Anyone tried the new AdMech tanks yet?

[Kilofix]

Does anyone find the blind fire useful?

[Gaz1858]

If you play in ITC it is 100% needed

[Kilofix]

If you play in ITC it is 100% needed

What about ITC specifically?

[Gaz1858]

ITC has a rule that the bottom floor of ruins behind walls are blocked for LOS. So you need something that can target them

[MajorNese]

So any model in the bottom floor cannot be targeted, even if there's LoS from/to the model? That's...unintuitive. And, given our lack of other options, quite an issue.

 

And with that rule the belleros might be truly useful. Without that rule, I'd go for Ferrumite on the hovertank due to more firepower, and lightning Moirax to clear out hidden infantry by mobility.

[Ishagu]

So any model in the bottom floor cannot be targeted, even if there's LoS from/to the model? That's...unintuitive. And, given our lack of other options, quite an issue.

 

And with that rule the belleros might be truly useful. Without that rule, I'd go for Ferrumite on the hovertank due to more firepower, and lightning Moirax to clear out hidden infantry by mobility.

This is being commonly adopted. The rules go one further in ITC. They introduced buildings that infantry can enter, but they can't be targeted at all as there is no LOS into the building (4 solid walls and a ceiling). They are called "magic boxes"

 

Indirect fire weapons are the only way to shoot at units hidden in such a building. I'm not a fan of them personally. As for the bottom floor or ruins being LoS blocking - I'm more ok with this as LoS blocking is 100% necessary for a good game of 40k. However, me and my local hobby group simply create actual Ruins with solid walls to get the same effect in gameplay.

[MajorNese]

Okay...the magic boxes do sound unintuitive, and locally haven't ever heard of someone playing it that way. But we're pretty far away from any ITC stuff.

 

As for the ruins floor, same with our hobby groups - large ruins that block LoS unless you go around them. Which is impractical, depending on what you have to get closer to in order to get LoS.

 

Anyways, ordered a Krios for the tracks, and depending on the size and how the casts end up, my hovertanks will get back on track...

[Kilofix]

Are the instructions the only place to officially get the data Sheet?

[MajorNese]

So far, yes. No other rules release since the codex (except for the vigilus detachments), same as the Manipulus.

 

But considering there's one for each model, and you can definitely use more than one model, getting one shouldn't be that hard. Or do you intend to proxy it?

[Kilofix]

So far, yes. No other rules release since the codex (except for the vigilus detachments), same as the Manipulus.

 

But considering there's one for each model, and you can definitely use more than one model, getting one shouldn't be that hard. Or do you intend to proxy it?

More like having to bring the actual instructions with me along with every other book lol. No big deal.

[MajorNese]

I've gone to make a quick reference booklet with those see-through A4 sleeves...no idea how they're called in english. That way I can have all relevant rules at hand - by default, additional datasheets (Manipulus, tank, FW knights/armigers), and detachments/knight strat list as needed. With the resulting few pages it's quite quick to find stuff, and I don't need anything beyond AdMech codex and the booklet.

[Feral_80]

I've gone to make a quick reference booklet with those see-through A4 sleeves...no idea how they're called in english. That way I can have all relevant rules at hand - by default, additional datasheets (Manipulus, tank, FW knights/armigers), and detachments/knight strat list as needed. With the resulting few pages it's quite quick to find stuff, and I don't need anything beyond AdMech codex and the booklet.

 

...and the latest CA, all relevant FAQs, the codex updates, the Vigilus stuff, for about 50 pages of extra stuff.

Either GW goes full-digital and free with all the rules, or this game will soon become unplayable again. Or perhaps it is already.

Nothing against your (good) idea, but seriously, "New" GW has done it again. 

[Xisor]

I've found a print out of Battlescribe to be vaguely useful - it has most of the special rules in useful places, and I vaguely remember there being the option to include the wording & rules for canticles somehow.

 

So it's only the strategems I struggle to keep track of (I'm an atrocious card player, so end up with strategems scattered to the four winds, or under the table or some other forgotten place..).

[MajorNese]

Yeah...let's say I only carry the units and updates I use that day. No use carrying the full IK rules when I only bring one version of Armigers, no use bringing Vigilus stuff that I don't play, and so on.

