How big is a Macroclade?

[Magos_Adephus]

See title. The Codex does give the organizational structure of a Macroclade. It's made up of four Cohorts, each with a further three Maniples, resulting in 12 maniples per Macroclade. It goes on to say the standard Maniple is a Combined Arms Battle Maniple, which when we look at the 7th edition Skitarii Codex, the Battle Maniple is a Formation that has one of each Skitarii unit.

 

Back to 8th, it starts giving examples of other Maniple compositions, such 3 units of Kataphrons, or 1 unit of Kastelans, or a Knight. What confuses me is some of the contradictions, especially with the fluff around the Legio Cybernetica. They're supposed to be totally seperate, having their own Macroclades and Cohorts etc (they have their own formation in the 7th ed Cult Codex as well), but now they're rolled in with the rest? And where do E-Priests come in? I'm just assuming they exist outside the command structure I guess?

 

It's also pretty vague of the proportions of a Macroclade, like how many maniples are Battle Maniples, how many are Kataphrons, and where exactly does the Legio Cybernetica fit in? I guess it's just up to the ranking Magos or Explorator in charge?

[Hagl87]

I've been trying to wrap my noggin around this too as it is described quite differently from 7th. Best I've got to with the book command structure is that one army (of models) is essentially a war cohort. The 1st Maniple is all your skitarii, the 2nd is all your cult mechanicus bits and the 3rd gives you a seperation for kastellans (and datasmiths) as legio cybernetica. So all your specialists/vehicles fall in with those. A knight would be separate to the Maniples but part of the cohort. And so I guess a Macroclade would be 4 of these armies.

 

It's a bit confusing as electro priests are mentioned at Maniple and cohort level. Either way I am assuming my army to be one war cohort. Also remember that the Adeptus Mechanicus is as divergent as it is complex so you can assign it however you like!

 

Wonder if anyone thinks similarly?

 

Edit. I think you're right about command structure with epriests. Just that a dominus has enough clout to bring all the various factions together under a cohesive war cohort.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Hagl87

[Xisor]

Edit2: if a minimum ye olde Skitarii maniple is 24PL, with a hard max at 71PL that works out about right. Gives a fair range to work with, especially if viewing 40-50PL as the typical size. Multiply up by 12 and there's your Macroclade: ~540PL?

 

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I did a bit of hard thinking on this earlier in the year and I eventually settled on the idea that the structure is the same, but that the various components all derive from different 'like but not contiguous' organisations. It's not conclusive, or authoritative, but it sounds like you're getting into the same territory I struggled with.

 

Edit: For reference, me ol' pre-8th Codex thread.

 

E.g. a Skitarii force is subordinate to tech-priests. An electropriest force is an auxiliary detachment (like Secutors, they're ordained clergyfolk in their own rights).

 

That left servitors (which I'd split into direct charges of techpriests and larger quasi-autonomous clades), and Legio Cybernetica - for which we know classically a traditional maniple is 4 Robots and one tech herd. (So a War Cohort for the Cybernetica would be about 12 Robots and three herders.)

 

In 8th Edition, we have a rather hand leveller: if we take the 7th edition 'examples' from Codex: Skitarii, we can see plainly - just add up the Power Levels and you've got a ball park figure. (Strictly, you've got an upper and lower bound: the bare minimum needed to qualify and the absolute maximum possible within that example.)

 

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Once you've got that PL range, anything within that range is arguably a cohort, and a third of that is a maniple. For Skitarii at least. The stark value differences between Servitors, Robots, and Electropriests, not to mention the mechlessiastical distinctions of each of them, make it a bit more complicated, but the vague idea remains.

 

Similarly, it's easy to fold Servitors into Skitarii forces if you stipulate that they're Skitarii Praetorians rather than 'mere' Servitors, but I tend to leave them adjacent rather than intertwined.

 

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A Skitarii maniple as per 7th edition is fairly straight:

5-10 Rangers

5-10 Vanguard

5-10 (Infiltrators OR Ruststalkers)

1-6 (Balisterii OR Sydonians)

1-3 Onagers

In any configuration.

 

As long as your force is within those PL bounds, it's fairly legit to think of it as a maniple.

 

Well, that's my reasoning at least. Feel free to disregard or dispute! :D

Edited December 9, 2017 by Xisor