Looking to start Ad Mech

[ImperialSquishiness]

Hi all,

Guard Player here. Looking to start a 2nd army and the choice is between Tyranids and Ad Mech.

So, where do you recommend I start, other than the obvious start collecting box? And more importantly, why should I start collecting Ad Mech other than the 1950s Robots of Death?

[Frostglaive]

The generic answers to where you should start would be 2 Start Collecting boxes, Robots, a Tech-priest Enginseer or two, then whatever else you want.

 

If you want my personal answers, I would ask: What kind of play-style are you looking to do with AdMech? Since you play Guard, I'm assuming you run a gun line typically. You can always go that route with AdMech (see generic answer above for good start there). You could do what I do and play more hyper-aggressive (Electro-priests, Robots with fists instead of guns, Dragoons, Infiltrators, etc). Strike a balance between the two, go infantry heavy, fully mechanized, etc. It all depends HOW you want to play them.

 

As for why you should start AdMech. What drew you to them in the first place? For me, it was simply the aesthetics. I loved the look of them. Then as I started playing them, I realized they fit my play-style perfectly. Plus their lore is simply amazing.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Frostglaive

[synthaside]

Greetings Imperial Squishiness.

 

As someone who plays both Nids and Ad mech, I can probably comment quite fairly on both. You have selected two armies which will ally with your Gaurd quite
well fluff wise, So I assume you are going to be factoring in this occasionally. 

As much as I hate to say it Ad mech has a quite similar style of play to Gaurd, we have centrepiece heavy support units with cool/powerful weapons
and fairly weak infantry that shoot like marines to support them.  Sadly we can fall into quite a static play style as we lack transports and benefit hugely from crowding around our Buffing units. So much so the reason I started collecting Nids have I wanted the ability to field something utterly different, Fast, Combat oriented large blobs of units that dont fail a leadership test after losing one guy and having a marine glare at them in a mean way.

 

If you want to ally in Some ad mech, or play a forge world / combined PDF imperial force it's a great way to go, paint your mech up with a minor colour scheme match
but my worry is it won't be enough of a break for you to be totally different. It may feel like " more IG"


The Ad mech Start collecting Set is actually excellent, many ad mech armies need 3 start collecting kits for the Onager Dunecrawlers alone
usually, with these start collecting things, there's some " chaff" or it is not amazing value ...  or the Big cool looking Centrepiece or HQ isn't all that great ...
Im looking at you Trygon  (why do you die every game turn one after failing your charge)   However due to how few units we have the only thing you won't be running multiples of is the tech-priest dominus ... and even I like to bring  2 if im not playing with a named HQ, If you Go ad mech a functional 1500 point army can literally be 3 start collectings with the troops built as a mixture and 1 2 man unit of Robots.

I will say on the painting collecting side, it is nice to paint something Utterly different I massively enjoyed not having to paint large vehicles and the ability to paint imperfect " organic" colour schemes along with never having to use silver and copper on my Nids. Both are good options if you have had enough of painting skin ... ad mech .. doesn't require you to, hell my electro priests are the blue man group and for my hive fleet, the only weak pink skin are guardsman unit my Hormigaunts are currently eating.

 

[ImperialSquishiness]

Thanks for the replies guys.

What drew me to Ad Mech is everything looks either cheesy 1950s Sci fi (Kastellans) or post-apocalyptic Sci-fi, which was what drew me to 40k over Fantasy 20 years ago.

 

I figure the bugs will force me to play a completely different way than guard, although they can be shooty, their strength really lies in combat. Whereas Mechanicus will let me transition easier.

 

On the painting side, I guess I'd probably get bored of painting a Horde of Tyranids, whereas the model count would be lower with robots and services etc.

 

Regarding the start collecting sets, I think the Ad Mech is potentially better VFM than the Tyranids one, although I have found a local gaming store that has a starter bundle for Ad Mech (not sure if it's official GW or something they've cooked up) consisting of the start collecting set, Kastellans and pack of sicarians. Given the general lack of mobility, I've got my eyes on dragoons and ironstriders to aid in that department too.

 

Other than Cawl and Mars, I'm assuming Stygies and their -1 to hit shenanigans is one of the better ways to play?

[synthaside]

I Love me some Dragoons and Sicarians, i run a 3 man blob of dragoons as stygies in a 1250 league at my club they are Monsters , last game they minced a unit of zerkers in turn 1 then onto some  cultist which the player had tried to tie them up with .... then onto my opponents tasty hq's ;-).

My advice for you would be to paint up your own scheme and use whatever  Forge you want .... just call them  Stygies when you want to play that forge.
Finally my 2 pence Just dont build them Sicarians as Rustalkers .... " Glares at his "  They tend to die before they get anywhere near the enemy.

You can do a very mobile ad mech if you want ..... just not if you are playing Mars.

[ImperialSquishiness]

Thanks. Just had to pop into my local GW store to pick stuff up and had a chat in there. The chap I spoke to had a novel solution for choosing which one. Assume I'll get both, what one would I least like to paint. I think for me, hordes of bugs is the thing I least want to paint after painting loads of infantry!

[synthaside]

Then i think this ... is for you.

https://youtu.be/9gIMZ0WyY88

 

Ave Omnissiah!

Edited February 20, 2018 by synthaside

[Schlitzaf]

Pardon hijacking of thread

 

How do folks normally run their Dominus? Is the Eradication Ray, Inconsistent But damage vs Vehicles at low range worth it? Also by extension Marcostubber or Prosphex?

 

I feel Prosphex could be solid but your losing melee shooting. Which unironicallly when I play Marines, 5-6 pistols shots do work. Or you only ever Relic take Relic for 6 Shots at range

[Frostglaive]

I typically just run them stock. Volkite is consistent, plus the potential for mortal wounds. Macrostubber, like you said, is nice to have for melee shooting if the worst case scenario has happened and your dominus is locked in combat. If I'm fighting armies like Guard, then I'll swap for Phosphor Serpenta, just so I have a bit more range and stopping power.