 

And I agree, the stuff is all over the place. Rulebook FAQ, codex FAQ, data sheets and specialist detachments released after the codex, it does add up. Full digital would be nice, but as someone who isn't really enthusiastic about the whole Cloud synchronizing stuff, I do prefer a solution that doesn't require Wifi and powerbanks.

[Feral_80]

Well actually with full digital I mean free PDFs which contain everything rule-wise (just 1 rulebook + 1 for each faction). Whenever they change or add something, even a single points cost, they replace the file, update its version number, and make an announcement on the website, mailing list, WarCon, etc. that this is now the only official source for all purposes. They might also do proper digital (epub etc.) versions for those who like to use that (I do not either).

 

People will download, read, and possibly print such PDFs and not get mad trying to recollect stuff from 6 different sources. The psycho who is in charge of the current policy should be fired.

 

If they want to continue selling printed books, they can do so: I am 100% sure that faction books with no rules but just proper, detailed fluff, army building, painting, and conversion tips and tutorials, plus perhaps narrative historical missions, would sell very well. But sadly, that does not seem the way, especially since GW is persuaded that banning conversions is the way to go.

 

I, for one, have stopped buying any of their printed stuff since a long time and I am not buying any for sure until something changes.

T

[Prot]

Back to the tanks... anyone? Please tell me someone else here has been playing these tanks?

 

I have been hoping to hear more feedback since I put mine away. I haven't had the tanks out since new Space Marines, and wonder if any of you have had some competitive games vs nu-marines?

[synthaside]

Right , what do you want to know I ran two at lgt this weekend , and while I lost my first two games I won the rest very well finishing 82 out of 425 ish. My losses were not the tanks fault it was my own stupidity . ... I took 6 dragoons and 3 ballistarii giving gangbusters away like candy.

 

I ran the mortor , but takes to many ad mech players who were using the ferrumite to great effect .. I also felt most of the time I was not utilising the Los fire abilities as the missle and stubber are just too good to give up

 

 

9 stubber shots really help with horde clear and my missies were excellent plink of lighter vehicles .

 

They also are power level 6 which helps a bit too

[Ishagu]

Yeah AdMech had a great showing at ITC overall in terms of performance. Not top 8 but a solid number of wins over losses.

 

I have actually played against the Tanks now (two of them) and they perform more on the table than their points allude to.

[Prot]

Right , what do you want to know I ran two at lgt this weekend , and while I lost my first two games I won the rest very well finishing 82 out of 425 ish. My losses were not the tanks fault it was my own stupidity . ... I took 6 dragoons and 3 ballistarii giving gangbusters away like candy.

 

I ran the mortor , but takes to many ad mech players who were using the ferrumite to great effect .. I also felt most of the time I was not utilising the Los fire abilities as the missle and stubber are just too good to give up

 

 

9 stubber shots really help with horde clear and my missies were excellent plink of lighter vehicles .

 

They also are power level 6 which helps a bit too

 

 

OOh... I often take 5 Dragoons and 6 Ballistarii ! (I guess this might hemorrhage points! Thankfully I don't play a  lot of ITC unless in their tournies.)

 

I still don't think the tanks are under priced. I think they're almost mandatory to some degree with Admech to fill some of those holes. They have so many issues presenting a threatening table presence. 

 

++EDIT++ I still want to paint mine up. I just don't know what to do with them. And I anticipate needing my Onager Neutrons as well.

 

Would you be interested in doing a game by game break down in a new thread? I'd love to see/bounce some stuff of you and your findings. I'm still struggling against very aggressive armies. I simply have no answer for GSC for example. 

[synthaside]

Sure I'll give it some thought at work tommorrow provided it's quiet .

[MajorNese]

 

Would you be interested in doing a game by game break down in a new thread? I'd love to see/bounce some stuff of you and your findings. I'm still struggling against very aggressive armies. I simply have no answer for GSC for example.

Like the old Hard Data thread? Might be useful, considering we don't exactly have the amount of coverage of C:SM.

[synthaside]

I'll give you my first game as its all I found time to write up today , 

My forces  Stygies Ad mech brigade 2000
1 TPD (W, R) TPE , 1 Dr D
4 X 5 man Ranger teams  ( 1 6 spare points)
2 X 3 man Arc breachers
2 X 3 dragoons
3 Las ballistarii
2 5 man Infiltrators with goads
1 10 man hoplites
3 N laser Onager’s with stubbers
2 Skorpious disintegrator  with Bellaros

Game 1     “ The better (meta)  Mirror”  
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/023/397/C-658VsXoAo3ovC.jpg

My first game of the event was against Mark a thoroughly nice fellow ad mech player running a soup list , His Admech is Stygies with Krast Knights bringing the pain .

