only got the D2 to work once on an opponent.

 

Even the special plasma seems fairly weak, but I may need to have more experimentation. Right now I see no reason why not to bring a cheaper unit of Conscripts with a commissar for bubble-wrap and some stormies to drop down and put the hurt on vehicles / infantry squads to sit back and frag the enemies with lascannons and such. if our weapons had better AP or were the basic special weapons I would feel happier with that, but right now the infantry weapons are a pretty big downgrade. Maybe I should just take naked squads of 10? 

[Charlo]

The Plasma is great, especially on overcharge when you have re-rolls from Canticles/ Dominus/ Cawl!

 

I think this whole "Conscripts" thing is an unfortunate side effect of 8th right now and are a touch power gamey. In my opinion a commissar should be disallowed from joining them, or they should lose a lot more models from summary execution to balance them out.

[gilt_imp]

 

Maybe I should just take naked squads of 10? 

 

 

Here's an idea for using 10 Skitarii with plain radium carbines...

If the Skitarri rules don't improve then use those figures as FW Secutarii Peltasts when they get their rules in 8th

[Tiger9gamer]

 

 

Maybe I should just take naked squads of 10? 

 

 

Here's an idea for using 10 Skitarii with plain radium carbines...

If the Skitarri rules don't improve then use those figures as FW Secutarii Peltasts when they get their rules in 8th

 

see I already have 10 peltasts from FW, so I do not think that is an option. I would probably use them as guardsmen / veterans though, and I already have 20 tech thralls perfect for conscripts.

 

But you know what? I will be darned if I don't say that the breachers look better than a squad of skitarii for what most of my problems are too... hmm... 

[gilt_imp]

Wow sounds like you have a good force lined up already. And this idea of using ad mech figures counts as is catching

[Tiger9gamer]

Wow sounds like you have a good force lined up already. And this idea of using ad mech figures counts as is catching

Anything in the Death Korps of Krieg list catch your eye? Use skitarii as counts as Krieg Grenadiers?

Then again using them as intended with rangers sniping does help fill out detachments. Have fun deciding.

let's just say getting tabled by astra-militaurum opened the data-ports just a bit.... it lead to a lot of thought and a lot of goofing around in battlescribe 

I dont have the krieg list so I don't know as much about that, but it may be just as good, so who knows. right now my only limit is money and time for this, of which I have neither, so I just gotta use what I already have painted I think.

[Baluc]

My army is based off an explorator force, so I've been converting up some GSC neophytes as explorator crew/laborers. 1 unit of conscripts, 1 unit of infantry.

[Vel'Cona]

I'm annoyed that Conscripts seem to be finding their way into all the lists, now.  I just hope these fair-weathers realize that they'll actually have to paint 40-80+ Guardsmen now (it's not as easy as it looks, believe me).  In either case, I think Caliver spam is a solid use for the Skitarii since it's a cheaper source of Plasma and we have plenty of ways to get them re-rolls.  Again, the tough part is keeping them alive until they can get to 18", and I'm not sure if there is a good workaround at this point.

[Baluc]

The main issue I think for admech atleast is that skitarii are pretty meh at their role as gaurds. We need them to be escorts and not storm troopers. At 100 pts for 10 its hard to look at them when for slightly more you get order, bodies and moral resistance.

[Tiger9gamer]

I'm annoyed that Conscripts seem to be finding their way into all the lists, now.  I just hope these fair-weathers realize that they'll actually have to paint 40-80+ Guardsmen now (it's not as easy as it looks, believe me).  In either case, I think Caliver spam is a solid use for the Skitarii since it's a cheaper source of Plasma and we have plenty of ways to get them re-rolls.  Again, the tough part is keeping them alive until they can get to 18", and I'm not sure if there is a good workaround at this point.

 

hey, why get 10 Toughness 3 guys for 100 points that can take moral losses and have very specific bonuses when you can get a near fearless blob of 20 and a commissar for 90 points that can shoot nearly as much? 

