How do you feel about Mechanicus?

[Marshal Mittens]

Lots of previews out on the Mechanicus now, from influencer types who got the book early.

 

How does everyone feel about their rules so far, especially compared to the marines?

 

The Armigers seem to be about as good as Contemptors, I imagine the knight list will be very hard to deal with for a normal balanced list. 

[Brofist]

I'm reserving judgement before I go through the rules myself. The influencer previews were often wrong or misinformed.

This said, on the nose, its pretty disappointing. You have a few strong options, but lots of army wide drawbacks. Lack of line, lack of reactions in an edition built around reactions, and seemingly under-tuned core units. My army now needs to be loyalist, which is really lame, and my small ZM forces are all invalidated due to how the detachments work. It feels like there are 2-3 solid builds in here, but that's just because there are 2-3 solid options for you to build them around. No new clever ways to play it seems either (deepstrike, drills from the ground, etc).

Given the options and quality in the legion books? Disappointing. Written by the guy who broke Malcadors so perhaps not a surprise.

[Noserenda]

Yeah certainly working from secondary sources they feel a bit like a lower priority and could have done with another pass over which is a damn shame.

Of course we cant know the entire picture until they release their supporting additional units PDF.

Secutari did get a bit screwed though, which is a shame.

[Trokair]

Initial impressions for me are ok, compared to what I remember from the red book there are some minor stats changes (example Castellax swapped S and T) and some options have disappeared (similar to how some marines legion units where streamlined) but nothing jumped out as me as being too good or nerved into the ground.  The proof will be in the playing.

Have a game arranged for when the book arrives, so will hopefully be fun.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Trokair

[Marshal Mittens]

I wonder if it's a stop-gap codex presented as a real codex while they assess sales, and if HH does well, maybe they will expand plastics to non marine factions like the Admech.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Mechanicum I think in general could probably use a bit more to it, maybe we'll see some iteration with some actual releases later.

Having not started them, I see why they made some changes, like Secutarii should be affiliated with a Titan maniple, so that makes sense even if beforehand lists were built using them.

Questoris Knights look quite fun, I'm definitely thinking of doing some House Malinax, and then later doing Xana II a bit later down the line.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Given the Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF for the Legions ported indomitus terminators, thunderbolts, avengers and a bunch of imperial army tanks over to the Legion list, I'm curious whether we'll see some of the 40k AdMech plastics make an appearance as new Mechanicum units

Edited August 13, 2022 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Brofist]

1 hour ago, Marshall Mittens said:

I wonder if it's a stop-gap codex presented as a real codex while they assess sales, and if HH does well, maybe they will expand plastics to non marine factions like the Admech.

This is very unlikely, given the lead times and investment it takes to publish these

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, Brofist said:

The influencer previews were often wrong or misinformed.

This hits the nail on the head.

All these influencers like Ash and the goonhammer guys don't really play. They might have gotten interested in 2nd due to the free stuff and started after that, but the nature of their job leaves them no real time to digest the rules properly and give accurate analysis.

We hear from goonhammer that castellax rip and tear through everything that's not a dread. But using the achea statline, we know that even with a str 8 ap2 weapon and 4 attacks, that they'd average 1.09 successful wounds against a marine. That's terrible.

Similarly, we know the armigers are also less good contemptors. They have WS 4, a 3+, and can fail morale. No brutal is telling as well. 

[MARK0SIAN]

Yeah, unfortunately my enthusiasm to get my mechanicum army on the table has diminished significantly since the reviews came out. 

I’m particularly annoyed about my hoplites being unavailable in a general list and the absence of the termite is just baffling. 

Overall it just seems like you’ve got significantly less creative freedom for lists than you did before. Hopefully it will be less bleak when we get hold of the actual book. 

[Noserenda]

It does seem like Brutal was added to the marine book only, which i guess is the weakness of having army specific USRs?

[MARK0SIAN]

Yeah, it seems like an ability like brutal would be something several armies would have access to and would’ve made more sense as a generic USR rather than a marine specific one. 

Still, I suppose it makes sense that a marine dread is going to come out on top against most automata, it’s more when it comes to handling other multi-wound stuff like terminators that it will be more jarring.

[OttoVonAwesome]

They need to do the rules for Skitarri already. Bloody wierd to me they didn't for this book it would have added a solid plastic base for Admech armies to work off.

[Mandragola]

Brutal is in the Admech book. Radium carbines have it, and one or two other things, but it’s rare. In general it’s a trait that GW seems to under-value, which is part of why Contemptors are so powerful. The fact knights don’t have it even on things like the gauntlet means a knight could struggle against even a single contemptor, and also lacks anything much to shoot one dead with. 

armogers are a great Line unit though. If we didn’t have the Fury of the Ancients RoW (which most agree is OP) to consider then I think knight armies would look pretty exciting, as Armigers are a strong unit to have Line - just not a broken one. 

There do seem to be some oversights. You can’t use krak grenades on Armigers because they’re a new unit type, not covered by grenade rules. You can certainly use them on Castellax though and I think people will, to devastating effect. A 20-man tactical squad can just smash them up, which is problematic. It’s not obvious what you’re expecting achieve with them but it definitely isn’t melee vs marines. 

[Lord Marshal]

14 hours ago, OttoVonAwesome said:

They need to do the rules for Skitarri already. Bloody wierd to me they didn't for this book it would have added a solid plastic base for Admech armies to work off.

I'm about 65% sure they've mentioned a Skitarri list years ago. They're seemingly trapped in the "we might do it at some point" void along with Dark Mechanicum and Regular Imperial Army.