Army wise he was running triple Neutron Onager’s ,  3 units of vanguard  with a pair of TPE’s  and 3 Knight crusaders , 1 Thermal , 2 Battle cannon, with missles, 
What’s funny is he was even painted in rather similar cream colour to my own much more nicely painted mind you ….slightly more towards the bone while I skew whiter ,
at  one point a passer-by  stated“ one of us had broken rule of 3 …. Mark and i chuckled.

This game was largely decided by who got the first turn, I do my pregame moves to aggressively take some ground for my choices of recon, I also took titan slayer  and behind enemy lines , I try to hide them out of line of sight but the triple crusader puts so much hurt and is so mobile  my army can’t really. This is where my list building weakness was revealed,  If an opponent picks gangbusters on me , every Las chicken or Dragoon they kill is a secondary point this means I’m pretty much giving away 4 points  every game if they spot this and it’s such a large part of my army offensively i can’t really afford to not use them and have them hide.  I do my best but lances are pointy and obviously taller or wider than ruins  and with some movement ,the Goons eat up fire from the Gatlers  and battle cannons .  Their Flat 2 -2 is  perfect at killing dragoons and he’s got relics re-rolls  which makes this very viable ,  e my heavy hitting stuff survives  but I take a bloody nose my opponent is quite happy.

I move to control the mid objectives  left and right  with troops and my 10 hoplites , the same units i pregame moved nowing i want recon  and to charge the / shoot the knight with the batons.  Cue the worst shooting phase turn I’ve ever had ; 10 hoplites ,  3 N lasers  6 lascannons , 2 units of breachers (3’s thanks to Dr D )  are all unleashed onto the nearest knight he rotates as expected but  the others have the 2 up Armour or Ion Bulwark .  My entire fusillade whiffs  and I do about  7 damage ,  when i landed hits it was 1 damage  and 5 lascannons refused to wound, at the end  I’m getting desperate and fire both Scorpius one of which does 9 wounds total and my dominus rolls 3 6’s to wound on her volkite he even fails a 3 up to boot ( <3  you Octavia  )
 

I charge my unit of Hoplite's through the wall to dodge over watch and my remaining  dragoon into the knight in the middle go first with the hoplites and leave it on 2 wounds …. >.<   my opponent interrupts and Kills the dragoon with the power of Krast re-rolls to hit  I blow him up in protest to do the last wound but its moot as the knight survives.

At this point I feel the game is more or less lost  my opponent  spends the CP to operate at full efficiency, I fail to kill a unit  and while I hold more my opponents army is essentially unscathed , in hindsight perhaps i should have shot the Mortars at the vanguard squads but would they have actually killed 5  maybe ... maybe not?

The knight survives until my turn 2 , falls back and shoots up more of my army , his other two knights wheel around the left flank getting line of sight onto my hidden vehicles  but this time his shooting is far less impactful.  In my turn two I drop my infiltrators behind his lines to kill all of his traitorous cowardly Vanguard hiding in buildings and score more recon 
Dr D smites the crippled knight to death  and i make a move onto his second knight , but I’ve fallen behind by 5 points due to gangbusters  and with all his vanguard dead in a single turn  I struggle to cause much more of a dent  on the score due to the general survivability of his army ,  I do take care of two knights maxing titan killer  and my recon but with my mobile stuff dead behind enemy lines is capped at 2  and im slowly ground back of the objectives.

Shout out to the single Hoplite who survived  this entire game  with stormspear missile fire raining on his head  by hiding on the middle objective all on his lonesome  he go named M4rk after my opponent , my Hoplite's actually did a decent amount for their cost this game and that wasnt their only all star outing

We end the game a Loss  30  - 24 ish  if my memory serves.

 

Game 2 tommorrow ... perhaps ;-)

[Prot]

Thanks for the review. Your opinion of the Skorpius in general, and your use of it specifically?

 

Did you feel the Knights gave him a tactical edge, or was it mostly dependent on first turn?

[Prot]

So I had a game against a very hardcore competitive Genestealer Cult list. A Brigade and a Battalion and a Vanguard so he had no issues with Command Points which is something GSC need a lot of.