 

The main issue I think for admech atleast is that skitarii are pretty meh at their role as gaurds. We need them to be escorts and not storm troopers. At 100 pts for 10 its hard to look at them when for slightly more you get order, bodies and moral resistance.

 

you hit the nail on the head here for what I was thinking on how they differ. We already have fairly powerful weapons everywhere, just no way to get to where we wanna go quickly or no way to provide cheap bodies to compliment the big guns.

[Vel'Cona]

 

I'm annoyed that Conscripts seem to be finding their way into all the lists, now.  I just hope these fair-weathers realize that they'll actually have to paint 40-80+ Guardsmen now (it's not as easy as it looks, believe me).  In either case, I think Caliver spam is a solid use for the Skitarii since it's a cheaper source of Plasma and we have plenty of ways to get them re-rolls.  Again, the tough part is keeping them alive until they can get to 18", and I'm not sure if there is a good workaround at this point.

 

hey, why get 10 Toughness 3 guys for 100 points that can take moral losses and have very specific bonuses when you can get a near fearless blob of 20 and a commissar for 90 points that can shoot nearly as much?

 

Oh I get why it's done.  But I feel like there should be some built-in restriction to keep this from becoming the status quo, ie. 1 per Infantry Squad or something like that.  You know, like it was in 7th edition (which I'm not saying was good, but Conscripts weren't as ridiculous as they are right now).

[dogfender]

as someone who is amassing things to build a count as army, am I hearing this correctly that IG platoons are more worthwhile than taking skitarii? makes me sad. Actually makes me think I should just proxy genestealer cult instead lol.

[Baluc]

A unit of 10 with just an omni-scope is probably a decent enough unit, given chants. And, they probably provide a decent shield for battle servitors to prevent them from getting assaulted.

[Petitioner's City]

I cannot wait for thallax and thralls to come later this year

[Tiger9gamer]

as someone who is amassing things to build a count as army, am I hearing this correctly that IG platoons are more worthwhile than taking skitarii? makes me sad. Actually makes me think I should just proxy genestealer cult instead lol.

 

we lost a lot in the transfer, a lot more then IG so it's to be expected. I don't know if genestealer cult will be a good counts as, but IG could be seen as a tech priest just giving his men more standard rifles in order to fight the enemy rather than the weird, expensive stuff. plus, they could be affective with true anti-tank and such, and allow us to bring things like leman russ tanks.

[Teun135]

I cannot wait for thallax and thralls to come later this year

I have about 20 Thallax ready to go. Hopefully they don't suck or I'll be pretty sad :(

[Tiger9gamer]

So, I played at least two games with guardsmen in place of skitarii (both power level games) and I gotta say, the difference is striking. 4+ to hit with only a str3 gun kinda sucks, but bringing a company commander and giving out orders made up for it in a few cases. they didn't wow me, but at the same time they didn't disappoint me either, and when in FRFSRF the shots output can exceed vanguard's shots per model by quite a bit at around the same range.  the weak ballistic skill was meh, but they still lasted quite a while in cover and standing around, so I cannot complain.

 

overall I may use astra-militarum more then skitarii, especially in power levels. bringing a potential of 40 guys at 12 PL is a whole lot better than 15 guys at the same level, and the ranges they can engage in feel a bit more versitile than the skitarii.

 

I may try storm troopers next, but so far the guard is tempting me more and more...

 

now I just gotta work out a counter-charge unit.

[Yoda79]

Just played with ig .Spearhead ad mech and ig battalion. Its amazing. Cheaper better perfect for what i need so much i start considering more ig. They can also provide transport ,flyer , bloops cheaper morale protected etc. And much much more practicaly you can imagine a Cadia defence force with ig troops for humber ad mech heavys etc. Its amazing its cheaper and prolly better result. A group vanguard or ranger with 2 transonic A. Cant be replaced . Only issue. Else 40_60 bodies can rapid anything down and cover all our gun line. Strongly suggest to try ig!!!!!