Copeium is that Skitarri didn't make it into this book because it was more about getting everything legal in first edition to print, rather than worrying about what they could add.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Lord Marshal

[Noserenda]

Skitarri were definitely on the plan at one point, had a long chat with Alan Bligh about them and they do appear in the new rulebook fluff section (Which also hints not all Dark Mechanicum armies are traitors interestingly) . I suspect they ran afoul of FW's hatred of mainline plastic kits and they are just going to avoid mentioning them if they arent in the PDF.

Which is a shame because the evolution of the Mechanicum into the Mechanicus is genuinely quite interesting, the political shift towards Skitarii and away from Cybernetica and the Taghmata system as their primary armed force for example.

[Darkwrath121]

Loss of native AP2 on all the automata looks like it'll hurt/shake everything up. Between S-AP3 shock chargers, and AP4 Breaching 5+ power blades.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Darkwrath121

[SkimaskMohawk]

6 hours ago, Mandragola said:

There do seem to be some oversights. You can’t use krak grenades on Armigers because they’re a new unit type, not covered by grenade rules.

How lol. How do mistakes like this get through? They sacrificed the rules content and FAQs of 1st to make this edition, and there's tons of things that need to be FAQ'd in 2nd.

If armigers is its own unique unit type, then whatever they didn't bake into its unique rules is going to be left with lower functionality against them. Armourbane won't give rerolls to wound, haywire will do nothing , monster hunter will do nothing, shock pulse will do nothing, Krak grenades can't attack them, melta bombs can't attack them, battlesmith can't heal them, etc...

It reads to me, like the change was last minute; either after the initial books went to print, or they just rushed it out and planned to...faq it.

[Mandragola]

1 hour ago, Darkwrath121 said:

Loss of native AP2 on all the automata looks like it'll hurt/shake everything up. Between S-AP3 shock chargers, and AP4 Breaching 5+ power blades.

 

Definitely. Mechanicum has gone from having ap2 on almost everything, to almost nothing. I think this is a good thing really, meaning that marines still be will be worth using. This is clearly a deliberate shift from 1.0, and a welcome one in my opinion. It does also mean that the bots themselves might live longer. 

21 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

How lol. How do mistakes like this get through? They sacrificed the rules content and FAQs of 1st to make this edition, and there's tons of things that need to be FAQ'd in 2nd.

If armigers is its own unique unit type, then whatever they didn't bake into its unique rules is going to be left with lower functionality against them. Armourbane won't give rerolls to wound, haywire will do nothing , monster hunter will do nothing, shock pulse will do nothing, Krak grenades can't attack them, melta bombs can't attack them, battlesmith can't heal them, etc...

It reads to me, like the change was last minute; either after the initial books went to print, or they just rushed it out and planned to...faq it.

Agreed. It’s the sort of thing that should instantly be picked up in playtesting or proofreading. I saw it while reading and trying to compare them to contemptors.

Instead of making a new unit they should have written a rule saying “these are dreadnoughts, but stubborn instead of fearless”. All the other rules are the same.

There are some similar examples. Land speeders end up being somewhere in between infantry and dreadnoughts. Haywire and grenades don’t work on them either. 

[Marshal Mittens]

I wonder if we will see popular Skitarii fan dexes out there, in a little while. I have so much Skitarii stuff, it would be tempting to try and write one. 

 

Ultimately, it's like so much with this launch, it's good, but it could have been GREAT if more people were on the team and more effort was put I to it. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Marshall Mittens

[Noserenda]

Its why keywords are better than subtypes, just give all things like this a vehicle keyword and boom, all sorted

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

37 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Its why keywords are better than subtypes, just give all things like this a vehicle keyword and boom, all sorted

 

When they're both implemented properly, there shouldn't actually be a difference between them. Both are summaries of self-contained rules that the familiar will see at a glance, and also act as triggers for other rules.

Unit types worked perfectly fine from 3rd to 7th; this is an example of pretty much the worst way to implement unit types lol. 

[Noserenda]

15 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

When they're both implemented properly, there shouldn't actually be a difference between them. Both are summaries of self-contained rules that the familiar will see at a glance, and also act as triggers for other rules.

Unit types worked perfectly fine from 3rd to 7th; this is an example of pretty much the worst way to implement unit types lol. 

Kinda true, definitely agree they are digging their own graves with what feels like an overly convoluted system split over load of books.

[TheTrans]

#5roundsofplaytesting

 

Got to say, Mechanicum are in a pretty tough spot. Castellax which would be the most common troop outside of techthralls with chainblades don't do anything well anymore. 

 

Krak grenades rules where purpose build to screw over mech automata...so lucky dreads have a 2+ ey.... -_-

 

After seeing the mech rules drop, does anyone get the abject feeling that Mechanicum (and Malcadors) touched some of the core rules writers somewhere? 

Like mech where a strong action in 1.0 that have had most of their teeth ripped out. 

 

God I fear for the Solar Aux book and the M&C pdf....

[SkimaskMohawk]

Mechanicum were extremely strong in 1st, with cybernetica only being bad because they caught a nerf way back when castellax used to be 85 points and had scoring.

But ya, a lot of the rules writing feels reactionary. Scars and their bikes feel much weaker, mechanicum took a huge nerf as a faction, plasma nerf, blasts nerf, expanded rules disaster, etc...

Feels like one of the lead designers spent years losing to their friends better lists and tactics and instead of trying to improve, decided to ruin those units lol.