 

He had a million characters, and a lot of acolytes with some Mortar support, and a few of the IG walkers (forgot their name). Mostly a ton of bodies and a Patriarch, psykers, etc, etc. And two of the bike squads for exploding lunch box attacks.

 

I took 3 of the new Skorpius, 2 indirect fire, 1 with the Ballarose (whatever it's called S8, 3D.). I had two Netronagers. Cawl, the new Dunstrider transport with 8 Corpuscarii priests. The dual Battalion had Cawl, Manipulus, and  Tech Priest and Deadalosus for the respective HQ's.

 

Troops were minimal Vanguard units x3, 2 Ranger squads with single Arquebus', and 1 minimal squad of Destroyers (plas/Grav). I just had the points for some punch.

 

I took two punch Kastelans. (I debated shooty bots, but I did an experiment in this game which proved them to be a poor choice in this match up.)

 

GSC got first turn, and we played Maelstrom which was good for forcing me to move. I know this is one of the hard counters to Admech so I welcomed the challenge.

 

I got hammered pretty badly. The mortars out reached my Skorpius. I took chances with the Corpuscarii, but had to  in order to score. The Onagers didn't have fantastic targets but he did have a dune buggy lascannon and sentinels which I did manage to erase.

 

Once the waves of CC hit, I was done. Indefensible. I lost almost all troops to 3 mortars, and acoloytes. A D6" move after deepstrike meant he was able to do a 2" charge (with bonuses) to kill my Kastelans in one go with rock saws. 

 

The Daedelus helped, but I had characters getting picked off left and right by 3 snipers (one with relic gun). He had better B.S. than me at times, with 'pointer' units on dirt bikes, plus really good strat use.

 

I had 3 chicken walkers VAPED by 5 dirt bikers. Even though I had the incense on the walkers, he was hitting on three's, wounding on 2's. Their strats are just so good... everyone can throw a bomb, and he's +2 to hit and +1 to wound. He did about 24 damage to the unit.

 

For a while I felt he shot as good as, or nearly as good as I did. He out ranged me though for infantry killing and that hurt. I would try to kill his Acolytes on objectives by using indirect fire. While some people are singing the praises of this tank and indirect, it's definitely better for marines, because a unit of 10 fearless acolytes doesn't care about 3D3 shots.

 

I tried hard to push back, but after losing Kastelans and Walkers, I had no real CC left. I had to back out, and try to fire back. While I cleared some space in Turn 2, he still had the OTHER half of his army to bring in. 

 

At this point I conceded boxed into a corner. He still had 20 more acolytes coming in with saws, and 20 more with mining lasers (mini lascannons.) I was getting out shot, out psykered, out maneuvered, out CC'd, and he had a much larger foot print. I didn't see a way I could get the momentum back. 

 

Brutal game. Brutal match up. I was largerly unimpressed with the tanks. The transport is mandatory, but not quite right. It should have been a little better. 

 

At the end of this one I have to admit I felt like the AM codex is super out dated. The Strats especially, and the incredibly high need for character support in the current meta (with flimsy characters) is really not where I want this army to go. It gets top heavy very quickly to shoot further with our limited tank range (Manipulus) and to shoot better against all the modifiers like the bike squad at -1 (Daedelosus), and hit more often (Cawl) while trying to keep stuff alive (Techpriest). 

[Charlo]

 

At the end of this one I have to admit I felt like the AM codex is super out dated. The Strats especially, and the incredibly high need for character support in the current meta (with flimsy characters) is really not where I want this army to go. It gets top heavy very quickly to shoot further with our limited tank range (Manipulus) and to shoot better against all the modifiers like the bike squad at -1 (Daedelosus), and hit more often (Cawl) while trying to keep stuff alive (Techpriest). 

 

While not specific to the tanks, I feel this. Ad Mech need a pretty big injection to compete at the high levels. Things like shooty robots are nice but easily avoided/ tied up. Breachers are bulky but have little output in CC where it matters. Destroyers can bring some mobile, semi-tough dakka but are ultimate prey for the editions mechanics (ap modifiers and multi-damage weapons). When Priests get the charge they can be gnarly however getting them somehere YOU want is nigh impossible against the movement shenanigans and hordes.

 

The humble Skitarii is pretty nice though, so we have that - plus Neutronagers and Dragoons... But it's just not enough.